Authors: Jayne Castle
She wanted to argue, but there didn’t seem to be much point. There was no place to run. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest, filling her senses with the scent of him one last time. If they were
going to go, she couldn’t think of anyone she would rather go with than Sam.
“I love you,” she whispered into his shirt.
But she knew that he had not heard her. For one thing, the utility truck was almost upon them now. The fully rezzed engine was screaming too loudly to make even normal levels of conversation possible.
The second thing that made a dramatic farewell impossible was that Sam was projecting an enormous amount of psi energy. She could feel it enveloping her as he held her tightly against his chest. So much power required the use of all of his internal resources, both physical and paranormal. The last thing he could do at that moment was pay attention to what she had muttered into his shirt. It was a wonder he had the strength to hold her in his arms.
She heard the whine of the swiftly advancing truck, felt Sam tighten his arms fiercely around her, and then, impossibly, she was suddenly aware of being surrounded by a rushing sea of alien energy. Ghost energy.
She realized that Sam had chosen to escape the utility truck by leaping through the waterfall with her in his arms.
The acid-green waterfall washed over her in a giant wave. She braced herself for the searing mind burn but, incredibly, the energy did not touch her. She could feel the weight of it pressing on her from all sides, sensed the raw power that seethed in the cascade,
but it did not touch her.
It was as if she was protected by an invisible envelope.
The world whirled on its axis. She felt a jarring thud that took her breath. She heard Sam grunt and then she felt the cool green quartz beneath her. She realized that they had both landed on the floor of the corridor—on the other side of the waterfall.
Sam rolled with her in his arms, carrying her to the edge of the tunnel. They came up hard against the quartz wall.
Sam released her and got to his feet. He swung around to
face the cascade of green energy. Dazed, Virginia sat up slowly, pushing hair out of her eyes. She stared at the waterfall. Sam had carried her through that mass of alien energy. Without a scratch.
Unless, of course, this was how you felt after your brain got fried. Maybe her mind hadn’t yet assimilated the fact of its own destruction. Perhaps a lifetime of sitcoms still awaited her. Heaven help her, maybe she would actually enjoy them.
Before she could mention that awful possibility to Sam, she heard the explosion on the other side of the UDEM waterfall. She knew what had happened because she had seen similar events, albeit on a far smaller scale. The utility truck had slammed into the energy wall and been bounced back like a rubber ball. The inevitable blast that accompanied the meeting of an immovable object and an unstoppable vehicle had taken place at the point of impact on the other side of the waterfall.
Here on the back side of the energy cascade, it was business as usual. There was no backwash of energy.
A stunning silence descended. Nothing broke it except the occasional hiss and crackle produced by the tumbling fountain of ghost energy.
“You did it.” Virginia tore her gaze off the waterfall and looked at Sam. “You got us through it in one piece. How in the name of Old Earth did you manage it?”
“I didn’t try to de-rez the whole damn waterfall. Just neutralized a section big enough to allow us to pass through for about thirty seconds.” He spoke absently, as if his thoughts were on something else that was far more important. “Couldn’t hold it any longer than that. At least not while I—” He broke off.
“You mean, you couldn’t de-rez it for more than a few seconds and carry me through it at the same time,” she said. “You don’t have to spell it out. I know how much psi power that little leap through the waterfall must have cost you. I must have felt as heavy as that damn truck in your arms.”
His brows rose. “A gentleman never calls attention to a lady’s weight.”
“I appreciate that.” She frowned. “You must have melted your amber.”
He glanced at his ring. “Yeah, it’s fused. I’ve got a backup chunk, but I won’t be able to use it for a while.”
She looked around warily. The section of corridor in which they stood looked very much like the section on the other side of the waterfall. The same pale, luminous green glow infused the impermeable quartz. Here and there she caught the telltale trace of illusion shadow that marked the concealed door to a hidden room or antechamber. The dizzying maze of intersecting tunnels stretched out ahead as far as she could see.
The difference between this section of the catacombs and those on the other side of the waterfall, of course, was that this sector had not yet been officially mapped. The safest way out would be to go back through the waterfall, but that would not be possible until Sam had recovered from the aftereffects of melting amber. Besides, Leon Drummond might be waiting on the other side.
She checked her earrings. “My amber is still good. At least we won’t lose our sense of direction.”
Underground, the only thing that kept you oriented was tuned amber. Without it, the endless miles of eerie quartz tunnels became a hopelessly impenetrable labyrinth, even with a locator.
“Drummond tried to kill us,” Sam said without inflection. “My guess is he’s our Halloween trickster.”
“The one who left that trap on our doorstep last night?”
“Yeah. Someone must be paying him very well to sabotage Ewert’s map team. The guild frowns on that sort of thing. Bad public relations.”
“Especially now when the guild is trying so hard to build a good public image.” Virginia scrambled awkwardly to her feet. She glanced down, half-expecting to find scorch marks
on her trousers. She saw nothing but a few new wrinkles. She looked up again. “Sam, you must be exhausted.”
“Not yet. The afterburn is still kicking in. The buzz will last for about an hour. Then I’m going to have to crash for at least two or three hours. No way to beat it.”
She nodded. The syndrome was well-known. Ghost-hunters who expended large amounts of psi energy needed time to recover.
Sam studied the corridors that branched off in different directions behind her. “We need to find a place where we can hole up for a while. In an hour I’m going to be asleep, like it or not.”
She glanced around. “Why can’t we just stay here? No one else is going to come through that waterfall.”
“Probably not,” Sam agreed. “But that’s not what’s got me worried.”
“Well? What is worrying you? Aside from the fact that Drummond just tried to nail us?”
“It occurs to me that whoever hired Leon Drummond to keep Mac Ewert from making any progress in this corridor may be working illegally on
this
side of the waterfall.”
Virginia widened her eyes as understanding hit her. “Yes, of course. An illegal excavation project on this side would explain a lot. But if you’re right, we could run into Drummond’s pals any minute.”
“I’d say that’s a definite risk.” He started toward her. “Come on, we’ve got to find a place to hide until I can sleep off the afterburn.”
“There are bound to be some chambers or rooms we can duck into for a few hours,” she said. “All we have to do is pick one that doesn’t look like it’s been charted yet. Odds are no one will find us during the next few hours. Heck, I doubt if anyone will even come looking for us. Drummond must think we’re dead. He’ll no doubt report that we got reckless,
got ourselves fried by that waterfall, and that the firm of Gage & Burch is out of business.”
“True. He can’t have any way of knowing that we survived. All the same, I don’t want to take any more chances than necessary.” Sam looked at her. “We haven’t got a lot of time.”
The prowling urgency in him worried her. She opened her mouth to say something reassuring, but the words got caught in her throat. He was only a short distance away now. For the first time since they had come through the waterfall, she got a close look at his eyes. What she saw there stilled her breath for a few seconds.
Hot, intense, brilliant; sexual desire, elemental and dangerously compelling, blazed in his eyes. His gaze literally glittered with what, in any other circumstances, she might have mistaken for the first evidence that he felt a degree of genuine passion for her.
Adeline’s question came back to her in an uncomfortable rush.
“So, is it true what they say about ghost-hunters? Are they really amazing in bed after they’ve zapped a ghost? I’ve heard the sex is unbelievable right after a burn.”
What she saw in Sam now, she realized, was no more than the aftereffects of a massive expenditure of ghost-hunter psi talent. Chemically speaking, it was the result of a combination of testosterone, adrenaline, and the potent biological cocktail his paranormal powers had dumped into his bloodstream.
Nothing personal, she reminded herself. He wasn’t attracted to her, per se. It just happened that he was rezzed for sex, and she was the only female in sight. Anything in skirts would probably do just fine for him at that moment.
“Uh, Sam? Are you okay?”
“No.” He went past her, heading for the first branching corridor. “Let’s get moving.”
He was freaking her out. He knew it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Hanging on to his self-control required every shred of what little willpower he could muster. Getting them both safely through the waterfall had required more power than he’d ever used in his life; more than he’d known he possessed. He did not intend to tell Virginia the truth: that it had been damned close. They had made it, but in the process he’d poured so much psychic wattage through his amber that he’d destroyed the resonating properties of the precision-tuned stone. Melting amber meant you’d pushed the envelope. There was always a price to pay.
He’d experienced the sexual buzz that often occurred after a major burn before. In the past, he’d always felt fully in control of the predictable arousal. But this time things were different. It wasn’t just that the burn had been bigger; the real problem was that this time, he was alone with Virginia, the woman he’d been lusting after for nearly two months.
He was in the grip of a feverish desire that was all the worse because he had worked so hard to suppress and conceal it.
All right, so he had a major hard-on. Just a few rampaging hormones. So what? He wasn’t a kid. He could control himself. He
had
to control himself. If he lost it now, he would probably terrify her and turn her against him forever. Any chance he had with her would go up in smoke.
He tried to concentrate on moving ahead down the corridor, searching the walls for the barest hint of illusion energy that would indicate a hidden chamber they could use. All of the rooms that had ever been discovered in the corridors had been found sealed with illusion traps. If they could find a sealed room that looked as if no one else had ever de-rezzed the trap that guarded it, Virginia could unseal it, and they could hide inside for a few hours.
Simple. All he had to do was concentrate and not think about the fact that she was only a few inches away.
“Sam, you’re shivering.” Virginia touched his forehead with gentle, questing fingers. “Good heavens, you’re burning up. You must be running a temperature. Is this normal?”
“Damn it,
don’t touch me.
” He closed his eyes briefly and drew a deep breath. Great. Now he was snapping at her. “We’ll both be sorry if you do.”
She frowned; not with fear or trepidation but with a concern that horrified him. If she started in with the sweet, nurturing stuff, he was doomed.
“This can’t be normal,” she insisted. “I think that burn must have made you ill.”
“Trust me, it’s normal,” he said through set teeth. “A little intense, but normal.”
He could not screw up and lose control. Not now. It was crucial that he did not scare her to death. Because maybe, just maybe, he really had heard her say “I love you” in those few seconds before he carried her through the waterfall.
“Slow down, Sam, I can’t keep up with you.”
He realized that he was loping down the corridor as he
raked the walls for telltale signs of illusion dark. “Sorry.” He forced himself to slow somewhat.
“It’s okay. Let me worry about finding a trapped chamber. We’re back into my field of expertise now.” She moved out ahead of him. “I think I see something up ahead. Yes, I can feel it.”
He tried but he did not pick up the psychic tang of illusion dark. “I don’t feel a damn thing.”
“Probably because your para-senses are temporarily over-rezzed. But I’m sure there’s something up there.” She broke into a quick trot. “Positive. And it’s big. A big trap usually indicates a large chamber. Maybe we’ll luck out and find a palace. They always have lots of little antechambers around them. Plenty of places to hide.”
He hoped she was right. Beneath the clawing surge of sexual need and the rush of the burn buzz, he thought he could detect the first warnings of the crash that would soon follow. He could not afford to collapse here in the open corridor. Not when there was a possibility that Leon Drummond’s cohorts might be in the neighborhood. He had to stay on his feet long enough to make sure Virginia was safe.
He followed her around a bend and saw that she had come to a halt in front of what, at first glance, appeared to be a section of green quartz wall. But there was something not quite right about the center portion. He peered more closely, blinking to clear his jumpy vision. The wall wavered slightly before it came back into focus. Illusion dark.
“Big,” he muttered.
“Yes. Very unusual. Also very, very old.”
The thoughtful, decidedly academic tone of her voice worried him. The last thing they could afford to do was waste time while she analyzed the trap from a professional point of view.
“You can write it up for an article in the
Journal of Para-Archaeology
when this is over,” he said roughly. “Right now, we need to get into the space behind it.”
She gave him a disgruntled look. “I know. Give me a minute here, though. There’s something different about this trap.”