This time the situation was much more intimate. There should have been a jolt of some kind. And there was. But it was a very pleasant jolt, a thrilling spark of awareness. An unfamiliar excitement lit up her senses.
“Sierra—” He stopped, shock narrowing his eyes. He yanked his hands off her. “I’m so damn sorry. I forgot you don’t like to be touched.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, a little breathless because it really was okay. Another wave of euphoria zinged through her. “It all depends on who is touching me.”
“You don’t mind my touch?”
“No.”
Gently, tentatively, he put his hands back on her shoulders.
“You’re sure?” he said.
“Positive.” She smiled. “I’m not really Ms. Untouchable. It’s just that I need to be . . . comfortable with the person who touches me.”
“You’re comfortable with me?”
“Obviously. But I guess that’s not a surprise, given what we’ve been through together.”
He tightened his grip a little and drew her closer. “You just saved my sanity. My talent. Maybe my life. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need. Really.”
His mouth came down on hers in a crushing, energy-charged kiss that took her to an entirely new level of sensation.
Should have seen this coming, she thought.
She felt light-headed, weightless. If North had not had her clamped against his chest she would have lost her balance. Sexual attraction had never before struck her with such overwhelming force.
In the past she’d always approached that side of things with great care because of her issues with physical touch. Even when all went well, the best she could say about the experience was that it had been pleasant. Words like exciting and thrilling were not applicable. Mostly sex fell into the category of okay-but-I’d-rather-be-reading-a-good-book.
She had never been swept away by passion. In the past her relationships had always fizzled. But everything was different with North.
“Sierra?” North said against her mouth.
Her name brought her back to reality with a thud. She knew what she felt for him, and it was depressing to realize that what he felt for her was probably—mostly—driven by a profound sense of gratitude.
“We really need to get on the road,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
She stepped back. He let her go.
But his eyes still burned with all the colors of night.
CHAPTER 28
Sierra was at the wheel, because although North had napped for the past two hours he was still getting flashes of hallucinations. His senses were recovering rapidly but he did not trust himself to handle the narrow, rural road that was taking them deep into the Cascades.
A while back they had stopped to do some basic emergency rations shopping at a grocery store. They were expecting to arrive in Fogg Lake before sunset, but Olivia LeClair had warned them that it was never wise to drive the isolated road without enough food and water to last for a day or two. “If you get caught in the fog you’ll be stuck by the side of the road overnight,” she had explained. “Whatever you do, don’t try to drive in that stuff. And don’t leave your car. It’s not normal fog. It’s extremely disorienting.”
After the grocery shopping expedition, North had opened the cargo door of the SUV and taken out the machine he had found in Loring’s lab. The device was now sitting on the floor between his feet. He undid the flap of one of the pockets of his cargo pants and took out a compact screwdriver.
“Do you always travel with a full set of tools, a lockpick, penlights and a gun tucked away in your clothes?” Sierra asked.
“Yeah, just the basics,” he said. “I’d rather have a decent tool chest but it’s hard to haul one around when you’re trying to move quickly.”
“I’d hate to be the person behind you in an airport security line.”
“I rarely fly commercial. By the time my team gets called in to handle a problem the situation has usually deteriorated to the point where there isn’t time to go through the standard airport routine. We end up on the Foundation jet or in some very good, very fast cars.”
“You live an exciting life.”
“I guess.”
He examined the screws that held the box together. It was obvious they had been recently removed and replaced. He went to work on the metal box.
“Are you sure it’s safe to fool around with that thing?” Sierra asked.
“I am not fooling around with it. I am examining it.”
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to act as if I just insulted you. But what if it’s another paranormal weapon?”
“It’s not,” he said, very sure of himself now. “I can sense the vibe in it. I don’t know what it was designed to do but I am certain of two things: it was built by Griffin Chastain and it is not a weapon.”
He was sure of something else as well. He had screwed up that morning when he kissed Sierra. She had said she was okay with him touching her and he thought she got the same red-hot charge out of the kiss that he got. But he must have been wrong, because just when things were getting interesting she had gone cold and pulled back. Okay, maybe not ice-cold, but there had definitely been a chill in the atmosphere. His fault, probably. He’d moved too fast. They hadn’t even had a real date. Nearly getting murdered by a light grenade and attacked by some tattooed Puppets did not constitute the start of a relationship.
“How can you tell that box isn’t a weapon?” she asked. She sounded genuinely curious.
“I’ve been living inside my grandfather’s personal lab for nearly a year,” he said. “I know intuitively how to work his devices. He made his living as a magician in Vegas before he was recruited into the Bluestone Project, but he was an engineer by training.”
“An engineer with a sixth sense for manipulating light from the dark end of the spectrum?”
“Right.”
“Probably not a lot of job opportunities for him in the normal world,” Sierra said. “No wonder he wound up with a magic act in Vegas.”
“Until the Bluestone recruiters found him.”
North slipped the screwdriver back into his small tool kit and gently lifted the black metal plate off the machine. He set the plate on the floor and gazed into the box. There was a compartment inside. It was made of steel. He undid the lock that secured it and found himself gazing at a chunk of colorless gray crystal.
A thrill of anticipation crackled through him. He was on the brink of discovering something very important, something that would answer a few questions.
Gently he lifted the crystal out of the inner compartment and jacked up his senses.
“Looks like a gray rock,” Sierra said.
“It’s a crystal.” North sat back in the seat and studied the artifact. “Not a natural one. It must have been created in a lab. There’s a lot of energy inside it, but it’s unfocused. Shattered. Probably because whoever has been using it couldn’t handle the vibe. If you don’t control it, the vibe controls you.”
“Any idea what that machine is supposed to do?” she asked.
“I’m not absolutely positive, but judging by the energy and what I know of my grandfather’s engineering style and interests, I’ve got a feeling this is some sort of tuning device. I’ve got a crystal on my mantel back home in Vegas that looks a lot like this one. I always knew it was important but I couldn’t figure out why.”
“So that crystal is not a weapon, but it may be a mechanism for tuning one to a human aura?”
North turned the crystal in his hand. “But not just any aura. It would only function properly if it was used by someone with an aura that carried Griffin Chastain’s unique vibe.”
“One of his descendants?”
“Right. But regardless of the original intent, it’s us
eless now.”
“I’ll bet Loring was using it to try to tune the Puppets to some paranormal weapons, like the light grenade and the flashlight gun Matt described.”
“Probably. If that’s true, those four orderlies are in bad shape by now. This crystal was very powerful.”
Sierra tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Delbridge Loring was trying to tune paranormal weapons in his lab at Riverview.”
“Looks like it. He managed to find a few people with enough talent to activate the weapons—the orderlies—but he would have needed subjects for his experiments.”
“Marge and the other inmates at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“But where did he get the weapons?” Sierra asked. “I still think that if Loring had found the old Vortex lab the news would be all over the underground market.”
“I agree. But this tuning device and those weapons could have come from the lab that Griffin Chastain and Crocker Rancourt controlled inside the Fogg Lake complex. That facility was huge. It covered miles inside those tunnels. There must have been hundreds of rooms, labs and offices. The Foundation has barely begun to excavate the site. Trust me, if the Chastain-Rancourt lab had been discovered I would have heard about it.”
“Then where have those artifacts been all these years?” Sierra asked.
“Maybe our witness, Marge, will be able to fill in some of the missing pieces of the puzzle.” North looked at the semi-dismantled tuning machine. A frisson of certainty snapped across his senses. “It all began in Fogg Lake,” he said. “The answers must be there, too.”
CHAPTER 29
Ithink I just saw a wisp of fog,” North said.
“Too early,” Sierra said. “We’ve got another couple of hours before sunset.”
“Olivia warned us that the fog was becoming more unpredictable lately,” North said.
“Yes, I know, but—” Sierra caught a glimpse of gray mist gathering in the heavy woods on either side of the road. A chill zapped across her senses. “Damn. You’re right.”
They were deep into the mountains now. She was still at the wheel. They had passed the last tiny town with its lone gas station an hour ago.
Olivia had explained that, in addition to the natural hazards of the narrow, winding highway, the fog that always made driving in the area impossible after sundown had begun rolling in off the lake earlier in the evening and was lingering longer after sunrise. Ever since the explosion in the old Fogg Lake lab, the strange mist had been infused with paranormal energy. But in recent weeks the radiation was stronger and more disorienting.
Some of the Foundation scientists engaged in exploring and mapping the recently discovered ruins of the Fogg Lake lab attributed the phenomenon to global warming. But according to Olivia, the people who lived in the small community were convinced the new problems with the nightly mist were caused by the researchers and technicians who were disturbing the powerful forces that had been sealed inside the lab tunnels for decades.
“Night comes early in the mountains,” North said. “And paranormal energy is always enhanced by darkness, regardless of the technical time of sunrise and sunset.”
“So long as we don’t make any wrong turns we should be okay,” Sierra said.
They were using Olivia’s carefully written directions because the closer they got to Fogg Lake, the less they could rely on the vehicle’s navigation system. Sure enough, GPS had gone down an hour ago. The cell phones had stopped working shortly afterward.
“According to Olivia’s directions we’re only about ten miles away from the town of Fogg Lake,” Sierra said.
“If the fog gets any worse it might as well be a thousand miles,” North said. “It’s not normal fog.”
The mist that Sierra could see drifting through the trees had an eerie green glow. There were things moving in it. Hallucinations.
No, there would be no way to drive through that stuff once it covered the road.
“We may have another problem,” North said.
Sierra glanced at him and saw that he had turned to view something through the back window.
“What?” she said.
“There’s a vehicle on the road behind us.”
Sierra glanced at the rearview mirror. She caught a glimpse of another SUV just before it disappeared into a turn.
“You’re thinking it’s not a coincidence that we’re not alone out here on the road to Fogg Lake, aren’t you?” she said.
“You must be psychic.”
“Let’s not jump straight into another conspiracy theory.”
“We’re already ass-deep in conspiracy theories,” North said. “What’s one more?”
“The vehicle behind us could belong to a Foundation team.”
“We talked to Victor and Olivia before we set out from Riverview,” North reminded her. “Neither of them said anything about a scheduled trip today. The Foundation is enforcing tight security on the town. All arrivals and departures associated with headquarters are registered with Lark and LeClair.”
“Could be one of the locals returning from a shopping trip,” Sierra said. “I doubt if the people who actually live in Fogg Lake feel the need to check in with the Foundation authorities or Lark and LeClair.”
“Okay, I’ll allow that as a possibility,” North said.
“Look at it this way—worst-case scenario is that the Puppets are following us, right?”
“Right.”
“They must realize they can’t overtake us, not on this road,” Sierra said. “And once we get to Fogg Lake there will be a small battalion of Foundation agents waiting for us. Whoever is in that car behind us will be stopped and searched.”
“Maybe we’re not expected to make it all the way into town,” North said.
“What?”
“Pull over to the side and stop,” he said.
“What?”
“Now.”
She wanted to ask questions and demand answers but there was no arguing with the steel in the command. The badass cleaner from the Foundation was taking charge. She eased the SUV onto the very narrow edge of the pavement, unclipped her seat belt, popped open the door and jumped down to the ground.
“Get your jacket and pack,” North ordered.
She yanked open the rear door and hauled out her things. North grabbed his jacket, his pack and the tuning machine.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Into the trees,” he said. “We need to get as far away from the car as possible. Whatever you do, stay close to me. We can’t risk getting separated, not in this terrain.”
He plunged into the woods. She slung her pack over her shoulder and followed. He might be overreacting to the perceived threat of the approaching vehicle, but he was right about one thing—it would be all too easy to get lost in the woods.
They stood deep in the trees and watched the vehicle that had followed them slam to a halt behind the SUV. Car doors banged open. Four figures got out.
“Chastain probably has a gun,” Ralph said. His voice carried clearly in the eerie stillness of the mountains. “We take him out first. All we need is whatever he’s got on him or in the car.”
“What about the woman?” Joe demanded. “She’s dangerous.”
“Get rid of her, too,” Ralph said. “She’s just a go-between.”
The four men approached the SUV, pistols in hand.
“Out of the car,” Ralph shouted. “Now.”
When nothing happened Ralph fired straight into the rear window of the SUV, shattering the glass.
“They’re gone,” he announced in disgust. “Fuck it. Well, it doesn’t matter. They probably won’t make it out of the woods, not in this fog. Check the car. We’re looking for anything that has a paranormal vibe. Anything at all.”
They yanked open the SUV doors a
nd quickly went through the vehicle. Ralph used his gun to blow open the lockbox.
“Nothing in here but those weird glasses Chastain was wearing,” he announced.
“Nothing up front,” Joe said. He slammed the driver’s-side door closed. “Not a damn thing. If they’ve got the device, they took it with them.”
One of the men looked around. “That damned fog is getting heavier. We can’t hang around here much longer.”
“That fucking Chastain,” Ralph said. His voice rose in fury and frustration. “What the hell is going on?”
The three other Puppets were already moving swiftly back toward their own SUV. Ralph started to follow them but he paused at the open cargo door of Sierra’s vehicle.
He took a fist-sized object out of his jacket and tossed it into the rear of the vehicle. There was a muffled whoomph.
Sierra watched, stunned, as her precious SUV exploded in flames.
“But I was still making payments on it,” she whispered.
North clamped a hand over her mouth to silence her.
Not that the Puppets would have heard her. They were all piling back into their own SUV. Ralph got behind the wheel, did a tight three-point turn and roared off back down the mountain road.
CHAPTER 30
North took his hand off Sierra’s mouth. She looked a little annoyed but mostly she looked worried.
“They’re gone,” she said, “for now, at any rate. Do you think the fire will spread to the trees?”
North studied the burning SUV. The fire was already dying. Rain had fallen earlier in the day. The ground was damp and the trees on both sides of the road still dripped.
“I don’t think there’s any danger of a fire, not in these woods,” he said. “Let’s see if we can find somewhere out of the fog to spend the night.”
“Remember what Olivia said—if we wander too far away from the road we’re likely to get disoriented.”