by Jayne Castle
5
SHE DREAMED ONE of the Lost Weekend dreams.
She fled down an endless corridor that glowed green on every side. There was no sound behind her, but she knew that her pursuers were back there in the miles of catacombs searching for her.
She clutched something in one hand but she did not know what it was. She only knew that she dared not drop it.
Then, without warning, she was no longer in a corridor but a vast chamber with a ceiling far higher than any she had ever seen underground.
She was breathless. Her heart was pounding. Something very frightening had just happened but she could not remember what it was.
She stumbled and fell headlong on the green quartz floor. Terrified that she had just brushed against some object that might contain an illusion trap, she scrambled to her feet and turned to see what it was that had tripped her.
A human skull stared back. The eye sockets regarded her without pity or remorse.
The jaw moved. The death’s head spoke. . . .
She came awake in a cold sweat, sitting straight up in bed. “The words.”
Emmett stirred beside her. “What’s wrong?”
At the foot of the bed, Fuzz raised his head. She could see all four of his eyes, the green set as well as the blue glowing in the shadows.
“The words on the scrap of paper I picked up off the floor of Professor Maltby’s apartment,” she whispered.
Emmett levered himself up off the pillows. “What paper?”
“I dropped it into my purse just before you and Detective Martinez arrived.” She pushed aside the covers and stood beside the bed. “I got distracted after that and forgot about it.”
She grabbed her robe and hurried down the short hall to the small table where she had left her purse. Emmett pulled on his khakis and followed at a more leisurely pace, yawning. Fuzz perched on his shoulder, no doubt hoping that this midnight expedition would include a raid on the pretzel jar.
Lydia got the purse open and groped inside. “It’s in here somewhere.”
“Take it easy, honey.” Emmett switched on the hall light. “What made you pick up that paper?”
“Because it looked like the last thing Maltby wrote.” Irritated when she could not locate the scrap of paper, she turned the purse upside down and dumped the contents onto the table. “It was unfinished.”
Emmett began to look interested. “You think he was trying to write a message just before he died?”
“Maybe.”
“You didn’t say anything about this to Martinez.”
“There wasn’t much to say. The message might have been the start of a grocery list, as far as I know. Besides, Martinez was only interested in you and Mercer Wyatt. I doubt that the death of one more down-and-out Chartreuse addict is a high priority for the Cadence cops.”
Emmett watched her sort through the array of items that had tumbled out of the purse. The mix included her wallet, a small jewelry case containing one of the several spare amber bracelets she had purchased after her Lost Weekend, a comb, her business calendar, and a packet of tissues. He studied the round, green quartz object on the bottom.
“What the heck are you doing with a tomb mirror in your purse?”
“Zane found it the other day. He gave it to me.”
Tomb mirrors were among the most common of alien antiquities. No one knew how the aliens had used them but since one side was usually glass smooth and produced a clear, green-tinged reflection, the experts concluded they might have actually been mirrors. One school of thought held that the mirrors had had religious significance.
Tomb mirrors came in a variety of odd shapes and sizes but like most of the other antiquities that had been discovered on Harmony they were made of the same ubiquitous green quartz that the ancient alien colonists had used to construct almost everything. The stuff was virtually indestructible. As far as the experts could tell it was almost completely impervious to the elements and the biological processes that nature used to recycle everything else.
Emmett picked up the little tomb mirror and studied the ornate carvings that surrounded the reflective surface.
“Nice one,” he commented, turning it over in his hand to examine the elegantly worked design on the back.
“Yes, it is.” She finally spotted the scrap of paper trapped in the fold of her wallet. “Thank goodness. For a minute there I thought I had lost it.”
Emmett put the mirror down on the table and studied the torn bit of note paper she held up to the light.
“Amber Hil?” He frowned. “Doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“It didn’t register with me, either, when I found it today. But tonight I had another one of those stupid Lost Weekend dreams. This time I was in some sort of massive chamber. There was a skeleton on the floor.” She broke off, struggling to bring back some of the swiftly evaporating details. “Maybe two skeletons, I’m not sure.”
“Sounds like a major anxiety dream.”
“I knew I had to get out of the chamber and keep moving. They were chasing me.” The little piece of paper in her hand trembled.
“Easy, honey.” Emmett put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close against his hard, warm body. “Just a dream.”
Fuzz hopped from Emmett’s shoulder to Lydia’s and rumbled soothingly in her ear. She raised her hand and patted him.
“I know,” she said, shaking off the aftereffects of the nightmare. “I’m okay. The dream tonight was just my unconscious reminding me about this little note.”
There was no point in telling Emmett that the Lost Weekend dreams were getting more frequent and more bizarre. He would only worry. He had problems enough at the moment.
The truth was, she was hopeful that the nightmares were a sign that her amnesia was starting to clear. In recent months she’d had an increasing number of fleeting glimpses into the dark place where her memories of the Lost Weekend were hidden. To date she had seen nothing solid or identifiable, though. It was like catching sight of a wraith at the corner of her eye. When she turned to look, it disappeared.
But she was convinced now that one day soon she would remember exactly what had happened to her down in the catacombs. When that day arrived, she planned to file the mother of all lawsuits. To that end, she was already drawing up a list of inexpensive lawyers. The problem would be finding one who was gutsy enough to take on the Cadence Guild.
She turned briskly away from the table and went toward the kitchen. “There’s something familiar about what Maltby wrote down. I know I’ve seen these words somewhere else.”
“Any idea where?” Emmett asked behind her.
“Yes.” She yanked open the refrigerator and peered into the glowing interior. “On a milk carton.”
Emmett moved close behind her and studied the carton of milk sitting on the top shelf. “Amber Hills Dairy.”
“Yes.” She waved the piece of paper. “Frankly, I just can’t see a man who was preparing a fix of Chartreuse worrying about picking up a carton of milk at the grocery store, can you?”
“He could have written the words earlier and gotten distracted.”
“Emmett, when you make out a grocery list, you write milk, not the name of the dairy.”
“Huh.”
“I take it you don’t make out a lot of grocery lists.”
He shrugged. “I just go into the store and buy what I want.”
She shook her head and closed the refrigerator door. “Another thing, Maltby’s handwriting was very good and very precise. I saw some examples of it on his desk. But look at the penmanship on this piece of paper. Amber Hil was written with a hand that was shaking badly.”
“Maybe,” Emmett said, clearly unconvinced.
“Know what I think? I think Maltby was trying to write Amber Hills Dairy because he knew he was dying. He was leaving me a clue.”
“Slow down, honey. Why would he use those last few moments of his life to write the name of a commercial dairy?”
“Good
question.” She swung around and started toward the bedroom. “I’m going back to his place to see if I missed something else.”
“Now?” Emmett asked warily.
“I can’t think of a better time, can you?”
“Damn,” Emmett said. “I was afraid of that.”
6
THE FOG HAD rolled in off the river earlier in the evening. It had flooded Hidden Lane, thickening the already deep shadows that nestled in the narrow passage. It was one-thirty in the morning. Only a handful of the windows in the aging apartment buildings that rose on either side of the lane were lit at this hour.
Emmett was well aware that the lack of illumination did not mean that there was not a lot of lively business activity going on in the vicinity. Most of the entrepreneurs who plied their trades and sold their goods in this part of town preferred to work at night and in the shadows. The sole exception might be the Greenie huddled at a small table beneath the lane’s single streetlamp, books stacked in front of him. He did not look all that happy to be on the job at that hour. Emmett didn’t blame him.
The Slider fit, just barely, into a tiny space near the entrance to the flophouse where Maltby had lived. Emmett de-rezzed the engine and looked at Lydia with what he hoped was an expression of stern authority.
“Stick close to me,” he ordered. “I go in first. If anything happens, you let me handle it, understood?”
“Relax.” She unbuckled her belt and opened the door. “What can go wrong? I told you, I just want to have a quick look around Maltby’s place. We’ll be in and out in five minutes.”
“Why doesn’t that reassure me?” he said, cracking the door.
Fuzz, crouched on Lydia’s shoulder, blinked his blue eyes and then, when he realized that Lydia was about to exit the Slider, opened his second set. His small body quivered with what looked like anticipation. He loved the night.
Emmett met Lydia and Fuzz at the front of the vehicle. He summoned a few stray wisps of ghost energy and fixed them to the license plate.
“Well, that should certainly ensure that the car is still here when we get back,” Lydia said with wry appreciation. “No one in his right mind is going to steal a Slider from a ghost-hunter who is strong enough to attach a small ghost to it on a city street.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know about the fear factor but I do know that the ghost energy clinging to the car makes it a hell of a lot easier to find if it does get swiped.”
He opened his para-rez senses as far as possible and knew that Lydia was probably doing the same.
Traces of psi energy trickled, seeped, and flowed all around them. There was nothing unusual about that, not in this part of town. But they felt stronger now than they had earlier in the day. Emmett was not surprised. Although the researchers had never been able to prove it, most people with even an ounce of para-rez sensibility—and that included virtually everyone since the second generation of colonists—were convinced that the ghostly currents whispered a little more loudly after dark.
One popular theory held that it wasn’t the psi energy that was more powerful at night, rather it was that humans were simply more sensitive to it when the sun went down. It made sense, Emmett thought, that without the distraction of the solar radiation that came with daylight, the human mind might be better able to focus on other kinds of energy.
Whatever the reason, there was no denying that here, in the shadows of the walls of the Dead City, things got a lot more interesting between sundown and dawn.
It was difficult to see much of the Greenie at the table. The flowing robes and heavy cowl concealed gender, age, and features very effectively. It was only when the figure spoke to them that Emmett knew for certain it was a man.
“Have you found true bliss?” the Greenie murmured, thrusting a book toward Lydia.
“Not yet,” Lydia said. “But I’m working on it.”
“Read this and learn the thirteen steps that anyone can follow to the secrets of perpetual happiness. The keys to bliss were given to Master Herbert by the spirit of the ancient Harmonic philosopher, Amatheon. They are yours for the taking.” The Greenie pushed the book into her fingers.
“Okay, thanks.” Lydia dropped the book into her purse with an impatient movement.
The Greenie smiled from the depths of his cowl and held out a bowl. “A small contribution is expected. Little enough to ask when you consider that I have just shown you the path to bliss.”
“Forget it.” Lydia yanked the book out of her purse and dropped it on the table. “I’m not paying for perfect bliss. The best things in life are supposed to be free.”
“If you cannot afford to make a contribution now, perhaps you will be able to make it later,” the Greenie muttered.
“Sure,” Lydia said, moving right along.
The Greenie glanced speculatively at Emmett.
“Save your breath,” Emmett advised. “I’m a Guild man. I don’t read much.”
The Greenie sighed and huddled down into his robe.
Emmett took Lydia’s arm and steered her away from the table and up the steps of the apartment house. The door that opened onto the small, dank foyer was unlocked, just as it had been that morning when he had arrived in search of Lydia. The smell in the front hall seemed to have gotten worse in the past few hours.
The entryway was lit by a dim, sputtering, fluo-rez bulb. If there had ever been a light in the narrow corridor beyond, it had burned out long ago.
“Apartment A,” Lydia said. She started forward eagerly.
Emmett wrapped his hand around her arm and hauled her back. “I’ll go first. I’m the hunter here, remember? The overpaid bodyguard?”
“Really, Emmett, we’re not on an expedition underground. I really don’t think—”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that tendency. You ought to watch it.”
He moved into the hall, every sense rezzed.
Nothing shifted in the shadows but he noticed that there was a thin line of light beneath the bottom edge of the door of the apartment directly across from Maltby’s. That was interesting, he thought. There had been no sign of a neighbor when he had arrived earlier today.
He halted in front of Maltby’s door and tried the knob. To his surprise, it turned easily in his hand. The cops and medics hadn’t even bothered to lock up after they removed the body.
He eased the door open. Rusty hinges squeaked.
A faint scraping sound came from somewhere inside the apartment. It was followed immediately by the heavy weight of an unnatural silence; the tense, quivering stillness of someone who has been startled.
He reacted instinctively, pushing Lydia, who was right behind him, back down the hall.
“Stay there.” He gave the order the way he had in the old days down in the catacombs when he had been responsible for the safety of an archaeological team: in a flat, hard voice that let everyone know that he expected full and immediate compliance. He had discovered the hard way that it was the only surefire means of securing the attention of the P-As who tended to get completely distracted by their work and often became oblivious to what was going on around them underground.
Lydia did as she was told, hovering in the corridor. Fuzz quivered in excitement.
Inside the apartment he heard a frantic scrambling sound. Not the rush of movement that indicated someone coming toward him, Emmett realized. More like the noise a person made trying to squeeze through an open window. The intruder had chosen flight rather than a confrontation.
Emmett entered the apartment swiftly, staying low and moving at an angle so that he would not be silhouetted against the weak light from the hall. Adrenaline kicked in, wild and potent. His prey was escaping.
He reached the doorway of the study in a matter of seconds but he knew at once that he was too late. Night air poured through the open window but the room was empty.
He started across the floor, unable to see anything except the pale square of gray light that marked the window. His booted foot struck a heavy bundl
e of what felt like thickly wadded up fabric.
Hell, not another body. He glanced down as he caught his balance. There was just enough light from the alley outside to reveal the bunched-up carpet that had snagged his boot. The intruder must have removed it to get at the floorboards, he thought. The guy had been searching for something.
The delay cost him a crucial few seconds.
By the time he reached the window and flattened himself against the wall, he knew he was too late.
From where he stood he could see a section of the fogbound passage that ran the length of the building. The combination of river mist and darkness made it impossible to spot his quarry but he heard footsteps pounding toward the entrance of the alley.
A lot of footsteps, he thought. Two people, not one.
He considered summoning a ghost to stop the fleeing intruders out in the street. The problem was that he had no way of knowing who else might be in the vicinity. It would not look good in the morning papers if the headlines implied that the new Guild boss made a habit of singing innocent bystanders with wild ghost energy. The damn image thing.
“Emmett?” Lydia’s voice came from the front room. She sounded anxious and alarmed. “Emmett, are you okay? Answer me.”
“I’m okay.”
So much for following orders. Out of nowhere he suddenly recalled the records of the inquiry into Lydia’s Lost Weekend. They had been marked confidential, of course, but he had not had any trouble getting a copy through his Guild connections.
The two hunters who had been assigned to Lydia’s team had testified that she had gotten into trouble because she had not obeyed their orders.
Sometimes it was all too easy to comprehend just how that might have happened, he thought. She was, by nature as well as by training, strong willed. In the pursuit of an objective, she could be very, very determined.
He turned away from the window and saw four eyes glowing in the darkness a short distance away.
“Thanks for the backup, Fuzz.” He reached down and scooped up the dust-bunny, who was sleeked into full hunting mode. “But we missed ’em.”