Burning Lamp Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Teaser chapter

  OTHER TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ

  Fired Up

  Running Hot

  Sizzle and Burn

  White Lies

  All Night Long

  Falling Awake

  Truth or Dare

  Light in Shadow

  Summer in Eclipse Bay

  Smoke in Mirrors

  Dawn in Eclipse Bay

  Lost and Found

  Eclipse Bay

  Soft Focus

  Eye of the Beholder

  Flash

  Sharp Edges

  Deep Waters

  Absolutely, Positively

  Trust Me

  Grand Passion

  Hidden Talents

  Wildest Hearts

  Family Man

  Perfect Partners

  Sweet Fortune

  Silver Linings

  The Golden Chance

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS AMANDA QUICK

  Perfect Poison

  Third Circle

  The River Knows

  Second Sight

  Lie by Moonlight

  Wait Until Midnight

  The Paid Companion

  Late for the Wedding

  Don’t Look Back

  Slightly Shady

  Wicked Widow

  I Thee Wed

  Seduction

  Affair

  Mischief

  Mystique

  Mistress

  Deception

  Desire

  Dangerous

  Reckless

  Ravished

  Rendezvous

  Scandal

  Surrender

  With This Ring

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS JAYNE CASTLE

  Obsidian Prey

  Dark Light

  Silver Master

  Ghost Hunter

  After Glow

  Harmony

  After Dark

  Amaryllis

  Zinnia

  Orchid

  BOOK TWO IN THE DREAMLIGHT TRILOGY

  G . P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  New York

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2010 by Jayne Ann Krentz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Quick, Amanda.

  Burning lamp/Amanda Quick.

  p. cm.—(An Arcane Society novel; bk. 8) (Dreamlight trilogy; bk. 2)

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18696-1

  1. Secret societies—England—Fiction. 2. Psychic ability—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.R44B

  813’.54—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my brother, Jim Castle,

  a man of great talent, with love

  THE DREAMLIGHT TRILOGY

  Dear Reader:

  The Arcane Society was founded on secrets. Few of those secrets are more dangerous than those kept by the descendants of the alchemist Nicholas Winters, fierce rival of Sylvester Jones.

  The legend of the Burning Lamp goes back to the earliest days of the Society. Nicholas Winters and Sylvester Jones started out as friends and eventually became deadly adversaries. Each sought the same goal: a way to enhance psychic talents. Sylvester chose the path of chemistry and plunged into illicit experiments with strange herbs and plants. Ultimately he concocted the flawed formula that bedevils the Society to this day.

  Nicholas took the engineering approach and forged the Burning Lamp, a device with unknown powers. Radiation from the lamp produced a twist in his DNA, creating a psychic genetic “curse” destined to be passed down through the males of his bloodline.

  The Winters Curse strikes very rarely, but when it does, the Arcane Society has good reason for grave concern. It is said that the Winters man who inherits Nicholas’s genetically altered talent is destined to become a Cerberus—Arcane slang for an insane psychic who possesses multiple lethal abilities. Jones & Jones and the Governing Council are convinced that such human monsters must be hunted down and terminated as swiftly as possible.

  There is only one hope for the men of the Burning Lamp. Each must find the artifact and a woman who can work the dreamlight energy that the device produces in order to reverse the dangerous psychic changes brought on by the curse.

  In the Dreamlight Trilogy (Book One: Fired Up, Book Two: B
urning Lamp, and Book Three: Midnight Crystal, coming in September 2010) you will meet the three men—past, present and future—of the Burning Lamp. These are the dangerous, passionate descendants of Nicholas Winters. Each will discover some of the deadly secrets of the lamp. Each will encounter the woman with the power to change his destiny.

  And ultimately, far in the future, on a world called Harmony, one of them will unravel the lamp’s final mystery, the secret of the Midnight Crystal. The destinies of both the Jones and the Winters families hang in the balance.

  I hope you will enjoy the trilogy.

  Sincerely,

  Jayne

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF NICHOLAS WINTERS, APRIL 14, 1694 . . .

  I shall not long survive but I will have my revenge, if not in this generation, then in some future time and place. For I am certain now that the three talents are locked into the blood and will descend down through my line.

  Each talent comes at a great price. It is ever thus with power.

  The first talent fills the mind with a rising tide of restlessness that cannot be assuaged by endless hours in the laboratory or soothed with strong drink or the milk of the poppy.

  The second talent is accompanied by dark dreams and terrible visions.

  The third talent is the most powerful and the most dangerous. If the key is not turned properly in the lock, this last psychical ability will prove lethal, bringing on first insanity and then death.

  Grave risk attends the onset of the third and final power. Those of my line who would survive must find the Burning Lamp and a woman who can work dreamlight energy. Only she can turn the key in the lock that opens the door to the last talent. Only such a female can halt or reverse the transformation once it has begun.

  But beware: Women of power can prove treacherous. I know this now, to my great cost.

  It is done. My last and greatest creation, the Midnight Crystal, is finished. I have set it into the lamp together with the other crystals. It is a most astonishing stone. I have sealed great forces within it but even I, who forged it, cannot begin to guess at all of its properties, nor do I know how its light can be unleashed. That discovery must be left to one of the heirs of my blood.

  But of this much I am certain: The one who controls the light of the Midnight Crystal will be the agent of my revenge. For I have infused the stone with a psychical command stronger than any act of magic or sorcery. The radiation of the crystal will compel the man who wields its power to destroy the descendants of Sylvester Jones.

  Vengeance will be mine.

  PROLOGUE

  London, late in the reign of Queen Victoria . . .

  It took Adelaide Pyne almost forty-eight hours to realize that the Rosestead Academy was not an exclusive school for orphaned young ladies. It was a brothel. By then it was too late; she had been sold to the frightening man known only as Mr. Smith.

  The Chamber of Pleasure was in deep shadow, lit only by a single candle. The flame sparked and flared on the cream-colored satin drapery that billowed down from the wrought-iron frame above the canopied bed. In the pale glow the crimson rose petals scattered across the snowy white quilt looked like small pools of blood.

  Adelaide huddled in the darkened confines of the wardrobe, all her senses heightened by dread. Through the crack between the doors she could see only a narrow slice of the room.

  Smith entered the chamber. He barely glanced at the heavily draped bed. Locking the door immediately, he set his hat and a black satchel on the table, looking for all the world as though he were a doctor who had been summoned to attend a patient.

  In spite of her heart-pounding fear, something about the satchel distracted Adelaide, riveting her attention. Dreamlight leaked out of the black bag. She could scarcely believe her senses. Great powerful currents of ominous energy seeped through the leather. She had the unnerving impression that it was calling to her in a thousand different ways. But that was impossible.

  There was no time to contemplate the mystery. Her circumstances had just become far more desperate. Her plan, such as it was, had hinged on the assumption that she would be dealing with one of Mrs. Rosser’s usual clients, an inebriated gentleman in a state of lust who possessed no significant degree of psychical talent. It had become obvious during the past two days that sexual desire tended to focus the average gentleman’s brain in a way that, temporarily at least, obliterated his common sense and reduced the level of his intelligence. She had intended to take advantage of that observation tonight to make her escape.

  But Smith was most certainly not an average brothel client. She was horrified to see the seething energy in the dreamprints he had tracked into the room. His hot paranormal fingerprints were all over the satchel, as well.

  Everyone left some residue of dreamlight behind on the objects with which they came in contact. The currents seeped easily through shoe leather and gloves. Her talent allowed her to perceive the traces of such energy.

  In general, dreamprints were faint and murky. But there were exceptions. Individuals in a state of intense emotion or excitement generated very distinct, very perceptible prints. So did those with strong psychical abilities. Mr. Smith fit into both categories. He was aroused, and he was a powerful talent. That was a very dangerous combination.

  Even more unnerving was the realization that there was something wrong with his dreamlight patterns. The oily, iridescent currents of his tracks and prints were ever so faintly warped.

  Smith turned toward the wardrobe. The pale glow of the candle gleamed on the black silk mask that concealed the upper half of his face. Whatever he intended to do in this room was of such a terrible nature that he did not wish to take the chance of being recognized by anyone on the premises.

  He moved like a man in his prime. He was tall and slender. His clothes looked expensive, and he carried himself with the bred-in-the-cradle arrogance of a man accustomed to the privileges of wealth and high social rank.

  He stripped off his leather gloves and unfastened the metal buckles of the satchel with a feverish haste that in another man might have indicated sexual lust. She had not yet had any practical experience of such matters. Mrs. Rosser, the manager of the brothel, had informed her that Smith would be her first client. But during the past two days she had seen the tracks the gentlemen left on the stairs when they followed the girls to their rooms. She now knew what desire looked like when it burned in a man.

  What she saw in Smith’s eerily luminous prints was different. There was most certainly a dark hunger pulsing in him but it did not seem related to sexual excitement. The strange, ultralight radiation indicated that it was some other kind of passion that consumed him tonight. The energy was terrifying to behold.

  She held her breath when he opened the satchel and reached inside. She did not know what to expect. Some of the girls whispered about the bizarre, unnatural games many clients savored. But it was not a whip or a chain or leather manacles that Smith took out of the satchel. Rather it was a strange, vase-shaped artifact. The object was made of metal that glinted gold in the flickering candlelight. It rose about eighteen inches from a heavy base, flaring outward toward the top. Large, colorless crystals were set in a circle around the rim.

  The waves of dark power whispering from the artifact stirred the hair on the nape of her neck. The object was infused with a storm of dreamlight that seemed to be trapped in a state of suspension. Like a machine, she thought, astonished; a device designed to generate dreamlight.

  Even as she told herself that such a paranormal engine could not possibly exist, the memory of a tale her father had told her, an old Arcane legend, drifted, phantomlike through her thoughts. She could not recall the details but there had been something about a lamp and a curse.

  Smith set the artifact on the table next to the candle. Then he went swiftly toward the bed.

  “Let us get on with the business,” he muttered, tension and impatience thickening the words.

  He yanked aside the satin hangings. For a few seconds he
stared at the empty sheets, evidently baffled. An instant later rage stiffened his body. He crushed a handful of the drapery in one fist and spun around, searching the shadows.

  “Stupid girl. Where are you? I don’t know what Rosser told you, but I am not one of her regular clients. I do not make a habit of sleeping with whores, and I certainly did not come here tonight to play games.”

  His voice was low and reptilian cold now. The words slithered down Adelaide’s spine. At the same time the temperature in the chamber seemed to drop several degrees. She started to shiver, not just with terror but with the new chill in the atmosphere.

  He’ll check under the bed first.

  Even as the thought whispered through her, Smith seized the candle off the table and crouched to peer into the shadows beneath the bed frame.

  She knew that he would open the wardrobe as soon as he realized that she was not hiding under the bed. It was the only other item of furniture in the room that was large enough to conceal a person.

  “Bloody hell.” Smith shot to his feet so swiftly that the candle in his hand flickered and nearly died. “Come out, you foolish girl. I’ll be quick about it, I promise. Trust me when I tell you that I have no plans to linger over this aspect of the thing.”

  He stilled when he saw the wardrobe.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find you? Brainless female.”

  She could not even breathe now. There was nowhere to run.

  The wardrobe door opened abruptly. Candlelight spilled into the darkness. Smith’s eyes glittered between the slits in the black mask.

  “Silly little whore.”

  He seized her arm to haul her out of the wardrobe. Her talent was flaring wildly, higher than it ever had since she had come into it a year ago. The result was predictable. She reacted to the physical contact as though she had been struck by invisible lightning. The shock was such that she could not even scream.

  Frantically she dampened her talent. She hated to be touched when her senses were elevated. The experience of brushing up against the shadows and remnants of another person’s dreams was horribly, gut-wrenchingly intimate and disturbing in the extreme, a waking nightmare.