Bridal Jitters

Chapter 2

He did not sleep well that night. It was not the noise from the crowds in the street or the whispers of Dead City psi energy that kept him awake. It was the realization that Virginia was getting ready to tell him that she did not want to go through with the marriage. He knew it as surely as he knew that when she called off the engagement, his world was going to become as bleak and gray as the tide of fog that had boiled up out of the river.

He rolled out of bed at dawn, shaved, showered, and dressed for the meeting with Ewert. He was still mulling over various means of convincing Virginia that the MC was a terrific idea when he went downstairs to collect the morning edition of the Cadence Star. He opened the front door and was greeted by a wall of gray mist. The fog was so thick that it had blotted out the early-morning sun, creating an artificial twilight that looked as if it would last all day.

Perfect Halloween weather.

He shrugged off the fog. It would not affect today's job. He and Virginia would be working underground in the catacombs. Down below in the endless miles of glowing green corridors, there was no day or night.

He saw the small package on the step just as he started to reach for the newspaper. A faint hiss of all-too-familiar psi energy whispered through his para senses in silent warning.

"Damn." Hell of a way to start the day.

He crouched on his heels to get a closer look at the square object wrapped in brown paper. It was addressed to Gage & Burch Consulting. There was no return address. He did not pick it up.

"Something wrong, Sam?" Virginia called out from halfway down the stairs.

"An unscheduled delivery." He did not take his eyes off the package.

"What is it?"

"I think you'd better take a look at this. If I'm right, it falls into your area of expertise, not mine."

She descended the rest of the stairs quickly and hurried across the wide front hall to the door. She came to a halt beside him and looked at the package.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Uh-oh."

"I hate it when you use that professional jargon." He glanced at her. "What do you think?

"The same thing you're thinking, I imagine. It's an illusion trap. I can feel the energy pattern. Someone left us a nasty little trick. I'll bet it was some idiot who had one too many bottles of Green Ruin to drink last night. Probably thought it would be a great Halloween prank."

"I think he'll change his mind when I find him," Sam said softly.

Virginia glanced at him, frowning slightly. "Don't worry, it's just a small trap."

"Can you de-rez it?"

"Does amber resonate? Of course I can de-rez it. But I'm not going to do it out here on the front step. Let's take it into the kitchen."

She reached down and scooped up the box with a nonchalance that made Sam wince. He followed her into the big kitchen at the back of the house and watched her set the box down on the scarred counter.

"You might want to stand back a little," she said as she clipped the string. "Just in case."

"We're partners, remember?" He moved closer to the counter.

She smiled as she began to unwrap the package. "Yes, but you've never seen me work. I wouldn't blame you for being a tad cautious. Even small, simple illusion traps can be very unpleasant if they aren't untangled properly."

"I've spent a lot of time underground and I've worked with some clumsy tanglers. I've caught the flashback from an accidentally sprung trap more than once."

"Well, there won't be any flashback this time. You have my personal guarantee."

Her cool, professional arrogance amused him. He watched her peel away the brown paper. A small cardboard box was revealed. With a good deal more caution than she had exercised a moment ago, she raised the lid and gazed inside.

"Well, well, well," she murmured. She sounded as cheerful as if she had just received a bouquet of flowers.

Personally, he could think of a number of other things he would rather find on his doorstep first thing in the morning besides an illusion trap. But if the challenge of de-rezzing it lifted Virginia's spirits and gave her something else to think about besides calling off their marriage, he might be willing to overlook the prank.

"What is it?" he asked.

"A very nice piece." She angled the box to allow him a closer look at the object inside. "A little unguent jar. Museum quality. Not spectacular, but quite excellent. It would bring a good price in a gallery. I can't imagine anyone in his right mind wasting it just to play a vicious Halloween trick."

Sam eyed the small green quartz jar. It was elegantly rounded in a shape that was not quite comfortable for a human hand. The top was carved in an airy, fanciful design similar to many he had seen in the course of his career. The art and sculpture left behind by the long-vanished Harmonics always reminded him of the Old Earth poet Goethe's description of architecture: frozen music.

"You're right," he said. "It's not unique, but it's definitely valuable. Whoever our prankster is, he must be a wealthy collector if he could afford to use an artifact worth a couple of grand just to pull off a Halloween stunt."

An illusion trap had to be anchored to an artifact or to old green quartz from the ruins.

"Probably too drunk to realize what he was doing." Virginia carefully lifted the top of the jar and peered into the dark interior. "Okay, here we go. It's a simple pattern. This won't take long."

"Easy for you to say." He looked down into the shadows inside the little unguent jar. The darkness there was not normal. There was a dense quality to it, the only visible warning of the tiny trap. In the eerie glow of the green catacombs of the Dead City it was all too easy for a member of an excavation team to mistake illusion dark for ordinary shadow, but here in the brightly lit kitchen, the difference was obvious to the trained eye.

Obvious, but no less dangerous.

He had seen other tanglers work, but this was the first time he had watched Virginia in action. She'd only had a handful of clients during the time she had been renting office space from him, and she had dealt with them on her own.

He felt psi energy spark and shiver in the air. Very high-rez. He was impressed. She was as powerful as her academic credentials claimed.

Technically speaking, she was an ephemeral-energy para-resonator; a tangler in common parlance. With the aid of the specially tuned amber that she wore in her earrings, she could focus her particular type of paranormal energy in a way that allowed her to neutralize the vicious and sometimes deadly illusion traps. The wicked snares were one of the hazards of para-archaeological work in the alien ruins. The vast majority of tanglers became para-archaeologists. It was one of two natural career paths, the second being the illegal antiquities market.

An illusion trap was tricky. Once tripped, it released a web of ephemeral psi energy in an alien nightmare that enveloped the mind of the unlucky person who had triggered it. No two traps produced the same harrowing visions. Some were simple to de-rez, especially the really old ones. But in later Harmonic traps, the energy had been woven into complex patterns that defied all but the most skilled tanglers.

No one who had ever survived the experience of being caught in an illusion trap's web could ever fully describe the nightmares. Sam had sensed enough on the occasions when he had been zapped with some of the flashback energy from a poorly sprung trap to know that the visions were composed of unimaginable colors and a vertigo-inspiring darkness. The experts claimed that the nightmares lasted only a few minutes before the human brain sought refuge in unconsciousness. The resulting coma, however, could last for hours or days. When the victim eventually awakened, he or she invariably suffered an amnesia that cloaked most memories of the event. Some never recovered completely. They tended to end up in the para-psych wards of mental institutions. Others were so traumatized they could never work underground again.

No one knew why the Harmonics had booby trapped their underground catacombs. Whoever their enemies had been, they were as long gone as those who had set snares for them.

"Got it," Virginia said with soft satisfaction. She took a breath and looked up from the jar. "Didn't even heat up my amber. It's clean."

"Nice job." He picked up the jar and turned it in his hands, examining it from every angle. The fizz of malign energy that had warned him of the trap had ceased. The trap could be reset by a skilled tangler, but unless that was done, the unguent jar was safe to handle.

He looked down into the interior. The unnatural, viscous shadow was gone. In its place was the ordinary darkness one expected to find in the interior of any small vessel. There was also something else inside the little jar. He pulled out a square of folded paper.

Virginia frowned. "It looks like a note."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? Maybe our prankster wants to brag. Thoughtful of him to provide a clue." He unfolded the paper and read aloud the single sentence typed on it. ' "Happy Halloween. The ghosts and goblins are real in the catacombs this week. Stay out. This will be your only warning."

"What in the world?"

"Not real original," Sam remarked.

Virginia snatched the paper from his hand. "Let me see that." Her brows drew together in a stern line as she read it silently. Then she looked at him. "What do you think this is all about?"

"I think," Sam said, "that one of Mac Ewert's competitors doesn't want us to go to work for him. Wouldn't be the first time a rival has tried to scare off another team's consultants."

"Huh." She dropped the note into the trash. "Obviously whoever sent this doesn't realize who they're dealing with. The firm of Gage & Burch doesn't get scared off that easily."

Sam saw the gutsy determination in her eyes and smiled. For some reason he suddenly felt a lot more optimistic about his marriage prospects than he had when he had come downstairs earlier.

"Damndest thing I've ever seen." Mac Ewert ran a blunt-fingered hand through his thinning gray hair. "I've heard of waterfalls, but I've been mapping catacombs for twenty years, and this is the first one I've ever run into."

"They're rare," Sam agreed. "But I think we can handle it for you."

Virginia felt her jaw drop. She barely managed to conceal her shock. She was amazed by Sam's casual response to Ewert's announcement. They were going to have to de-rez a waterfall? She almost groaned aloud. Of all the bad luck. This was just what they did not need for their first time out as the new firm of Gage & Burch; a nearly impossible assignment. She was the one who had taken the call yesterday morning from Mac. He had certainly not mentioned anything about a waterfall.

She reminded herself that waterfalls fell into Sam's area of expertise. She had to admire him for projecting an image of professional confidence, but she seriously doubted that he'd had any experience with waterfalls. Few people had.

She had read about them, of course. They were described in the textbooks as unique cascades of unstable dissonance-energy manifestations—ghosts—that could block entire corridors. Unlike most UDEMs, they did not drift aimlessly through the underground tunnels of the Dead City. Instead, they were anchored in one place, forming impenetrable walls of seething psi energy that could fry anyone dumb enough to get too close. Little was known about them because so few had been discovered. Those that had been found had been de-rezzed by teams of very expensive, highly specialized experts, not by small-time security consultants. Sam would be on his own with this one. Her name was now on the newly repainted door of the office, but that didn't mean she could help him with the waterfall. This was a job for a ghost-hunter. A really, really good ghost-hunter. All she could do was cheer him on.

Ewert gave Sam a look of mingled desperation and aggressive demand. "Think you can handle it, Gage? This project is already running behind schedule. I've had one delay after another in the tunnels during the past month. I can't afford any more."

"I'll take a look," Sam said. "I can give you a firm answer as soon as I examine it."

Ewert planted his hands on his desk and glanced at the khaki-and-leather clad man who lounged against the wall. "Leon, here, doesn't think any single hunter can deactivate it. He tells me I'm going to have to contract with the guild for a team of specialists. Trouble is, my budget won't stretch that far."

"It's big," Leon drawled. "More ghost energy than I've ever seen in one place and I've been working underground for damn near fifteen years."

Virginia glanced at him. Leon Drummond was the Ewert team's ghost-hunter. He was working on a standard guild contract. He had made it clear that he resented having a private consultant brought in to handle the waterfall problem.

Leon was everything that gave ghost-hunters a bad name, as far as Virginia was concerned. He was arrogant, macho, ill-mannered, and he had poor taste in clothes. His oversized belt buckle was studded with so much amber that if he ever fell into the river, she was pretty sure that he would sink like a stone.

"Like I said, I can give you an answer after I've had a look at the waterfall," Sam said calmly.

"Suit yourself," Leon muttered.

Ewert leaned wearily back in his chair. "Leon will take you to the site. I can't allow anyone else into that corridor until the waterfall is cleared. Too dangerous. For God's sake, don't do anything stupid. If you and Miss Burch can't handle it, just say so. My insurance won't cover any lawsuits."

Sam nodded as he got to his feet. "We'll keep that in mind. Ready, Virginia?"

If nothing else, this was going to be interesting, she thought. Not many people got an opportunity to see a real ghost-energy waterfall. In spite of her misgivings, anticipation rose within her.

"Ready," she said.

With a shrug, Leon managed to straighten himself away from the office wall. He turned and sauntered out through the door without a word. Sam and Virginia followed him outside to where the utility vehicle waited.

The eerie green glow given off by the emerald-hued quartz that lined the alien catacombs always had the same effect on Virginia: It sent a tiny chill of dread and wonder down her spine. The sensation was not a thrill of fear exactly; more a deep, elemental response to that which was not human. She had grown up in the very shadow of the ancient ruins, and she had been aware of her own psychic response to the peculiar energy that resonated within its walls since childhood. But she did not think that she would ever be entirely comfortable in the mysterious tunnels. Some part of her would always feel like an intruder here.

No one knew what the ancient Harmonics had looked like. No pictures or records of physical descriptions had ever been found. None of the art that had survived depicted the vanished beings who had created it. No one could even guess why Harmony's original inhabitants had built these endless miles of catacombs, most of which had never been charted. But one thing was certain: The business of exploring, mapping, and excavating relics from the ruins was big. And the competition could be fierce.

Virginia sat next to Sam on the second bench of the small, open-sided utility truck. Leon Drummond took the wheel, piloting the vehicle through the maze of intersecting corridors with the aid of an amber-rez locator. He had remained sullenly silent since leaving Ewert's office.

Sam had not had much to say, either. Virginia studied him out of the corner of her eye. He was playing it cool, she thought. But, then, Sam always played it cool. If he had any doubts about confronting a dangerous waterfall of unstable dissonant energy, he did not allow them to show.

Virginia wanted to ask him why he had not mentioned the illusion trap they had found on their doorstep that morning to Mac Ewert, but she was not about to bring up the subject in front of Leon Drummond.

There was another, more personal matter that she had not yet gotten around to this morning, either, she reminded herself: marriage. She had promised herself that she would tell Sam about her growing doubts, but then had come the business of the illusion trap, and after that they'd had to hurry in order to make the meeting with Ewert.

What with one thing and another, she had found excuses not to deal with the issue of their marriage.

She glanced at the glowing green maw of an intersecting corridor as Leon drove past. There was a warning sign posted at the entrance. Keep Out. Unmapped Zone. Sort of like her engagement, she thought. Another little chill went through her, but this time it had nothing to do with the alien catacombs. She would talk to Sam this evening, she promised herself. Right after they had finished this consulting project.

She could not put it off another day. Her nerves couldn't take the stress.

She studied the quartz walls as the utility truck traveled along the corridor. The endless green stone passages were interrupted here and there by small, slightly less than human-sized openings that, she knew from experience, led to chambers. Most of the rooms and anterooms discovered in the underground regions of the ancient city were small, but some vast, exotic spaces had been found. Explorers had untrapped chambers so large and elegantly proportioned that many para-archaeologists assumed they had been used for ceremonial functions or royal tombs. But they could just as easily have been employed as underground aircraft hangers for all anyone knew.

Twenty minutes later, Leon slowed the cab and turned into the entrance of a branching tunnel. Virginia caught a glimpse of another warning sign. Keep Out: UDEM Ahead.

Leon brought the cab to a halt and finally deigned to speak. "'The waterfall is down that corridor on the right.

The announcement was unnecessary. The pulsing, acid-green light of the unnaturally large concentration of ghost energy was already visible. It throbbed at the entrance of the corridor. Virginia gazed at it, amazed. She had never seen that much ghost light in one place in her entire career. She. could only guess at the size of the UDEM itself. It was still out of sight around the corner.

Beside her, Sam moved. He got out of the cab and walked toward the entrance of the branching corridor. His hard face was etched in lines of concentration and keen anticipation. He was looking forward to this, Virginia thought. Well, what else had she expected? He was a ghost-hunter, after all, and this was undoubtedly the most dangerous, most challenging energy specter he had ever been called upon to de-rez. She would probably be feeling the same excitement if they were confronting a particularly complex illusion trap.

Sam paused at the entrance of the tunnel. He glanced back at her over his shoulder "Wait here. I'm going to take a closer look.

Leon draped his arms on the steering wheel and watched Sam disappear around the corner into the pulsing green light. "This won't take long. Once he sees the size of that thing, he'll be back. He'd have to be a fool to try to tackle that sucker on his own.

Virginia did not like his tone. The last thing she wanted to do was wait here with Leon.

"I'm going with him." She hopped lightly down from the truck.

Leon scowled. "Are you a hunter, too?"

"No, I'm a tangler."

"This ain't no job for a tangler," Leon said. "That's a ghost in there, not some wimpy little illusion trap."

Virginia ignored him. She went quickly toward the tunnel entrance. When she rounded the corner, she was nearly blinded by the fierce, oddly cold glare. She narrowed her eyes against the intense glow and saw Sam. He was silhouetted in front of a cascading wall of pure green energy the waterfall.

It was an astonishing sight. Light tumbled, swirled, and flowed in oceanlike waves that poured in an endlessly circulating fountain from ceiling to floor and back again. The wall of churning energy blocked the entire corridor, which was narrower than most. The interior dimensions were much smaller than those of the outer tunnel where Leon Drummond waited in the truck.

For some reason, the silence of the waterfall struck Virginia as strange, even though she had seen enough ghosts in her time to know that there was rarely much noise associated with them. A few pops and crackles and the occasional hiss of the ice-cold energy constituted the usual range of the sound effects. "It really does look like a waterfall, ' she exclaimed as she went forward to join Sam. "You'd almost expect to see a river or a pool of psi energy forming at the bottom."

Sam frowned at her. "I thought I told you to wait in the truck."

"Not a chance." She gazed at the tumbling green waves. "We're a team, remember?"

"This isn't illusion energy."

"Right. You're the expert on this stuff. I'll just supervise."

He hesitated. "I've always worked alone."

"Not anymore." She turned toward him. "It was your idea to merge our businesses, remember?

He gave her an odd look. "Yeah. I remember."

She turned back to the cascades of green fire. "Well? What's your professional opinion, Mr. Ghost-Hunter? Can you handle it?"

Sam did not answer immediately, but his eyes gleamed in the reflected glow. His mouth curved slightly.

"Does amber resonate?" he asked with just a hint of old-fashioned ghost-hunter arrogance. "Yeah, I can handle it. But I'll have to de-rezz it one section at a time."

"Why?"

"Because it's not really one large ghost. It's composed of a number of smaller UDEMs that have been linked to create the waterfall effect."

"Aha. That makes sense. Whoever did this also figured out how to anchor it in place, too, like an illusion trap. I've never heard of a ghost that didn't just drift aimlessly."

Sam moved a little closer to the waterfall. "It's old. Very, very old. Probably been here for eons."

"I can believe it." Virginia shivered. "I'm sure the ancients knew a lot of Halloween tricks that we humans will uncover the hard way."

"Might as well get to work." Sam walked slowly across the width of the tunnel, as though measuring the breadth of the waterfall. He came to a halt at one side.

Virginia felt the invisible rush of human psi energy. A lot of it. She had seen Sam work before but never on a project that demanded so much para-talent. She took a respectful step back, not wanting to get in his way or disturb his concentration. De-rezzing this monster ghost was going to take a great deal of focused psi power.

Silence hummed for a few minutes.

Waterfall light flared, glinting off Sam's strong cheekbones. The green glare transformed the hard planes and angles of his face into an eerie, menacing mask. He gazed, seemingly riveted by the waterfall.

It was probably because he was concentrating so intently on the job at hand that she was the one who heard the high-pitched whine of the utility truck's engine first. She glanced back over her shoulder, surprised to see that Leon had braved the corridor, after all.

The small truck barreled toward where she stood with Sam in front of the waterfall. It was moving quickly; too quickly. She put up a hand to warn Leon to halt.

Then she realized that Leon was not at the wheel. No one was in the open-sided truck. Someone had rezzed the engine, slammed it into gear, and sent it hurtling down the narrow corridor toward Sam and her. It was a tight fit. Assuming the vehicle continued to travel in a straight line, there would be only a foot of clearance on either side. With a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach, she realized that even if they could flatten themselves into that small space, it would do them no good. When the truck slammed into the energy waterfall, there would be an explosion. The flashback of ghost energy would crash over them. If they survived the experience, the tide of raw alien energy would fry their brains. She and Sam would not be able to do much more than sit in front of a rez-screen watching sitcoms twenty-four hours a day for the rest of their lives.

If they survived. And that was a very big if.

"Sam.

He swung around, taking in the situation in a single glance.

"Sonofabitch." He scooped her up in his arms. "Hang on. Tight."

She wanted to argue, but there didn't seem to be much point. There was no place to run. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest, filling her senses with the scent of him one last time. If they were going to go, she couldn't think of anyone she would rather go with than Sam.

"I love you," she whispered into his shirt.

But she knew that he had not heard her. For one thing, the utility truck was almost upon them now. The fully rezzed engine was screaming too loudly to make even normal levels of conversation possible.

The second thing that made a dramatic farewell impossible was that Sam was projecting an enormous amount of psi energy. She could feel it enveloping her as he held her tightly against his chest. So much power required the use of all of his internal resources, both physical and paranormal. The last thing he could do at that moment was pay attention to what she had muttered into his shirt. It was a wonder he had the strength to hold her in his arms.

She heard the whine of the swiftly advancing truck, felt Sam tighten his arms fiercely around her, and then, impossibly, she was suddenly aware of being surrounded by a rushing sea of alien energy. Ghost energy.

She realized that Sam had chosen to escape the utility truck by leaping through the waterfall with her in his arms.

The acid-green waterfall washed over her in a giant wave. She braced herself for the searing mind burn but, incredibly, the energy did not touch her. She could feel the weight of it pressing on her from all sides, sensed the raw power that seethed in the cascade, but it did not touch her. It was as if she was protected by an invisible envelope.

The world whirled on its axis. She felt a jarring thud that took her breath. She heard Sam grunt and then she felt the cool green quartz beneath her. She realized that they had both landed on the floor of the corridor—on the other side of the waterfall.

Sam rolled with her in his arms, carrying her to the edge of the tunnel. They came up hard against the quartz wall.

Sam released her and got to his feet. He swung around to face the cascade of green energy. Dazed, Virginia sat up slowly, pushing hair out of her eyes. She stared at the waterfall. Sam had carried her through that mass of alien energy. Without a scratch.

Unless, of course, this was how you felt after your brain got fried. Maybe her mind hadn't yet assimilated the fact of its own destruction. Perhaps a lifetime of sitcoms still awaited her. Heaven help her, maybe she would actually enjoy them.

Before she could mention that awful possibility to Sam, she heard the explosion on the other side of the UDEM waterfall. She knew what had happened because she had seen similar events, albeit on a far smaller scale. The utility truck had slammed into the energy wall and been bounced back like a rubber ball. The inevitable blast that accompanied the meeting of an immovable object and an unstoppable vehicle had taken place at the point of impact on the other side of the waterfall.

Here on the back side of the energy cascade, it was business as usual. There was no backwash of energy.

A stunning silence descended. Nothing broke it except the occasional hiss and crackle produced by the tumbling fountain of ghost energy.

"You did it." Virginia tore her gaze off the waterfall and looked at Sam. "You got us through it in one piece. How in the name of Old Earth did you manage it?

"I didn't try to de-rez the whole damn waterfall. Just neutralized a section big enough to allow us to pass through for about thirty seconds." He spoke absently, as if his thoughts were on something else that was far more important. "Couldn't hold it any longer than that. At least not while I—" He broke off.

"You mean, you couldn't de-rez it for more than a few seconds and carry me through it at the same time," she said. "You don't have to spell it out. I know how much psi power that little leap through the waterfall must have cost you. I must have felt as heavy as that damn truck in your arms."

His brows rose. "A gentleman never calls attention to a lady's weight."

"I appreciate that." She frowned. "You must have melted your amber.

He glanced at his ring. "Yeah, it's fused. I've got a backup chunk, but I won't be able to use it for a while."

She looked around warily. The section of corridor in which they stood looked very much like the section on the other side of the waterfall. The same pale, luminous green glow infused the impermeable quartz. Here and there she caught the telltale trace of illusion shadow that marked the concealed door to a hidden room or antechamber. The dizzying maze of intersecting tunnels stretched out ahead as far as she could see.

The difference between this section of the catacombs and those on the other side of the waterfall, of course, was that this sector had not yet been officially mapped. The safest way out would be to go back through the waterfall, but that would not be possible until Sam had recovered from the aftereffects of melting amber. Besides, Leon Drummond might be waiting on the other side.

She checked her earrings. "My amber is still good. At least we won't lose our sense of direction."

Underground, the only thing that kept you oriented was tuned amber. Without it, the endless miles of eerie quartz tunnels became a hopelessly impenetrable labyrinth, even with a locator.

"Drummond tried to kill us," Sam said without inflection. "My guess is he's our Halloween trickster."

"The one who left that trap on our doorstep last night?"

"Yeah. Someone must be paying him very well to sabotage Ewert's map team. The guild frowns on that sort of thing. Bad public relations."

"Especially now when the guild is trying so hard to build a good public image." Virginia scrambled awkwardly to her feet. She glanced down, half-expecting to find scorch marks on her trousers. She saw nothing but a few new wrinkles. She looked up again. "Sam, you must be exhausted."

"Not yet. The afterburn is still kicking in. The buzz will last for about an hour. Then I'm going to have to crash for at least two or three hours. No way to beat it."

She nodded. The syndrome was well-known. Ghost-hunters who expended large amounts of psi energy needed time to recover.

Sam studied the corridors that branched off in different directions behind her. "We need to find a place where we can hole up for a while. In an hour I'm going to be asleep, like it or not."

She glanced around. "Why can't we just stay here? No one else is going to come through that waterfall."

"Probably not," Sam agreed. "But that's not what's got me worried."

"Well? What is worrying you? Aside from the fact that Drummond just tried to nail us?

"It occurs to me that whoever hired Leon Drummond to keep Mac Ewert from making any progress in this corridor may be working illegally on this side of the waterfall."

Virginia widened her eyes as understanding hit her. "Yes, of course. An illegal excavation project on this side would explain a lot. But if you're right, we could run into Drummond's pals any minute."

"I'd say that's a definite risk." He started toward her. "Come on, we've got to find a place to hide until I can sleep off the afterburn."

"There are bound to be some chambers or rooms we can duck into for a few hours," she said. "All we have to do is pick one that doesn't look like it's been charted yet. Odds are no one will find us during the next few hours. Heck, I doubt if anyone will even come looking for us. Drummond must think we're dead. He'll no doubt report that we got reckless, got ourselves fried by that waterfall, and that the firm of Gage & Burch is out of business."

"True. He can't have any way of knowing that we survived. All the same, I don't want to take any more chances than necessary." Sam looked at her. "We haven't got a lot of time."

The prowling urgency in him worried her. She opened her mouth to say something reassuring, but the words got caught in her throat. He was only a short distance away now. For the first time since they had come through the waterfall, she got a close look at his eyes. What she saw there stilled her breath for a few seconds.

Hot, intense, brilliant; sexual desire, elemental and dangerously compelling, blazed in his eyes. His gaze literally glittered with what, in any other circumstances, she might have mistaken for the first evidence that he felt a degree of genuine passion for her.

Adeline's question came back to her in an uncomfortable rush. "So, is it true what they say about ghost-hunters? Are they really amazing in bed after they've zapped a ghost? I've heard the sex is unbelievable right after a burn.

What she saw in Sam now, she realized, was no more than the aftereffects of a massive expenditure of ghost-hunter psi talent. Chemically speaking, it was the result of a combination of testosterone, adrenaline, and the potent biological cocktail his paranormal powers had dumped into his bloodstream.

Nothing personal, she reminded herself. He wasn't attracted to her, per se. It just happened that he was rezzed for sex, and she was the only female in sight. Anything in skirts would probably do just fine for him at that moment.

"Uh, Sam? Are you okay?"

"No." He went past her, heading for the first branching corridor. "Let's get moving."