by Jayne Castle
“You’re right,” he said. “I do need you, and I need the lamp. But there’s this complication.”
“Someone is trying to kill you?”
“You noticed. I wasn’t too worried about the problem. Figured it came with the territory when I took over the Frequency Guild. But now I have to wonder if maybe I’ve been keeping an eye on the wrong people. Maybe Arcane has decided to take me out before I go rogue.”
Chapter 2
���I REALIZE HOW THIS MUST LOOK,” MARLOWE SAID, careful to keep her voice very even, “but I really, really hope that you don’t think that I’m the one who set up this ambush.”
She was not in the best position, tactically speaking, she thought. She was flat on her back. Adam sprawled on top of her, shielding her body with his own and simultaneously imprisoning her. His attention was on the slice of forest that could be seen through the gate. A considering expression lit his eyes. Then he shook his head once, decision made.
“Nope, not Arcane style,” he said. “The Society is usually a lot more discreet. Gunning down the new Frequency Guild exec would create too much of a stir in the media.”
This was not a good time to get pissed off, but she was; very pissed off. She was a Jones, after all.
“Golly, thanks for the vote of confidence,” she shot back. “You make Arcane sound like some kind of criminal gang.”
“Well, now that you mention it—”
“You’re in no position to make that kind of accusation. In case it hasn’t come to your notice, in Frequency, it’s the Guild that has always been run like a mob, and everyone in town knows it.”
“What do you say we save the semantics argument for a more convenient time?”
She took a deep breath and got control of her temper. “Okay.”
Both of them were rezzed to the max, their senses elevated by the rush of adrenaline. Being this close to another powerful talent when you were both running hot was always disturbing, but in this case there was something else going on, and whatever it was, disturbing did not begin to cover it, she thought. The feeling of intense, hungry recognition and spiraling excitement that she had experienced when she had arrived a few minutes ago qualified as disturbing. What she was feeling now was nothing less than a stunning psychic shock.
Her senses were running wide-open, and she was in direct physical contact with Adam Winters, who was also rezzed to the max. She should have been fighting off the heavy energy of his nightmares and hallucinations that she had seen in his prints. She never touched others when her talent was at full throttle except in the course of her work at the clinic.
Gibson rumbled ominously in her ear. She turned her head a little and saw that he was no longer a cute ball of fluff. He had gone into full predatory mode: sleeked out, his second pair of eyes—the ones he used for hunting—wide-open. The studded leather collar hung loosely around his neck. He hovered protectively near her but, like Adam, his attention was on the opening in the wall.
Adam rolled to his feet, moving with the same specter-cat grace and power that he had displayed a moment ago, just before the rifle shot. He flattened himself against the green wall and studied the small section of mountainous landscape visible through the narrow opening.
Gibson dashed after him and took up a position near his booted foot, ready to hunt.
Couple of predators, Marlowe thought, getting to her feet. Automatically, she started to dust off the seat of her pants. She stopped when she remembered that there was never any dirt on ground covered with a layer of alien quartz.
She studied Adam’s hard profile. In her hasty research that morning, she had located a rare image of Nicholas Winters, the alchemist who had forged the Burning Lamp centuries earlier on Earth. Adam was a mirror image of his ancestor, right down to the arresting green eyes and obsidian-black hair. There was no hint of softness in the implacably determined planes and angles of the features of the man in the portrait and none in Adam’s face. Everything about him whispered of power. His enemies might be able to kill this man, she thought, but they would never break him, never shatter his will.
“Stay out of the doorway,” Adam ordered.
“I’ll certainly try to remember to do that.”
He gave her a sharp, assessing look. “You’ve had some experience in situations like this?”
The doubt in his voice was clear. She wanted to defend her fighting skills. Unfortunately, she did not possess many. Uncle Zeke had taught her how to use a mag-rez gun, but she never carried it. Instead, it was safely tucked away in a hidden floor safe back at the office. A mag-rez wouldn’t have done any good in this case, anyway, she reminded herself.
“I’ve been a J&J agent since I was in college,” she said, keeping her tone cool and assured.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“My expertise is in reading crime scenes and coming up with a theory of the crime. In essence, I’m a very, very good profiler, but I admit that I do most of my work at my desk.”
“In other words, no one has ever tried to kill you.”
“No,” she admitted. “Like I said, business has been off at J&J for the past few decades. Any idea what this is all about, or is this just Guild politics as usual?”
“Someone tried to take me out shortly after the Chamber made it official that I would be assuming control of the Frequency Guild. Tried again a couple of days ago. This is probably the same guy.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“What? That someone might want to get rid of me?”
“No, Guild bosses always have enemies. But men in your position are also very high-profile. There was nothing in the papers or on the news about any attempts on your life. That kind of stuff would have made especially splashy headlines. Everyone knows that you were handpicked by the Chamber to take charge of the Frequency organization.”
“I didn’t hold a press conference. We don’t work that way in the Guild.”
“Oh, right. The Guild polices its own.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “Same policy as Arcane.”
She could not argue with that, so she moved to another topic.
“What now? Do you think he might be dumb enough to try coming through the gate with guns blazing? He’s got to know how dangerous that would be.”
It was common knowledge that the paranormal energy infused in the ancient green quartz had wildly unpredictable effects on high-tech gadgets of all kinds, including guns. A rifle or pistol fired inside the high walls of the compound was more likely to explode in the gunman’s face than kill his intended target.
“No,” Adam said. “He won’t do that. He knows there are only two ways out of these ruins.”
“The front gate or the tunnels.”
“We’re not likely to make a run for it. That would give him a clear shot on open ground. He wasn’t trying very hard to hit me a few minutes ago. Just letting me know that he’s out there.”
“Why would he fire a warning shot and give away his position?”
“Because he doesn’t want to shoot me. Like Arcane, he doesn’t want a full-scale police and Guild investigation. He’s trying to chase us down into the underworld.”
She went cold.
“But this is a vortex site,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “We can’t go down.”
“Don’t look at me. Wasn’t my idea to meet out here.”
“Think he knows this is a vortex site?”
“No. He followed me, but there’s no way he could have known my destination until we got here. He’s been careful to keep his distance. He’d have to get a lot closer, at least as far as the perimeter around the walls, before he could sense the vortex. Even at that range, he’d have to have a lot of talent to pick up that kind of energy.”
“For heaven’s sake, if you suspected you were being followed, why didn’t you shake him today? You must have had plenty of opportunities to lose a tail.”
“Why bother? It would only have made him aware that I knew
he was hunting me. It’s not like a Guild boss can hide, anyway. Not with the media covering every move he makes.”
“Got it,” she said. “You’ve been hoping to lure him out of hiding so that you can grab him, right?”
“Yes and no. I’d certainly like to ask him a few questions, but he’s not the one I want. I’m after the people who hired him.”
“You think that we’re dealing with a contract killer? A pro?”
“Well, I’m not sure you could call him a real pro. So far, he’s missed twice.”
“Probably because you’re a very hard man to kill,” she said. “No one makes it to the top of the Guild unless he possesses excellent survival skills.”
“There is that,” Adam agreed. “His objective today is to flush me into the underworld.”
“Why would he do that? You’re a Guild man. You know how to handle yourself underground.”
“The idea is that I go down, but I don’t come back up. It’s the perfect way to get rid of a Guild boss without leaving any evidence.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “The Guilds are notorious for using that method for solving their personnel problems. But for the technique to be effective, you have to strip a man of his tuned amber before you send him down into the underworld. If he’s got good amber, he’ll be able to use it to find his way back to the surface.”
“That guy out there in the woods thinks my amber won’t be an issue.”
She glanced at the amber ring on his hand. The luminous, dark yellow stone set in black metal was engraved with the seal of his office. There was another chunk of amber in his belt buckle and in his leather bolo tie. She suspected that he carried a lot more elsewhere on his person. And every last bit of it would be tuned.
No Guild man, least of all the boss, would wear untuned amber. It was not just a habit or a safety precaution, it was a matter of pride and tradition. The Guilds were very, very big on tradition, and Adam Winters was descended from one of the oldest, most powerful Guild families. Back in the Era of Discord, John Cabot Winters had helped found the Ghost Hunter Guilds.
To this day the various Guild organizations controlled virtually everything of a commercial or scientific nature that happened down in the ancient alien catacombs and the underworld rain forest. A lot of what happened underground was extremely lucrative.
There were always a few tiny independent operators, fortune hunters, and thrill seekers who managed to sneak below the surface on their own. But large exploration and mining businesses, archaeologists, and researchers had to get their ventures approved and supervised by the Guilds who, in turn, provided security teams for the projects and took a cut of the profits.
The system had its critics, to be sure. A lot of people considered the Guilds to be only about half a step above organized crime mobs. But no one had come up with a viable alternative. The fundamental problem was that there was a lot of dangerous energy underground, and only those with a very special kind of talent could control it. Such individuals were commonly known as ghost hunters. Although there were a few women in the Guilds, the talent was closely linked to the masculine hormone testosterone, which, in turn, guaranteed that most of those who joined the Guilds were male.
Young men who were endowed with the ability to work the alien energy tended to join the organizations early in life, lured by the promise of manly adventure, a steady job, and the fact that young women considered Guild men hot.
“You’ve got plenty of amber on you, and don’t try to tell me it isn’t tuned,” she said. She looked at the small black leather case securely attached to his belt. “What’s more, I’m sure you’ve got an amber-rez locator in there.”
“Sometime within the past forty-eight hours someone de-rezzed all of my standard amber,” Adam said.
She was shocked. “That’s not possible.” She paused. “Unless you took all your amber to a professional tuner who sabotaged it?”
“No one has touched my amber since the last tuning work a month ago. I checked it later, and it was fine. But the frequencies of every piece of standard rez amber that I’ve got on me are now slightly warped. The disturbance isn’t enough to be readily noticeable in casual use, but the damage is more than sufficient to make sure I’d get lost underground.”
“How did you discover the sabotage?”
“Let’s just say I’ve been taking a few extra security precautions lately.”
“Okay, I can understand why a Guild boss might want to do that, especially after someone tried to kill him. Fine. Someone warped your amber. For crying out loud, why didn’t you get it retuned?”
“For the same reason that I didn’t try to shake the tail today.”
She exhaled slowly. “I see. You didn’t want whoever is hunting you to know that you are aware of him.”
“Right.”
Somewhere in the woods the rifle cracked again. This time the sound was followed immediately by a sharp pop.
She groaned. “Good grief, there goes a tire. That means I’ll be buying a new one. Only a fool would patch a tire on a bike.”
“Send the bill to the Guild.”
“I’ll do that,” she said. “Why is he shooting at Dream?”
“You named your bike?”
“Of course.”
“He wants to be sure we don’t make a run for it,” Adam said.
“If he’s after you, why not go for your car?”
“He probably already took care of the car.”
“By the way, where is your car?” she asked.
“Left it in the woods a quarter mile back.”
“You say he wants to drive you underground.” She touched her amber stud earrings. “But he knows you’re not alone in here. Won’t he expect me to have some amber?”
“You’re a complication I’m sure he would have preferred to do without, but think about it from his point of view. He probably assumes I came here to meet a woman.”
“Well, you did.” She paused, realizing exactly what he meant. “Oh, geez. He thinks I’m the new Guild boss’s secret mistress? That this was some sort of romantic rendezvous?”
“You’re the private detective here. What would you conclude if you were in his position?”
She thought about the question. “Damn. You’re right. The men at the top of the Guild are notorious womanizers. Your predecessor was infamous in that regard. Yes, I can certainly see why the shooter thinks I’m your mistress. You know, if he didn’t have a rifle, I’d be tempted to go out there and tear a strip off him. Talk about insulting.”
“The point,” Adam said evenly, “is that very few people who don’t have a reason to go down into the underworld carry the kind of highly tuned amber needed to navigate down below.”
“So he’ll assume that I don’t have any good amber and that, even if I do, we would rely on yours, not mine.” She paused politely. “You being the professional and all.”
“He’s thinking that we’ll stumble into an illusion trap or a big ghost before we even realize we have a problem.” Adam’s brows rose. “Out of curiosity, do you carry tuned amber?”
“Of course. Some of my investigations take me into the underworld.”
His mouth quirked. “You’re from J&J. You’re a professional, too. That makes three of us. Him, you, and me.”
“I can’t help but observe that all this talk about amber is beside the point. We can’t go underground because of the vortex. Which leaves us with only one option.”
“Yeah?” Adam sounded mildly curious. “What’s that?”
“We’ll have to outwait the shooter. He won’t stay in those woods forever. Sooner or later he’ll assume his plan has worked, that we’ve gone underground, and then he’ll leave.”
“Maybe,” Adam said. “But we’re not going to risk it. We’re going to do exactly what he wants us to do.” He turned and started toward one of the green towers. “Let’s go.”
Gibson chortled and scampered after him, eager for a new adventure.
Marlowe
froze. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“We’re going underground,” Adam said.
“But we can’t. It’s a vortex site.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“No one can deal with a vortex.” She fought to keep her voice from rising. “That’s why I chose this site for the meeting.”
“I’m aware of that.” He kept walking. “But the only reason I stuck around once I realized there was a vortex in the area is because I can handle that kind of energy.”
She stared at his back, floored. “You can?”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of my intelligence, do you? Did you really think I’d be dumb enough to meet with the head of J&J at a location that would leave me without any defenses or an underground escape route?”
“I just wanted neutral territory.”
“I’ve never been a fan of neutral territory.” He stopped at the top of a glowing staircase. “I like territory that I control.”
“I did get that impression.”
“Come with me, Marlowe Jones. I’ll take you on a tour of the underworld.”
She looked at him. “You really can handle vortex energy?”
“You’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“No offense, but how do you deal with it?”
Adam held up his left hand, letting her see the dark face of his watch. “In addition to standard amber, I can work full-spectrum stone. Turns out it can be used to deal with vortex energy.”
“That’s rainbow amber in your watch?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s just a dark gray stone. There’s no color.”
“It doesn’t illuminate until I drive energy through it, which I do as rarely as possible.”
“Why?”
“There’s a major downside.”
Another wave of unease fluttered through her. There was no trace of madness in his dreamprints, but she knew that he had been suffering nightmares and hallucinations lately. Perhaps he was seeing things that did not exist, things like an exceedingly rare kind of amber in the face of his watch. Maybe the visions had also led him to believe he could work the legendary energy of rainbow amber.