Ghost Hunter

Chapter 3

IN HINDSIGHT, ALL HE COULD SAY WAS THAT IT HAD seemed like a good idea at the time, Cooper thought, hauling Elly past the restrooms and out the rear door. But things were not going as planned.

He should have known better. If recent history had taught him nothing else, it was that his best laid plans never worked the way they were supposed to when Elly was involved.

This latest strategy gone bad was a perfect case in point. It had looked so simple, so foolproof, when he'd concocted it six months ago. All of them, her parents and her brothers included, had agreed that it was nothing short of brilliant. Give Elly six months in the big, bad city, and she would have a change of heart.

Let her kick over the traces imposed by her small-town, academic life for a while. Give her a chance to find out just how hard the world outside the ivory tower really was. Let her discover how difficult and exhausting it was to run a business with its endless paperwork, long hours, difficult customers, and precarious financial issues.

To say nothing of her career. She was devoted to the study of botany. She would soon come to miss the intellectual challenges of the classroom and the stimulation of her colleagues' conversation and the attractive, tranquil grounds of the college campus.

And what about her precious personal greenhouse? he had reasoned. In Aurora Springs the private conservatory attached to her quaint post-Era of Discord cottage was larger than the house itself. You couldn't have a greenhouse that size in the Old Quarter of a big city. There wasn't room.

In the opinion of everyone involved, Elly had been born for the academic realm, not the tough, ghost-fry-ghost world of small business. After six months on her own in Cadence, she would be more than happy to come home, resume her position in the Department of Botany at Aurora Springs College, and marry him.

He had planned to surprise her by walking into her shop first thing in the morning when he was rested, showered, shaved, and dressed in the new shirt and jacket he had bought for the occasion. He had wanted to make a good impression.

It had surprised the hell out of him when she had phoned while he was eating a late dinner to say that she wanted to see him immediately. He had told himself that was a good sign. Okay, the first meeting after all these months wasn't going to go quite as he had planned it, but he had nevertheless experienced a surge of satisfaction bordering on triumph. The let-Elly-rez-her-untuned-amber-in-the-big-city strategy had worked, just as he had intended. She couldn't wait to see him.

When she walked into the Trap Door tonight, though, he had gotten a real bad feeling about his so-called brilliant strategy.

For starters there were the sexy clothes. Elly had never worn her skirts that short back in Aurora Springs. The minuscule black number splashed with exotic green leaves cut so high he was sure he could have fit both of his hands in the space between knee and hem.

She had never worn any tops as snug-fitting as the black knit thing that she had on, either. He would have remembered. The garment framed her elegant, apple-sized breasts in a way that had made every hunter in the room want to take a bite.

Her dark brown hair still glowed with natural amber-colored highlights but, like the skirt, it was cut a lot shorter than it had been back in Aurora Springs. She no longer wore the conservative, academic-looking twist she had favored back home, either. Instead, the new look was sleek and sassy. It skimmed her jawline and accented her delicate features and exotic green eyes.

In fact, the only thing that looked familiar about her attire were the amber-and-gold earrings. He remembered them well. She had never been without them back in Aurora Springs. She had told him once that they had been a gift from her parents and had great sentimental value.

The biggest shocker though, was the smile. Damn. If he hadn't been sitting down, he probably would have fallen flat on his face. It wasn't just the dazzling brightness of those pretty little white teeth she had flashed at him; it was the attitude, the sheer female challenge. Catch me if you can.

And now he knew that the only reason she had tracked him down tonight was because she needed a bodyguard to accompany her on a somewhat less than legal trip into the catacombs.

It was a depressing end to a long day that had been filled with anticipation.

He paused to survey the alley. It appeared empty, but given the poor lighting and the fog, it was impossible to be certain. The shadows coiled heavily in several places between the back door of the tavern and the alley exit.

Cooper tightened his grip on Elly's wrist. "Where are you parked?"

"I took a cab. Didn't want to risk leaving my car on the street."

"I can see why you'd hesitate," he said grimly. "This isn't exactly an upscale section of town, is it?"

"Speaking of which, I was a little surprised to learn that you were eating at the Trap Door tonight," she retorted coolly. "Guild bosses usually dine in classier establishments."

"I told you, I'm not here in my official capacity. I came to Cadence on a private matter. Thought that if I stuck to places like the Trap Door, no one would recognize me."

"Oh, right. I keep forgetting your private business here. I have to tell you, though, it's awfully hard to imagine you involved in anything but Guild business."

"Are you saying I'm a workaholic?"

"I'm saying that you have no life outside the Guild."

"No life? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind. Let's get going. I want to find Bertha."

He wanted to argue about his life. He had spent years crafting it, shaping its course, and preparing himself to reach his goal. But he wasn't sure how to defend himself against a charge that he didn't completely understand in the first place, so he focused on the more immediate problem.

He looked down at her strappy, high-heeled sandals. He could see her toenails. She had painted them a brilliant shade of scarlet. They gleamed in the glow of the light above the door. Back in Aurora Springs, he had never seen her wear such blatantly sexy, open-toed shoes like the pair she had on tonight. Classic pumps had been more her style.

He thought about all of the hunters back in the bar who must have noticed her toenails when she had walked through the crowd to his table.

"You can't go down into the catacombs in those shoes," he said. "If you sprained an ankle, I'd have to carry you out."

She gave him a frosty smile. "I wouldn't want you to strain anything."

"Thanks. I appreciate the thought." This was not going well.

"As it happens, you have nothing to worry about," she said. "I've got a second pair of shoes in my tote." She tapped the large bag she had slung over one shoulder. "We'll go straight to Bertha's shop and use her hole-in-the-wall to go into the catacombs."

"She showed you the location of her private gate?" He started toward the barely visible mouth of the alley, drawing Elly with him. "Never met a ruin rat who wasn't obsessively secretive about his or her hole-in-the-wall."

"Bertha trusts me, probably because she knows I'm not potential competition. I'm not a tangler or a hunter. I'm not even in the antiquities trade."

The words were spoken a little too evenly, he thought. He could hear the faint trace of wistful resignation in them.

Unlike everyone else in her family, Elly possessed only a normal amount of psi talent. Like the average person, she could rez a door lock or activate a dishwasher, but she lacked either of the two types of powerful para-rez talents that would have enabled her to make a career in alien archaeology. Without such talents, she had no need of genuine, highly tuned amber to focus her psi senses.

It could not have been easy growing up in a family of strong hunters with a mother who was a tangler, he reflected. Elly must have envied the freedom the others enjoyed to explore the strange underground world of the catacombs. More crucially, by watching the others in her clan, she would have understood intuitively that she was missing out on the satisfaction and sheer exhilaration that came with the exercise of strong psi senses down in the catacombs.

It had to be the equivalent of knowing intellectually what an orgasm was but not being able to achieve one, he decided. Damned frustrating.

"Have you got your friend's amber frequency?" he asked.

"Yes. I've also got the frequency of her sled's amber-rez directional locator. She gave both of them to me in case of an emergency."

"Are you sure this is an emergency? Those old ruin rats sometimes spend days down in the catacombs."

"I may be overreacting," she admitted. "It's true, Bertha is a pro. But this morning before she went underground, she ordered her usual month's supply of amber-root tisane and told me that she would pick it up this afternoon when she got out of the tunnels. When she didn't show up by closing time, I became concerned."

"You checked around to make sure she wasn't sick in bed or visiting relatives?"

"Yes. I called her antique shop and got the answering machine. I asked the florist who runs the shop next door to hers if he'd seen her, but he said no. She's just disappeared, and I'm afraid that means she ran into trouble down in the catacombs. She's tough, but she's not a young woman, Cooper."

Sirens wailed somewhere in the night.

"Someone called the cops," he said, "Just what we do not need."

He urged Elly to a faster pace. The heels of her stylish sandals echoed on the old paving stones.

"Guess it would be a little awkward to explain why the boss of the Aurora Springs Guild got picked up at a bar brawl, wouldn't it?" Elly said, ghoulishly cheerful.

There was just enough light to allow him to see that she was smiling again. It was a real smile this time, not that flashy, full-rez ray beam she'd used on him back in the tavern.

"If they pick me up, they'll probably grab you, as well," he warned.

"Good point." She increased her pace. "We certainly can't afford to be delayed explaining things to the cops tonight. Let's hurry."

"You know," he said, "there was a time when you would have been horrified at the idea of getting arrested. Now the only thing you're worried about is wasting the time it would take to converse with the police."

"Back in Aurora Springs I had to worry a lot about embarrassing my family and shocking the sensibilities of those pompous, narrow-minded blowhards on the Academic Council. But here in Cadence, I'm happy to say, those are no longer considerations."

"Is that right?"

"Yes." She was a little breathless now. "Here in the city I'm free in a way I've never been before in my life."

Pompous, narrow-minded blowhards. It didn't sound like she was longing to return to her former position at Aurora Springs College.

One by one, Cooper thought, the premises upon which he had constructed his master strategy were crumbling before his very eyes.

The sirens were closer now. He heard the rear door of the tavern slam open. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw a heap of men in khaki and leather briefly jam the opening. A few managed to squeeze through. Boots thudded on the old stones. Luckily, the fleeing hunters chose to run in the opposite direction.

He brought Elly and Rose to a halt at the juncture of the alley and the street. To the left the massive green quartz walls of the Dead City rose into the night, bathing the scene in a faint chartreuse glow. The aliens had vanished centuries ago, but they had left the lights on.

When he looked toward the corner at the other end of the block, he could see a couple of police cruisers closing in on the front entrance of the Trap Door.

"We've got a little problem here," he said. "If we try to approach my car from this direction, the cops will probably stop us. They'll be picking up everyone who happens to be wearing khaki and leather."

"I've said for years that ghost hunters need to realize that there is a price to be paid for being so desperately fashion challenged."

He opted to ignore that. "Our best bet is to circle around and approach my car from another direction. Make it look like we're returning to it from one of the cafe's down the street."

"Sounds like a plan."

"How fast can you run in those fancy high heels?"

"Fast." She let the tote slide off her shoulder and reached inside to extract a pair of sporty-looking athletic shoes. "But not as fast as I can run in these. Here, hold Rose."

She transferred the dust bunny to his shoulder, braced one hand on his arm, and bent down to change shoes. Cooper was very conscious of the warm weight of her fingers as she balanced against him and stepped out of one high heel.

He caught a fleeting glimpse of a dainty, elegantly arched bare foot before it disappeared into one of the running shoes. Something low and deep inside him tightened and hardened. It had been a long six months, he thought.

Actually, it had been a good deal longer than six months if he counted from the first time he had seen Elly walking into the Guild Archives. And he was definitely counting from that point, because that was the moment he had decided that she was just what he had been looking for in a wife.

It had been a very long eight months and five days, to be precise.

Elly took her hand off his arm and straightened. "I'm ready." She sounded unsettlingly enthusiastic about what they were about to attempt. "Where, exactly, are we headed?"

"Across this street and through the alley in the next block. When we reach the far end, we'll walk up to the cross street and then mosey back to my car."

"Just a couple of innocent onlookers." She retrieved Rose.

"You got it."

He guided her into the second alley, pausing at the entrance to open all of his senses to the night. The faint green glow from the walls did not reach into the deep shadows of this cramped passage.

He took another look at Rose. Her baby-blue eyes were wide open, but she was fully fluffed and munching contentedly on the last bit of fry.

Cooper dug a flashlight out of one of the flapped pockets of his trousers and gave it a little pulse of psi energy to switch it on.

Elly muttered something he didn't quite catch. She sounded disgusted.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"These shoes are going to be ruined," she said.

"They're athletic shoes. They're made for getting dirty."

"That's beside the point. Do you have any idea how much they cost? I paid a fortune for them, and I never intended to wear them through whatever was in that slimy puddle back there."

"Now, see, if you were wearing a pair of sturdy hunter boots made out of genuine chroma-snakeskin, you wouldn't have to worry about the contents of alley puddles or anything else you happened to step in. Good boots will go anywhere, I always say."

She turned her head slightly to look at him. He could not see her expression in the shadows, but he got the feeling that he had surprised her.

"I'll keep that tip in mind next time I shop for shoes," she said without inflection.

He was brooding on the fact that Elly seemed nonplussed by the possibility that he might have a sense of humor when he noticed the outline of Rose's small body change abruptly.

In the blink of an eye, the shapeless ball of fur thinned into a sleek, taut shadow. The dust bunny opened a second set of eyes and turned to look at one of the doors in the alley wall.

"Damn," Cooper said softly.

The heavy door crashed open. Cooper caught the unmistakable whiff of ghost energy. He reacted without even thinking about it, halting and spinning on his heel to face the threat. Simultaneously he used his grip on Elly's wrist to whip her to safety behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rose cling to Elly's shoulder with all six legs.

The ghost materialized swiftly, a small inferno of swirling, seething energy that flared and pulsed. It moved closer, forcing Cooper, Elly, and Rose into a corner formed by a large, rusted-out trash container and the brick wall.

"Big," was all Elly said.

She was right, Cooper thought, the sucker was large for a ghost generated outside the catacombs. But it was not a very powerful UDEM. Showy, but no real strength at the core.

He studied the fiery green mass for a couple of seconds, probing for the pattern with his psi senses. The waves of dissonance energy in the UDEM were only marginally under control. The hunter who had created this ghost was either rezzed on drugs or a little crazy. It was fortunate that the guy wasn't powerful enough to summon more energy, Cooper thought.

The UDEM drifted closer. Even when they were summoned and manipulated by a skilled dissonance-energy para-rez, standard-issue ghosts were never fast-moving. Top speed was usually somewhere in the neighborhood of a rapid walking pace. But the hunter operating this one knew what he was doing. It probably wasn't the first time he had used a ghost to trap his victims between the trash container and the wall.

This was a classic back-alley mugging.

A skeletal figure loomed in the opening, its bony frame dimly outlined in the weak glow of the light burning behind him.

"Anyone moves, and you're all fried." The mugger's voice was frayed at the edges. "I'm not warnin' you twice."

Definitely a crazy, or an over-rezzed doper, Cooper thought. Sanity had probably become a somewhat remote concept for him.

"Take it easy," Cooper said quietly. "Nobody's moving."

The jittery mugger made his way slowly down the two steps to the pavement. He was so unsteady on his feet that he had to brace himself against the brick wall. In the backwash of the light cast by his ghost, his skull-like features were etched in sickly green.

"Your wallet, rings, amber, watch, anything you got on you," he muttered. "I need it all. You hear me? I need money for the chant."

"No problem," Cooper said. He sent psi energy through the amber he carried on the end of his watch chain. "Okay if I reach for my wallet?"

"Do it slow."

"Sure." Cooper reached one hand toward his back pocket.

Generally speaking, you fought ghost fire with ghost fire. The problem here, he decided, was that if the mugger realized that a second UDEM was being formed in the vicinity, he was likely to lash out with his own ghost before the new one could be used against him.

One brush of ghost light rezzed all of the victim's senses to the point of extreme psychic pain. That phase was followed by a period of unconsciousness that could last for hours.

He needed a distraction, Cooper thought.

He was about to create one when the agitated robber switched his attention to Elly. In the green glare Cooper saw the skull-like face scrunch up with confusion. A sheen of sweat coated his face.

"What in green hell? You got a rat on your shoulder, lady?"

"Rose is not a rat," Elly said. "She's a dust bunny, and you're scaring her with your ghost. Please don't hurt her."

Elly's voice was gentle and calming. She understood that they were dealing with a dangerous, unpredictable doper, Cooper thought. And whatever else she was, Rose sure wasn't scared. In the pulsing light he could see the dust bunny's teeth; a lot of them.

"I don't give a damn about the varmint." The mugger used the back of his sleeve to wipe his mouth. "Drop the big purse, lady."

"Whatever you say," Elly agreed. She slowly lowered the tote, taking her time about it. "I have to put it down carefully, though. There's a very expensive relic inside."

The man's eyes widened with feverish excitement. "Alien or Early Colonial?"

The guy might be a crazed, dope fiend, Cooper thought, but he knew his antiquities. Probably a Guild man who had spent time underground before he had fallen into the clutches of the drug.

"Alien," Elly assured him briskly with the air of a professional saleswoman about to display an expensive item to a customer. "Would you like to see it?"

"Take it out. Real slow."

"Of course." She reached down into the tote. "It's a very fine piece."

The jittery mugger watched her with a desperate air of anticipation. He was so focused on visions of the pharmaceuticals he planned to buy that he never noticed the small ball of ghost fire Cooper summoned behind him.

The little UDEM drifted toward the back of the mugger's head. Cooper was well aware that what he intended had to be done carefully. He did not want to kill the doper, just knock him out for a while.

Elly started to remove something from the tote.

"Let me see that," the man said, taking a step closer. "Throw it over here."

Cooper let the leading edge of the small ghost brush ever so gently against the mugger's head.

The skeletal figure stiffened abruptly, arms jangling, mouth opening on a silent scream. He jerked violently a second time and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

The mugger's ghost winked out instantly as the psi energy abruptly ceased. Underground, the UDEMs were fueled by the ambient power of the catacombs. Aboveground, however, it took a trained hunter to keep one together.

Cooper dissolved his own UDEM. The last of the green light disappeared, leaving only the thin beam of the flashlight.

"Nicely done," Elly said. She dropped the high-heeled sandal she had partially removed back into the tote and surveyed the fallen man with a slight frown. "I hope you didn't use too much energy on him, though."

Cooper crouched beside the unconscious man and checked for a pulse. He found it immediately.

"He'll wake up in a few hours with a bad headache and no clear memory of what happened." Cooper rose and urged her toward the mouth of the alley. "Are you okay?"

"For heaven's sake, I was raised in a hunter family, remember? It isn't the first time I've seen ghosts."

"Just checking. Thanks for distracting that SOB with the story about having an alien artifact in your bag, by the way. He never even realized that I was working ghost light behind him."

"You're good, aren't you?" she said, giving him a thoughtful, sidelong glance. "That little ghost was very intricate, very efficient, very tightly constructed. Not many hunters could have generated one like that."

"I've had a fair amount of experience," he said.

"You've got more than experience. You've obviously got both a lot of raw power and a high degree of control."

"Yeah, well, I'm a Guild boss, remember?" he said, trying to keep things light. "I'm supposed to be good."

She fell silent beside him. Probably not a good sign, he thought.

At the mouth of the alley, he turned right, steering Elly and Rose toward the intersection. At the corner they all paused and looked back up the street toward the Trap Door. The bar was in the middle of the adjacent block. Directly in front three police cruisers had come to a halt, lights flashing. He could see some cops going through the door. A crowd was coalescing to watch the excitement.

"We're in the clear," he said. "My Spectrum is at this end of the street. Everyone is looking the other way. If we're careful, no one will notice us. From here on we walk, we do not run. People tend to notice folks who are moving too fast."

"Understood. But I suggest we walk at a very brisk pace, if you don't mind."

"Fine by me."

They were only a few steps away from the Spectrum when a patrol car glided up beside them. The hard-eyed officer behind the wheel nailed them in the beam of his flashlight.

"Where are you two going?" he asked, most of his attention on Cooper.

"Home," Elly said before Cooper could respond. "As quickly as possible."

"Not from around here, huh?"

"My friend is from out of town. I brought him down to the Old Quarter to show him the sights. We just finished dinner at a charmingly quaint little cafe up the street and were walking back to the car when all of a sudden there were police cars everywhere."

The officer switched the beam to Elly's face. "What's the name of the cafe where you had dinner?"

"The Emerald Wall," she said without missing a beat. She produced a card from the pocket of her coat. "My name is Elly St. Clair. I own St. Clair's Herbal Emporium. I specialize in custom-blended tisanes, teas, and tonics. If you ever need anything in that line, be sure to stop in at my shop. I know police work is very stressful. I have a special moonseed tisane that can do wonders."

The officer scowled at the card and then looked at Cooper. "Where are you from?"

"Aurora Springs," Cooper said.

The officer looked amused. "Come to the big city to visit the lady and see the bright lights, huh?"

"That was the idea," Cooper said.

The officer switched off the flashlight. "All right, you two, go on, get out of here." He gave Elly one last glance. "Is that a dust bunny on your shoulder?"

"Yes," she said. "Her name is Rose."

Cooper noticed that Rose had gone back to doing a good imitation of something that had rolled out from under a bed. Only her innocent blue eyes were showing.

"Heard they can be dangerous," the officer said, playing the light on Rose, who appeared not to notice.

"That's a silly urban legend," Elly said. "The most she might do is nip a finger, and she would only do that if she was seriously provoked."

"If you say so. Go on, you two. You don't want to hang around this neighborhood." He gave Elly a stern look. "Next time you want to show a visitor a good time, I suggest you take 'em to a better part of town. Don't want to give tourists a bad impression of Cadence."

"Thank you for the advice," she said.

The officer drove off down the street.

"You heard the man," Cooper said, opening the Spectrum's passenger door. "We don't want to hang around here. This is a bad neighborhood. Surprised you'd bring an innocent tourist like me to a place like this."

"Thought it might give you something to talk about when you went back to Aurora Springs. Not like there's much else of interest going on back there."

"Not since you left town," he said.