Copper Beach

“I knew I was missing something,” Sam said.

The sense that an ominous darkness was closing in on them was getting stronger. Spending time with a dead body will do that, he reminded himself. This is important. Take your time and think. You need to find whatever it is that you aren’t seeing clearly. He patted down Webber’s pajamas and bathrobe. It was unpleasant work, but this was not the first time he had performed such a chore. When his palm passed over the pocket of the robe, he felt a small bulge. Probably a tissue or a handkerchief. There was a faint crackling sound. He reached into the pocket and drew out the crumpled page.

“That’s it.” Excitement quickened in Abby’s voice. “That’s the missing page. He tore it out of Paynter’s history in the last moments of his life and stuffed it into his pocket.”

“He knew we were on our way, that we would probably be the ones who found him. He did his best to leave us a message.”

Carefully, he smoothed the old page and studied the illustration. The cold sleet of psi that had been stirring his senses all morning transmuted into an ice storm.

“What?” Abby asked.

“This message isn’t for you. It’s for me. He knew that I would be with you when you got here.” He shoved the page into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Let’s move.”

“I don’t understand. What does that drawing mean to you?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re in the car.”

Mercifully, Abby did not question the decision. She followed him quickly out the front door. Newton dashed ahead, more than enthusiastic about the prospect of leaving the grim scene.

He got Abby and Newton into the SUV, climbed behind the wheel and drove swiftly back toward the main road. The icy-cold feeling on the nape of his neck was getting more intense.

“What’s the rush?” Abby asked, fastening her seat belt.

“Damned if I know.” He took one hand off the wheel long enough to rub the back of his neck. “Just a feeling.”

“What is it about the page that Thaddeus tore out of the book that has you so worried?”

Sam reached inside his jacket. He pulled out the torn page and handed it to her. “Take a look.”

She took the page and examined it closely. “It’s an artist’s rendering of an alchemist’s laboratory. Competently done, but it certainly isn’t Durer’s Melencolia. So?”

“Look at the setting.”

“It’s different from most pictures of an alchemist at work, because the setting is clearly Victorian,” Abby mused. “Scenes of this type are usually set against medieval or Renaissance landscapes. This has got more of a Frankenstein vibe. The mad-scientist thing. But there is the usual mishmash of allegorical images from Egyptian and Greek mythology.” She looked up from the picture. “What makes this illustration different?”

“That picture is not an artist’s generic vision of an alchemist’s lab. Take a closer look at the fire on the hearth.”

Abby glanced down. She stiffened. “The flames are formed by the stylized wings of a phoenix. Oh, geez, Sam. The bird looks an awful lot like that tattoo on your shoulder.”

“Where do you think I got the idea for the tat?”

“You’ve seen a copy of this book?”

“Not that particular text but some related writings. I told you that when Dad and his partners found the crystals, they did a lot of research into the scientific literature. They were trying to track down references to previous discoveries of similar crystals. They didn’t find much that was useful, just some old alchemy texts. But they did come across a few notes made by the guy in the picture. Dad gave them to me.”

Abby read the title under the drawing. “Scene from Dr. Marcus Dalton’s laboratory.”

“Dalton conducted some experiments on crystals that he called the Phoenix stones. Very little of his work survived, unfortunately. He sensed the latent power in the stones, but he never figured out how to access it. He theorized, however, that in the hands of someone who could tap the energy of the crystals, the stones could be used, among other things, as weapons.”

“Like that crystal bug zapper you used on poor Nick?”

He let the poor Nick comment pass. “Yes, but on a much larger scale. The most I can do with my little zapper is temporarily paralyze certain currents in an individual’s aura. It’s probably similar to what you do when you channel the energy in an encrypted book into someone’s aura. And I need physical contact to achieve the results. Dalton believed the crystals had the potential to create much greater destruction, and from a distance. But he also theorized that the crystals could be engineered to create a source of power.”

“Which, presumably, is why your father doesn’t want to destroy all the records of the experiments and why he doesn’t want to obliterate all traces of the Phoenix Mine.”

Sam smiled. “Good guess. The world is going to need new sources of power in the future. Engineered correctly, those crystals might be an answer.”

“What happened to Dalton?”

“He was killed in an explosion that occurred when one of his experiments went out of control. All of the crystals he was working on at the time disappeared, and most of his notes were lost.”

“Just like the explosion in the Phoenix,” Abby said.

“Yes. I told you, those crystals are dangerous and highly volatile.”

Abby thought for a moment. “So Thaddeus was trying to warn you that someone is after the lab book. But we already knew that.”

“I don’t think that’s what Webber intended as the takeaway from his last message.”

“What, then?”

“I think he was trying to tell me that someone has one of the Phoenix stones and has figured out how to turn it into a weapon. That’s what the killer used to murder him.”

“Oh, my God,” Abby whispered. “Lander Knox.”

“Maybe. I knew that Thaddeus Webber was murdered by paranormal means. Now I know the nature of the weapon. We need to find that lab book, Abby.”

She took out her phone. “I’ll see if any of the deep-end dealers have responded to my offer of a preemptive bid.”

He drove very fast along the graveled lane and pulled out onto the main road, accelerating hard. He saw a car parked sideways, blocking both lanes, when he came out of the first turn. A man was slumped over the steering wheel.

The psi-chill that had been riding him hard for the last hour flashed into full-blown awareness of impending disaster.

“Hang on,” he said.

Abby looked up from her phone and saw the car. “There’s been an accident.”

“I don’t think so.”

He hit the brakes, slamming to a stop. He heard dog claws scrabbling wildly on the rear seat.

He snapped the SUV into reverse and shot back around the turn.

The maneuver got them out of sight of the blocking car, but he knew that they had only a couple of minutes, at most. There was bound to be a second vehicle coming up from behind. A classic pincer move.

He braked again. “Out. Into the woods. Go.”

Abby did not ask questions. She freed herself from the seat belt, opened the door and leaped to the ground, still clutching her phone. Sam followed. By the time he got out, Abby had freed Newton from the backseat.

“Head for the rocks,” Sam ordered.

They ran up the hillside into the cover of the trees, aiming for the jumble of boulders that formed a natural fortress.

“What is going on?” Abby asked, panting alongside him.

“Not sure, but I think that whoever murdered Webber left some thugs to watch the house.”

“But why?”

“Someone wants you, Abby. Someone wants you very, very badly.”