The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) (20 page)

“You can’t threaten me, Jones.”

Something hard and dark glittered in Cyrus’s eyes. Sedona felt icy energy shift in the atmosphere. Belatedly, she realized that Cyrus was raising his talent. Her pulse kicked up in fresh alarm.

“Cyrus, no,” she said. She put out a hand as if she could stop him physically.

He looked at her, his eyes brilliant with cold fire.

“Please,” she whispered. For a couple of heartbeats she was afraid he would not stop. But the ice in the atmosphere evaporated.

For his part, Brock seemed unaware that he had ever been in any serious danger. He had already turned away and was walking off through the lobby. He slammed the front door on his way outside.

Cyrus lowered his talent and looked at Sedona. “You only know one thing about me?”

She relaxed, more relieved than she wanted to admit. “That was not entirely accurate. I do know a couple of other things about you.”

“Are any of those other things that you know about me matters of concern?”

“Nope. Should they cause me some concern?”

“No.” Cyrus propped one shoulder against the doorframe and folded his arms. “Prescott was right about some stuff, though. My family has kept a lot of secrets over the centuries and there are rumors of the occasional whackjob in the bloodline.”

She shrugged. “Wouldn’t be a family if it didn’t have some secrets.”

It was the knowledge that he was losing out to a low-rent Guild boss that rankled the most, Brock concluded.

Then again, Jones was no ordinary Guild exec. Nor was he low-rent. The Jones family was very private and very powerful. Rumor had it that the Joneses made dangerous enemies. Yet here was one of them taking on a no-name Guild territory on a no-name island in the middle of the Amber Sea. Brock’s intuition was pinging him. It was not a coincidence that Cyrus Jones had tracked down Sedona and seduced her.

Something big was going on here. He could sense it. A couple of months ago, Sedona had been just another gatekeeper taking contract jobs with the Guilds. True, she was a very high-rez gatekeeper but that didn’t alter the facts. She had been born out of wedlock, the product of an illicit union, and both sides of her family had disowned her as soon as it had become legally possible to do so. What was wrong with this picture?

He reached the marina and stopped. He needed to put the pieces of the puzzle together. He stood in the shade cast by the overhanging roof of a small boathouse and gazed unseeingly at the assortment of boats moored in the harbor.

Back at the start Sedona had been no one special, just an amusing companion. Their relationship had been destined to be short-lived and they had both known it.

But now it seemed that a lot of folks were after Sedona—important, influential folks, including the Arcane Joneses and the Snows. Sedona’s mother’s family, the Callahans, had contacted him recently, too, trying to find her. There had also been a call from someone who had identified himself as a Guild para-psych doctor who claimed to be worried about Sedona’s mental state.

He knew why he wanted Sedona, but why did the others want her? Clearly she had some serious value. He had to find a way to use that fact to his advantage. The future of Prescott Industries depended on it. And the future of the sprawling Prescott family depended on Prescott Industries.

No pressure, Brock thought.

“I saw you leave Knox’s Resort a few minutes ago.”

The woman spoke from behind him. He turned and saw a striking blonde with smart, savvy eyes. He liked her on sight.

“Have we met?” he asked.

She smiled. “We have now. I’m Hannah Holbrook. Full disclosure, I’m a freelance reporter and I’m here to cover whatever the hell is going down here on Rainshadow.”

“Aside from the Halloween crap, you mean?”

“I’ve been in this business long enough to know that the Chamber doesn’t usually send one of its best security people—a man who just happens to be connected to a powerful family—to take over a low-rent territory like Rainshadow.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Brock said. “I was just thinking along the same lines.”

“It occurs to me that we each have an agenda here and that we might be able to accomplish more working together than alone.”

“What’s in this for me?” Brock asked automatically.

“Just taking a wild guess here, but it looks like you want Sedona Snow. Right now Cyrus Jones has her. I have some information that might give you an edge.”

“Maybe I should ask what’s in this for you?”

“Deep background. Something big is going on here and Sedona seems to be at the center of it. You were in an MC with her for a while. I think you might know a few things that would be of interest to me. Why don’t you buy me a beer and we’ll talk about what we can do for each other?”

He thought about that for a minute. “Fine. I’ll buy you the beer. But we should probably go somewhere other than Knox’s Resort.”

“Definitely.”

“I’m not sure Lyle and the other dust bunnies will ever recover from the excitement of Halloween night,” Sedona said. “You should have seen him when little Annie Bell arrived to dress him in the costume she made for him. He was ecstatic. He may never take it off.”

“The kids should be here soon,” Cyrus said. “It’s not like there are that many houses to hit on the island. Expect a horde. Slade and Harry are taking them around in one big group.”

Sedona glanced out the window. A full moon shone down on the graveyard, illuminating the headstones in a ghostly glow. She had added extra lanterns to her front porch to draw the kids but she wasn’t sure what to expect. It was her first Halloween on the island.

“What if they don’t come here because they’re afraid of the cemetery?” she asked.

“In that case we are going to be left to eat a lot of candy all by ourselves.” Cyrus glanced toward the door where a large basket sat on the floor. The basket was heaped high with what amounted to a mountain of treats.

Sedona followed his gaze. “I may have overdone the candy.”

A knowing smile flickered at the edges of Cyrus’s mouth. “Don’t worry, got a hunch you’ll get rid of it all tonight. The kids won’t be able to resist calling on a house near a graveyard.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“It’s okay, Sedona,” he said. “You’re a member of the community now. The kids will show up sooner or later.”

“Right.”

But she wasn’t entirely certain of that, and she didn’t have to ask herself why that mattered. She knew why it was important. She wanted to be accepted by the good people of Rainshadow. For the first time in her life she felt as if she had a home where she belonged. Some part of her was convinced that having the local kids show up on Halloween would help her lock herself into the tightly knit little community.

She opened the refrigerator and took out the Amber River salmon that had been marinating in olive oil, ginger, and soy sauce. The salmon was a splurge but Hank, the proprietor of Hank’s Seafood, had given her a deal on it. According to him, he was awash in Amber River salmon and had to unload it fast. But she had a hunch that he had done her the favor because, like everyone else in town, he knew she was cooking for the new Guild boss. Everyone liked to be on the right side of a Guild CEO.

Sedona rezzed the stove. “Any updates from your cousin Marlowe?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Cyrus studied his screen. “She sent an agent sensitive to catacomb energy to Amber Crest disguised as a visiting para-psych consultant. The agent was able to get a good look around the place. He didn’t find any obvious traces of Alien psi but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a secret entrance to the tunnels inside the building or the grounds.”

“What about the ruins I told you about?”

“They weren’t hard to find. Marlowe sent a team down below through that entrance but no luck so far. They’re still looking, though. Turns out that sector hasn’t been charted. No surprise that’s why Blankenship picked it.”

“It’s ridiculously easy to hide something like a lab in an unmapped sector. Drug dealers do it all the time.”

“We’ll find it, Sedona. Wherever Blankenship and his two assistants are, we know one thing for certain—they have to come back to the surface, at least occasionally, for supplies.”

She thought about that. “Good point.”

“Speaking of problem people, Brock Prescott did not leave on the afternoon ferry.”

Sedona picked up her wineglass and leaned back against the edge of the counter. “You checked?”

“Slade has one of his officers, a young guy named Willis, watching the ferries. Prescott is still on the island. That fact is of some concern.”

“He wasn’t the one who tried to kidnap me,” she said quickly. “It’s just not his style. He relies on his charm to get what he wants.” She took a sip of wine. “Not that he was at his most charming today.”

“He could have hired someone with the right kind of talent to grab you. Now that we know that he’s desperate to save the family company, we have to assume that he’s willing to take extreme measures.”

She nodded. “There is the family pressure thing.” She set the glass down, and turned around to pick up a pair of tongs. “While we’re on the subject of weirdness, did you come up with a strategy for exploring Wonderland?”

Cyrus eased the computer aside, leaned back in his chair, and picked up his beer. “Still working on it.”

“How are you going to deal with the music issue?”

“The first step is to find a specialist, an expert in paranormal music, who can assess the situation.”

“Music is complicated. It operates on both the normal as well as the paranormal end of the spectrum.”

“Music isn’t the only phenomenon that crosses the spectrum,” Cyrus said. “It’s not like the Guilds haven’t had some experience in that regard. We’ll figure out a way to deal with the singing monsters.”

She smiled, amused by his confidence and enthusiasm. “You like this job, don’t you?”

He shrugged and drank some more beer. “It’s interesting.”

“A challenge.”

“That, too.”

“Think you’ll stick around after you get the problems under control?”

“Maybe. Depends.” He looked at her. “What about you? Going to stay on the island?”

She hesitated. “Maybe. Depends. But I like it here.”

He smiled. “Rainshadow is unique, I’ll say that for it.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said quietly. “Maybe I will go to my grandfather’s birthday reception.”

Cyrus said nothing. He waited.

“Someday, if I’m lucky, I may have children of my own,” she continued. “Maybe a little girl with Arizona Snow’s genetics. I would want her to know her family history. I would want her to know her cousins and her aunts and uncles. If my grandfather is serious about acknowledging me—”

The sound of excited laughter interrupted her before she could say anything else.

“I think our trick-or-treaters have arrived,” Cyrus said.

Sedona’s spirits leaped much higher than the occasion probably warranted.

“Great,” she said. She turned off the stove and quickly washed her hands. “I can’t wait to see the costumes.”

There was a great deal of clattering on the front porch. It was accompanied by more giggles, laughter, and a lot of excited chortling. A few seconds later the doorbell chimed.

Sedona dried her hands on a towel and hurried across the living room. Cyrus got to his feet and followed.

Sedona opened the door to a throng of small ghosts, skeletons, Aliens, fairies, superheroes, vampires, and assorted creatures of the night. Most of them were armed with glow sticks and illuminated sabers.

She saw Harry and Slade hanging back in the shadows. Not every troop of trick-or-treaters traveled with such high-end security on Halloween, Sedona thought. But on Rainshadow things were done a little differently.

There was a loud chorus of
“Trick-or-treat.”

Cyrus made a path through the crowd and went down the steps to talk to the two men.

Sedona admired the costumes and masks of her visitors.

“You all look very scary,” she said.

“I’m Amber Man,” Nate informed her. He held up Darwina, who was quite fetching in a blue ball gown studded with sequins. “This is Amberella.”

“I’m a police officer,” Devin announced. He hoisted Rex, who was bedecked in an odd-looking hat and a cloak decorated with strange symbols. “This is Sylvester Jones. He’s an old alchemist from Earth.”

“I’m an Alien,” Annie announced from behind her neon-green mask. “And Lyle is a vampire.”

Lyle’s dashing black cape was lined with bloodred satin. He looked adorable.

Sedona smiled at the kids and hoisted the basket of candy. “Don’t worry, there’s no need for tricks. I’ve got plenty of treats.”

At the sight of the candy mountain there was a great deal of excited shouting and mad chortling. Several pairs of small hands dove into the basket. Sedona spotted a few dust bunny paws reaching in as well. Lyle and the others had definitely gotten the hang of Halloween.

The mountain of candy vanished in a surprisingly short period of time. The kids trooped back down the steps, gloating.

“Told you the dust bunnies would work,” Annie said to the others.

Harry and Slade raised their hands in a friendly good-bye to Sedona and then set about gathering their charges together. The forest of glow sticks and light sabers headed back toward Main Street.

Cyrus came back up the steps and stood with Sedona, watching the departure.

“Harry told me that this was the last house on the list,” he said. “They’re all headed to the Haunted Alien Catacombs where they will scare themselves silly and then gorge on candy.”

Sedona smiled. “It’s such a charming tradition.”

“Told you they’d show up.”

“Yes, you did,” she said.

*   *   *

The screaming started just as Sedona was preparing to serve the chilled, chocolate-cookie-and-whipped-cream dessert she had made that afternoon.

The high-pitched shrieks of terror echoed in the night. Chills flashed down her spine. She dropped the serving spoon and it clattered on the kitchen floor.

“Good grief,” she whispered. “I didn’t think the kids would be
that
frightened by the exhibits in the Haunted Catacombs.”

“No.” Cyrus was already on his feet. He paused long enough to take the mag-rez out of the lockbox and check his flamer.

Sedona followed him outside, into the night.