After Dark (14 page)

T
HE SOUND OF
the bedroom door being stealthily opened brought him out of his brooding thoughts. His first reaction was a small rush of relief. He had been sinking deeper and deeper into the morass of possibilities, angles, problems, and risks since he had stretched out on the sofa and turned off the light.

His contemplation of how to juggle the search for Quinn with his bargain with Wyatt had been continually interrupted by the memory of Lydia's flashing smile when she agreed that their contract would be terminated tomorrow.
Looks like I'll be getting my sofa back…

She didn't have to be quite so thrilled at the prospect of getting him off her sofa. Hell, she was welcome to it. The damn thing sagged in all the wrong places. It was lumpy and it was too short.

He caught the faint thump of a bare toe striking a wooden table leg in the hall. The small sound was followed by a stifled groan and a muffled curse. He moved one arm from behind his head and glanced at the fluorez-lit face of his watch. Two in the morning. Apparently Lydia had not had any more luck getting to sleep than he had.

All the plans and contingency schemes he had been crafting receded in the face of the more immediate question that had just arisen. Why was Lydia coming down the hall?

He was keenly aware that the question was not the only thing that had arisen. The knowledge that she was up and moving toward him had been enough to give him an erection.

He wondered if she was still angry. Then he wondered if it had occurred to her, as it had to him, that they had no logical reason to see each other again after they retrieved the cabinet tomorrow. Did she even give a damn? She had looked extremely pleased by Bartholomew Greeley's call. Just delighted at the news that their contract was about to end.

He lay unmoving, conscious that his blood was heating up with what had to be really stupid anticipation. What the hell did he think was going to happen now? Was he really dumb enough to believe that she might be coming out here to join him on the sofa?

More likely she was headed for the kitchen. Only logical destination under the circumstances. She couldn't sleep, so she was going to get herself a nice glass of warm milk. Or something.

He saw the pale outline of her white robe as she tiptoed around the corner, the shadowy blob that was Fuzz perched on her shoulder.

He held his breath and willed Lydia to come toward the sofa.

She headed for the kitchen.

He exhaled deeply and watched her disappear through the doorway. A few seconds later he heard the refrigerator door open. Light glowed briefly from the opening to the kitchen and then disappeared again. There was a soft clink. Lydia had removed a glass from the cupboard. Then he heard the lid of the pretzel jar.

Well, hell. Did she really expect him to sleep through all that racket?

He eased the covers aside and got to his feet. Halfway to the kitchen he remembered that he was wearing only his briefs. He glanced down and noticed that they did not provide much in the way of camouflage for his aroused body. Suppressing a groan, he reached into his open carryall and snagged his jeans. He yanked them on quickly.

“Didn't mean to wake you,” Lydia said from the kitchen doorway.

He kept his back to her as he struggled carefully with the zipper. “I wasn't asleep.”

At last he managed to get the pants fastened and turned to face her. She looked so good that it was all he could do not to take a bite.

She had a glass in one hand, a couple of pretzels in the other. She fed one of the pretzels to Fuzz.

“Mind if I have one?” Emmett asked, disgusted by his inability to come up with a more stimulating conversational gambit.

“Help yourself.”

His arm brushed against the sleeve of her robe as he went into the kitchen. It was as though he'd touched a live wire and sent a jolt of raw energy straight to his already over-rezzed body.

He yanked the lid off the pretzel jar and started to reach inside.

“I don't think you want one of those,” Lydia said. “Fuzz has probably drooled on them. Get one out of the bag in the oven. That's where I keep mine. Fuzz isn't strong enough to open the door.”

Emmett replaced the lid and jerked the oven open. He gazed at the bag of pretzels inside. “Ever accidentally turn this thing on while the bag was in here?”

“Once,” she admitted. “I keep a fire extinguisher under the sink now.”

He helped himself to a handful and closed the oven door.

He could tell that she was still pissed. All because he hadn't told her the details of his deal with Mercer Wyatt.

What did he have to lose? he wondered. She probably couldn't get much more ticked off. It was Guild business, but maybe she had a right to know some of it.

“Okay, I'll tell you about my deal with Wyatt,” he said around a mouthful of pretzel.

She lifted her chin. “Don't bother. You made it perfectly clear that you don't consider it any of my affair.”

“It isn't. But the cold-shoulder treatment is working.”

“I'm amazed. A Guild boss who's susceptible to the cold shoulder?”

“Ex-Guild boss.” He crunched another pretzel. “In a nutshell, Mercer found out that Quinn disappeared shortly after visiting a youth shelter in the Old Quarter. A place called the Transverse Wave.”

She looked thoughtful. “I know it. It's been around for several years. They offer social services to street kids.”

“Wyatt thinks there's some connection. A couple of other young, untrained dissonance-energy para-rezes have disappeared too. They'd also had some contact with the shelter. He wants me to find out what's going on. But he wants it done discreetly.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Why discreetly?”

“Because, as of a few months ago, the Cadence Guild Foundation began funding the shelter.”

“Ah.”

“Right. Ah.” He shoved another pretzel into his mouth.

“Could be real embarrassing for the Guild if it turns out something illegal is going on at the shelter.”

“In particular, it could be very awkward for Tamara.” Emmett hesitated. “Mercer's in love with her. He wants to protect her.”

“Hard to picture Mercer Wyatt in love with anyone except the power he exercises as a Guild boss.”

“People change.”

“Some do. Some don't.”

“Little cynic. There's more. Wyatt thinks he's got a traitor on his administrative staff. He believes that person is responsible for whatever is going on at the shelter.”

“Uh-oh. I think I know where this is going.”

“In exchange for the lead on Quinn, I agreed to try to uncover the traitor on Wyatt's staff.”

She blew out a deep breath. “I see. So now you're a spy for the Cadence Guild boss.”

He said nothing, just munched.

“Okay, okay, I don't blame you,” Lydia said.

That surprised him. “You don't?”

“No. In your shoes, I'd have made the same bargain. After all, your primary responsibility is to find your nephew. And it does sound as though Wyatt may have given you a solid lead. No one gets anything for nothing in this life. And that goes double where the Guild is concerned.”

“That's kind of how I viewed it.” He swallowed the last of his pretzel. “Sorry I got edgy earlier.”

“You're probably not accustomed to having to explain yourself.”

He looked at her. “It wasn't that. I didn't want to go into the details because I know how you feel about Wyatt and the local Guild.”

“I admit I wouldn't trust Mercer Wyatt any farther than I could throw him. But—”

“But what?”

She smiled wryly. “But you're not Mercer Wyatt.”

Something eased deep inside him. “Does that mean you do trust me?”

She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “A lot further than I would Wyatt.”

Okay, so she wasn't declaring her undying faith in him. At least he wasn't in the same category as Wyatt.

“Tomorrow, after we pick up the cabinet, I'll check out the youth center,” he said.

“Sounds like a plan. I wish you luck, Emmett. I hope your nephew is okay.”

He waited a beat or two. “Something I think you should know before we terminate our contract.”

“What's that?”

“I want to correct a slight misconception you have about ghost-hunters.”

She watched him from the shadows. “If this is another lecture on Guild politics—”

“It's got nothing to do with politics.”

“No?”

He leaned back against the refrigerator and folded his arms. “It's about that little eccentricity problem you mentioned last night. I don't know where you got your information, but you've been misinformed.”

“Melanie.” She cleared her throat. “Melanie Toft mentioned the eccentricity thing. She seemed very sure of her facts.”

“Summoning a ghost or neutralizing one does generate a buzz,” he said very deliberately. “But the point I want to make here is that the effect is short-lived.”

“How short?”

“Half hour, max.”

She considered that. “Come to think of it, I don't believe Melanie mentioned the time factor.”

“Yeah, well, I just wanted to make it clear that the effect wouldn't last anywhere near long enough to account for what happened between us last night.”

“I see,” she whispered.

He unfolded his arms and took one step toward her. Given the small confines of the kitchen, that was enough to put him directly in front of her. The warm scent of her sent a thrill of hunger through him. He knew she sensed it, but she made no move to dodge him. Fuzz eyed Emmett for a few seconds and then tumbled off Lydia's shoulder and disappeared in the direction of the pretzel jar.

“And it sure as hell wouldn't account for this.” Emmett pulled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his own.

For a couple of what he decided were some of the worst seconds of his life he thought she was going to push him away.

Then he felt her soften against him, and suddenly everything was all right. Better than all right. Very, very good.

Her arms went around his neck, her fingers slid into his hair. Her lips parted. He could taste her now. Need roared through him. A euphoric excitement followed. He was pretty sure that he could summon a dozen, hell, a
hundred
ghosts right now—but he was otherwise occupied.

Long periods of abstinence were probably not good for a man his age, he thought. A man his age was not supposed to be engaging in occasional flings. A man his age was supposed to be married. A man his age was supposed to have a wife in his bed. He was supposed to be getting sex so regularly that it became routine, maybe even a little dull, like eating breakfast.

Breakfast had never tasted so good.

Lydia was warm and she smelled of night things, female things. Things that were unique and astonishing and mysterious, things that he had never inhaled before in his entire life and that he was pretty sure he would never forget.

He moved his hand down over the full curve of her hip and closed his fingers around her thigh. She stirred against him. Her toe touched his foot. He eased her back against the counter, kissed her throat.

He reached between their bodies, found the sash of her robe, and untied it. She cupped his face in her hands.

“No, Emmett.”

He stilled. Then he raised his head to look down at her. “No?”

She smiled wistfully. “I really don't think this is a good idea. Technically speaking, we're still involved in a business contract.”

“That ends tomorrow morning.”

“I know. But until then we're business associates.”

Anger and frustration uncoiled deep within him. “What the hell is this? You want me. I want you. Where's the problem?”

“The problem,” she said steadily, “is that we don't know each other very well. The problem is that you're a client. The problem is that I don't want a one-night stand.”

“Why don't you be honest about it? The real problem is that I'm ex-Guild, isn't it?”

“No.”

“The hell it isn't.” He released her abruptly, pushed himself away from the counter. “You're so damned biased against anyone connected to the Guild that you can't even let yourself have a normal physical relationship with a hunter.”

“Don't you dare blame this on me.” She retied the sash of her robe with short, violent motions. “Just because I'm not into flings with men I hardly know doesn't mean I'm not normal, damn it.”

“Shit.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “I didn't mean to imply you weren't normal.”

“Yes, you did. That is exactly what you said. Bad enough that my former colleagues think I've lost my para-harmonic pitch. I don't need to be told that I'm not
normal
in other ways as well. If you'll excuse me, I've had enough. I'm going back to bed.”

He watched helplessly as she whirled and stomped out of the kitchen. Then he looked down at Fuzz, who was gazing at him from the countertop.

“Ever had the feeling that you just screwed up big-time?” Emmett asked.

L
YDIA AWOKE TO
the ringing of the bedside phone. Her hand smacked the table, groped briefly, found the instrument.

She managed to get the receiver to her ear in time to hear Emmett answer on the living room extension.

“London,” he growled.

Horrified, Lydia sat straight up in bed. “Hello? Hello?”

“Excuse me,” Ryan Kelso said brusquely. “I believe I have the wrong number.”

“Ryan?” Lydia said quickly. “Wait.”

“Is that you, Lydia?” He sounded confused now.

“It's me. Emmett, I've got it. You can hang up now.”

“Sorry,” Emmett said easily. “I'll get breakfast started while you two talk. Take your time. I haven't even had my shower yet.”

There was a click as he hung up the phone. A short, stark silence ensued during which Lydia knew that Ryan was absorbing the implications of Emmett's having answered the phone in her apartment at this hour of the morning. With a supreme effort of will she resisted the urge to storm into the other room and scream at Emmett.

She composed herself and swiftly considered the possibilities. Maybe Ryan was calling to tell her that the department had decided to give her back her job. Maybe he was calling with the offer of a private consulting contract with the university. Maybe her new career was finally about to take off.

“Sorry,” she said crisply. “Someone else picked up the phone by mistake.”

“The man who answered, he was the one who was with you the other night at the Counterpoint, wasn't he?”

There was a note of disapproval in Ryan's voice now. It irritated Lydia. As if he had a right to comment on the situation.

“Mr. London is my guest.”

A shadow loomed. She looked across the room and saw Mr. London filling her doorway. He was wearing only the jeans he'd had on last night. She waved him off. He did not budge.

“What was it you wanted, Ryan?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. When he spoke this time, his tone was a bit too affable. “As a matter of fact, I was call ing to suggest that we get together for lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“Seeing you the other night made me realize how long it's been since we had a chance to sit down and talk,” he said quickly. “Got a lot of news to catch up on.”

“I see.” She couldn't decide if he was hinting at a business discussion or just being friendly. “When did you want to do this lunch?”

“How about today?” Ryan said.

Lydia thought about the dreamstone jar that she had to get safely stored in a bank vault this morning and the cabinet of curiosities that she and Emmett were going to retrieve from Bartholomew Greeley. And then there was her job at the museum. She would be going in late today. She probably ought to work through lunch.

“I'm pretty tightly scheduled today, Ryan. How about tomorrow?”

“Damn it, Lydia, I've got to talk to you.” He sounded both annoyed and urgent. “Today. As soon as possible. I could come to your apartment.”

Ryan was definitely anxious about something. She tried to ignore Emmett, who had propped one shoulder against the doorjamb and was watching her with deep interest.

“What's this all about, Ryan?” she asked.

“It involves a professional matter,” he said stiffly.

She tried to conceal her eagerness. “Are you saying you want me to consult for the department?”

There was a slight but meaningful pause. “Not exactly.”

Her enthusiasm waned abruptly. “Ryan, I've got a busy day ahead. I don't have time for games.”

“Wait, don't hang up, Lydia. This is important. Maybe the most important thing that's ever come along. I don't want to discuss it on the phone. But trust me, we're talking about a major Harmonic find.”

Lydia tightened her grip on the phone. “What kind of find?”

“We can't talk about it now. I've got to see you.” Ryan hesitated. “There's a rumor. I can't say any more about it, but I can tell you this much. If it's for real, it could remake your career for you.”

Lydia felt her confidence return in a rush. Ryan needed her. That meant she was in control here. She had to play her cards carefully.

“Tell you what, Ryan, I'll give you a call later in the day when I've got my schedule nailed down for the week.”

“Lydia, wait, don't hang up. Damn it,
don't hang up.
Both of our futures are riding on this.”

“I'll call you later, Ryan.” Very gently she replaced the phone. She looked at Emmett.

“What?” he said.

“I have a nasty feeling that Ryan may have heard some rumors about my bequest from Chester.”

“You think he knows you've got the jar?”

“No, but I got the impression that he thinks I may know something about it.”

“That's bad enough.” He came away from the door, walked to the bed, and tossed her robe to her. “Rise and shine, my little sex goddess. We're going to be standing at the door of the bank when it opens. I want that jar in a safe-deposit box before we do anything else.”

Lydia clutched the robe and met his gaze. “‘Sex goddess'?”

“You prefer the term ‘sex kitten'?”

“No, that's okay. ‘Sex goddess' will do.”

 

The Cadence City Bank opened promptly at nine. By nine-twenty Lydia had filled out all the paperwork required for a safe-deposit box. The clerk showed her and Emmett into the hushed solitude of the vault room and left them alone.

Lydia removed the dreamstone jar from the paper sack for one last look before she sealed it safely away in the safe-deposit box.

“I still can't quite believe this is real.” She studied the small streams of ever-changing colors that encircled the jar like tiny alien seas. “Solid as a rock and yet it's pure dreamstone. How is it possible? By rights it should have melted and splintered into a gazillion different molecules.”

“I don't know if it's all that unexpected,” Emmett said.

“Unexpected? The ability to work dreamstone is unheard of.”

“Think about it.” Emmett studied the jar in her hands. “We humans have only been here a couple of hundred years, but we've already developed ways of resonating psychically with rez-amber. We use the stuff every day to do everything from turning on the rez-screen to cooking dinner and hunting ghosts. The Harmonics probably evolved on this planet.”

“We don't know that for certain,” Lydia said quickly. “They may have come through the Curtain thousands of years ago, the same way we did two centuries ago. The experts say there's no telling how many times the Curtain has opened and closed in the past or which planets it linked when it was open.”

Emmett shrugged. “Whatever. Any way you look at it, the Harmonics could have been here for thousands of years, right?”

“Right.”

“Plenty of time to get psychically tuned to the basic harmonic frequencies of the planet. Who knows what they could do with rez-amber? Hell, we still can't even figure out how they created ghosts or the illusion traps. Some of us can manipulate them, but no one has come up with a way to create a ghost or a trap from scratch.”

“True.”

Lydia looked at the jar she held. She could feel the weight of the centuries and the echoes of a creativity that was not quite human but that nevertheless resonated on a very human frequency. “Maybe they discovered or invented something even better than rez-amber to help them focus their psi talents.”

“Wouldn't be surprised. Given a couple of thousand more years here, we'll probably come up with something more efficient, too.” Emmett glanced at his watch. “It's almost nine-thirty. Greeley will be waiting for us.”

“Yes.” She could come back here later to look at her fabulous jar, Lydia reminded herself. She started to rewrap it in the paper sack. Midway through the process she paused.

“What's wrong?” Emmett asked.

“I'm not sure.” She removed the jar from the sack again and hefted it in her bare hands. She sent out a gentle psychic probe. Her amber bracelet grew warm against her skin. Cautiously, she felt for the harmonic pulse of the energy that emanated from the jar.

The amber grew warmer. A small chill went through her. “Oh, jeez.”

Emmett moved closer, intent on her face. “What are you picking up? The age of the thing?”

“No. Something else. Remember, last night I told you it felt strange? Almost like a bit of illusion trap energy. I thought it was just something unique to dreamstone. But now I'm not so sure.”

He glanced at the jar, and then his eyes lifted swiftly to meet hers. She saw that he understood the implications of what she had just said.

“Not ghost energy,” he said with absolute certainty. “I'd sense it more clearly than you would.”

“No,” she whispered. “Illusion energy.”

“Illusion traps are very rare outside the catacombs.”

She nodded mutely. He was right. Even so, she could not help looking around the vault room. She studied every corner intently, amplifying and focusing her para-resonating senses through the amber bracelet. She saw no pools of darkness in the corners. There were no inexplicable shadows under the table or near the ceiling.

Of course there weren't any illusion snares in here, she thought. They were standing in the middle of the Cadence City Bank, for crying out loud.

But the amber in her bracelet was very warm against her skin. Traces of energy shimmered in the room.

She looked down at the jar. Then she looked at Emmett.

“Something to do with worked dreamstone, maybe?” Emmett asked. “Some property that we don't know about because no human has been able to manipulate the stuff?”

She held the artifact up to the light. “There's a lid, I think. It really should be removed in a lab. I don't want to risk damaging the jar.”

“It's lasted this long,” Emmett reminded her. “It can't be too fragile.”

“I'll give it a try.”

She set the jar on the table and very gingerly pried at the tightly closed lid. To her surprise it came off easily. She found herself looking down into the dark—very dark—interior of the little artifact.

“Hmm.”

She picked up the jar and angled it so that light from the overhead fixture shafted into the interior. It could not penetrate the darkness. There was no gleam or sparkle from the dreamstone inside the jar. Just thick, impenetrable, black mist.

There were two possibilities, she thought. She was either losing it, para-rez-wise, just as Ryan and the others suspected, or she was holding a jar filled with an illusion trap.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“The real thing?” Emmett asked quietly.

“Yeah. Not much of it. Just enough to fit inside this jar.”

He hadn't questioned her judgment, she thought. He'd accepted her verdict even though he had every right to doubt it.

He watched as she very carefully set the jar back down on the table. “What do you think?”

“I don't know. Like everyone else, I've never seen much of this stuff outside the Dead City. The very fact that it exists inside this jar may mean that this trap is different from the others I've worked with. It must be anchored somehow to the dreamstone. Only one way to find out.”

He looked at her over the top of the jar. “Go for it.”

“Might be better if you stepped into the other room. Just in case.”

“Not a chance. I'm staying right here.”

“Suit yourself.”

She took another breath and concentrated on sending psi energy through the amber on her wrist. The stones warmed quickly again. The unmistakable pulse of resonating energy vibrated through her. Weak, but steady and clear.

“It's such a small trap,” she whispered. “It's only giving off a trickle of energy.”

“Even a trickle can cause some very unpleasant effects,” Emmett warned.

She said nothing. They had both worked in the catacombs. They knew what the ancient Harmonic snares could do. Alien dreams. Alien nightmares.

She channeled psi energy steadily through the amber while she gazed down into the palpable night inside the jar. After a few seconds she saw something stir in the depths. The dark itself appeared to be condensing and coalescing. It was reacting to the pulses of energy she was forcing through it. If she screwed up at this stage, she could all too easily spring the trap.

If she triggered the illusion trap, she would have only about one second to realize she was in trouble. There would be no time to do anything about it. The darkness would snap back along the psi-frequencies that she herself had provided it. The stuff would swamp her mind before she could react.

If it was sufficiently powerful, the snare would not only plunge her into a disorienting illusion that her human mind could not accept for long but it would use her own psi energy to trap anyone else who had the misfortune to be standing nearby. Emmett, for example.

How long the nightmare would last or what form it would take was anyone's guess. Given the size of the trap, one could only hope that the dream it produced would be correspondingly limited and short-lived.

But she knew that even if it lasted for only a few minutes, it would take days to recover.

Using her para-rez senses, she edged deeper into the little patch of darkness. She sifted through the cloaking ephemeral energy until she caught the telltale echo of resonance. She fine-tuned her probe, found the hidden design inside the masking pattern, and fed energy into it, dampening the wave motion.

Slowly, carefully, she began to adjust the resonance frequency of the trap. It grew weaker, flattened.

The darkness inside the jar winked out abruptly.

Lydia released the breath she had not realized she was holding. She looked up and saw Emmett grinning at her.

“Nice work,” he said.

It was then that the elation ripped through her. This was the first time she'd had a chance to work illusion trap energy since the Lost Weekend. The first time she'd been able to prove to herself that she still had her harmonic pitch. She hadn't lost her edge.