Chapter Twenty
The familiar nightmare struck out of nowhere…
He is standing in the center of a vast rotunda in the Underworld. A dozen glowing hallways branch off from the circular space. Gatley’s victim is concealed in one of the countless chambers that line each of the corridors. Her amber has been stripped. There is no way to track her.
“I see we have a volunteer from the audience,” Gatley says. “Welcome to the stage.”
His voice comes from one of the halls but is distorted by the sea of paranormal currents that flood the rotunda. There is no way to track it back to the origin point. The killer could be hiding in any of the corridors.
“I call this trick The Disappearing Woman,” Gatley says. “If you can find her, you will both go free. If you fail, she disappears. And so do you.”
“Let the woman go, Gatley. You don’t need her. She was just bait. You wanted me. I’m here.”
There is a short silence.
“How did you find out my name?” Gatley says, voice rising.
“You weren’t hard to identify. Just a run-of-the-mill, standard-issue, low-rent serial killer.”
“Tell me how you found my name.”
“Identifying insane high-rez talents is what I do. I’m good at my job.”
“I’m not insane,” Gatley screams. The words are distorted by the energy in the atmosphere. The killer sounds as if he’s yelling from deep underwater. “And if you were any good at tracking people like me, what the fuck are you doing here? This is where you die.”
“You know why I’m here. I came to get the woman.”
“Do you really think it’s going to be that easy? I’m Mr. Magic. I make people vanish.”
“I already know all I need to about you, Gatley. You’re insane. I’m not interested in learning more.”
“The only reason you’re still alive is because I’m curious about you.”
“You just want to know how I found you.”
“I made sure you had nothing to work with—nothing. I made sure all the evidence vanished.”
“You left your psi prints everywhere. How do you think I was able to identify you so quickly?”
“Tell me how you found me, or the woman dies now. What’s more, you’ll get to watch. And then it will be your turn.”
“Owen, wake up.”
Alice’s calm, soothing voice comes to him from outside his dream. All he has to do is follow it back to the surface. But he can’t go. Not yet. He’s so close to finding the memories he lost down here in the Underworld. So damn close…
“Come with me, Owen. I’ll help you look for what you lost.”
He can’t resist the gentle currents of her voice. He rides them back to the surface…
He opened his eyes. Alice, bundled into a hotel robe, was hovering anxiously over the pull-out bed. Sebastian was at the foot of the bed, watching him intently with all four eyes.
“Well, shit,” he muttered.
He shoved the sheet and quilt aside and sat up. Alice took a couple of quick steps back. Belatedly he remembered he was wearing only his T-shirt and briefs.
He grabbed the nearest object—a pillow—and positioned it across his thighs to cover the too-revealing briefs. If you hang out with a Ballantine Method practitioner too long, you pick up the modesty thing.
“Sorry,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair. “I was dreaming.”
She smiled. “I noticed. I’m in the dream therapy business, remember?”
He groaned. “Was I talking in my sleep?”
She handed him his robe and politely turned away. “You were mumbling a little.”
“Embarrassing.” He tossed the pillow aside, got to his feet, and shrugged into the robe. “Is that what woke you?”
“No, I was already awake.”
Sebastian lost interest in the conversation and hustled over to the balcony window to contemplate the glittering Illusion Town night.
“You can turn around now,” Owen said. “I’m decent.”
“Okay.” Alice sank down on the side of her bed and fixed him with an inviting look. “Do you want to talk about your dream?”
“No,” he said. “I do not want to talk about it.” That sounded sharp. Downright rude. But some subjects were off-limits. “It’s just an old dream that comes back once in a while.”
Not that old. Six months, to be precise.
“When you’re under stress?” she pressed.
“When I’m in the middle of a case.” It haunted him at other times, too, but she already knew way too much about him. Time to do damage control.
“I understand,” she said, evidently oblivious to the fact that he was trying to shut down the conversation. “It’s a stress-related dream. We all have them. I have some techniques for gaining control of recurring nightmares.”
He thought about telling her that he didn’t need to get control of the dream—he needed to know how it ended.
Bad idea.
“Enough about me,” he said evenly. “Let’s talk about you. Why weren’t you sleeping?”
“I can’t stop thinking about what Brooke said.
After all these years I find out my mother was widowed and that she was told she had lost a baby and then got married to Dunstan Kelbrook, of all people—before she was twenty years old.
That’s the last thing I expected. She died so tragically young. It’s just hard to process.”
“I’ve been thinking about what Brooke said, too.” He went to the window and stopped beside Sebastian. “We should allow for the possibility that she lied to us.”
“I don’t think Brooke lied.” Alice hesitated. “Do you?”
“My gut reaction is no. I think she was telling the truth. At least as much as she knows. But there are plenty of very good liars out there, some with a genuine paranormal talent for it.”
“I’m aware of that. I married one.”
He seemed to be making all the wrong conversational moves tonight. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“I know.”
He turned his head to look at her. She often had the air of a woman who preferred to observe others from a cautious distance.
But now, tonight, bathed in the light that streamed through the window, she looked as if she believed herself to be in an entirely separate dimension.
He wondered how to tell her that she was wrong.
From the moment he had begun to build a psi profile on her, he had suspected that there would be a lot of fierce heat and energy beneath the surface.
When he had encountered her in person in that damned hotel, his theory had been confirmed.
Beneath the serene, controlled surface was a smoldering fire.
A thought occurred to him.
“You’re afraid of your core talent, aren’t you?” he said before he could stop himself.
She tensed and seemed to take a step back even though she hadn’t moved off the bed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Sebastian chose that moment to chortle in a demanding way. He scratched at the window.
Distracted, Alice jumped to her feet.
“He wants out,” she said. “I’ll get dressed and take him downstairs.”
“We took him to the pet relief area on the rooftop garden before we went to bed. You said that would do until morning.”
“I think he just wants to go out for a while. During normal times he loves to party with his pals down in the tunnels. I guess he assumes that as long as you’re here, he can go off duty for a while. He deserves a break.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to get dressed and ride the elevator downstairs to give him his social break.”
Alice paused in the act of reaching into the closet. “Why not?”
He waved a hand at the window. “Take a look.”
She hurried across the room and stared in shock at the two dust bunnies perched on the balcony railing. “We’re on the eighth floor. How in the world did they get up here?”
“Six paws and, apparently, no fear of heights,” Owen said. “The more interesting question is, how did they know Sebastian was in this particular room?”
“The same way they find each other down in the Underworld, I suppose,” Alice said. “You might as well open the door.”
He unlocked the sliding door. Sebastian chortled and zipped out onto the balcony. He hopped up onto the railing and greeted his buddies. A moment later all three vanished over the side.
“I hope he has a good time,” Alice said. “He deserves it. He risked his life for me at the Hotel of Dreams.”
“Three dust bunnies out for a night on the town. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Don’t worry, they’ll probably head straight down into the tunnels to hunt in the Rainforest.” Alice turned around. “By the way, just so you know, I’m not afraid of my psychic senses. I control my talent. It doesn’t control me.”
“I thought you said you didn’t understand my question.”
“I just pretended not to understand it because I was a little shocked. Asking someone if they are afraid of their core talent is a very rude question.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “I apologize. I assume your talent is the reason you’ve never registered with a matchmaking agency?”
“Yes. But shortly before it was forced to close, the Ballantine Academy was preparing to set up its own matchmaking service. It was going to focus on people with complex or high-rez talents, the kind that regular matchmaking agencies don’t handle well.
I was looking forward to registering, but Cadence Ballantine died, and that was the end of the plan, the Academy… everything.”
The end of everything. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and…and what? Remind her to think positive? No. What he really wanted to do was kiss her. Strip off her robe and take her to bed. But sex was out of the question. Wasn’t it?
“There are other agencies that focus on difficult-to-match talents,” he said instead. “The Arcane Society operates one. My family has been pushing me to register.”
“What’s the Arcane Society?”
“An organization for those with psychic talents. It was founded back on the Old World. The Marches have had a connection to it for generations. There’s nothing new about paranormal abilities.
They have run strong in my family for generations, long before the Curtain opened.
The Society kept a low profile on the home planet, but here on Harmony, no one pays any attention to the organization, because everyone accepts the reality of the paranormal. ”
“I see. I wasn’t aware of any matchmaking agencies that focused on people with unusual or difficult talents.”
“When this is over, you could look into registering with the Arcane agency.”
She considered briefly. “Maybe. But it probably wouldn’t do any good. Even if my talent wasn’t a deal-breaker, the fact that I was locked up at Serenity Gardens for a few months and was labeled ‘the Deranged Bride’ by the media would make me unmatchable.”
“The video is changing the public’s perception of you.”
“Some things you can’t outrun. Let’s face it, the only people who are likely to be interested in a date with me are either obsessive curiosity seekers or men who are more than a little deranged themselves.
What about you? Why aren’t you registered?
I can’t imagine any agency or family would object to your talent for analyzing inheritance traits. ”
This would probably be a good time for him to stop talking. But it was too late. His mouth was already open and words were spilling out.
“A lot of people consider my ancestry profiling talent boring,” he said. “Many view my criminal forensic work as morbid. And I’ve had a few clients who don’t like what I find on their family trees. But you’re right. I don’t think most people are afraid of me.”
Her eyes heated a little in the shadows, but not with the energy of sexual interest. He was starting to recognize this particular fire. She was searching for a way into his secrets. If he had any common sense, he would run for his life.
“And yet you aren’t registered,” she said quietly. “Is it because of the broken engagement? Perfectly understandable. You were in love and it takes time—”
“It has nothing to do with my broken engagement,” he said. “I’m not registered because I’m working through some issues.”
“Issues connected with your recurring nightmare?”
“Yes.”
“What happened in your dream?”
“I killed a man.”
Her intent gaze did not waver. “A bad man?”
“Very bad. The serial killer the press called Mr. Magic.”
She caught her breath. “I remember that case. Such an evil man. The media said he died in the Underworld. Unknown causes, but the authorities suspected that he had encountered a dangerous artifact.”
“He did. He also encountered me.”
“Oh.” Alice gave that some thought. “I see.” She tilted her head a little, studying him with what looked like understanding in her eyes. “An act of violence, even when fully justified, always leaves a psychic scar on anyone who is not a sociopath. It’s no wonder you have nightmares.”
“The scar isn’t the issue,” he said. “I can deal with that. The issue is that I don’t remember how I killed Gatley.”