Siren's Call (A Rainshadow Novel) (26 page)

“Drop it, Luttrell,” he said.

Ella stumbled to a halt and spun to the side so that she was not in Rafe’s line of fire. She caught a glimpse of Hodson. He was stretched out on the floor in the hallway, unconscious.

Lorelei came scampering down the hall, fully fluffed once more. She chortled and bounced up into Ella’s arms. Ella hugged her close.

There was a thud and a clatter as a heavy object hit the floor. Turning, Ella saw that Bob had dropped the flamer.

“Coppersmith.” Bob stared at Rafe in openmouthed disbelief. “How the hell did you find her? I know she wasn’t carrying any amber. I made certain of it.”

“Ella isn’t carrying amber,” Rafe said. “But you are. And naturally, Coppersmith Security has a record of every employee’s personal frequency. The company is very big on jobsite safety, you know. All it took to get your number was a quick call to Security on Rainshadow.”

Bob’s disbelief turned to open speculation. “You came down here alone? No backup?”

“Don’t worry,” Rafe said. “The FBPI is here, too.”

“That’s right,” Joe Harding said from the doorway. He moved to stand directly behind Ella. “I’m from the Bureau and I’m here to make this problem go away.”

“I called Special Agent Harding before I came down here to find you,” Rafe explained.

Ella glared at Harding. “It’s about time you got here. What’s with letting Rafe take all the risks? And how come there’s only you? This is a major crime. You should have brought along a full team of agents.”

“Like I said, I’m here to make this problem go away,” Harding said. He switched the flamer away from Bob and aimed it straight at Ella’s face. “Drop the gun, Coppersmith. You know what one blast will do to her at close range?”

“I knew it,” Ella said. “You just can’t trust the FBPI, at least not the Crystal City branch.”

Lorelei sleeked out and tried to wriggle free.

“No,” Ella whispered to her. “Please. Don’t move.”

Rafe put the weapon on the floor. Bob collected it quickly and stepped back.

“Sure glad to see you, Harding,” Bob said. “For a few minutes there, I thought the plan was not going well.”

“What happens now?” Rafe asked.

“Once again we are going back to Plan A,” Harding said. “You and Luttrell will proceed to those coordinates you were given on your phone. The Vortex team will meet you there. You will take them to the ruins. You have twenty-four hours to open the portal. If I don’t get word that the venture has been successful before the deadline—”

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Ella said. “You’ll send me on
a long walk through the tunnels without amber. You thug types really ought to get a new script.”

“As it happens, I am using a new script,” Harding said. “If Coppersmith doesn’t lead the Vortex team to the ruins within the deadline, I’m not going to send you into the catacombs without good amber. There’s a chance you might find your way out. So, I’m going to kill you and leave you in the Underworld. No one will ever find your body.”

Ella took a deep breath. “Okay, that’s new.”

Rafe glanced at the doorway. “Heard enough?”

“More than enough.”

A formidable man walked through the doorway. He was dressed in Guild khaki-and-leather and he looked very familiar. It took Ella a couple of beats to realize where she had seen him before—on the rez screen and in the papers. He was Fontana, the boss of the Crystal City Guild. More to the point, he was the man who had cleaned up the once-corrupt organization.

Fontana was followed by four other men, two of whom wore Guild attire. One of the others was dressed in the uniform of the Crystal City police. The fourth man was Chief Truett.

“Put the flamer down, Harding,” Truett ordered.

Harding hesitated. Ella felt the panic rising in the atmosphere and knew that he was debating whether to try to use her as a hostage. But the music was back. She got ready to sing.

“Harding, you might as well put the damn thing down,”
Rafe said. “It’s inoperative. I de-rezzed the amber in the firing mechanism when we got into the sled.”

Harding stared at him, blank-faced with shock. “How?”

Rafe fished a small device out of his pocket and held it up so everyone could see it. “A little gadget from the Coppersmith labs. Get a focus, push a little energy through it, and you’ve got melted amber. Did you really think I’d risk bringing you down here if you were armed with a hot flamer?”

Harding grunted. He dropped the flamer.

Bob looked at Rafe. “I don’t get it. How did you know that I’m the one who took her?”

“Ella left a note,” Rafe said. “Didn’t you, Ella?”

“I tried,” Ella said. “But they drugged me and I was going under fast. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“There was no note,” Bob insisted. “I would have seen it. She was trying to put on her lipstick when I found her. She didn’t have time to dig out a pen and a piece of paper.”

“My note was written with lipstick,” Ella said. “A circle within a circle.”

Bob scowled. “I saw the smears on the counter. I thought you were hallucinating. What the hell was the circle within a circle supposed to mean?”

“A doughnut,” Rafe said.

Bob winced. “Shit.”

Ella gave him her most blinding smile. “Your doughnuts aren’t that bad. Lorelei loves them.”

“Do you think Harding and Bob Luttrell will talk?” Ella asked.

“They may try to trade some information in a plea-bargain deal but it’s doubtful that they can give the authorities anything that will help us find the real powers-that-be at the top of Vortex. According to Marlowe Jones, the organization is evidently structured in a series of independent cells. If one is exposed it can’t be used to identify the others.”

“Well, at least Chief Truett gets to take full credit for busting a major black-market operation dealing in Alien tech.” Ella smiled. “I thought Truett looked good on the news this evening. You could hardly tell that he was gloating.”

Rafe laughed. “Payback. Gotta love it.”

Ella contemplated the view of the Dead City. A very
long day had transitioned into an even longer night. She and Rafe were both too rezzed to sleep so they were sitting on her balcony, having a drink. She was still wearing her purple and pink bridesmaid dress, and Rafe was in his formal attire, although he had removed the jacket and loosened the tie. They had both been too beat to bother changing when they had arrived at her apartment a short time ago.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning and the eerie green glow of the ruins enveloped the Old Quarter. The gentle vibe in the atmosphere was oddly soothing.

She took a sip of wine. It was not her first glass. Earlier they had ordered in pizza from an all-night delivery service. Lorelei had joined them for the repast and then, with a cheery chortle, had vanished over the edge of the balcony, disappearing into the night with her wedding veil.

The Crystal City Police Department, with a nod to the Guild, was taking full credit for the rescue and the arrests. The assumption made by the police was that the suspects had hoped to get a lot of money out of Rafe Coppersmith by kidnapping his current lover. Rafe and Ella had made no attempt to contradict that conclusion.

There had been no mention in the media of the legendary city of ice and fog.

“I hate to think that the power brokers at the top of Vortex are going to get away with murder,” Ella said. “Literally.”

“I’m sure the people pulling the strings inside Vortex consider themselves safe, at least for now.” Rafe paused. “But if they’re smart—and all indications point that way—they may be a little nervous.”

“What do you mean?”

“Coppersmith Security and Arcane now have Vortex on their psi-dar. So does the Crystal City Guild and the FBPI. That’s bound to make at least a few people inside Vortex a tad uneasy.”

“Hmm.” Ella swirled the wine gently in her glass. “They’ll probably lie low for a while and hope everyone involved forgets about the name
Vortex
.”

“Probably.” Rafe drank some more beer and lowered the bottle. He studied the glowing ruins. “It was a hell of a shock, you know.”

“Realizing that Vortex had grabbed me? Yeah, well, it was a shock getting grabbed so easily, let me tell you. If that kind of thing keeps happening at weddings, my career as a bridesmaid may be in trouble.”

Rafe was oblivious to her small attempt at humor. “I should have seen it coming,” he said. “Should have realized they might use you to get to me. Should have made sure that you were never alone. If I had been more willing to accept the nature of my new talent, I could have done a better job of protecting you. But I kept fighting the dreams.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, your logic is ridiculous.” She waved one hand in a grand dismissal of everything he had just said. “I wasn’t alone when they slipped that drug into my champagne. I was surrounded by a bunch of bridesmaids and the bride. There was no way to protect me, so stop blaming yourself. What mattered was that you figured out that it was Bob Luttrell who grabbed me and then you found me. That was brilliant.”

“You were the brilliant one. You left a message.”

“I was feeling very woozy by then. I didn’t dare try to write Bob’s name even if I could have managed all the letters, which is doubtful, because the room was spinning. He would have noticed and wiped away the lipstick. So I went with the doughnut connection but I wasn’t sure if you would understand.” She smiled. “But you did. One thing I’ve been wondering about. How did you come to realize that Special Agent Harding was involved?”

Rafe watched her from the shadows of the lounger. There was a little heat in his eyes. “I used my talent—my new talent.”

“No kidding.” She was pleased. “You deliberately opened your talent?”

“Figured I had nothing left to lose. You were right. Once I stopped fighting the waking dream and went into it with conscious awareness, I was suddenly in control. A lot of little things that I should have been paying attention to all along suddenly fell into place.”

“That is so high-rez, as the kids say.” She took another sip of wine. “So, what little things came together for you?”

“Stuff that had been there all along. For example, I went to see him right after I hired you. I’m sure that Bob Luttrell had already sent word that I was in Crystal City, but when I stopped by Harding’s office I added the helpful information that I was going to that reception with you. Harding must have scrambled to put that first kidnapping operation together, but he had Vortex resources to draw on. In hindsight it was obvious that he was the only one who could have pulled off the attempt on such short notice.”

“Was there anything else about Harding that made you think he couldn’t be trusted?”

“A couple of small things,” Rafe said. “Those two Alien weapons he confiscated from Vickary’s operation disappeared. When I asked him what had happened to them, he told me they were in the FBPI lab. But the FBPI usually calls in Coppersmith when it wants to evaluate Alien tech. I checked with Dad earlier today. Coppersmith never got the call. Also, those two men that Slade escorted to Thursday Harbor and put into FBPI custody have disappeared.”

“
What?
When did you find out about that little snafu?”

Rafe winced. “This afternoon, just before the wedding. I didn’t want to ruin the mood. I was going to tell you after the reception.”

“Hah. How did you discover they went missing?”

“Earlier this afternoon I called Harding to ask him for a status update on the Vortex investigation. I wanted to know what else he had learned from the two men. He said he had sent them to headquarters for further debriefing. But that didn’t sound like Harding.”

“Of course it didn’t,” Ella said. “He’s a glory-hound. He wouldn’t hand off a high-profile case unless he had absolutely no alternative.”

“I’ve worked with him often enough to know that’s true. So when he told me that the pair had been transported to FBPI headquarters, it bothered me.”

“Your new talent in action, I’ll bet.”

“Whatever. Anyhow, none of it was proof that Harding was involved, but I decided not to take any chances when I went after you.”

“So you brought in your own backup team.” Ella hoisted her glass. “Good thinking.”

“If Harding had been a good guy there would have been no harm done. But if it turned out he was Vortex, I knew Chief Truett would be thrilled to be able to take him down. But the cops couldn’t handle the catacombs alone. They needed a Guild team. I made one more phone call to Marlowe Jones of Jones and Jones. She assured me that Fontana was solid.”

“So you put the whole rescue operation into place in less than an hour?”

“That was all the time I had.”

“Wow.” She smiled. “No wonder your father sent you out to shoot trouble. You’re good.”

“Thanks. But troubleshooting is not a full-time job, and I’m not going to be able to go back to my old line. My talent for resonating with hot rocks and Alien tech is definitely gone.”

“I keep telling you, you’ve got a new talent. It’s just different, that’s all.”

“A lot of people would call my hallucinations a sign of serious instability brought on by trauma to the para-senses.”

“Don’t expect any sympathy from me,” Ella said. “My talent terrifies people, remember? Bob was sure that I was a Siren. That’s why he gave me that powerful suppressor drug. And Harding probably put me on the FBPI watch list.”

“I doubt it.”

“You’re the one who said he was suspicious of me.”

“He was. But I think it’s very likely that he kept his suspicions to himself,” Rafe said.

“Why?”

“For one thing, he was always very secretive about information. He liked to keep secrets close in case he found a way to use them.”

“Well, he’ll probably blab now. His suspicions will hit the media. I’ll lose my clients and have to shut down the Knightsbridge Dream Institute.”

“Don’t worry.” Rafe’s mouth twitched at the corner. “First off, very few people will believe anything Harding says now because he’s an FBPI agent who went rogue. His credibility is zero. Second, theoretically, your kind of talent doesn’t exist. And as for the few who might believe Harding’s story—”

“What about them?”

Rafe smiled slowly. “They’ll be stuck in the fringe world of conspiracy-ville because it’s obvious that you and I are sleeping together and that I’m still alive.”

“Oh.” She pondered that for a moment. “But maybe they will assume that’s a temporary state of affairs.”

“Not if we get married.”

She felt as if the balcony had given way and she was suspended in midair.

“What?” she whispered.

“You heard me. If we get married everyone will assume that the Coppersmith clan has concluded you’re not a threat. You’ll have instant credibility.”

“Gosh. Thanks. But marriage is a rather extreme way to protect my professional reputation.”

“Think about it.”

She glared at him. “Are you seriously proposing?”

Rafe drank some beer and lowered the bottle. “Yes, I am. Like I said, think about it.”

“Maybe you’ve had one too many beers.”

“Don’t think so. Say, how are you feeling?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“The other topic didn’t seem to be going anywhere.”

“I’m feeling peachy-keen,” she said through set teeth. “My talent has recovered. And since we’re changing the subject, here’s a new one for you—the Ghost City.”

Rafe sat quietly for a time, contemplating the view.

“You think I should take a team back to the ruins and try to open the portal, don’t you?” he said.

“What I think,” she said very carefully, “is that if Coppersmith Mining doesn’t take charge of the city of ice and fog, other people, including Vortex, are going to keep looking for it and there will be more murders. You know how it is with legends. Sooner or later someone will open that portal.”

“You sound like my dad. I saw enough of the Ghost City to know that it is a very dangerous place, Ella. For once, the DND crowd might be right. The city may be one Alien secret that should remain a secret, at least for now.”

“Wonderland and the Preserve and the Rainforest are all dangerous places. Heck, the catacombs are dangerous. Since when has danger ever stopped people from investigating secrets? Humans seem to be on an endless quest. Probably something in our DNA.”

“I don’t have a clue what Coppersmith would be facing
in the city of ice and fog, assuming the company can even find the kind of talent that can access the place. Not everyone can go through that portal and come back out safely.”

“That isn’t going to stop people from searching for it. Better that Coppersmith takes control than Vortex.”

Rafe took another swig of his beer.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Okay.”

“You ready to sleep yet?”

“No. You?”

“No.” Rafe set aside his empty beer bottle. “Still pretty rezzed.”

“Me, too.”

“I can think of one way we could take the edge off.”

She rested her head on the back of the lounger and looked at him. “You’re talking about us having sex?”

“The thought did occur to me.”

“To take the edge off.”

“Sex can be very relaxing.”

She drank the last of her wine and put down her glass. “You and I have never had relaxing sex.”

“I know. We should probably try it sometime. But tonight I’m fine with our regular sex.”

She concentrated on the radiant spires of the Dead City. “I think something happens to our auras when we have sex, Rafe. It’s kind of weird.”

“But in a good way.” He paused. “At least as far as I’m concerned. Is this where you tell me that it’s not good for you?”

“It’s . . . very good. Maybe too good. I’m not sure what
to think. I’m a Siren. We aren’t supposed to be able to have the kind of sex that you and I have had.”

“Know what I think?”

“What?”

He swung his legs over the side of the lounger, got to his feet, and scooped her up in his arms. “I think you’re running scared.”

“That’s not it.”

But it felt good to be held like this, she thought. Better than good—thrilling.

“Sure it is.” He carried her through the open slider and headed for the bedroom. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it. Here you are, a powerful Siren who can put a man into a coma or kill a dinosaur with her talent, and you’re scared to have sex with me.”