Page 83 of It takes a Psychic

She swallowed hard. “That’s just it. I don’t know. When I was in my teens, my family concluded that my ability to release the energy in some artifacts as well as resonate with them was my third. But now I think that’s just a side effect of my locksmith talent. I can’t escape the feeling that I’ve got a latent ability that has not yet appeared.”

“What makes you think you have an undeveloped talent?”

“I can’t explain it. I just know. The thing is, it could manifest itself at any time and I might not be able to control it.”

“You’ll be fine. Even if you are a true triple, you’re stable. That’s all that matters.”

“But—”

“We can finish this conversation some other time. Right now, we need to find Vortex. Priorities, Leona.”

He walked out of the entrance of the chamber. Thrilled by a promise of action, Roxy scurried to join him.

Leona gave up, slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, and hurried after the pair. When she moved into the hallway, the pulse of the pyramid crystal abruptly strengthened. She looked at it and kicked up her senses, feeling for the through line. And there it was.

“That way,” she said, gesturing toward the far end of a seemingly endless green corridor. “The signal is coming from that direction.”

They went forward together. Now that she was concentrating on the pyramid, she discovered it wasn’t difficult to read the meaning of the pulses.

“It’s similar to a locator,” she said. “It’s definitely responding to a strong signal.”

“For you,” Oliver said. “I can sense the energy in the pyramid. But I can’t resonate with it.”

She drew a deep breath. “Apparently I can.”

They stopped at an intersection of five corridors. Again she turned slowly on her heel until she got the pulses that indicated one of the passageways. It led to the vaulted entrance of a green quartz chamber.

A large, clunky but ominous-looking machine stood in the center of the space. It was made of heavy-gauge steel and bore an unnerving resemblance to a metal sarcophagus.

Everything about it shouted Old World tech. The control panel was decorated with dials and switches—the kind that had to be operated manually, not rezzed on and off with a little psi. The long seam that ran the length of the metal machine indicated that the entire top portion was designed to open.

Like a coffin,she thought, unnerved.

There was a window of thick glass above the control panel. Behind it a yellow crystal pyramid pulsed with energy. Leona knew it was resonating with the crystal in her hand. She felt the hair lift on the back of her neck. Disturbing frissons arced across her senses.

Oliver went forward to get a closer look. Curious, Roxy joined him.

“Too bad we didn’t bring a bottle of champagne,” Oliver said.

She realized he was oblivious to the vibe of pure dread that she was getting. “Why?”

He smiled an ice-cold smile of satisfaction. “Because I’m pretty sure we just found the Vortex machine that Vincent Lee Vance used to turn himself into a multi-talent monster.”

Leona swallowed hard against a sudden wave of lightheadedness. If he was right, there was a very real possibility that she was looking at the machine that had been used to create Molly and herself. Human monsters.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

For a long moment shejust stood there and watched Oliver and Roxy prowl around the machine. She could not shake the heavy sense of incipient panic that had enveloped her, but Oliver was clearly intrigued by their discovery.

She reminded herself that he was the director of a museum that specialized in objects with an Old World paranormal provenance. He was an artifact hunter at heart. It was only natural that he was fascinated with Vortex. It was a relic he and his obscure organization had been chasing for a very long time.

She struggled to center herself. She would deal with her anxiety issues later. When you were in the Underworld, hazards were everywhere. You had to stay focused. She was a para-archaeologist. It was time to look at the scene from the viewpoint of a professional—the same way Oliver was looking at it.

Reluctantly she went forward, braced herself, and put the fingertipsof one hand on the metal side of the machine. She rezzed a little talent and found the vibes that told her something about the history of the artifact.

“There’s no question but that this is Old World tech,” she said. “The only reason it hasn’t rusted to pieces in the past two hundred years is because it’s been down here in the tunnel. Nothing rusts in the Underworld. I wonder which of the First Gen colonists smuggled it through the Curtain.”

Oliver grimaced. “For all I know, it was someone associated with the Foundation who couldn’t resist running experiments here in an environment that has much higher levels of paranormal radiation than Earth. At some point, Vance got hold of it. He must have been unstable even before he climbed inside this thing and dosed himself with radiation from Old World crystals.”

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