Silver Master gh-5 Page 25

  But when he got through the ragged hole in the wall, he had no trouble spotting his quarry. Hollings wasn’t trying to flee deep into the catacombs. Instead he was going through another, man-sized opening in the green quartz wall.

  Humid heat and the chaotic scents and sounds of the rain forest spilled out into the tunnel. Nothing else followed. The thick foliage grew right up to the opening, but not a single stray leaf or vine drifted out into the tunnel. No creatures wriggled or slithered through the gap. The invisible psi barriers the aliens had installed to keep the jungle from invading the catacombs held fast.

  The wall of psi had no effect on humans. Hollings fled through the gate into the rain forest. He looked like a man who knew where he was going, a man with a plan.

  Davis went after him, moving from the sterile green quartz tunnel into the verdant rain forest in a single stride. When it came to pursuits, the jungle was no better than the catacombs. In the tunnels a man could vanish by going around a corner. Here in this underground world of green, he could disappear by concealing himself behind one of the vine-choked trees.

  Hollings was making no effort to hide, however. He shoved his way frantically through a forest of tall fern trees. Davis followed, opening his hunter’s senses. He probed for the telltale whisper of dissonance energy that would be all the warning he got before he blundered into a ghost river or a psi storm.

  Hollings showed no such hesitation. He had obviously come this way on other occasions and felt confident that the path was clear of ghost energy and other hazards.

  Davis was less than ten feet away when Hollings stopped and whirled around.

  “This is far enough,” Hollings said. He raised one hand, aiming the ruby amber relic as though it were a gun. “You’re a dead man, Oakes.”

  It wasn’t the threat that made Davis pause; it was the slashing wave of psychic energy that slammed across his senses, deadening them.

  “You fool,” Hollings shouted. “You have no conception of the kind of power I can wield down here.”

  Another tsunami of psi crashed across his numbed senses. Everything started to darken around him.

  Try concentrating all of your psi power on something linked to your survival instinct.

  Celinda. He seized on the name like a talisman. It glowed like a jewel in the gathering night.

  Another ferocious wave of energy slammed through him. This time everything went black except for Celinda’s name.

  Names have psychic power. He did not know how he knew that, but he was absolutely certain of the knowledge. Celinda’s name had the power he needed to fight the onrushing tide. He concentrated on it.

  At first it was only a name, but after a couple of pounding heartbeats there was more. Emotions became attached to the name, faint at first and then gradually strengthening. Hunger, longing, a desire to keep her safe.

  Safe. He had to fight back. If Hollings won this battle, Celinda would be in mortal danger.

  The silent, screaming waves of energy continued to cascade against his senses, but they began to splinter and fall apart when they crashed against the name Celinda. Keeping her safe was more important than his own life.

  The tide of energy ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

  “No,” Hollings screamed. “It’s impossible.”

  Davis could breathe once more. His psi senses rebounded.

  He saw that Hollings was moving again, leaning down to reach into a small cave. When he straightened, Davis saw a mag-rez gun in his hand.

  “You’re crazy,” Davis said. “You can’t use that thing down here.”

  Hollings was beyond reason. He aimed the mag-rez at Davis.

  Davis reacted instinctively. He pulled silver, went invisible, and dove for the ground.

  Hollings’s eyes widened in horror. “Where are you? Where did you go? You can’t hide from me.”

  He started firing. The first two shots went wild. The third time he rezzed the trigger, the mag-rez exploded in his hand.

  By the time Davis reached him, he was dead.

  Chapter 39

  “I SHOULD THANK YOU, CELINDA,” LANDRY SAID. HIS smile was hellish. “If it hadn’t been for you, Hollings would never have contacted me for help in retrieving the second relic. I wouldn’t even know the damn things existed.”

  “He told you his real name?”

  “Sure. Hollings and I are partners.” Landry smirked. “Temporarily, that is.”

  Erratic, flaring psi pulsed and surged. What little control Landry still wielded over his insanity was slipping badly.

  There was no sound from the inner office. Celinda prayed that meant that Miss Allonby had gone into her own office to call for help.

  “You’re a hunter,” Celinda said. She was shivering, but she managed to keep her tone calm and steady. She had to give Miss Allonby time. “A very powerful hunter, it’s true, but you don’t have the kind of psychic talent it takes to manipulate the relic.”

  “Not a problem. Hollings will work it for me until I locate others who can do what he can. That shouldn’t be hard. I’ve got the resources of the Guild behind me. Once I’ve replaced Hollings, I’ll get rid of him. Don’t trust the slippery bastard.”

  “That plan sounds a little shaky, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t want your opinion.” His eyes sparked with rage. “All I want from you is the other relic.”

  “Why would I give it to you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’m going to kill you.”

  “You’ll kill me anyway once you have the relic.”

  “True.” He smiled slowly. “But there are different ways to die. Fast and slow. You’re lucky. You’ve got a choice.”

  “You think the local Guild won’t notice that something happened to me?”

  “There won’t be any evidence. You’ll commit suicide by walking off into the rain forest without tuned amber. If anyone does eventually find your body, there won’t be anything left of it except bare bones. The jungle is like the Guild, you see. It takes care of its own problems.”

  “You’re forgetting one very important factor. Davis Oakes.”

  “Oakes is a dead man. Hollings will take care of him with the relic.”

  “Don’t count on it,” she said tightly.

  “The relic is very powerful when it’s used belowground. Hollings won’t have any trouble dealing with Oakes.”

  A figure moved in the doorway. Celinda saw Miss Allonby standing there, a trancelike expression on her face. She did not appear to notice the gun in Landry’s hand.

  “I’m afraid both of you will have to come back some other time,” she said, severely polite. “I have to burn Dr. Kennington’s papers now. He left strict instructions.”

  Landry scowled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Kennington was very clear,” she said primly. “He told me that if anyone tried to harm him or take him away, I was to burn his papers immediately.”

  “Ghost-shit,” Landry said, suddenly comprehending. “His research. You can’t destroy those papers, you stupid woman. I’m going to need them after I get rid of him.”

  Miss Allonby stopped long enough to give him a stern look. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “Take one more step, and I’ll kill you.”

  Miss Allonby drew herself up proudly. “I’ll have you know I am a professional. I would not dream of failing to execute my responsibilities.”

  “Stop, you stupid bitch,” Landry bellowed.

  Miss Allonby tut-tutted. “Language, sir. Language.”

  Landry started to aim the mag-rez gun at her. Celinda readied herself to spring at him. She would go for his gun arm, she thought. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it looked like the only one she was going to get.

  As if he had read her mind, Landry hesitated. Then he took two steps forward, hooked an arm around her throat, and dragged her hard against his body.

  She gasped for air. He was half-strangling her, but she did have physical contact.
Struggling to breathe, she opened her senses to the sick tide of psi energy that pounded at her and began to probe delicately.

  Certain that he had her under control, Landry concentrated on Miss Allonby.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered.

  “You are not my employer, sir,” Miss Allonby informed him. She turned her back to him and started to walk into the office.

  Crushed against him, wide open to his psi patterns, Celinda was intensely aware of the slight jump in tension as Landry prepared to pull the trigger. He was taking his time, hesitating just a bit. Probably worried that someone outside in the street would hear the shot, she thought. Whatever the case, it gave her a precious few instants of time. She had one advantage. She knew Landry’s energy patterns all too well. She still encountered them in her nightmares.

  The roaring pulses of cold, crazy rage were shatteringly clear on the paranormal plane. The problem was that the pattern was so frighteningly abnormal. Desperately she tried to establish a counterpoint rhythm capable of dampening the most violent psi waves.

  She knew she was having a measure of success when she opened her eyes and saw that Miss Allonby had disappeared into the office. Landry had not pulled the trigger.

  “What’s happening?” His hand tightened around her throat. “What are you doing to me? I can’t rez the trigger.”

  She did not even try to answer. All her concentration was on disrupting his energy rhythms.

  He started to shake. Still pinned against him, she could feel the tremors going through his body, just like that night when he had tried to rape her. On the psychic plane, all was chaos. She heard the gun clatter on the floor.

  Landry shouted something. He sounded terrified. Abruptly he released her, spinning away from her. His breath came in great, gulping gasps.

  “Don’t touch me,” he screamed. “Get away from me. You’re doing something to me. I can feel it.”

  Crouching, she scooped up the mag-rez gun, gripping it in both hands.

  Landry stared at her, shocked and enraged. Now that they were no longer in physical contact, he was already recovering.

  He looked at the gun in her hand and uttered a derisive laugh. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”

  “Shoot you,” she said.

  “Not a chance. You don’t have the nerve. Besides, there’s no way a stupid little bitch like you would know how to use a mag-rez.”

  She lowered the barrel of the gun, aiming at a point just in front of his boots, and rezzed the trigger.

  The shot roared like thunder in the small room. Landry jumped back and then stared, stunned, at the hole in the floor where the bullet had plowed into the two-hundred-year-old wood.

  Celinda raised the barrel of the gun so that it once again pointed at his midsection. “As you can see, I’ve been practicing. I’ve waited for this moment for a long time, Landry.”

  He must have read her intention in her eyes, because his face went oddly slack with fear.

  “No, wait,” he whispered. “You can’t do this—”

  There was a sound from the office doorway behind her.

  “I think we can let the Guild deal with him now,” Davis said quietly.

  “I haven’t noticed that it has been able to do that very well,” she said. She did not take her eyes or the gun off Landry.

  “It will this time,” Davis said, moving up to stand beside her. He held out his hand. “You have my word on it.”

  She flicked a glance at him, uncertain.

  “You don’t want to do this,” he said. “Trust me; once you’ve done it, you can’t ever forget it. Landry’s not worth the psychic burn.”

  “But I have to be sure. I can’t let that bastard threaten my family ever again.”

  “He won’t,” Davis said. “I know you don’t buy the old saying, but the Guild really does police its own.”

  Chapter 40

  TRIG LOOKED UP AT THEM FROM THE HOSPITAL BED. THE tension that had been chewing at Davis’s insides ever since he had found him in the alley, badly dazed and bleeding profusely, eased. There was a large white bandage around Trig’s head and traces of pain at the corners of his eyes, but the doctor had assured everyone that the blow had done no permanent damage.

  “They said you got off lightly because the cap you were wearing gave you some protection,” Davis said.

  Trig grimaced. “I heard the bastard coming up behind me at the last second and tried to move. Too little, too late. Sorry, boss. Guess I was worrying too much about the doctor and not enough about Landry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Celinda said. She looked at Davis across the bed, eyes narrowing. “We had been assured that the Guild would take care of Landry.”

  Luckily, Alice Martinez responded before Davis had to come up with a response.

  “The Cadence Guild has made some progress when it comes to cooperating with us,” she said coolly. “But it has a long way to go. Someone should have picked up the phone and called me at a much earlier stage.”

  “Yeah?” Trig squinted up at her. “And what could you have done about a major honcho from the Frequency Guild? Especially given that there was no hard evidence against him.”

  “I could have let him know that he was under suspicion,” Alice shot back, undaunted. “If Landry had been aware that both the cops and the local Guild were keeping an eye on him, it’s a good bet he would have hit the road back to Frequency City.”

  “Bad bet, Martinez.” Trig gingerly touched the bandage around his head. “The guy was a nutcase. Nothing would have stopped him.”

  Alice cleared her throat and then said very politely, “The guy was a nutcase? Past tense? Are you telling me that we’re wasting our time looking for him?”

  Trig blinked a couple of times. “Uh—”

  He turned helplessly to Davis.

  Davis realized that Celinda and Alice were looking at him, too.

  “Evidently there was a problem shortly after the Guild picked up Landry at Hollings’s office,” he said. “According to my sources, Landry went crazy, broke free of his guards, and tried to escape into the rain forest. There’s an open gate in the tunnels that run beneath Dr. Hollings’s office.”

  “I see,” Alice said, clearly annoyed. “I assume the Guild guards gave chase?”

  “Sure.” Davis shrugged. “But Landry was in a panic. He blundered into a bad ghost storm. There wasn’t anything anyone could do until the storm had passed. By then it was too late. His body is scheduled to be sent back to the headquarters of the Frequency City Guild later today.”

  “I don’t suppose it occurred to anyone at the Guild that the Cadence PD might want a medical examiner to take a look at the body before it is returned to Frequency?” Alice asked, going even colder.

  “Maybe you should talk to Mercer Wyatt,” Trig suggested helpfully. “He’s real big on cooperating with the police.”

  “Yeah, we’ve noticed that,” Alice said, glaring at him.

  “Hey, don’t look at me, Detective,” Trig said quickly. “I’m just an innocent bystander.”

  “Sure.” Alice switched her attention to Davis. “You know, I keep hearing that as far as the Cadence Guild is concerned, the good old days of taking care of things with the triple-S method are over. But somehow there seem to be a lot of exceptions. Next time you talk to Wyatt, tell him that he owes me a favor for letting this one go. Understood?”

  “I’ll relay the message, Detective,” he said.

  Alice nodded once, flipped her notebook shut, and strode out of the room.

  Trig waited until she was gone before he whistled softly. “You think she wears that gun to bed?”

  Celinda glowered at him.

  “Sorry,” Trig said, abjectly apologetic. “I realize that kind of crude sexual innuendo is not the hallmark of a man who is ready for a committed, fulfilling relationship. It won’t happen again.”

  “I see you got as far as chapter eight of my book,” Celinda said approvingly. She rounded o
n Davis. “What is this triple-S method the Guild uses to take care of problems?”

  “It stands for shoot, shovel, and shut up,” Davis explained. “Old Earth saying, I think.”

  “Hmm.” She absorbed that. “Well, this is one time I’m not going to complain about Guild methods. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to know that Landry is gone for good.”

  “We’ll make a Guild supporter out of you yet,” Trig said, grinning.

  “Don’t count on it,” she replied. “By the way, since you’re going to the trouble of actually reading my book, unlike some people I could name, I’ll give you some free matchmaking advice. Remember, under normal circumstances it would cost you a small fortune.”

  “I realize I could never afford you,” Trig said eagerly. “What’s the advice?”

  “You and Detective Martinez are made for each other. I suggest you give her a call as soon as you’re out of here.”

  “Yeah?” Trig’s eyes gleamed.

  She held up a hand, palm out. “Regardless of what happens, I definitely do not want to hear whether or not she wears the gun to bed. Is that clear?”

  “Absolutely,” Trig promised.

  Chapter 41

  IT WAS THE FIRST TIME HE’D HAD A CHANCE TO INVITE her to his place. Luckily it was the housekeeper’s regular cleaning day, so the apartment was in reasonably good shape. He picked up a bottle of champagne on the way home and dealt with dinner by ordering in. The night was warm and clear, so he served the pizza and salad on the balcony overlooking the Dead City.

  They had talked about everything except themselves for the past three hours. Unwinding, Davis thought. They had both needed some time to relax after the events of the day.

  Sometime after dinner he went back inside to get the bottle of Emerald Glow liqueur that he had bought along with the champagne. When he returned he saw that Celinda had risen from the lounger and was now leaning against the balcony railing. Araminta and Max were perched next to her.