by Jayne Castle
The sartorial difference lay in the details. Unlike the silver or gold accessories that her male relatives favored, Fontana wore amber. Even the buttons of his shirt and his cuff links were set with amber. So was his belt buckle, the face of his watch, and, of course, the seal ring.
She was sure that every bit of the amber she could see was tuned. What's more, she suspected that he had amber elsewhere on his person, perhaps embedded in a shoe or on a key chain. Guild men carried backup amber in the same spirit that cops carried concealed guns. They knew that someday their lives might depend on the extra firepower.
But ghost hunters worked underground in the catacombs and the mysterious alien rain forest where the unpredictable currents of psi energy made high-tech weaponry and most machinery useless. Down below in the tunnels and in the jungle, survival depended on the ability to work tuned amber.
The paranormal ability to psychically resonate with amber and use it to focus the brain's natural energy had begun to appear among the colonists shortly after they had settled on Harmony. At first it had been viewed as a kind of biological quirk or curiosity. Scientists had concluded that something in the planet's environment stimulated the latent power in the human mind.
But the true value of the para-resonating talent had soon become evident. Now, two hundred years after the energy Curtain had closed, isolating the colonies, amber was the chief source of energy. It was used to power everything from washing machines to computers.
For most people, the ability to generate and direct currents of psychic energy was a low-level, generalized talent. There were those, however, who exhibited much higher levels of para-resonating ability. In such cases the talent always took a highly specialized form and was directly linked to objects and artifacts left behind by the first colonists on Harmony, the long-vanished alien empire. All of the relics of the lost civilization radiated heavy psi energy.
The aliens had disappeared eons before the arrival of the settlers from Earth, but they had left behind a vast network of catacombs that crisscrossed the planet beneath its surface. Recently a massive underground rain forest had also been discovered. Like the tunnels, the jungle was filled with strong currents of psi. Some of it took dangerous forms. That was where ghost hunters came in.
Hunters were prime examples of para-resonators with strong but extremely limited talents. Their psychic abilities, while admittedly impressive, were not exactly multifunctional skill sets. As far as anyone had been able to discover, the only use for a hunter's talent was to manipulate and control the highly volatile, potentially lethal balls of fiery, acid-green alien energy known technically as unstable dissonance energy manifestations—UDEMs.
Everyone called the miniature storms ghosts, because they seemed to drift like lost specters through the underground world, creating major hazards for those who ventured beneath the surface.
Getting singed by a ghost was no small disaster. A close encounter with the wild energy fields could destroy a person's psychic senses. It could also put the unlucky victim into a coma from which he might never recover. The only people who could control the ghosts were those who could resonate with the chaotic dissonance energy that fueled them: ghost hunters.
Exploration and excavation of the mysterious tunnels and, more recently, the rain forest was big business. Corporations, university research teams, and private individuals all competed to discover and recover the secrets that the aliens had left behind. Only hunters could offer protection underground in the heavy psi environment. If you wanted to hire a few as security for your research or exploration team, you had to go through the Guilds.
The result was that the Guilds exerted enormous control over who got to conduct business underground. The law of supply and demand being what it was, the organizations had become extremely powerful over the years. Their tentacles reached down into the underworld and throughout society as well. A man in Fontana's position could exert enormous pressure on politicians, CEOs, and influential people at every level.
In Sierra's opinion, the situation had gotten considerably worse in the past year with the opening up of the rain forest to explorers, researchers, and old-fashioned treasure hunters. The Guilds, never slow to recognize a business opportunity when they saw it, had moved swiftly to exert their authority over the eerie buried jungle, just as they did over the catacombs.
There was no question but that jungle exploration was hazardous. In addition to a host of strange new plant and animal species, treacherous currents of energy flowed through the rain forest. It turned out that certain types of hunters could navigate the so-called ghost rivers. The Guilds had found a new and extremely profitable market niche.
Power was power, and whether he admitted it or not, Fontana wielded a lot of the stuff.
He looked up from the piece she had written on him, his expression politely neutral. "You seem to think that, on their good days, ghost hunters are just a bunch of overpaid bodyguards. On our off days we're flat-out criminals."
"I never wrote that you were all criminals," she said quickly. Ivor Runtley, publisher and editor of the Curtain, had made it clear that, while he was willing to allow her a lot of leeway, he definitely did not want her bringing the full wrath of the new Guild boss down on his beloved paper.
Fontana tossed the paper aside. "Okay, I'll concede that you did not actually use the word criminal. But it's obvious that you don't think highly of those in my profession."
"I believe that the Guilds have far too much power when it comes to what goes on underground. A great deal of power in the hands of any one organization is always dangerous."
"Do you really think it would be a good idea to strip the Guilds of their authority underground?" he asked.
"I'm not saying that some control and organization isn't necessary. Everyone knows that people with your sort of talents are necessary for safe exploration."
"My sort of talents?" he asked softly. "What do you know about my talents?"
"You're obviously a hunter, a powerful one, I'm sure. You wouldn't have made it to the top of the Guild unless you were a very strong dissonance energy para-rez talent." She paused. "Of some kind."
She tacked on that last line very deliberately. Historically, the Guilds had always maintained that there was only one sort of hunter talent: the ability to work green ghost light. But in the course of her new career as an investigative reporter, she had picked up some very interesting rumors hinting that some hunters could work other kinds of alien psi, specifically silver and blue light. If it was true that there were some exotic hunter talents, it was yet another secret that the Guilds were keeping. She doubted very much that she could trick Fontana into admitting it, but it had been worth a shot.
"Let's assume for the moment that you know all you think you need to know about me," he said, ignoring the subtle dig about unpublicized talents. "What about you?"
She froze. Elvis, sensing her distress, left his coffee and skittered across the desk. He jumped down onto her knee and then bounded up her arm to sit on her shoulder. She reached up and touched him in a reassuring manner.
Fontana could not possibly know about her own talent, she told herself. He was fishing in the dark, trying to provoke her the same way she had tried to prod him. They were after each other's secrets.
"I'm a reporter, Mr. Fontana," she said coldly. "Whatever talents I have are in the realm of journalism."
He gave her a slow, knowing, shatteringly intimate smile. "I'm not buying that, not for a minute. I know power when I sense it, Miss McIntyre."
"I did not come here to talk about myself. This was supposed to be an interview with you." She closed her notebook and slipped it into her purse. "But it appears that isn't going to happen, so I might as well be on my way."
"You surprise me. I didn't think you'd give up so easily."
She got to her feet. "I don't mind wasting your time, but I'm not real keen on wasting my own."
"Sit down, Miss McIntyre."
"Why?"
&
nbsp; "Because I am, as the old saying goes, about to make you an offer you can't refuse."
"Are you threatening me?"
"I hope you won't take it that way."
"And if I refuse?"
He smiled. "You won't."
"Why won't I?"
"Because I'm going to give you a shot at a real exclusive, the biggest story of your career."
"Sure."
"You don't trust me, do you?"
"No farther than I could throw you."
He watched her with a steady, unwavering look. "I'm dead serious."
It was the word dead that aroused all her new journalistic instincts. Okay, maybe he was serious.
"This would be a Guild story?" she asked warily.
"Yes."
"What, exactly, do I have to do to get this hot exclusive?"
"Marry me."
Chapter 2
SHE SAT DOWN AGAIN. HARD. SO HARD THAT THE DUST bunny on her shoulder bounced a little and had to scramble to hang on to his perch.
The stunned, vaguely horrified expression on Sierra's face would have been a lot more satisfying if it had not been elicited by the prospect of marrying him, Fontana thought. So what if they had only met forty-five—he glanced at his watch—make that forty-seven minutes ago? So what if she had made it crystal clear that she considered Guild bosses, as a class, to be legalized mobsters? The fact that she was literally shocked speechless by the notion of marrying him was proving a little hard on the ego, probably because when she had walked through his door forty-seven minutes ago, he'd been nearly floored by the rush.
It had taken a great deal of willpower just to make normal conversation. He'd experienced his share of fast-acting attractions in the past. Hell, he liked women. But this all-consuming fascination with Sierra McIntyre was startlingly, disturbingly, intriguingly different.
The effect had struck full force on both the normal and the paranormal plane, shaking him to the core. His psychic senses were as dazzled as his physical senses, and that was nothing short of unique in his experience. Always, always, he had been able to separate the two realms when it came to his relationships with women. But this time it was as if something deep inside him had instantly recognized and responded to Sierra McIntyre, as if he'd been waiting for her without having been consciously aware of it.
It wasn't just her looks. He'd seen any number of more beautiful women in his life. Which wasn't to say that Sierra was not attractive, he thought. The appeal, however, was unconventional and wholly unexpected, at least for him. He usually went for the polished, sleek, sophisticated type, the kind of women who knew how to play the sexual game. He liked them tall. Sierra McIntyre was on the short side, even in her high-heeled pumps. He liked them willowy. Sierra had a definite tendency toward roundness. He liked blondes who wore their long hair in dramatic upswept styles.
Sierra's hair was the color of fall leaves. Wildly curly, it looked as if she had lost control somewhere along the line and had simply given up trying to tame it. Her face was intelligent. Her eyes were the alluring blue green of a tropical lagoon, very big and very knowing. They were framed by a pair of serious-looking glasses.
Although this was the first time they had met in person, he knew a lot about Sierra McIntyre. As was his custom, he'd done his research before he'd plotted his strategy.
It was Sierra's gutsy determination that had first drawn his attention. There weren't many people in Crystal, male or female, who were willing to criticize the Guild and its policies, let alone go after Brock Jenner. Two possible explanations had come to mind. Either Sierra's obsession with exposing Guild secrets was driven by a personal vendetta or else she was one of those irritating, naive do-gooders bent on righting wrongs and speaking out for those who had no voice.
Now that he had met her, he knew for certain that the latter was the answer. No wonder Jenner had been so annoyed with her. It was hard to crush do-gooders. You couldn't buy them off, and overt threats were risky, especially for a man in Jenner's position. It would not have looked good for a Guild boss to send a couple of goons to a lady journalist's door, especially when it was a given that the journalist in question would go straight to the cops and then splash the story across the front page of a tabloid.
Sierra finally got her mouth closed. "What did you say about marriage?" she asked very carefully.
"This is going to take a little explaining," he said.
Her dark brows scrunched together above the frames of her serious glasses. "I think so, yes."
He went to stand at the window and looked out at the towering green wall that enclosed the ancient alien ruins of the Dead City. Traces of ambient energy whispered everywhere throughout the Old Quarter. He could feel them here in his office, and he knew that Sierra sensed them, too.
Not that you had to be a high-level para-rez to respond to the stuff. Even those with average sensitivity picked up on the currents that leaked from the ruins and the tunnels below. Almost everyone got a little buzz from alien psi. For that reason the seedy Old Quarters in all of the city-states were popular with tourists and the nightclub crowd.
Two hundred years earlier the colonists from Earth had established their first towns in the shadows of the ruins of the four Dead Cities that had been discovered on Harmony. Crystal was no exception. The two-hundred-year-old structures built by the humans appeared stolid and grimly functional compared to the ethereal spires and the fantastical domes that the aliens had left behind.
But unlike the aliens, the colonists from Earth had been at home on Harmony right from the start. Even after the energy Curtain that had made travel between Earth and Harmony possible mysteriously closed, the settlers had not only survived but thrived.
Things had evidently been much different for the aliens. The experts had come to the conclusion that something about the very atmosphere of the planet had been poisonous to the ancients. The long-vanished people had been forced to enclose their cities within towering green quartz walls that gave off the psi they must have needed to survive. Eventually they had retreated underground. In the end they had either abandoned the planet altogether or simply died out. No one knew for certain what had become of the Others. It was one of the many mysteries that surrounded them.
"I'm waiting for your explanation, Mr. Fontana," Sierra said.
He could tell from the cool tone of her voice that she had herself back under control. He also sensed that her reporter's curiosity had surfaced. That was good. His entire plan hinged on it.
"What I'm going to tell you stays between us and is strictly off the record until I say otherwise," he said. "Is that understood?"
"I'm making no promises until I know what I'm getting into."
He turned around to face her. "You really don't trust anyone connected to the Guild, do you?"
"Nope."
"Because you are convinced that there is some conspiracy going on inside the organization."
"Yep."
He went back to the desk and picked up the copy of the Curtain. "A conspiracy to conceal the discovery of an alien lab somewhere in the rain forest."
"Uh-huh."
"Care to tell me why you're so sure there's been a discovery of such potentially monumental significance and why the Guild would want to conceal it?"
"Gee, no, I don't think so."
"Because it would mean revealing your sources?"
She hesitated for a couple of beats before she answered. "That's right."
Why the slight pause before what should have been a predictable professional response? he wondered. Maybe she didn't have any solid sources, after all. If that was the case, his scheme was doomed.
But that didn't make sense. She had not merely reported vague rumors of the alien lab. She had linked it to the dealing of the illegal drug known as ghost juice, and she had documented the disappearance of a number of homeless men who had become addicts. She knew more about the damn conspiracy than he did. He needed her.
He angled himself onto a corner of
the desk, one foot on the floor.
"You know," he said, "this conversation probably isn't going to go far unless one of us takes a flier and decides to trust the other person."
She raised her brows. And waited.
"Guess that would be me," he said finally. "Okay, here goes. I happen to agree with you, Miss McIntyre. There is a conspiracy going on. What's more, my predecessor was involved in the cover-up."
Her eyes widened. "You're admitting it?"
"Yes."
"Hang on." She unzipped her purse and started to delve inside for her pen and notepad.
He reached down and captured her hand. The bones of her wrist felt delicate and graceful.
"No notes," he said.
Her mouth tightened. She looked pointedly at his fingers encircling her wrist.
He realized that he did not want to let her go. Reluctantly, he released her.
There was a moment of tense silence. Elvis, having evidently concluded that they weren't leaving, after all, fluttered off Sierra's shoulder and returned to the coffee mug on the desk.
Reluctantly, Sierra sat back in her chair, drumming her fingers on the arms.
"All right," she said. "No notes. Tell me about the cover-up."
"Unfortunately, I don't know much more than you do. Maybe less."
She acknowledged that with a small, disdainful sniff. "Try again, Mr. Fontana."
"A few months ago some of the other members of the Crystal Council and I began to suspect that Jenner was involved in the ghost juice business."
"The police think that the juice is being distributed by the Night Riders, a motorcycle gang," she pointed out.
"It is, but that doesn't mean that Jenner wasn't involved. He covered his tracks very well, but there were rumors. We hired an outside investigator to go undercover."