He drew her swiftly behind a massive SUV that was parked in the corner. The gray walls of the garage formed a barricade on two sides. The big vehicle provided additional cover.
Ominous energy whispered in the shadows. Abby was suddenlychilled to the bone. Parking garages were always unnerving at night, and in spite of the condo’s security measures, this one was no exception. Footsteps echoed eerily. There were too many dark spaces between the parked cars. She always walked through the gray concrete underworld as quickly as possible, keys in hand, all senses on high alert. But tonight she had been distracted.
The garage was far too quiet. There were no footsteps or voices, but her intuition warned her that she and Sam were not alone. Someone else waited in the shadows. Sam released her. She watched him take his pistol and a small chunk of silvery quartz that looked like a crystal mirror out from under his jacket. She wondered what the quartz was for but decided this was not the time to ask questions. There was the stillness of the hunter about Sam now. He was very focused, very intent. Very dangerous.
She did not know what to expect, a threat or a command from an armed gunman, perhaps. But there was only a strange, unnatural silence that seemed to deepen by the second. It was wrong. The pale glow of the fluorescent fixtures overhead was growing fainter. The garage was taking on a weird, dreamlike quality.
“Go hot,” Sam ordered softly. “All the way.”
She was already on edge, all of her senses, normal and paranormal, flaring in alarm, but she had made no effort to focus them. The problem with concentrating psychic energy for a prolonged period of time was that the exercise had a downside. The unpleasant jitters and, ultimately, exhaustion that followed a heavy burn were the least of her concerns. She could deal with those. What scared the daylights out of her in that moment was that the garage was starting to resemble the dreamscape of the Grady Hastings nightmare. It was bad enough to wake up and find herself standing beside her bed. What if pushing her talent too hard plunged her permanently into the dream?
Sensing her hesitation, Sam gave her an impatient glance.
“Do it,” he ordered.
The garage was undergoing a bizarre transformation. The space around them was assuming an increasingly unreal aspect, as if it was sliding into another dimension. The rows of cars grew longer, stretching away into infinity. The concrete columns morphed into Möbius strips.
“Is it just me or is this starting to look like a bad dream?” she whispered.
“Looks that way to me, too.”
She took comfort from that news. She wasn’t in this alone. She wanted to explain the reason for her reluctance to follow orders, but this did not seem to be the time or place for an extended conversation.She had hired him as a consultant for situations like this. There was no point employing high-grade talent if you didn’t follow up on the recommendations. Cautiously, she elevated her senses into the red zone.
Sure enough, the otherworldly distortion faded significantly as her para-senses took over. But the garage did not return to what passed for normal. When she was in the zone like this, she was able to perceive light from beyond the visible range of the spectrum. The scene was now illuminated in the radiance of ultralight.
In this eerily lit environment, human auras could be more easily perceived. The hot energy flaring in the shadows between two parked cars confirmed what she had already sensed. Someone waited in the darkness.
The senses-dazzling energy exploded out of nowhere. It was as if someone had lobbed a paranormal grenade directly in front of the SUV that protected them. Abby instinctively shut her eyes, but that did little to reduce the terrible glare. The explosion of searing ultralight affected her para-senses far more than it did her normal vision.
“Don’t waste your time and energy trying to fight it, Coppersmith.”The dark voice came out of the shadows. It was masculine but strangelydistorted.“My little flash-bang is crystal-powered. It generates more energy than any human can. It will soon overwhelm your senses. My advice is to shut down your talent before you burn out.”
“Too late with the flash-bang gadget,” Sam said. “I’ve already got the fix on it.”
“It won’t do you any good. But go ahead and try to overcome it if you like. When you’re satisfied that the device is stronger than you are, we can get down to business. Assuming you’re still awake, that is. I’m sure you are aware of the downside of a serious psi-burn.”
“I’ll try to stay up late tonight,” Sam said.
Abby sensed another rush of hot energy in his aura and knew that he had done something with the mirrored quartz. She realized that he was pushing an enormous amount of energy through the stone.
There was a reverberating clang as an object struck the concrete floor. The ultrawhite-hot glare that had filled the space abruptly winked out of existence. When her dazzled senses cleared, Abby realized that the garage had returned to normal.
“Shit.” The epithet was accompanied by a harsh gasp of pain.
The stranger’s voice was no longer distorted. It was, however, clearly annoyed. “You’re a real son of a bitch, Coppersmith. How the hell did you do that?”
“A tuned crystal can generate more steady-state energy than a person, but it takes a human mind to activate it. I didn’t take the fix on your flash-bang device. I took it on you.” There was a short pause before Sam added politely, “I got it while you were chatting about the cutting-edge wonderfulness of your gadget.”
“Fortunately, I brought backup.”
“A real gun?” Sam said. “Good thinking.”
“I assume you have one, too?”
“What do you think?”
“That you’ve got one.” There was resignation and irritation in thestranger’s voice. “You destroyed my flash-bang. It was a prototype, the first and so far the only version that actually worked.”
“PEC technology?”
