“I’ve been living here for nearly a year,” North said. “I haven’t seen a ghost.”

He had uncovered some fascinating secrets inside the Abyss but, to date, no specters.

“Surprised the place is still standing,” the driver said. “It’s been sitting out here in the desert since the middle of the last century. Abandoned. They say even the squatters and the transients didn’t try to go inside.”

“The house can take care of itself.” North opened the door and got out. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Sure. Anytime.”

The driver made a U-turn and sped off toward the lights of Las Vegas in the distance.

The security box looked vintage mid-twentieth century but the electronics inside were anything but standard issue for the era. Behind the panel there was a green crystal.

He opened the panel, touched the crystal and sent a little energy through the stone. At least he could still summon enough heat to open his own front gate. He remembered his advice to Jake. Look on the bright side.

The heavy steel gates swung inward.

He walked into the big desert garden and used the crystal on the inside wall to relock the gates.

He pushed a whisper of energy through another crystal to bring up the low lighting that illuminated the winding walk through the cactus garden. Until recently he hadn’t needed the small lamps to make his way through the maze of cacti planted around the house. But with the glasses on he had no choice.

It was an interesting collection of exotic cacti, but the garden had not been designed for decorative purposes or to conserve water. The sharp thorns of the plants served as a defensive perimeter. An intruder who managed to get over the high walls at night would be faced with a dangerous obstacle course. Only someone who was a direct descendant of Griffin Chastain could activate the footpath lights.

The cactus garden would be the least of an intruder’s problems. There were far more dangerous barriers waiting in the shadows, security devices only a master magician with a psychic talent could have engineered.

When North reached the grand entrance he touched another crystal lock. The big red lacquered doors swung open. Once inside he touched the crystal switch that turned on the massive chandelier that hung from the ceiling above the two-story circular foyer.

Arched doorways off the rotunda opened onto the ground-floor rooms. A grand staircase provided access to the upper floor. The house had been decorated in what his mother described as mid-century-Vegas-over-the-top. Okay, so Griffin Chastain had liked mirrors. Most magicians did.

Lily Chastain had shaken her head when he had announced that he planned to move into his grandfather’s mansion. “It’s too much house for anyone, especially a single man, and trust me, no woman will want to live there. It may not be haunted but it gives me the creeps.”

His father, Chandler, had understood. The house was, after all, a large, ongoing crystal light engineering experiment.