Gift of Gold

with the heavens for forbearance. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. It’s one of those social situations, Jonas. One does the polite thing. There are still certain proprieties, even in this day and age. One doesn’t contradict the sleeping arrangements provided by one’s hostess. Can’t you understand that?”
    “Don’t lock your door tonight”
    She eyed him warily. “Why not?”
    “Because after the party I’m going to sneak down the hall and slip into this room. The same way I did the last time we were here,” he added with satisfaction.
    “You didn’t exactly come tippy-toeing down the hall last time. You showed up half-naked with a big sword in one hand. When the lightning lit the room I thought I was about to be stabbed to death by a madman.”
    “You have an overactive imagination.”
    “Hah. You’re the last person on the face of this earth who should be lecturing someone else about an active imagination. Jonas, why are you staring at that bed?”
    “I don’t know. Something about it is…” he broke off, searching for the word. “Disturbing.”
    “Now who’s showing signs of an overactive imagination? What do you mean, disturbing?”
    “It’s disturbing in the same sense the dagger in Kincaid’s office was disturbing. I’ve never picked up vibrations from modem stuff until I met you, Verity. But things seem to be changing. First the dagger and now this bed.”
    Verity froze. “The bed? You’re picking up a sensation from the bed? Something that leads to that damned corridor? I thought you only responded to weapons.”
    “Or something that has a close association with violence. Anything can be used as a weapon or have an association with violence,” he explained absently.
    “But a bed?”
    “Let’s see what happens.”
    Belatedly Verity’s alarm bell started ringing. “Wait! Jonas, I don’t think this is a good idea. Maybe you’d better not touch it.”
    But she was too late. He had already curved his fingers around the steel bedpost and the instant he touched the metal, Verity was disconcerted to find herself inside a fuzzy version of the now-familiar psychic corridor.
    “
Jonas.
”
    “I’m here.” He came up behind her in the corridor and his hand closed over her shoulder. “Look.”
    He spun her around and Verity found herself staring at an insubstantial dream image of the bed. It floated in the corridor, vague and indistinct. But in this image the bed was wildly rumpled. The sheets were bloodstained and the nude figure of a woman was lying obscenely spread-eagled across the mattress. There was blood between the woman’s legs and in her dark hair. She had her head turned away. The woman appeared to be either dead or unconscious.
    Verity reacted with more horror than she had felt toward any of the other images she had encountered in the corridor. She was paralyzed with it. She knew without further examination that she was staring at the scene of a violent rape. Even as she watched, savage red emotions unfurled from under the bed and twisted blindly toward Jonas.
    They got sidetracked when they sensed Verity’s presence and reluctantly swerved to curl around her feet in obedience to the invisible pull she had on them.
    Verity cried out and found some control over her muscles, enough to enable her to flee. She whirled to run, afraid she would vomit before she could get out of the corridor. Her stomach was churning.
    “Jonas, help me.
Help me.
”
It was the first time she had ever called out to him. Always before he was the one who had demanded help in the corridor. He caught hold of her, his fingers like iron on her shoulders.
    “I’m here, Verity.” He held her tightly, refusing to let her flee. “It’s all right. Everything’s under control. I want to see if I can handle a couple of those ribbons. I’ve definitely been getting stronger lately and I may be at a point where I can manage some of the emotions instead of being overwhelmed by them. Should be an interesting experiment.”
    Verity was trantic with her horror. She grabbed the front of his shirt with two small fists and shouted in his face, “No. Absolutely not. Get us out of here. Now.”
    Something of her terror must have gotten through to him. He looked down at her and in real time he released his hold on the bedpost.
    An instant later they were both standing safely in the bedroom. Verity was trembling so badly she had to sit down. Automatically she started to sink onto the bed and