The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) (15 page)

She went to stand closer to him and jacked up her senses a little.

“What is it?” she asked softly.

She did not get an answer from Lyle but there was no need for one because her own senses were registering another shift in the atmosphere. This time she recognized what was happening.

She went to the tumble of blue quartz boulders and saw that the men had rigged a sling to carry the victim. Henderson was a thin, gawky young man of about eighteen or nineteen. His narrow features were twisted in pain and fear. His eyes were closed and he was mumbling.

“. . . Monsters. Hurry. They may come back. . . .”

“He’s hallucinating,” Joe said. “I think it’s the pain or maybe he’s been psi-burned. We’ve gotta get him out of here.”

Duke looked at Cyrus. “He’s ready to transport, sir.”

“Good,” Cyrus said. “You four handle the sling. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Henderson may or may not be hallucinating. I’ll walk point. Sedona will cover our backs.”

It took some willpower, but Sedona managed to conceal her astonishment. Cyrus had just tasked her with a crucial responsibility. She was supposed to cover the rescuers’ exit.

There was no time to contemplate the fact that he trusted her to such an extent. She had a mission to execute. Henderson had used the word
monsters
. She was not at all certain that he was hallucinating.

She readied her flamer and took up a position at the rear of the small procession. Lyle bounded up onto her shoulder and sleeked out. It occurred to her that the dust bunny might not believe that Henderson was hallucinating, either.

Her senses were already jacked but she kicked them up another notch. The atmosphere stirred around her and brightened with ice-blue psi. The trees became a more intense shade of blue. The sapphire leaves glittered and flashed in the strange light. Every pebble beneath her foot glowed like the rarest of gems.

Joe, Tanaka, Gibbons, and Duke hoisted the sling with Henderson on board and hauled it out of the cave, carefully negotiating the heap of quartz boulders at the entrance. With Cyrus in the lead, the small procession wound a path back through the forest toward the gate.

It started as a faint flutelike tingle along her senses; fairy music played on exquisite, delicate instruments. Sedona’s first instinct was to stop and listen. But the chimes of her intuition overrode the gentle music. They clashed loudly, discordantly, forcing her to pay attention.

“Does anyone else hear the music?” she asked. She kept her voice very soft, but contrasted with the delicate psi music, the words sounded harsh and off-key to her ears.

Lyle hissed softly.

The four men carrying the sling glanced back at her. She saw the uncertainty in their eyes. She knew her question had alarmed them. They were wondering if she was starting to lose it.

“I don’t hear any music,” Duke announced a little too forcefully. He looked over his shoulder. “Creepy place, though.”

Cyrus looked back at Sedona. “I hear music. Where is it coming from?”

Henderson stirred in the blanket sling. His eyes fluttered open and then closed. “The monsters sensed you. They’re coming back.”

Joe tightened his grip on the blanket. “We gotta hurry.”

No one argued. Sedona knew that Cyrus was moving as swiftly as possible, his attention shifting between the locator screen and his surroundings.

The sweet, gentle music grew louder, tugging at Sedona’s senses, urging her to stop and listen more closely.

Up ahead, Duke stopped, forcing Joe, Gibbons, and Tanaka to halt also.

“What in green hell?” Duke rasped. “I’m hearing it, too. Where is that music coming from?”

“Auditory hallucination?” Tanaka suggested, looking around.

Sedona felt energy shift in the atmosphere and knew that Duke was pushing his talent higher. The others were doing the same. It was a natural response in a crisis. All of the senses—normal and paranormal—responded automatically by rezzing swiftly to high alert.

“Duke,” Cyrus snapped. “Move, man.”

“Yes, sir,” Duke said.

He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the music and lumbered forward with dogged determination. The others were forced to move with him.

Joe clapped his free hand over one ear.

Cyrus managed to keep the small group moving forward but his face was a mask of grim determination. He was employing raw willpower to make himself and the others stumble on toward the gate and the safety of the catacombs.

The glorious, thrilling fairy music fascinated and enthralled, summoning the listeners with irresistible currents.

Experimentally, Sedona lowered her talent a couple of notches. The fragile, elegant sound faded a little.

“Everyone, lower your talent,” she said. “Hurry. It’s using our para-senses to track us.”

“She’s right,” Cyrus said. “Go normal. Now.”

Duke opened his mouth to protest the order.

“Do it,” Cyrus said.

Duke obeyed. The others did the same. Sedona was close enough to feel the energy around the men shift to a lower level as they fell back into their normal senses.

There was a moment of silence. Then Joe nodded.

“Sedona is right,” he said. “I can still hear that damn music but it’s not as loud now.”

Duke shot Sedona a quick, searching look. “Yeah, it’s a little better this way.”

“The thing is,” Sedona said, “I think that whatever is tracking us got a fix on our location. It may not need to hypnotize us to find us now.”

Joe flinched. “Shit. Is that what it was doing? Hypnotizing us with that damn music?”

“Your son is right,” Sedona said. “There are predators in this place and they’re hunting us.”

“With
music
?” Gibbons said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t think it’s actually making music, at least not the way we think of doing that,” Sedona said. “Our minds are interpreting its psychic lures that way. Probably similar to how certain kinds of deepwater fish use bio-phosphorescence to draw prey.”

“Monsters,” Henderson gasped through gritted teeth. “Try to sing you to your death. Only reason they didn’t get me was the energy in that cave. Once I got inside, I couldn’t hear the music.”

“I read about some creatures that can do that,” Cyrus said. “The story was in a book on Old World mythology. I think the singing monsters were called Sirens. The trick for evading them was to plug your ears. But since this music has a paranormal vibe, all we can do is shut down our senses.”

“I can still hear it a little and it’s getting louder again,” Joe said. “They’re closing in on us. How much farther?”

“Twenty yards,” Cyrus said. “Use the flamers if anything so much as moves.”

Sedona followed the others, casting frequent glances over her shoulder. Joe was right. The music was starting to grow louder. She hated operating in extreme conditions without her senses at full throttle. She felt half-blind. Lyle hunkered down on her shoulder, rumbling a continuous warning.

A few steps later she realized that the sense of oppressive energy in the atmosphere had become stronger. It reminded her of the dark weight of an impending thunderstorm. She could have sworn that the atmosphere was getting hazy.

The ice-blue sunlight started to dim.

“Now what?” Tanaka muttered.

“There’s a storm coming,” Duke said. “Not like any energy storm I’ve ever seen.”

Before anyone could respond, they emerged from the crystal forest and found themselves confronting a wall of dazzling white energy.

“Son of a bitch,” Joe said. “The damn gate closed.”

The locked gate was nothing compared to the paranormal hurricane that was closing in on them but Sedona did not see any reason to point that out. The only thing she could do for the team was open the gate and that meant rezzing her talent again.

She hurried around the men and stopped in front of the blank wall of energy. Lyle muttered.

“Yes, I know,” she whispered. “I’m working as fast as I can.”

She jacked up her talent.

. . . And the storm exploded around her. Glacial-blue psi raged in the atmosphere, swirling like a blizzard amid the crystal trees.

She realized the terrible, beautiful music had stopped.

One good thing had come out of the coalescing energy storm, she thought. Evidently the predators were no match for it, either. But the hurricane-force winds of paranormal ice were so strong it would not be long before they overwhelmed all of their senses. She had to get the gate open and she had to do it fast.

She fought her way through the turbulent currents. The interference from the storm was so intense now that she had to put one hand on the gate and establish physical contact in order to find the frequencies. The amber in her ring burned in the dazzling blue light.

Relief slammed through her when she got the focus. She pulled hard on her talent, seeking the delicate counterpoint currents that would unlock the gate.

The wall of blue quartz started to shimmer. Slowly it became transparent. She caught a glimpse of the men waiting on the other side. She pushed her talent higher, concentrating fiercely as the currents of the storm threatened to disrupt the gate mechanism. If she lost control, the gate would slam shut. She could not let that happen. She was rapidly exhausting her psychic senses. She knew she would not be able to open the gate again.

A narrow opening appeared. She pulled on the last of her reserves, fighting the storm as well as the seething gate energy.

“Go,” she shouted.

Joe, Duke, Gibbons, and Tanaka needed no urging. They rushed through the slim opening and carried Henderson into the safety of the tunnel. Grimly, Sedona kept one palm flattened on the gate, holding it open with sheer determination and the last of her energy reserves. The shock of physical contact with the gate scorched her senses. She knew that she was taking a bad psi-burn but there was no other option.

Cyrus looked at Sedona.

“Inside,” he ordered.

“I can’t,” she said. “It will close as soon as I lose contact and I’m not going to be able to hold it open any longer. Get through while you can.”

Another blast of hurricane psi struck with blinding force, searing her senses. She could no longer see Cyrus or the others inside the portal. She lost contact with the gate. It slammed closed and locked into a solid wall of stone, trapping her in a world of ice-blue energy.

She could barely make out her hand in front of her face. She was vaguely aware of Lyle hunkered down on her shoulder, claws dug into her leather jacket.

There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from the monster psi-storm. All she could do was huddle in on herself and try to survive the onslaught.

She was about to sink to the ground when she felt a strong hand close around her arm.

“I’ve got you,” Cyrus said.

Despair shafted through her. He had not made it through the gate. She had failed to save the whole team.

“No,” she whispered. “You were supposed to go through with the others.”

“I don’t leave people behind.”

There was no time to contemplate the disaster. The raging psi-storm overwhelmed her. She knew that if she lived, she would be badly burned—again—probably permanently this time. And Cyrus would likely suffer the same fate. No talent could stand against such violent energy.

Cyrus’s arms closed around her, lifting her. She was dimly aware of Lyle hopping from her shoulder to Cyrus’s. But in the next instant an eerie silence fell. The acid fire of panic seared her.

“Damn it,” she gasped.

“It’s okay,” Cyrus said. “It’s just me.”

The strange hush grew more intense. Unnerved, she opened her eyes. She realized that Cyrus was carrying her forward into the jaws of the storm but it was as if they were enveloped in a protected sphere, a murky, gray ghost world that extended for a radius of about ten feet around them.

The sphere of unnatural silence moved with them. It dawned on her that Cyrus was using his talent to shield them.

“Now you know why they call me Dead Zone Jones,” he said.

He rezzed his talent still higher and carried Sedona through the eerie silence of the ghost zone that he created around them. He held his locater in one hand and the flamer in the other. He struggled to read the nav screen as he cradled Sedona and kept the sphere in place. Lyle rode his shoulder.

Everything that entered the spectral dimension created by his talent, including the storm psi, flatlined until he had passed out of range.

“You’re good,” Sedona whispered. “Very good.”

“I can’t maintain the zone for long,” he said. “I’m using too much energy.”

“Because you’re protecting all three of us. I understand. We’re aiming for the cave, I assume?”

“Yes.”

In spite of the dire circumstances, or perhaps because of them, the realization that she didn’t fear him lifted his spirits as nothing else except the reopening of the gate could have done. He glanced at the compass and changed direction slightly.

“Give me the locater and the flamer,” she said. She plucked both from his fingers. “I may be psi-burned but I can still read an amber compass and rez a flamer.” She hesitated. “Assuming both will work if I’m the one who’s holding them?”

“They’ll work as long as you’re in physical contact with me.”

“Okay, I’ll keep us on course while you concentrate on maintaining this ghost world thing you’ve got going.”

He did not argue. She was right. They needed each other if there was any hope of surviving the storm and the night to come.

With the blazing energy quiescent within the dead zone he could see clearly inside the radius of the energy field that he was generating. When he drew close, the eerie blue trees with their sapphire leaves lost their inner psi-glow as if they had been turned into clear glass. The gemstone pebbles beneath his boots became a dull, lifeless gray.

If the forest had been a living ecosystem, all of the plant life would have wilted. Any creatures—human or otherwise—that fell within the zone would slide into an unconscious state. If he kept up the pressure for too long, everything he touched with his talent would die.

But he was moving quickly through the crystal forest. As soon as he was out of range the inner light returned to the world. The blue glow once again infused the trees and the leaves and the stones. The silently howling winds of the psi-storm returned as well.

“Left one degree,” Sedona said. “We’re less than twenty yards away now.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Of course, I’m sure.”

“Okay, okay, just checking.”

She concentrated on the compass, reading off directions as if they were driving down an ordinary highway. For some inexplicable reason he smiled, even as his spectral touch drained the colors out of another stand of trees.

Sedona squinted up at him. “Something funny that I should know about?”

“Road trip,” he said.

She got it immediately, flashing him a weak but real smile. “And we all know men have a problem when it comes to following directions.”

“That’s just a myth.”

“Good to know. Right one degree. About fifteen feet. The entrance to the cave should appear any second now.”

“It
should
appear?”

The last of her smile vanished. “It did occur to me that the storm might have messed up the compass.”

“Not within the zone,” he said.

“What zone? Oh, you mean the area covered by your talent?”

“The dead zone,” he said.

She moved the hand holding the compass in a vague gesture that looked to be the equivalent of a shrug. “But things aren’t dead inside the radius of your aura. They just sort of go to sleep.”

“If I kept up this level of heat for long and if this forest was alive, I would kill everything I touched within a matter of minutes.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why am I still breathing? And what about Lyle? He looks quite perky to me.”

The question irritated him. “The reason you and Lyle are okay is because I’m not focusing on your auras.”

“You know what they say when it comes to talent. Focus is everything.” Sedona stiffened. “Look, there’s the cave. I can see the boulders in front. You did it, Cyrus. We made it. Wow, you really
are
good.”

He was about to tell her that no one, including the members of his own family, considered his talent a good thing but Lyle suddenly became active. He rose on his hind paws and chortled.

“You can put me down now,” Sedona said. “I can stand on my own two feet long enough to get past those big rocks.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He set her down carefully. She scrambled over the boulders and into the glowing blue cave. Lyle bounded down to the nearest quartz rock and bounced after Sedona, disappearing into the hot blue shadows.

Cyrus lowered his talent and followed Sedona and Lyle into the cave. He was relieved to discover that the interior was free of storm energy. The blue psi locked in the quartz walls glowed softly but steadily, impervious to the heavy psi that surged and churned outside.

“Henderson was right about the energy levels in here,” Sedona said. “The para-radiation from the quartz seems to be suppressing the psi outside.”

Experimentally Cyrus rezzed his talent again. The glowing blue walls started to dim. He shut it down quickly.

“But it doesn’t shut down human psi,” he said. “I can still use my senses in here.”

Sedona surveyed the radiant cave walls. “It’s similar to being inside the tunnels or in the Rainforest, except that all of the energy is coming from the blue ultralight end of the spectrum.”

“Henderson survived for a couple of hours in this cave so with luck that means there won’t be any nasty surprises.” He took the flamer from Sedona. “But I’m going to do a walk-through, just in case.”

Flamer in hand, he moved through the cavern. Sedona trailed after him. Lyle dashed on ahead. The dust bunny appeared curious but there was no indication that he was alarmed. He still had all four eyes open but he was fully fluffed.

The cave was littered with glowing rocks of various sizes but there were no signs of plant or animal life. There was, however, a whisper of humidity in the atmosphere.

“Feels a little damp,” he said.

“Yes, it does.” Sedona looked around. “I wonder if there’s water nearby?”

The question was answered by Lyle. Chortling enthusiastically, he dashed around a corner and vanished from sight. A few seconds later there was the unmistakable sound of a small splash.

“Trust Lyle to find a swimming hole in the middle of a frozen forest,” Sedona said.

When they rounded the twist in the cavern they saw Lyle. He was paddling in circles around a pool of water that glowed as blue as the rocks.

Sedona went forward, crouched on the rim of the pool, and dipped one hand in the water.

“It’s warm,” she announced, straightening. “Must be a hot spring somewhere underground.”

Cyrus went to the edge and looked down into the depths of the water. The water was crystal clear and the view of the blue stone sides of the pool was laser-sharp. But the bottom curved off and away, making it impossible to see the source of the spring.

“It’s probably being fed by a deep aquifer heated by volcanic activity,” he said.

He reached into his pack and took out the packet of test strips that he carried. Crouching, he dipped one of the strips into the pool and glanced at the reading.

“Well?” Sedona asked.

“It’s safe to drink or swim in but Lyle is the only one who is going to take a bath in it.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t intend go into the water,” Sedona said. “I’ve heard Charlotte and Rachel and the others talk about the creatures that escaped from that ancient Alien aquarium awhile back. They say some of them made it into the flooded caves here on the island. Rachel’s little pal, Darwina, almost got eaten by one. I’d better get Lyle out of there.”

“Good luck,” Cyrus said. “Looks like he’s having a fine time.”

Lyle splashed happily, unperturbed by the mysterious blue depths of the pool.

Sedona crouched beside the spring again and held out her hand. “Come out of there, Lyle. Please.”

As far as Cyrus could tell, Lyle wasn’t the least bit concerned but he seemed to get the message that Sedona was worried. He scrambled out of the pool and shook the water from his fur. Then he scurried over to her and made reassuring noises.

Sedona straightened again and looked around. “Who would have guessed there was a hot pool here? Evidently not everything in this place has been frozen into crystal or quartz.”

“If the monsters inhabit Wonderland, they would need fresh water to survive.”

Sedona shuddered. “And something to eat.”

“The food supply may be running low,” Cyrus said. “That could be why the predators have been driven to hunt aboveground in the Preserve.”

Sedona glanced thoughtfully at the blue pool. “Whatever was hunting us may decide to come here for a drink.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. There’s nothing to indicate that any living creature has been inside here for a very long time. Regardless, we don’t have much choice. We need shelter from that psi-storm and this is the only place that’s available.”

“Understood.” Sedona glanced at Lyle who was now engrossed with some of the glowing pebbles. “The good news is that my pal over there makes a good early-warning system. I’m sure he’ll alert us if anything dangerous tries to enter the cave.”

“Sounds like a plan. Time for you to crash.”

She searched his face. “What about you? I’m not the only one who burned a lot of energy a short time ago. You must need some rest.”

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Putting up an umbrella doesn’t take as much energy as . . . some things.”

Her lips twitched. “An umbrella?”

He started back toward the front of the cave. “That’s what it feels like when I crank up my talent the way I did to get us through the storm.”

“A psi-umbrella. Interesting concept.”

“That’s me, the guy with the umbrella.” He stopped when he realized that she was not following him. “I thought you decided you weren’t going to take a swim in that pool.”

“I’m not but if you don’t mind, I’d like to take advantage of the facilities. I’ll be along in a minute.”

“The facilities?” He went blank. Then he realized what she meant. The larger rocks offered some measure of privacy. “Right. I’ll wait here. I don’t want either of us to get too far out of visual range of the other.”

“Don’t worry. Same protocol as working the tunnels or the Rainforest. Partners aren’t supposed to lose track of one another.”

Partners. Well, that’s what they were, he thought. For now at any rate. It wasn’t nearly as good as being lovers, but it was a big step up from being Guild boss and contract employee.

“That’s the rule,” he said. “Partner.”

By the time they both finished using the facilities, it was obvious that Sedona was having a tough time staying awake. Cyrus knew that she was barely hanging on but she was fighting the deep sleep she needed so desperately.

“You’re afraid to go under, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Well, yes. We’re in an unknown place with unknown energy and unknown predators.”

“Listen to me, Sedona. You’ll be fine,” he said. “Lyle and I will watch over you. Go to sleep.”

She searched his face for a long moment and then she seemed to come to a decision.

“Not like I can stop it, anyway,” she said.

“Nope. Let go, Sedona. You’ve got friends to watch your back.”

She finally managed a shaky smile. “Yes, I do. And I signed on with a Guild boss who never leaves a member of the team behind.”

“You got that right.”

It all came down to whether or not she trusted him, he thought. He did not realize he was holding his breath until she nodded once and patted a yawn.

“Okay,” she said.

He spread an emergency blanket on the stone floor. She sank down onto it, her back to the wall, her legs straight out in front of her. He lowered himself beside her.

She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Wake me if the monsters show up.”

“I’ll do that.”

She was asleep in the next breath. Gingerly he put an arm around her. When she did not flinch away he settled her more comfortably against his side and leaned back against the wall of the cave.

Lyle scooted across the glowing stone floor and settled down next to Sedona’s denim-clad thigh. He closed all four eyes and promptly went off into dust bunny dreamland.

“Life’s simple for you, isn’t it?” Cyrus said very softly. “Any day is a good day so long as you survive to play another day.”

Lyle twitched one ear.

“As mottos go, that one’s not bad,” Cyrus said. “But we humans have a penchant for complicating stuff that probably shouldn’t be all that complicated.”

Like the fierce mix of emotions that he was feeling for the woman who was sleeping so soundly, so trustingly, at his side. He tried to come up with a description of their current relationship.

For now Sedona was his responsibility. His contract employee. A member of the team. His partner in surviving this strange new country in the Underworld.

All of the labels were correct but none of them felt right.

He sat quietly for a time, watching the blizzard of psi flash and burn across the entrance of the cave. It reminded him of the static that sometimes showed up on a vintage rez-screen. But unlike the snow on the old screens the stuff blowing outside the cavern looked potentially lethal. He was not at all certain that he and Sedona would have survived the storm if they had not found shelter.

But they were reasonably safe for now, he decided. With luck the storm would blow itself out in the next few hours. There was no reason Sedona would not be able to open the gate again. The only trick would be getting out of the crystal forest without running into the predators that hunted with music.

Sedona stirred a little in her sleep and leaned more heavily against him.

He looked down at her. Several locks of her witchy black hair had come free of the clip she had used to secure it in a knot. In sleep, the wariness and the subtle tension that sharpened her features and burned in her eyes receded. He knew that what lay beneath the cautious, sometimes brittle surface was a resilient spirit and a surprising streak of optimism.