by Jayne Castle
She spoke casually enough, but the shadows in her eyes made it devastatingly clear that the fear of a second fugue haunted her days as well as her dreams.
When he hung the jacket on the ancient coatrack, he caught a fleeting trace of her scent laced with a residue of her energy. He felt a little intoxicated.
He turned back to her and discovered that she was watching him with a cautious expression. There was some heat in her eyes. He knew that she was well aware of the attraction between them and that she was wary of it. He smiled.
“What?” she demanded.
“It struck me that the principle you just quoted, the one about all things in nature being balanced on the line between harmony and chaos applies to what is going on between you and me,” he said. “I’m on edge when I’m around you. I don’t think it would take much to push me off balance.”
“Don’t even think about it, Sebastian.” She beetled her brows and held up one hand, palm out. “I am not in the mood to be seduced.”
“But your mood could change, right?”
She grimaced. “Now you’re making fun of me.”
“No. But I might be laughing at myself.”
“Why?”
“Forget it. Sit down.” He moved a hand slightly to usher her toward the old chairs near the fireplace. “Let’s get to work.”
She hesitated and then turned to walk briskly toward one of the chairs. He watched her, allowing himself a few seconds to contemplate the lush shape of her rear framed in denim.
Just too damn much energy in the atmosphere tonight, he thought. And a lot of it was circulating right here inside the cottage. He reined in his overheated senses.
“You do realize that you are the first person who has made a connection between the unusual weather pattern and the Preserve?” Rachel asked.
“That’s what I do,” he said. “Look for connections and logical explanations.”
“Do you ever come up with the wrong conclusion?”
“Yes. But not often.”
She settled gracefully on one of the oversized leather chairs and held her hands out to the fire. “Because you’re that good?”
“Not at everything but when it comes to this kind of stuff, yeah. I’m good. You could say I have a talent for the work.”
A knowing look came and went in her eyes. “Just as your great-grandfather had a talent for hunting pirates?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“I can’t stay long this evening,” she warned. “Regardless of how this new storm is being generated, I don’t want to get stuck out here after dark. It’s tough to ride a bike at night here on the island because there are no streetlights.”
“I promise you that you won’t be riding your bike home alone in the dark,” he said. “I’ll drive you back to your place if the storm hits before you leave. How did the tea-tasting event go?”
To his surprise she seemed to hesitate.
“It went fine,” she said. But she didn’t look at him; she gazed into the fire. “Made some money.Emerson Eubanks, the man who runs the seminars, seemed pleased. So did the instructor who organized it, Nathan Grant. They both said something about making it a regular event at each seminar.”
“That would be a good thing, right?”
She nodded. “Definitely.”
“So what went wrong?”
Her mouth curved in a wry smile. “Do you always assume a negative?”
“I don’t have to be psychic to know there was a problem.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s the thing. I don’t know if there was a problem or not. Ever hear the Old World expression, ‘it felt like someone just walked over my grave’?”
A chill went through him. “Something happened at the tasting that made you think of that saying?”
“Uh-huh. When Jilly and I washed the dishes, I picked up a cup. For some reason my intuition stirred, and I sensed a little psychic residue on the cup. I got a small psychic shock and dropped the cup.”
“You can sense that kind of energy?” he asked.
“I can’t read it but like a lot of strong talents, I can catch traces of it, especially if it was laid down by another powerful talent. At any rate, for a few seconds I could have sworn that I half remembered a ghostly aura, one I could not quite see. The harder I tried, the more it faded.”
“Another dream fragment?”
“I think so,” she said. “Now I’m starting to worry that my dream images are messing up my real memories. False memories are worse than no memories.”
“This could be important, Rachel. Do you think that one of the people who attended the tea-tasting is connected to what happened to you?”
A small tremor went through her. She clasped her hands tightly together. “I thought about that possibility, believe me, but I don’t see how that would be possible. The seminar attendees are all new on the island as of last Saturday. I know I’ve never seen any of them before.”
“What about Eubanks and the instructor, Grant?”
She shot him a sidelong look. “I haven’t forgotten your theory about a local resident being responsible for whatever is happening inside the Preserve. Eubanks has been on the island for several months. I heard that Nathan Grant joined the staff a few weeks ago. I took a quick look at their auras this afternoon. I’ve never seen either one before.”
“Unless you’ve forgotten one of them?” he suggested gently.
She sighed. “Unless I’ve forgotten one of them.”
“I don’t understand, you must have met Eubanks previously.”
“Yes, briefly.” Her eyes widened. “I see what you mean. I’ve met him in person, but today was the first day I’ve had a reason to examine his aura. As for Nathan Grant, I’ve talked to him on the phone, but today was the first time I’d met him in person and, therefore, the first time I’ve had a chance to view his aura.”
“You don’t automatically view an individual’s aura whenever you see him or her?”
“If I’m in my senses, I can perceive some paranormal energy around everyone but I can’t read that energy with any degree of accuracy unless I focus through crystal. Frankly, most of the time I prefer not to look at people’s auras.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s a terribly intimate experience, for one thing,” Rachel said. “Much worse than reading someone’s diary or learning an individual’s most closely held secrets.”
“It feels intrusive.”
“It is intrusive,” Rachel said. “What’s more, it’s often depressing because I can see weaknesses and flaws that I know people could overcome if they just exerted the willpower to do it.”
“But you know they probably won’t make the effort to change.”
“And I also know that they will go through the rest of their lives blaming their problems on others,” she concluded. “But that’s not the worst of it. The most unpleasant thing about doing in-depth aura readings is discovering how many people are actually low-level, garden-variety psi-paths—people who will lie, cheat, or steal without a qualm just to get what they want. Then there are the real monsters.”
“I get the picture.”
“Take my word for it, if I read the aura of every person I encountered on the street, I’d probably end up in a para-psych ward.”
“But you did read Eubanks’s aura today,” he said. “What did you see?”
“Just what you’d expect in someone who is in the motivational seminar line. He’s a con man who has managed to con himself into believing that he really does have a message that others need to hear.”
“What about Nathan Grant, the instructor?”
Rachel frowned. “His aura was murky. I couldn’t get a good fix on it. That happens sometimes. To do a reading on him I’d probably need physical contact.”
“How many murky auras do you run into?”
She raised one shoulder in a small, graceful shrug. “It’s not all that uncommon.”
“But you didn’t see an
ything in his aura that would lead you to believe that he’s involved in whatever is going down out in the Preserve?”
She sat back in her chair. “It doesn’t work like that, Harry. I’m not a human lie detector. Everyone has a dark side and most people are capable of doing dangerous or illegal things if the goal is worth it.”
“I’ll add Eubanks and Grant to my list of persons of interest.” He indicated the files spread out on the low table. “Meanwhile, I went through the records that Slade pulled for me. These are the ones I thought might have some significance. I’d like to go over them with you.”
“Okay, but I’m telling you again, you’re wasting your time. I have no idea what’s going on in the Preserve, let alone who in town might be responsible.”
“You’ve made that clear.”
He sat down across from her and opened his senses a little to luxuriate in the exotic, mysterious energy that she had brought with her into the small cabin.
She surveyed the room. “No one has lived here in a very long time.”
“This place is the property of the Foundation. In the old days there was a gatekeeper stationed here on the island, but we rarely use it now.”
Rachel looked amused. “For goodness’ sake, why did the Foundation need a gatekeeper? There aren’t any actual gates in the fence, are there?”
“Okay, in reality the gatekeeper functioned as a guard.”
“To protect the treasure?”
“Back in the day, no one at the Foundation was worried that someone might find the damn rocks. The problem was that people kept searching for a legendary treasure that never existed.”
She smiled. “The lure of pirate amber.”
“During the first few years after my great-grandfather’s legend started to circulate around the islands of the Amber Sea, a fair number of treasure hunters disappeared inside the Preserve, never to be seen again. To discourage the treasure hunting, the Foundation experimented with keeping an armed guard stationed on the island for a time. It didn’t work well.”
“Treasure hunters tend to be the obsessive type.”
“Yes,” he said. “But eventually the Foundation techs came up with ways to enhance the effectiveness of the fence. It was decided that a guard was no longer necessary.”
“Rainshadow has always been forbidden territory. The tales of ghosts and monsters existed long before your ancestor came ashore to bury those crystals. They go back to the days of the First Generation explorers who mapped the Amber Sea islands and the Colonial-era fishermen who worked these waters.”
“That’s why my great-grandfather and North chose this place to bury the three stones,” he said. “They figured that even if someone did get past the energy fence, he or she probably wouldn’t be able to locate the treasure, let alone get out alive. Entire expeditions have disappeared into what is now the Preserve. The interior has never been mapped because the energy inside is so disorienting that compasses and other instruments don’t work. Can’t even get a visual fix on landmarks from the air because of the distortion created by the paranormal currents.”
Rachel watched him very steadily. “I’ve always wondered what made the first Harry Sebastian think that he could go through the psi barrier, bury his treasure, and find his way back to his ship.”
“He was a very powerful talent.”
“Strong talents have started appearing recently in the population, but, statistically speaking, they’re still rare. They would have been a lot more scarce when your ancestor was working these waters. I’m guessing that the members of your family didn’t start developing psychic abilities after settling here on Harmony. Your First Generation ancestors were talents before they arrived, weren’t they?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Arcane?”
“No. The Sebastians have never been what you would call ‘joiners.’ What about your family?”
“My ancestors were members of the Arcane Society for generations back on Earth, but after they arrived on Harmony they lost contact with the organization. I think they just assumed that they wouldn’t need its protection and social connections any longer. They thought things would be different here for those with psychic talents.”
Harry smiled grimly. “They weren’t the only ones who believed that. Some things have definitely changed in the past two hundred years here on Harmony, but most strong talents still try to keep a low profile.”
“Power is power, and a person who possesses a lot of psychic talent tends to make other people nervous and with good reason. Some talents can do as much damage with their paranormal abilities as other folks can do with a knife or a mag-rez.”
“Are you quoting from the Principles or are you speaking from experience?”
“Both.” Shadows came and went in her eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, a powerful talent with a criminal mind is far more dangerous than a thug with a mag-rez. A strong psychic can do a lot more harm before he’s caught. If he’s ever caught.”
“When was the last time you encountered a strong criminal psychic?”
“I met one during my short career at the Chapman Clinic.” She shuddered. “I still get cold chills when I think about Marcus Lancaster. But the worst part was that I couldn’t convince my superiors to listen to me. Lancaster has Dr. Oakford and the rest of the staff completely fooled.”
A flicker of intuition crackled through Harry. “Is that why you were let go? You disagreed with the staff’s professional diagnosis of Lancaster?”
“You knew I was fired?” She made a face. “Yes, of course you did. You’re in the security business. You would have done your research. To be honest, I don’t think I would have lasted long at Chapman, even if Lancaster had not been an issue. I didn’t fit into the clinical setting.”
“They didn’t appreciate your talent,” he said. He had never met Dr. Ian Oakford and probably never would, but he had an explicable urge to rip Oakford’s head off his shoulders.
But Rachel was suddenly laughing, a warm, bright, from-the-heart laugh that sent good energy swirling around the room.
“Nope,” she said. “Oakford did not appreciate or respect my talent. And really, how often does that happen in life?”
He smiled. “You’re right.”
“Let’s get back to your little problem.”
“My little problem?”
“I’m aware of the history of the island before it was claimed by your family’s corporation,” Rachel said coolly. “But the details are very murky after that. The Rain-shadow Foundation has never been what anyone would call transparent about the way it manages the Preserve.”
“Mostly because there’s nothing to manage except the damn fence. You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that we don’t know anything more about what is going on inside the Preserve than anyone else does. We’ve never had any control over the forces in the interior. All we can do is try to protect folks from themselves by keeping treasure hunters, adventurous kids, drunken boaters, and thrill-seekers out. We didn’t put up the first psi-fence, by the way.”
For the first time, Rachel looked startled. “Really?” “According to the records, there has always been a strong force field around most of the island.”
“It’s no secret that the island has always had a serious woo-woo factor, but I’ve never heard that there was an actual psi-fence around it before the Foundation took over.”
“That’s because the early one was only partially effective when it came to keeping humans out. My theory—and the experts at the Foundation agree with me—is that the Aliens installed the original psi barrier to keep their own kind out.”
“So it was set to the frequencies of Alien psi?” she asked.
“Sure. Why would they have been concerned about a bunch of stranded colonists from some no-name planet who landed a couple of thousand years after they left? They never saw us coming.”
“Okay, your logic makes sense. The fence wasn’t originally tuned to human frequencies. Your point?�
�
“My point,” Harry said deliberately, “is that the Aliens must have erected the original energy fence for a reason, probably a very good reason.”
Rachel stilled. Her amber eyes heated with sudden comprehension. She pursed her lips and shook her head in wonderment.
“Now that,” she said carefully, “is a rather scary thought. What was inside the Preserve that was so important or so dangerous that the Aliens would have put up a high-tech psi-fence?”
“We don’t know and it didn’t seem to matter because until now, the Preserve has been quiet ever since my ancestor claimed the island. The assumption was that whatever had once been locked up on the other side of the boundary had died or disintegrated centuries ago.”
“Died or disintegrated?”
“We have no way of knowing what was locked up inside. Could have been animal, vegetable, or mechanical in nature.”
“I see,” she said.
“Remember, at this point it’s all wild speculation based on the existence of what we think was intended to be an energy fence. We could be wrong about our basic assumption. Whatever the case, now that the currents are getting hot inside we need some answers and we need them fast.”
She frowned in thought. “But why would the Aliens have kept something that was vitally important to them here on an island in the middle of nowhere?”
“Good question. The para-archaeologists and other experts concluded years ago that something about the surface environment of Harmony was poisonous to the Aliens. That’s why they went underground and bioengineered an entire rain forest, and that’s why ninety percent of the ruins are down below in the catacombs.”
“Exactly. Everything that seems to have been crucial to their well-being is belowground, not up here on the surface.”
“Yet they paid special attention to this one lone island located in the middle of an unimportant chain of islands in a remote sea,” Harry said.