Gradually she reduced her own influence. Jon now had no trouble maintaining his concentration, and she even sensed how he was experimenting with his new instrument. When she opened her eyes, Iversen was sitting there with a big grin on his face, while Pau was so immersed in the story that he paid no attention to anything else around him.
'What did I tell you?' whispered Iversen, giving Katherina a wink. She smiled back.
It was hard not to get caught up in Jon's gripping storytelling technique. The images and associations he created kept enticing the listeners to go along on a fantastic journey. Katherina, who had heardDon Quixote many times, didn't remember ever being so tempted to immerse herself in the story as she was now. The hair on her arms stood on end, and she felt a slight tickling in her stomach.
Katherina again turned her attention to Jon's discovery of his powers. She directed his focus to the various means at his disposal, and each time he surprised her by going further than she thought possible.
It was during these breakthroughs that physical phenomena began to manifest themselves. The candles were blown out. The lamps pulsed with shifting voltage, the furniture began to shake.
Iversen asked Katherina to bring Jon back. There was a trace of nervousness in his voice. Jon didn't notice anything, but sweat was pouring down his face and little blood vessels had burst in the whites of his eyes. But he kept on reading in a loud, clear voice and all of Katherina's attempts to subdue him were in vain. The bookcases began to shake violently. The books came toppling off the shelves and fell to the floor.
The commotion brought Pau out of his trance. He got up to take hold of Jon but before he could touch him a blue spark leaped from Jon's elbow and through Pau's outspread fingers. Pau was slammed back into his chair, which fell over backwards. He quickly got to his feet but he was holding onto his right arm and moaning loudly.
Katherina continued her attempts to mentally put the brakes on Jon but the discharges got even stronger. Little flashes of lightning danced out of Jon's body and over to the electrical fixtures, which sprayed sparks into the room. Pau and Iversen were fully occupied stomping out the embers and flames, while the furniture started shaking more violently and jumping about. At one point a bookcase fell on top of Iversen and Pau had to come to his rescue.
Katherina tried to follow the pulse that she sensed lay behind the bursts of energy coming from Jon. They occurred spasmodically, at regular intervals, and when the next pause came, she directed all her powers at breaking Jon's concentration. Her chair was shoved a metre away from him, but the reading stopped, and he raised his eyes from the book to stare at Katherina. His bloodshot eyes were filled with confusion and fear.
After that she remembered nothing more.
'Katherina?' Iversen's voice was very close.
She opened her eyes and looked up into Iversen's worried face. He smiled.
'Are you feeling all right?'
Aside from a sluggishness in her whole body and the feeling that she hadn't slept in a long time, she was fine. She nodded.
'What about Jon?' she asked.
'The master of fireworks?' said Pau, poking his head into her field of vision. 'He's totally out of it. But still alive.'
The two men straightened up and looked behind them, where Jon was lying on a camp bed. From what Katherina could see, he was sleeping peacefully.
'We lugged the two of you up from the basement,' Iversen explained. 'It's still being aired out. I don't think the electrical switches are ever going to work again. They're completely melted.'
'How could that happen?' asked Katherina, her voice hoarse.
Iversen shrugged. 'It's beyond me,' he admitted. 'We were hoping you could tell us something.'
'Nothing except that he was incredibly strong,' replied Katherina. 'Stronger than any transmitter I've ever encountered before.'
Iversen nodded pensively.
'But lightning?' Pau interjected. 'Was that wild enough for you?'
'It does seem very extreme,' Iversen acknowledged. 'But we activated latent areas of his brain. Who knows how much is hidden away up there?' He tapped his index finger on his temple. 'Maybe we flipped a couple of extra switches.'
'Or blew a fuse,' suggested Pau cynically.
All three of them fell silent as they exchanged worried looks. Even Pau seemed to have grasped the seriousness of the situation. A hint of nervousness had slipped into his eyes. From the camp bed they could hear Jon breathing evenly.
Katherina looked down at her hands. It had been her job to control the seance. Of course no one could have predicted how things would go, but she was the one who should have stopped Jon earlier and prevented everything from getting out of control. Maybe she had put too much pressure on him. Her fascination with how his powers were unfolding had made her hesitate when she should have intervened. The electrical switches might not be the only things that had melted. Even though Jon was breathing all right, they couldn't know whether he was nothing more than a vegetable behind his closed eyes.
'Maybe we should have someone take a look at him,' said Katherina.
'We've discussed that,' said Iversen with a sigh. 'But who would we get, and what should we tell them?'
Katherina had no answer.
'Whatever else we do,' Iversen went on, 'we'll have to contact Kortmann.'
Katherina gave a start. During all the preparations for the activation and Iversen's homecoming from the hospital, they had completely forgotten to inform Kortmann about their meeting with Tom Nшrreskov and what he'd said about the Shadow Organization. To top it all off, they had thrown themselves into an activation that Kortmann had specifically advised against.
With a nod she gave her assent.
'I think we should call in Clara too,' she added firmly. 'The receivers have just as much right to know what's going on as the transmitters.'
After an hour Clara turned up, the first to appear of those they had summoned. Jon was still asleep. Katherina had been sitting at his side most of the time, and apart from a couple of grunts and incomprehensible sounds, he had remained calm. Clara greeted everyone and then leaned over Jon as if to assure herself that he was actually sleeping and not just pretending. She squatted down next to the bed and grabbed his wrist to take his pulse.
'And he's been like this ever since the activation?' she asked perfunctorily.
Iversen confirmed that Jon's condition hadn't changed and then recounted in rough outline what had happened during the seance. When Clara heard about the physical phenomena, she opened her eyes wide and let go of Jon's wrist, as if she'd burned herself.
'Very interesting,' she said and stood up. Her eyes met Katherina's, as if looking for an answer, but Katherina could only shake her head weakly.
At that instant the door to the bookshop opened and a young man came in. It was Kortmann's chauffeur. Without looking at them, he held the door open for Kortmann, who with some difficulty rolled his wheelchair over the threshold. He hesitated for a moment when he saw Clara, but then he turned to his assistant and nodded. The young man left Libri di Luca, closing the door carefully behind him.
'Clara,' he said loudly. 'I didn't expect to see you here. It's been a long time.'
'Same here, William,' said Clara, going over to the man in the wheelchair and holding out her hand.