Fired Up

the emergence of my new talent left me vulnerable to a hypnotist?”
    “We’ve talked about this, Jack. You don’t have a new talent; you have a fully developed talent.”
    “Call it whatever you want. The hallucinations were a real pain in the ass, but at least I was aware of what was happening. The nightmares were bad, but I was dealing with them. It’s the blackouts that have me worried. It seems logical to me that during that time my natural defenses might have been down. Who knows what I was doing or what happened to me?”
    “There is no indication that you’re getting your memory back yet?”
    “Flickers and shadows.” He looked out the window into the night. “Whispers. It’s going to drive me crazy, Chloe. I need to know what happened during the blackouts and the sleepwalking episodes.”
    “As far as I can tell, the only thing that is still going on is the static caused by those sleeping meds you were taking. But like you said, you started those after the blackouts and the sleepwalking episodes.”
    “Can you get rid of the disturbance caused by the meds without the lamp?”
    She thought about it. “I can calm the currents temporarily, like I did the other night, at least enough so that you can get some sleep. But I’m not sure it would be a good idea to try to do any more than that. I don’t think it’s necessary, either. It looks like your body is flushing out the medication on its own.”
    “I don’t want to wait. Who knows how long it will take? I need answers now.”
    “I might be able to reestablish the normal rhythms of the portion of the spectrum that is affected,” she said. “But if I get it wrong I might end up fraying the channels between your dreamstate and your waking state again. If I screw up, the hallucinations and nightmares will come back. If we do this, we should probably have the lamp handy, just in case we need it again.”
    “It would take time to get to L.A. and persuade Arcane to let me run another experiment. I don’t want to wait.”
    “This is that important to you?” she asked.
    “I have to get some answers, Chloe.”
    “All right,” she said quietly. She pushed back the covers, got to her feet and pulled on the plush hotel bathrobe. “I’ll give it a whirl but no guarantees. Understand?”
    “Yes.”
    “And if I sense that things are going badly, I’m going to pull the plug on the experiment. Agreed?”
    He did not respond right away, but finally he nodded once.
    “Agreed,” he said.
    “Sit down,” she instructed.
    He lowered himself into one of the wingback chairs. She walked across the room, stopped beside the chair and took his hand in hers.
    “Ready?” she said.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Open your senses to the max. Given your high level of talent, I need you to be all the way into the zone. Otherwise your dream spectrum isn’t clear to me.”
    No energy pulsed.
    “You don’t have to be nervous about your talent,” she said. “Trust me, you’re in full control. You won’t accidentally scare me to death. You’d have to focus with deliberate intent to do that. Just opening your senses won’t be a problem. We’ve been there before. Remember last night?”
    His mouth crooked faintly at the corner. In spite of the seriousness of the moment there was something wickedly sexy about his smile.
    “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I remember last night.”
    She was suddenly aware of energy flaring hot in the atmosphere. She heightened her own senses and studied the heavy waves of dark dream energy that pulsed and radiated in his aura. Gingerly, she sent a little pulse of light into the section of the spectrum that was influenced by the medication.
    Nothing happened.
    “Hmm,” she said. “Whatever it is, it’s powerful stuff. I don’t think I can reboot the currents, at least not while you’re awake.”
    He gave her an odd look. “You want to knock me out?”
    “No. I want you to go to sleep. Once you’re in the dreamstate I may be able to manipulate your energy patterns more easily.”
    He stretched out his legs, rested his head against the back of the chair and watched her through half-closed eyes. “Now what?”
    “Now you sleep,” she said softly.
    She took his hand again and pulsed a little energy. Jack resisted for a few seconds. She knew it was pure instinct on his part. He was not good at giving up control.
    “Trust me, Jack,” she told him.
    He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

41
    HE DREAMS . . .
    He’s awake again