Ghost Hunter

Chapter 41

HE AWOKE A LONG TIME LATER AND SAW THAT NIGHT had fallen. The familiar emerald light of the Dead City infused the fog outside the bedroom window.

There was a small scurrying action at the foot of the bed. Rose drifted up to his chest and looked down at him with her bright blue eyes.

"Hey there, gorgeous." He smiled and patted the top of her head or at least where he thought the top of her head probably was.

Rose bounced a little. The beads of a red-and-gold bracelet necklace gleamed in the shadows.

"You're awake." Elly uncurled from the chair in the corner, put down the leather-bound journal she had been reading, and came to stand beside the bed. "Thank goodness. I was starting to get worried because you were conked out for so long. How are you feeling?"

He was vaguely surprised to see that she was dressed in a nightgown and robe, her hair loose around her shoulders.

She looked beautiful, he thought. But, then, she always did, no matter what she was wearing or the time of the day. She would look beautiful fifty or sixty years from now. She would always be the most beautiful woman in the world to him. He had known that from the beginning.

"I'm fine." He raised his arm so that he could check his watch. "It's nearly midnight. How'd it get so late?"

"Time flies when you're sleeping off a bad afterburn." She sank down on the edge of the bed and rested her hand on his arm.

He wrapped his hand around hers. "What have you been up to while I was out?"

"Acting as your secretary for the most part. Taking messages."

"What messages?"

"Let's see. Bertha Newell came by. She said to tell you how grateful she was and that she'll be back in the morning to thank you in person. Emmett and Lydia London stopped in for a few minutes to make sure that we were all okay. Emmett said he'll call you tomorrow to get the details. Lydia brought Fuzz and Ginger along. Rose showed them her jewelry collection. I believe they were impressed. Lydia may have to take them shopping soon. Oh, and Mercer Wyatt phoned." She paused. "I think that's everyone."

"You have been busy."

"They all made it clear that they expect an invitation to the wedding."

"Yeah?" His insides clenched, but he managed to keep his voice even. "What did you tell them?"

She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the mouth. When she raised her head again, he could see the love that lit her eyes.

"I told them that they would all get one, of course," she said.

He pulled her down on top of him. Rose scrambled out of the way with a grumpy protest, tumbled off the bed, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

"I love you," Cooper said. "I fell for you the first day I met you."

She smiled. "The fall was mutual. I love you, too, Cooper. But I couldn't seem to get your attention back at the beginning."

He slipped the robe off her shoulders. "I know I didn't handle things well at the start of our relationship. There was so much going on that I didn't want you to know about."

"Like why Haggerty had dropped dead so mysteriously in the tunnels?"

"Among other things." He hesitated. "To be honest, I wasn't sure how you would feel if you found out about my past. Everyone kept telling me how sheltered you had been."

She made a small, rude noise. "That business about my abnormal parapsych profile, I suppose. Typical hunter clan. They all assumed that just because I wasn't born to fry ghosts or untangle illusion traps, I must be fragile."

"In addition to not wanting to discuss Haggerty and my blue light work, there were a lot of problems to deal with when I first took over the Guild."

"Such as burying the news that Haggerty had been a contract killer?"

"Remember that weekend I disappeared?" he asked.

"Very clearly. You said something had come up."

"It was an emergency meeting of all of the Guild bosses to inform them about the situation with Haggerty and what had been done about it. On top of everything else, I soon discovered that Haggerty had not paid much attention to the day-to-day organizational operations of the Guild during his last year in office. The command structure was in chaos, and morale was bad. I had to fire some people and reorganize entire departments, and I had to do it quickly. Not everyone was thrilled with the changes."

"You know, I would have understood about all this if you had just talked to me."

"Honey, I spent years working alone or in secret with only a handful of other people who knew what I was and what I did for a living. Talking about myself and my job is not something that comes naturally to me."

"Yes, I did get that impression. Okay, you're forgiven for not opening up about your Guild problems. Tell me why, when we were dating back in Aurora Springs, you never tried to do anything more than kiss me good night at my door?"

He smiled ruefully. "I wanted you so badly, I could hardly keep my hands off you. I knew that if things got going hot and heavy between us, all of my good intentions would be doomed. I told myself you needed time to fall in love with me. The only way I could keep some distance was to focus on my work."

"You certainly did a good job of focusing. But I've got a small confession to make, myself."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"The main reason I moved to Cadence was because I secretly hoped that, given time, you might come to miss me. I mean, really miss me. In fact, I hoped you would miss me so much that you would eventually come after me and tell me that you loved me."

"Well, hell. You know, if you had just explained your strategy to me before you called the damned moving van, we would both have been saved a lot of trouble."

She chuckled. "Now do you see the value of communication? But in the end, it was all for the best. If I hadn't moved here, I would never have found my calling."

"The herbal tonic business?"

"I may keep that as a sideline, but I do believe my real future is in the exciting new field of alien botanical research. I was born to work with the plants in that rain forest, Cooper."

"I understand."

"Who knows what we'll find there? In the short time Doreen and I were hiding in that grotto cave, I sensed literally dozens of different species. All of them felt familiar and yet somehow different."

"Like Rose's flowers?"

"Yes. I think we're going to find out that the plants in that jungle are all native to this planet but mutated by the artificial environment in which they've been growing for heaven only knows how many centuries. The possibilities are endless."

"The commute back and forth between Aurora Springs and Cadence is going to be a pain, but we'll make it work," he promised.

"Forget the commute. Oh, sure, we'll be coming back here a lot, because Doreen is my best friend in the entire world, and she and I are part of the consortium that is claiming discovery rights on the rain forest. Also, Rose will probably want to visit with Fuzz and Ginger, and I'd like to see Lydia again. But I don't want a commuting marriage."

He cocked a brow. "You've got a plan?"

"As it happens, I do. I did a lot of thinking while you were out like a light. I'm going to establish the first Alien Botanical Research Lab. The headquarters will be in Aurora Springs. I do believe it will put our hometown on the map."

"How can you have the headquarters for the lab there when the jungle is under Cadence?" he asked.

"Over the years there had been others besides Mary Tyler Jordan who claimed to have stumbled into a mysterious underground jungle."

"So?"

"Not all of those references were in the Cadence area." She nodded toward the book she had been reading. "That's one of the private diaries that Griggs tracked down. It belonged to a prospector from the Aurora Springs area. Forty years ago he evidently walked through a quartz wall in our neck of the woods and found himself in a jungle. When he got out, he was never able to find the entrance again, and everyone wrote him off as crazy."

"You think you can find another jungle under Aurora Springs?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if there are jungles beneath all of the ancient ruin sites. In fact, an underground rain forest may well connect every site."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. The aliens were obviously not at home aboveground on Harmony. They seemed to have lived beneath the surface in their catacombs or confined within the walls of their cities. I suspect that there was something about this world that was toxic to them. The psi energy of the quartz was probably an antidote of some sort."

"Interesting theory."

"But it is highly unlikely that they survived on psi energy alone. Like other living creatures, they needed a viable ecosystem. The one aboveground didn't work for them, so they engineered a modified version of it underground. I'll bet the rain forests provided the source of the oxygen, plant life, and everything else they required to keep their civilization going here."

"I think I see where you're going with this."

"There's another thing," she continued.

"What?"

"My guess is that the ability to resonate with plant psi isn't unique, no more unique than the ability to work blue ghost light. Sounds like Stuart Griggs had the talent, for example. But folks with abnormal parapsych profiles tend to keep quiet about it for fear of being labeled weird."

"Plant psi para-rezzes will probably start coming out of the woodwork once the news about Jordan's Jungle hits the media," Cooper observed.

"Probably."

"Hmm," Cooper said.

"Hmm, what? You've got that Guild boss look. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that every botanist in every city-state on the planet and everyone who thinks he or she can work plant psi is going to want to head underground very soon."

"Wouldn't be surprised."

"Everyone knows you can't send a bunch of researchers and academics into the catacombs without hunters to protect them," Cooper said. "And that rain forest will very likely contain a lot of brand-new dangers. Can't have people running around in it without bodyguards."

She smiled. "I think I see where you're headed here."

"Any way you slice it, there's going to be a lot more work for the Guilds in the near future. We need to make plans to handle the situation. I'll make some calls to the other bosses first thing in the morning."

"Oh, my."

"Something else. The fact that the Aurora Springs Guild was involved in the discovery of Jordan's Jungle will be a major media bonanza for all the Guilds. We need to get the public relations departments of both the Cadence Guild and Aurora Springs going on this immediately."

"Spoken like a true Guild boss." She collapsed, laughing, onto the pillows. "We started out discussing our marriage and making plans for a life together, and suddenly we're talking about broadening the Guild's business opportunities. No wonder they gave you the job, Boone."

He pulled her into his arms. "I wouldn't give a damn about the future of the Guilds or anything else if I didn't have you."

She stopped laughing. "You really mean that?"

"You make everything worthwhile, Elly. Especially the future. I realized that the day you gave my ring back to me."

She kissed him on the mouth. "Works both ways, Boone. I've been waiting for you for six very long months."

"Yeah?" His eyes gleamed with love. "If I'd known that, I would have come here a lot sooner. But I thought I had it all figured out, see? I had a plan."

"I was wondering what took you so long. Now I know it was just a Guild boss thing."