Gift of Fire

out the dangerous vibrations. He’d learned enough. The thought of the deadly blade springing from the floor and stabbing him between the legs was enough to make him even more careful. He got to his feet and prowled the room, looking for something he could use to trigger the trap. He then went back out into the hall and opened a few other doors in the corridor.
    When Jonas stepped into the third room down he hit pay dirt. At some point during the past few years Maggie Frampton had obviously tried to keep this wing clean. A long-handled broom stood forlornly in one corner as evidence.
    Jonas picked it up and returned to the room that had contained the crystal. He stretched the handle of the broom out in front of him cautiously, applying pressure to the stone indicated in the diary.
    With an almost silent hiss a sinister blade shot from between two floor stones. If he had been crouching where he’d been earlier, he would now have been a candidate for a boys’ chorus. Jonas realized. He wiped sweat from his forehead.
    He waited a moment and then stepped cautiously around the quivering blade to examine the hollow stone behind it. The surface of the stone had slid back, revealing an empty interior. Jonas leaned down to probe the inside.
    He knew instantly that the move was a mistake—a bad one.
    A violent wave of emotion roared through him and the walls of the psychic corridor began to take shape. Jonas fought to keep himself from being sucked into the time tunnel. An overwhelming sense of foreboding nearly drowned him as he struggled to fight the inexorable pull of violence long past.
    Death awaited him. Death awaited anyone who dared to use the crystal.
    “Verity.
Verity!
”
    Jonas did not know if he screamed the words aloud or silently in his mind. Sweat was pouring from him as he gathered every ounce of his willpower and yanked his hand back out of the hollow stone.
    “Jonas?”
    He felt her there with him. It wasn’t possible, he told himself, dazed. She was downstairs in another part of the villa. She wasn’t close enough to help him.
    “Jonas? What’s wrong?”
    Verity was reaching for him. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her presence, an anchor in the storm. Jonas squeezed his eyes shut and rolled clear of the section of floor that contained the trap and the hollow stone.
    Suddenly his vision cleared and everything returned to normal. The images of violent brutality and death disappeared as quickly as they’d appeared.
    The blade slid back into the floor and the opening in the stone vanished without a trace.
    Jonas lay on the floor breathing heavily. He stared at the corner of the room where death awaited the unwary. He knew then that the real danger surrounding the missing crystal was not the blade hidden between the stones. Whatever the crystal was, whatever function it performed, it was evil. The knowledge sent a savage shudder of excitement through him. He was on the trail of something very big.
    For Jonas, the treasure hunt had just superseded the consulting work he was here to do. There were secrets hidden in this old villa. Important secrets. He had to discover them.
    Jonas rose slowly to his feet. He picked up the flashlight and edged out of the room, keeping his eyes on the dangerous stone until he was safely out in the hall. Then he firmly closed the door.
    It seemed to Jonas that he could hear laughter in his mind as he made his way back to the south wing of the villa. He thought at first that it was his imagination producing echoes of Digby Hazelhurst’s amusement. Then he realized that the laughter was much older. About four hundred years old, to be exact.
     
    Jonas is all right.
Verity felt reality slide gently back into place. Her pulse was still racing, and she felt lightheaded. She wished Slade Spencer weren’t holding her right hand so tightly. On the other side of her Doug Warwick had his fingers laced lightly between hers. She felt trapped.
    She opened her eyes and glanced around at the intent faces of the small circle of would-be psychics. Doug Warwick was staring over his sister’s shoulder into the fire. He looked bored. Oliver Crump had his eyes closed. He seemed to be concentrating intently, as did Elyssa and Preston Yarwood. Elyssa had a dreamy expression on her face, as if she was seeing an inner vision. Preston was frowning.
    Slade Spencer kept squeezing Verity’s fingers spasmodically. He had put aside his pipe and an afterdinner drink in order to join the