by Jayne Castle
Chapter 22
TWO SHADOWY FIGURES APPEARED ON THE OTHER side of the circle of green fire. Ghost hunters, Marlowe thought. Only men with a talent for manipulating the alien psi that infused the underworld could channel the stuff into weapons outside the catacombs. But in theory no hunter, regardless of how powerful he was, could generate this much psi aboveground.
Through the flaring ring of green psi flames she could see that each man gripped an object in his hand. At first she thought they were holding flashlights. But the devices were emitting a hot green light that was the same eerie hue as ghost energy.
“Stay close,” Adam said quietly.
She did not argue. She stood next to him, touching him. His fierce features were etched in acid green light and the darkest of shadows. His eyes burned with a cold green fire that somehow appeared more dangerous than the energy flaring around them.
Adam looked through the encroaching flames at the two men generating the fire.
“You do realize that this much ghost light is going to attract attention out there on the street, sooner or later,” Adam said.
“You don’t have to worry about it,” one of the men said. “You’re going to be a dead man soon.”
“So will you,” Adam said. “Drake and O’Conner sure as hell won’t let you live after you take care of me. You know too much.”
“Shut up,” one of the men snarled.
“Finish it,” the first man ordered. “Hurry. We can’t risk hanging around here long.”
The circle of flames tightened. Marlowe felt the crackling energy snapping and hissing at her senses. Psi fire was more like lightning than flames. Sometimes you could survive a burn, but too much was lethal.
“This is a waste of time,” Adam said. “I’d really like some answers, but I don’t think this pair is going to be helpful.”
The flood tide of nightmare energy caught her by surprise, roaring across her senses. Shocked, she realized in a dazed way that Adam was generating the violent energy. The fact that she was in physical contact with him meant that she was catching the full brunt of the storm.
She sucked in a breath and took a step back so that her shoulder was no longer touching his arm.
The screaming started. She turned to look at the two ghost hunters. They were keening in terror. Their bodies jerked and twitched. The flashlights fell from their hands and winked out.
The circle of fire evaporated, but the awful screaming continued for another few seconds before it ceased. Both hunters collapsed, unconscious, on the floor.
The cascading nightmares stopped as suddenly as they had begun.
Adam went to the first man, crouching to check for a pulse.
“This one’s still alive,” he said. He rose and checked the second hunter. “So is this one.” He looked at her, his eyes still demon-hot. “Are you all right?”
She took a deep breath and concentrated on lowering her frazzled senses.
“Yes,” she said. She took another breath. “That was a demonstration of the second aspect of your talent, I take it?”
His expression tightened. “You caught some of the backwash, didn’t you?”
“Hard to avoid it under the circumstances. The physical contact acted like a channel of sorts. But I’m okay, really.”
Adam took out his phone and punched in a code. Whoever he called must have answered on the first ring, because he started issuing orders immediately, crisp, sharp commands that rang with authority.
Marlowe leaned against the counter to steady herself. By the time she had her breathing back to a level that more or less resembled normal, Adam had closed his phone. He looked at her from the other side of the room.
“There’s a Bureau team on the way to collect these two,” he said. “We can leave as soon as they get here. But I don’t want them to see you or the artifact, so you’re going to wait down below.”
“I don’t understand. You don’t want the Bureau people to know that we found the lamp?”
“Not yet. Given what just happened, I’m going to assume that there is at least a possibility that Fortner has a leak somewhere in his organization.”
“But you’re going to let the Bureau take these two into custody?”
“I don’t have much choice. Not like I can call the cops. I can’t explain my own presence here in a dead man’s shop, let alone why a couple of ghost hunters tried to take me out.”
She walked to one of the unconscious men, crouched, braced herself, and touched his forehead gingerly. The dreamlight pattern was steady but at very low tide.
She stood and crossed to the second man and put her fingertips on his forehead.
“I’ve seen this kind of pattern before,” she said, straightening. “It’s typical of a deep state of unconsciousness. It could be a couple of days or longer before either of them wakes up. When they do, I doubt that they’ll remember much of anything about what happened here tonight.”
“All I want from them is information, but that’s the one thing I probably won’t get.”
She circled the fallen hunters, studying their dreamlight. “There’s something wrong with these currents.”
“As you just pointed out, both men are unconscious.”
“No, something else.” She leaned down for a closer look. “I see the same kind of disturbance in these prints that I saw in the killer’s tracks.”
He scooped up the odd flashlights and walked across the room to join her. “Any idea what’s going on?”
“No.” She glanced at the flashlights. “But until we know otherwise, I think we should assume that the warping in the currents is linked to whatever those things are.”
He unscrewed the top of the flashlight and held it up to the light from the window. Marlowe peered over his shoulder.
“It’s a crystal of some kind,” she said. “That settles it, whatever you do, don’t try to activate it. You’d better warn your lab people not to run any human tests on it, either. Tell them to stick to instrument analysis.”
Adam frowned. “Are you sure the crystals caused the damage in the prints of those two men?”
“No, but there’s enough old history regarding crystal weapons to make me very cautious. I think it would be best not to take any chances.”
“All right.” He screwed the top of the flashlight onto the handle. “But I think these things may explain how this pair managed to rez so much psi outside the tunnels. Supposed to be damn near impossible to pull that much ghost light aboveground.”
“I think you’re right. They were using the crystals to enhance their natural talent for manipulating ghost light.”
“I’ll send these devices to the Bureau lab,” Adam said. “See what the techs can tell me.”
“Just to clarify something here,” she said coolly. “You can send one of those flashlights to the Bureau lab. I get one for the Arcane lab.”
“This is a Bureau operation, Marlowe.”
“Not any longer. It became a joint Bureau–J&J operation when I agreed to help you look for the lamp.” She tapped the artifact she held in the crook of her arm. “Let it be noted that I’m holding up my end of the bargain.”
“The fewer people who know what’s going on, the better.”
“I agree. But as you just said, there’s a possibility that you may have a leak in the Bureau. Might be a mistake to trust all of the evidence to that lab. There’s something else to consider, as well.”
He eyed her with obvious skepticism. “What’s that?”
“As I keep reminding you, Arcane has been conducting research into the paranormal since the seventeenth century, Earth time. We’ve got a lot more expertise in the field than anyone else around, including the Bureau. Admit it.”
He thought about that for a beat or two. “You can have one of these gadgets. But I want a guarantee that you’ll keep it under the strictest security.”
“Give me a break. The one thing Arcane knows how to do is keep secrets.”
“I seem to
recall that over the years the Society has had a few problems keeping the founder’s formula under wraps,” he said.
“Well, it isn’t like the Winters family hasn’t had a few security issues of its own. You can’t even hang on to the lamp.”
The sound of a vehicle in the alley distracted them. They both looked toward the rear door of the shop.
“That’ll be the Bureau team,” Adam said.
Marlowe held out one hand. “We have a deal.”
His jaw tightened but he put one of the crystal flashlights in her palm.
“I want your word that I’ll get the full report and lab analysis,” he said. “Not a scrubbed version.”
“I want the same promise from you.”
He nodded. “Deal.”
Chapter 23
“ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE OKAY?” HE ASKED.
“I’m fine,” Marlowe said. “You’re the one who just went through a major burn.”
He was amazed by the cool, steady tone of her voice. In spite of all she’d been through tonight, in spite of what she had just watched him do to the two men who had attacked them, she was still in control. Definitely the sexiest woman he had ever met. It was all he could do not to stop the sled and pull her into his arms.
They were on their way back through the tunnels. It had taken less than ten minutes to brief the Bureau team and send the two unconscious hunters together with one of the strange flashlights off to the lab at Bureau headquarters.
He whipped the sled around another corner. Marlowe grabbed the dashboard to steady herself.
“Out of sheer curiosity, when did you discover the second aspect of your talent?” she asked.
She was bound and determined not to refer to it as his second talent, he thought.
“The usual way,” he said. “By accident. Remember the jungle drug lab case I told you about? The one I was working when I sensed the mirror maze?”
“Yes.”
“In the course of the raid, things went wrong. One of my people was taken hostage by the drug lord who was running the lab. The guy had a knife at Harry’s throat. They were both about fifteen feet away. Suddenly I just knew how to stop the man with the knife.”
“You hit him with a wave of nightmare energy?”
“He didn’t even scream, the way those two did tonight. He just collapsed and died on the spot.”
“Did the members of your team know what you did?” she asked.
“No. They figured the man suffered a stroke or a heart attack.” He frowned, thinking about the incident. “But Harry didn’t get the blowback the way you did tonight. He didn’t feel anything, even though the guy with the knife was standing right beside him.”
“Maybe the only reason I got singed was because of my talent. I was running hot when you hit that hunter with the nightmare energy. My senses were wide-open.”
He tightened his hands on the wheel. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m very sensitive to dreamlight, but I’ve also got a very strong ability to manipulate it. I was able to protect myself. Don’t worry about me. We need to stay focused.”
She was right, he thought. The problem was that he could not stay focused, not when she was so close to him and the artifact was summoning him in ways he could not explain. He thought about the old legend as he brought the sled to a halt near his private hole-in-the-wall.
Marlowe slipped off the bench seat and stood looking at him. “Speaking of the Burning Lamp myth, there are a couple of details of the traditional version of the legend that we should talk about.”
His insides tightened, but he managed not to show any reaction. He climbed out of the vehicle and picked up the lamp.
“Talk about a psychic intercept,” he said. “I was just thinking about the legend, myself.”
She walked around the rear of the sled to join him. “According to the records, a physical connection is required between the man who wants to access the lamp’s power and the Dreamlight reader who assists him.”
He started toward the opening in the quartz. “You know how it is with old legends. There’s always a sexual element in the story.” He stepped through the hole-in-the-wall into the darkened parking garage. “But in this case, it’s just a myth. According to the family records, physical contact is necessary. Just touching each other is sufficient.”
“So, all we have to do is hold hands?” she asked without inflection.
“As you have just pointed out, contact enhances focus and power.”
“Yes.”
He watched her angle herself through the rip in the quartz. Silhouetted against the alien psi light spilling through the opening, she looked exotic and mysterious and so hot he was starting to sweat.
“Were you really worried that we might have to go to bed together again to make the damned thing work?” he asked.
“Of course not. I never thought that anything more than a handshake was required.” She halted just inside the garage. “Just wanted to clarify your understanding of the legend, that’s all.”
“In other words, you wanted to make sure that I wasn’t hoping to get laid again.”
“Stop putting words in my mouth.” She cleared her throat. “Some people are inclined to take old tales very literally.”
He walked forward and stopped directly in front of her, very close but not touching. Marlowe did not retreat, but he felt the rising tide of energy in the atmosphere and knew that she had heightened her senses instinctively, the way people of talent did when they felt threatened. Or when they were aroused, he reminded himself.
He should not be thinking about sex, but he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Not just sex, but sex with Marlowe. The situation was fraught with danger and possibilities and a hell of a lot of energy.
“You make it sound like sleeping with me again would be a deeply traumatic event,” he said.
“Oh, for pity’s sake. That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
He set the silk-wrapped artifact on the concrete floor and moved a little closer to her. The atmosphere around them shivered with heat.
“It’s been a busy evening,” she said, her voice husky and low. “Lots of adrenaline and psi going on here.”
“Like last night?”
She took a deep breath. “We probably shouldn’t discuss last night.”
“Why?”
She stared at him. “Because I’m not sure what’s happening between us.”
“And it makes you nervous?”
“Yes.” She drew another breath. “What’s going on here is probably nothing more than simple sexual attraction enhanced by proximity and the natural bonds forged between two people who have just come through a dangerous experience. In addition, you are in the middle of a major postburn buzz.”
“Like you were last night. Is that why we had sex? So you could work off the burn?”
“No.”
“Got a problem with this natural bond, mutual attraction, postburn rush we’ve got going?”
“I probably should have a problem with it,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll think of one tomorrow.”
“What about tonight?”
“No problem tonight,” she whispered.
He leaned in very close and brushed his mouth across hers. She did not try to avoid the kiss.
He kissed her again, taking it deeper, letting the heat build between them. This time she responded. Her mouth softened under his. He heard a faint cry. Not a sigh of surrender or a moan of passion. More like a half-stifled murmur of frustration, he decided. She clutched him close, demanding more.
He pulled her hard against him and kissed her until she opened her mouth for him, until her arms tightened around his neck, until her breathing was fast and shallow and she sounded desperate.
He came up for air, crouched in front of her, and pulled off first one boot and then the other, leaving her in her socks. When he rose, she gripped the lapels of his khaki shirt and started kissing his
throat. Her leg hooked around his calf.
They were locked in sensual combat. He pushed up the hem of the black turtleneck and put his hands on her bare waist. Her skin was warm and supple.
He unfastened her jeans and shoved them, along with the dainty panties, down to her ankles. She kicked free of the denim.
When he felt her hands on his belt buckle, he held himself very still while she unfastened his trousers. She was exquisitely careful. She took him into her hand.
He slid his fingers through the soft triangle of curls and found her swollen core. She cried out softly when he stroked her and clenched her fingers around his shoulders.
“Nothing has ever felt this good,” he said against her throat.
“No,” she whispered. “Nothing.”
He gripped her by the waist, lifted her, and braced her against the concrete wall. She wrapped her legs around him and used her hand to guide him into her.
“Okay,” he managed, his voice hoarse with the effort it took to hang onto his control. “I was wrong. Nothing has ever felt this good.”
He drove into her, going as far as possible. Her legs tightened around him. So did her passage.
“Oh, Adam.”
The stunning intimacy ripped the oxygen from his lungs and dazzled his senses. He rode the crashing waves with Marlowe, each thrust taking both of them higher. He was determined that she would come first. He wanted to make sure she understood that her pleasure was his highest priority. More than that, he wanted her to realize that he could satisfy her fully. He wanted to make sure that she did not forget him, not ever. He was going to be the man she could not leave before dawn.
Her fingers sank into his shirt and the skin beneath it. He sensed the tension that tightened her entire body now. She was wound to the breaking point.
With a soft, low cry, she came undone.
The small spasms of her orgasm pulled him over the edge. He went willingly, glorying in the release. His surging climax sent another wave of hot energy through both of them.
He was distantly aware of his own long roar of satisfaction echoing off the walls, floor, and ceiling of the old garage for what seemed an eternity.