After Glow

Chapter 16

The doorbell chimed imperiously the following morning just as Lydia started to pour a second cup of rez-tea for Emmett.

"I'm up, I'll get it." She put down the pot and walked out of the kitchen.

Fuzz, who had been eating his breakfast out of a dish on the floor, abandoned his eggs and toast to scamper after her.

"If it's one of the neighbors complaining about that little scene with the ghost last night," Emmett called after her, "let me handle it."

"Other than a few scorch marks on our terrace, there was no damage done," she said over her shoulder. "The neighbors have no grounds for complaint."

"They may feel a little differently about the matter," he warned.

When she reached the hall she took a quick look around to make sure that there was no evidence of the Grand Consummation. Everything appeared to be in order, she decided, but she knew that she would never walk into this house again without thinking of her wedding night.

She opened the door and found thirteen-year-old Zane Hoyt, her neighbor at the Dead City View Apartments, on the front step. He was dressed in his favorite ghost-hunter-wannabe outfit complete with a big chunk of amber around his neck. Fuzz hopped into his arms.

"Hi, Lydia." Zane beamed at her as he scratched Fuzz. "Aunt Olinda says you and Mr. London got married yesterday. It's in all the papers, she says. I came by to see if it was really true."

"It's true."

Zane had lost his parents at an early age. He was being raised by his aunt. His greatest ambition in life was to become a ghost-hunter. He certainly had the psi-talent for it, but Lydia had been hoping to steer him toward a more respectable career path.

Now that Emmett had entered Zane's life, however, she had a hunch that she was fighting a losing battle. Zane had immediately glommed onto Emmett as a father figure. Hero worship was powerful stuff.

Zane leaned forward to examine her left hand. "Wow, you've got a ring and everything. That is so high-rez." His face lit with excitement. "You're married to the hottest ghost-hunter of them all. Mr. London's the boss of the whole Guild now, you know?"

"Trust me, I'm aware of that."

"Aunt Olinda says to give you her congratulations. She says we're gonna watch you and Mr. London walk into the fancy party at Restoration Hall on the rez-screen tonight."

"I'll be sure to wave." She glanced at her watch. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

"I'm on my way. Just wanted to see what was going on for myself so I could tell everyone in class."

Emmett sauntered into the front hall and opened the closet door. "Morning, Zane. How's it going today?"

"I'm doing fine, Mr. London, except for that stupid test I've got to take this morning. I just stopped by to see Lydia and you and tell you that I think it's really great that you two got married."

"Thanks. Appreciate that." Emmett hooked his jacket over his shoulder and picked up his briefcase. He gave Lydia a brief but thorough good-bye kiss. Then he looked at Zane. "I'm on my way into the office. I'll give you a ride to school."

"All right." Zane almost levitated with excitement. "Wait'll the guys see me getting out of the Guild boss's own personal Slider."

He handed Fuzz to Lydia and whipped around to race toward the vehicle.

"You've certainly made his day," Lydia said to Emmett.

A sexy gleam lit his eyes. "You certainly made my night, Mrs. London. Sorry I zoned out just as things were getting interesting."

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. "If things had gotten any more interesting, I wouldn't be able to move this morning."

His amusement vanished. A watchful expression replaced the sensual laughter in his gaze.

"Are you… okay?" he asked very quietly.

She folded her arms and leaned one shoulder against the edge of the door frame. "I hope this won't dent your hunter pride too much but I gotta tell you that I'm just fine this morning."

The tightness at the corners of his mouth eased. "Just fine?"

She wrinkled her nose. "You didn't scare me one little bit last night, London, if that's what's worrying you."

His mouth quirked. "You're sure?"

"Positive."

"I didn't make you even a little bit nervous?"

"Nope."

"Huh." He took his foot down off the step. "Well, I'll have to see what I can do to improve my technique tonight. Maybe if I put my mind to it I can summon a really, really big ghost and induce an even hotter afterburn."

"Don't bother with the ghost. You don't need one." She grinned. "Got news for you, London. Last night was interesting, but it wasn't all that much different from your usual style."

"Damn. You didn't think the part where you were bent over the cabinet watching us in the mirror was just a little bit different?"

"It was merely a clever variation on one of your many excellent themes." She came away from the door frame, adjusted the collar of his shirt, and gave him a wifely peck on his cheek. "Now go to work like a good Guild boss. I'll see you tonight. What time do we have to leave for our big scene at the ball?"

"Hell, I've got so much going on I nearly forgot about the Restoration Ball." Emmett frowned. "Tamara said it starts at eight. She suggested that we plan to put in an appearance around nine."

Lydia stifled a sigh. Things had been going along quite pleasantly this morning until Tamara's name came up.

"She wants us to make an entrance, is that it?" she asked politely.

"The whole point of this exercise is to make sure that everyone, especially the media, takes note of the fact that the Guild boss and his wife are part of mainstream society here in Cadence."

Forget playing Amberella tonight, Lydia told herself. This isn't a romantic fairy tale. It's all about grabbing some good PR for the Guild.

"The image thing." She nodded. "Got it."

"There will be a lot of traffic downtown tonight. We'd better leave here around eight-thirty."

"I'll be ready," she promised.

He turned to head toward the Slider and then paused one last time. "You're sure there wasn't anything a little out of the ordinary about last night?"

"Seemed like a normal evening at home."

"Huh." He shook his head and continued on toward the car. "Sure seemed pretty unusual to me."

"Just goes to show how dull and boring your life was before you met me, London."

He looked back at her, his teeth flashing in a wicked grin. "Trust me, my eyes have been opened."

Melanie glanced up from the morning edition of the Tattler when Lydia paused in the doorway of the office. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the blushing bride. Shrimp's looking for you. He's busily scheduling about a hundred special tours to be escorted personally by the wife of the new Guild boss, her very own self."

Lydia grimaced. "Thanks for the warning."

"How was the wedding night?"

"That's an extremely personal question. But since you ask, one of the more interesting highlights occurred when a huge ghost materialized on the terrace at what can only be described as an inconvenient moment."

Melanie stopped grinning. "Uh-oh. Not good. Are we talking about a seriously large ghost?"

"It was nasty, Mel. Biggest UDEM I've ever seen outside the walls. It probably would have set fire to the house if Emmett hadn't been able to de-rez it."

"Sheesh. You think it had something to do with the attack on Mercer Wyatt?"

"That's my guess but Emmett is still trying to figure out the connection."

Melanie shuddered. "Looks like maybe there is some downside to being married to a Guild boss, after all. Who would have guessed?"

"I gotta tell you, life was a lot simpler when Emmett was just a business consultant." Lydia studied the copy of the Tattler. "What do the headlines look like today? The box out front was empty."

"I know. I got the very last copy. This issue is probably sold out all over town." Melanie propped the tabloid up in front of herself so that Lydia could read the giant headlines.

GUILD BOSS WEDS MYSTERY MISTRES IN MC,

Couple Will Appear at Formal Ball Tonight

Lydia anxiously examined the photo of herself standing in front of the entrance to Designs by Finella. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Could have been worse," she said.

"It is worse, in my opinion." Melanie shook the paper in amused disgust. "A lot worse. You will notice that they cropped me right out of the photo. I was standing next to you when you gave your big quote to the media, if you will recall. But there's no sign of me in this picture."

"I would have been delighted to have been the one who got cropped." Lydia made to move off down the hall.

"Wait a sec." Melanie put down the newspaper. "Jack is taking me to lunch today. Want to come with us? My treat?"

"Thanks, I'd love to, but I'm pretty busy at the moment."

Melanie cleared her throat. "Uh, as a favor to me."

That stopped Lydia in her tracks. "A favor to you? We have lunch together all the time. How would I be doing you any special favors if I let you treat me today?"

"It's for Jack, actually." Melanie's cheeks turned a surprising shade of pink. "I like him a lot. We're even starting to talk about an MC."

"You are? I hadn't realized it was that serious."

"He's a great guy and it would thrill him to pieces to be able to tell his pals at the Guild Hall that he went to lunch with the boss's wife," Melanie finished in a little rush of words.

"Ah, so that's it." Lydia smiled ruefully. "Sure. Let's all go to lunch together. Why not? I've got to eat to keep up my strength for my grand entrance at the ball tonight, anyway."

"Thanks, I appreciate this. Jack is going to get such a kick out of it."

"No problem. But under the circumstances, I insist you let me pay for the meal."

"No, really, that's okay."

"Forget it." She winked. "I'll put it on the Guild's tab."

Melanie blinked and then relaxed back into a cheerful smile. "Well, in that case, I think I'll make reservations at the Riverside Grill. It's one of the most expensive places in town. I've always wanted to eat there."

"Go for it," Lydia said.

"You know, what with shopping at Designs by Finella and eating at high-end restaurants, my social life has certainly become a lot more classy since you got this Guild boss-wife gig."

The phone on Lydia's desk rang a few minutes before noon. She reached for the instrument without taking her attention off a catalog of newly acquired antiquities being offered for sale by one of the more reliable galleries on Ruin Row.

The object that had caught her attention was an example of what the experts called a funerary column. No one knew for certain that the elaborately worked objects had actually been used in alien burial ceremonies but since they were often found in the vicinity of sarcophagi, they were presumed to be associated with death rituals. Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors specialized in the spooky and the morbid. The funerary urn would fit in nicely with the rest of the collection in the Tomb Wing.

"Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors, curator's office," she said, mentally calculating how low she could go on the offer for the funerary column.

"I'm calling for Lydia Smith." The woman on the other end sounded hesitant.

"This is Lydia."

"Are you the person who phoned the Old Frequency College alumni office trying to locate people who knew Troy Burgis?"

"Yes." Lydia closed the catalog quickly. "I am. Who is this?"

"Karen Price. I was a year behind Troy Burgis at Old Frequency College."

"Did you know him well?"

Karen made an irritated sound. "I don't think anyone knew Troy Burgis well. He was a very bizarre person."

"What was your connection to him?"

"My roommate was a member of his band."

"That would be Andrea Preston?"

"Yes. In addition to playing the harmonic flute in his band, she dated him. They were a very intense couple for a while. I met him a few times when he came to pick her up or bring her back to the dorm after a date."

"What was Burgis like?"

"To me he was sort of freakish, scary, even. But Andrea seemed to be fascinated by him."

"What made you think that Burgis was weird?"

There was a short pause on the other end before Karen said hesitantly, "First, will you tell me why you're interested in him?"

"Yes, of course. A former professor of his died from a drug overdose recently. I found a copy of a newspaper story about Burgis's disappearance in the professor's apartment. He had called me shortly before he died and left a message saying that he wanted to speak to me about an urgent matter. But I got there too late. I'm trying to put it all together, if you see what I mean."

"You think that maybe this urgent matter the professor wanted to discuss was related to the old clipping about Burgis?"

"I think it's a distinct possibility, yes."

"What was the name of this professor who OD'd?" Karen asked.

"Dr. Lawrence Maltby."

"Maltby. I remember him. He was with the Department of Para-archaeology at Old Freq. I took a couple of classes from him. Troy Burgis was in one of them. So was Andrea. That's how she and Burgis met, in fact. They started studying together. The next thing I knew, she was in his band and staying out all night with him. Evidently Burgis's idea of a hot date was to go down into the catacombs to have sex."

"Was Burgis a hunter? Did he like to de-rez a ghost or two before making love with his girlfriend?"

"No." Karen sounded surprised. "Burgis wasn't a ghost-hunter. He was a tangler. A very, very good one, according to Andrea, although he hadn't had any technical training. But, then, Andrea idolized him. She would have believed anything he said."

"What was Andrea like?"

Karen sighed. "Well, for starters she was incredibly beautiful. Sort of ethereal in a way. When she walked into a room, everyone turned to look at her. I remember feeling sorry for her, though, because she had been badly abused as a child and was completely estranged from her family. She was all alone in the world."

"Do you think she really loved Burgis?"

"Absolutely devoted to him. But I am equally positive that he did not love her. Burgis was obsessed with only two things. One of them was pulse-rock music. He went so far as to rent a studio so that his band could record a half dozen tapes, but they never caught the attention of any of the big music companies."

"What was his other obsession?"

"Vincent Lee Vance."

"Vance?" Lydia was so startled that she dropped the pen she had been using to make notes. It rolled off the desk and bounced on the floor. "The rebel leader?"

"I told you, Burgis was weird. When she first started dating him, Andrea spoke about him fairly freely. She said that Burgis was fascinated with Vance and the Era of Discord. He dreamed of finding Vance's first secret headquarters. If you recall your history lessons, it was supposedly located in the catacombs under Old Frequency."

"Right." Lydia leaned down and picked up the pen. "They think that he established two secret underground bunkers during the Era of Discord. The second site is thought to be lost somewhere in the tunnels around here."

According to the old legends, Vance and his lover-tangler, Helen Chandler, had fled to the second headquarters to commit suicide after the defeat at the Last Battle of Old Cadence. A lot of people had searched for the sites of both of Vance's headquarters in the past hundred years but neither had ever been found.

"Andrea told me that Burgis was determined to discover the first site," Karen said. "He spent a lot of time underground, untrapping tunnels in the unmapped sectors around Old Frequency."

"Going down into the catacombs alone night after night without proper equipment or a trained team would have been foolhardy. Even if Burgis was good enough to handle the traps, what did he do about the ghosts? He would have encountered any number of them in the unmapped sectors."

"Burgis usually took a couple of his friends with him, two guys who were also in the band. They were both strong dissonance-energy para-rezes although I don't think either of them joined the Guild to get formal training."

Lydia sat up very straight on the edge of her chair. "Jason Clark and Norman Fairbanks, by any chance?"

"How did you know their names?"

"According to the newspaper article, they were with him the day he disappeared."

"That's right, they were," Karen said slowly.

"What about your roommate, Andrea? Any chance you can put me in touch with her?"

There was a short, brittle silence.

"She's dead, Miss Smith."

"What?"

"She died in a boating accident a couple of months after Burgis vanished. At the time some of us believed that she had killed herself because of what happened to Burgis. As I said, she was devoted to him."

Lydia exhaled and sank back in her chair. "How sad."

"Yes," Karen's voice sharpened. "But, as it turned out, not a unique occurrence."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Andrea wasn't the only one who had a fatal accident after Burgis disappeared. In the next six months Norman Fairbanks and Jason Clark died, too. One suffered a terrible fall in the course of a hiking trip in the mountains and the other was killed in a fire."

Lydia swallowed. "Every member of Burgis's old band is dead? Are you serious?"

"Very serious. What's more, none of the bodies was ever found." Karen paused a beat. "Not that anyone looked very hard."

"What about the families? Didn't they demand an investigation?"

"There were no families to be concerned. You see, Burgis, Andrea, Jason Clark, and Norman Fairbanks all had one thing in common. None of them had any close relatives. Each was alone in the world."

"This is getting stranger by the minute."

"Yes." Karen's voice was flat and grim. "And that, Miss Smith, is the reason I called when the alumni secretary contacted me and said that you were asking questions about Troy Burgis. I thought you should know that people who got close to Burgis fifteen years ago tended to disappear."

"What do you think happened to Burgis and the members of his band, Karen?"

"I don't know and I don't want to find out. But if there is a mystery connected with those disappearances I can tell you one thing for certain. It had something to do with whatever it was Burgis found down there in the catacombs."

Lydia frowned. "Hang on here. Are you saying you think Burgis and his friends have been living underground for the past fifteen years? That's impossible. They would have to eat. They would need sunlight. No one could tolerate living in the catacombs full time for years on end."

"Maybe it would drive most normal people crazy, Miss Smith. But what I'm trying to tell you is that Troy Burgis was not normal. What's more, he had the ability to attract other lost-soul types, people who were searching for something or someone to believe in, people like Andrea and Jason Clark and Norman Fairbanks. Those three would have followed him anywhere."

Lydia studied her notes. "Looks like he didn't bother to make friends with every lost soul he came across, just a few who were useful to him. He obviously handpicked them: A beautiful woman to keep him company and two loyal hunters to act as bodyguards down in the catacombs."

"Exactly. Troy Burgis was one scary guy back in college. If he's still alive, he will be even more dangerous now."