Illusion Town Read online

  The doppelgänger considered the black evening bag sitting on the room’s only chair. It looked as if it had been dropped there just before the dreamer collapsed on the bed.

  “My necklace,” the dreamer said. “What happened to it?”

  “Check the evening bag,” the doppelgänger said to the dreamer. “It’s important. Answer is inside.”

  “Okay. Is that all you’ve got for me?”

  For the first time the doppelgänger looked at the man standing by the window.

  “He’s important, too,” she said.

  “I know.”

  There was a dust bunny perched on the windowsill. Like the man, his attention was focused on the scene outside the window.

  But the dreamer recognized the dust bunny. He was a friend. In her world that made him family.

  It was the man who was a mostly unknown factor. His dreamlight prints were all over the room—the floor, the window blinds, everything he had touched. They shimmered with strong, controlled paranormal energy.

  His prints were on the bed beside the dreamer, too.

  “He slept next to you,” the doppelgänger said. “That’s interesting.”

  “Drugged or psi-burned, probably. No other explanation.”

  Men did not sleep well when they slept next to the dreamer. No one did. The few brave souls who had attempted to do so over the years usually awoke on the currents of a panic-driven nightmare. When the dreamer dreamed normally, the currents radiating from her aura were so strong they had a disturbing effect on anyone in close proximity. When she went dream-walking, no one who had physical contact with her could tolerate the waves of dreamlight for long. It made for a limited love life.

  The man at the window gripped a narrow boxlike object in his hand. Even in her dreamstate the dreamer recognized that the device had been shaped for a human hand. It wasn’t Alien tech. It looked like a remote control.

  “It’s a weapon,” the doppelgänger said.

  “I know,” the dreamer said. But she did not remember how she had come to know that.

  As if he had heard the silent conversation, the man turned his head to look at the dreamer on the bed. He did not see the doppelgänger. No one else ever saw her, which was, of course, one of the reasons why powerful dreamlight talents got saddled with labels like “fragile” and “unstable.”

  “Wake up, Hannah,” the man said. The voice was dark, masculine, and infused with a lot of control. It suited the power in his aura. “We need to get moving. It’s almost dawn. We have to assume they’re looking for us. No way to know how much time we’ve got before they find this place.”

  Elias Coppersmith. His name was Elias Coppersmith.

  A rush of relief swept through her. At least he was not a complete stranger. He had been an online client for about two months. Yesterday evening he had walked through the door of her shop, Visions, for the first time. Assuming yesterday was actually yesterday. How much time had she lost?

  Okay, so she hadn’t awakened in a cheap motel room with a total stranger.

  “So much for the good news,” the doppelgänger said. She started to fade, slipping back into the dreamer’s physical body.

  “Wait,” the dreamer said. “I’ve got more questions.”

  But the dream walk was ending.

  For a heartbeat or two the dreamer experienced the usual but always unnerving shock of transition.

  And then she was awake.

  Hannah West took a deep breath and came back into her normal senses. At least she hadn’t screamed the way she still did sometimes when she woke up in an unfamiliar location. She liked to think she had developed good control over her talent but there were still times when she awakened in a semipanic.

  She opened her eyes, trying to orient herself. Her dream-walking doppelgänger had been right; the radiant acid green energy at the windows told her that they were near some of the Dead City ruins. The fact that the glow was fading also indicated that dawn was approaching. The natural illumination of the green quartz that the Aliens had used to construct most of their cities and many of their artifacts was barely visible in daylight.

  Virgil chortled a cheery good-morning greeting and vaulted off the windowsill. He landed with a thump on the bed and scurried toward her.

  She sat up slowly and reached out to give him a quick hug. “Good morning to you, too, pal.”

  “How do you feel?” Elias asked.

  She tried to summon up the facts she could be sure of. She was in a strange room with a man who had, according to the dreamlight evidence, slept next to her on a lumpy, rock-hard mattress.

  And her necklace was gone.

  But Virgil was there and he seemed to approve of Elias Coppersmith. So there was that.

  “Disoriented,” she said. “I feel very, very disoriented. I can’t remember anything after you walked through the front door of my shop yesterday.”

  “Same here after I first woke up. But I’m starting to get a few flashes of memory, so hopefully the effects will wear off.”

  “Do you think we were drugged?”

  He shook his head, his jaw set in a grim line. “I don’t know. But we were running from someone. I recall that much.”

  She examined him carefully. He looked as if he had used his fingers to rake his dark hair straight back from a sharply defined widow’s peak. His face was all hard planes and angles and covered with the dark shadow of a morning beard. His eyes were a dangerous shade of amber.

  He wore a crewneck T-shirt, expensively tailored dark trousers that showed signs of having been slept in, and a pair of low, recently polished boots. There was a crumpled white dress shirt and a tie draped over the back of the chair and a dark gray sports coat.

  He had navigational amber set into his belt. She was willing to bet that there was more concealed in the heels of the boots. He also wore a ring on his right hand. It was unusual in several respects. The first was that it was a simple Old World design, made of some strong black metal and set with a green crystal. There was nothing particularly attractive about the ring. It looked functional, not decorative. She assumed that Elias could use the strange crystal to focus his talent—whatever that was.

  She knew something about the ring because she was the one who had tracked it down for him in the underground market, where powerful crystals and gemstones with a paranormal provenance were bought and sold by collectors, most of whom preferred to remain anonymous.

  “My necklace,” she said. She touched her throat. “It’s gone.”

  Elias frowned. “I noticed that earlier after I woke up. Must have lost it on the way here.”

  “No.” Panic rushed through her. “No, that can’t be possible. The clasp was specially designed to be very secure.”

  “I’m no judge of fashion when it comes to jewelry but I do know crystals. No offense, but the ones in your necklace didn’t appear to be particularly valuable.”

  She stiffened. “It was a family heirloom. Pretty much my only family heirloom.”

  His mouth tightened. “Sorry. I understand.”

  “Under the circumstances, it’s a good thing I know who you are,” she said. “Otherwise I might be very concerned.”

  Grim amusement came and went in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry. There’s still plenty of reason to be worried,” he said. “I can’t remember much of what happened last night but my gut tells me that someone is hunting us. We need to find out what’s going on, and fast. That means we need to get moving.”

  “Right.”

  First things first. Get out of the damn bed.

  Layers of dreamlight had soaked into the old mattress as well as the sheets and the bedspread. A lot of the paranormal residue was infused with the added heat of sexual energy.

  She hated old beds. She hated sleeping where others had slept. And motel room beds wer
e the worst.

  She swung her feet to the floor, trying not to think about the bed.

  She grabbed the stilettos and slipped into them, squelching another wave of anxiety with an effort of will. Then she got to her feet.

  She suddenly remembered what the doppelgänger had said about the answer being in the evening bag. She hurried to the chair, picked up the clutch, and unfastened it. There was the usual paraphernalia inside—her cell phone, some spare navigational amber, a packet of tissues, and a lipstick. There was also a small, square piece of paper.

  But there was no necklace.

  “Damn,” she whispered. She was afraid she might actually burst into tears. “It can’t be lost. I just found the missing crystal a couple of weeks ago.”

  “It’s okay,” Elias said. He came toward her and patted her somewhat awkwardly on her shoulder. “I’ll help you look for it.”

  She pulled herself together. She could have a nervous breakdown later, she told herself.

  She was about to close the bag when she noticed the slip of paper again. She took it out, thinking it was a receipt of some kind that might give them a clue about what had happened.

  It wasn’t a receipt.

  “Weird,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a fortune,” she said.

  “What the hell?”

  “You know, the kind you get at a fortune-teller’s booth. You put in a few coins and out pops a fortune.”

  “I have never, in my entire life, bought a fortune at a fortune-teller’s booth.”

  “Well, evidently I did last night,” she said.

  “What does it say?”

  She read the words and winced. “Just the usual generic stuff.”

  “Read it to me. Maybe it will help point us in the right direction.”

  She braced herself. “You will find true love soon.”

  He considered that briefly. “You’re right. Not very helpful.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, it does indicate that we visited a fortune-teller last night.”

  “Good point.”

  She started toward the bathroom but paused as another thought occurred.

  “What day is it?” she asked.

  “Tuesday,” Elias said. “We checked in here very early this morning—shortly after one a.m. I paid cash.”

  “We get a lot of cash business here in Illusion Town. Some people don’t want to leave an electronic trail when they patronize places like this.”

  Elias shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to hide the room from a wife or a girlfriend. I’m sure of that much.”

  That news lifted her spirits somewhat.

  “As soon as I woke up, I left Virgil here with you and took a look around,” Elias continued. “I had to find out just what we were dealing with. The night clerk is still on duty downstairs. He remembers checking us in. He also said no one showed up asking questions about us.”

  “Well, that sounds like good news. Sort of. I guess.”

  “Yeah, that’s my take on it. Assuming he wasn’t lying, of course. But I’m inclined to believe him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re still here and there’s no indication that anyone has tried to get into this room.” Elias angled his head toward Virgil. “Also, your dust bunny pal doesn’t seem to be concerned.”

  Hannah looked at Virgil. He was fully fluffed. You could hardly see his ears or his six paws, and only his baby blue eyes were showing. When things got serious, his second set of eyes—the ones he used for hunting—popped open. He was in full cute mode at the moment. That was reassuring.

  “Good point,” she said. “But why are we dressed up? It looks like we went out on the town.”

  “A date, I think.”

  “I never date clients.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Let’s start with the basics,” she said. “Where, exactly, are we?”

  “The Shadow Zone Motel.” Elias plucked an old brochure off the nightstand and handed it to her. “‘A luxurious retreat and spa in the heart of the Shadow Zone. Every amenity designed with your privacy in mind. Honeymoons are our specialty.’”

  “Honeymoons, hmm?” She surveyed the room, taking in the shabby furnishings, yellowed walls, and worn carpet. “Looks like a hot-sheet kind of place.”

  “Yeah, that pretty much describes it. But it seems clean. Probably why we chose it.”

  She started toward the bathroom. The room shifted on its axis and then settled back into place. She stopped abruptly and massaged her temples, trying desperately to recover some memories. The harder she tried, the more elusive the fleeting images became.

  “Damn it, what happened to us?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” Elias went to the window. He used the barrel of the strange weapon to ease the curtains aside. “Best guess is that we got psi-burned sometime last night. Somehow we found this place, checked in, and crashed.”

  Psi-burned. That was not good. She tried to remember what she knew about getting burned. The effects were notoriously unpredictable and could vary from temporary amnesia to serious trauma or even complete destruction of the paranormal senses. A really bad psi-burn could kill.

  “We’re not dead,” she said.

  “There’s that,” he agreed.

  She groped for memories and got only fleeting, meaningless flashes. A dark street. The full-throated roar of a big motorcycle engine. A cupcake iced with white frosting.

  A cupcake?

  Another little rush of panic flickered through her, tightening her breathing. Maybe she was hallucinating. She told herself to process things slowly.

  “I need to wash up,” she said. “Maybe some cold water will clear my head.”

  “Good luck with that. Didn’t do much for me. Just make it quick.”

  “Who, exactly, do you think is after us?”

  “I have no idea,” he said.

  “Oh, hey, don’t try to sugarcoat your answer.”

  “Sorry. Figured you’d want the truth.”

  “I do.” She paused. “I think.”

  She started toward the bathroom again, automatically rezzing a little talent. Overwhelming relief snapped through her when she felt her para-senses stir in response. Between one breath and the next the room was suddenly illuminated in a range of colors that she had not been able to perceive using her normal vision.

  Not that the place looked any more attractive when viewed in light from the paranormal end of the spectrum, she thought. It was still a hot-sheet motel.

  “Yeah, I’ve still got my talent, too,” Elias said. “Whatever burned us didn’t wipe out our para-senses, just our memories of last night.”

  She stared at him. “You could feel me rez my senses?”

  “Sure. Hard to not notice. You’re strong.”

  That was true. But it took a powerful talent to sense that sort of thing from across the room.

  Well, she had known that he was a high-end talent, she reminded herself. She hurried toward the bathroom.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” she said.

  “By the way, one more thing you should know about our current situation.”

  She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. “How bad is this one more thing?”

  “Depends on your point of view. We’re married.”

  Chapter 3

  “What?”

  Up until that moment she thought she had been coping quite well with the whole waking-up-in-a-low-rent-motel-room-with-a-man-who-was-virtually-a-stranger thing. But now she felt as if she had stepped off a very high cliff.

  “Found the license in my wallet when I woke up,” Elias said. “I wasn’t able to get online with my phone to access the official records.”

  “They call this sid
e of town the Shadow Zone for a reason,” Hannah said. “It’s hard to get a connection.” She sounded oddly numb, she realized. It was the shock. She was having a very hard time trying to wrap her head around the word marriage.

  “The desk clerk let me use his computer,” Elias said. “A Marriage of Convenience was recorded for Hannah West and Elias Judson Coppersmith forty-seven minutes after midnight at the Enchanted Night Wedding Chapel here in the Shadow Zone. The desk clerk says it’s just down the street.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I was a little surprised myself.” He did not smile. “Your first MC?”

  “Well, yes. Yes, it is.”

  “My first, too.”

  “Good heavens.” She clenched her fingers around the doorjamb. “What happened to us last night?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out just as soon as you get moving.”

  He sounded as if he was losing patience. She reminded herself that he couldn’t be any more thrilled by the situation in which they found themselves than she was.

  She made it into the bathroom and closed the door. One glance at her image in the mirror was enough to make her wonder if she was still asleep—maybe trapped in one of her own dream-walking dreams.

  Grady Barnett’s words slammed through her. “Your profile is extremely unusual, so unusual that I’m afraid it’s borderline unstable. You must be careful to avoid stress.”

  Grady had said something else about her, as well, but not to her face. He had made the comment to his research assistant. “It’s no wonder she’s single and lives alone. Her dreamlight patterns would give any normal man the creeps. Thinks she’s having out-of-body experiences on a regular basis.”

  “Go to hell, Grady Barnett,” she whispered to the mirror.

  She pushed thoughts of Grady aside. He was old history, and bad history at that. She had walked out of his lab and she had no intention of ever returning. There were other para-psych profilers in Illusion Town.

  She focused on her image in the mirror and concluded that she looked like she’d been caught outside in a thunderstorm and zapped by lightning. She had a vague memory of her hair being done up in a flirty little twist the last time she had checked a mirror. But now it was down around her shoulders in a tangled mane.