powerful, and brutal.
This was not Lucas. Amaryllis panicked.
She tried to pull back but she was trapped. To her horror, the prism took shape on the psychic plane.
Someone or something else took control of the energy construct. Power poured through it. Torrents of dark power.
Amaryllis screamed. She clutched her head with both hands and tried to cut off her own flow of psychic energy. '
Nothing happened. She could not shut down the link. Lucas had her outside on the steps. Rain whipped at her coat. Frantically she tried to blank her mind. The link held strong.
'What is it?' Lucas pulled her to him. 'What the hell is going on?'
'Another talent.' Amaryllis collapsed against him.
'Five hells.' He caught her. 'I can feel the bastard.'
'Strong. So strong.' If she did not get free, she would go insane, Amaryllis thought. A fresh wave of panic crashed through her.
Lucas picked her up in his arms. 'Break the link. Destroy the prism.'
'I can't. Lucas, I can't release the focus. I'm trapped.' Distance would help, Amaryllis knew. The strength of any talent was directly affected by proximity. 'Get me away from here.'
'As fast as I can,' Lucas vowed. He started toward the car with Amaryllis in his arms.
Talent slammed through the prism. Amaryllis looked fearfully back over Lucas's shoulder toward the open door- way of her house. She expected to see a monster lumber into view.
Instead, a familiar figure emerged from the shadows of the hall and moved out onto the front step.
The weak light from the jelly-lamp above the door gleamed on the gun in Irene Dunley's hand.
'Come back inside at once,' Irene said in the same tone of voice that she used to give instructions to student assistants. 'Really, some people don't know enough to come in out of the rain.'
'Lucas, she's got a gun.'
'Stop right where you are, Mr. Trent, or I shall be forced to shoot.'
Lucas halted halfway down the walk. He turned slowly to face Irene. Amaryllis sensed that he was weighing the odds of getting her to safety before Irene could pull the trigger. She felt the precise instant when he accepted the fact that he could not outrun a bullet.
'Come here,' Irene said.
Lucas carried Amaryllis slowly back up the steps and into the house. Irene rewarded him with a smile of cold approval.
'That's better. Now, kindly sit down.' Irene trained the nose of the gun on Amaryllis as she gave the order. 'Over there on the sofa will do.'
Lucas said nothing. He carried Amaryllis into the living room and set her carefully on her feet. He searched her face.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
There was no trace of emotion in his voice, but the bleak chill in his eyes frightened Amaryllis almost as much as the assault on her sanity that was taking place on the psychic plane.
'No.' Amaryllis reached for the arm of the sofa to steady herself. 'I'm not all right. I can't get free.' She lowered herself gingerly down onto the cushions. 'Lucas, I'm going crazy.'
Lucas looked at Irene. 'Let her go.'
'I don't think that would be wise.' Irene moved slowly toward them. 'She would be free to link with you, then, Mr. Trent and I suspect that you are a very strong talent. As I am uncertain about the exact nature of your psychic abilities, however, I would prefer to keep them neutralized by restricting your access to a powerful prism.'
Lucas shrugged as if the matter were not all that important, but he never took his eyes off Irene's face as he lowered himself to the arm of the sofa.
'Don't worry,' Irene said pleasantly. 'I expect she'll bum out any second. No prism is strong enough to handle my full range of power. Even Jonathan burned out when I used the complete spectrum of my talent.'
Amaryllis sagged on the sofa cushion. She held her head in her hands and fought for her sanity. She'd never been trained for anything like this. What Irene was doing was supposed to be impossible.
Nothing she did seem to alter the flow of talent that roared through the prism. As far as she could tell, Irene was not using the thundering flow of energy for any purpose other than to chain the focus so that Lucas could not seize it. She wondered fleetingly what sort of talent Irene possessed.
'You murdered Landreth, didn't you?' Lucas said casually to Irene.
Amaryllis felt the whisper of a cold, motionless wind. She lifted her head, fighting back waves of psychic pain to stare at Lucas. Then she turned toward Irene. 'You killed Professor Landreth?'
'I had to kill him.' Irene sounded vaguely regretful. 'In the end, I realized that it had to be done. There was no choice.'
'Was it because Landreth had figured out that you were capable of doing this to a prism?' Lucas touched Amaryllis's shoulder.
Pain exploded through her confused senses. Her seared nerve endings did not know how to interpret the feel of Lucas's hand. He withdrew his fingers instantly when Amaryllis cried out. She huddled on the edge of the sofa.
'Oh, no, you don't understand.' Irene's expression was one of modest pride. 'Jonathan was very respectful of my power. He worked with me for many years, teaching me to control it. We were always testing, training, and exploring the possibilities of my talent together. He said he'd never encountered anything like it. Those were glorious hours. I shall treasure them forever.'
'He served as your prism, didn't he?' Amaryllis managed to ask.
'Yes, indeed. He was my only prism after my husband died. Jonathan did not want to use anyone else to provide a focus for me because he said it was too dangerous.'
'For the prism?' Lucas asked.
'No, no. For me.' Irene chuckled. 'Jonathan felt that for my own safety, no one should know the extent of my talent. It was our little secret, he said. It bound us together more surely than any wedding license.'
'So why did you kill him?' Lucas asked. 'Because you didn't want him to know about your little secret any longer?'
'Oh, no, that wasn't the reason.'
'Why?' Amaryllis got out hoarsely. 'Why did you murder him?'
'Because he was not the man I had believed him to be.' Irene's mouth tightened. 'I thought he was made of the very stuff of our founders. Instead, I discovered that he was perverted and corrupt. He betrayed me.'
'Oh lord,' Amaryllis whispered. 'This had nothing to do with politics or Gifford. You killed Professor Landreth because of those standing appointments with Vivien, didn't you?'
'Jonathan proved to be just as weak as my husband had been. No moral fiber at all. It was very disappointing.'
Pain flared on the psychic plane. Amaryllis flinched and tried not to move. 'He left that Friday to go to his mountain cabin. You met him there and pushed him off the cliff.'
'We often went to the mountains together,' Irene said. 'No one else knew of our weekend rendezvous at his cabin, naturally.'
'Another one of your little secrets,' Lucas said.
Another eddy of cold wind moved in the room. Amaryllis took heart. She probed cautiously, trying to dampen the clarity of the prism. It stayed sharp and precise, providing a focus for Irene's raging talent.
'Jonathan and I were always very discreet.' Irene sighed. 'But on that last occasion, I was obliged to end our relationship. We took a walk along the cliff path after dinner as usual. Formed a last prism link. I took him to his psychic limits and then, just as he was about to burn out, pushed him over the edge. I don't think he even knew what had happened.'
'Dear God.' Amaryllis sank deeper into the sofa.
'Afterward I tidied up and came home alone,' Irene said. 'It was the saddest day of my life, but I felt good about it. I knew I had done the right thing.'
