Illusion Town (11 page)

“Well, this is awkward,” Hannah said, careful to keep her voice very low.

They were alone in the small, two-person tent. An amber lamp burned on a stand between the twin cots.

Night had descended as it always did in the Rainforest, hard and fast. But the campsite was illuminated with softly glowing amber lanterns set up at the entrance to each tent and around the perimeter.

In addition to the amber lamps a silvery paranormal energy radiated from the interior of the portal cave. The combination ensured that the deep night of the jungle was kept at bay.

Virgil had spent the earlier part of the evening dining heartily on camp food and basking in the attention of a number of new fans. But when people headed for their tents, he had disappeared. Hannah suspected that he was
showing off his Arizona Snow action figure to some wild dust bunny pals. The result was that he was not available to play chaperone.

Not that she and Elias needed a chaperone, she reminded herself. They were roommates tonight, not honeymooners.

But it was going to be a very long night because she was afraid to go to sleep.

Elias sat on his cot, removing his boots. At her comment, he paused to survey the intimate interior of the tent. Then he shrugged and went back to his task.

“It won't be a problem,” he said.

He kept his voice low, too. The tent they were sharing had been pitched a discreet distance from the main encampment and the normal jungle noises had returned now that the dreamlight gate had been opened. Nevertheless, there was still a chance they might be overheard by one of the security guards making the rounds or someone who got up to use the facilities.

“I think I can promise you that it will be a problem if I fall asleep and start dream-walking,” she said. She huddled on the edge of her cot, gripping the edge on either side of her thighs. She eyed Elias's cot less than two feet away. “There's not much room in here. My vibes are bound to interfere with your dreamlight once you fall asleep.”

Elias yanked off his other boot. “We don't know that. We've never run the experiment.”

“You and I have never run the experiment, but I am not without some real-world experience,” she said evenly. “I'm telling you, it's going to be really awkward if you start screaming at three in the morning.”

Elias flashed her an unnervingly wicked grin. “Depends on the reason I'm screaming.”

She groaned. “You're not going to take this seriously, are you?”

His amusement vanished in a heartbeat. “Here's the thing, Hannah. Neither of us has any choice about where we sleep tonight. I'm sure as hell not going to let you spend the night alone.”

“Because you want everyone to believe we're really married?”

“We
are
really married.”

He looked irritated. She reminded herself that he'd had a long, hard day, too.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

She took off her own boots and went to work unrolling her sleeping bag on her cot.

Elias watched her. “Yes, I know what you mean. But we're going to spend the night together as a precaution.”

“A precaution against what? We're safe with your people now. A Coppersmith Security team is patrolling the perimeter as we speak. You said this jobsite has round-the-clock security.”

“Right.”

“What is the problem?”

For a few seconds Elias sat quietly on the edge of the cot, forearms resting on his knees, hands loosely clasped. She got the impression that he was trying to decide how much he wanted to say to her. Comprehension slammed through her.

“I get it,” she said softly. “You're wondering if what
happened here—the gate closing—was an accident, aren't you?”

“I don't know,” he said quietly. “You're the expert. What do you think?”

She considered the question for a moment. “Only a dreamlight talent as strong as I am could have deliberately rezzed it. Got anyone like that here on your team?”

“No. At least I don't think so. But it's possible that someone faked their resume to conceal a heavy talent. That wouldn't be the biggest surprise in the world. Really powerful talents do it all the time.”

“Because a lot of employers are afraid to hire very powerful talents,” Hannah said. “Look, for what it's worth, I think the triggered-by-accident scenario is more likely. You said yourself there's a lot of unknown radiation inside that cavern. But if it gives you any peace of mind, I can promise you that the gate won't be closing again. I obliterated the frequencies. That's why the riptide was so powerful.”

He smiled a little. “Thanks. That does give me some peace of mind. But that still leaves us with the problem of those bikers. Until I figure out what's going on, I don't want you to be alone. I'm responsible for your safety.”

His stern, stubborn expression warned her that there was no point trying to persuade him that he did not have to play bodyguard tonight. He felt responsible for her safety and he was the kind of man who took his responsibilities seriously.

“Okay,” she said. “I understand.” She climbed into her sleeping bag without taking off any more clothes. “I'll try to stay awake.”

He looked grimly amused. “I wondered why you were drinking coffee after dinner.”

“The thing is, I'm not sure the caffeine will be enough to keep me awake. I burned a lot of energy taking down that gate. My senses are exhausted. But maybe, if I do fall asleep, I won't dream. It's not like I do it every night.”

“What does cause you to dream-walk?”

“I can do it on command. It's a form of lucid dreaming. I use it to find things when I go looking for an artifact or something that has been lost. But it also happens when my intuition is trying to tell me something.” She waved a hand. “On those occasions I don't have much control over the process. But the problem here at the jobsite has been resolved and, like I said, I'm pretty wrecked. So maybe I won't dream tonight.”

His mouth kicked up a little at the corner. “Does that mean there's not much chance that I'll end up screaming at three in the morning?”

She glared at him. “Not funny.”

“Sorry. Just a little honeymoon humor.”

“This is not a honeymoon.” She groaned. “And no fair setting me up with a bad joke. Go to sleep.”

“Okay. You do the same. We both need the rest.”

Elias removed his flamer from his utility belt and put it on the floor beside his cot, within easy reach. He turned down the amber lamp, plunging the interior of the tent into dense shadows. The Rainforest was a bioengineered wonder but it was underground. There was no moon and no stars. The Aliens had created an artificial source of sunlight during the daylight hours but evidently they
hadn't deemed it necessary to provide nighttime illumination. Nevertheless, the proximity of the softly glowing cave and the amber lanterns ensured that some light filtered through the thin walls of the tent, enveloping the interior in deep shadows.

Hannah listened to Elias climb into the Coppersmith-issue sleeping bag that one of the staff had given him. There was some rustling and then things became very quiet.

After a while she stirred and folded her hands behind her head.

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

“I am now.”

“How will you go about figuring out who sent those bikers to grab me?” she asked. “Assuming it was me they were after and not you.”

“The first question you ask in a situation like this is, why? When I know the answer, I'll know where to go from there.”

She smiled a little. “That's my first question, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I go dream-walking, the first question I have to remember to ask is, why am I searching for the object? Knowing why a client wants it helps guide me.”

“What happens if you don't like the answer?”

“I turn down the job and make some polite excuse.”

“Are you always looking for something when you dream-walk?” Elias asked.

“Always. I go in asking questions but I rarely get straightforward answers.”

“That's the nature of intuition. You'll get a flash of
insight but you don't always know where it's going to take you.” Elias paused. “And you don't always like the answers you get.”

“True,” she said. “Do you like being director of research for the Coppersmith R-and-D labs?”

“Yes. But I think that gig will be coming to an end, soon.”

“Why?”

“Because it's become obvious that the Ghost City project is too big and too important to be managed as part of the regular R-and-D system. Dad has decided to spin off the venture. It will be set up as a separate division with its own corporate hierarchy and its own dedicated labs.”

“Your father is going to put you in charge of the special labs for this project, isn't he?”

“It's not like he's got a lot of choice. My brother, Rafe, doesn't want the job. He opened up his own private investigation business a few months ago right after he got married. Consults for the FBPI and Jones and Jones.”

“What about your sister?”

“Leanna is the real scion in the clan, assuming we've actually got one. She received all the executive talents in the Coppersmith gene pool. Everyone assumes she'll be taking Dad's place as the CEO of the company one of these days.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I'm the family geek. I was born for R and D.”

“That makes you a geek?” Hannah asked.

“I have it on good authority that I make a really boring cocktail-party guest.”

“Whose authority?”

“Various and assorted dates.”

“If you don't do cocktail party chatter very well, you should probably consider other venues for your dates,” Hannah said.

“Hey, thanks for the suggestion. Why didn't I think of that? I could try taking a date out for an evening of fun and games—running from a horde of would-be kidnappers on motorcycles, for example. Then we could visit a creepy carnival featuring a lot of weird Arcane artifacts. Wrap things up with a romantic Marriage of Convenience at a tacky MC wedding mill and spend our wedding night at a low-rent motel in the Shadow Zone. The next morning we would wake up with no memory of what happened.”

She smiled into the shadows. “All in all, it sounds more interesting than a cocktail party.”

“Think so?”

She turned on her side. “Good night, Elias.”

“Good night, Hannah.”

She thought about the flamer he had put on the floor of the tent next to his cot.

To date, as far as the experts had been able to determine, the only creatures in the Rainforest that occasionally proved dangerous to humans were other humans.

The dream-walking started the way it always did. Her doppelgänger got up from the cot and paused to look down at herself. The dreamer was curled on her side, snuggled into her special silk-lined sleeping bag. She appeared to be sound asleep. But she knew she was dream-walking.

She'd been lucid dreaming since her teens but she still got a little jolting thrill of panic and wonder each time she found herself going into the out-of-body experience. After all these years the one thing she knew for certain about her dream-walking was that it always had a purpose. It was her intuition speaking to her. It was up to her to figure out what her doppelgänger was trying to tell her.

Her doppelgänger looked down at Elias. He was sleeping on his side, still clad in a T-shirt and his field trousers. As she watched, he stirred.

Her dreaming self knew that he was starting to sense the vibes of her strong dreamlight currents.

“I need to wake up before I disturb his aura,” the dreamer said in the language of dreams.

“There's something important happening,” the doppelgänger said. “Something that could change everything.”

As her doppelgänger watched, Elias opened his eyes. He seemed a little bemused at first, but not alarmed. After a few beats he opened the sleeping bag, sat up slowly, and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. He looked at the dreamer. He was curious now; intrigued. He did not look like a man who thought he was trapped in a nightmare.

“He's not afraid,” the doppelgänger said.

“Is that all you have to say to me?” the dreamer asked.

“What other man has been able to sleep so close to you and not wake up in a panic when you went dream-walking?”

“Okay, so he's strong. But let's not push the envelope here. I'm going to wake up now.”

Hannah awoke on a hot rush of adrenaline. A shudder went through her as she crossed the never-never land between the dreamscape and the waking state. In the next breath she had her bearings again. She was no longer dream-walking.

She opened her eyes and saw Elias sitting quietly on the side of his cot. He watched her with a little heat in his eyes.

“Was that it?” he asked matter-of-factly. “Were you dream-walking?”

“Yes,” she said. She unzipped her sleeping bag and sat up slowly. “Are you . . . all right?”

“I'm fine. Your vibes woke me up, but no big deal.”

She wasn't sure where to go with that. No other man had ever described the experience as
no big deal
.

“What was it like for you?” she finally asked.

He was silent for a moment. She held her breath, afraid of the answer.

“Different,” he said at last.

“Bad?” she asked, more uneasy than ever. “I tried to tell you—”

“No,” he said. “Not bad. Just unusual.” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Intimate.”

“Intimate?”

He nodded, satisfied with the word. “I think that's the best way to describe it.”

It was her turn to be confused. “Creepy intimate or weird intimate?”

“More like sexy intimate.”

She felt the heat rise in her face and was grateful for the shadows.

“No one has ever described it that way,” she said. “When I spent the night in Grady's lab he told me the instruments registered severe disruption of my dreamlight patterns during the dream-walking episode. He said he had seen more stable patterns in dreamlight talents who were locked up in para-psych wards. He said it was a wonder I was still . . . sane. Between you and me, I'm pretty sure he has a few doubts.”

“I've known some crazy talents. You're not one of them. Obviously, Barnett's instruments were not sophisticated enough to measure your aura patterns accurately.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Hannah, I'm an engineer with a talent for working with paranormal crystal energy. In addition, I am descended from a family with a gene pool that is anything but normal. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is still a hell of a lot we don't know about para-biophysics and the human aura. What's more, our instruments for measuring those things are still extremely primitive.”

“But you think my dreamlight energy feels . . . normal?” she asked.

“Your aura is no more normal than mine. But it's strong and it's stable.”

“Grady said—”

“Do we have to talk about Barnett tonight?”

She caught her breath. “Excellent question. No, we don't have to talk about him.”

“You're not exactly normal. Neither am I. Coppersmiths don't have a problem with not being normal. You could say it's a family tradition.”

“You don't know how much that means to me,” she said. “Thank you.”

“It's not a compliment, damn it. It's just a fact.”

She smiled. “It's the best gift you could have given me tonight.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn't call it a gift.”

“Depends on your point of view, I suppose. You see, so many people have told me that my para-psych profile is creepy weird that, deep down, part of me believes it. The fact that I've got certain intimacy issues has just reinforced the negative stuff.”

“Understandable.”

“Well, enough about me. Let's talk about you.”

“Okay,” Elias said. But he sounded wary.

“When I was dream-walking a few minutes ago, my dopp was trying to tell me something important about you.”

“Your dopp?”

“Doppelgänger.”

“That's what you call your dream-walking self?”

“Yes. When I go into the lucid dream trance it's like there's two of me. The metaphysical me and the . . . other . . . me, the physical me.”

“What was your doppelgänger telling you?”

“That's just it. I don't know. All I'm sure of is that it was important. I suppose sooner or later I'll figure it out.”

“It's been a rough couple of days. You need sleep.”

“We both need sleep,” she said.

But she made no move to crawl back inside the sleeping bag. Elias did not move, either. He just watched her, his eyes burning with a smoldering kind of heat.

She did not want to sleep, she thought. Not just yet. A sparkly delight, a rare excitement, was unfurling deep inside her, heating her blood and stirring her senses—all of her senses.

The hot, giddy sensation was probably the result of lack of sleep combined with the primal paranormal energy of the surrounding Rainforest, she thought. Not to mention the subtle influence of the paranormal vibes whispering out of the portal cave.

“Would you mind very much if I kissed you before I go back to sleep?” she said.

There was a short, tension-infused silence. Her heart sank. She had misread the vibe in the atmosphere between them. Okay, maybe he didn't think she was borderline crazy, but that didn't necessarily mean he wanted to go to bed with her.

She was trying to come up with a diplomatic way out of what had to be the worst moment of her always awkward social life when Elias moved. He reached across the short, shadowy space between them and stroked the side of her cheek with his fingertips. His hand was a little rough but in an exciting way, and very strong. It was the hand of a man who worked with tools and raw quartz. It was the hand of a man who had spent time in the Rainforest and mining camps—the hand of a man who knew how to handle power, his own as well as the kind locked in hot gemstones and charged amber.

That just made the tender gesture all the more beguiling.

“I would like it very much if you kissed me,” he said.

He wrapped his palm around the back of her neck.

She shivered.

Gently he tugged her toward him.

Excitement splashed through her. He wanted her. And she wanted him.

She literally threw herself across the short distance that separated the cots, going straight into his arms.

Elias groaned, the sound low and rough, as though it emanated from some deep, secret place inside him. He
fell back onto his cot, taking her with him. She sprawled on top of his hard, muscled chest, intensely aware of the heat of his body.

He captured her face between his palms and kissed her, fiercely urgent and seemingly desperate.

She could feel the power and the strength of him through the layers of clothing. His erection strained against the fabric of his trousers. She reached down and covered him with her hand. He sucked in his breath as if he were in pain. But in the next moment he found the sensitive skin of her throat with his mouth and it was her turn to catch her breath.

She gasped and pressed herself more tightly against the whole length of his body. His hands slid to her waist and then up under the hem of her black pullover. She felt him pause.

“You wear a bra to bed?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper in her ear.

“Not usually,” she said, chagrined. So much for the cool, always-in-control image. “Tonight is different.”

“You can say that again.”

With a few determined moves he stripped off the pullover and then the practical, very unsexy bra she always wore when she went into the Underworld.

When she was nude from the waist up he somehow managed to reverse their positions on the narrow camp bed so that she wound up on her back. His breathing was growing harsh now. The knowledge that he was so deeply aroused kicked her excitement level higher.

He crowded close along the length of her and went to
work unfastening her jeans. He managed to haul them down over her hips. When he got them all the way to her ankles, she kicked them off.

He removed her panties inch by inch. By the time they went sailing over the side of the cot she was soaking wet between her thighs. A great urgency was building within her.

He stroked her intimately and groaned again when he found her hot and damp.

Reluctantly, he freed himself to roll to his feet beside the cot. He peeled off his trousers and briefs. When he lowered himself back onto the cot, she made a place for him between her legs, welcoming him.

He mantled her with the hard, masculine weight of his body. Again he reached down between them and stroked her in a shatteringly intimate way that left her breathless and consumed with a dizzying sense of discovery.

She clenched her fingers in his hair and raised her knees.

“Now,” she whispered into his ear. “Now.”

She felt him pushing into her, slowly but with unrelenting force. The skin of his back was damp with sweat. He was fighting to control himself.

He filled her with a slow, deep thrust. The sensation was almost unbearable. She had never come so close to the precipice.

Belatedly, she realized that she was about to lose control. She never lost control. She did not dare to lose control.

The old panic rose like a tide within her. She froze.

Elias went very still and raised his head. When he spoke, his voice was a harsh, grating whisper.

“Hannah? Are you . . . all right?”

“Yes. No.” She clutched him close even as she knew she should let him go. “It's just that I'm afraid that if we . . . finish this . . . it might affect your aura.”

He rested his damp forehead against hers. “My aura can damn well take care of itself.”

She couldn't help herself. She laughed. It was a soft, shaky laugh, but it was real.

“Like your car?” she said.

“Something like that.”

She thought about how they had held hands and walked through the dreamlight gate that guarded the Midnight Carnival, and then she remembered how he had gripped her hand while she took down the portal cave barrier. She had trusted him to know his strengths and limitations on those two occasions. She would trust him now.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She wrapped her legs around him. He groaned and started to move within her, going deeper and harder and faster.

Once again the sweet, frantic tension built rapidly within her. She was caught up in a rushing river of energy that tangled her senses and stole her breath. And Elias was there with her. She stopped trying to resist the inevitable.

He moved within her one last time, and this time she tightened herself around him, refusing to let him withdraw again.

They plunged over the falls together.

He covered her mouth with his own, silencing her
shriek of pleasure and surprise. The kiss also muffled his deep, aching growl of release.

The energy of their clashing auras was a thrill ride unlike any other rush Hannah had ever known.

And then, for a heartbeat or two, she was certain that the currents of her aura were actually resonating with the waves emanating from Elias's energy field.

It was the most profoundly intimate experience she had ever known.

So this is what it's like, she thought as she tumbled into the pool below the waterfall.