Canyons of Night

Chapter 16

HE FELT CHARLOTTE STIR BESIDE HIM. HE OPENED HIS eyes and his senses to the night and watched her sit up on the blanket. She reached for her panties and jeans. Her hair had come free. In the otherworldly glow of the meadow she looked magical, mysterious, and incredibly sexy. He could have looked at her for the rest of the night, the rest of his life.

Something twisted deep inside him. How much longer would he be able to see her like this, with all of his senses? Whatever happened, he would never forget this night. He wondered if she would remember him in the years ahead.

He pushed the dark thoughts aside. He had made his decision and he was content. He would not destroy what was left of the night with questions that had no answer.

He levered himself up on one elbow. “Hey there, gorgeous.”

She paused in the act of wriggling into the jeans and looked at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were still gently luminous.

“Hey there, yourself, handsome,” she said.

Her voice had a sexy, throaty quality that stirred the embers all over again. He tried to come up with something clever in the way of postcoital conversation but nothing occurred to him. He did not want to chat. He wanted to drag her back down onto the blanket and make love to her again and again before he lost his talent forever.

But for all its heat-retention and waterproof capabilities, the sheet of high-tech plastic did nothing to soften the ground underneath it.

He watched her shimmy partway into her jeans. Then she got to her knees in order to pull the pants up over her hips.

“It’s getting late,” she said. She stood and adjusted her top and the jacket. “We both have to go to work in the morning.”

He sat up reluctantly. The plastic crinkled under him.

Charlotte watched him close his jeans.

“I’d like to hear the story,” she said.

“What story?” He leaned down to pick up the blanket. It dawned on him that he felt incredibly relaxed, better than he had in months. Maybe better than he ever had in his entire life.

“Earlier you said that some doctors at a clinic had slapped you with the ‘delicate’ label. I asked you why. You said it was a long story. We have a long walk out of here. I thought it would be a good time to tell me the tale.”

“Damn. Should have seen this coming.” Talking about his problems was the last thing he wanted to do.

Charlotte stiffened. “Don’t ask.” Her voice had gone very cool.

He concentrated on folding the blanket into a small square. “Don’t ask what?”

“Why women always want to chat after sex. Speaking personally, I don’t. Not usually. In my experience it invariably leads to a bad outcome. But, then, all my dates end badly.”

“At least you’re consistent.”

“True. But I think I need to know why you wound up here on Rainshadow.”

He thought about it while he crammed the blanket back into the pouch.

“What the hell,” he said finally. “It’s not like it’s not in both my Bureau file and the Arcane clinic files.”

“My goodness,” she said. “What on earth happened?”

He was saved from an immediate answer by a familiar chortle. Rex fluttered across the glowing meadow. When he reached them he bounded up to Slade’s shoulder. He was still holding the small purse.

“Well, well, well, where have you been, Big Guy?” Charlotte said. She reached up to pat Rex. “I’ll bet you went hunting, didn’t you? I don’t even want to think about what you dined on this evening.”

Slade knew he was probably anthropomorphizing, but judging by Rex’s jaunty attitude, he had a hunch the dust bunny had gotten lucky. Probably hadn’t had to have a complicated, mood-shattering postcoital chat afterward, either.

He slung one strap of the small pack over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

They tromped across the sparkling meadow, past the obsidian pond and into the trees. Slade gathered his thoughts, searching for an entry point into a nightmare he relived every night.

“It happened on my last assignment,” he said finally. “It was supposed to be a straightforward investigate-and-take-down-if-necessary job. A researcher from a low-profile government lab died in a diving accident on an island in the Harmonic Sea. Seemed routine, but any time a government lab employee goes missing or dies unexpectedly, the Bureau looks into the situation.”

“So you went to check out the accidental death and concluded that it was murder?”

“No, I concluded that there had been no death at all,” he said. “Well, there was a dead guy and he had been murdered while diving but he was not the missing researcher. He had, however, been killed by paranormal means in an attempt to make it look like a heart attack. The missing lab tech’s ID was on the body.”

“So you investigated further,” Charlotte said.

“That’s the job. Turned out the lab tech was very much alive and working for a drug lord named Masterson, who had a walled compound, more like a fortress, on one of the other nearby islands.”

“What on earth would a drug thug want with a government researcher?”

“You may be surprised to learn that the drug trade is highly competitive,” Slade said.

“Gee. Who would have thought so?”

“For obvious reasons a successful drug lord needs to stay one step ahead of the competition. It just so happened that the lab tech’s expertise was in pharmaceuticals. Masterson wanted him to produce a new designer drug for the gray market.”

“A club drug,” she said. “One that’s not quite illegal because the chemical composition has been tweaked just enough to keep it off the list of banned pharmaceuticals.”

“Law enforcement is always one step behind the chemists in the drug trade.”

“So this drug lord abducted the researcher with the goal of forcing him to make a new drug?” she asked.

“As far as I could tell, there was no strong-arm work involved,” he said. “Masterson used a more traditional business approach. He paid the lab tech a hell of a lot of money up front and offered to cut him in for a share of future profits.”

“You interrupted the plan, I assume?”

“I went into the fortress one night with the intention of searching the lab. I was about to crack a mag-steel vault when things got complicated.”

“How?” she asked.

“What I didn’t know until then was that Masterson had rounded up a few end-of-the-line alcoholics and junkies to use as subjects in the drug experiments. The poor bastards were locked up in a lower level of the basement. I went down to get them out.”

“Of course you did,” she said, sounding very certain. “It’s what you do. What happened?”

“I got the prisoners out of the basement but when I went back in to open the safe, Masterson, the lab tech, and a couple of Masterson’s enforcers were waiting for me. I took down Masterson first. Evidently they had not expected me to be able to do that.”

“Because of his talent?”

“He was some kind of hunter. I never did discover the exact nature of his ability.”

“So, how did you manage to take him out?”

“The old-fashioned way. Mag-rez pistol.”

“Oh. Right. That would work.”

“It does if you’re faster than the other guy. The enforcers fled. With their boss dead there was no reason for them to stick around. But they laid down a lot of covering fire on the way out. One or more of the shots struck a gas canister in the corner of the room. There was an explosion. It killed the renegade lab tech instantly because he was standing so close to the canister. Next thing I knew the whole lab was going up in flames and a lot of dark smoke.”

“How did you survive the explosion?” she asked.

“I was in the basement stairwell, using it for cover. The stone walls shielded me from the worst effects of the explosion but not from the gas that was in the canister. There was no way I could avoid inhaling some of it when I made a run for the door.”

“What kind of gas was it? Some sort of illicit drug?”

“No one knows what it was,” he said. His hand tightened around the flashlight. “A team went into the ruins of the lab later but they didn’t find anything aside from traces of a few chemicals known to have some psycho-pharmaceutical properties. The assumption is that the gas was a new experimental drug.”

“What effect did it have on you?”

“It didn’t do any damage to my lungs but it acted like acid on my senses.”

Charlotte came to an abrupt halt. “You were psiblinded?”

He stopped because he didn’t have much choice. “Temporarily. Couldn’t use any of my talent for a couple of weeks.”

“How awful. But your senses recovered, thank heavens.”

“Only partially,” he said. “The experts tell me they probably won’t come all the way back.”

“I don’t understand. You used your talent to determine that Jeremy Gaines was murdered by paranormal means and you can navigate here inside the Preserve.”

“For now I’m at a Level Seven on the Jones Scale.”

“That’s very strong. Well above average, certainly.”

“I used to be a Nine,” he said.

“I see.”

She was silent for a moment, taking in the full meaning of what he had just said. She understood, he thought. The loss of two full points on the scale was dramatic. Now she would feel sorry for him. That was the last thing he wanted.

“Are you sure that the new measurement is accurate?” she asked finally.

Might as well tell her the rest, he thought. She would continue to feel sorry for him but she would also realize that she had to put some emotional distance between them. The sex had been great but he knew that in spite of her decision to enter a no-strings-attached relationship, deep down she wanted something a lot more intimate and enduring. That meant a lover who was psychically compatible. He could not promise her that kind of bond. He might as well get to the bottom line and get it over with before any real damage was done. Correction, he thought, make that before any more damage was done to either of them.

“According to the parapsych doctors at the clinic there’s an eighty-five percent chance that I won’t remain a Seven for much longer,” he said. He started walking again. He kept his tone calm and clinical. “They warned me that my aura is unstable in the regions that are linked to the psychic senses. I was told that in all likelihood my condition will continue to deteriorate.”

She hurried to fall into step beside him. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I have to find a new line of work, among other things,” he said. “Which, as I mentioned, is what I’m trying to do here on Rainshadow.”

“Please don’t try to brush me off, Slade. I want to know what’s happening to you.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She spread her hands wide in a gesture of frustration. “Because of what we just did back there in that meadow, for heaven’s sake. We’re lovers now.”

Okay, this was where things were going to get dicey, he thought. He realized he wanted the lovemaking to mean something to her, something important. But he also knew that it would be infinitely better for both of them if she stuck with the resonate-with-the-moment approach.

“Look,” he said, “the truth is, no one knows what’s going to happen to my talent. The experts don’t know if I’ll stabilize at some point or if I’ll lose my para-senses altogether. I was told to plan for the worst-case scenario. Any other questions?”

“No.” She touched the pendant at her throat and then she shook her head firmly. “But I think the experts misread your aura. Or maybe they couldn’t see far enough along the spectrum. Or maybe they just did not understand what they were viewing. That happens a lot when it comes to analyzing high-end talents, you know.”

“So now you’re a trained aura-reader?”

“No,” she said. “But I know what I see in your rainbow. I’ve told you that rainbows are a reflection of the primary ultralight colors in a person’s aura.”

“Are you saying that you can see something in my aura that none of the experts saw? Thanks, but no thanks. I can’t afford to waste time with that power-of-positive-thinking crap.”

“That’s the spirit,” she shot back. “Think negative. That way you’re never disappointed.”

The sharpness of her tone caught him by surprise. She was usually so cheerful, so sunny and warmhearted. Like a dust bunny, he thought. But dust bunnies had teeth. He thought about that night fifteen years ago when Charlotte had tried to fight off a bigger, stronger attacker with only a flashlight. Underneath all that sweetness and light, Charlotte was a fighter.

“I’m just trying to be realistic,” he growled, feeling defensive now.

“What happens when you push your talent to the upper limits?”

“I was told not to risk it.”

“Why?”

“The theory is that the more I use my talent, the harder I push it, the faster it will deteriorate,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Everyone knows that if a strong talent runs in the red zone for a prolonged period, he or she can certainly exhaust his or her senses temporarily. But it takes only a couple of hours to recover completely.”

“The folks at the clinic warned me that I probably wouldn’t recover from a serious burn,” he said quietly.

“But knowing you, you have experimented a bit, right?”

She knew him too well, he thought. How had that happened? He had never let anyone get close. But somehow she was right next to him, physically and psychically. She had somehow slipped through the invisible barricades he had spent a lifetime building and shoring up.

“I had to see for myself,” he admitted.

“And?”

“Let’s just say that I learned my lesson. I saw my future and there’s nothing good waiting there. All I can do is try to buy as much time as possible.”

“What, exactly, did you experience when you rezzed your talent to the max after the explosion?”

They were inside the trees again. The silver meadow disappeared behind them. The thick darkness dropped like a shroud. He jacked his talent up just enough to guide her through the trees and summoned the scenes of his recent nightmares.

“A storm of energy,” he said. “It was like looking at an advancing hurricane or a tornado.”

She touched the mirror pendant. “That’s not what I saw reflected in your rainbow earlier tonight when you took me into the night canyon.”

“I was only partially jacked then.”

“It was enough for me to see your true colors. I saw them the other night when you kissed me and I saw them again tonight when you made love to me.”

He studied the tiny mirrored pendant at her throat. Moonlight glinted on it. He was uncomfortable with the knowledge that Charlotte seemed to be able to dig out his secrets. But he knew a few things about her, too. One of the things he knew was that she would not lie to him.

“What, exactly, did you see?” he asked.

“A lot of powerful ultralight. I can’t put a name to all of the various primary colors because I’ve never seen them before, but I can tell that they come from the far end of the spectrum and that the frequencies of the radiation are rock steady. There was no sign of instability.”

“What does that mean for me?”

“Well, for one thing, it means that you’ve got some serious talent you don’t seem to be aware of,” she said.

“Whatever is out there in that storm that I can see when I go hot is not my old talent. I don’t recognize it, Charlotte. The energy looks chaotic to me. That is never a good sign when you’re talking about human psi. You know that as well as I do. Chaos on the spectrum is one of the surefire indicators that a person is either going psiblind or mad.”

“It’s not chaos. I told you the bands of light in the rainbow are strong and stable.”

“Then why don’t I recognize the energy?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You’re going to have to find out for yourself.”

“How the hell do I do that?”

“The same way you did when you first came into your talent back in your teens,” she said patiently. “The way I did it. The way Devin will eventually figure out his developing psychic nature. You work with it and you experiment until you understand how to focus and control it.”

He went cold. “Damn it to hell. Are you telling me that I’m coming into a new talent?”

She smiled. “Relax, you’re not becoming a Cerberus. You won’t go rogue.”

Cerberus was Arcane slang for those who developed more than one kind of talent. Such individuals were so rare as to be the stuff of dark myth and legend. True multitalents generally died in their teens or early twenties. The problem, according to the Society’s experts, was that the human mind could not handle the high levels of stimulation and acute sensory perception that accompanied multiple talents. Cerberus talents invariably went insane and self-destructed. Most of the handful of recorded cases took their own lives early but a few had survived long enough to become murderous para-psychopaths.

When it came to dealing with Cerberus talents, Arcane policy was simple and straightforward. Get rid of them. The corollary to that policy was by whatever means necessary. He happened to know from his time working for the Office that the FBPI and the Guilds had similar policies.

“You’re sure?” he said.

“Oh, yes.”

“Because I have to tell you that having Arcane, the Office, and the Guilds coming after me is all I’d need to make my life full, rich, and complete.”

“Well, you did indicate that you were a trifle bored with being chief of police here on Rainshadow.”

“I’m not joking,” he said. “How can you be certain that I’m not developing a second talent? No offense, but you sell antiques for a living. You’re not a para-shrink or even an aura-reader.”

“I know.” Charlotte’s voice went flat. She folded her arms around herself and started walking again, very quickly. “You’re right. You probably shouldn’t be taking advice from a low-rent talent like a rainbow-reader.”

He moved then, taking two long strides to catch up with her. He wrapped his fingers around her arm. “I didn’t mean that I don’t trust you.”

“I know. It’s my talent you don’t trust. Believe me, I understand.”

Coolly, she tried to pull free of his grasp. He wanted to hold on to her but he knew she would fight him. He let her go and clenched his hand around the barrel of the flashlight.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’ve spent the past three months dealing with the fallout of whatever that gas did to me. I was told that my talent and my life would never be the same.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think the experts who told you that were right. I doubt if your talent or your life will ever return to whatever was normal for you before you were hit with the gas.”

He frowned, hardly daring to allow himself even the slimmest ray of hope. “You really don’t think I’m going to go psiblind?”

“No.” She hesitated. “But I think there is definitely the possibility of another, equally bad outcome.”

“What could be worse?”

“Living with a lot of powerful energy that you don’t know how to focus or control. That kind of situation truly will drive you mad.”

He took a deep breath. “You think that I should push my talent. Start working with the dark energy that I see at the end of my spectrum.”

“There’s an ancient Arcane saying that applies here. Learn to control your talent or it will control you.”