After Glow

Chapter 2

He had known this would not be easy.

Three hours later Emmett watched Lydia de-rez the lock on the front door of her apartment. She had not said a word during the drive home following the formalities at Detective Martinez's office. The continuing silence was a bad sign. Lydia was normally never loathe to let him know exactly what she was thinking.

It was as though she was suffering some form of shock but he was not certain how to deal with it. For starters, he was not sure what had upset her the most, finding Maltby's body or the news that the man whose bed she was sharing on a fairly frequent basis was the temporary chief of the Cadence Guild.

He had the unpleasant feeling that it was the second piece of news that had made her go tense and silent.

Lydia was convinced that she had good reason not to trust ghost-hunters and she made no secret of her negative opinion of the Guild. That she was involved in an affair with him did not mean she had changed her mind on either point, he reminded himself.

And the fact that she had been quietly pursuing her own private investigation of the mystery of her Lost Weekend without asking for his help really pissed him off.

They were sleeping together, damn it. That meant they were supposed to discuss stuff before she ran around doing potentially dicey things like trying to find proof of criminal actions on the part of a couple of Guild men.

The fact that he would have put his foot down very heavily on such a project did not constitute grounds for keeping her plans to herself, he thought. In spite of her low opinion of the Guild, she probably didn't have a clue of the kind of risks she was running.

He had grown up in the Guild and he had controlled the Resonance City organization for six years. He knew the risks all too well.

The first thing to do was to get her talking again, he decided. This was a relationship. According to all the advice gurus, communication was important in a relationship.

He followed her into the cramped foyer of her small apartment, trying to think of a way to get the conversation going.

"All things considered," he said, shrugging out of his leather jacket, "I thought that went well."

She dropped her purse on a small table. "Neither of us is sitting in jail, if that's what you mean."

Okay, it was a start. At least she was speaking to him again.

A large wad of lint scampered across the floor on six unseen little legs. Two bright blue eyes sparkled innocently from the depths of a tangle of ratty-looking gray fur.

"Hello, Fuzz." Lydia scooped the dust-bunny up, kissed the top of his head, and settled him on her shoulder. "You don't know how glad I am to see you. I have had a very difficult day."

The dust-bunny blinked his cute azure eyes at Emmett, who was not fooled for a minute. He had seen Fuzz's second set of eyes, the ones he used for hunting at night. The little fluff ball looked as harmless as something that had been swept out from under the bed but at heart he was a highly efficient little predator. There was a saying about dust-bunnies. By the time you see the teeth, it's too late.

Fortunately he and Fuzz had discovered that they had a couple of things in common. One of them was Lydia.

"Lookin' good, Fuzz." Emmett ruffled the dust-bunny's fur and was rewarded with a humming sound. Fuzz, at least, was happy to see him.

"I'm going to get out of this business suit," Lydia announced. She turned down the hall toward the bedroom. "And then I'm going to have a glass of wine. Probably two glasses."

"I'll open a bottle," Emmett said, trying to sound helpful.

He spoke to thin air. She had already disappeared into the bedroom.

"Ghost-shit." This was not going well at all.

He went into the small kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and brooded for a while on the selection of items inside. Among the limited offerings was a carton of milk and some leftover macaroni-and-cheese casserole. On the top shelf was a bottle of the truly dreadful white wine that Lydia kept on hand. The stuff was, in his opinion, only a couple of steps above Green Ruin and Acid Aura, the beverages of choice among the derelicts and down-and-outers who drifted through the Old Quarter.

But there wasn't much choice so he hauled out the jug and set it down on the counter.

Lately he had managed to avoid having to drink Lydia's lousy wine because the two of them had been spending a lot of time at his new place a few blocks away. He not only had a better view of the Dead City from the terrace of his town house, he kept more palatable vintages on hand.

A few weeks ago when he had set out to find living space here in Cadence, he'd had his choice of properties. The real estate agent had tried to sell him one of the big gated estates up on Ruin View Hill. After all, money was not exactly an issue. He had made plenty of it while running the Resonance Guild and he had good instincts when it came to investments.

But he'd had a couple of major priorities when it came to housing. One of them was not wanting Mercer Wyatt and his wife, Tamara, for next-door neighbors. The other and far more important objective had been to be as close to Lydia as possible.

He figured that one month into this rocky relationship was probably way too soon to ask her to move in with him, let alone consider marriage, so he'd opted for proximity. That meant a house in the Old Quarter. Besides, he liked the vibes in the neighborhood.

The real estate agent had eventually given up trying to make him see the advantages of a mansion on the hill and had found him an attractive, post-Era of Discord town house that had been recently remodeled and redecorated.

Emmett had taken Lydia to the house one afternoon while he was considering the purchase just to see how she responded. The glow of delight in her lagoon blue eyes as she walked through the spacious rooms and out onto the terrace to see the glorious view of the Dead City had sealed the deal as far as he was concerned. She looked terrific in his house. Right at home.

He had been hoping that, in a month or two, the time would be right to point out how much money she could save if she gave up her cramped apartment and moved in with him. After that he had planned to ease her gently into the idea of getting married.

He would have preferred to go straight into a fullblown Covenant Marriage with all the legal and social bonds attached to such an alliance. Covenant Marriages were almost impossible to dissolve. Obtaining a divorce required teams of lawyers, a lot of money, and years of patience. And then there was the social stigma to live down.

Most people went first for the standard, easily renewable, one-year Marriage of Convenience to test the waters with a partner, although if someone accidentally got pregnant in an MC it was understood that the couple would immediately obtain a Covenant Marriage license.

The First Generation of colonists from Earth hadn't established the rigid strictures of Covenant Marriage because they had been a prudish lot; rather they had been a desperate lot. Two hundred years ago when the mysterious energy field in space known as the Curtain had opened, providing a gate between Earth and several other inhabitable worlds, the settlers had chosen to make their new homes on Harmony.

But shortly after they had established their colonial towns and villages, the energy field had vanished without any warning, stranding them. The Curtain had never reopened.

Cut off from all contact with Earth, with families separated from their home-planet relatives forever, the high-tech engineering and farming equipment falling apart because of a lack of replacement parts, the colonial leaders had buckled down and concentrated on drawing up plans that would ensure the survival of their communities.

In the effort to create a social structure that could withstand the unknown rigors and stresses that lay ahead, they had fashioned the Republic of City-States that bound all of the colonial cities on the planet into a single federation. They had then proceeded to craft the stern laws that governed Covenant Marriage.

A Marriage of Convenience was the great loophole in the law. It was designed for folks who wanted to rez a little wild, untuned amber before getting serious and for prudent couples who wished to try out a relationship before making an unbreakable commitment. But eventually mature, responsible adults were supposed to settle into a Covenant Marriage. After all these years it was still considered the cornerstone of a stable society.

As far as he was concerned, there was no need to do any trial runs with this relationship, Emmett thought. He couldn't envision a future without Lydia. He would have been happy to go straight into a Covenant Marriage. But he had known that he would be lucky to get her to agree to start with an MC.

Lydia had a lot of issues when it came to ghost-hunters. He had tried to distance himself from Guild politics as far as possible, but he knew that she still fretted about his connections to the organization.

Now, thanks to the near-fatal assault on Mercer Wyatt a few hours ago, there was no point in even raising the issue of marriage in the immediate future.

He poured two glasses of the evil white wine and put the bottle back in the refrigerator. There was no sound from the bedroom. Lydia had had plenty of time to change into a pair of jeans and a sweater. What was keeping her?

Fuzz tumbled silently into the kitchen and looked up at him from the floor. The dust-bunny bobbed anxiously.

"What is it, pal? Want a pretzel?" Emmett removed the lid of the jar. Dust-bunnies were omnivorous. Lydia usually fed Fuzz whatever she had fixed for herself. But when it came to snacks, he had a pronounced taste for pretzels.

But Fuzz ignored the pretzel. Instead he made an odd noise, a sound that was very close to a tiny growl.

"Okay, no pretzel." Emmett replaced the lid of the jar. "Something wrong, buddy?"

A tremor passed over Fuzz's fur. He looked as if he was trying to bristle, not an easy thing for a ball of lint to do. Then he bounced a couple of times, turned and scampered a few feet back toward the bedroom, halted and tumbled back into the kitchen. He bristled some more.

"Right." Emmett picked up the two glasses of wine. "You want to play the Find Lydia game, is that it?"

Fuzz drifted swiftly back down the hall toward the bedroom.

Emmett followed warily. They had played this game many times in recent weeks both indoors and outside on the street or in a nearby park. Fuzz loved it. The rules were simple. Emmett would look at Fuzz and say, find Lydia, and Fuzz would rush off gleefully to lead him to wherever she happened to be at that moment.

But this time there was a sense of urgency in Fuzz's demeanor that was new.

At the doorway to the bedroom Emmett paused, trying to get a handle on the situation before he made a move.

Lydia stood at the window, her back turned toward him. She was still in her severely tailored, skirted business suit. She hadn't even removed the jacket. Her face was in her hands and her shoulders were shaking.

His insides turned to ice. He had seen Lydia in a lot of moods, including angry, passionate, happy, and scared. He had seen her confront energy ghosts, a murderer, and Mercer Wyatt's ambitious wife, Tamara, all without flinching. But in the short time he had known her, he had never seen Lydia in tears.

Fuzz hopped up on the windowsill near Lydia and huddled there, peering at Emmett with an air of agitated expectation. Dust-bunny body language for do something, probably.

Sorry, pal, Emmett thought. I haven't got a clue how to deal with this.

But he sure as hell could not continue to just stand here watching Lydia sob quietly into her fingers. She was tearing the heart out of him.

"Lydia? Honey?" He put the wineglasses down on the dresser and went to stand behind her.

She sniffed a couple of times. The tears continued to flow. Aware that he was way out of his depth, he seized a couple of tissues from the box on the nightstand and pushed them into her hands.

Lydia took the tissues from him without comment and blew her nose. Unable to think of anything else to do, Emmett gave her more tissues.

She dabbed at her eyes and took a deep breath. He put his hands on her shoulders from behind and massaged gently.

The flood of tears eventually subsided but she did not turn around. Instead she gazed fixedly out the window at the old building across the street. She sniffed a couple more times.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I hate when this happens."

"It's okay." He continued to knead her tense shoulders. "You've got a right. It's been a rough day."

"You think so? Gosh, I only came across one dead body, went through a police interrogation, and found out that you are now the chief of the Cadence Guild. Just an ordinary day." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "No good reason that I can see to break down in tears."

He winced. "It's the last item on the list that made you cry, isn't it? The fact that I've agreed to take over the Guild on a temporary basis."

"Why did you do it, Emmett?" she asked starkly.

"It's… complicated," he said.

"Tell me one thing. Does it involve Tamara Wyatt?"

The question surprised him. "Hell, no. Tamara has nothing to do with this."

"She's your ex-fiancée. She ended the engagement and married Mercer Wyatt when she found out that you were going to step down as boss of the Resonance Guild. And now you've just taken over the Cadence Guild, her husband's job. You two have a lot of history."

"Whatever Tamara and I had together ended when she made it clear that she wanted to be the wife of a Guild chief more than she wanted to be my wife. I told you that the night you met her."

"If this isn't about Tamara, what is it about? Is the old saying true? Once a Guild man, always a Guild man?"

"The Cadence Guild is in a very delicate situation right now," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Wyatt says he's preparing to step down in another year or two. He claims he is committed to modernizing the organization along the same lines as the Resonance Guild before he leaves office."

"You really think he intends to turn the Cadence Guild into a respectable business enterprise with a board of directors and an elected CEO at the top? After running the organization with an iron fist for over three decades? Give me a break."

"Wyatt is nothing if not a cold-eyed pragmatist." Emmett wondered, even as he spoke the words, why he was bothering to try to defend the boss of the Cadence Guild. Probably because he had just agreed to take over the job himself, he thought. Deep down he had been praying that when Lydia found out what had happened she wouldn't consign him to the same category as Wyatt, that she wouldn't conclude that he really was a low-life mobster.

"I agree he's probably one heck of a realist," Lydia muttered.

"He is genuinely concerned with the future of the Guild. He took a good hard look at the current position of the organization and realized that the Cadence Guild must change if it wants to stay relevant."

"Hah."

"Wyatt admits that he's having trouble attracting and keeping good, well-qualified hunters. There was a time when a talented dissonance-energy para-rez signed up with the Guild for life. Now a lot of them join for a few years, make some quick money ghost-hunting, and then get out in order to enter a more respectable profession." He hesitated. "That's especially true for hunters who want to marry outside the Guild."

"Uh-huh."

She didn't say anything else, but there was no need for further comment, he thought. They were both well aware of the facts. Ever since they had been established during the Era of Discord, the hunters' Guilds had operated as closed, insular societies with their own traditions and their own rules. Historically, if you were raised in a Guild family, the odds were very high that you would choose a spouse from another Guild family.

"Wyatt wants to change the image of the Cadence Guild," he said. "His goal is to turn it into a professional business organization."

"The way you did with the Resonance Guild?"

He wasn't sure where she was going to go with that. Her tone was a little too neutral for his peace of mind.

"That's the general idea," he said.

"No offense, but Wyatt seems to be off to a rather poor start, what with nearly getting himself murdered this morning." She blew her nose into a tissue. "That sort of thing isn't good for the professional image, you know. Tends to make people think in terms of gangland feuds and mob boss rivalries."

He said nothing. He had no more arguments to give her.

She sniffled again, blotted up the last of her tears, and wadded up the tissue. "You're supposed to be a business consultant now, Emmett."

"I am a business consultant. As far as I'm concerned this job with the Guild is just that, a short-term consulting position."

"If you go back into the Guild, you may not get out a second time."

Very deliberately he took his hands off her shoulders. "And if I return to the Guild, you'll end our relationship? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"No." She whirled around, eyes glittering with sudden fury and outrage. "I'm trying to tell you that the idea of you running the Cadence Guild, even for a few weeks, scares me more than all the illusion traps and energy ghosts in the Dead City, that's what I'm trying to tell you."

He felt his own temper start to slip. "Does the thought of sleeping with a Guild boss offend your delicate sensibilities so much? I figured that you and I had something more going on than just a casual fling."

"Don't act dense."

"Sorry, but it's not an act. I feel dense at the moment. I'm also real tired of playing guessing games. Why don't you tell me exactly why you're crying? Keep it simple. Short sentences and no more than two syllables, okay? After all, I'm a hunter, remember? I don't do big words."

"Fine," She threw up her hands. "You want to know why I'm crying? I'm crying because I'm terrified that if you take Mercer Wyatt's position, whoever tried to murder him last night will try to get rid of you, too. I'm scared to death that if you take over the Cadence Guild, you'll be putting yourself in grave danger." Tears welled up in her eyes once more. "And I can't bear to think about what I would do if you got hurt or worse."

He stared, dumbfounded, at the fresh tears running down her face. "That's why you're so upset? You think whoever went after Wyatt will come after me?"

She swiped her eyes with her sleeve and nodded mutely.

"Ah, honey."

He stopped, not sure how to proceed. He had been braced to hear her tell him that she would break off their relationship if he took over the Guild. He had been so intently focused on arguments designed to convince her to tolerate the situation for a short period of time that he could not wrap his brain around this other thing. She had dissolved into a puddle because she feared for his safety?

He could not recall the last time anyone had been overly concerned about his health and well-being. Back in Resonance it was understood that he could take care of himself.

Admittedly, over the years he had managed to reduce a couple of previous lovers to tears but the aggrieved parties had always made it clear that the reason was the usual masculine sin of failing to understand and respond properly to a woman's needs. None of those old lovers had ever cried because she was concerned that he might get hurt or killed.

Relief and a strange sense of satisfaction surged through him. Lydia was worried about him.

"It's okay," he said. "There's no reason to be concerned about me. What happened to Wyatt looks like something personal, not Guild politics."

"Is that right?" She turned away to grab another handful of tissues. "How do you know that?"

"I'll explain later. Right now I've got something more important to do."

She dabbed a few more tears and glowered at him over her shoulder. "Such as?"

He smiled slowly and reached out to pull her back into his arms.

"Such as this," he said.

He caught her face in both hands and raised her mouth to his. She stiffened. And then, with a soft, muffled cry, she practically leaped on him, wrapping her arms very tightly around his neck, holding on as if she was afraid that he would slip away from her.

"Emmett."

Everything in him went from zero to full-rez in a rush. Desire swept through him, heating his blood and making him heavy and restless with need.

He had intended a gentle, soothing embrace, a few cuddles and kisses designed to calm her and reassure her. But her sudden, impassioned response sent any gentlemanly plans he might have had up in smoke.

"Okay, this works, too," he whispered against her throat.

He pulled her with him down onto the bed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fuzz tumble off the windowsill and scamper across the carpet. The little ball of dryer lint drifted out of the bedroom and disappeared discreetly down the hall. Probably embarrassed him, Emmett thought.

He turned his attention back to Lydia, who had landed on top of him and was straddling his thighs. The position had forced her skirt high above her knees.

"Promise me you'll be careful." She unbuckled his belt.

"I'll be careful."

She unfastened his shirt. "Promise me you won't take any chances."

Acid green ghost light danced at the edge of his vision. It winked out quickly only to be followed by another shower of sparkling energy. Flickers, he thought; the little flashes of unstable dissonance energy often appeared when he and Lydia made love.

Psi energy leaked and whispered out of small cracks, hidden openings, and invisible vents in the ancient green quartz walls that surrounded the ruins in this part of town. Often, when he found himself highly aroused with Lydia the wavelengths of his sexual energy resonated with the stuff. The result was the small bursts of harmless ghost light that winked out as quickly as they appeared.

"Right," he muttered, crumpling her skirt up around her waist. He touched the crotch of her panties. She was already damp. Satisfaction roared through him. "No chances." Except with you, he added silently. Loving Lydia was far and away the biggest risk he had ever taken.

She released him from the prison of his zipper. Her fingers slid along the underside of that part of him that was now rock hard. When she cupped him he stopped breathing for a few seconds.

She flattened herself on top of him, threading her fingers through the hair on his chest and kissing him with her mouth open.

Energy stirred and shimmered in the air around them. Not ghost light, just a frisson of sensation. Lydia was the source this time, he realized, although he didn't think she was aware of the invisible currents shifting across the bed.

She was an ephemeral-energy para-resonator, otherwise known as an illusion trap tangler. Her para-talents took a different form than his own. She could not summon ghost light, but she could de-rez the dangerous snares of illusion shadow that the long-vanished aliens had left behind to guard their secrets in the ruins. She was the best tangler he had ever worked with, he thought. When it came to wielding raw psi power she was, in her own way, as strong as he was.

She slithered down his body, touching him with the tip of her tongue at various points along the way. He realized where she was headed and knew that if he didn't gain control of the situation he would lose it before he got to his own favorite destination.

He rolled her onto her back. With a few efficient moves he got himself out of his pants and shoes. When he came down on top of her, anticipation had seared away all coherent thought.

He unfastened her jacket and then her blouse and took one sweet, ripe nipple between his teeth.

Her eyes were bottomless pools of intense blue by the time he had finished undressing her. He bent his head and kissed her until she was shifting and twisting beneath him, until she moaned. The soft sound of her need was the sweetest music he had ever heard.

He settled between her warm thighs. The scent of her passion sharpened his need until he could think of nothing else but losing himself inside her.

Ghost light sparked again when he found his way into her tight, wet heat. She raised her hips to take him deeper. He felt her fingers rake his back beneath his unbuttoned shirt.

He stroked into her and her body clenched. He thrust again, very slowly this time, withdrawing almost completely. She gave a little scream. He sank himself to the hilt. She convulsed around him.

Her climax rippled through her, drawing him inexorably toward his own release.

He held on until the last instant and then he let the power of her orgasm sweep him away.

Although some instinct compelled him to try to master the flow of sexually charged energy that pulsed between them, in the end, he was never sure if he had accomplished his goal. When he was with Lydia the white hot boundary between surrender and control was impossible to define.