The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) Page 9

  It was going to be a long night, not because he would have trouble fending off sleep—he could use psi and coffee to take care of that problem—but because he was going to be spending the hours until morning alone in the living room. The fantasies would be murder. He needed to find something to take his mind off the lady he was supposed to be protecting.

  Lyle bounded up onto the counter to watch the coffee-making process. He clutched a bright bit of quartz in one paw. The stone had come from a collection of small stones arranged on the windowsill. He gazed at the coffeepot, evidently entranced by the sight of the brewed coffee dripping into the glass carafe.

  “You like coffee?” Cyrus said. “Guess we’ll both be a little buzzed on caffeine tonight.”

  His phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt, saw Marlowe’s code, and took the call.

  “I thought you were going to bed,” he said.

  “I am but I wanted to let you know that I found something on Blankenship,” Marlowe said. Excitement laced her voice. “Not much, but it’s a start and it looks promising. Blankenship joined the staff of the Gold Creek Guild’s medical division and worked at Amber Crest Hospital for nearly a decade. He did some pioneering work in the field of psi-burn treatment. His career has been nothing short of stellar. He’s been a leader in devising new therapies designed to treat ghost hunters and others who have suffered serious trauma to the para-senses.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He resigned his position nearly a year ago. He didn’t exactly disappear but he’s been keeping a very low profile ever since he left Amber Crest. He does some consulting and occasionally attends a para-psych conference but mostly he’s become something of a recluse as far as I can tell.”

  “Does it look like he might have the kind of scientific background it would take to re-create the formula?”

  “Who knows what it takes to re-create the drug?” Marlowe said. “All I can tell you at this point is that his resume is very strong in the fields of chemistry and something called Extreme Paranormal Radiation Therapy. That last field was his specialty at Amber Crest. It’s not considered to be mainstream medicine. Highly experimental.”

  “Sedona said that Blankenship used a special crystal to irradiate the serum. Does he have any connection to Arcane?”

  “You’re wondering how he might have discovered the old formula, aren’t you? The answer is, I haven’t been able to find any link between Blankenship and Arcane but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. A lot of the colonists who were members drifted away from the Society after they arrived on Harmony. The thinking was that this would be the land of milk and honey for people with genuine psychic talents. Who needed a secretive, fuddy-duddy, Old World organization that was founded by a freaky alchemist?”

  “In other words, the Society has lost track of a lot of its members.”

  “Right. There’s no telling how a version of the formula fell into Blankenship’s hands. But one thing’s for sure. The old genie is out of the bottle.”

  “Anything new on Sedona Snow?” he asked.

  “Nothing more than what you already know. Both of her parents were married to other people when they had an affair. The birth of Sedona was a massive embarrassment to both sides of her family, blah, blah, blah. Evidently her parents didn’t care about the social stigma. They were both academics specializing in para-archaeology. They were killed in an explosion of some kind while excavating one of the ruin sites.”

  “Sedona was thirteen at the time,” Cyrus said. “Just coming into her talent.”

  “Right. The families of her parents had certain legal obligations, which they dutifully carried out. The Snows and the Callahans packed her off to a fancy boarding school and dumped her out into the world, alone, at eighteen. From what I can tell, Sedona hasn’t had much, if any, contact with either of her families since the day she graduated from that boarding school,” Marlowe said.

  He had only known Sedona for a few hours but he had a hunch it would take a hell of a lot to make her go to her relatives to ask for help with anything—money, a job, or introductions to potential marriage partners.

  “The fact that she is so alone in the world might be one of the reasons Blankenship decided to use her in his research experiments,” Marlow said.

  “He knew that no one would look too hard if she went missing,” Cyrus said.

  “Anyone who had decided to look for her would have to have been in a position to apply pressure to the Gold Creek Guild or else fund a private search-and-rescue operation,” Marlowe said.

  “The Snows could have done both.”

  “So could Brock Prescott, her ex–MC husband,” Marlowe said. “But he didn’t bother.”

  “The son-of-a-bitch.” Cyrus tightened his grip on the phone. “How did Sedona end up working for the Guilds?”

  “She came into her gatekeeping talent in high school. There’s not a lot you can do with that talent except open gates and control energy rivers in the Underworld. After she graduated she started taking contracts. She made good money and used it to put herself through a couple of years of college before eventually leaving to work full-time in the Underworld.” Marlowe paused.

  “How did she meet her ex?”

  “In the course of a Guild contract job. Prescott’s company does a lot of business in the Rainforest. Prescott was touring one of the company projects and met Sedona. Evidently they hit it off right from the start. Prescott asked her out to dinner. The rest is the usual sort of MC history.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s it for now,” Marlowe said. “I’ll pursue the Blankenship and Amber Crest leads in the morning. How’s the monster-hunting going?”

  “Haven’t done any hunting yet. But something interesting did happen tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Someone set a psi-trap for Sedona.”

  “Good grief. Were you able to get medical attention for her there on the island?”

  “She’s okay.” Cyrus looked toward the bedroom hall. “She’s asleep now.”

  “How can she be okay if she tripped a trap?”

  “Her talent saved her. She’s strong.” No need to mention that it was Sedona’s new talent that had protected her. Marlowe would be seriously alarmed if she thought that the experiments on Sedona had been successful.

  “Hmm,” Marlowe said.

  “It was a close call but she’s all right,” Cyrus said smoothly. “The point is that it looks like someone—most likely Blankenship—tried to grab her tonight.”

  There was a taut silence on the other end of the line.

  “Are you absolutely certain that she stumbled into a trap?” Marlowe asked. “By all accounts, she must have been badly burned on her last job. It’s a wonder she survived whatever Blankenship did to her. She might be suffering some serious side effects. Hallucinations and bad dreams are not uncommon in such situations.”

  “The trap was real. Trust me.”

  “Guess that means you’ve got other problems on Rainshadow besides finding Sedona Snow and hunting monsters.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Playing bodyguard while Sedona sleeps off the post-burn buzz. She used a lot of energy evading the trap tonight.”

  “Bodyguard? That sounds . . . cozy.”

  “Got to go now, Marlowe. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

  He ended the call before Marlowe could ask any more questions.

  The coffee was ready. Cyrus poured a cup for himself and then put some in a shallow bowl for Lyle. He carried the mug and Lyle’s bowl into the living room and set the coffees on the table in front of the sofa.

  Lyle chortled and hopped up onto the table. He put down the quartz pebble that he had been playing with and headed straight for the bowl of coffee.

  “It’s h
ot,” Cyrus warned.

  He picked up the chunk of quartz. It glittered an attractive shade of yellow and gold, illuminated from the inside by some kind of energy. When he rezzed his senses the quartz went dark. The currents deep within the stone flatlined.

  He sent the quartz spinning across the table. The little rock fell over the edge and landed on the hardwood floor.

  Distracted from his coffee, Lyle chortled and chased after the quartz. He hopped down, retrieved the rock, and bounded back up onto the table. He gave it to Cyrus who sent it skittering once more across the table, this time with more force. It shot over the side of the table with some momentum.

  Gleefully, Lyle charged after the rock.

  Cyrus used his phone to go online. He was making notes on the cursory search-and-rescue operation that had been launched by the Gold Creek Guild after Sedona was reported missing when another phone chimed.

  He got to his feet and followed the trail of sound until he saw Sedona’s phone sitting in a charger on an end table. There was no movement from the bedroom. Sedona had crashed. It would take an earthquake or a volcanic eruption to wake her for the next few hours.

  He looked down at the screen of Sedona’s phone. The caller ID gave no name, just a phone number. He recognized the Resonance city-state code.

  Like the other city-states, Resonance was a large, sprawling region that encompassed the city itself, as well as miles of outlying suburbs and agricultural areas. A lot of people lived in Resonance, including many of the members of the Callahan family, Sedona’s mother’s clan.

  “Could be a coincidence,” Cyrus said to Lyle.

  Lyle consumed the last of his coffee and bounded off the low table. He fluttered across the room to play with his collection of quartz stones on the windowsill. The phone stopped ringing. After a moment an icon appeared. The caller had left a message.

  “According to the file, Sedona has been estranged from both sides of her family for years,” Cyrus said quietly to Lyle. “It’s entirely possible she has some other connections in Resonance City, but if so they aren’t in the file, which is pretty damn complete. I think we have to assume that Sedona’s mother’s people are trying to get hold of her.”

  Evidently unconcerned by the question, Lyle continued to arrange and rearrange his quartz collection.

  Cyrus went back to his research.

  Toward dawn he thought he heard a faint, distant roar. He jacked up his senses. The sound emanated from inside the Preserve. It could have been thunder. But it also could have been the hunting cry of a great beast of prey.

  Over on the windowsill, Lyle sleeked out. His second set of eyes opened. He looked hard into the night.

  “It’s okay,” Cyrus said. “The experts from the Foundation are sure the critters can’t escape the Preserve. Then again, experts have been known to be wrong.”

  Lyle continued to stare fixedly out the window. After a moment Cyrus put down his computer and went across the room to see what had fascinated the dust bunny.

  The aurora energy had all but disappeared. The fog was lifting slowly and so was the heavy darkness that presaged dawn. Cyrus could just make out the gates of the Shadow Bay Cemetery.

  As he and Lyle watched, the flat gravestone inside the locked cage swung open. The eerie green glow of the Underworld briefly illuminated two shadowy figures as they emerged from the catacombs. Between the lingering fog and the paranormal shadows spilling out of the gravesite, Cyrus could not even be sure if the figures were male or female.

  One of the pair quickly lowered the gravestone back into place. Darkness descended again. But a moment later the narrow beam of a flashlight speared the predawn gloom.

  Cyrus watched the flashlight change direction as the figures hurried out of the mag-steel cage and disappeared into the trees.

  So much for Foundation security at the entrance to the catacombs. The question was, who would want to take the risk of going down into the Underworld alone in the middle of the night?

  Chapter 11

  Sedona awakened to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sound of loud pounding on her front door.

  Coffee. That could only mean that Cyrus was still in the cottage. And now someone was at her front door. Whoever it was would see Cyrus and draw all the wrong conclusions.

  Her eyes snapped open. She bolted out of bed, grabbed her robe, belted it, and stepped into her slippers. She headed for the hall.

  The knocking sounded again. Booted footsteps echoed in the front room. Lyle zipped down the hallway toward the bedroom, chortling his customary morning greeting. Sedona bent down, scooped him up, plopped him down on her shoulder, and kept going. She arrived in the front room just as Cyrus reached for the doorknob.

  “No,” she said in a loud whisper.

  But it was too late. The door was open. Brock Prescott stood on the porch. He took in the little domestic scene with an expression of stunned disbelief.

  “Sedona?” he said. He looked at Cyrus. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my wife’s house?”

  Cyrus raised his brows and looked at Sedona for guidance. And all of a sudden she was not the least bit sorry he had opened the door. Call me petty, she thought. As revenge went, it wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

  “Ex-wife,” she corrected in her sweetest tones. “Meet Brock Prescott. And I repeat for the record, we are no longer married. He filed for divorce after he concluded that I wasn’t coming back from the last job.”

  Outrage tightened Brock’s nicely chiseled features. “We—everyone—thought you had been killed.”

  “You only waited four days,” she said. “The least you could have done was give me a full week. But that’s neither here nor there. We have both moved on, haven’t we? Actually, you moved on first with Diana Easton.”

  “I can explain Diana,” Brock said coldly.

  “No need. Allow me to introduce Cyrus Jones. He’s the new boss of the Rainshadow Guild. No explanations necessary.”

  Both men exchanged mutually assessing looks in that mysterious way that men did when they were sizing up each other. Lyle growled. Sedona reached up to hold him still.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You mustn’t bite Brock. He might sue and he’s got a team of lawyers.”

  “Prescott,” Cyrus said.

  Brock nodded once. “Jones.”

  There was a stark silence. For his part Lyle appeared to lose interest in the proceedings. Maybe he figured Cyrus could handle things, Sedona thought. Aware that it was time for breakfast, he bounced down to the floor and fluttered toward the kitchen counter.

  “When did you arrive on the island, Prescott?” Cyrus asked.

  The question was deceptively civil and amazingly casual given the rather awkward circumstances.

  “Late last night,” Brock said. His eyes narrowed. “Came in on a private charter float plane. We were delayed in Thursday Harbor by weather. When we finally got to Rainshadow we had trouble finding a place to stay. The pilot and I managed to get the last two rooms at some low-rent motel called the Bay View Inn.”

  “Oh, right,” Sedona said. She beamed at Cyrus. “That would be the suite that I told my friend at the inn to save for you.”

  “Looks like she managed to rent out those rooms, after all,” Cyrus said. He did not take his attention off Brock. “How did you find Sedona’s place so early this morning?”

  It finally occurred to Sedona that Cyrus was not going out of his way to make casual conversation. He was interrogating Brock. With a shock she realized there could be only one reason. He was trying to decide if Brock had arrived on the island in time to set the psi-trap last night.

  She thought about assuring Cyrus that Brock didn’t possess the kind of talent required to work that sort of Alien psi and then she decided she could do that later.

  She was almost certain that what Brock
possessed was a talent for charisma. Generally speaking, people liked Brock Prescott. They were drawn to him. He would have made it big in politics.

  He had a lot of other things going for him, as well. He was a good conversationalist. He was well-mannered. And he was rich. There was nothing at all wrong with Brock Prescott, except that he would never be the faithful type. This morning, for the first time, he also appeared rather boring. Really, what had she seen in him?

  News flash, woman: Having met Cyrus Jones, you are doomed to view every other man in a new light.

  She gripped the lapels of the collar of her robe and frowned at Brock. “Good question. How did you find me? What are you doing on my doorstep at this hour of the morning, and why in the world would you come all the way to Rainshadow to see me?”

  Brock relaxed visibly. He gave her his mega-rez smile, the one that made you want to agree with everything he said.

  “Lots of questions, honey, and I’ve got all the answers,” he said.

  She knew what was going through his head. Cyrus Jones might be a problem but Brock did not anticipate any difficulty dealing with her. Geez. What made him think that she would be so easy to manipulate? Then she remembered that in the two months they had been together they had never argued over anything. Of course, the demands of her career had meant that she was gone a lot. As for Brock, his position as the head of Prescott Industries meant that he also maintained a busy schedule.

  When you got right down to it, Sedona thought, their relationship had been superficial, at best. They had never really gotten to know each other. She could not blame Brock, not entirely. She had played it safe for years, never allowing any man to get too close.

  “Yes, I’ll bet you do have the answers.” She returned his brilliant smile with interest. “You always do. But let’s start with the one that matters to me at this particular moment. How did you find me?”

  Brock shrugged. “That wasn’t a problem. I called your friend Brenda. She knew that you had moved to Rainshadow. She said you were working at some cheap, run-down resort.”