Sizzle and Burn

computer screen the following day. It was a small, insignificant item that anyone who did not have an unhealthy obsession with dots would likely have missed.

…Niki Plumer, a suspect in a recent conspiracy to kidnap the mayor of Oriana, Washington, escaped from Winter Cove Psychiatric Hospital and is believed to have drowned.
A woman matching Plumer’s description was last seen boarding a late-night Washington State Ferry in Seattle. A car that was stolen from the hospital parking lot last night was found on board.
Plumer had been on a suicide watch while undergoing psychiatric evaluation. Authorities believe she may have jumped overboard midway between Seattle and Bremerton. Her body has not been recovered.
    Fallon got to his feet and went to stand at the window looking out over the fog-drenched town of Scargill Cove. He stood there for a long time, thinking about dots.

Sixty
    LOS ANGELES, ONE WEEK LATER…
    T he official headquarters of the Arcane Society, USA, was located in a generic steel-and-glass office tower in Los Angeles. It was a surprisingly small suite of offices because the Society had never been big on centralization. By definition, most of its members tended to be strong individualists who did not take well to regimentation and organization. The Council met formally in LA only a few times a year. The rest of the time they convened online or on the phone.
    The decision to house the headquarters in LA was made back in the 1930s, when it had become obvious that California was the ideal place to conceal a group devoted to the weird and the bizarre. Weird and bizarre passed for normal in LA.
    The good thing, Zack thought, was that after he assumed the Master’s Chair, he and Raine would not have to live in this vast, sprawling city of glitz and freeways and sun. Oriana would make a fine hometown. It looked like a great place to raise kids. He and Raine were already shopping for a house.
    But first he had to deal with his future Council.
    At the opposite end of the table his grandfather was concluding his announcement. Tall and distinguished, Bancroft Jones radiated power, not just the paranormal stuff, but the charismatic kind that seemed to infuse those who were born to lead. He was also a whip-fast and very shrewd hunter talent, even at the age of seventy-eight.
    “…And so I am pleased to announce that my grandson, Zackary Gabriel Jones, has accepted the appointment to the Master’s Chair,” Bancroft said.
    There was an enthusiastic round of applause. The ten men and women seated at the table turned to Zack. They were all powerful sensitives of one sort or another. He also knew that each was endowed with a very broad streak of personal ambition and a remarkable non-paranormal talent for the sort of political maneuvering that had gotten them onto the Council in the first place. Dealing with them in the years ahead would be a challenge.
    The middle-aged man across from Zack rose and cleared his throat.
    “I know I speak for all of us when I say that we are delighted you have decided to accept the appointment,” Hector Guerrero said. “We feel it is important that you know that you were not asked to take this position merely because of your family’s long and respected association with the Society.”
    At the far end of the table Marilyn Houston chuckled. “If all we cared about was having a Jones at the head of the Society, we had a great many of your relatives to choose from. You come from a very prolific family, sir.”
    There was a round of laughter. Zack acknowledged the humor with a smile.
    Guerrero cleared his throat a second time and continued. “We all sense that in the next few decades the Society will face a variety of serious challenges. There are difficult, possibly even dangerous, times ahead. In addition to trying to move into the mainstream, the threat presented by Nightshade appears to be growing stronger. The organization must be defeated. If it flourishes it has the potential to not just destroy the Society but to infiltrate and manipulate our nation’s leading corporations and our government.”
    It had been Bancroft’s idea to let Guerrero, one of the most powerful and influential members of the Council, act as the closer.
    “The thought of psychically enhanced Nightshade operatives becoming powerful figures in the highest circles of our land is intolerable,” Guerrero warned. “The damage that could be done is inestimable. We must fight this grave threat and, for