Midnight Crystal (5 page)

“Of course. Some of my investigations take me into the underworld.”

His mouth quirked. “You’re from J&J. You’re a professional, too. That makes three of us. Him, you, and me.”

“I can’t help but observe that all this talk about amber is beside the point. We can’t go underground because of the vortex. Which leaves us with only one option.”

“Yeah?” Adam sounded mildly curious. “What’s that?”

“We’ll have to outwait the shooter. He won’t stay in those woods forever. Sooner or later he’ll assume his plan has worked, that we’ve gone underground, and then he’ll leave.”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “But we’re not going to risk it. We’re going to do exactly what he wants us to do.” He turned and started toward one of the green towers. “Let’s go.”

Gibson chortled and scampered after him, eager for a new adventure.

Marlowe froze. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“We’re going underground,” Adam said.

“But we can’t. It’s a vortex site.”

“I’ll deal with it.”

“No one can deal with a vortex.” She fought to keep her voice from rising. “That’s why I chose this site for the meeting.”

“I’m aware of that.” He kept walking. “But the only reason I stuck around once I realized there was a vortex in the area is because I can handle that kind of energy.”

She stared at his back, floored. “You can?”

“You don’t have a very high opinion of my intelligence, do you? Did you really think I’d be dumb enough to meet with the head of J&J at a location that would leave me without any defenses or an underground escape route?”

“I just wanted neutral territory.”

“I’ve never been a fan of neutral territory.” He stopped at the top of a glowing staircase. “I like territory that I control.”

“I did get that impression.”

“Come with me, Marlowe Jones. I’ll take you on a tour of the underworld.”

She looked at him. “You really can handle vortex energy?”

“You’re going to have to trust me on this.”

“No offense, but how do you deal with it?”

Adam held up his left hand, letting her see the dark face of his watch. “In addition to standard amber, I can work full-spectrum stone. Turns out it can be used to deal with vortex energy.”

“That’s rainbow amber in your watch?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s just a dark gray stone. There’s no color.”

“It doesn’t illuminate until I drive energy through it, which I do as rarely as possible.”

“Why?”

“There’s a major downside.”

Another wave of unease fluttered through her. There was no trace of madness in his dreamprints, but she knew that he had been suffering nightmares and hallucinations lately. Perhaps he was seeing things that did not exist, things like an exceedingly rare kind of amber in the face of his watch. Maybe the visions had also led him to believe he could work the legendary energy of rainbow amber.

She opened her senses and took another look at his dreamlight.

He was amused. “Don’t worry, I’m not hallucinating.”

“No, I can see that.”

She shut down her senses and walked toward him. “I’ve never heard of anyone being able to work full-spectrum stone.”

“Probably because there aren’t a lot of us who can do it.”

“What’s the downside you mentioned?”

“I have to push a lot of energy through rainbow stone to control a vortex hellhole. It’s the equivalent of melting amber. After we get through the vortex, I’ll be good for about forty-five minutes, and then I’m going to need to sleep for a couple of hours.”

“What’s it like?” she asked.

“Going into a vortex? It’s like walking into a nightmare. It won’t kill you, but it isn’t an outing in the park.”

She followed him down the eerie green staircase, careful to watch her footing. The quartz steps were wide enough to allow ample room for her feet, but like everything else in the underworld, the proportions seemed slightly skewed to the human eye and sense of balance.

There was no problem seeing where she was going, though. The tunnels were fashioned of the same green quartz that the aliens had used to construct almost everything they had built above- and belowground. And every object made of the mysterious quartz from the smallest tomb mirror to the towering walls of the Dead Cities gave off an eerie, acid green light after dark and underground. Down in the catacombs, the lights were always on.

Like so many things related to the long-vanished aliens, the experts could not explain the luminescence. The working theory was that it was a side effect of the odd paranormal energy given off by the stone.

According to the theory, the energy had been vital to the survival of the aliens. It had become clear to researchers, that, while humans were able to thrive on Harmony, something in the environment had been poisonous to the ancient race that had arrived eons earlier. At some point they had abandoned the attempt to live aboveground. They had gone down below the planet’s surface, constructing an endless maze of green quartz tunnels. They had also bioengineered an entire ecosystem, an underground rain forest, to sustain them.

But in the end, they had failed and disappeared.

Gibson bounded down the staircase and vanished into the welling green night. Marlowe wasn’t worried about him. He loved to go underground. Unlike humans, dust bunnies did not need amber to navigate in the catacombs or the rain forest.

Marlow followed Adam around another twist in the staircase. “Why didn’t you mention earlier that you could handle a vortex?”

“Because it’s classified information,” Adam said.

“Classified by whom?”

“By me, mostly. But also by the Chamber.”

“You worked for the Chamber?”

Chamber was short for the unwieldy Chamber of the Joint Council of Dissonance Energy Para-resonator Guilds
,
the powerful, overarching governing organization of the Ghost Hunter Guilds.

“I was a Bureau agent for most of my career until I got this cool gig in the Frequency Guild,” Adam said over his shoulder.

“I know a little about the Bureau. It’s the Chamber’s secret black ops agency.”

“Sort of like Jones & Jones.”

“J&J is not a secret black ops agency,” she said coldly. “We just like to keep a low profile.”

“So does the Bureau.” He stopped on the next to the last step and waited for her. “Careful, the vortex energy starts right about here.”

“I remember,” she said. “This was as far as I got when I tried to explore these ruins a few months ago. Had to stop and turn back.”

The first whispers of vortex energy were drifting around her now, setting all her senses on edge. The ominous sensation of creeping panic would only get worse. There was a reason why Guild men and others who worked in the underworld referred to vortex sites as hellholes.

“You’ll probably see things,” Adam warned. “Just keep reminding yourself that they aren’t real.”

“But that’s not the worst part, right?”

“No. The real danger in a vortex is that people panic and start running. The energy storm zaps standard amber and locators immediately. When you do finally stumble out of a hellhole, you’re lost. There is very little chance that anyone will find you, because your amber is shot.”

“But that won’t happen to us, because you know what you’re doing.”

“Right.”

“Let’s get it over with,” she said.

Adam wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I’m starting to understand why they made you the head of J&J. Here we go. Remember, when you’re in the eye of a vortex, you won’t be able to trust your vision or your sense of balance. Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand.”

“Okay.” Not that she had much of an option, she thought. His fingers were clamped around her wrist like a mag-steel manacle.

He went down the last step of the alien staircase, drawing her down with him. She followed him into a slice of hell.

BETWEEN ONE GLOWING STEP AND THE NEXT, THE staircase and the illuminated quartz walls of the catacombs vanished, only to be immediately replaced by the featureless landscape of a nightmare. Her brain struggled to make sense of the wild energy and produced hallucinations instead. Primordial creatures from the deepest recesses of her unconscious mind rushed at her out of nowhere. They screamed silently.

It’s just a dream,
she thought.
Only a dream. You can handle this kind of thing. You’re a dreamlight talent.

She summoned her will, and the visions receded. The devastating sense of disorientation did not, however. It was as if she was moving through a psi green thunderstorm. She could not tell up from down, could not even feel the hard quartz under her feet. Ghost lightning crackled around her.

She had expected the vortex winds to grow stronger gradually, allowing time for her senses to adjust to the unnerving effects. Instead, she was instantly swept into the whirling tornado.

A rainbow of energy encircled her wrist, dragging her deeper into the storm. She fought the urge to try to free herself.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.”

Adam’s voice echoed from somewhere in the stormscape. She focused on it. She realized that she could also see the seething currents of his dreamprints. They should have been invisible in this wild energy field. The fact that she could make them out meant that he was even more powerful than she had thought.

A small monster fluttered toward her through the swirling mists. The creature’s fur stood on end. It had four eyes and six paws and it made an anxious, chortling sound.

“Gibson,” she whispered.

He stroked through the green storm until he reached her shoulder. He perched there, murmuring in her ear. The fierceness of the storm receded somewhat. She could make out Adam’s dark shadow now.

After what seemed an eternity but what was probably no more than a minute or two, she stepped out of the stormscape as suddenly as she had walked into it. The normal world settled into place around her, at least what passed for normal down in the catacombs.

They were standing in a seemingly endless green quartz hallway. A dizzying maze of identical passageways intersected the corridor at various points. The entrances to an uncountable number of chambers and rooms of various sizes and dimensions were visible as far as the eye could see.

And all of it glowed with the mysterious light that was characteristic of alien quartz.

Gibson chortled on her shoulder. No longer concerned about her, he bounded back down onto the floor and fluttered into a nearby chamber to do a little exploring.

Adam’s alchemist eyes were still hot with the remnants of energy he had used to get them through the vortex. He did not release her wrist. She glanced down and saw that the manacle of rainbow psi that he had used to bring her safely through the storm was rapidly fading.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “That was a bad one.”

“I’m okay.” She took a deep breath and realized that was more or less the truth. “I see what you mean about the disorienting effect, though. No wonder vortices are considered such a hazard down here.”

She realized that he was watching her with a thoughtful expression.

“You didn’t panic when the hallucinations hit,” he said. “I’ve had some experience taking people through hellholes. No one I’ve accompanied has ever handled the visual effects as well as you just did.”

“Probably a side effect of my talent. I have an affinity for dreamlight, remember?”

“You’re strong. You were fully cranked. I could sense your energy field.”

His intense, watchful expression was a little unnerving. She did not need any more unnerving stuff. She tugged a little at the wrist he held captive.

He glanced down as though surprised to discover that he was still chaining her.

“Are you sure you’re back in the here and now?” he asked.

“I’m sure.”

He released her with obvious reluctance and looked down at his watch. The rainbow had disappeared. The stone was once again dark gray. She studied his dreamprints on the quartz floor. The signs of exhaustion were obvious.

“You burned a lot of energy getting us through that thing,” she said. “You’re right. You are going to need to rest soon.”

“Do I look that bad?”

“I can see it in your prints.”

He gave her a very unamused smile. “You really are good.”

“Hey, they didn’t make me the head of J&J because I was only average on the Jones scale. I may not be a chaos-theory talent, but when it comes to reading dreamlight, I’m off the charts.” She frowned. “No offense, but you are close to the end of your physical as well as psychical reserves. Are you sure that just a couple of hours of sleep will be enough?”

“I’ve been living on two hours of sleep at a time for the past month. I can handle it. But like I said earlier, I’ve only got about forty-five minutes before I crash.” He glanced down at his watch. The stone heated a little. “Looks like we’ve got a four-hour walk to the nearest exit plus an additional two hours for my nap. Let’s get moving.”