by Jayne Castle
“No,” Marlowe said. “I used the computer the last time. That did not work out well for me. I want to examine the original.”
AN HOUR LATER SHE COMPARED RENQUIST’S ANALYSIS of the extremely complicated inheritance patterns of the rare paranormal ability known as chameleon talent with the Deene family tree. A cold chill slithered through her. She closed both volumes and headed toward the door.
Gibson was waiting for her at the receptionist’s desk. He was playing with a ruler and flirting outrageously with the receptionist. When Marlowe reached the desk, however, he sensed her urgency. He dropped the ruler and scrambled up onto her shoulder.
“Time to go,” Marlowe said. She nodded at the receptionist. “Thanks for keeping him entertained.”
“Any time,” the woman said. “He’s so adorable.”
“Yes, and he certainly knows it.”
Outside, she discovered that twilight had fallen on the Quarter. She went to where she had parked Dream, dropped Gibson into the saddlebag, and took out her phone. She entered Adam’s private code. There was no answer.
“This is not good, Gibson.”
She needed to get to Adam, but she had to make one stop first. It was time to retrieve Uncle Zeke’s mag-rez from the floor safe at the office.
She swung one leg over the bike and ignited the flash-rock engine. Dream roared to life. She drove swiftly through the Quarter, taking all the shortcuts. She could hear Gibson chortling when she zipped through an alley and turned into the narrow lane outside the offices of Jones & Jones.
She braked to an abrupt halt, cut the engine, dismounted, and ran up the steps to the door. Gibson scrambled out of the saddlebag.
“Stay here,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
He ignored her to scamper up the steps after her.
The Closed sign was turned over in the window. It was five thirty. Rick had gone home half an hour ago.
She opened the door into the darkened front office. When she heard Gibson’s low growl of warning, she glanced down and saw that he had gone into full hunting mode. All four eyes were open.
Instinctively she heightened her own talent. But it was too late. The wave of darkness came out of nowhere, washing over her, dragging her down into the depths. She had time to sense the primordial demons and monsters that moved in the featureless void of dreams, time to know that she had failed to save Adam.
And then she knew nothing at all.
Chapter 40
SHE WAS LOST IN A MAZE OF MIRRORS. AN INFINITY OF reflections surrounded her on all sides. She saw her parents and Uncle Zeke watching her from one wall. Her brothers looked out from another corridor of mirrors. They did not speak, but there was no need for words. In the Jones family, you always knew when you had failed to meet expectations. You knew it before anyone else in the clan did, because you sensed the failure first deep inside yourself.
“Next time put a real chaos-theory talent in charge of J&J,” she said to the reflections.
She heard Gibson chittering anxiously, but when she turned, searching for him in the endless forest of images, she could not see him.
She saw Adam, though. He watched her from the brilliant darkness of the chamber in which they had fixed the defective currents. Grief and helplessness brought tears to her eyes.
“I couldn’t save you,” she whispered.
He reached his hand out to her. “Come back to the surface with me now.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t go back. I don’t want to go back.”
“Why not?”
“Because I screwed up. I found the answer, but I couldn’t contact you. You didn’t answer your phone. Why didn’t you answer your phone? And now he’ll kill you because I failed.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
She was not sure how to take that. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Come back to the surface, my love. I’m waiting for you.”
She heard Gibson chittering again and thought she caught a brief glimpse of him moving about among the myriad images. Then he was gone.
“They should never have put me in charge of J&J,” she explained to Adam.
“You can’t quit now. You need to do your job.”
He certainly sounded confident. That was Adam for you, the man in charge. But he was right. She was in charge of J&J. At least for a while. They hadn’t had time to choose a replacement.
Maybe Adam wasn’t dead yet. Maybe there was still time to warn him.
She had to get back to the surface. She was a dreamlight talent. She could control the energy of any dream.
She rode the currents up through the darkness toward the light of a midnight sun . . .
. . . AND CAME AWAKE TO THE GLOW OF GREEN QUARTZ. For a few seconds she stared, bleary-eyed and disoriented, at an empty doorway that opened onto another green corridor. No mirrors, she thought. She was in the catacombs, not the maze. She wondered if she had simply exchanged one dreamscape for another that featured the same themes.
She sat up slowly. The quartz she had been lying on was hard to the touch. The small chamber was empty. She was still wearing her amber stud earrings. Cautiously she pulsed a little psi through the stones. There was no response.
Dumped in the tunnels in the traditional Guild style. It was an extremely embarrassing way for the head of J&J to disappear. Should have seen it coming, as Uncle Zeke would no doubt be the first to tell her. But then, Uncle Zeke was a true chaos-theory talent. She was only a dreamlight reader.
You’re a Jones. You’re alive. Those are huge pluses at the moment. Stop whining and try to think.
Thinking took effort, but it raised the obvious question. Why was she still alive? Why hadn’t he made certain that she was dead?
The answer came immediately. He isn’t finished. He needs something from you. He’ll be back.
As if on cue, her captor appeared in the doorway.
She rolled to her feet. “You must be Elliott Fortner.”
Chapter 41
FORTNER’S GRAY EYES WERE COLD, BUT THE DREAMLIGHT pooling around his feet was fever-hot. He frowned, clearly annoyed by her observation.
“How did you know my name?” he asked.
“Spent a little time in the Arcane genealogy library today. Where’s Adam?”
“Still alive, if that’s what’s worrying you. He has one last job to do for his old boss at the Bureau.”
Adam was alive. She took a deep breath. “What happened to Gibson?”
“That ratlike creature that came into the office with you? A dust bunny, wasn’t it? He went down when you did. Given his small size and the fact that he’s just an animal, I assume he’s dead. Frankly, I didn’t bother to check.”
Rage flashed through her. She had to fight to keep her voice steady.
“You killed Gibson?”
“I had to use a considerable amount of energy to take you down. Too much of my talent can kill. The rat probably caught some of the backwash.”
She folded her arms beneath her breasts. She had to get control. She had to stay focused.
“You want the Burning Lamp,” she said.
“Brilliant deduction, Miss Jones. No wonder they gave you the job.” His eyes got a little hotter. “Yes, I want the lamp.”
She looked down at the oily sheen of iridescent dreamlight on the quartz floor.
“Because you are a true, natural-born Cerberus,” she said quietly. “Like most of the handful of other multitalents in the Arcane records, you’re going mad and you’re dying, but you’re doing it far more slowly than the others.”
His face hardened with rage. “You can see that in my prints?”
“Yes. I know you’re a chameleon, and you’ve obviously got the ability to do some kind of killing mind blast. In addition, you’re a legend in the Guild. That means you can also work alien psi. Three distinct talents, all originating from different points on the spectrum. Did I miss any?”
“No. You’re right, I’ve survived far longer than any Cer
berus talent I was able to locate in the Arcane records.”
“Probably because you were born on Harmony and so were several generations of your ancestors. The environment here made a difference.”
“It made me stronger.”
“Yes, but your psi patterns are fundamentally fragile. You might have actually managed to stay sane and maybe even make it through a normal life span, though, if you hadn’t started using the crystals. They triggered the sudden deterioration that you’re undergoing. You’ll be dead in a month or two.”
“I’m going to live, Marlowe Jones. You will see to that.”
“No one knows that you’re a for-real Cerberus, do they?”
“I have kept the secret all of my life since I came into my second and third talents. I was only nineteen at the time, but I knew all about Arcane’s theories. I also knew the legends. Your damn experts are convinced that a person endowed with powers like mine is bound to go insane and turn rogue sooner or later. The Society would have sent someone to hunt me down and destroy me.”
“I can’t help you. I don’t have the Burning Lamp.”
“Of course not. Winters would never have given it to Arcane. But he has been notified that the only way to keep you alive is to bring the lamp to a certain location in the tunnels.”
“Why would he do that?” she asked. “He’ll know that you’re going to try to kill him.”
“He’ll bring the lamp to me because he’ll have no choice. I’ve known Adam Winters for a long time. I know how he thinks. He will sacrifice himself in a desperate effort to save you.”
“In a heartbeat,” she agreed. “Unless he can think of another option. Trust me, he will find another option. And when he does, you’ll be a dead man.”
“I have left him no alternative. He’ll bring me the artifact. I will kill him, and then you will work the lamp for me.”
“No.”
“Yes, Marlowe Jones. You will work the lamp because if you refuse, I will start killing people. One by one. Innocent people walking on the street. Think about how it will feel to be responsible for the deaths of however many people you choose to sacrifice.”
Energy shivered in the atmosphere. On the floor, tainted currents of dreamlight roiled and coiled like a den of snakes.
“You’re not thinking clearly here,” she said, keeping her voice as calm and professional as possible. “Only a man with the blood of Nicholas Winters running in his veins can handle the energy of the lamp.”
“I’m a Cerberus. I can control the power.” He started to turn away.
“Out of curiosity, did you buy the vortex quartz from Joey the broker?”
He paused, expression darkening again. “Yes. I see you know about the go-between.”
“Sure. You also used Joey to commission the enhancing crystals from your son, Keith.”
Fortner flinched as if he’d touched hot flash-rock.
“How did you discover that?” he rasped. “No one knows.”
“That you are the father of Tucker, Charlotte, and Keith? Give me a break. Of course people know. Or they soon will.”
He took a step toward her. A searing wave of energy slammed at her senses.
She had to rattle him a little more, she thought. He was already teetering on some inner psychic ledge. She had to push him over the edge, make him lose his control, make him stop thinking rationally, make him put his hands on her. She needed physical contact in order to dampen his dreamlight patterns.
“Better be careful,” she said, barely able to speak through the hurricane forces pounding silently at her senses. “I won’t be any good to you if you destroy my talent.”
The energy blast ceased, but Fortner’s rage did not diminish.
“How did you find out?” he demanded. “How did you discover that the triplets are my offspring?”
“Plain, old-fashioned detective work, as Uncle Zeke would say. I spent a couple of hours in the Society’s genealogical library. Your three children were born to a woman named Tracy Darnell who registered them with the Society.”
“Tracy. That bitch. I swear, she haunts me.”
“At the age of nineteen you began an affair with her. It didn’t last long, but by the end of it she was pregnant with the triplets.”
Fortner’s face contorted with fury. “I didn’t even know about the triplets until after they were born.”
“I’ll bet Tracy didn’t tell you because she knew that you would try to force her to have an abortion. She wanted marriage, a real marriage, not just an MC.”
“You know how the marriage laws work. Tracy and I were in an MC for a while. I ended it when I left her. But under the law, the birth of the triplets changed everything. I knew that if she went to the authorities with proof that I had fathered the bastards, I would have been forced into a permanent Covenant Marriage.”
“Which was the last thing you wanted.”
“I had my whole life in front of me. I had every intention of marrying into one of the major Guild families. I wasn’t about to shackle myself to a low-end stripper and three squalling brats.”
“You murdered Tracy and abandoned your three children to an orphanage in order to get where you are today. You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking that the Arcane experts are right. You haven’t been slowly going rogue all these years. You’ve been a rogue from the start, a full-blown para-sociopath with multiple talents. You are the very definition of a crazy Cerberus.”
“That’s a lie, damn you.” He was almost screaming now. “I’m a survivor.”
“You’re a murdering maniac.”
Energy heated the atmosphere again. Fortner took a step closer.
“Tell me exactly how you found out about my connection to the triplets,” he said.
“I explained that. They’re registered with Arcane.”
“You’re lying. When I discovered that Tracy had registered them under my name in the Society’s genealogical files, I went into the database immediately and deleted everything that connected them to me. Every last link. I gave them a different father, a hunter who died in the tunnels years ago.”
“You only altered the computer files.”
He stared at her, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”
“Obviously you’re not aware that the librarians in genealogy keep a backup in the form of old-fashioned bound volumes.”
Fortner was shaken to the core, horrified. It was all there to see in his pooling dreamlight.
“I don’t believe you,” he hissed. “Why would they do that?”
She shrugged. “Arcane tradition. Besides, between you and me, I don’t think librarians really trust technology. They still remember what happened two hundred years ago after the Curtain closed. All of the computers started to fail within weeks. If Arcane hadn’t brought its hard copy records with them through the Curtain, the Society would have lost all of its history. The librarians have never forgotten the lesson.”
“What made you think that I was connected to the triplets in the first place?”
“I had no reason to think that you were,” she said. “I wasn’t looking for a connection this afternoon. I went there to research chameleon talent genetics. There appeared to be two chameleons involved in this case, and that didn’t seem likely, given the rarity of the talent. Once I got the genetics sorted out, I realized that there was no way Tucker could have been fathered by a standard ghost hunter. So I pulled the hard copy files of the Deene family records, and there you were.”
“You’re lying,” he shouted. “You’re just like Tracy, trying to destroy me.”
He rushed at her, primitive rage overcoming all other emotion. In that moment he was maddened with fury, longing only to strangle her with his bare hands.
She moved slightly so that he missed her throat on the first pass. Instead, he grabbed her arm and yanked her back against him. This time his hands went around her throat. His fingers tightened. She could no longer breathe. She gripped his wrists, fighting to stay conscious
long enough to use her talent.
But he was astonishingly strong, not just physically but psychically as well. A true Cerberus, she thought. What had made her think that she might be able to suppress his dreamlight patterns long enough to escape?
She fought desperately, sending wave after wave of energy into the storm of power that Fortner was generating, trying to disrupt the pattern. But it was like pounding her fists against a green quartz wall.
She pulled more energy from the depths of her being and reached up, clawing for Fortner’s eyes.
Fortner screamed and released her. She staggered toward the entrance of the chamber.
“Bitch.” He followed her. “I’ll kill you this time.”
Her only chance was to get lost in the catacombs. He had destroyed her amber. That meant he would not be able to track her. All she had to do was get through the doorway. Two more steps.
But she knew she was not going to make it. He was reaching out to grab her again.
A wave of nightmare energy slammed into the room, shocking her senses. But it was not focused on her. She was getting slapped by the backwash.
Adam had arrived.
He moved into the room, riding a powerful crest of psi that Marlowe knew must have crashed against Fortner’s senses with the force of an explosion.
Gibson shot through the doorway, going for Fortner’s leg. Fortner lashed out with one booted foot, forcing Gibson to dodge. The savage kick was accompanied by a small shock wave of energy. It probably amounted to little more than a swat as far as Fortner was concerned, but Gibson reeled from the blow.
“No.” Marlowe scooped up Gibson and clutched him tightly against her chest. “He’s too strong.”
Fortner ignored them both. He whirled to confront Adam.
“I knew that someday I’d have to kill you,” he said. “Should have done it a long time ago.”
“You couldn’t because you needed me,” Adam said. “I made you look good at the Bureau.”
“I sure as hell don’t need you any longer,” Fortner roared.
Blue ghost fire blazed in the emerald chamber, a whirlpool of violent sapphire energy that forced Adam to retreat toward the back wall. The Cerberus had unleashed another one of his three talents.