Midnight Crystal (16 page)

He had sensed her edgy mood first on the phone and again when she had arrived a short time ago. His long history of failed relationships no doubt indicated a lack of perception and understanding of the female of the species. Nevertheless, he was fairly certain that Marlowe’s tension this evening was not just the result of what had happened to Tully and their plans for later tonight. It was directly linked to what had happened between them last night.
She feels it now, too,
he thought.
She knows this is not just about sex
.
There’s some kind of connection between us.

He drizzled olive oil over the spears and sprinkled them with salt, savoring the energy in the atmosphere. There was a cool, touch-at-your-own-risk look in Marlowe’s eyes that was probably meant to be a warning flag. He wondered if he should tell her that it was having the opposite effect. He smiled a little.

She was dressed in what he had concluded was her working uniform—jeans, black turtleneck, and boots—ready for the late-night foray into Tully’s shop. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. It didn’t matter that she was dressed for a bike run, not a date. She looked good here in his home, he thought, like she belonged.

“What did you do with Gibson tonight?” he asked.

“He took off before I left the office this evening. I told you, he does that sometimes.” She lounged against the counter, frowning a little. “Although lately he seems to be doing it more often than usual.”

“Maybe it’s mating season for dust bunnies.”

Marlowe stiffened. “Maybe.”

He slid the pan into the oven and closed the door. “How did you and Gibson become a team?”

“I found him in an alley outside a crime scene a few months ago. I was working as an agent for J&J at the time. A member of the Society who lived in the Old Quarter had dropped dead of an apparent heart attack. Uncle Zeke called me in to take a look. Turned out to be a homicide.”

“Don’t tell me the bunny did it?”

Marlowe bristled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Sorry.” He pulled a long loaf of crusty bread out of a paper bag. “Little Guild boss humor.”

“It certainly explains why Guild bosses aren’t known for their wit.” She took another tiny sip of wine and lowered her glass. “Anyhow, I followed the trail of the killer’s prints out into the alley. And there was Gibson. A couple of stray dogs had him cornered near a trash container. He was holding them off, but it was two against one.”

“So you rescued him?”

“I chased off the dogs. The dust bunny disappeared beneath the trash container. But he showed up at my back door later that night. I gave him a High-Rez Energy Bar. We’ve been partners ever since.”

“If I showed up at your back door, would you give me a High-Rez Energy Bar?”

Marlowe sighed. “You Guild bosses really do have a problem with humor, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry, you get used to it.” He set the bread on a plate, picked up his wineglass, and rounded the edge of the counter. “What do you say we finish our drinks out on the balcony?”

“All right.” She glanced back at the preparations for dinner. “You know, you really didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I mean, it’s not like we’re on a real date.”

He opened the glass doors at the far end of the room and stood back to watch her walk out onto the balcony. “I like to cook. Gives me a little instant gratification.

But cooking for one isn’t much fun. It’s nice to have someone else around to enjoy it.”

She glanced at him, her eyes wary, as she went past. “Yes, it is.”

He followed her out onto the balcony, satisfaction roaring through him. No doubt about it. The lady from Jones & Jones was running scared of whatever was going on between them. He doubted if she had ever panicked about a relationship with a man in her entire life. It was a good sign, he decided, a very good sign. She was definitely paying attention now.

“You have a great view,” she said.

“One of the reasons I bought the place.”

His home was the entire top floor of a two-hundred-year-old Colonial-era building. The structure was five stories high, which made it one of the tallest buildings in the Quarter.

“I couldn’t help but notice that three of the four floors below us are empty and dark.” Marlowe studied him with a speculative look. “Guild boss paranoia?”

He crossed the balcony and joined her at the railing, careful to keep a little distance between them but close enough to let him savor her intoxicating energy. When he was near her like this, he felt a little buzzed, and not because of the wine or the gentle currents of alien psi that drifted like fog through the Quarter.

“I own the entire building.” He rested his elbows on the railing, cradling the wineglass between his hands. “I rent out the ground-floor shops to some people I know very, very well.”

She looked knowing. “People you trust.”

“Yes.”

“A Guild boss version of a neighborhood block watch?”

“Something like that. I like to keep the floors between my flat and the street shops empty.”

“And rigged with alarms just in case anyone you don’t want to see decides to come calling?”

He contemplated his wineglass. “You know what they say. Even paranoids have enemies.”

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked. She glanced down.

He felt the heightening of energy in the atmosphere and knew that she was studying his dreamprints.

“Got in a couple of hours,” he said.

“Before the nightmares hit?”

“I told you, I can handle them.”

“I did some research in Jeremiah Jones’s private case files this afternoon.”

Well, it was bound to happen, he thought. He had known from the beginning that sooner or later she’d pull up the old history from the Era of Discord. It dawned on him that he was the one who was wary now.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral.

“According to Jeremiah’s notes, parts of the Winters legend are certainly true. If we find the Burning Lamp, I think we’ll be able to use it to stop the nightmares and hallucinations that have been plaguing you these past few weeks.”

He did not take his attention off the ruins. “Aren’t you worried I might be turning into a real Cerberus?”

“You’re not going mad; I’ve told you that.” She rested her forearms on the railing beside him and contemplated the ruins. “But I have a hunch that by now you’ve discovered the second aspect of your talent.”

“My second talent, you mean?”

“No, a new aspect of your original talent,” she said calmly. “You are not a true multitalent. Not a Cerberus. But if we find the lamp and if I can work it properly, I’ll be able to turn the key in the lock, as Nicholas Winters wrote in his journal. When that happens, you’ll come into the third aspect of your talent. With that level of power, you’ll be able to use the lamp as a kind of weapon.”

“And if you don’t turn the key in the lock properly?”

“The radiation from the lamp will probably kill us both or, at the very least, destroy our parapsych talents.”

He looked at her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“We don’t have any choice. You have to be able to work the lamp in order to try to stop whatever is happening down below in the maze. And according to everything I have been able to uncover concerning the legend, you won’t be able to channel the heavy energy in the artifact without a strong dreamlight talent like me.”

He watched the glowing towers of the ancient city. “That’s the legend, all right.”

“I went through all of the old records, Adam. There’s no other alternative. It takes two. Just as it did when John Cabot Winters and Sarah Vester worked the lamp to destroy Ignatius Fremont and his lab during the Era of Discord.”

He groaned and put his head down for a few seconds.

“You know that story, too?” he asked.

“It’s all in Jeremiah’s notes. The rebel forces were composed mostly of men who were strong ghost hunters. But a few of them were equipped with a weird crystal weapon of some kind that enhanced their individual firepower. The rebels who carried the crystals were almost impossible to stop. As the war went on, more and more of the weapons made their way into the rebels’ hands. Jeremiah identified the scientist who was manufacturing the weapons and located the lab.”

“Fremont’s facility was located underground in the vicinity of a vortex and very well guarded,” he said, taking up the story. “In essence, it was a fortress. There was no way a large contingent of Guild men could get to it. But John Winters worked full-spectrum stone.”

“Like you.”

“He knew he could get through the vortex, but after that he would be on his own and forced to work rapidly before he dropped into a postburn crash. So he went in with the lamp and Sarah Vester, a dreamlight talent.”

“Together they worked the lamp and destroyed Fremont and his lab,” Marlowe said. “When the war was over, they got married, abandoned their connections to Arcane, and joined the ranks of the Guild.”

“John and Sarah were well aware that the environment on Harmony was accelerating the development of paranormal powers in the population. They had no way of knowing what effect it would have on their own descendants, however, given the twist in John’s psychic DNA. They wanted to protect future generations of their family.”

“They wanted to protect them from future generations of the Joneses and from Arcane,” Marlowe said. She smiled. “Just in case we started to take the Cerberus legend a little too seriously.”

“Something like that,” he agreed. “No offense.”

“None taken. For the record, the Joneses weren’t too sure what would happen to their descendants, either, given the twist in our own psychic genetics.”

“The formula?”

She shrugged. “While Nicholas Winters was busy frying his DNA with his crystals and the Burning Lamp, Sylvester Jones was adding a few tweaks to his own genes with his alchemical experiments. Both bloodlines were affected.”

“Does that make us freaks?”

She turned toward him. “Both bloodlines not only survived, they have thrived.”

“And the lesson is?”

She smiled. “Some mutations work out nicely. Are you going to tell me how the second aspect of your talent manifests?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Someday. Not tonight.”

“I CHECKED THE GUILD SECTOR CHARTS FOR THE CATACOMBS in the vicinity of Tully’s shop,” Adam said. He opened what had appeared to be a hall closet door, revealing a small elevator. “There’s a hole-in-the-wall located in the adjacent building. We’ll go in that way.”

Marlowe followed him into the elevator. “How do we get into Tully’s shop from there?”

“The same way any self-respecting pair of burglars would. Through the back door.”

The elevator sank silently downward. When the door opened, Adam rezzed a flashlight and led the way across the vast, dark space. It took Marlowe a moment to realize that they were walking through an abandoned underground parking garage.

When Adam reached the far wall, he unlocked a mag-steel door. A familiar green glow shimmered through the opening.

The green quartz that formed the catacombs was impervious to human tools and weapons, but at some time in the distant past, cracks, fissures, and jagged holes had been created in the tunnel walls. Some experts theorized that the same alien machines that had been used to build the underworld had also been used to punch holes in the stone. Others were convinced that earthquakes had created the fractures.

Whatever the case, the jagged openings in the tunnels were common underground in the Old Quarters of the cities. They were frequently discovered and used by drug dealers and other criminals on the run. Treasure hunters, indie prospectors, thrill seekers, and Guild bosses who liked the idea of having an emergency escape route were also fond of them.

Adam de-rezzed the flashlight and went through the opening in the quartz. Marlowe followed him into the glowing catacombs.

“I keep a sled down here,” Adam said. He checked his locator and backup amber. Then he moved toward a nearby chamber. “It’s in there.”

Marlowe went after him and saw a small, two-seater sled. She stepped up into the little vehicle and sat down on the bench seat.

Adam got behind the wheel and drove out of the chamber. Traveling by sled was certainly faster than walking underground, but there was not a lot of power in the simple, low-tech amber-rez motors. More technologically sophisticated engines would not function at all amid the heavy currents of psi. Like guns, they were inclined to explode.

Adam piloted the sled through the maze of tunnels for about fifteen minutes before gliding to a halt near another hole-in-the-wall. They got out and stepped through the opening into yet another darkened space. Marlowe recognized the damp, dank smell characteristic of old basements.