Ghost Hunter (5 page)

“Who needs rescuing?”

“A friend of mine.”

“Why not hire a professional SAR team?”

“The person who is lost would definitely not appreciate having a formal team sent in after her.”

“In other words it's your friend who is involved in some illegal excavation work,” Cooper said.

“Stop jumping to conclusions. Bertha Newell works under a legitimate private license. Years ago she applied for and received a permit to excavate a sector of the catacombs that neither the university nor any of the large exploration firms wanted to be bothered with.”

“So this Bertha Newell is a ruin rat? How did you get involved with her?”

“I'll explain later.”

“If I turn you down, you'll try to find another hunter, right?”

She straightened her shoulders. “No. If you don't come with me, I'll go down alone.”

“Like hell you will.”

“Well, not entirely alone,” she amended quickly. “I've got a friend who will go with me.”

“A hunter friend?”

“No.”

Cooper exhaled slowly. “Looks like I don't have much choice. If something happens to you down there in the catacombs, I don't want to have to face your parents with the news.”

“I am aware,” she said through her teeth, “that I have placed you in a somewhat difficult position.”

“But you're going to do it anyway.”

“I don't have any choice, either. Bertha may be in very serious trouble.”

“All right,” Cooper said.

She felt her spirits lift. If anyone could help her find Bertha tonight, it was Cooper Boone. “It's settled, then. You might as well meet the third member of our team.”

He did not look pleased. “Someone else is involved in this thing?”

“Yes.” She opened the large tote, reached inside, and gently lifted out a ball of shapeless gray fluff. “This is Rose.”

Rose batted her baby-blue daylight eyes. The second set of eyes, the ones she used for hunting at night, remained discreetly hidden in her tatty fur.

Cooper looked at the small beast. “You've got a pet dust bunny?”

“She showed up on my back doorstep shortly after I opened my shop. She came back every day around closing time. I fed her. We've become roommates.”

“What's she got around her neck?” Cooper asked.

“One of my bracelets. Turns out Rose has a thing for jewelry. Like any good roommate, she borrows my stuff.”

“Not sure the Public Health Department would approve of allowing a dust bunny into an eating establishment, even a hunter bar.”

“That's why I carried her in the tote,” Elly explained.

Rose rumbled in an inquisitive manner and made it clear that she wanted to be put down on the table. Elly looked around to be sure that no one was paying any attention to the booth at the rear of the tavern, and then she released Rose.

The dust bunny scampered halfway across the table, her six legs invisible in her lintlike fur. She paused and sat up to examine Cooper with great interest.

“Does she bite?” Cooper asked.

“Of course not,” Elly said quickly. “She's just a little thing. If you provoked her or scared her, she might nip your finger, but that's all.”

“I've always heard that by the time you see the teeth, it's too late.”

“That's just an old story. There is very little known about dust bunnies, so ridiculous tales like that have tended to be perpetuated.”

Cooper extended his fingers. Rose sniffed delicately and appeared satisfied. She switched her attention immediately to the sandwich and fries.

Cooper picked up a fry and then paused to look at Elly with polite inquiry. “Okay to feed her one of these, or are you worried about her arteries?”

“There isn't much information available about dust-bunny nutrition, so I let Rose eat whatever she wants,” Elly admitted.

“Lucky bunny.”

Rose accepted the fry with great delicacy and started munching.

Somewhere behind Elly a barstool crashed to the floor. Glass shattered. A man roared in outrage.

“Son of a bitch. I saw her first.”

“She doesn't want to dance with you. Can't you get that through your thick skull? She wants to dance with me.”

“The hell she does.”

There was a sickening thud, followed by a howl and several drunken shouts. Chairs scraped the floor. Small flickers of acid-green ghost energy lit up the gloom. Elly sighed. When ghost hunters got excited, they tended to unconsciously summon little bits and pieces of whatever stray dissonance energy happened to be in the vicinity. There was plenty of the stuff available here in the Old Quarter. Like other forms of psi power, it leaked from the invisible cracks and crannies in the massive walls that encircled the Dead City of Old Cadence and seeped upward from the underground tunnels.

“Looks like it's time to leave,” Cooper said, getting to his feet.

“Very observant of you.” Elly slung the strap of her tote over one shoulder. She scooped up Rose, plunked the dust bunny down on her other shoulder, and slid out of the booth. She grabbed her coat.

Cooper wrapped his fingers around her wrist and hauled her toward the back door.

“So, do you come here often?” he asked as they went past the rancid-smelling kitchen.

There was another loud crash and a lot more yelling. Elly saw two cooks in heavily stained aprons grab heavy pots and charge toward the front of the tavern. They looked like they'd had some experience breaking up bar fights.

“My first time,” she said. “But, gosh, if I'd known how much fun I was going to have, I'd have stopped in sooner. You know, until I moved here to Cadence, I had no idea just how boring life was back in Aurora Springs.”

IN HINDSIGHT, ALL HE COULD SAY WAS THAT IT HAD
seemed like a good idea at the time, Cooper thought, hauling Elly past the restrooms and out the rear door. But things were not going as planned.

He should have known better. If recent history had taught him nothing else, it was that his best laid plans never worked the way they were supposed to when Elly was involved.

This latest strategy gone bad was a perfect case in point. It had looked so simple, so foolproof, when he'd concocted it six months ago. All of them, her parents and her brothers included, had agreed that it was nothing short of brilliant. Give Elly six months in the big, bad city, and she would have a change of heart.

Let her kick over the traces imposed by her small-town, academic life for a while. Give her a chance to find out just how hard the world outside the ivory tower really was. Let her discover how difficult and exhausting it was to run a
business with its endless paperwork, long hours, difficult customers, and precarious financial issues.

To say nothing of her career. She was devoted to the study of botany. She would soon come to miss the intellectual challenges of the classroom and the stimulation of her colleagues' conversation and the attractive, tranquil grounds of the college campus.

And what about her precious personal greenhouse? he had reasoned. In Aurora Springs the private conservatory attached to her quaint post–Era of Discord cottage was larger than the house itself. You couldn't have a greenhouse that size in the Old Quarter of a big city. There wasn't room.

In the opinion of everyone involved, Elly had been born for the academic realm, not the tough, ghost-fry-ghost world of small business. After six months on her own in Cadence, she would be more than happy to come home, resume her position in the Department of Botany at Aurora Springs College, and marry him.

He had planned to surprise her by walking into her shop first thing in the morning when he was rested, showered, shaved, and dressed in the new shirt and jacket he had bought for the occasion. He had wanted to make a good impression.

It had surprised the hell out of him when she had phoned while he was eating a late dinner to say that she wanted to see him immediately. He had told himself that was a good sign. Okay, the first meeting after all these months wasn't going to go quite as he had planned it, but he had nevertheless experienced a surge of satisfaction bordering on triumph. The let-Elly-rez-her-untuned-amber-in-the-big-city strategy had worked, just as he had intended. She couldn't wait to see him.

When she walked into the Trap Door tonight, though, he had gotten a real bad feeling about his so-called brilliant strategy.

For starters there were the sexy clothes. Elly had never worn her skirts that short back in Aurora Springs. The minuscule black number splashed with exotic green leaves cut so high he was sure he could have fit both of his hands in the space between knee and hem.

She had never worn any tops as snug-fitting as the black knit thing that she had on, either. He would have remembered. The garment framed her elegant, apple-sized breasts in a way that had made every hunter in the room want to take a bite.

Her dark brown hair still glowed with natural amber-colored highlights but, like the skirt, it was cut a lot shorter than it had been back in Aurora Springs. She no longer wore the conservative, academic-looking twist she had favored back home, either. Instead, the new look was sleek and sassy. It skimmed her jawline and accented her delicate features and exotic green eyes.

In fact, the only thing that looked familiar about her attire were the amber-and-gold earrings. He remembered them well. She had never been without them back in Aurora Springs. She had told him once that they had been a gift from her parents and had great sentimental value.

The biggest shocker though, was the smile. Damn. If he hadn't been sitting down, he probably would have fallen flat on his face. It wasn't just the dazzling brightness of those pretty little white teeth she had flashed at him; it was the attitude, the sheer female challenge.
Catch me if you can.

And now he knew that the only reason she had tracked him down tonight was because she needed a bodyguard to accompany her on a somewhat less than legal trip into the catacombs.

It was a depressing end to a long day that had been filled with anticipation.

He paused to survey the alley. It appeared empty, but given the poor lighting and the fog, it was impossible to be
certain. The shadows coiled heavily in several places between the back door of the tavern and the alley exit.

Cooper tightened his grip on Elly's wrist. “Where are you parked?”

“I took a cab. Didn't want to risk leaving my car on the street.”

“I can see why you'd hesitate,” he said grimly. “This isn't exactly an upscale section of town, is it?”

“Speaking of which, I was a little surprised to learn that you were eating at the Trap Door tonight,” she retorted coolly. “Guild bosses usually dine in classier establishments.”

“I told you, I'm not here in my official capacity. I came to Cadence on a private matter. Thought that if I stuck to places like the Trap Door, no one would recognize me.”

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting your private business here. I have to tell you, though, it's awfully hard to imagine you involved in anything but Guild business.”

“Are you saying I'm a workaholic?”

“I'm saying that you have no life outside the Guild.”

“No life? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind. Let's get going. I want to find Bertha.”

He wanted to argue about his life. He had spent years crafting it, shaping its course, and preparing himself to reach his goal. But he wasn't sure how to defend himself against a charge that he didn't completely understand in the first place, so he focused on the more immediate problem.

He looked down at her strappy, high-heeled sandals. He could see her toenails. She had painted them a brilliant shade of scarlet. They gleamed in the glow of the light above the door. Back in Aurora Springs, he had never seen her wear such blatantly sexy, open-toed shoes like the pair she had on tonight. Classic pumps had been more her style.

He thought about all of the hunters back in the bar who
must have noticed her toenails when she had walked through the crowd to his table.

“You can't go down into the catacombs in those shoes,” he said. “If you sprained an ankle, I'd have to carry you out.”

She gave him a frosty smile. “I wouldn't want you to strain anything.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the thought.” This was not going well.

“As it happens, you have nothing to worry about,” she said. “I've got a second pair of shoes in my tote.” She tapped the large bag she had slung over one shoulder. “We'll go straight to Bertha's shop and use her hole-in-the-wall to go into the catacombs.”

“She showed you the location of her private gate?” He started toward the barely visible mouth of the alley, drawing Elly with him. “Never met a ruin rat who wasn't obsessively secretive about his or her hole-in-the-wall.”

“Bertha trusts me, probably because she knows I'm not potential competition. I'm not a tangler or a hunter. I'm not even in the antiquities trade.”

The words were spoken a little too evenly, he thought. He could hear the faint trace of wistful resignation in them.

Unlike everyone else in her family, Elly possessed only a normal amount of psi talent. Like the average person, she could rez a door lock or activate a dishwasher, but she lacked either of the two types of powerful para-rez talents that would have enabled her to make a career in alien archaeology. Without such talents, she had no need of genuine, highly tuned amber to focus her psi senses.

It could not have been easy growing up in a family of strong hunters with a mother who was a tangler, he reflected. Elly must have envied the freedom the others enjoyed to explore the strange underground world of the catacombs. More crucially, by watching the others in her
clan, she would have understood intuitively that she was missing out on the satisfaction and sheer exhilaration that came with the exercise of strong psi senses down in the catacombs.

It had to be the equivalent of knowing intellectually what an orgasm was but not being able to achieve one, he decided. Damned frustrating.

“Have you got your friend's amber frequency?” he asked.

“Yes. I've also got the frequency of her sled's amber-rez directional locator. She gave both of them to me in case of an emergency.”

“Are you sure this is an emergency? Those old ruin rats sometimes spend days down in the catacombs.”

“I may be overreacting,” she admitted. “It's true, Bertha is a pro. But this morning before she went underground, she ordered her usual month's supply of amber-root tisane and told me that she would pick it up this afternoon when she got out of the tunnels. When she didn't show up by closing time, I became concerned.”

“You checked around to make sure she wasn't sick in bed or visiting relatives?”

“Yes. I called her antique shop and got the answering machine. I asked the florist who runs the shop next door to hers if he'd seen her, but he said no. She's just disappeared, and I'm afraid that means she ran into trouble down in the catacombs. She's tough, but she's not a young woman, Cooper.”

Sirens wailed somewhere in the night.

“Someone called the cops,” he said. “Just what we do not need.”

He urged Elly to a faster pace. The heels of her stylish sandals echoed on the old paving stones.

“Guess it would be a little awkward to explain why the boss of the Aurora Springs Guild got picked up at a bar brawl, wouldn't it?” Elly said, ghoulishly cheerful.

There was just enough light to allow him to see that she was smiling again. It was a real smile this time, not that flashy, full-rez ray beam she'd used on him back in the tavern.

“If they pick me up, they'll probably grab you, as well,” he warned.

“Good point.” She increased her pace. “We certainly can't afford to be delayed explaining things to the cops tonight. Let's hurry.”

“You know,” he said, “there was a time when you would have been horrified at the idea of getting arrested. Now the only thing you're worried about is wasting the time it would take to converse with the police.”

“Back in Aurora Springs I had to worry a lot about embarrassing my family and shocking the sensibilities of those pompous, narrow-minded blowhards on the Academic Council. But here in Cadence, I'm happy to say, those are no longer considerations.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.” She was a little breathless now. “Here in the city I'm free in a way I've never been before in my life.”

Pompous, narrow-minded blowhards.
It didn't sound like she was longing to return to her former position at Aurora Springs College.

One by one, Cooper thought, the premises upon which he had constructed his master strategy were crumbling before his very eyes.

The sirens were closer now. He heard the rear door of the tavern slam open. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw a heap of men in khaki and leather briefly jam the opening. A few managed to squeeze through. Boots thudded on the old stones. Luckily, the fleeing hunters chose to run in the opposite direction.

He brought Elly and Rose to a halt at the juncture of the alley and the street. To the left the massive green quartz
walls of the Dead City rose into the night, bathing the scene in a faint chartreuse glow. The aliens had vanished centuries ago, but they had left the lights on.

When he looked toward the corner at the other end of the block, he could see a couple of police cruisers closing in on the front entrance of the Trap Door.

“We've got a little problem here,” he said. “If we try to approach my car from this direction, the cops will probably stop us. They'll be picking up everyone who happens to be wearing khaki and leather.”

“I've said for years that ghost hunters need to realize that there is a price to be paid for being so desperately fashion challenged.”

He opted to ignore that. “Our best bet is to circle around and approach my car from another direction. Make it look like we're returning to it from one of the cafés down the street.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“How fast can you run in those fancy high heels?”

“Fast.” She let the tote slide off her shoulder and reached inside to extract a pair of sporty-looking athletic shoes. “But not as fast as I can run in these. Here, hold Rose.”

She transferred the dust bunny to his shoulder, braced one hand on his arm, and bent down to change shoes. Cooper was very conscious of the warm weight of her fingers as she balanced against him and stepped out of one high heel.

He caught a fleeting glimpse of a dainty, elegantly arched bare foot before it disappeared into one of the running shoes. Something low and deep inside him tightened and hardened. It had been a long six months, he thought.

Actually, it had been a good deal longer than six months if he counted from the first time he had seen Elly walking into the Guild Archives. And he was definitely counting
from that point, because that was the moment he had decided that she was just what he had been looking for in a wife.

It had been a very long eight months and five days, to be precise.

Elly took her hand off his arm and straightened. “I'm ready.” She sounded unsettlingly enthusiastic about what they were about to attempt. “Where, exactly, are we headed?”

“Across this street and through the alley in the next block. When we reach the far end, we'll walk up to the cross street and then mosey back to my car.”

“Just a couple of innocent onlookers.” She retrieved Rose.

“You got it.”

He guided her into the second alley, pausing at the entrance to open all of his senses to the night. The faint green glow from the walls did not reach into the deep shadows of this cramped passage.