Canyons of Night

Prologue

Rainshadow Island

THE SMALL VEHICLE WAS TRAVELING TOO FAST ON THE narrow, twisted road that snaked along the top of the cliffs. Charlotte Enright heard the insectlike whine of the tiny flash-rock engine behind her and hastily stepped off the pavement onto the relative safety of the shoulder. A moment later one of the familiar low-powered Vibes that visitors rented to get around on the island careened out of the turn.

The driver hit the brakes, bringing the open-sided buggy to a halt beside her.

“Hey, look what we have here,” the man behind the wheel said to his two passengers. “It’s that weird girl with the glasses who works for that crazy old lady in the antiques store. What are you doing out here all by yourself, Weird Girl?”

There was enough light left in the late summer sky to illuminate the three young men in the car. Charlotte recognized them immediately. They had wandered into Looking Glass Antiques earlier in the day, drawn into the shop not because of an interest in antiques but by the rumors that swirled around her aunt.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to hang out on empty roads like this late at night?” the man in the passenger seat asked.

His voice echoed along the lonely stretch of road that led to the Preserve. The laughter of his two companions sent icy chills through Charlotte. She started walking. She did not look back. Maybe if she ignored the three they would leave her alone. She quickened her pace, walking faster into the rapidly deepening twilight.

That weird girl with the glasses who works for that crazy old lady in the antiques store. The words might just as well have been emblazoned on her T-shirt, she thought. She was pretty sure that just about everyone on the island, with the exception of her friend Rachel, thought of her in exactly those words.

The driver took his foot off the brake and let the Vibe coast slowly alongside Charlotte.

“Don’t run off, Weird Girl,” the one in the passenger seat called out. “We’ve heard that it gets a little strange out here after dark. Guy back at the bar guaranteed us that if we could get into the Preserve on a moonlit night like this we would see ghosts. You’re from around here. Why don’t you show us the sights?”

“Yeah, come on now, be friendly, Weird Girl,” the driver wheedled. “You’re supposed to be nice to tourists.”

Charlotte clutched the flashlight very tightly and kept her gaze fixed on the dark woods at the end of Merton Road.

“We’ll give you a ride,” the driver said, mockingly lecherous. “Come on, get in the car.”

“All we want you to do is show us this place they call the Preserve,” the one in the backseat urged. “From what we’ve seen today, there sure as hell isn’t anything else of interest on this rock.”

Charlotte wondered how the three in the car had found their way all the way out to Merton Road. Only the locals and the summer regulars were aware that the old strip of pavement dead-ended at the border of the private nature conservancy known as the Rainshadow Preserve.

The trio in the Vibe was a familiar species on Rainshadow during the summer months. The type typically arrived on the private yachts and sailboats that crowded the marina on the weekends. They partied heavily all night long in the dockside taverns and restaurants, and when the bars closed down they moved the parties to their boats.

“Come back here, damn it,” the driver ordered. He wore a pastel polo shirt that probably had a designer label stitched inside. His light brown hair had obviously been cut in an expensive salon. “We won’t hurt you. We just want you to give us a tour of the spooky places the guy in the bar told us about.”

“Forget the ugly little bitch, Derek,” the man in the backseat said. “No boobs on her, anyway. Trying to get into this Preserve is a waste of time. Let’s go back to town. I need a drink and some weed.”

“We came all the way out here to see the Preserve,” Derek insisted, his tone turning surly. “I’m not going back until this bitch shows us where it is.” He raised his voice. “You hear me, weird bitch?”

“Yeah,” the man in the passenger seat said. “I want to see the place, too. Let’s make the bitch show us.”

Charlotte’s pulse pounded. She was walking as swiftly as she could. Any faster and she would be running. She was very frightened but her feminine intuition warned her that if she ran the three men would be out of the Vibe in an instant, pursuing her like a pack of wild animals.

“Is she ignoring us?” the man in the passenger seat asked. “Yeah, I think she’s ignoring us. That’s just flat-out rude. Someone needs to teach her some manners.”

“Damn right, Garrett,” Derek said. “Let’s get her.”

“This is stupid,” the man in the backseat said. But the other two paid no attention to him.

Derek brought the Vibe to a stop and jumped out. Garrett followed, and so did the man in the rear seat, albeit with obvious reluctance. Charlotte knew that she had no choice now but to run. She fled toward the woods at the end of Merton Road.

Derek and Garrett laughed and gave chase. Her only hope was to reach the dark trees up ahead. If she could get even a short distance into the Preserve she might be able to lose the three behind her. It was common knowledge on the island that things got very strange inside the Preserve.

There were risks to the strategy. She might get lost, herself. It could be days before she was found or managed to stumble out on her own, if ever. According to the local residents it was not unheard of for people to disappear for good inside the Preserve.

The pounding footsteps got louder. Derek and Garrett were gaining on her. She could hear their harsh, angry breathing. She knew then that she probably would not be able to outrun them.

She was almost at the end of the pavement, thinking she just might make it after all, when a hand closed around her arm and dragged her to a halt.

She whirled, all of her still-developing para-senses hitting the upper limits of her talent in response to the adrenaline and fear flooding through her. The driver, Derek, was the one who had grabbed her. Garrett hovered nearby. The third man hung back, clearly uneasy about the way the violence was escalating.

With her senses at full sail, she could see the dark paranormal rainbows cast by the auras of the three men. For all the good that did her, she thought bitterly. She did not need to see the flaring bands of ultralight to know that, of the three, Derek was the most unstable and, therefore, the most dangerous. Why couldn’t she have been born with something flashier and more useful in the way of a talent? The ability to deliver a psychic hypnotic command or a freezing blast of energy that would stop Derek cold would have been nice.

She had no choice now but to fight. She flailed wildly with the flashlight. A brief flicker of satisfaction swept through her when the metal barrel struck Derek on his upper arm. She hauled back for another blow.

“Who do you think you are?” Derek snarled. “I’ll teach you to hit me.”

His face twisted into a vicious mask. He shook her furiously. The flashlight fell from her hand. Her glasses went flying.

Garrett laughed nervously. “That’s enough, Derek. She’s just a kid.”

“Garrett’s right,” the man from the backseat said. “Come on, Derek, let’s get out of here. We’ve got a lot of drinking left to do tonight. I need my weed, man.”

“We’re not leaving yet,” Derek said. “We’re just starting to have some fun.”

He drew back a clenched fist, preparing to deliver a punch. Charlotte raised both arms in a desperate attempt to ward off the blow. At the same time she kicked Derek in the knee.

Derek howled.

“Are you crazy?” Garrett said.

“Bitch,” Derek screamed. He shook her again.

A shadowy figure materialized out of the woods. Charlotte did not need her glasses to see the obsidiandark hues of a familiar ultralight rainbow. Slade Attridge.

Slade moved toward the driver with the speed and lethal intent of an attacking specter-cat.

“What the hell?” Garrett yelped, startled.

“Shit,” the man from the backseat yelped. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

Derek was oblivious to the danger. In his rage, he was obsessed only with punishing Charlotte. He did not realize what was happening until a powerful hand locked on his shoulder.

“Let her go,” Slade said. He wrenched Derek away from Charlotte.

Derek screamed. He released Charlotte and frantically tried to scramble out of reach. Slade used one booted foot to swipe Derek’s legs out from under him. Derek landed hard on the pavement, shrieking with rage and pain.

“You can’t do this to me,” he screeched. “You don’t know who you’re messing with. My dad will have you arrested. He’ll sue your ass.”

“That should be interesting,” Slade said. He looked at the other two. “Get him in the Vibe and get out of here. Come anywhere near her again and you will all wake up in an ICU or maybe just plain dead, depending on my mood at the time. Is that understood?”

“Shit, this guy’s crazy,” the man from the backseat whispered. He ran for the vehicle. “You guys do what you want. I’m out of here.”

He hopped into the driver’s seat, rezzed the little engine, and put the Vibe in gear.

“Wait up, damn it.” Garrett raced toward the Vibe and jumped into the front seat.

Derek staggered to his feet. “Don’t leave me, you bastards. He’ll kill me.”

“It’s a thought,” Slade said, as if the idea held great appeal. “Better run.”

Derek fled toward the Vibe, which was now halfway through a U-turn.

He lunged forward and managed to dive into the back of the buggy.

The Vibe whined away into the night and vanished around a turn.

A hushed silence fell. The eerie quiet was broken only by the sound of labored breathing. Charlotte realized that she was the one trying to catch her breath. She was shivering but not because she was cold. It was all she could do to stand upright. Great. She was having another stupid panic attack. And in front of Slade Attridge of all people. Just her rotten luck.

“You okay?” Slade asked. He picked up the flashlight and put it in her hand.

“Y-yes. Thanks.” She struggled with the deep, square breathing exercise the parapsychologist had taught her and tried to compose herself. “My glasses.” She looked around but everything except Slade’s darkly luminous rainbow was indistinct. “They fell off.”

“I see them,” Slade said. He started across the pavement.

“You m-must have really g-good eyes,” she said. Geez. Now she was stuttering because of the panic attack. It was all so humiliating.

“Good night vision,” Slade said. “Side effect of my talent.”

“You’re a h-hunter, aren’t you? Not a g-ghost hunter but a true hunter-talent. I thought so. I’ve got a c-cousin who is a hunter. You move the same way he does. Like a b-big specter-cat. Arcane?”

“My mother was Arcane but she never registered me with the Society,” Slade said. “She died when I was twelve.”

“What about your father?”

“He was a ghost hunter. Died in the tunnels when I was two.”

“Geez.” She wrapped her arms around herself and forced herself to breathe in the slow, controlled rhythm she had been taught. “Wh-who raised you?”

“The system.”

She went blank for a moment. “What system?”

“Foster care.”

“Geez.”

She could not think of anything else to say. She had never actually met anyone who had been raised in the foster-care system. The stern legal measures set down by the First Generation colonists had been designed to secure the institutions of marriage and the family in stone and they had been very successful. During the two hundred years since the closing of the Curtain, the laws had eased somewhat but not much. The result was that it was rare for a child to be completely orphaned. There was almost always someone who had to take you in.

Slade seemed amused. “It wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t in the system long. I bailed four years ago when I turned fifteen. Figured I’d do better on the streets.”

“Geez.” No wonder he seemed so much older, she thought. She was fifteen and she could not imagine what it would be like trying to survive on her own.

At least her pulse was starting to slow down a little. The breathing exercises were finally kicking in.

“You’re Arcane, aren’t you?” Slade asked.

“Yeah, the whole family has been Arcane for generations.” She made a face. “Mostly high-end talents. I’m the underachiever in the clan. I’m just a rainbow-reader.”

“What’s that?”

“I see aura rainbows. Totally useless, trust me.” She tried to focus on Slade as he reached down to pick up her glasses. “They’re probably smashed, huh?”

“The frames are a little bent and the lenses are scratched up.”

“Figures.” She took the glasses from him and put them on.

The twisted frames sat askew on her nose. The scratched lenses made it difficult to see Slade’s face clearly. She knew exactly what he looked like, though, because she had seen him often in town and down at the marina where he worked. He was nineteen but there was something about his sharply etched features and unreadable gray-blue eyes that made him seem so much older and infinitely more experienced. Other boys his age were still boys. Slade was a man.

She and Rachel had speculated endlessly about where he had come from and, more important, whether he had a girlfriend. If he was dating anyone they were very sure that she was not a local girl. In a town as small as Shadow Bay everyone would know if the stranger who worked at the marina was seeing an island girl.

He had shown up in the Bay at the start of the tourist season that summer, looking for work. Ben Murphy at the marina had given him a job. Slade rented a room above a dockside shop by the week. He was polite and hardworking but he kept to himself. Occasionally he caught the Friday afternoon ferry and disappeared for the weekend. It was assumed that he went to a larger town on one of the other nearby islands—Thursday Harbor, maybe, or maybe he went all the way to Frequency City. No one knew for sure. But he was always back at work at the marina on Monday morning.

“Luckily I’ve got a backup pair of glasses at my aunt’s house,” Charlotte said.

She was immediately mortified. She felt like an idiot talking about her glasses to the man who currently featured so vividly in her fantasies. Not that Slade knew about his role in her dreams. She was pretty sure that to him she was just the weird girl who worked for her crazy old aunt in the antiques shop.

“What are you doing out here at this time of night?” Slade asked.

“What do you think I’m doing out here? I wanted to see the Preserve. My aunt talks about it sometimes but she won’t take me inside.”

“For good reason. It’s beautiful in places but it’s dangerous in some parts. Easy to get lost inside. The Foundation that controls the Preserve put up those notrespassing signs and the fence for a reason.”

“You were inside just a few minutes ago. I saw you come out through the trees.”

“I’m a hunter, remember? I can see where I’m going.”

“Oh, yeah, the night-vision thing.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? Your breathing sounds funny.”

“Actually, I’m getting over a panic attack. I’m doing a breathing exercise. This is so embarrassing.”

“Panic attack, huh? Well, you had good reason to have one tonight. Getting assaulted by three jerks on a lonely road would be enough to scare the daylights out of anyone.”

“The attacks are linked to my stupid talent. I started getting them when I came into my para-senses two years ago. At first everyone assumed that I was just reacting to the stress of high school. But finally my mom sent me to a para-shrink who said it appeared to be a side effect of my new senses.”

Great. Now she was babbling about her personal problems.

“That’s gotta be tough,” Slade said.

“Tell me about it. If I run hot for any length of time, I start shaking and it gets hard to breathe. I was really jacked a few minutes ago so I’m paying for it now. I’ll be okay in a couple of minutes, honest.”

“You should go home now,” Slade said. “I’ll walk with you and make sure those guys don’t come back.”

“They won’t return,” she said, very certain. She finally managed to take a deep breath. Her jangled senses and her nerves were finally calming. “I don’t want to go home yet. I came all the way out here to see the Preserve.”

“Does your aunt know where you are?”

“No. Aunt Beatrix took the ferry to Frequency City today to check out some antiques at an estate sale. She won’t return until tomorrow.”

Slade looked toward the dark woods. He seemed to hesitate and then he shrugged. “I’ll take you inside but just for a few minutes.”

Delight snapped through her.

“Will you? That would be wonderful. Thanks.”

He started walking back along the road toward the woods. She switched on the flashlight and hurried to catch up with him.

“I heard someone at the grocery store say that you’re going to leave Rainshadow for good tomorrow,” she said tentatively. “Is it true?”

“That’s the plan. I’ve been accepted at the academy of the FBPI.”

“You’re joining the Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation? Wow. That is so high-rez. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I’m packed. I’ll catch the morning ferry.”

She tried to think of what to say next. Nothing brilliant came to mind.

“Do you think those three guys will try to have you arrested?” she asked.

“No.”

“How can you be sure? They might remember you from the marina.”

“Even if they do, those three aren’t going to go to the local cops. If they did they’d have to explain why they stopped you on the road.”

“Oh, right.” Her spirits lightened at that realization. “And I’d tell everyone how they attacked me. Chief Halstead knows me and he’s known Aunt Beatrix forever. He would believe me long before he took the word of a bunch of off-islanders.”

“Yes,” Slade said. “He would.”

She was surprised to hear the respect in Slade’s voice. She glanced at his profile.

“I saw the two of you talking together a lot this summer,” she ventured.

“Halstead is the one who suggested I apply to the academy. He even wrote a recommendation.”

THAT EVENING SLADE GAVE HER A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF THE paranormal wonderland that was the Preserve by night. And then he walked her home, saw her inside the cottage on the bluff, and waited until she locked the door. She listened to his footsteps going down the front porch steps; listened until he was gone and the only sound was that of the wind sighing in the trees.

The following morning she went down to the ferry dock. Slade didn’t see her at first. He lounged against the railing, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He was alone. There were a handful of other passengers waiting for the ferry but no one was there to see him off to his new life in the Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation.

She approached him cautiously, not certain how he would react. She knew that as far as he was concerned she was just a kid he had helped out of a jam and then humored with a short trip into the forbidden territory of the Preserve.

“Slade?” She stopped a short distance away.

He had been watching the ferry pull into the dock. At the sound of her voice he turned his head and saw her. He smiled.

“I see you found your backup glasses,” he said.

“Yes.” She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Her second pair of frames was even nerdier than the new pair that had gotten busted last night. “I came to say good-bye.”

“Yeah?”

“And to tell you to be careful, okay?” she added very earnestly. “The FBPI goes after some very dangerous people. Serial killers and drug traffickers.”

“I’ve heard that.” His eyes glittered with amusement. “I’ll be careful.”

She was feeling more awkward by the second. At this rate she would have a panic attack without even raising her dumb talent.

She held out the small box she had brought with her. “I also wanted to give you this. Sort of a thank-you gift for what you did for me last night.”

He eyed the box as if not sure what to make of it. It dawned on her that a man who didn’t have a family of his own probably didn’t get many gifts. He reached out and took the box.

“Thanks,” he said. “What is it?”

“Nothing important,” she assured him. “Just an old pocketknife.”

He got the lid off the oblong box and took out the narrow black crystal object inside. He studied it with interest. “How does it work? I don’t see the blade.”

She smiled. “Well, that’s the unusual thing about that knife. It was made by a master craftsman named Vegas Takashima. He died about forty years ago. He was Arcane and he made each knife by hand so his pieces are infused with a lot of his creative psi. Whatever he did made the blades almost indestructible. You’ll eventually figure out how it works and when you do, you’ll see it’s still good. It will last for decades, maybe another century or two.”

“Thank you.”

She hesitated. “I tuned it for you.”

Slade raised his brows. “You can tune objects that are hot?”

She shrugged. “Provided there’s enough energy in them. It’s a rainbow-reader thing.”

“What does tuning a para-antique do?”

“Nothing very useful,” she admitted. “But people seem to like it when I find the right object and manipulate the frequencies to resonate harmoniously with their auras. Just a trick.”

He hefted the Takashima knife on his palm and smiled slowly. “It does feel good.” He closed his fingers around the black crystal knife. “Like it belongs to me.”

“That’s how the tuning thing works,” she said earnestly. “It’s not a real spectacular talent but my family feels I may have a career selling art and antiques.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“No.” She brightened. “I want to get a degree in para-archaeology and work for one of the Arcane museums. Or maybe go underground with some of the academic and research people who explore the alien ruins.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Not as exciting as the FBPI but I’d really like to do it.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

He slipped the knife into the pocket of his jacket. The ferry was docked now. The three other people who had been waiting for it started down the ramp. Slade hitched the duffel bag higher on his shoulder.

“Time to go,” he said.

“Good-bye. Thanks for last night. And remember to be careful, okay?”

“Sure.”

He leaned forward slightly and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Before she could decide how to handle the situation, he was walking away from her, boarding the ferry.

She stood on the dock until the ferry sailed out of the harbor and out of sight. Just before it disappeared she waved. She thought she saw Slade lift a hand in farewell but she couldn’t be sure. Her backup glasses were fitted with an old prescription and her distance vision was blurry. Or maybe the problem was the tears in her eyes.

She made a promise to herself that morning. When she went home to Frequency City at the end of the month she was going to get a trendy new haircut and a pair of contact lenses. Common sense told her that she was highly unlikely to ever meet Slade Attridge again. But just in case she did get lucky, she was going to do her best to make certain that, whatever else happened, he didn’t kiss her as if she were his kid sister.