Chapter Twenty-Four
“This is horrible,” Alice whispered.
Sebastian growled softly, but Owen noticed that he did not sleek out and open his second set of eyes. That made it clear there was no immediate threat.
He looked down at the body of the fortune-teller. “Yes, it is horrible.” He had seen far worse, but he decided this was probably not the time to mention that. He glanced at Alice. “Are you okay?”
She took a couple of steps back, clutching Sebastian with one hand as if he were a security blanket. She used her other hand to hold her scarf to her nose. “Yes. I think so. What is going on here? Why would anyone murder the fortune-teller?”
He was impressed. Again. She’d been forced to deal with two murder victims in less than forty-eight hours. In addition, she was being hunted by some ruthless people. Still no signs of panic. The woman was amazing. Maybe there was something to the teachings and practices of the Ballantine Method.
He turned back to the immediate problem.
They had found the body a few minutes ago.
There had been no response to the doorbell, so he had decided to try the kitchen door.
It had been unlocked. As soon as he opened it, he knew that what awaited them inside would be bad—and that this time the problem wouldn’t be rotting garbage.
Madam Xirena appeared to have been dead for about a day. She had been shot with a mag-rez.
The fortune-teller had been killed in the dimly lit, heavily draped sitting room she had evidently used to conduct business.
She was dressed in a long, colorful gown decorated with stars and various exotic symbols associated with ancient Old World alchemy.
Layers of necklaces glittered around her throat.
Bracelets were stacked on each arm. Rings sparkled on her fingers.
Like Voyle’s studio, the place had been searched.
“Her jewelry looks expensive,” Alice said quietly. “Whoever killed her didn’t take it.”
“Which rules out a burglary gone bad.” He studied the sparkling shards of glass, crystals, and chimes scattered across the rug.
“It’s possible an unhappy client decided to take revenge, but that would be pushing the coincidence factor right off a cliff.
I think we can assume that Madam Xirena was murdered for the usual reason. ”
Alice shuddered. “Someone was afraid she knew too much?”
“Whoever searched Voyle’s apartment must have found something that led him to Madam Xirena, just as we did.”
“And knew that fortune-tellers learn their clients’ deepest secrets,” Alice said uneasily. “We should call the police.”
“We will, but we’ll do it anonymously—after we’re clear of the Shadow Zone. At this point we can’t take the risk of getting delayed by a lot of questions from law enforcement. We need to get out of here. Now.”
“Why?” she asked, her eyes sharpening. “What’s wrong?”
“Besides the obvious?” He moved one hand to indicate the dead woman.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He took the flamer out of his pocket and headed toward the door. “I’m getting a really bad vibe.”
She didn’t argue. He was very glad she didn’t ask any more questions, because he had no rational explanation for why his intuition had just slammed into the red zone. The sense that time was running out hit him hard.
Sebastian wriggled free of Alice’s grasp, sleeked out, opened all four eyes, and bounced up onto his shoulder. Probably reacting to my tension. Or maybe he was hearing dust bunny alarm bells.
When they reached the back door, he stopped and eased the curtain aside long enough to check the alley. The fog blurred the view, but he did not see any shadows moving in the mist.
“Stay close,” he said to Alice.
“Trust me, I’m not going to wander off.”
He opened the door and moved outside, flamer in hand. Sebastian crouched on his shoulder, alert and combat ready. If trouble was coming their way, the dust bunny would see it first.
The locator guided them through the narrow fog-bound streets to the alley and the side door entrance to the abandoned nightclub.
The fire-and-ice frisson sparked across his senses when he started to open the door. Sebastian snarled and hunkered down, preparing to spring.
Owen released the door handle and stepped back so quickly he bumped into Alice, who was right behind him.
“What is it?” she said.
“Something’s wrong inside. Let’s go.”
He turned to lead the way toward the far end of the alley but slammed to a halt when a hot storm of green fire flared at the entrance. There was no escape at the opposite end because of the brick wall.
“Ghost,” Alice whispered.
“Aboveground, no less,” Owen mused. “Whoever he is, he’s strong.”
There was nothing supernatural about the so-called ghosts.
The technical name was Unstable Dissonance Energy Manifestation—UDEM.
They were storms of energy that occurred randomly in the Underworld, but they could also be generated and manipulated by those with a particular paranormal talent for the job.
The ability was strongly linked to testosterone.
The result was that most ghost hunters were male.
There were two viable career paths open to those with a strong talent for handling UDEMs. The Ghost Hunters Guild offered legal jobs in the Underworld.
The other option was working for one of the private security firms that operated in the gray area between official law enforcement and criminal gangs.
“It looks impressive but it’s actually very weak,” Owen said. “He won’t be able to maintain it for long, not outside the tunnels.”
The storm of violent energy began to advance down the alley.
The shadowy figure of the man generating it was barely visible through the fog and the haze of wild green fire.
He had to stay close enough to control the UDEM but not too close.
Ghost hunters had some natural immunity, but even they could not handle direct contact with a ghost. The results varied between unconsciousness and death, depending on the power of the ghost and the hunter. Playing with fire was always hazardous.
“He’s trying to force us up against the wall at the back of the alley or maybe drive us into the nightclub,” Owen said.
Alice took a couple of steps back. “I vote for the nightclub.”
Sebastian growled again.
Alice pulled her small flamer out of her go bag and gripped it with both hands. “Maybe you can negotiate with that hoodlum. This is Illusion Town. Money talks.”
“I’m starting to see a pattern here. You and the dust bunny are getting very good at spending my money.”
She glanced at him, horrified. “I’ll find a way to repay you.”
“I was joking. Forget it. I don’t want to waste time negotiating. It will be simpler if I just take him out.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure. What’s the point of having an expensive and, I might add, legally registered flamer if you can’t use it against a low-rent thug like this?”
“But Vinnie said that flamers don’t work against ghost energy—”
“They don’t.”
He fired two quick full-rez shots underneath the advancing ball of fire, aiming for the Guild man’s booted feet.
There was a startled yelp. Distracted, the attacker lost control of the ghost. It winked out immediately. Owen fired a third shot, aiming for the head.
The attacker convulsed as if struck by lightning. For an instant he stared at Owen through the fog, uncomprehending.
“Fuck,” he managed.
He tried to go for his mag-rez but he went down hard on the pavement instead. He did not move.
Sebastian chortled approval and bounced up and down on Owen’s shoulder a couple of times.
Alice took a deep breath and lowered her flamer. “Okay. That was…impressive. Is he, uh—?”
“No. Unconscious.”
“You are a very good shot,” Alice said.
“Unlike you, I took the time to read the manual.”
Alice gave him a reproachful glare and then looked at the closed door of the old nightclub. “We should get out of this alley in case he’s got pals.”
“Oh, he’s got a crew, all right. This wasn’t a random mugging. That would be too much of a coincidence. He was following us. We need to know how he figured out that we had left the Amber Palace and, more importantly, how he found us here in the Shadow Zone.”
“Maybe they were watching Carl Voyle’s apartment or the fortune-teller’s house.”
“I don’t think so. They’re tracking us.”
“How? They would need to plant a specially tuned crystal or amber on one of us. You and I are both using locked stones.”
“One member of this team is not wearing secure rocks.”
They both looked at Sebastian. The cheap crystals in the lucky dust bunny necklace glittered ominously in the foggy daylight.
“Well, shit,” Owen said. “It’s that damned necklace.”
“It’s not Sebastian’s fault that someone might have put a tracker on his necklace,” Alice said, looking quite fierce.
“I’m not blaming him; I’m blaming myself. This is on me. I should have run a check on it. But we will work with what we have. I think we can use it to draw the rest of the crew out of hiding.”
“You have a plan?”
“Yes, but I’ll need a distraction.”