Ghost Hunter

Chapter 7

COOPER LOOKED AT ELLY'S HORRIFIED FACE. IN THE pulsing blue light she looked a little like a ghost, herself, the old-fashioned, supernatural kind.

"Don't panic on me," he said, automatically falling back on the tone of icy command that he had learned to use in the days when he had worked the catacombs as a hunter. "Save the hysterics for later. We don't have time for them now."

"I am not panicking," she snapped, irritated. "I'm worried sick about what has happened to Bertha. There's a difference."

The cold anger in her voice reassured him. "Good to know. All right, there's not much option here. I'm going to de-rez this thing. Then we'll look for Bertha."

Elly's eyes widened. "You can handle this monster?"

"Yes."

"Wow. Okay, I'm impressed, Mr. Guild Boss."

He was privately amazed that she had accepted his statement as fact. In her shoes, a lot of people would have refused to believe his claim.

"Cooper?"

He studied the blue ghost, probing carefully for the patterns. "Yeah?"

"Do you… do you think that blue UDEM somehow swallowed up Bertha and… and incinerated her?"

"Ghost energy doesn't burn hot enough to destroy flesh and bone. It can scorch and singe, but that's about the limit. Mostly it fries the psi senses. You know that as well as I do."

"But this is a blue ghost. No one knows much about them. They're not even supposed to exist."

"Let me get rid of it, and then we'll see what we've got." He lifted Rose down off his shoulder and handed the dust bunny to her. "Here, take gorgeous. Things might get a little tricky here. I don't want her to get caught in the backwash."

"No." She took Rose, cradling her protectively in her arms.

"Go stand in one of the other tunnels," Cooper added. "It will give you some protection in case things get out of hand."

She obeyed, retreating to the cover of a vaulted passageway.

When he decided she was safely out of the reach of the blue storm, he went to work, using his psi senses to snag ambient blue dissonance energy out of the air.

The stuff was invisible to the eye at first, but as he forced it to coalesce into a tight, flaring ball, it took on a blue hue.

He manipulated it into a vortex. For some reason, that was the way blue ghost fire came together most naturally. He adjusted the dissonance wave patterns, emphasizing those that resonated in opposition to the patterns of the one that swirled on the floor.

The level of psi power in the confined space rose swiftly. He had to concentrate harder and harder to keep it contained. If it escaped his control, the fierce waves of energy would swamp not only his senses but possibly reach as far as where Elly waited, partially sheltered.

When he had achieved the shade and patterns that he needed, he began the process of merging his ghost with the blue vortex that blocked the corridor.

This was the most dangerous part of the process. The idea was to use his ghost to cancel out the energy patterns of the one on the floor. A mistake could easily result in an explosion that would send violent waves of psi power splashing outward, swamping his senses.

There was so much flaring light in the passage now that it was difficult to see. He squinted against the glare. Should have brought along a pair of dark glasses, he thought. He'd have to remember that the next time he went out on a date with Elly. His new motto was be prepared.

The two ghosts came together in a senses-jarring flare of light and energy.

The flames winked out with a suddenness that was disorienting.

"It's gone," Elly whispered. "That was absolutely amazing."

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes. Rose and I are fine." She moved quickly toward him. "What about you?"

"I'm all right." For a while, he thought. And then I'm going to be in real trouble. Got to get out of here before the burn-and-crash hits me.

He did another quick frequency check. "According to this, we're almost on top of your friend."

"But she's nowhere in sight. There's only the sled."

"At least we now know why its frequency didn't resonate on the locator. The blue ghost fried it." He looked around. "We've got fifteen minutes, no longer. After that, we have to start back toward our entry point."

Elly looked at him with sudden concern. "You melted amber to deal with that blue ghost?"

"Yes."

Tuned amber didn't physically melt when you pushed an unusual amount of power through it, but if it was overworked, the stuff lost much of its ability to sustain an intense, highly concentrated psi focus.

He went forward quickly, watching the readout on the locator. When he passed a narrow doorway he got a sharp Ping-He stopped and looked into the room. Like all of the myriad rooms that branched off the endless corridors, the proportions felt a little off, not quite human. This particular chamber was too high and too narrow. The angles where the walls met didn't look right.

The motionless figure of a woman lay sprawled on the glowing floor. She was somewhat past middle age, dressed in a long-sleeved sweater, overalls, and sturdy boots. She had a stocking cap pulled down over her short, gray hair.

"Here she is," he said. He went into the room and crouched beside the still form to check for a pulse. "She's alive."

"Thank God." Elly rushed across the room. "Bertha." She went down on her knees. "She's unconscious."

"Not surprising. Probably got brushed by that blue before she made it into this room. Lucky the burn didn't kill her."

"She didn't get fried, or at least that wasn't her only problem." Elly gently touched the stocking cap that covered Bertha's head. "Look. It's wet with blood. She must have hit her head when she fell. We've got to get her out of here."

He checked his watch. Time was slipping away fast.

"We'll use her sled," he said. He paused at the doorway and met her eyes. "One more thing. Very important."

"What's that?"

"When she wakes up, she probably won't have any clear memory of what happened just before she hit her head. And if she did get brushed by that ghost, it's a sure bet she'll have a case of amnesia that will wipe out the events of the past several hours."

"I know. So?"

"So we're going to tell her that she had an encounter with a ghost. But we're not going to tell her it was a blue. Let her think it was a routine UDEM."

Elly got slowly to her feet. "She probably wouldn't believe she ran into a blue, anyway."

"Something else," he added quietly.

"What's that?"

"It's okay to tell her that I'm from Aurora Springs, but I don't want her to know about my connection to the Aurora Springs Guild."

Elly wrinkled her nose. "It's not just a connection. You're the Guild boss."

"I don't want her or anyone else here in town to know who I am. From now on, I'm Cooper Jones."

"Why?" she asked.

"It's complicated."

"Let me guess," she said. "Guild business?"

"Yes."

"Gosh, what a stunning surprise."

He ignored that and went out into the hallway to get the utility vehicle. The blue was more than just routine Guild business. It was a potential public relations disaster, one that could threaten the future of all of the Guild organizations.

As far as the public was concerned, blues did not exist, and neither did hunters like him, who could de-rez them. Ever since their founding, the Guilds had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the secrets of the blues buried deep in the archives. The effort had paid off. Over the years, the unusual blue ghosts and those who could summon them had receded into the realm of myth and legend.

There was a good reason for concealing the truth, he thought. People were inclined to get nervous when myths and legends came to life.