“Bastard. I hope he wasn’t able to get into the shed in back. Grady will be crushed if his lab stuff is gone.”
Sam walked through the kitchen and opened the back door. The shed sitting in the yard looked like a ramshackle wooden fortress. The one window was boarded up. The gleaming new metal door was closed.
He walked across the weed-infested yard and examined the lock on the door. Abby followed him.
“Doesn’t look like anyone has gotten inside yet,” he said. “But it’s probably a good thing we’re here. Got a hunch the landlord will be taking a blowtorch to this door when he figures out that a regular locksmith can’t open it.”
He raised his ring to the dull, gray crystal embedded in the metal on the wall next to the door. Cautiously, he focused a little energy through the Phoenix stone. He sensed the familiar tingling current of power. The lock crystal began to heat with violet-hued ultralight.
There was a sharp click as the lock disengaged. Sam opened the door.
“The kid’s good,” he said. “Very, very good.”
“And certainly not as crazy as everyone, including me, believed,” Abby said.
“Maybe not.”
He found a switch on the wall. The lights came on, revealing a battered metal workbench and a number of old metal cabinets. The concrete floor was bare.
He examined the lab with professional interest. The small space did not gleam with steel and polished equipment like the Coppersmith labs. There were no state–of–the-art computers. The chemistry equipment on the workbench looked as if it had been assembled from various do–it–yourself science kits and then seriously modified. An old burner designed for heating the contents of test tubes sat on one corner. A cumbersome, obviously hand-built laser occupied the far end of the bench.
“You know,” Abby said, gazing around the crowded room. “If anyone else, members of the media, say, or the shrinks at the psychiatric hospital, saw this place, the first words that would spring to mind would be mad scientist.”
“I was just thinking that this lab looks a lot like mine,” Sam said.
Abby cleared her throat. “Mmm-hmm.”
He went to the bench to examine the laser. “Not as high-end, but most of the basics are here.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He glanced back and saw that her eyes were sparkling with amusement. He sighed. “Go get the boxes and the Bubble Wrap. I want to take a look around before we pack this equipment.”
“Okay.” Abby turned and hurried back up the steps.
When she was gone, he went slowly, methodically, through the shed, opening cabinets and drawers. He discovered a number of stones and crystals, most of which would have been overlooked by the average rock hound. But with his senses mildly jacked, he could tell that several of the stones were hot.
He was holding one half of a split geode, studying the glittering crystals inside, when Abby reappeared.
“Find something interesting?” she asked.
“Nothing yet that would explain the voices that Grady heard.” He put the geode down and took another look around. “He said the voice came from a crystal.”
“A green crystal.”
“I found several varieties of green quartz, a small piece of green tourmaline and some green andradite, but none of it was giving off enough energy to explain the voices he was hearing.”
“Shall I start wrapping up the equipment while you look around?”
“All right. But I’d better dismantle the laser for you.”
She smiled. “It looks like he found it in a scrap yard.”
“He probably bought the various parts online and assembled them himself.”
Sam started back to the workbench. A faint hiss of energy made him pause in mid-stride. To his slightly heightened senses, it sounded as if a small insect was buzzing somewhere nearby. He turned on his heel, searching for the source, and caught a flash of green out of the corner of his eye. When he tried to take a closer look, he discovered he could not focus clearly on the object that was giving off the energy.
“What is it?” Abby asked.
“I’m not sure yet.” He stopped trying to see the object with his normal vision and raised his talent to the max. The dull gray of the concrete floor and the faded paint on the walls were abruptly transformed. The basement was now lit with ultralight. The rocks and crystals in Grady’s collection glowed, bathing the space in a paranormal rainbow.
The buzzing-insect sound grew louder but not more distinct.
“Got it,” Sam said.
“What?” Abby asked. “Where? I don’t see anything except the rocks and equipment that you’ve already checked.”
“Go hot. You’ll hear it, too.”
Energy warmed the atmosphere as she went into the zone.
“Good grief,” she said. “You’re right. It sounds like a scratchy old audio recording of some kind.”
“That’s exactly what it is.” Sam went to the filing cabinet and examined the array of precision-cut objects on top. “A recording. It’s emanating from one of these.”
“Those aren’t crystals or rocks. They look like modernistic glass sculptures.”
“They’re prisms,” he said. “Very special prisms. Grady probably used them to focus energy as well as light.”
“There’s a recording inside one of those prisms?”
“That’s the only explanation that fits,” he said. “It must have been laid down with psychic energy, and probably tuned to Grady’s wavelengths. That’s why we can only detect a faint buzz but not distinct words.”
He picked up a heavy green glass prism. The shiver of energy got a bit louder but not much. “It’s very weak to our senses, but it was probably a lot louder, stronger and clearer to Grady.”
Abby moved closer. “I’ve never seen a prism like that one.”
“It’s called a retroreflector, a trihedral prism. It’s designed to reflect energy or a beam of light back to its source, regardless of direction. Standard equipment in labs. But this particular prism focuses paranormal energy, not the normal kind. If it was tuned to Grady’s aura, it would focus on him whenever he was in the vicinity.”
“Once it acquired the fix, it activated the recording?”
“I think so, yes. The prism detected our presence and triggered the psychic message when we entered the room, but since it isn’t tuned to either of us, we can barely sense the recording. Grady was never able to tell where the voice was coming from, because every time he tried to look at the prism, it reflected his own psychic wavelengths right back at him, blinding him while simultaneously playing the message.”
“Sheesh. Over time, that would have driven anyone nuts.”
“I think it would be more accurate to say that it had a hypnotic effect on Grady. Let me have some of that Bubble Wrap.”
Abby picked up the scissors she had brought and cut off a length of the wrap. “I’ve never heard of a psi-recording. I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”
“The technology is in the experimental stage. This prism came out of a very sophisticated, cutting-edge R–and–D lab.”
She handed him the Bubble Wrap and glanced around the room. “What about the gun? Where do you think Grady got that?”
“Whoever recorded the hypnotic message in this thing probably made sure the gun was conveniently at hand when Grady went to Vaughn’s house that day.”
“Poor Grady. That thing looks valuable.”
“It’s worth a fortune to certain people.”
Abby frowned. “Think it came from your competitor’s labs?”
“No.” Sam peeled off a strip of packing tape and secured the Bubble Wrap around the prism. “This didn’t come from the Helicon Stone labs.”
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me.”
“So who else is running a hotshot R–and–D lab that could turn out something like that prism?”