The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) (19 page)

Kirk Morgan waited in the darkened boathouse. He lit a cigarette to steady his nerves and listened to the restless slap of the dark water. It was nearly midnight. There were Halloween lanterns strung up along the main drag of Shadow Bay, and someone had turned the nearby warehouse into some kind of stupid theme park attraction. But no one had bothered to decorate the old boathouse. The waterside end of the structure was open to the night. Moonlight illuminated the floating dock and a couple of battered rowboats inside.

He hated boats. Hated water. Hated Rainshadow, come to that. He hadn’t wanted to make the trip to the island but the fixer hadn’t given him any choice in the matter.

Not that he had seen much of Rainshadow because he and Griff had made the journey from Thursday Harbor by night. But what little he had viewed did not inspire him to book a vacation on the rock. In the light of a big Halloween moon, Rainshadow had loomed like an ancient, mysterious fortress. Most of the island had appeared darker than midnight. The only visible illumination had come from the scattering of lights in the cove that marked the town of Shadow Bay.

No visible illumination, Kirk thought, but he could feel the faint vibes of Alien psi in the atmosphere. Creepy.

He knew from creepy. Hell, he’d worked in the Underworld since the day he turned sixteen and lied about his age to get his first job in the Guild. He’d seen a lot of weird shit down below but from what he could tell, Rainshadow Island was as weird as it got anywhere in the tunnels.

Kirk checked his watch again and then looked at Griff, who was lounging at the end of one of the floating docks. There were only the two of them here tonight. From the start the goal had been to keep the number of people involved in the operation to an absolute minimum. Griff had been with him from the old days. They had come from the same tough neighborhood and joined the same branch of the Guild.

They had made a good team in the tunnels, watching each other’s back. Socked away some good money, too, with their off-the-books operations. Everyone knew that corporate exploration work was dangerous business. The disappearance of the occasional high-value amber or quartz shipment on the way out of the catacombs or the rainforest was just part of the price of doing business down in the Underworld.

From the start it had been clear to both men that Kirk was the strategic thinker, the one who was going to make it to the top ranks of the Gold Creek operation. He had been determined to control his own territory and he had achieved his goal. Griff had stuck with him at every step along the way.

“Five more minutes,” Kirk said. “If the fixer doesn’t show up by then, we’re leaving.”

“You won’t get any argument from me, boss.” Griff took a long drag on his cigarette and looked out at the moon. “This island gives me that feeling you get on the back of your neck just before you run into a ghost down in the tunnels.”

“You can say that again.”

“Probably doesn’t help that it’s Halloween.”

“Afraid of real ghosts, Griff?”

“Nah. I just don’t like Rainshadow.”

“I’m with you there.”

“Hard to believe there’s an actual town here.” Griff sucked on his cigarette. “Who would want to live on this rock?”

“Misfits and freaks,” Kirk said.

Which was what the Snow woman was now, he thought, some kind of freak. Maybe that explained why she had come to Rainshadow after she escaped from the lab.

According to Blankenship, they were all damn lucky she was still alive because she was the only one who could get them back into the lab. The side effects of the drug were rapidly becoming more apparent. The edgy sensation and the nightmares were getting worse. Although his paranormal senses had been strengthened, there was no indication that he or the others had developed a second talent. The damn drug hadn’t worked as Blankenship had promised and now they were all addicted. Their supplies were running low.

He hated knowing that he was now dependent on a daily dose of the formula just to stay sane. Worse, yet, Blankenship was concerned that they might all start to disintegrate mentally even with regular doses if they didn’t get back into the lab to retrieve the stone. He kept saying he needed to tweak the formula with the para-radiation from the crystal.

Sedona Snow was their only hope. But things had been going wrong since the night she escaped. It had taken weeks to track her down to Rainshadow. And when they finally located her it had become clear that grabbing her was not going to be easy. It was so much simpler to make someone disappear in a big city than it was in a small town—especially a town in which the powerful Sebastian family exercised a lot of muscle and the police chief was a former FBPI agent.

To make matters worse, the Chamber had established a new territory on the island. Under most circumstances that would not have been a major problem, Kirk told himself. He had been a Guild man most of his life and he had connections throughout the organization. Favors were owed. But the new boss wasn’t one of his buddies from the old days. The Chamber had appointed someone from the elite ranks of the security division.

There wasn’t a lot of information about Cyrus Jones in the files but the very lack of intel made Kirk uneasy. And now the word was that Jones was sleeping with the Snow woman. That was way too much of a coincidence. Jones was yet another problem.

Reluctantly, he and Blankenship had turned to the fixer, the one who had arranged the kidnapping in the first place. The fixer was also using the drug now and therefore had a personal stake in the operation. But Kirk didn’t trust the killer.

“When this is over,” he said, “we’re going to have to get rid of the fixer.”

Griff thought about that for a moment. “Might be hard to do. Don’t have an ID on the guy. No one’s ever seen his face and lived to tell about it.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“We always do,” Griff said.

Kirk glanced at his watch. “Three more minutes. That’s it. If the fixer doesn’t deliver the Snow woman we will have to come up with another plan.”

“Sure.” Griff flicked the cigarette into the black water. He looked toward the side door of the boathouse. “Someone’s coming.”

Kirk heard the squeak of the dock boards outside and took a deep breath. It was going to be all right. The fixer was here.

The door opened. A figure dressed in a voluminous black cloak and a skeleton mask appeared.

“What’s with the Halloween getup?” Kirk asked. Then he remembered what Griff had said. No one ever saw the fixer’s face and lived to tell about it. “Never mind. About time you showed up. Where’s the Snow woman? You’re supposed to deliver her tonight.”

Instead of answering, the fixer took out a mag-rez pistol and fired once. The shot took Kirk in the chest. For a few seconds he was too stunned to realize what had happened. He sank to his knees and stared at the fixer’s masked face.

“Why?” he said.

Why bother with the mask if you came here to kill us?
he wanted to ask. But he couldn’t get the words out.

Understanding struck just as the fixer raised the mag-rez for the head shot.

“Griff?” he whispered.

“Sorry, pal,” Griff said. “It’s been a good run. But like you always said, a man’s got to make his own luck. We’re getting low on the formula. We need your stash.”

“What the hell did the Aliens construct down there?” Slade asked.

“Another biolab, from the looks of it,” Cyrus said.

“Or maybe some sort of living natural history museum?” Sedona offered tentatively. She powered up her computer and clicked on the images she had discovered in her research. “I knew those creatures appeared familiar. Take a look at what I found.”

They were gathered in Cyrus’s makeshift office. She was aware of the tension in the room. In addition to Cyrus and herself, Harry, Rachel, Slade, and Charlotte had joined them.

They gathered around Sedona and looked at her computer screen. She clicked on one image after another.

“These pictures are all computer-generated models of prehistoric animals—dinosaurs and reptiles,” she explained. “They were created from fossils that have been dug up at various excavation sites on Harmony. The experts gave them names based on the similarity to Old World dinosaurs.” She aimed a pen at an image of a large, two-footed creature with massive, tooth-filled jaws and short arms that ended in sharp claws. “This one is called an Allosaurus. I think it looks a lot like the predators that we encountered.”

“Except for the mirrored scales,” Cyrus added.

Rachel frowned. “It’s entirely possible that the experts got that aspect wrong when they did their reconstruction. They work from fossils and impressions in rocks. There wouldn’t be much, if anything, left to tell them about the psi-reflecting qualities of the scales.”

“That makes sense,” Charlotte said. “When you think about it, it’s logical that creatures adapted to a heavy-psi environment and therefore developed various forms of camouflage and other hunting strategies.”

“Those critters were definitely using some kind of psychic lure to hunt us,” Cyrus said.

“But how could prehistoric creatures know how to trigger music in the human mind?” Rachel asked.

“I’m sure they weren’t doing it intentionally,” Sedona said. “They have obviously evolved some paranormal mechanism for attracting their prey. It just so happens that in human brains the psychic lure is interpreted as music. In other creatures it’s probably translated as a mating call or the smell of food.”

Rachel raised her brows. “Guess we can all be glad it doesn’t translate as sexual attraction for humans. That could certainly complicate the research and exploration work.”

“Imagine a team of techs and scientists and a bunch of hunters suddenly overwhelmed by the conviction that they had just entered the world’s most outstanding pickup bar,” Harry added. “Sort of boggles the mind.”

Charlotte winced. “Thanks for that visual. I won’t be able to get it out of my head for days.”

Sedona knew she was turning pink. She glanced up and found Cyrus watching her, dark amusement gleaming in his eyes. She didn’t have to be able to read minds to know that he was remembering her desperate effort to attribute their mutual passion to the effects of the psi in the cave. Hurriedly she returned her attention to the image of the Harmony version of an Allosaurus.

“What doesn’t make sense is how those creatures could have survived and reproduced for maybe millions of years in a world where, as far as we could tell, all the vegetation has been turned into crystal and quartz,” Cyrus said.

“You only saw a small sector of that place you’re calling Wonderland,” Slade reminded him. “If it’s like the Rainforest or the catacombs it could extend for hundreds or maybe thousands of square miles underground. There could well be sectors that are capable of sustaining life.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cyrus said. “It wasn’t like the Rainforest. That has the feel of a vast, sprawling jungle. This place had a more contained, closed-in feeling—like a wild-game park or a zoo.”

Sedona hesitated. “I’m no expert, but here’s a scenario. Let’s say Cyrus is right—the Aliens did some serious bioengineering in an attempt to re-create a heavy-psi landscape. Maybe they actually produced a few dinosaurs.”

“The Aliens vanished from Harmony centuries ago,” Slade reminded her. “What have their pet dinosaurs been doing down there in Wonderland all this time?”

“Everything down there that we saw had a frozen-in-time feeling,” Cyrus said. “Maybe the dinosaurs were in a state of hibernation or suspended animation until recently.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened behind the frames of her glasses. “Frozen in psi like everything else you found down there and then awakened by the recent violent storm activity on the island? That makes sense in a bizarre way.”

“One thing’s for sure,” Harry said. “We need to get a Foundation team in there to find out what we’re dealing with.”

Cyrus looked at him. “I don’t want any research teams going down below until we’ve figured out how to provide adequate security.”

“Agreed,” Harry said. “But it might be easier to locate the entrance up into the Preserve that the monsters are using from down there. We’re not having any luck finding it on the surface. The deeper we go inside the fence, the weirder things get. Sounds like Wonderland is at least navigable.”

“We’ve all got work to do,” Cyrus said. He went back behind his desk. “Meanwhile, I don’t want to lose any more stray treasure hunters. Sedona locked the gate into Wonderland. It stays that way until we get something resembling a plan.”

Slade nodded. “Plans are good.”

It seemed odd to go back to work at the front desk of Knox’s as if nothing extraordinary had occurred in the past twenty-four hours, but Sedona was grateful for the comforting sense of normalcy. Always assuming that you could call riding herd on an inn full of ghost hunters normal, she thought. She did have one big advantage now. As irritating as it was to know that Cyrus’s men called her the boss’s lady, it did result in instant obedience to any request she made.

Shortly after three that afternoon she went across the lobby and into the tavern to get a cup of coffee. The place was empty because Cyrus was keeping his men busy.

Knox was behind the bar polishing glassware.

“Coffee?” he asked, reaching for the pot.

“Yes, please.” She took a seat on one of the bar stools.

Knox eyed her over the rims of his glasses. “You’ve been through a lot, from the sound of it. How’re you doin’?”

“Surprisingly enough, I feel fine,” she said. “Good to be back on the surface, though.”

“I’ll bet. Where’s your little buddy?”

“Lyle took off to play with some of the kids,” Sedona said. “Rachel and Slade said their pals vanished at about the same time. We suspect a dust bunny–kid conspiracy.”

“Well, it is Halloween Week.”

“I’m sure Lyle will be back by dinnertime. He won’t want to miss any of the action in here when the hunters get off work and show up for their beer and pizza and hamburgers.”

Knox chuckled. “Looks like Lyle has become the Rainshadow Guild’s mascot.”

“Tell me about it. I can see the T-shirts now:
By the Time You See the Teeth, It’s Too Late
with a picture of Lyle. He’ll love that.” She brightened. “You know, maybe we should have some made up. Might be a hit with the tourists.”

“Good idea.” Knox set the mug on the counter in front of Sedona. “Assuming we ever get any more visitors to the island. Word going around town is that Foundation Security and the new Guild boss are trying to restrict visitors to residents and authorized personnel only.”

“Good luck to ’em, is all I can say. The more
Danger, Keep Out
signs they put up, the more the thrill seekers and treasure hunters will show up.”

“Can’t stop the locals from doing a little exploring down below, either.” Knox slipped the polished glass into a rack and folded his arms on the bar. “So, are the rumors true? Did you and Jones run into a couple of real dinosaurs down below?”

“They sure looked like dinosaurs, but who knows?” Sedona said.

Knox started to ask another question but he glanced toward the door of the tavern and paused.

“Looks like you’ve got visitors,” he said.

Sedona heard a familiar chortle and swung around on the bar stool. Three kids hovered in the doorway. Each of them had a dust bunny tucked under one arm. She recognized the girl holding Lyle as Annie Bell. Devin Reed, the grandson of Myrna Reed, a member of the tiny Shadow Bay police force, clutched Slade’s dust bunny, Rex. Rex, in turn, clutched a small, elegant evening bag. The tiny purse looked expensive. He had no doubt shoplifted it from Charlotte’s collection of exquisite antique clutches. Devin’s buddy Nate had Darwina under his arm. Darwina had her Amberella doll in one paw. She rarely went anywhere without the small doll dressed in its crystal-studded evening gown.

“I knew it,” Sedona said. “A conspiracy. What’s up?”

Devin frowned. “What’s a conspiracy?”

“Never mind.” Sedona smiled. “What’s the plan?”

Annie patted Lyle. “We want to ask you if we could use Lyle to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night.”

“Please, Miss Snow,” Devin pleaded. “The chief said we could take Rex.”

“And Miss Rachel over at the bookshop said Darwina can go with us, too,” Nate added quickly.

“Why?” Sedona asked.

“Because we figure that we’ll get a lot more candy if we have the dust bunnies with us,” Annie explained. “Everyone thinks they’re so cute.”

“Huh.” Knox looked impressed. “Not a bad plan.”

“I told you,” Sedona said. “It’s a conspiracy.” She studied the kids. “I agree with Knox. It is a cunning plan. Go for it and good luck to you all.”

“Yay,” Devin said. He exchanged high fives with Nate. “Told you, she’d say yes.”

Annie cheered gleefully. Caught up in the moment, Lyle, Rex, and Darwina chortled.

“We have to go make their costumes now,” Annie said.

The gang disappeared from the doorway before Sedona could change her mind.

“Should make for an interesting Halloween night,” Knox observed.

Sedona spun back around to face the bar and picked up her mug. “Can’t wait to see what costumes they come up with for the dust bunnies.”

Knox gave her a sharp glance and cleared his throat.

“So,” he said, “you and the new Guild boss.”

Sedona paused her mug in midair. “Me and the new Guild boss—what?”

“I know it’s none of my business, but you work for me and you don’t have any family on the island—”

Sedona shuddered. “Thank goodness.”

“Yeah, well, given that you don’t have anyone to look after you, I sort of feel like I need to make sure you’re okay with being, you know, real friendly with Jones.”

“Real friendly. That’s one way to put it.”

Knox winced. “You know what I mean.”

She reached across the bar and patted his arm. “It’s okay. I do know what you mean and I appreciate your concern. But I’m a big girl now, Knox. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

“That’s what you keep saying but there’s times when everybody needs someone to watch out for ’em.” Knox stopped talking. He angled his jaw toward the doorway. “Speaking of which.”

Sedona twirled around on the bar stool a second time. Irritation crackled through her when she saw who loomed in the opening.

“Hello, Brock,” she said.

“I need to talk to you.” Brock looked at Knox and then turned back to Sedona. “In private, if you don’t mind. It’s important, Sedona. You owe me a conversation, at least.”

She reached behind herself, picked up the mug, and took a sip of coffee while she considered her options. She’d had her moment of petty revenge. She could afford to be civil. It was obvious Brock was not going to leave the island until he’d had his say. She might as well get the conversation over with.

She set the mug down on the bar and slipped off the stool. “We can talk in my office.”

Knox leaned over the bar and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Want me to call Jones?”

“No.” She said it clearly and with great emphasis. She could handle her own problems. “This won’t take long.”

She crossed the empty tavern.

“I’m on duty,” she said to Brock. “So we don’t have a lot of time.”

Brock did not look thrilled with that but after a second glance at Knox he evidently concluded he didn’t have much room to argue.

“Fine,” he said. His jaw tensed. “Thanks.”

Sedona slipped past him, rounded the front counter, and led the way into her tiny office. She propped one hip on the corner of her desk, crossed her arms, and looked at Brock.

“What is it that you feel you need to tell me?” she said.

Brock shoved his fingers through his hair. “I want to explain a few things, that’s all. You owe me that much.”

“You keep saying that but I don’t owe you anything, Brock. You’re the one who filed for divorce, remember?”

He fixed her with a haunted look. “I explained that. I was told you were missing and presumed dead. What the hell else was I supposed to think?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe you could have used some of your money to finance a private search-and-rescue operation? We’ve already been over this.”

Brock flushed. “I was informed by the authorities that it would be a waste of time.”

“And you took that at face value. Well, there you have it. You made an executive decision.” She gave him her most vivacious smile. “We both know how good you are when it comes to executive decisions, right? You told me, you always go with your gut and you’re almost never wrong. But once in a while you screw up, just like everyone else.”

“Damn it, you’ve got to give me another chance. We had something good together.”

“Maybe. But we both knew that it wouldn’t last. Sooner or later you would have come under pressure from your family to marry someone from your own social class, and while I have several very admirable qualities, I definitely don’t have the sort of family connections you need in a wife. Your relatives would never approve of me.”

“You’re wrong,” Brock said, very earnest now. “That’s one of the things I’m trying to explain. My family will approve of your people. You’re a Snow.”

“An illegitimate Snow.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Brock said. He crossed the small space in two long strides and gripped her shoulders. “Not now.”

She went very still. “Not now?”

“Hear me out. After they told me that you had vanished into the tunnels I realized how much you meant to me. You may not believe it, but I was heartbroken. I started drinking too much in the evenings. Diana was worried about me. That’s why she was at my place that night. She was concerned that I would do myself some harm.”

“You? Drinking yourself into a stupor because of me? Give me a break. We had some fun together but I don’t believe for one minute that you were pining away just because I dropped out of your life.”

Brock tightened his hands on her shoulders. “This is about what you think you’ve got going with Jones, isn’t it? I know he’s a Guild boss, but do you really believe for one minute that he will offer you a Covenant Marriage? Don’t be naïve. Everyone knows the heads of the Guilds are notorious when it comes to women. Sure, he’ll probably agree to an MC for a while. Why not? You’re convenient and for now, at any rate, he’s stuck with a territory that is nothing more than a large chunk of rock in the middle of the Amber Sea.”

Sedona looked down at his left hand.

“Let go of me,” she said, her voice very even.

But Brock didn’t seem to get the message. There was a vibe of desperation about him that she did not understand.

“You have to listen to me,” Brock said.

“I can’t believe that you have suddenly concluded that I am the love of your life,” she said. “What is going on here? And before you even try to explain, take your hands off me.”

Brock ignored her.

“Please, Sedona—”

She reached into her pocket, took out the flicker, and snapped out a spark. At the same time she rezzed a little energy. Flames flashed in the atmosphere.

Brock released her and scrambled backward. He looked stunned.

“What the hell?” he said.

She lowered her talent. The sparks disappeared.

“What did you just do?” he demanded. “What kind of talent are you?”

“Never mind,” she said. “Tell me the real reason why you followed me all the way to Rainshadow.”

“I told you the reason,” he said. But he sounded less certain now.

A dark shadow filled the doorway of the office. Sedona turned and saw Cyrus. He looked at her.

“Is Prescott bothering you?” he asked.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she assured him. “I’m just waiting for a believable answer to my question.”

Cyrus switched his attention to Brock. “Right. You want to know why he’s stalking you.”

Brock flushed a dark red. “I’m not stalking her.”

Cyrus turned back to Sedona. “I just got word from my cousin, who runs that private investigation firm I mentioned. I asked her to take a close look at Prescott. She did a little checking around and discovered that Prescott Industries is in trouble.”

“That’s bullshit,” Brock said.

“And with the company in trouble, it follows that the entire Prescott family is facing some serious financial problems,” Cyrus continued. “Problems that could conveniently be resolved if the head of Prescott Industries were to marry a woman who happened to be in line to inherit a portion of the Snow family fortune. A woman who also had access to a sizeable trust fund. A woman who could bring Prescott a direct connection to the head of another powerful business empire.”

“Well, there you go,” Sedona said. She unfolded her arms and straightened away from the desk. “That explains everything. So long, Brock.”

“Don’t believe a word Jones says,” Brock snarled. “He’s lying.”

Sedona looked at him. “I guess the only question left is, how did you find out that the Snows have invited me to join the family?”

Brock shook his head. “That’s not what this is about, I swear it.”

“Never mind,” Sedona said. She held up a hand, palm out, to silence him. “I can piece together what happened. At some point a Snow family lawyer contacted you, right? Perfectly logical. Our MC was a matter of public record. It must have come as a terrible shock to you to realize that I was related to
those
Snows and that the family is trying to bring me into the fold. No wonder you needed consoling that night I showed up on your doorstep. You had let a valuable asset slip away without even bothering to send out a search party.”

Brock looked sadly disappointed in her. “After all we meant to each other, I can’t believe that you would take the word of a Guild boss over mine.”

“Here’s the one thing I know to be true about this particular Guild boss,” Sedona said. “When stuff goes wrong down in the Underworld, he doesn’t leave any of his team behind. He came back for me yesterday. He saved my life.”

“And you think he did that because he loves you? You’re out of your mind. He’s not just any Guild boss, he’s a Jones—one of the Arcane Joneses. Ask him what that means. It’s a clan with a lot of secrets. Rumor has it that there are some real psi-freaks on the family tree. Trust me, you have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “But I do know what I’m dealing with when it comes to you, Brock. And it’s not very attractive; not anymore. Please go away and leave me alone.”

Brock hesitated. For a moment she thought he was going to argue. But he took one look at Cyrus and evidently changed his mind.

He went toward the door, silently challenging Cyrus to get out of the way. Cyrus gave him a cold smile and did not move aside.

“Thought I told you not to go near Sedona again,” he said.