by Jayne Castle
“Like you.”
“He knew he could get through the vortex, but after that he would be on his own and forced to work rapidly before he dropped into a postburn crash. So he went in with the lamp and Sarah Vester, a dreamlight talent.”
“Together they worked the lamp and destroyed Fremont and his lab,” Marlowe said. “When the war was over, they got married, abandoned their connections to Arcane, and joined the ranks of the Guild.”
“John and Sarah were well aware that the environment on Harmony was accelerating the development of paranormal powers in the population. They had no way of knowing what effect it would have on their own descendants, however, given the twist in John’s psychic DNA. They wanted to protect future generations of their family.”
“They wanted to protect them from future generations of the Joneses and from Arcane,” Marlowe said. She smiled. “Just in case we started to take the Cerberus legend a little too seriously.”
“Something like that,” he agreed. “No offense.”
“None taken. For the record, the Joneses weren’t too sure what would happen to their descendants, either, given the twist in our own psychic genetics.”
“The formula?”
She shrugged. “While Nicholas Winters was busy frying his DNA with his crystals and the Burning Lamp, Sylvester Jones was adding a few tweaks to his own genes with his alchemical experiments. Both bloodlines were affected.”
“Does that make us freaks?”
She turned toward him. “Both bloodlines not only survived, they have thrived.”
“And the lesson is?”
She smiled. “Some mutations work out nicely. Are you going to tell me how the second aspect of your talent manifests?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Someday. Not tonight.”
Chapter 20
“I CHECKED THE GUILD SECTOR CHARTS FOR THE CATACOMBS in the vicinity of Tully’s shop,” Adam said. He opened what had appeared to be a hall closet door, revealing a small elevator. “There’s a hole-in-the-wall located in the adjacent building. We’ll go in that way.”
Marlowe followed him into the elevator. “How do we get into Tully’s shop from there?”
“The same way any self-respecting pair of burglars would. Through the back door.”
The elevator sank silently downward. When the door opened, Adam rezzed a flashlight and led the way across the vast, dark space. It took Marlowe a moment to realize that they were walking through an abandoned underground parking garage.
When Adam reached the far wall, he unlocked a mag-steel door. A familiar green glow shimmered through the opening.
The green quartz that formed the catacombs was impervious to human tools and weapons, but at some time in the distant past, cracks, fissures, and jagged holes had been created in the tunnel walls. Some experts theorized that the same alien machines that had been used to build the underworld had also been used to punch holes in the stone. Others were convinced that earthquakes had created the fractures.
Whatever the case, the jagged openings in the tunnels were common underground in the Old Quarters of the cities. They were frequently discovered and used by drug dealers and other criminals on the run. Treasure hunters, indie prospectors, thrill seekers, and Guild bosses who liked the idea of having an emergency escape route were also fond of them.
Adam de-rezzed the flashlight and went through the opening in the quartz. Marlowe followed him into the glowing catacombs.
“I keep a sled down here,” Adam said. He checked his locator and backup amber. Then he moved toward a nearby chamber. “It’s in there.”
Marlowe went after him and saw a small, two-seater sled. She stepped up into the little vehicle and sat down on the bench seat.
Adam got behind the wheel and drove out of the chamber. Traveling by sled was certainly faster than walking underground, but there was not a lot of power in the simple, low-tech amber-rez motors. More technologically sophisticated engines would not function at all amid the heavy currents of psi. Like guns, they were inclined to explode.
Adam piloted the sled through the maze of tunnels for about fifteen minutes before gliding to a halt near another hole-in-the-wall. They got out and stepped through the opening into yet another darkened space. Marlowe recognized the damp, dank smell characteristic of old basements.
The beam of Adam’s flashlight gleamed on a door. He opened it, and they went up three flights of stairs. The door at the top was unlocked. They went through it and into an unlit room. The floor was coated with dust, and the windows were obscured by layers of grime.
The door opened onto the alley. The back door of Tully’s shop was immediately adjacent. Ignoring the crime scene tape, Adam took out a small device and used it on the lock.
“I think those lockpicks are illegal,” Marlowe said.
“Is that right? I hadn’t heard that.”
“I’m aware of that particular little factoid because I’ve got a drawer full of them,” she said. “I hand them out to my agents like candy.”
“If I lose mine, I’ll know where to go to get another one.”
He got the door open. They moved into the shop and closed the door.
As was her custom at crime scenes, Marlowe did a quick survey before heightening her talent. Sometimes those with a lot of paranormal ability tended to forget that they could detect a great deal of information with their normal senses.
The light from the old wall filtering through the window illuminated the chaotic scene. A variety of alien artifacts—tomb mirrors, vases, and urns of various shapes and sizes—were scattered around the floor. There were also a number of Early Colonial items including old boots and clothing and some high-tech tools that had become useless two hundred years ago after the closing of the Curtain.
A dozen or more leather-bound, handwritten books and journals had been swept from the shelves. They were similar to other First Generation volumes that Marlowe had seen. She knew they contained whatever scientific, technical, and historical data the desperate colonists had been able to salvage from the Old World computers before the machines went dark forever.
“Doesn’t take any talent to see that whoever killed Jake Tully was looking for something,” she said.
“The lamp,” Adam said. He sounded very certain.
“In his note, Tully said there was interest elsewhere.”
“Looks like the other collector decided to bypass the auction,” Adam said. “I don’t want to use the flashlight if we can avoid it. The streets around here are empty at this hour of the night, but some insomniac in one of the nearby apartments might notice the light and call the cops.”
“I don’t need the light,” she said.
She opened her other sight cautiously and concentrated on the murky pool of dreamprints that covered the floor. It was not the first time that she had investigated a death in the Old Quarter, and it was always like this. People had been coming and going from the Colonial-era buildings for two centuries. Most of the tracks were faint and murky, the accumulated residue of psi light left by former proprietors, customers, and all of the others who had come to the shop over the years. Some of the tracks still seethed and simmered with strong emotions, even though they were decades old. But most merged into a fog of energy that glowed faintly in the shadows.
Some of the freshest prints, however, burned with an ominous, oily luminescence that sent another frisson of energy through her. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“Are you all right?” Adam asked.
“Yes. Just give me a moment.” She steadied her nerves and her senses and walked toward the hottest, darkest pool of dreamlight. “Tully died here. The authorities called it a heart attack. Tully was an old man. Not in good health. But there was a struggle.”
“He was attacked, then?”
“Yes, but death was sudden. It’s entirely possible that the authorities were right. He probably did die of a heart attack or stroke, but I think it was brought on by the shock of the assault.”
She glanced at him. “I think the assault was paranormal in nature, not physical.”
In the eerie green light, Adam’s face was a hard mask carved in shadows. “Are you saying that someone used psi energy to kill Tully?”
“That’s what the prints tell me. Talent that strong is extremely uncommon.” She examined the seething pool of dreamlight more closely. “But there’s something else going on here. “The killer’s pattern is warped.”
“What does that mean?”
“The basic pattern is that of a cold-blooded para-sociopath. This is a true predator, a powerful talent who lacks any vestige of a conscience. And he’s intelligent. Smart enough to blend in with normal society. A real wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“That doesn’t exactly narrow our list of suspects.”
“No, but there is one other fact that might,” she said. “Whoever he is, he’s dying.”
Adam stilled. “You can detect that?”
“Yes. The early signs are all there, although they might not be obvious yet. The origin of the illness is psychical in nature. It will take a while to affect him physically, but it will kill him. Sooner, rather than later, I think. He’ll go crazy first, though.”
“You’re sure the killer was male?”
“Yes,” she said. “That, too, is in the dreamlight.”
“So we’re looking for a smart psi-path who is mortally ill. Why would he want the lamp?”
“I can think of only one reason,” she said. “He thinks he can somehow use it to save himself. Which tells us he is very familiar with some of Arcane’s most ancient secrets and legends.”
“A member of the Society.”
“That is certainly a strong possibility.”
“The question is, did he find the lamp?”
“Maybe not.” She walked forward slowly, following a trail of prints. “Most of the older dreamlight residue that Tully left is faint, but over the years I can see traces of excitement here and there. The most recent hot prints are only a day old at most.”
“You’re thinking that they are indications that he was anticipating a lucrative auction?”
“I can’t think of anything else that would have caused him to get so excited.” She rounded the corner and stopped short when she found herself facing a wall. “Hmm.”
Adam came to stand beside her. “What?”
“The trail leads right up to that wall and disappears,” she said.
Adam regarded the paneling for a moment. “Looks like Tully may have had himself a secret vault.”
“If he did, I don’t think the killer found it. There’s no sign of his tracks on the floor in this part of the room.”
Chapter 21
IT TOOK HIM LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES TO FIND THE concealed lock, another sixty seconds to pick it. A section of the wall swung open with a soft hiss of levers and gears. Marlowe came to stand beside him. Together they looked at a narrow flight of stairs that led down into the basement. Alien psi wafted up from the darkness.
“Tully had his own hole-in-the-wall,” Adam said. “What do you want to bet he used it as a safe for his most valuable antiques?”
“His hot footsteps go down the stairs,” Marlowe added. “And come back up.”
Adam rezzed the flashlight. They went down into the darkness. Green light emanated from a narrow opening at the bottom.
“The problem,” Adam said, “is that if Tully hid the lamp somewhere underground, we don’t have a prayer of finding it. Not unless he left a record of the coordinates. The catacombs are the perfect vault for a hoard of valuable antiquities or anything else, for that matter. The only person who can locate the cache is the one who hid it.”
“Or someone who can read dreamprints,” Marlowe said quietly.
The cool confidence in her voice riveted him.
“Can you really track dreamlight inside the tunnels?” he asked.
“Not always,” she said. “But when it was laid down with this much energy and adrenaline, yes.”
“Damn. No wonder they made you the head of J&J.” He watched her step through the crack in the tunnel wall. “You know, the Guild could use someone like you.”
“I work for Arcane, not the Guild.”
“A good Guild boss doesn’t let petty details bog him down.”
He checked his locator coordinates and followed her into the tunnel. She walked a short distance, turned a corner, and stopped at the entrance to one of the multitude of chambers that opened off the long passage.
“Oh, yes,” she said very softly.
He came to a halt behind her and looked over her shoulder. Crates and boxes were stacked high against the green quartz walls.
“This was Tully’s vault, all right,” he said.
She looked at him. “Can you feel it?”
He knew what she meant. Familiar alien psi stirred his senses, but there were other currents as well. Waves of ultradark dreamlight energy freighted with power roiled the atmosphere. He recognized them in a way he could not explain. An icy anticipation surged through him.
“Yes,” he said.
She watched him, her eyes intent. “I would think that it would be a lot like looking into a psychic mirror. Whatever it is in this room that is giving off those vibes could only have been created by someone in your bloodline.”
“A psychic mirror.” He thought about that. “Yeah, that comes very close to describing what I’m sensing now.”
The dark dreamlight emanated from a plain wooden crate stashed in the corner. Nearby was a rusted metal toolbox that looked like it dated from the Era of Discord. He opened the lid and selected one of the old tools inside
“Your basic crowbar hasn’t evolved much over the centuries,” he noted. “A classic example of form following function.”
Marlowe watched him pry open the lid of the crate. He was aware that she was jacked, too. Her eyes were hot, and her face was alight with fascination and curiosity. Energy and power sizzled in the air around her. He realized that as badly as he wanted to open the crate, he wanted even more to have sex with her again. And somehow it was all connected.
The last nail popped free. He tossed the old crowbar aside and opened the crate. The bulky object inside was shrouded in black silk.
“The fabric looks old,” Marlowe said. “But certainly not two hundred years old. It didn’t come from Earth. But whatever is inside surely did.”
He started to unwrap the silk. “You can sense the age of this thing?”
“Dreamlight carries a psychic date stamp. That thing is old.”
“Seventeenth century?”
“That is certainly within reason.”
He untwisted the last length of the black silk. He and Marlowe studied the artifact in silence for a long moment.
“It looks like a cross between a rather ugly flower vase and a chalice cup,” Marlowe said at last.
The Burning Lamp was about eighteen inches high. Marlowe was right, he thought, it did look a lot like a vase or a chalice. It was made of a strange, gold-colored metal. The lower, narrower portion was set in a heavy base inscribed with alchemical designs. The lamp flared up and out toward a rim set with a ring of murky, gray crystals.
“I can sense the energy in the thing,” Marlowe said. “So much raw power and all coming from the darkest end of the spectrum. I never would have guessed that it was possible to infuse an object with such a vast amount of energy and keep it trapped in stasis like this. How did Nicholas Winters forge such a thing?”
“No one knows for sure. According to the records, he created it using the secrets of some ancient science called alchemy.”
She examined the lamp more closely. “The next question is, how can the energy be safely accessed and channeled?”
“According to those same old records, that’s your job.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that. One thing is certain; I’ll need some time to get a feel for the artifact and to do some m
ore research.”
“I’m not sure how much time we have.” He got to his feet. “The energy in the maze is growing more unstable every day. There’s no way to know when it will dissolve into chaos.”
And no way to know how much longer I’ll be able to stay in control long enough to try to stop the process, he thought.
She watched him very steadily. “Now that you’ve found the lamp, do you still think you can use it to correct the instability in the mirrors?”
“Maybe.” He wrapped the length of black silk around the lamp. “There’s a lot of power in this thing, and it is definitely coming from the same end of the spectrum as the energy in the mirrors.”
The sense of urgency that had been gnawing at him for weeks was at flashpoint now. It took everything he had to keep it under control. He started toward the stairs that led up to the shop. “Looks like another part of the legend is true.”
“Which part would that be?”
“The part that says it takes a dreamlight reader to find the lamp.”
“There is some logic to the premise, I suppose,” she said. “My kind of talent does give me an affinity for that type of energy. But you can sense it, too.”
“Not down here in the tunnels. I would never have been able to find it without the coordinates. This isn’t the first time the lamp has gone missing. Family legend claims it has a habit of getting lost. Whenever someone in the Winters clan decides to go looking for it, he discovers he needs a dreamlight reader to help him find it.”
He went through the doorway into the darkened shop, his senses fully aroused by the combination of the dark psi leaking out of the lamp and Marlowe’s disturbingly feminine energy. Nothing like the hot mix of sex and power to distract a man.
Which was, he concluded, an instant later, why it took him a couple of seconds too long to realize that something was very wrong.
Energy crashed through the atmosphere. He recognized it at once—ghost fire, a lot of it. He turned, intending to get Marlowe back down the basement stairs to safety.
But it was too late. Paranormal flames erupted in the darkness, encircling them, cutting off the possibility of retreating into the safety of the tunnels.