After Glow

Chapter 14

Lydia stood on the second-story terrace of Emmett's newly acquired townhouse, looking out at the view of the green quartz wall and the spires and towers of the Dead City. The night air was cool and damp from the fog that was coalescing off the river. In another hour or two the mist would blanket the Old Quarter.

The house was much closer to the ruins than her own apartment. The only thing between her and the great wall was the large city park down below. Proximity made a difference. Here she was even more aware of the psi energy that leaked from the Dead City than she was in her own place. When she went out on the balcony of her apartment she picked up only occasional stirrings of the stuff. But in this neighborhood it permeated the atmosphere.

She could tune out the little currents of energy or ignore them if she wished but she rarely bothered to do so. It was, after all, a pleasant sensation. The part of her that was sensitive to psi power resonated with the whispers coming from the ruins.

She leaned on the terrace railing and contemplated the events of the day.

Things had definitely not been dull.

The good news was that Emmett appeared to be completely unperturbed by the hasty Marriage of Convenience she had orchestrated. The bad news was that for some reason she could not explain, she was a nervous wreck tonight.

Emmett had arrived at the registrar's office on time, accompanied by a very large, square individual named Verwood whom he introduced as his chief of security. To her astonishment, Emmett also brought along a ring. She experienced a very odd sensation when he slipped it onto her finger. It was as if the simple gold band somehow made the promises they spoke far more binding than the associated paperwork indicated.

It was just a Marriage of Convenience, she reminded herself, not a Covenant Marriage. It would automatically expire in one year, leaving them both free to go their separate ways if they so chose.

The MC didn't really affect their relationship in any material way, she thought. She and Emmett had already been involved in a monogamous arrangement. The formalities were just that—formalities.

Tonight was no different than any other night she had spent with Emmett during the past few weeks.

Except that she had a ring on her finger.

She heard a quiet footstep behind her and turned to watch Emmett walk out onto the terrace through the open glass doors. He carried a bottle of champagne in one hand. In the other hand he held two flutes by their long stems. Fuzz was perched on his shoulder, gnawing on a pretzel.

She glanced at the champagne. "We're celebrating?"

He set the bottle and the glasses on the terrace table. "Don't know about you, but this is my first marriage. Figured it warranted something by way of celebration."

Guilt trickled through her, not for the first time today. "I'm sorry about this."

"Stop apologizing." He poured champagne into the two flutes and handed one to her. "It's just an MC. No big deal."

No big deal. How depressing.

Fuzz finished his pretzel, skittered down Emmett's arm, hopped onto the railing, and sat gazing at the ruins. He opened his second set of eyes, the ones he used for hunting at night.

"I wonder what he sees out there in the park that we can't see," Lydia said.

Emmett smiled. "Maybe a female dust-bunny."

"Huh. Hadn't thought about that." She took a large mouthful of champagne and swallowed it in one gulp.

Something went wrong about halfway down. Probably the fizzy bubbles, she thought. She wasn't accustomed to good champagne.

She gasped, sputtered, turned red, and coughed. Her eyes watered.

"You're welcome to as much champagne as you want," Emmett said, slapping her lightly between the shoulders. "But you might want to take it a little slower. You can enjoy it more that way. Not that it matters, but that particular bottle cost a hundred and fifty bucks. Sort of a shame to gulp it."

"Good heavens." She recovered her breath and stared, horrified, at the flute she had just emptied. "You opened a hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle of champagne just to celebrate our MC?"

He shrugged. "I told you, this is my first marriage."

"Well, it's my first one, too, but still, a hundred and fifty bucks?" She frowned. "Wait a second, are you going to bill the Guild for the champagne as well as my new gown?"

"Why not?" He picked up the bottle and refilled her glass. "Just another business expense."

She brightened a little. "Well, in that case, who cares how much the stuff cost?"

He was amused. "I take it you like the idea of sticking the Guild with the tab for your expenses?"

"I know it's small and petty of me, but, yeah, I like the idea a lot. I figure it's the least the Guild can do for me after the way those two hunters refused to take responsibility for what happened during my Lost Weekend."

He nodded.

A long silence descended. Fuzz seemed entranced with the view of the fogbound park. So did Emmett.

She grew increasingly uneasy. Why was it suddenly so hard to make conversation? she wondered. The fact that Emmett was officially her husband for the next year didn't change anything about their relationship, did it? Tonight was no different than last night. Except for the ring on her finger.

She cast about for something to say.

"So," she said, going for casual and blasé. "This really is your very first MC?"

He lounged against the railing and looked out at the night-shrouded ruins. "Yes."

She took a more cautious sip of the champagne and decided that it tasted quite good. The alcohol and the cloak of darkness emboldened her. "You must have had plenty of affairs over the years. Why didn't you ever go for a Marriage of Convenience?"

He was quiet for a long moment.

"I guess it just never felt right," he said eventually. "Or maybe it never seemed necessary. I could never see the point of an MC. Always figured that when the time came, I'd go all the way with a Covenant Marriage."

She looked down at the dark shapes of the trees in the park, aware of another wave of guilt rolling over her. Emmett was a romantic at heart, a man who had planned to wait until he found the right woman. Who would have believed that a Guild boss would have had such a sentimental side to his nature?

"What about you?" he said. "How come you never got into an MC until now?"

She pulled herself out of the sea of guilt and tried to formulate an answer to his question. "I've been very busy for the past few years, what with getting my degrees and starting my career."

"No time for marriage?"

"Not exactly." She hesitated. "I suppose what it comes down to is that I never dated anyone I wanted to actually share a home with, if you know what I mean."

"Ryan Kelso," he said dryly.

She blushed and was grateful for the cover of darkness. She preferred to forget Professor Ryan Kelso, the man she had been dating at the time of her disaster. Ryan had dumped her even before the university had fired her.

"Ryan was obviously a mistake," she conceded. "Sort of like you and Tamara."

"Uh-huh."

"But at least I was only thinking of an MC with Ryan." She grimaced. "Not a Covenant Marriage like you and Tamara were planning."

"I would take it as a great favor if you would not remind me of that period in my life."

The cloud of depression got heavier.

"Well, we both had extremely narrow escapes and we should be grateful fate intervened," she declared, trying to sound positive.

"This is true." Emmett put one foot on the lowest bar of the terrace railing. "But the bottom line here is that due to fate, some narrow escapes, and your announcement to the Cadence media this afternoon, we find ourselves confronted with a wedding night that neither of us had planned."

"I guess you could say that."

"Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall that it is traditional to consummate the marriage on the wedding night."

She couldn't have moved if a ghost had materialized right in front of her. What was the matter with her?

After a minute that felt like half an eternity, Emmett moved. He straightened, reached out, and took the flute from her nerveless fingers.

When he turned to set the glasses on the table the low light spilling through the glass doors glinted on his strong cheekbones. She could not even breathe now.

It's only an MC, she chanted silently. It's only an MC.

Ah, but he's mine for a year and I do love him so.

Emmett pulled her into his arms and smiled very slowly. "Hello, Mrs. London."

"Emmett." She flung her arms around him.

He wrapped her close, tilted her chin up, and kissed her very deliberately, as though he sought to stamp an impression on her mouth.

She stopped trying to tell herself that this night was the same as the others that she had spent with Emmett. There was something new between them. The vows that they had spoken today, even though they were only meant to bind them together for a year, made a difference and so did the ring on her finger.

This was her husband. At least for a while. Desire and a curious sense of possessiveness soared through her.

Emmett picked her up in his arms and started toward the glass doors.

He halted abruptly on the threshold, setting her on her feet with such shocking suddenness that her head spun. She had to grab the door frame to steady herself. Somewhere in the shadows, Fuzz rumbled a warning.

She finally caught the pulse of invisible psi energy in the air around her. Not the soft whispers that seeped from the Dead City, she realized, but the unmistakable chaos of unstable dissonance energy.

Acid green light flared at the edge of the terrace. The ghost took shape with terrifying speed. In seconds it was a swirling, pulsing ball of crackling energy moving straight toward them.

Fuzz leaped off the railing and streaked across the terrace to Lydia. She picked him up quickly, holding him close.

"Take him inside and stay out of the way." Emmett gave the order in a flat, cold voice.

She did not hesitate. When it came to dealing with a ghost, there was nothing like a really good hunter and Emmett was one of the best.

With Fuzz cradled under one arm, she hurried through the glass doors, giving Emmett all the space he needed on the terrace to do what he did so well.

When she turned around she was shocked to see how large the finished UDEM was. The core was a very hot green, indicating that the pattern in which the psi energy resonated was extremely complicated. Not your average ghost, by any means.

She had seen such UDEMs inside the catacombs, but never here outside the walls of the Dead City. Whoever was manipulating this one had to be an extremely powerful hunter. She also knew that he had to be somewhere nearby. It wasn't possible to energize and control a ghost from a distance any greater than half a city block at most. A hunter had to be fairly close to be effective. The one who had sent this one up onto the terrace was probably down below in the park, hiding in the trees.

Emmett was taking his time, analyzing his opponent. In her experience, hunters generally liked to move in fast and kick up a lot of flashy energy. Emmett was certainly capable of summoning a ghost as quickly as any other hunter when the necessity arose. But given an option, he preferred to work more deliberately.

It took a ghost to stop a ghost. Nothing else could do the job. You couldn't de-rez one with a bullet, fire, water, amber-generated electricity, or any other force that had yet been discovered. Since ghosts were a fact of life in and around the Dead Cities, ghost-hunters had a lot of job security.

The pulsating mass of dissonance energy was so close now that Lydia could feel psi currents rolling across the terrace and into the room where she stood with Fuzz. Acid green light illuminated the scene.

Fuzz's fur was slicked back so tightly that she could see his ears. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted. There were goosebumps on her arms.

The dangerous ghost wasn't the only source of psi power in the vicinity. Emmett was brewing up a storm of his own.

Outside on the terrace another ball of roiling energy took shape. Emmett was constructing a smaller but far denser ghost to counter the threatening UDEM. Lydia could see that the energy he had summoned and manipulated into a resonating pattern burned more hotly at its core than that which powered the attacking ghost.

She knew theoretically what he was doing. Technically, de-rezzing a ghost wasn't much different than untangling an illusion trap. The trick was to tune in to the resonating patterns of psi energy and counter them with an opposing pattern that gradually dampened and neutralized the core. Like so many things in life it fell in to the category of easier said than done.

There was so much wild green energy whipping around on the terrace now that psi power lit up the night. Somewhere down below in the park Lydia heard a dog bark. A window was flung open.

"It's a ghost, Harry, a really big one," a woman yelled. "And it's right next door. Get the dog back inside. Hurry."

The mutt barked louder. Lydia heard more windows open.

"What the hell?" a man shouted from the terrace of the house on the other side of Emmett's. "There's two of 'em. The guy who lives in Number Seventeen has one going. Woo-hoo. Hey, Martha, didn't I tell you it was a good idea to have the new Guild boss living right next door?"

"I'm not so sure about that," Martha shot back. "We never had any ghosts in this neighborhood before London moved in."

"I don't get it," someone else said. "Ghosts aren't supposed to be able to get that big outside the catacombs."

"I told you, I didn't think it would be safe living this close to the Wall, didn't I, Joe?" a woman snapped. "But, you wouldn't listen to me, would you? The neighborhood has so much character, you said. It will be a terrific investment, you said. Well, you know what I think? I think we're going to be damn lucky if those two ghosts don't set fire to our fabulous real estate investment. And you know our insurance policy doesn't cover ghost damage."

At that moment Emmett's ghost drifted into the very heart of the advancing UDEM. Green energy spiked high into the night sky and then both ghosts winked out of existence.

An unnatural silence gripped the street. Lydia allowed herself to exhale. Fuzz wriggled out of her arms, tumbled back out onto the terrace, and leaped to the top of the railing. He crouched there, staring out into the night with all four eyes.

"He's down there, isn't he, buddy? Let's see if we can catch him." Emmett snatched up Fuzz and plunged back into the house.

"Emmett, be careful," Lydia called as he swept past her.

He was already on the stairs. She heard the front door open before she was halfway down. When she reached the entrance she confronted a wall of fog that glowed with the reflected glare of the old-fashioned streetlamps. Visibility was limited to a few feet. She could not even see the town houses across the street.

Somewhere in the misty distance she heard the sound of Emmett's swift footsteps. When they grew more muffled and faint she knew that he had gone down one of the narrow walks that led into the park.

She was almost positive that he would not find his quarry. The fog and the night would provide cover for the rogue hunter who had conjured the attacking ghost.

Emmett released Fuzz as soon as they hit the park. It was worth a try, he thought, although he was not feeling very optimistic. By now the other hunter would be long gone.

"Find him, Fuzz."

The dust-bunny's night vision and sense of smell were a lot more acute than his own, Emmett thought, and the little creature seemed to understand what was expected of him. Fuzz was, after all, a natural-born hunter of another kind.

Fuzz vanished into the night-and-fog-drenched park. Emmett followed, listening for sounds that might indicate stealthy movement. He had melted amber de-rezzing the ghost and his senses were still humming at high-rez. The potent bio-cocktail unleashed into his system as a result of the heavy expenditure of psi power would take a while to wear off.

He knew the pattern all too well. He was going to be very wide awake and very aroused for about an hour and then he would crash for several hours. That was how it went after a major burn. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

Hell of a way to spend a wedding night, he thought.

A few minutes later Fuzz tumbled out of the shadows and into the light of one of the park lamps. He scampered up Emmett's pant leg with a piece of paper clutched in one front paw.

"What have you got there, pal?" Emmett took the scrap of paper from Fuzz. He rezzed the flashlight he had grabbed from one of the drawers in the hall cabinet on the way out the door. "A parking garage receipt."

He glanced at the logo stamped at the top of the receipt. CityCenterGarage. Yesterday's date, he noticed.

He knew that garage well. It was the one that was located most conveniently to the office tower that housed the headquarters of the Cadence Guild. Everyone who worked in the building used it.

In theory that deduction gave him several hundred suspects not including all those people who might have parked there yesterday simply because they had some business in the building. But he knew that he could rule out most of them immediately.

There were not many hunters who could conjure a ghost the size of the one on the terrace tonight outside the catacombs. Most of those who were capable of such a feat sat on the Guild Council. That left him with ten suspects.

He was pretty sure he could narrow that number even more—all the way down to one.