“Yes.” North left the doorway and crossed the room to pick up the flashlight. “There’s some weird energy in here. Feel it?”

“Yes,” she said. She looked around. “It has the vibe of an artifact. But I don’t see anything.”

North switched off the flashlight. With the space plunged into total darkness, Sierra became aware of a faint glow seeping out between the cracks of a cupboard door. The eerie ultraviolet radiance was clearly paranormal in nature.

“It’s in there,” she said quietly, and put her gloves back on.

North crossed the space and opened the cupboard door. A small, square, steel container about the size of a jewelry box sat on the top shelf. The lid was open. The strange light originated from the interior.

North reached up for the device.

“No,” Sierra said. “Let me handle it. I’m the expert, remember?”

She went to the cupboard, stood on tiptoe and stretched to pick up the artifact.

The instant her gloved fingers closed around it, she knew she had made a mistake.

She leaped back and spun around. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“Yeah, I got that impression.”

“We can’t leave Matt,” Sierra said.

“I’ll handle him. Here, take the flashlight.”

He tossed it to her, holstered his gun, slung Matt over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and followed her toward the doorway.

Behind them paranormal light sparked and then blazed from the box, flooding the old apartment in a senses-dazzling glare.

Halfway to the door an icy tsunami of energy swept over Sierra. The shock to her senses threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t breathe. She could no longer move. A terrifying darkness closed in on her. She realized she was about to pass out. Frantically she struggled to rally her talent.

North was beside her now. He ripped off his sunglasses. He had Matt draped over his shoulders but he reached out with one hand to grab Sierra’s arm. Another kind of shock zapped through her, a fortifying rush of heat and power.

Suddenly she could breathe again. The waves of dazzling light crashing through the small space receded. Not because of anything she was doing to hold back the tide, she realized. Some other force was at work.

North. She realized he was using his own aura to shield Matt and her from the violent energy released by whatever was inside the steel box.

“Let’s go,” North said.

He hauled her toward the doorway. They made it out into the hall. There was now a solid wall between them and the exploding waves of light. It absorbed a significant amount of the energy. Sierra recovered her senses.

“I’m okay,” she said.

North released her arm. In the seconds it took for him to slap on his glasses she caught a glimpse of his eyes. She could not make out the color but she had no trouble perceiving the heat of paranormal energy. Whatever else he might be, North was a very strong talent.