Amaryllis (45 page)

“It's too late for everything to be made neat and orderly.” Amaryllis summoned every ounce of emotion she could find: righteous anger at the grave injustices that Irene had perpetrated; fear for Lucas's life and her own; and love. The love she had for Lucas was more powerful than the other emotions combined. She would not let him die. She had to save him.

For some reason, she suddenly recalled the visit to Elizabeth Bailey. Some walls were too high to climb. But there were other ways around them.

Irene must be distracted so that Lucas could act. The easiest way to divert the attention of a high-class talent was to force her to use more power. Extreme power required extreme concentration.

Amaryllis consciously tore down the civilized barriers of self-control that had been built up over a lifetime. A flood of emotion and passion poured through her. She fed the fierce feelings of the moment with all the stored anger, righteous indignation, and sheer determination she had ever known. And then she threw in the will to survive and to save Lucas.

A witch's brew boiled through her bloodstream, a heady, intoxicating drug that affected everything, even events on the psychic plane.

The focus shifted and dimmed.

Irene fought back, using more energy to hold the link. Amaryllis screamed silently as the bands of talent brightened visibly. Then she forced Irene to use more power.

“Stop it.” The gun trembled in Irene's hands. “Stop it this instant, do you hear me? You'll only burn yourself out if you keep it up.”

Burning out would be a blessing, but Amaryllis sensed that might not happen, at least not in time. She braced herself against the mounting fear of being driven insane and concentrated on what she had to do.

“What's the matter, Irene?” she said. “Afraid you'll be the one to burn out first? Professor Landreth had a theory that it was possible to actually destroy a talent this way. Did he ever tell you about it?”

“That's a lie. You can't destroy my talent.” Irene took a step closer. “I'm too strong for you. Jonathan said I was too strong for him. I was too strong for my husband. I'm stronger than any talent who ever lived. That's why everything must be organized, don't you see? That's why I must be in control.”

“But you're not in control, are you, Irene? You're crazy.”

“No.”

Lucas moved slightly again. But Amaryllis knew that as long as Irene had the gun aimed at her, he would feel pinned down. Irene could not miss at this close distance.

Amaryllis closed her eyes against the rising tide of pain. And then she deliberately fed the pain into the fiery river that flowed through ever vein and artery in her body.

Her muscles went rigid. There was a prickling sensation on her skin. Her mouth was as dry as dust. But she knew that Irene was finally beginning to realize how great the price of control over the focus link would be.

She wondered when Irene would lose it altogether and pull the trigger.

The icy wind howled across the psychic plane. It was as strong as the violent talent that had seized control of the link. A dark fog gathered.

Amaryllis was astonished to see Professor Landreth in the mist. His head was a gory horror. He was covered in blood. She opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing in her living room.

Irene screamed. “No, you're dead.
You're dead.
”

There was a roar of sound in Amaryllis's ears. More screaming. High, shrill, it seemed to go on forever.

At the edge of her fading vision Amaryllis saw Lucas come up off the sofa in a fluid, lethal movement.

The talent that had surged so steadily and so painfully through the prism was cut off abruptly. Amaryllis was suddenly free. The abrupt release was too much for her overloaded system. An endless wave of unconsciousness rolled toward her.

She slipped headfirst into the waiting darkness. The last thing she saw was a river of blood coursing across the carpet. She wondered vaguely whose it was.

“Irene Dunley, psychic vampire.” Clementine propped one hip on the edge of Amaryllis's hospital bed and shook her head in wonder. “Who would have believed it?”

“Sort of takes the romance out of the whole psychic vampire thing, doesn't it?” Byron said. “Irene Dunley doesn't quite fit the image. Not exactly the lethally elegant, sophisticated, world-weary type. I wonder if Orchid Adams will change genres when she learns about this. Maybe she'll decide to write mysteries or Western Islands adventure tales instead of psychic vampire romance.”

“She's not going to hear the truth about Irene Dunley from us.” Amaryllis lounged against a mountain of pristine, white pillows and glowered at both of her visitors. “And neither is anyone else. We all agreed that the fewer people who know about this, the better. The police are satisfied that Irene was a nutcase who murdered her lover when she discovered that he had a relationship with a syn-sex stripper.”

“Hey, sure, no problem,” Byron said quickly. “Staid secretary murders lover and then kills syn-sex stripper. Big-time politician gets caught up in the mess and campaign falls apart. End of story.”

“Exactly,” Amaryllis said. “We certainly don't need Nelson Burlton doing a lot of cheap, tabloid-style stories about psychic vampires on the ten o'clock news. It would only make people nervous about high-class talents.”

Clementine grinned. “Kind of a shame not to let Burlton have the story. Just think what he could do with it.”

“The first person who calls Burlton answers to me,” Lucas growled from the doorway.

Amaryllis turned her head to look at him. It was the first time she had seen him since the police had hustled both of them off to the emergency room the previous night.

Lucas smiled at her. He had a fistfull of yellow rose-orchids in one hand. His other arm was in a sling.

“Whatever you say, Trent.” Clementine held up a copy of the
New Seattle Times
to display the headlines. “Local Prism Solves Murder.” “This is the best press Psynergy, Inc. has had in years. It's going to do amazing things for the bottom line.”

“I wonder what would have happened if Amaryllis had not gone to that reception with you that night, Mr. Trent.” Byron looked thoughtful. “If the two of you hadn't accidentally detected Sheffield while he was working the room with his focused charm and charisma, none of the rest would have come to light.”

Amaryllis shook her head. “No, the truth would have eventually surfaced, one way or another. Irene was getting crazier by the day. When she killed Professor Landreth, she murdered the only person who could help her control her talent. She had already planned to murder Vivien, and when she learned about Sheffield's penchant for sleeping with his prism, she was determined to take him down, too. Eventually she would have gone too far.”

“Yeah, but how many more people would have died before she committed a mistake and finally got caught?” Byron said.

“Hmm.” Clementine propped her square jaw on her hand. “I wonder if Psynergy, Inc. should put more of an emphasis on security work. I'd hate to lose the momentum here.”

“If Psynergy, Inc. goes into the security business in a big
way, I can guarantee that you'll have one less employee,” Lucas said grimly. “Amaryllis will be looking for another job. My nerves can't take any more of her investigations.”

“Now, Lucas, don't get excited,” Amaryllis murmured.

“I'm not the one lying in a hospital bed.” Lucas crossed the room, bent down, and kissed her. “You're the one who's supposed to be resting.” He handed her the flowers. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” She sniffed the yellow rose-orchids. “In fact, I'm going to get sprung from this joint today.”

“You're sure you're ready to come home?”

“More than ready. I was just suffering from temporary shock and exhaustion. You were the one who took the bullet.”

“Yeah, well, you may not want to rush home,” Lucas said. “Your uncle called an hour ago. He said that he and your aunt are driving into the city today to find out, and I quote, just what in the five hells is going on.”

Amaryllis grimaced. “I was afraid of that.”

Byron glanced at Lucas with interest. “What will happen to Irene Dunley?”

Lucas looked down at Amaryllis. “The doctor says they're processing paperwork to commit her to a mental institution.”

“No trial?” Clementine was obviously disappointed.

“I doubt it.” Lucas closed his big hand around Amaryllis's fingers. “Apparently when she realized that her talent had been destroyed, she lost whatever small grasp she still had on her sanity. The emergency room syn-shrink says he's never seen a case quite like it.”

“Because no one's ever heard of a talent being destroyed,” Clementine said. “All the research indicates that while prisms can burn out temporarily, talents simply lose strength if they get too close to their personal limits. All a talent has to do in order to regain full power is drop back down into his or her working range.”

“I guess Irene proved that there are some hazards for very high-class talents,” Byron said.

Clementine nodded. “Yep. There's just one thing I'd like to know.”

“What's that?” Lucas asked.

“What kind of talent was Irene Dunley? None of the news accounts mentioned it.”

“I wondered the same thing.” Amaryllis hesitated. “I know this is going to sound strange, but I have a feeling that Professor Landreth may have told me the truth the day he said that Irene Dunley had a superior talent for organization.”

“We did it together, didn't we?” Amaryllis asked very soberly as Lucas carried her up the waterfall steps and into the airy hall of his big house. “We destroyed Irene's talent and her sanity.”

“I think it's safe to say that her sanity was almost gone. Don't start blaming yourself for that.” Lucas carried her into the spacious living room and settled her carefully on the sofa. “But, yes, we did burn out her talent together. You forced her to her limits. I put her over the edge.”

“She was screaming at the end.” Amaryllis shivered. “I found a way to dampen the flow of her energy. She must have feared that I might be strong enough to sever the link after all. So she kept increasing her own power. When she understood that I wasn't going to burn out, I think that she tried to cut the link herself.”

“But it was too late,” Lucas said. “She had lost control of her mind and her talent. She aimed that gun straight at your heart. There was no way she could miss you.”

“But you did something, didn't you? What was it?”

“I only needed to hold a focus for a couple of seconds. I can do that on my own.”

“You created an illusion to distract Irene.” Amaryllis searched his face. “But what was it?”

“I knew I'd only have one chance. I had to come up with something that would really jolt her. Remember the photo of Landreth that hung in Irene's office?”

“You didn't—”

“Yeah.” Lucas sat down on the edge of the sofa and rested his elbows on his thighs. “I did. I knew what he looked like because of that photo. I created an illusion of him standing next to you, bleeding from a crushed skull.”

“The blood.” Amaryllis shuddered again. “I saw a river of blood.”

“I probably went a little overboard on the blood. I didn't have time to fine-tune the image. Irene freaked. She aimed the gun at the illusion of Landreth instead of at you. Pulled the trigger. By then, I was on her.” Lucas glanced at his injured arm. “Unfortunately, the gun went off once more before I got it away from her.”

“No wonder she wouldn't stop screaming. Irene must have thought she'd seen Professor Landreth's ghost.”

“I talked to Rafe Stonebraker last night after the medics finished working on my arm. Told him the whole story. He said to tell you that he's going to bill me for time and expenses.”

Amaryllis was outraged. “That's ridiculous. There was no missing file for him to discover. Irene created a fake.”

“Stonebraker says that only proves just how good he is at what he does. He couldn't find a missing file because there was no missing file.”

The doorbell chimed, interrupting Amaryllis before she could think of a suitable rebuttal to Rafe Stonebraker's argument.

“The last thing either of us needs is a visitor,” Lucas muttered as he got to his feet. “I'll get rid of whoever it is.”

Amaryllis listened as he went down the hall to answer the door. The low rumble of masculine voices a moment later aroused her curiosity. She pushed herself off the sofa and trailed after Lucas.

She saw Calvin Rye standing in the open doorway. He nodded politely when he noticed her.

“Miss Lark.”

“Hello, Mr. Rye.”

“I understand you're not feeling well,” Calvin said stiffly. “I don't intend to stay long.”