by Jayne Castle
Unfortunately, there was one last detail that had to be taken care of before he could be assured of his personal safety. He had to get rid of the silly little bitch. Although she did not know his real name, Doreen Thornton could describe him.
Should have killed her yesterday, he thought, rezzing the sled’s engine. But he hadn’t wanted any more dead bodies showing up in Elly’s neighborhood at that particular point. Another one would have raised too many questions with the authorities and, quite possibly, with Cooper Boone.
Don’t worry, he thought. Doreen isn’t going anywhere. Not with that face you gave her. And she thinks you’re a cop. She’ll keep her mouth shut.
But she was definitely a problem that he had to deal with as quickly as possible.
He checked her personal amber frequency. The stuff didn’t work as a locating device aboveground, but it was as good as a homing beacon down here, provided you knew the number.
Doreen was a ruin rat. If she did decide to hide, she would head for the catacombs.
The frequency pinged, startling him so badly that he nearly drove into the nearest wall.
Doreen had, indeed, fled into the tunnels.
He braked to a stop and sat staring at the directional device, not daring to believe his good fortune.
She wasn’t too far away. According to the grid, the coordinates he was looking at corresponded to a section of the tunnels located close to Ruin Lane.
The coordinates shifted as he watched the screen.
His quarry was on the move.
Was she alone? That was the next question. If DeWitt had lost control of the situation back at Elly’s apartment, as it appeared, it was very possible that the two women were on the run together.
With a sense of rising anticipation, he dialed in the second frequency number that he had recently memorized.
There was another loud, satisfying ping from the device. Elly was with Doreen.
Finally, it looked as though he was going to get a break.
He rezzed the sled’s engine.
Chapter 37
ROSE’S TEETH FLASHED. SIMULTANEOUSLY SHE GROWLED a warning.
“Wait.” Elly grabbed Doreen’s arm, halting her. “Something’s wrong. Look at Rose.”
Doreen stopped and stared at Rose, who was crouched on Elly’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong with her?” Doreen took a step back in alarm. “I’ve never seen her like that. She’s all teeth and eyes. I thought you said she didn’t bite.”
“I lied.” Elly reached up carefully to take hold of Rose. “But she won’t bite you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. This is her way of telling us that there’s trouble nearby. Maybe a stray ghost.”
“Got it. Okay, we’ll be careful.” Doreen looked at Rose. “Don’t worry, I’m your fashion friend, remember? I know what I’m doing down here. I’ve got pretty good psi senses. We won’t walk into any ghosts.”
Rose did not appear reassured. She scrabbled furiously in Elly’s grip and made odd whimpering noises.
“All right, I’ll put you down, sweetie.” Elly set her on the floor. “But please don’t run off.”
Rose disobeyed immediately. She dashed away, full tilt, down a corridor. When she realized that Elly wasn’t following, she stopped, sat up on her hind legs, and chittered loudly.
“I’ve never seen her like this,” Elly said. “I think she wants us to follow her.”
Doreen frowned. “We can’t do that. We’ve got to get to Bertha’s personal exit point as quickly as possible. Cooper will be waiting.”
A faint, high-pitched hum echoed in the distance. Elly stilled.
“I think I hear a sled,” she whispered.
Doreen cocked her head, listening.
The whine of the engine grew louder.
Doreen’s bruised face went pale. “You’re right. Sound gets distorted down here, but if we can hear him, we have to assume he isn’t too far away. Probably another ruin rat. He might be able to help us.”
Elly looked back over her shoulder. “Or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m convinced that dust bunnies have an animal version of parapsych senses. Rose’s judgment when it comes to people has always been amazingly accurate. For whatever reason she doesn’t think we should stick around to find out who is piloting that sled. I vote we go with her.”
Rose scurried back toward Elly, made urgent, anxious noises, whipped around, and ran off again.
“That settles it,” Elly said. She grabbed Doreen’s arm and started forward at a run. “Follow that bunny.”
Doreen did not argue.
Rose rounded a corner at top speed, claws clicking on the quartz floor.
Elly and Doreen ran faster.
“Little sucker sure can move when she wants to,” Doreen panted.
The engine noise grew louder.
“Damn.” Doreen glanced back over her shoulder. “He’s getting closer, and I think I’m picking up some ghost energy. He must be following us. How can he be doing that?”
“Your amber,” Elly said. “He must have your frequency.”
“Oh, shit,” Doreen said. “It must be Frazier or whatever his name is. He had plenty of opportunity to get my frequency.”
“Toss your amber into one of the chambers.”
“Are you nuts? We’re underground. If we lose this amber, we’ll never find our way out.”
Elly touched one earring. “I’ve got some.”
Doreen looked at her earrings, startled. “That’s tuned amber you’re wearing?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was just a fashion statement. You never said anything about having strong para-rez senses.”
“I’ll explain later. Trust me, this amber is tuned. And the frequency is unique. There’s no way Palmer could know it, because he doesn’t know that I have a strong parapsych profile.”
“What kind of profile? Hunter? Tangler?”
“Neither. Look, can we talk about this some other time? We’ve got a situation here.”
“But I always work with my own amber,” Doreen said uncertainly.
Elly felt a trickle of energy across the nape of her neck. She looked down the length of the tunnel. Blue light sparked in the distance.
“Oh, damn. Looks like a blue light special. It must be Frazier. You have to get rid of your amber, Doreen.”
Doreen followed her gaze. “What is that thing? It looks like ghost light, but it’s blue. And it’s whirling in a weird way.”
“He’s using your amber to guide that ghost.”
“This is so weird.” Doreen whipped off her pendant and hurled it back toward the advancing vortex.
The ghost swooped down on the necklace and locked on to its frequency.
“Okay, I believe you now,” Doreen whispered.
“That bought us some time,” Elly said. “Hurry. Rose is moving fast.”
Up ahead Rose veered around another corner, paws scrabbling frantically on the glowing green stone. Elly followed her, Doreen close beside her.
But when they turned the corner, a massive wall of quartz blocked their path. The hallways on either side were solid. There were no branching corridors or vaulted chamber entrances.
Elly slammed to a halt. Doreen did the same. Together they stared in mute horror at the quartz wall.
“There’s no way out except back the way we came,” Doreen said flatly. “Maybe we can reach that last intersection before Frazier does and turn down another passageway.”
Elly shivered beneath a gentle tide of strong, pulsing energy. It was different from what she normally sensed underground. It had an eerily familiar feel.
“Do you sense anything unusual?” she asked.
Doreen frowned. “I’m scared to death, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m talking about psi energy waves.” Elly moved closer to the wall. “I think they’re coming from the quartz.”
“I’m not pic
king up anything except the usual.” Doreen broke off, distracted. “I can hear the sled again.”
Elly listened to the faint vibrating whine of the sled’s motor. Frazier was still hot on their trail.
“Come on.” Doreen grabbed her wrist. “We’ve got to at least try to find another intersection.”
Elly did not take her eyes off the wall. “Look at Rose.”
“What?”
“Look at her.”
Rose had come to a halt directly in front of the solid quartz wall. She was standing on her hind legs facing the barrier.
Incredibly, a small hole materialized in the quartz at dust bunny height. Rose zipped through it and promptly disappeared.
The hole closed behind her, leaving Elly and Doreen gazing at the solid, glowing quartz.
Elly looked at Doreen and saw the despair on her face.
“He’s closing in on us,” Doreen said. “We’re trapped.”
Chapter 38
COOPER WATCHED THE FREQUENCY NUMBERS WAVER AND abruptly vanish from the screen of his personal amber-rez locator. Doreen’s amber had just been fried, most likely by ghost fire. Not a good sign.
Elly’s coordinates still registered strongly, though. That gave him hope. He tromped hard on the throttle, trying to coax a little more speed out of Bertha Newell’s rickety old sled. There wasn’t much to be had. He was already moving dangerously fast as it was. At this rate he could easily slam into an illusion trap or a ghost before he had time to steer clear.
But he had no choice. When he had arrived at Newell’s private tunnel gate and discovered that Doreen and Elly hadn’t made it out, he had known in his gut that things had gone wrong. That led to the chilling conclusion that Frazier was more than likely involved.
He whipped the sled around another corner and shot down a long green hallway, all of his senses open to the currents of psi power that flowed through the catacombs.
DOREEN GAZED, BAFFLED, AT THE SOLID QUARTZ WALL. “IT may be some form of illusion trap energy, but it’s not like any I’ve ever worked with. I’m not sensing anything. If I hadn’t seen Rose disappear through that wall just now, I’d swear it was solid quartz.” She put her hand on the stone. “It even feels solid to the touch. If this were true illusion trap energy, my hand would have passed right through it, and I would have triggered the trap.”
“But I can feel the energy patterns.” Elly studied the wall, wonder and amazement unfurling inside her. “They’re similar to the patterns I pick up from those green flowers that Rose brings me.”
Doreen looked at her. “You pick up psi energy from plants?”
“It’s okay, I’m not really crazy. At least, I don’t think I am. The thing is, if I concentrate a little, the wavelengths in that wall become crystal clear. I can almost see them in a way I can’t explain.”
A small section of the wall shimmered. Another hole opened up. Rose poked her head through and chattered loudly. She disappeared again. The wall sealed itself.
“She wants us to follow her,” Elly said. “Maybe I can do this. Everyone in my family can de-rez psi energy waves of one kind or another. I know, theoretically, how it works.”
“Go for it,” Doreen urged. “Not like we’ve got a lot of other options here. The de-rezzing techniques are the same for ghost or illusion energy. The variables are the type of energy and the location on the spectrum. I don’t know what you’re working with here, but if you can sense wavelengths, the idea is to dampen them by focusing your own psi energy through your amber. I can’t explain it any more clearly than that. You have to feel your way into the pattern.”
Elly did not respond. She was too busy feeling her way into the pattern. It was easier than she had anticipated, probably because she had been attuned to plant psi energy for years, she thought.
She closed her eyes to help concentrate. She found the resonating patterns in the wall and cautiously pulsed power through her amber, sending out her own unique brand of psychic energy in a counterpoint rhythm.
She sensed instantly when the wavelengths melded and canceled each other out.
Humid warmth and a vast energy wind flowed over her, stirring all of her senses. She was enveloped in an intoxicating aura of plant psi more powerful than she had ever experienced in her entire life.
“Elly, look,” Doreen whispered.
Elly opened her eyes. A large section of the wall had disappeared, revealing an impossible landscape of heavily massed foliage.
A canopy of leaves formed by trees that were at once startlingly familiar and strangely different cast a heavy veil of shadow over a world of magnificent ferns, flowers, and vines. The lush scents of a vast greenhouse filled the air.
“Jordan’s Jungle,” Elly said softly.
Rose appeared in the opening, still sleeked out and in full predatory mode. She rumbled a warning.
“We’re coming,” Elly said.
“Oh, shit,” Doreen said tensely. “Maybe Frazier does have your frequency.”
Elly looked back and saw the small, whirling vortex. It was coming toward them like a well-aimed spear moving in relatively slow motion.
There was no time to use the earrings to close the opening in the wall. She tugged both pieces of jewelry out of her ears and hurled them straight at the vortex.
The energy spear swerved toward the fresh bait.
“Let’s go,” Elly said.
Together with Doreen and Rose, she plunged into Jordan’s Jungle.
Chapter 39
THE FREQUENCY OF ELLY’S AMBER DISAPPEARED FROM Cooper’s personal amber-rez locator. He went cold to the bone. He did not want to think about what that might mean.
All he had now were the coordinates of Elly’s last position in the catacombs. If she and Doreen moved very far from those, he would never find them.
But he was close. And Rose was with the women, he reminded himself. According to Emmett London, dust bunnies seemed to be able to navigate underground. Rose would never abandon Elly. Not if she was still alive.
He refused to contemplate the alternative.
He sent the sled skimming across a six-way intersection and shot down another glowing hallway, heading for Elly’s last known location.
ELLY CROUCHED JUST INSIDE THE SMALL CAVE, PEERING through the screen of ferns. Doreen knelt beside her. Rose sat on a nearby rock, fully fluffed, looking unconcerned once more. She fussed with her fur and fastidiously adjusted her necklace.
Jordan’s Jungle was a surprisingly noisy place. They hadn’t seen any wildlife except for a few small, very green lizards skittering over the nearby rocks, but the shrieks of unseen birds echoed through the high tree canopy.
Down below the cavern where she and Doreen hid, a large waterfall cascaded over stones, splashing into a dark pool that was covered with broad-leaved plants.
Layer upon layer of lush, thick greenery surrounded the grotto. From her vantage point, Elly could see the opening in the wall that she had created and a small section of the outside corridor.
“What’s he doing?” Doreen whispered. “Can you see?”
A figure moved hesitantly through the opening and stopped almost immediately. Palmer looked around in obvious confusion and disbelief.
“He’s inside,” Elly said. “But he looks very nervous.”
“I don’t blame him.” Doreen shuddered. “Who knows what’s in this place? I’ll bet there are all kinds of poisonous snakes and insects.”
“Rose will give us a warning if something dangerous approaches.”
“Fine. We get a warning. Then what? It’s not like we’ve got anything we can use against that blue ghost light thing.”
“I wonder how Palmer got my amber frequency,” Elly said. “How did he even know I had one? No one except Cooper and my family know that I have some kind of psi thing going on with plants. Why would he suspect that I was wearing tuned amber?”
“I think we can worry about that later. Right now we’ve got other issues.”
“Elly,” Palmer
shouted. His voice reverberated through the trees. “You are in great danger. Doreen and Cooper Boone are partners in the drug ring. Don’t you get it? They’re trying to set you up.”
“I can’t believe he’s going to try a stupid line like that,” Elly stated. “He must have a very low opinion of my intelligence.”
“Palmer hasn’t got a lot of respect for women,” Doreen said. “And I’ll have to admit I did my part to encourage that view.”
“Don’t blame yourself for not seeing through him,” Elly said. “He’s a very shrewd and manipulative man. He actually managed to get himself a seat on the Guild Council back home in Aurora Springs. That means he fooled my father and everyone else on the Council. No one realized just how dangerous he was until Cooper arrived on the scene. He understood right away that Palmer was a threat and took steps to remove him.”
“Yeah? Too bad Cooper didn’t do something a little more permanent.”
“Got a hunch Cooper is thinking pretty much the same thing at this very moment.”
SHOULD HAVE KILLED THE BASTARD, OR AT LEAST FRIED HIS brains when I had the chance.
Cooper brought Bertha’s sled to a halt behind the one Frazier had left in the hallway. He got out and went swiftly toward the opening in the wall.
The sight of the massed greenery was stunning. Looks like a full-blown rain forest in there. So much for Jordan’s Jungle being a myth.
He stopped at the edge of the opening, flattening his back against the wall, and inhaled the heavy scents of the jungle. The humidity was an invisible wall of heat. He could hear the cries of birds and the distant rumble of a waterfall.
Palmer Frazier’s voice rang out.
“Elly, you’ve got to listen to me. Cooper Boone is a very dangerous man. You grew up in a Guild family. Ever heard of a blue freak? That’s what he is. I can protect you from him.”
Cooper listened intently. If Elly was in there, she knew enough to keep silent. As for Frazier, he wasn’t too far inside the entrance.