by Jayne Castle
"You brought in a private investigator?" She was clearly intrigued.
"A former hunter."
"What happened?"
"Three weeks into the job, he turned up dead."
"Nathan Harder." Sierra was suddenly very focused. "I wondered about that. The official story was that he got caught in a ghost river whirlpool, and when they finally pulled him out, he was brain-dead."
"Following Harder's death, my associates and I decided that whatever was going on was more widespread and more dangerous than we had realized. We figured it was time for Jenner to retire."
"According to the press release, Jenner suffered a stroke and died. Is that the Guild's idea of a golden parachute?"
"We believe Jenner was murdered."
She sat very still in her chair. "By you?"
He smiled his faint, dangerous smile. "I know this will come as a great disappointment to you, Miss McIntyre, but the answer to your question is no. I didn't kill Jenner. I think someone put something lethal into his IV line."
"I see." Well, you couldn't expect the man to confess to a reporter.
"The strategy the other Council members and I put together did not call for Jenner's death," Fontana added patiently. "We just wanted him out of this office. We thought that would be sufficient."
"What was your so-called strategy for getting rid of him?"
"An old-fashioned one. I challenged him to a duel. He lost."
"Good grief. The Guilds still conduct ghost energy duels to determine the next chief?" Disgust dripped in every word. "I've heard rumors, but I assumed that sort of archaic approach to running the organizations had been halted long ago."
"Occasionally there's something to be said for the old ways."
She raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Talk about primitive, testosterone-driven behavior."
"Within the Guild we prefer to call it tradition."
"Right. Tradition."
"Jenner wasn't married. That made things easier."
"He was between Marriages of Convenience," she said sharply. "Everyone said that he was shopping for his fifth wife."
"Like I said, that situation made things simpler."
"Why is that?" she asked, baffled.
"Theoretically, anyone in the Guild can challenge the chief to a ghost light duel. If the Council approves, the duel takes place."
"Sounds like a Guild version of a vote of no confidence in the CEO."
He smiled humorlessly. "It is. But a Guild boss's wife has certain privileges. She can go before the Council and demand that the challenger be denied. No one can override her. It's another old tradition designed to stabilize the power structure of the Guilds and protect the chief from dealing with the distraction that would be caused by constant challenges."
Sierra whistled softly. "Well, that certainly explains why Guild bosses are almost always married."
"The tradition does tend to reinforce family values."
"Some family values. Jenner went through a lot of wives, but he never got involved in a Covenant Marriage. His relationships were always Marriages of Convenience."
Her disapproval amused him. Marriages of Convenience were legal, if short-term contracts, but a lot of well-bred, conservative-minded people tended to view them as nothing more than socially sanctioned affairs. There were major differences, however, and he was intimately aware of the high cost of those differences.
When the First Generation colonists had found themselves cut off forever from Earth, they had understood that the survival of their small society depended on stability. Given that the basic building blocks of any civilization are families, the Founders had done everything in their power to make the ties that bind as strong as possible.
They had set up two forms of marriage. Covenant Marriages were formal and intended to be permanent. Getting out of a CM was a legal and financial nightmare. If there were children involved, it was impossible to dissolve the contract until all of the offspring were eighteen years of age.
The second form of marriage, the kind Jenner had favored, was known as a Marriage of Convenience. They were arrangements that, while offering all the legal protections of marriage, could be dissolved in a heartbeat by either party, unless there were offspring. The birth of a child immediately transformed an MC into a formal Covenant Marriage.
The Founders had done their best, but all the legal and social engineering in the world could not prevent the occasional birth of someone like himself, Fontana thought. A bastard.
"We believe that Jenner terminated his last marriage because he didn't think he could count on his wife to defend him if there was a challenge," Fontana said.
Sierra's eyes narrowed faintly. "There was gossip to the effect that he had abused her."
"As I recall, that gossip appeared only in the Curtain. One of your pieces, I believe."
She shrugged. "It was no secret."
"Actually, it was. No one on the Council was aware of the abuse until the story ran in your paper."
"Talk about willful ignorance. The former Mrs. Jenner spent several days recovering in a private hospital after her husband lost his temper and beat her up the last time. Evidently it was the final straw for her. She wanted to warn other women about him. That's why she agreed to talk to me."
He shook his head, straightened away from the desk, and went back to the window. "You're amazing, Miss McIntyre. How the devil did you find Alison in that private clinic? We all believed that she'd gone off to spend a week at a spa in Resonance City. The next thing anyone knew, she had filed for divorce and disappeared."
"As a matter of fact, she contacted me."
"Probably because she knew you would be willing to print the story. I doubt if any other paper in town would have touched it."
"Probably. Why were you the one chosen to go against Jenner in a ghost duel?"
He deliberated a few seconds, deciding how much to say. In the end he compromised. "Jenner was no ordinary hunter. He was extremely powerful. Everyone knew that there was no one else on the Council who stood a chance against him."
"Except you."
"Except me," he agreed quietly.
"What makes you so special?"
"It's complicated."
"In other words, you're not going to tell me."
"No," he said.
"Just another Guild secret?"
"Yes."
"You know, one of these days, someone really ought to introduce the concept of democracy to you guys. It's this really cool way of running things. You get to elect your leaders."
He smiled. "Sounds inefficient."
"It's messy, but it works, and it sure beats dueling with ghost light. Never mind, let's get back to Jenner. You said you didn't kill him?"
"I won the duel, but Jenner didn't die because of his injuries. He was temporarily brain-fried, but he would have recovered." He paused. "Although his para-rez talents would never have been as strong as they were before the duel." In fact, they would have been nonexistent, but he saw no reason to elaborate.
"In other words, you really burned him."
He said nothing. The duel had been a hellish business that had almost cost him his life. Jenner had not only been a strong para-resonator, he'd worked deadly blue light, not regular green ghost energy. But there was no way to explain that to Sierra. The very existence of psi energy from the blue end of the spectrum was, like so many other things, a deep Guild secret.
There was a small scurrying motion at his feet. He looked down and saw Elvis. The dust bunny hopped up onto the windowsill, cape flying.
"Who got to Jenner?" Sierra demanded.
He looked at her over his shoulder. "We don't know. But the fact that someone took the risk of murdering a former Guild boss told us that the conspiracy was a bigger problem than we had assumed."
"How much of a risk was there? He was a. former boss, after all."
"Jenner still had his secrets. I wanted them."
"Wait a second, you think his fellow cons
pirators murdered him in order to keep him from betraying them?"
"Yes."
"Any idea who those folks might be?" she asked quickly.
"I have a hunch about one of them, but there may be more. At the moment I can't prove a damn thing."
"What about you?" she asked. "Is your position as the new Guild boss somewhat, uh, untenable, too?"
"I think it's unlikely that I'll get hit by a truck this afternoon, if that's what you mean."
"Why not?"
He turned to face her. "This isn't the first time there's been a problem deep inside one of the Guilds."
"Imagine that."
The sarcasm was starting to irritate him, but he told himself he was big enough to overlook it, at least for the moment.
"There are procedures in place to deal with this kind of thing," he said. "Given the power a Guild commander wields, the potential for misuse of that power is always present. The leaders of the organizations recognized that fact from the beginning. That's why the Chamber was established."
Chamber was short for the far more unwieldy Chamber of the Joint Council of Dissonance Energy Para-resonator Guilds, the overarching governing organization of the Guilds.
"I'm well aware of the existence of the Chamber, but everyone knows that the Guilds function autonomously."
Sierra said. "Individual chiefs respect each other's territory."
"That's true unless a problem arises that might impact the safety and well-being of the city for which a particular Guild is responsible. I know you don't appreciate the role of the Guilds in society, Miss McIntyre, but the truth is, their main job is to protect you and everyone else, not only from the natural hazards underground but from would-be tyrants like Vincent Lee Vance."
She blew that off with a wave of her hand. "I did my time in fourth grade, just like everyone else. Trust me, I know that decades ago ghost hunters saved the city-states from Vance and his followers. The Guilds aren't likely to ever let us forget it. I'm also aware of the old saying that the Guilds police their own. But I certainly didn't know that the Chamber sometimes gets involved when there's trouble in one of the organizations."
"For the most part, individual Guilds are expected to take care of their own problems. But when that doesn't work, the Chamber steps in."
"How?" She sounded skeptical.
"The Chamber maintains an investigative office." He clasped his hands behind his back. "Officially it's called the Bureau of Internal Affairs, but unofficially it's just known as the Bureau."
"Why haven't I ever heard of this Bureau?"
"Probably because the Chamber prefers to keep quiet about it."
"Right. Yet another Guild secret. So why are you telling me this?"
"Because I think I can trust you, Miss McIntyre. And because I need your help. Forty-eight hours ago I met with the other Guild chiefs in a secret emergency session of the Chamber. I explained what was going on here in Crystal and how I planned to clean up the mess. They offered backup and assistance if I need it, but everyone would prefer that I take care of the problem on my own as quietly as possible."
She looked startled. "The other Guild bosses know that you've got a situation on your hands?"
"They do now. Trust me, they all want answers, not only about the drug operation but more critically about the possibility that something very important has been discovered in the rain forest and that the find has been concealed."
She thought about that for a moment and then nodded. "Okay, I can see where the other Guilds might want you to fix your own problems here in Crystal as fast and as quietly as possible. Does having the other bosses involved buy you some protection from whoever took out Jenner?"
"You're the one I'm worried about."
She started so violently that she almost knocked over Elvis's coffee mug.
"Me?" she gasped.
"Ever been underground, Miss McIntyre?"
"Once on a school field trip." She shuddered. "I hated it. I'm claustrophobic. And the way the catacombs branch out in a thousand different directions like a maze, it's downright weird."
"It's not for everyone," he agreed. "But aside from the alien nature of the design and the fact that it's easy to get lost underground, there are two basic kinds of hazards: the energy ghosts and illusion traps."
"Everyone knows that."
"When you started your series of investigations into the workings of the local Guild, you began playing with a very nasty illusion trap," he said. He put a lot of quiet emphasis on the last two words. "There's a good chance you might trigger it."
Her eyes widened behind the lenses of her glasses. He knew she got the metaphor. When one of the ancient traps was accidentally triggered, the victim was instantly plunged into an alien nightmare. The feverish images were too bizarre for the human mind to cope with. The experience did not last long because unconsciousness and, in extreme cases, coma and death, soon followed.
She swallowed hard and clutched the arms of her chair. "Do you really think that someone inside the Guild might try to kill me?"
"I'm not going to try to sweeten this, Miss McIntyre. The answer is maybe."
"Nothing like a solid maybe to reassure a person."
"You could try packing your bags and leaving town—"
"No. I can't leave now. I've got to find out what happened to those missing men."
"I thought you'd say that. I'm not sure leaving Crystal would keep you safe anyway. You've gone too far. I'm the only one who can offer you some protection."
"Is that right?" she asked coolly.
"Believe it or not, people usually think twice about murdering a Guild boss's wife."
"Because it would attract the attention of the other bosses?"
"The Chamber tends to frown on that sort of thing," he said gently.
"Oh, jeez." She gripped the arms of her chair again. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Very. In addition to the implied threat, there's another reason why marrying me will buy you some protection."
"What's that?"
"Most people, including everyone in the Crystal Guild, will assume that I married you to shut you up."
She bristled. "You mean they'll assume you're doing what you have to do to keep Guild secrets, is that it?"
"Something like that."
"If you think for one minute that you can keep me quiet once I'm your wife—"
"That's not the objective."
"Really? Then what is the goal?"
"The idea is to join forces, Miss McIntyre. I've got my sources inside the Guild. You've obviously got a few of your own outside the organization. We need each other's help to conduct this investigation, and we need to work together covertly."
She slumped back into her chair, bewildered now, rather than angry.
"I don't understand. Jenner mocked my reports. None of the other mainstream media picked up my stories, so I never got any traction with them. No one's afraid of me."
"Jenner paid more attention than you knew. Now that he's gone, I think we should assume that the others involved in the cover-up may also consider you to be a problem."
Excitement and determination lit her expressive face. "So, there really is something big going on."
"Yes."
She leaned forward a little and lowered her voice, although there was no one around to overhear.
"Is it a conspiracy to conceal the discovery of an alien lab?" she asked.
"To tell you the truth, Miss McIntyre, I don't know what the hell is being covered up beyond the drug running. What I know for sure is that there have been at least a couple of suspicious deaths, including the PI hired by the Council, and Jenner himself. At this point, there are very, very few people I can trust within the higher ranks of the organization."
"What makes you think you can trust me?"
He smiled slowly. "Once you know what someone wants, you know whether you can trust that person. You also know how far you can trust him or her."
She searched his
face, intrigued. "You think you know what I want?"
"You want answers. So do I. That means we can work together."
She drew a long, steadying breath. "Okay, in spite of some opinions to the contrary, I'm not an idiot. If you think I'm in danger, I want all the protection I can get. And you're right. I want to find out what happened to those missing men."
He could feel the currents of energy that shimmered invisibly around her. She was definitely a woman of power. The question was, what kind?
She didn't wear amber, so she probably was not a standard para-rez talent. But there had always been stories of other kinds of talents, the sort that had nothing to do with alien psi and did not require amber, talents that occurred naturally in some people. Such psychic abilities were said to have existed since time immemorial, long before humans had gone through the Curtain.
"I made an appointment for us to pick up a Marriage of Convenience license at the registrar's office this afternoon at five o'clock," he said.
She looked as if she might fall off her chair. "You were that sure I'd cooperate?"
"Like I said, I know what you want. My job was to convince you that marrying me was the best way to get it."
She shook her head, amazed. "No wonder you became the new chief of the Guild. You're good."
"Just think, you'll be going back to your office with the scoop of the week. 'New Guild Boss Weds Reporter.»
She wrinkled her nose. "That's a little tame for the Curtain. I'm sure my editor will come up with something more exciting."
"I don't care how the headline reads so long as you don't leave me standing alone at the registrar's office this afternoon."
"My colleagues at the paper and my friends are going to have a lot of questions."
"One thing I should make clear," he said evenly, "this arrangement will work best if we convince people it's for real."
For the first time, she looked amused. "You expect me to imply to everyone I know that you and I have been secretly involved for some time and just now decided to get married?"
"I think that would be the simplest approach, yes."
"Get real."
"No one will think it strange that we kept the relationship secret until now. It's a little awkward for a Council member to admit that he's dating a journalist who specializes in exposes of the Guild."