Dark Light

Chapter 16

FONTANA FOLLOWED HER BACK TO HER APARTMENT BECAUSE it was closer and because they needed a place where they could talk privately.

"Okay, let's see what we've got," she said, dropping her purse and coat on the hall table.

He followed her into the kitchen. Elvis was already there. He had taken up a position in front of the refrigerator.

"We've got nothing except the Green Ruin fantasies of a burnout," Fontana said. He lounged against the counter, folded his arms, and watched her open the refrigerator. "Fish-headed creatures operating a giant beam of ultraviolet energy."

"Hank saw something." She removed a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter from the refrigerator. "I agree his recollections are garbled because of the booze, but whatever he saw scared the heck out of him last night."

"Aliens." Fontana grimaced.

"He was very clear about the fact that the ultraviolet light didn't pulse and flare the same way that green ghost energy does. He said it was steady, the way a flashlight beam is steady until you move the flashlight."

"Dissonance energy is highly unstable. It always pulses and flares." Fontana paused. "Maybe what he saw wasn't diss light."

"He said he could feel it, remember? He was sure it was dissonance energy, just not the usual kind." She spread peanut butter on two slices of bread. "Hank may be a burnout, but he worked the tunnels for a lot of years. He knows ghost energy."

"You believe he was telling us the truth?"

"Absolutely. At least he was telling us what he believes to be the truth."

Fontana rubbed his jaw, eyes narrowing. "I've never heard of ultraviolet psi light."

She put the lid back on the peanut butter jar and took a plump, yellow banana out of the basket. "Until I met you, I never knew there was such a thing as dark light."

"That's because you're a civilian," he said. "There are a lot of things civilians don't know about what goes on underground."

She gave him her steely smile and started to peel the banana. "That's because the Guilds like to keep secrets. Well, here's the thing about secrets, Mr. Guild Boss. You can't keep them forever. Sooner or later, there's always a leak."

"And there's only one surefire way of taking care of that kind of leak."

She went very still, her eyes stark with dread. "Dear heaven. Do you think someone killed Jake? Maybe he was murdered because he talked to me about the rumors of an alien lab."

The guilt and dread in her eyes bothered him. He walked around the counter and gripped her shoulders very tightly.

"All we know for certain is that Jake has disappeared, possibly for the same reasons that those other hunters vanished from the streets. Whatever is going on, it started before you began your series of reports on the alien abductions, remember?"

She relaxed a little. "Yes."

"That means that nothing that has happened is in any way your fault."

"But what is going on?" she whispered.

"I don't know yet, but I think the timeline can be narrowed down to something that happened about six months ago."

"How do you know that?" she asked eagerly.

"Jake's service records covering the last six months of his employment with the Guild have vanished. I think that someone, presumably Jenner, made sure they disappeared."

"That was right around the time that I went to work at the Curtain" she said. "Shortly after that, I picked up the rumors about Underground Exploration's sweetheart deals with the Guild. A couple of months later, I heard the first reports of homeless men in the Quarter being abducted by aliens." She handed the peanut butter and banana sandwich to Elvis. "We have to find out what happened to Jake."

"Yes."

"I want justice for him and for all the others who disappeared."

"We'll get it."

"It's all so damned unfair." She wiped her eyes with a tea towel. "He was just a burned-out hunter trying to get by. He loved making that miniature dressing room for Elvis. I think he could have had a life if the Guild hadn't abandoned him to the streets."

Fontana said nothing.

Sierra suddenly lowered the tea towel. "Good grief. Aliens."

"Not you, too. I've got enough problems on my hands. If you are about to tell me that you actually believe the aliens have returned to Harmony—"

Her expression lit with zeal. "I saw them."

"What?"

She tossed the towel down onto the counter and dashed out of the kitchen. She went into the small front hall. When she returned, he saw that she had her notebook in hand. She flipped it open.

"This is the picture of the aliens moving around behind the ultraviolet beam that you asked Hank to draw for us," she said.

She unfolded the sketch and put it on the counter. Two diverging parallel lines indicated the energy beam. There were also a couple of stick figures representing the aliens.

"What about it?" he asked.

"The heads of the aliens." She was practically glowing with excitement. "What do they remind you of?"

He studied the bulbous, slightly elongated shapes. "Fish heads?"

"That's not what they look like to me," she said.

He looked up, aware of the energy shimmering in the air around her. "What?"

"Motorcycle helmets," she said.