“Yes,” she said. “When it comes to objects in the vault, Walker knows at least as much as any of us. Maybe more.”
Henry filled the mugs. Vera handed them around. Walker refused his, sticking to the no-charity code. Vera left the coffee sitting on the windowsill nearby. After a while, Walker picked up the mug as if he’d just happened to find it the way he found the other life necessities that came his way.
Fallon leaned down and raised the blanket.
Vera and Henry looked at the clock. They both appeared baffled.
“It’s just a clock,” Henry said, frowning.
“It’s actually a clockwork device that generates energy that interferes with light waves in the visible spectrum,” Fallon said. “Wind it up and when it starts to tick everything goes dark for a radius of several yards.”
Henry whistled softly. “Son of a bitch.” He looked up suddenly, eyes narrowed. “Looks old.”
“It is old,” Fallon said. “Late nineteenth century.”
Vera eyed the clock. “Are you telling us that it was designed and built in the Victorian era?”
“Yes,” Fallon said.
Henry shook his head. “What you’re describing is cutting-edge technology. If it came out of the vault, it must have been designed and built in a high-tech lab.” He glanced uneasily at Vera. “Like the other things down there.”
“No,” Fallon said. “It came out of the workshop of a very ingenious, very dangerous inventor who lived in the Victorian era. Mrs. Millicent Bridewell. Trust me.”
“But the kind of technology involved in such a device would have to be state-of-the-art,” Henry said. “Hell, beyond state-of-the-art. I don’t care how brilliant your Victorian-era inventor was, she would not have had access to the kind of advanced materials and algorithms required to design and build a machine that can neutralize visible light waves.”
“Mrs. Bridewell’s clockwork curiosities, as she called them, were not based on software programs or cutting-edge manufacturing techniques,” Fallon said.
Vera looked uneasy. “What are you saying?”
“The design of this clock is based on the principles of para-physics.”
Vera and Henry exchanged looks. Henry cleared his throat and turned back to Fallon.
“Are you telling us that the clock generates some kind of paranormal energy?” he asked.
“Yes,” Fallon said. “Vera and Walker are obviously somewhat sensitive to that kind of energy. That’s why they can feel the psi infused into the clock.”
Vera looked wary. She glanced at Walker. “It’s just our intuition.”
“That’s what people say when they sense something they can’t explain,” Isabella said gently.
“She’s right,” Fallon said. “Most people are reluctant to acknowledge the psychic side of their natures, but they’re usually okay with the concept of intuition. Scargill Cove is a nexus, a hot spot, psychically speaking, which probably explains how the clock, and whatever else is in the vault, got here.”
They were all looking at him now, including Isabella.
Vera tapped one finger against the side of her mug. “Do you mean the Cove is a vortex? They say there are some in various places around the world. Sedona, for example.”
“Similar principle,” Fallon said. “But a nexus is more powerful.”
Henry appeared reluctantly fascinated. “You want to explain that?”
No, Fallon thought. I don’t want to waste the time.But he had a feeling that things would move more rapidly if he took a few minutes to go through it.
“There are different kinds of nexus points,” he said. “Those like Scargill Cove occur where there’s a natural confluence of several kinds of powerful currents. This stretch of coastline happens to be a place where the forces generated by strong ocean currents combine with currents from the earth’s magnetic field and the energy of geothermal heat flowing deep underground.”
Henry frowned. “What geothermal heat? We’re not sitting on top of a volcano.”
“The hot springs in the cave out on the Point,” Vera said suddenly. “They’re the result of geothermal energy in the area.”
Henry reflected for a moment. “All right, I get that there are some powerful geophysical currents running through this area, but how does that translate into paranormal energy?”
“The paranormal and the normal exist on a continuum,” Fallon said. “There’s no hard, fast line that divides the two. Think of the light spectrum. There’s plenty of energy just beyond the visible range. Some birds and animals can see it and there are instruments that can detect it.”
“Well, sure,” Henry said. He squinted through his spectacles. “But paranormal energy?”
Fallon felt himself getting a little impatient now. Isabella gave him a tiny, quelling frown. He decided to take the hint. He needed Vera’s and Henry’s cooperation.
“Someday we’ll have the kind of instruments needed to detect psi, too,” he said. “But take it from me, power is power and there’s a hell of a lot of it running through the earth. In places like the Cove, where you’ve got a tremendous amount of geophysical energy flowing into a nexus, the currents are so strong that they register on human senses. Not everyone who comes to town is consciously aware of the confluence of forces here, but I think most pick up on it on some deep level. It bothers a lot of folks.”
“Probably explains our low tourism numbers,” Vera said dryly.
“Yes,” Fallon agreed. He watched her very steadily. “The thing is, some people are attracted to nexus points, even if they aren’t aware of the pull of the place.”
“People like us?” Vera asked quietly.
“Yes,” Fallon said. “People like us.”
He noticed that Isabella was smiling a little again.
“That’s right,” she said. “People like us.”
Henry’s expression sharpened. “You say you think this nexus theory explains why the black-ops people set up the lab here? They wanted to tap in to some currents of power in the area?”
Fallon got the little buzz of adrenaline that he always experienced when the answers started coming. Out on the grid more sectors brightened.
“Tell me about this black-ops lab,” he said.
12
Vera and Henry looked at each other. Walker rocked on in silence.
Vera took a deep breath. “Something very weird happened here twenty-two years ago.”
“That would have been during the period when J&J was operating out of L.A.,” Fallon said.
“There was no Jones & Jones in the Cove in those days,” Henry said. “That’s for sure. Wasn’t much of anything, come to that. But for about a month someone ran a secret weapons research program here, at least that’s what we all assumed was going on. If the weapons were paranormal in nature, it would certainly explain a few things.”
“Certainly wouldn’t be the first time the government has conducted secret paranormal experiments,” Isabella said.
Henry snorted. “Might just be the first time they were successful, though. Don’t think they liked the results. After the accident they left in one hell of a hurry, at least the survivors did. No one ever came back for the weapons.”
Fallon heightened his senses a little. “Tell me what you know, Henry. It’s important.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Henry said.
He settled back in one of the big armchairs near the fireplace. “Might as well start at the beginning. Twenty-two years ago when Vera and I and Walker and the others arrived, Scargill Cove was a boarded-up ghost town. The whole damn place had been abandoned, including this lodge. There were twenty-five of us at the start.” He glanced at Walker for confirmation. “Twenty-five in the beginning, right, Walker?”