Illusion Town (24 page)

“I can explain everything,” Grady said. “This isn't some kind of sinister conspiracy.” He shot Hannah a reproachful look. “Frankly, the fact that you're trying to make it look that way indicates a degree of paranoia. It's another sign of instability in your aura.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hannah said. “I don't want to hear another word about my para-psych instability. Just answer my questions.”

Elias suppressed a groan. They were gathered in Grady's office. Kelsey Lewis sat stiffly in a chair, and he had to admit that she did, indeed, look quite attractive in a chilly, dominatrix sort of way. Her red hair was cut in a sleek wedge that angled down to her sharp chin and she had the body and the sculpted features that would have made it possible for her to apply for a position in an Illusion Town chorus line. She lacked the height, however. She was not
nearly as tall as the average showgirl. At the moment her pretty face was tight with anger.

Grady was in his chair, his hands folded on top of his desk. Hannah was seated in one of the two padded chairs in front of the desk. Virgil was perched on the back, hovering in a protective manner. Only his baby blues were open now but the way he watched Grady would have made any smart man nervous. Grady appeared to be smart enough to be nervous.

Elias had one shoulder propped against the doorway where he could keep an eye on the hall as well as the tense scene inside the office.

The biggest problem at the moment was restraining Hannah. She was in a fine rage. He didn't blame her but he knew it wasn't the best way to get answers.

“If you don't want to answer our questions, Barnett, you're welcome to go downtown to police headquarters and answer Detective Jensen's questions,” Elias said.

“The cops can't arrest me,” Grady announced. “They've got nothing on me because I haven't done anything illegal.”

“How about unethical?” Hannah said fiercely. “You set me up for a lying, thieving bastard who wants to steal something I discovered in the Underworld.”

“I swear, I didn't know that Wilcox was planning to steal anything,” Grady said. “He contacted me about a month ago.”

“Right after I bought my crystal at an online auction,” Hannah snapped.

“I don't know anything about a crystal. I did know Wilcox. We met while I was affiliated with the University
of Resonance. But it's not like we were good friends. He had retired from the faculty but he had the usual academic privileges that retired professors get. He spent a lot of time in the para-psych library doing his own research. I knew he was interested in using para-genetic profiles as a tool for genealogical research. He came into the lab a few times. We had some conversations about my dreamlight work. But that was the end of it.”

“Until you got fired,” Hannah snapped.

Grady looked deeply offended. “I was not fired. I left the university to pursue other career opportunities. I've always wanted my own research lab.”

“You were fired because you faked the data you used on some of your published papers,” Hannah said.

“It was a matter of interpretation,” Grady said coldly.

Elias held up one hand, palm out. “We're going way off topic here. Let's get back to Wilcox. You said he contacted you about a month ago.”

“Yes.” Grady inhaled slowly and exhaled with control, regaining his composure. “He said he wanted to refer a client to me for a complete dreamlight workup.”

“Me,” Hannah said.

“Yes. You showed up and I agreed to perform the analysis at a discount. You were an extremely interesting subject.”

Kelsey smiled an icy smile. “But quite unstable.”

Hannah rounded on her. “You want unstable? I'll give you unstable.”

“Hannah,” Elias said gently. “Let's try to stay focused here.”

Hannah gave him a bright, ominous smile. “Oh, you mean on having these two arrested for fraud? Sure. By all means let's stay focused.”

“We haven't committed fraud,” Grady roared.

“Let me see if I've got this straight,” Elias said. “You got a call from Paxton Wilcox informing you that he was referring a client to you for testing. When Hannah arrived you began analyzing her para-psych currents. Right so far?”

“Right,” Grady said forcefully.

“When did you realize that you could use her for your own personal research purposes?” Elias asked.

“The day she walked into his office.” Kelsey gave a little snort of disgust. “Grady was so excited. He couldn't wait to get to the sleep tests. All he could talk about was how badly he wanted to hook her up to his machines.”

“But all I wanted was a basic para-psych profile,” Hannah said. “I didn't want to be a research subject.”

“Which is why he didn't tell you after that night in the sleep lab that the para-psych profile was complete,” Kelsey said. “He knew you'd quit the testing process as soon as you had that profile. He had to find a way to keep you coming back for more tests. That's why he tried to seduce you.”

Hannah smiled coolly. “Well, that didn't go well, did it? Thanks to you. I really owe you, Kelsey. If I hadn't overheard that conversation between the two of you and caught the two of you having a good time in the supply closet, I might have stuck around to finish the profile. Yes, indeed, I am truly grateful to you.”

“Once again we are straying from the subject,” Elias
said. “All right, here's what I've got so far, Barnett. Correct me if there is any misunderstanding. You prepared a para-psych profile on Hannah but you lied to her and told her that it was not complete.”

“I wanted to recheck some of my findings,” Grady muttered.

“But you sent that profile to Wilcox, didn't you?” Elias said.

“Wilcox was a colleague,” Grady said stiffly. “He offered to consult on Hannah's profile.”

“He offered to pay you a nice fat bribe for a copy of that profile,” Elias said.

“It wasn't a bribe,” Grady snapped. “And it wasn't unethical. After all, Hannah had commissioned the profile with the intention of sending it to Wilcox herself.”

“The money you got from Wilcox was a bribe,” Elias said. “And, yes, what you did was unethical.”

Hannah smiled at Grady. “But that's nothing new for you, is it, Grady? You've got a history of unethical behavior.”

Grady propped his elbows on his desk and dropped his head into his hands. “What do you want from me, damn it?”

“We know Wilcox came to see you recently,” Elias said. “When was the last time you met with him?”

Grady scowled. “How did you know he was here?”

“My unstable talent tells me he was standing right here in this office,” Hannah said very sweetly. “I can see his footsteps. He came up the back way. Used the alley entrance. Guess he didn't want to take a chance on being seen with you.”

Grady shrugged. “Fine. He was here this morning.”

“Where is he now?” Elias asked.

“How should I know?” Grady said.

“Got an address for him here in Illusion Town?” Elias asked. “Does he have an apartment? Is he staying in a hotel room?”

“I don't know, damn it.” Grady raised his head. “I didn't ask for details. He was in a raging temper, if you must know. Something about having spent years searching for some lost artifacts and that he was so close he could almost touch it, whatever that means. He claimed I'd screwed up everything and that our deal was off the table if I didn't get you to cooperate by five o'clock today.”

Hannah's eyes widened. “Wilcox was the mysterious collector you claimed to be representing, wasn't he? The one you said wanted to hire me to find a lost artifact. That was the deal you were so eager to broker.”

“Yeah, well, you can forget it now,” Grady said. “You blew it for both of us. You could have made a lot of money and I could have had a new lab. But thanks to you, it's all gone to green hell. I hope you're satisfied.”

Hannah looked at Elias. “Wilcox had no intention of hiring me to find a lost artifact. He already knows where it is. He just can't get to it.”

“It was yet another desperate plan to grab you,” Elias said. “He probably figured he might have a shot at it if you accepted the bogus job he was offering through Barnett.”

Grady looked at Elias and then he glared at Hannah. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

She sighed. “Oddly enough, I believe you.”

Elias straightened away from the doorjamb. “Time to go talk to Detective Jensen. We know Wilcox is somewhere in Illusion Town. He's a stranger. Doesn't know the territory. We've got a good description. Shouldn't take too long to find him.”

Kelsey cleared her throat discreetly. “I might be able to help you speed up the process.”

They all looked at her.

She raised one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Professor Wilcox made me a little uneasy.” She gave Hannah a thin smile. “I do have some talent, you know. He arrived in a cab. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to get another one to pick him up in this neighborhood so he instructed the cab to wait.”

Elias looked at her. “You made a note of the number of the cab, didn't you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I'm sure the police can persuade the cab company to tell them where the cab took Wilcox.”

“Wow,” Hannah said. “I'm impressed. Just how much do you want in exchange for the number of the cab that picked up Wilcox?”

“A lot,” Kelsey said. She gave Elias a glowing smile. “But I'm sure that it will be petty cash to Mr. Coppersmith.”

“Always happy to pay for good information,” Elias said.

*   *   *

Detective Jensen phoned Elias twenty minutes later.

“I'm standing in room 118 at the Glowing Ruin Inn,”
Jensen said. “Wilcox was here, all right. Registered under another name but the front desk clerk recognized him from a photo. He checked out a few hours ago. Now that we have a lead on him it shouldn't take us too long to find him.”

“We've got another problem,” Elias said. “A few minutes ago Wilcox contacted Hannah. This is now a hostage situation.”

“I got your message, Professor Wilcox,” Hannah said. “I'm here and as you can see, I came alone. Let Runner go. He's not a threat to you.”

“All in good time, Miss West, all in good time.”

Paxton Wilcox was standing a respectful distance from the powerful dreamlight gate that sealed the entrance to the Midnight Carnival. He looked exactly like the photo on his website—a middle-aged academic complete with wire-rim glasses, a scruffy beard, and a crumpled jacket with leather patches on the elbows. The only thing unscholarly about him was the flamer he held in one hand.

He was not alone. Two beefy men dressed in the leathers and colors of the Soldiers of Fortune stood nearby. One had a long, graying braid secured with a leather thong. The other had shaved his head and tattooed it with
the image of a skull. Both held flamers but in a rather casual manner.

Ghost hunters gone rogue, Hannah thought, just as Elias had said. Although they were armed, their real weapon in the Underworld was their talent for working the dangerous, volatile currents of dissonance energy that flowed through the psi-heavy atmosphere.

Runner, his hands bound behind him, was sitting on the floor of the tunnel, slumped against the wall.

“Hey, Runner,” she said gently.

“Hey, Finder,” he muttered. “You shouldn't have come.”

“What else could I do?”

He didn't answer. They both knew that if the situation had been reversed, he would have been standing where she was.
Family
.

She realized he was staring at her with a bemused expression. He opened his mouth to say something and closed it just as quickly.

She knew that he had just realized that Virgil was not with her. She thought she saw a spark of cautious hope in his eyes. He quickly veiled it.

“Why in green hell did you fall for this bastard's threats?” he asked instead. “You know he's lying. He can't afford to let either one of us live after he gets what he wants. He's gonna send us both on a long walk through the tunnels without good amber.”

Which was, Hannah knew, the equivalent of a death sentence.

“You know me, Runner,” she said. “Ever the optimist.”

Wilcox snorted in disgust. “There was never any
question but that Miss West would show up, provided she had the right incentive.”

“What made you so sure?” Hannah asked.

“I've studied your para-psych profile,” he said. “At least as much of it as Barnett was able to assess before you walked out. I also have his notes. There was more than enough material to confirm what I suspected when I sent you to him for testing. It's the profile of a fragile, off-the-charts talent.”

“I'm not fragile,” she said. “And by the way, that profile was supposed to be confidential. I never authorized Barnett to send it to you.”

“Money talks very loudly to people like Grady Barnett. I realize that you're a little annoyed with him at the moment but rest assured, I didn't have to study his para-psych profile to know that he would be open to a business arrangement involving your profile.”

“Yeah, I gather you two were BFFs from the old days at good old University of Resonance.”

“I have no idea what a BFF is but I can tell you that any researcher who is willing to falsify his data in order to get published is a researcher who can be manipulated with the promise of grant money,” Wilcox said.

“Out of curiosity, did you ever intend to actually pay Grady?” she asked.

Wilcox shrugged. “I'm sure that one small artifact from the treasure trove on the other side of this dreamlight gate would have been more than enough to keep him quiet.”

“You shouldn't have kidnapped Runner,” Hannah said.
“We don't have a lot of rules in the DZ. But we enforce the ones we do have. Rule Number One—you don't get away with threatening friends and family.”

Wilcox grunted. “Young Runner here is hardly a friend. He's a petty criminal. And you don't have any family, remember?”

“Runner is not a criminal,” Hannah said. “He runs a delivery business. And just so you know, you dumbass genealogist, I do have a family. You just kidnapped my brother and you're going to regret it.”

Wilcox chuckled. “It was so simple to manipulate your misplaced sense of family loyalty.”

“I'm guessing you're not close to your own family,” Hannah said. “Or maybe your relatives prefer not to get too close to you? It's not like they can count on you to bring a lot of honor and respect to the family name, can they?”

Rage flashed briefly in Wilcox's eyes. “You do realize that your need to create a fake family composed of the riffraff of the Dark Zone is just another example of your para-psych fragility, don't you? It's the reason I've been able to control you from a distance ever since you showed up at my website.” He relaxed slightly. “I had almost given up, you know.”

“Given up on what?” Hannah asked.

“A couple of years ago I put up that website advertising myself as an expert genealogist who specialized in dreamlight para-genetics. I knew that the orphaned daughter of a cheap Illusion Town showgirl and a third-rate magician had to be out there somewhere.” Wilcox smiled. “Sooner
or later every orphan goes looking for her family. I baited my trap very carefully and finally,
finally
you showed up.”

“But you had to be sure that I had the necklace so you put that crystal up for auction and waited to see if I would grab it. How did you get that ultraviolet stone, by the way?”

“I picked it up in a genuine estate sale years ago. I traced the rest of the crystals to your mother. But your father had a duplicate made and palmed it off on me. He thought he could get rid of me that way.”

Shock whispered through Hannah. Fury followed in its wake.

“You're the one who murdered them, aren't you?” she said. “You shot my parents.”

“Your father tried to cheat me,” Wilcox bellowed. “Now shut up and open that damned dreamlight gate.”

The two Soldiers of Fortune exchanged glances. Hannah realized they were starting to get a little worried about the mental state of their employer.

She took a deep breath. “Just so you know, those of us who live in the DZ are pretty good at protecting what's ours. Isn't that right, Runner?”

“Yeah,” Runner said. “Won't be long before this idiot figures that out.”

The Soldier of Fortune sporting the graying braid aimed his flamer at Runner in a threatening manner.

“That's enough, kid,” the man said. “I'm getting tired of listening to you.”

“I think we're done with the question-and-answer portion of the program,” Wilcox said. “I'd rather not
hang around this town any longer than absolutely necessary.”

“I'll bet you don't,” Hannah said. “You've made some serious enemies, including my husband. As soon as he realizes I'm gone, Coppersmith is going to come looking for me.”

“I don't think I'll need to worry too much about your Marriage-of-Convenience husband. Coppersmith got what he wanted from you when you opened that dreamlight gate at the portal and led him to the pirates. Haven't you asked yourself why he's still hanging around? The sex may be good but a man in his position can easily replace his bed partners. No, Hannah, he's sticking close to you for the same reason I've been keeping tabs on you for a month. You've got one irresistible quality—you're the key to the Midnight Carnival.”

“You're wrong about Elias,” she said quietly.

“You're a very foolish woman but that is no longer my concern. I'm out of time.
Open the damned gate
.”

“Okay, if you're sure that's what you want. But Runner comes with me. I'm not leaving him behind.”

“Don't worry. We're not leaving that little tunnel rat behind. He'd make a break for the surface the second I turned my back on him.” Wilcox motioned to Runner. “On your feet.”

Runner scrambled upright and moved to join Hannah in front of the gate.

She put her hand on his shoulder in what she hoped looked like a reassuring gesture. The reality was that she
needed the physical contact to protect him from the full force of the powerful dreamlight.

She was so close now that the energy stirred her hair and excited her senses. A sea of nightmares beckoned, promising hellish visions and senses-crushing sensations.

Under her palm she felt Runner shiver. Even though she was shielding him from the worst of the effects, she knew that some of the nightmares were getting through.

“Man, this is so high-rez,” he rasped.

“Tell me about it,” she said. “But I can handle this stuff.”

“Sure. You're Finder. You know dreamlight.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

She rezzed her senses and began searching for the core frequencies. Small flashes of paranormal lightning sparked off the gate.

The dreamlight currents began to wail, faint and audible only on the paranormal end of the spectrum at first but they increased rapidly in volume. She knew that the men behind her could detect them now.

In such an environment even normal dreamlight took on added dimensions that affected different people in different ways. There was nothing normal about the dreamlight in the gate. She knew that Braid Dude and Skull Head were very much on edge now.

“Shit,” Skull Head muttered. “What is that weird noise?”

“Just a side effect of the dreamlight,” Wilcox said.

He sounded impatient but Hannah thought she caught an edge of nervousness in his voice.

“Just one more question before I do this,” she said. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the eerie howling of the fierce currents. “What happens after I open this gate? You can't possibly imagine that you'll be able to steal every artifact in the Midnight Carnival. I've been in there. It's huge. There are hundreds of hot relics inside. Some of them are dangerous. Once they start hitting the underground market, rumors will fly. Half the collectors in the four city-states will be looking for the source, not to mention Arcane.”

Wilcox gave her a thin smile. “Rumors won't be a problem if everyone keeps quiet. It will be in your best interests and the best interests of your so-called brother to keep your mouths shut. Get the gate open.”

She glanced at Runner and knew from his grim expression that he understood the situation as clearly as she did. They had both grown up in the DZ. They knew how to get to the bottom line in a hurry. Once Wilcox gained access to the carnival he would buy the time he needed to transport the relics to another location by getting rid of the only two people in the vicinity who could not be counted on to keep silent—Runner and herself.

And then there were the Soldiers of Fortune, she thought. They gave the situation an intriguing twist.

She glanced back at them. “Hey, guys. Keep an eye on Wilcox. After all, he'll have to murder you two, as well. It's either that or risk losing the Midnight Carnival to your boss. I understand that Felix—that's his street name, right? Felix is the ambitious type. He'll probably want to grab the carnival artifacts for himself.”

Braid Dude exchanged another uneasy glance with Skull Head.

“Shut up,” Wilcox snarled. He aimed the flamer at Runner. “If you don't stop talking, I'll set the tunnel rat's shirt on fire. You can watch him burn alive.”

Runner rolled his eyes, unimpressed with the threat.

Hannah turned back to the gate and concentrated on de-rezzing the tightly oscillating currents. The psi-lightning flashed more violently and the energy levels in the tunnel grew more intense. The wailing and howling of the nightmare currents shuddered through the atmosphere.

“How long does this take?” Skull Head hissed.

“Shit,” the other one gasped. “What is that energy?”

Runner snorted. “Thought those guys were supposed to be tough.”

“They're not from around here,” Hannah said. “They don't know tough.”

“Nope.”

“Hurry, damn it,” Paxton ordered.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Hannah said.

Gently, she manipulated one last frequency, allowing it to flatline.

In the next instant the energy gate winked out.

The sudden stillness caught Wilcox and the bikers by surprise. It took them a few seconds to recover from the shock created by the sudden cessation of the nerve-rattling nightmare energy.

Hannah used the moment to urge Runner into the chamber.

Heavy currents of psi shuddered and shivered through
the atmosphere. The attractions of the Midnight Carnival glittered and dazzled, promising thrills and chills and great secrets.

“Wow,” Runner whispered. “What
is
this place?”

“Long story,” she said softly. “Tell you later.”

Skull Head and Braid Dude walked hesitantly into the chamber and stopped a short distance inside the gate. They both looked stunned.