“I thought this was supposed to be an equal battle between two strat-talents. Mano-a-mano. The blood-rush of the ultimate duel to the death between equals, etc., etc.”
Calvin’s laugh rang out. It bounced off the stainless steel lab bench and ricocheted off the white tile walls. “I’m a strat-talent, not a fool.”
A frisson of awareness set up a tingle on Orchid’s nerve endings. The questing probe of a clean, strong, strat-talent. Rafe was somewhere in the vicinity. The probe came and went but she knew he would seek her out again in a moment. She dared not give him a prism in case Calvin intercepted it.
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Orchid whispered.
Calvin continued to show his teeth in a cruel grin. “The only risk factor here is you, Orchid. I know you need to be in close proximity to a talent in order to focus for him. I intend to keep you out of Stonebraker’s range. But if he gets near enough to use you for a prism, I’ll have to take steps to prevent that from happening.”
“Steps?” Orchid asked.
“The first step will be to shoot Mrs. Culverthorpe, here.”
Briana groaned. “Not again.”
“Step two will be to shoot you, Orchid. I really don’t want to do that unless absolutely necessary. I’ve got plans for the two of us. We have some unfinished business, you and me. I’d really like to keep you alive for a while. I want Stonebraker to watch me take his woman on the floor in front of him.”
Orchid braced herself against the sick hunger that swirled in the room. “Don’t you think that’s just a little bit on the primitive side, Calvin?”
“Primitive.” Calvin savored the word. “Yeah. That’s me.
Chapter
21
Everything was going far too well. No guards inside the building. A convenient janitor who carried a lot of keys. No demands for a check-in from the gate guard’s two-way radio.
The situation was just too dandy for words.
Rafe could feel the trap closing around him, but there was nothing to do but keep moving ahead. Orchid was close. He was sure of it. Why didn’t she respond?
He looked at Selby, who was still fiddling with some dials in the mechanical equipment room. “Wait here. Give me ten minutes to locate them and then turn on the gas in all of the lab rooms at once. Remember, no gas in the hallways. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Leave the gas on for three minutes and then shut it off.”
Selby squinted at him. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m a strat-talent, remember? I’m good at this kind of thing. Hit the master switch for the building lights if anything goes wrong. Blink them once. Understand?”
“The lights? Why?”
“It’s a nifty way of telling me that Plan A is no longer working.”
“Is there a Plan B?”
“There is always a Plan B.” Rafe retrieved the small pistol from his ankle holster. “I just have to figure it out, that’s all.”
“Great. How do you intend to avoid the effects of the gas, yourself? Some of it might seep into the hallways through the cracks around the doors.”
Rafe frowned. “I’ll put some cloth over my face or something.”
“That sounds like a strat-talent sort of plan, all right. A little weak when it comes to the high-tech side of things.” Selby reached for a triangular shaped device on an overhead shelf. He lifted it down and handed it to Rafe. “Maybe you ought to take one of these with you.”
Rafe took the strange object from him. “What is it?”
“Gas mask,” Selby said dryly.
Rafe grinned. “I always knew you tech-talents had your uses.”
He opened the door and slipped out into the hall.
He tried once more for a prism, but again there was no response from Orchid. Alarm trickled through him. He had told himself that she was safe because Bracewell needed her alive. The same logic held true for the strat-talent, who no doubt viewed her as bait.
At the end of the hall, Rafe turned and started down another corridor. He used another small burst of talent to see if he could snag Orchid’s prism. She was nearby. He knew it in his bones. He wondered if she was unconscious. Bracewell could easily have drugged her.
He rounded a corner, gun raised, and went along another passageway. He sent out a burst of strat-power. For a few seconds his senses opened wide.
Ice sleeted through his veins when he caught the unmistakable taint of blood and death. He knew that in that moment he was as close to losing control as he had ever been in his life. A searing rage howled through him.
But in the next second he knew that the blood was not Orchid’s. A stranger lay dead somewhere up ahead.
Before the relief could set in, his jacked up senses caught the traces of two men.
Somewhere behind him.
It was almost reassuring. He had guessed right. This was a trap.
Rafe flattened himself against the wall at the end of the corridor and looked back down the long white hallway. There was no one in sight. But they were there. He could feel them. The strat-talent’s backup team.
He tried another short rush of talent.
He caught a distant, fleeting sound. The clang of an object against a pipe.
The emergency equipment room.
“Damn.”
He loped swiftly back down the hall. The overhead lights did not wink out. The guards had gotten to Selby before he could hit the master switch.
So much for Plan A.
Calvin was getting restless. Orchid was surprised. She was accustomed to Rafe’s quiet ways and seemingly unlimited patience. But Calvin lacked that degree of self-control.
He no longer leaned negligently against the lab bench. He had begun to pace. Periodically Orchid caught the telltale whisper of his psychic energy and knew that he was testing the air, seeking a trace of Rafe.
Orchid traded glances with Briana and saw that she understood the mounting danger.
“He should have been here by now.” Calvin reached the end of the lab bench, turned, and looked at Orchid. “It would be a real joke on me if it turned out I’d underestimated his interest in you, wouldn’t it?”
“A real joke, all right.”
“I’ll give him another ten minutes and then I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut my losses.” He smiled. “That will mean killing you both, of course.”
Orchid said nothing. Neither did Briana.
We’re getting numb to the threats, Orchid thought. Probably not a good sign.
“Shit.” Calvin thumped the handle of his pistol on the stainless steel lab bench. He glowered at Orchid. “If only I could use you as a prism.”
Orchid swallowed. “You know it won’t work. We proved that three years ago. I can’t focus your talent because you’re too powerful.”
“Yet Bracewell believed that you could focus his stupid artifact.” Calvin glanced thoughtfully at the cooling body on the tile floor. “I wonder what convinced him you were strong enough for that?”
Rafe crouched above the mechanical room. He was perched on the edge of a section of the lowered ceiling that concealed the piping. He gazed down through the opening he had created when he had removed one of the three-by-five acoustical panels.
Below two men in ParaSyn security garb exited the emergency equipment room. One of them had a gun to Selby’s head.
Rafe waited until all three were directly underneath him before he made his move.
Funny thing about quarry, he reflected as he dropped down onto the back of the man who held Selby captive. They were skittish of shadows. They peered cautiously around corners. They glanced frequently back over their shoulders.
But quarry seldom, if ever, looked up to see what might be waiting overhead.
* * *
The first indication Orchid had that something had altered in the situation was that Calvin had stopped pacing. He had started whistling, instead.
She looked at Briana. Briana smiled back.
A relax
ed, decidedly cheerful smile.
Orchid suddenly became aware that she, herself, was feeling very good.
In fact, she was much too happy, considering that there was a dead man on the floor and another man was waving a gun about as if it were a toy.
She chuckled.
And then she remembered the gas in the ceiling. How it made everyone, even the most severely disturbed talents, unnaturally cheerful. How it made them want to take a nap.
Rafe had discovered the security system.
She started to laugh.
Calvin and Briana joined in.
When Rafe opened the door and walked into the lab a moment later, they all howled at the hilarious sight he made in his gas mask.
Calvin made one or two attempts to aim his gun at Rafe, but wound up dropping it on the floor. That sent him off into another gale of laughter.
He collapsed on the floor beside the fallen pistol and promptly went to sleep.
Rafe walked toward Orchid.
She was feeling very sleepy, but she had enough energy left to giggle again at the sight of him. “I knew you’d come for us.”
“You were right.” His voice was curiously distorted by the mask.
“He said you’d want to go mano-a-mano with him.” She chuckled. “It was supposed to be a duel to the death between the two of you. A battle between equals to see who was top strat-talent.”
Rafe caught her as she started to sink to the floor.
“Why would I want to do things in such a primitive way when there’s a nice high-tech alternative available?”
“I always knew you were a lot more sophisticated than Calvin.” She slipped blissfully toward sleep. “I really do love you, you know.”
“I’m glad.” Rafe lifted her into his arms. “Because I love you, too.”
She smiled as she nestled against him. “That’s nice.”
“Marry me.”
“Sure. Why not?” She closed her eyes, content, and went to sleep in his arms.
Chapter
22
Rafe walked into the hospital room carrying a newspaper and a massive bouquet of rose-orchids. He put the flowers down on a small table and looked at Orchid.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life. “Like I’m going to throw up.”
“The doctor said that’s a common side effect of one of the ingredients in Bracewell’s anesthetic gas.”
“Nice to know there’s a logical explanation. How’s Briana doing?”
“I looked in on her before I came here. She’s fine. Selby is with her.” Rafe crossed the room to stand at the foot of the bed. “I called your folks. They’re on their way to New Seattle, even as we speak. So are your brothers.”
“Just what I need.”
Rafe grinned and unfurled the morning edition of the New Seattle Times. “Give ’em a break. You’re on the front page. That’s enough to worry any family, even an obsessive meta-zen-syn family.”
“Let me see that.”
Orchid propped herself up against the pillows. She snatched the paper out of his hands and scanned the headline of the front page story.
Executive and Fiancée
Stop Murderer
The future C.E.O. of Stonebraker Shipping, Rafael A. Stonebraker, and his fiancée, Miss Orchid Adams, were instrumental in catching two men whom police allege are responsible for at least two and possibly three murders. One of the victims, Dr. Quentin Austen—
“You don’t have to read the whole thing.” Rafe gently retrieved the newspaper from Orchid’s hands. “I can summarize it for you.”
“What does it say about the relic?” she demanded.
“There is no mention of the alien artifact.”
“How did you manage that?”
Rafe shrugged. “It was just lying there on the floor. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.”
Alarm flashed through Orchid, temporarily taking her mind off her nausea. “Listen, that thing really works. It was so strong that when I reversed the focus, Dr. Brace-well’s hypno-talent turned back on itself.”
“I know. You woke up a couple of times on the way to the hospital. Told me all about it.”
“Did I?” She frowned, unable to recall anything after falling asleep in his arms. “At any rate, Bracewell actually killed himself because of that thing. It’s very powerful. And very dangerous.”
“Not anymore. Whatever you did to it when you reversed the flow of energy through it burned it out.”
She searched his face. “How do you know that?”
“I took it to Brizo. Told him what it might be capable of doing. He called in an ice-prism on staff at another lab. They conducted several tests.”
“And?”
“There’s no trace of any power left in the relic. Brizo’s theory is that it was never designed to work with human psychic energy. He suspects that in the few minutes it was activated, the combination of your paranormal power and Bracewell’s talent destroyed the mechanism.”
“That’s a relief.” Orchid relaxed back against the pillows. “But what if there are other artifacts that also retained some power?”
“Brizo thinks it’s highly unlikely. His experts are convinced that the only reason that particular relic still had a trace of energy left was because it was frozen in jelly-ice for a thousand years. They think the ice somehow preserved some of the fuel in the relic. Whatever it is, it’s gone now.”
“I hope he’s right.”
“Just in case, Brizo is going to see to it that security around the artifacts is increased. From now on everything will be tested with the help of ice-prisms.”
Orchid brightened. “That will certainly drive up ice-prism focus salaries.”
The door slammed open. Rafe winced. He turned to see Clementine Malone stride into the room. She waved a copy of the New Seattle Times.
“They got it wrong,” Clementine bellowed. “Again. I can’t believe it. Where do reporters go to school, anyhow? I’ve got a call in to the front page editor of the Times. This kind of screw-up is excusable once, but not twice.”
“What did the paper get wrong?” Orchid asked.
“The idiot who wrote the story says that you’re a marriage agency date from Psynergy, Inc. This is the second time he’s made that mistake. I told him the last time that we aren’t a matchmaking agency. We’re a focus agency.”
“Things were still a bit confused last night when the journalists arrived on the scene,” Rafe said.
“Hell, maybe you ought to call the Times yourself.” Clementine scowled. “You probably want this mistake cleared up as much as I do. You’ve got more clout. Get on the phone and tell that dipstick reporter that you aren’t marrying Orchid Adams. Tell him you hired her from a very exclusive agency named Psynergy, Inc. for her professional focus skills.”
Rafe looked at Orchid. “But I am going to marry her.”
Clementine stared at him. “What in five hells is going on here?”
Orchid went very still. She could not take her eyes off Rafe. “Did you mean what you said last night?”
“Unlike you, I was not under the influence of Brace-well’s happy gas.”
“Oh.”
“What about you?” he asked softly. “Did you mean what you said? You may not remember—”
“I remember every word.” She smiled. “And I meant every word.”
“Now, hold on just a minute, here.” Clementine planted her hands on her leather-sheathed hips and glared first at Orchid and then at Rafe. “Are you two saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes,” Rafe and Orchid said together.
“But you haven’t been properly matched by a matchmaking agency,” Clementine protested.
“We will soon be matched by the best matchmaking agency in town,” Rafe said. “Synergistic Connections.”
“How do you know that?” Clementine demanded.
Orchid raised her brows. “Yes, how do y
ou know that?”
Rafe thought about the Affinity Associates file on Orchid that he had found when he had gone through Gilbert Bracewell’s office shortly before the police arrived. The note attached to the file had made everything clear.
It was Bracewell who had arranged to obtain the file from Affinity Associates. He had requested it from Orchid’s counselor on the pretext of requiring it for use in a very special research project. Awed by a request from such a prestigious lab and apparently intimidated by the demand for secrecy, the woman had sent the file to Bracewell.
Bracewell had kept the file hidden in his office. He’d had plans for Orchid. The last thing he’d wanted was for her to be matched while he pursued his scheme to obtain the relic.
The counselor who had supplied the file had expected it to be promptly returned. But Bracewell had never sent it back. The woman eventually took another job in New Vancouver. Apparently uneasy about the situation she had created and, perhaps, belatedly aware of the ethics violation she had committed, she had kept quiet about the status of Orchid’s file.
“I just know it,” he said.
Chapter
23
It was a typical meta-zen-syn wedding. The groom wore blue. The bride wore yellow. When they reappeared after the ceremony to join their guests in the gardens of Stonebraker House, both wore green to symbolize the power of synergism.
The evening was balmy. The twin moons were full in the night sky. They cast a golden glow over the festive scene.
“I feel really stupid in green,” Rafe said in a low voice as he walked through the crowd with Orchid.
“Okay, so it’s not your best color.” She waved to her cousin, Veronica, who was chatting with her parents. “Look at the bright side. You only have to wear it once in your life.”
Rafe smiled with deep satisfaction. “True.”
Hobart Batt popped up in front of them, dapper in a pale pink suit and tie. He saluted them with a glass brimming with champagne.
“All best wishes, etc., etc., from Synergistic Connections,” he chortled.
It occurred to Orchid that Hobart had had several glasses of champagne. “Thank you, Mr. Batt.”