“Someone certainly tried,” Gwendolyn said.

Most of the people associated with the old lab had died under mysterious circumstances within months after it was shut down. Aurora Winston may have been the only one who survived, and that was probably because she had managed to disappear with her young daughter, Gwendolyn and Eloisa’s mother.

Aurora Winston had ended her days in an insane asylum. Gwendolyn and Eloisa had not discovered the truth about their grandmother until they found her private journal while cleaning out their mother’s attic.

Gwendolyn told Eloisa about Aurora Winston’s solution to the problem of weaponizing paranormal energy. When she was finished there was a lengthy silence while Eloisa processed the information.

“Brilliant,” she finally whispered. She sounded genuinely awed. “Grandmother was fucking brilliant. We have to find that old lab, Gwen.”

“We’re getting close,” Gwendolyn said. “I’m sure of it. The camera is the key.”

A muffled thud reverberated through the floorboards beneath her feet. She sighed.

“Sounds like I’ve caught a rat in my trap,” she said. “I’d better go take care of it. Talk to you soon.”

“Right. Oh, and Gwen?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

“You, too.”

Gwendolyn hung up, crossed the room and unlocked the door that led to the basement sales floor.

At the top of the stairs she paused to shut the door. The basement was illuminated in an eerie glow thanks to the large number of hot artifacts crammed together in the windowless space.

She flipped the light switch at the top of the stairs. The regular gallery lighting came up, revealing the glass and steel display cases.

She descended the stairs and made her way through the crowded space to the rattrap. Sure enough, there was a body on the floor. She did not recognize the raider.

She donned her leather apron and a pair of gloves and went through the dead man’s pockets. She found a wallet. The driver’s license identified the raider as one Harold Molland. The address was a town in California.

Gwendolyn looked at the four-foot-tall clockwork doll dressed in a vintage nurse’s outfit, complete with perky white cap, white dress and white shoes and stockings. The doll held a syringe in one mechanical hand.

The rattrap was efficient and lethal. The nurse was stationed near the concealed tunnel. The syringe in the doll’s hand was filled with a drug that stopped the heart within seconds. The trap was triggered by anyone who tried to enter the basement via the tunnel.

For the most part the local raiders avoided Swan Antiques. No one knew exactly what happened to those who attempted to steal from the shop, but it was no secret in the Pacific Northwest underworld that security on the premises was tight.

“He’s not from around here,” Gwendolyn said to the clockwork nurse. “That’s not a good sign. It means the rumors about Vortex are spreading beyond Seattle.”

The clockwork doll did not respond. Gwendolyn refilled the syringe and reset the old-fashioned spring mechanism in the platform. When it came to basic security, sometimes the old-fashioned ways were the most effective.