Fired Up

that can change my future is finding that damned lamp.”
    She stared at him, appalled. “You’re serious.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    She drew a sharp breath. “Now you’re going way too fast for me. Slow down. Why does the name Winters sound ever so faintly familiar?”
    “You and your family have been dodging J&J for years. That means you probably know something about the Arcane Society.”
    “Unfortunately, yes.”
    “Does the name Nicholas Winters mean anything to you?” he asked softly.
    “Good grief.” She sank slowly back down onto her chair, stunned. “Are you saying you’re related to that Winters? The alchemist who turned himself into a double-talent, went mad and tried to murder Sylvester Jones?”
    “I’m Winters’s direct descendant.”
    “Good grief,” she repeated. She could not think of anything to add to that, so she shut up.
    “And here’s the really bad news,” Jack said. “I’m the first man since Griffin Winters back in the late Victorian era to inherit the family curse.”
    She almost stopped breathing. “But it’s all a myth,” she whispered. “Heaven knows, Arcane thrives on myths and legends. But most of them involve Sylvester Jones and his descendants.”
    “And those that don’t involve the Joneses usually involved the Winterses. Unfortunately, the legends about my family aren’t nearly as entertaining as those that are based on the Joneses.”
    “Yes, well, that’s probably because the Winterses’ legend ended badly,” she said without stopping to think. She winced when she heard her own words. “Sorry.”
    He gave her another thin, ice-and-lava smile. “No need to apologize. You’re right. There have always been those who say that the Winters family tree is the dark side of Arcane.”
    “But the thing is, the stories are all myths,” she insisted. “Don’t tell me you really believe you’re going to turn into some kind of psychic monster.”
    He just looked at her, not speaking.
    “You do believe it,” she said finally.
    He remained silent.
    She spread her hands. “But that’s ridiculous. If you had some genetic abnormality that involved your para-senses it would have manifested itself by now. Talent of any kind, abnormal or otherwise, always shows up in the teens and early twenties. No offense, but you don’t look like a teenager.”
    “I’m thirty-six. According to the stories I managed to turn up, that’s the age Nicholas Winters was when he became a double-talent.”
    A chill fluttered through her. “You’re not going to stand there and tell me that you actually believe that you are a monster, are you?”
    “I don’t know what I am, Chloe, or what I’m becoming. But I do know that historically J&J has a shoot, shovel and shut-up policy when it comes to dangerously unstable multi-talents.”
    “Oh, I really don’t think—”
    “Not much else you can do with a Cerberus.”
    “Cerberus?” Horrified, she stared at him. “For heaven’s sake, you aren’t some sort of mythical, three-headed dog guarding the gate of hell.”
    “Find my lamp, Miss Harper. I don’t care what it costs. Name your price.”

3
    Scargill Cove, California

    Fallon Jones looked out the window of his second-story office. There were no three-story offices in the small town, no buildings higher than his own, not even the tiny six-room inn at the far end of the street.
    It was afternoon but the sky was leaden. Down below the cliffs the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean was the color of steel. Another storm was moving in from the sea.
    The tiny village clinging to the Northern California coast was a throwback to another era, with its craft and crystal shops, seaweed harvesting business and New Age bookstore. The terminally green, fiercely no-growth town council had long ago outlawed paper and plastic along with chain restaurants and condos. Not that any restaurant chains or condo developers had ever shown any interest in Scargill Cove. The community was, for all intents and purposes, lost in its own private time warp. It was the ideal setting for a psychic detective agency.
    From his window he had an excellent view of the Sunshine Café. Earlier that morning he had watched Isabella open the small coffee shop at six-thirty. Right on time, as usual. She had arrived wearing her gleaming yellow raincoat. As usual. He had watched her turn over the CLOSED sign in the window as usual, and then, as usual, she had looked up at his office window and given him a cheery wave