After Glow

Chapter 26

"I don't get it, Boss." Verwood, seated on the passenger side of the Slider, frowned at Fuzz, who was perched on the back of the seat. "Why did we have to stop by your place to pick up this little varmint before we go nail the guy who's running the Greenie cult?"

"Fuzz is a dust-bunny, not a varmint." Emmett eased the Slider through a narrow Old Quarter lane. "And he's a lot smarter than he looks."

"That probably wouldn't take much. I mean, how smart would the little critter have to be to have more brains than a wad of dryer lint?"

Fuzz paid no attention. He was braced on the seat back, straining forward as if eager to leap straight through the windshield. All four of his eyes were open.

"Watch yourself, Verwood," Emmett said. "Remember what they say about dust-bunnies."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. By the time you see the teeth, it's too late." Verwood took a pretzel out of the sack on his lap and offered it to Fuzz who accepted it in one paw. "He's kind of cute in his own way. You know, I've seen a few dust-bunnies living in alleys in the Old Quarter and out in the country near some of the smaller ruins but I never met anybody who kept one as a pet."

"Lydia says he adopted her, not the other way around." Emmett sent the Slider creeping through another fogbound street. "I think the two of them have formed some sort of psychic connection, although Lydia says she isn't aware of it on her end. But Fuzz found her once before when she was lost underground and I can't think of any other way he could have done that unless there's some psi-link. I'm praying he can work his magic act again tonight."

Verwood's face was grim in the light from the dashboard. "You really think they took her underground?"

"There's only one explanation I can come up with to rationalize why someone would grab her."

"Ransom? Everyone knows you're rich in your own right and you've got the deep pockets of the Guild to back you up if you need more cash. But, shit, the risk. I mean, what kind of idiot would kidnap the wife of a Guild boss? The guy's gotta know he's signing his own death warrant."

"This isn't about money. According to the information you and Perkins turned up, the Greenies have rivers of income flowing in from a variety of safe, perfectly legal sources. Everyone knows that a well-run cult is a money machine."

Verwood screwed up his face in a quizzical expression. "You think maybe they need Mrs. London's opinion on some antiquities?"

"She's a terrific para-archaeologist but there are a fair number of those around." Emmett slowed the Slider and brought it to a halt at the end of a short lane. "The one thing that makes her different from any other P-A is that she survived forty-eight hours underground without amber and came out with her para-rez faculties intact."

Verwood whistled softly. "You think this is connected to what happened back when she disappeared for two days?"

"Yes." Emmett de-rezzed the engine and cracked the door. "I also think that Lydia was right all along. She was the victim of a conspiracy. But one that was orchestrated by the Greenies, not the Guild. Come on, Fuzz."

He reached into the Slider for the dust-bunny. Fuzz, clutching the unfinished pretzel in one of his six paws, hopped onto his arm and scurried up to his shoulder.

Verwood got out of the Slider and walked around the front to join Emmett. "What are we doing here? Thought we were headed for the Greenie headquarters."

"With any luck at all, that's what the Greenies will assume, too. Probably figure they can stall us indefinitely there."

"So, where are we?"

"This is the former address of Dr. Lawrence Maltby."

"Thought he was dead."

"He is."

Emmett led the way across the empty, mist-shrouded street and went up the steps to the darkened front door of the aging apartment building.

The lock had not been repaired. They went inside and down the dingy hall. Emmett halted at the door across from Maltby's, made a fist, pounded three times.

"This is London. Guild business. Open the door or we'll break it down."

There was a frozen silence from inside the apartment. Then Emmett heard a series of quick steps. The peephole went dark.

A few seconds later the door opened about two inches.

Cornish peered out nervously. He did not unhook the chain.

"What do you want, London?"

Emmett flattened his hand on the wall beside the door frame. "I want you to tell me the location of Maltby's secret rat hole, the one he used when he went down into the catacombs."

Cornish's eyes widened in exaggerated innocence. "How would I know that?"

"Something tells me you're an opportunist, Cornish." Emmett smiled slowly, showing a few teeth. "Got to be to support a serious Chartreuse habit."

Cornish flinched. "Now, see here, I don't know where you're going with this, but it's got nothing to do with me."

"I think you probably followed Maltby a few times when he went out at night. How could you resist? Maybe you figured you could steal a couple of relics or even some dreamstone from his hoard."

"I didn't do anything wrong."

Emmett gritted his teeth against the irritating whine in the little man's voice. "I'm not here to get you in trouble. I just want to know where Maltby went when he spent a night in the catacombs. It's worth a thousand to me."

Cornish's face went slack. "A thousand?"

"That'll buy a lot of Chartreuse, won't it?"

"Hang on," Cornish said. "I'll get a coat."

"I regret the inconvenience and the fear that you went through this evening, Lydia." Herbert sat down on a velvet-covered chair that bore a strong resemblance to a throne. "May I call you Lydia?"

"No," Lydia said.

"Please forgive me, but I felt that I had no choice but to arrange for you to be brought here in a somewhat un-conventional manner. I was afraid that you would never agree to assist us of your own free will. There is a great deal of prejudice against the Order in the outside world. It is not easy to overcome."

"What makes you think I'll help you now, Herb?" Lydia asked.

Some progress had been made, she thought. Herbert had ordered Frances to remove the tape that had bound her wrists and she was no longer in a barred cell. Instead, she was comfortably seated on a red velvet sofa, drinking rez-tea from a beautiful little cup and snacking on cookies.

This was probably Herb's idea of shrewd para-psychology, she thought, a sort of good Greenie-bad Greenie routine. He wanted her to think that he was the good Greenie, the one she could trust.

"Believe it or not, I'm sure that once I have explained the situation, you will feel a strong professional interest in assisting us, Miss Smith."

"That's Mrs. London to you, Herb."

Herbert's handsome jaw tensed but his warm smile did not slip by so much as a fraction. His compelling eyes were gentle with understanding.

"Why don't I start by answering some questions for you," he said persuasively.

"Okay, my first question is, when are you going to let me out of here?"

"All in good time, my dear." Herbert took a swallow of tea and deliberately lowered the cup. "I was referring to questions you no doubt have concerning the unfortunate incident you suffered in the catacombs a few months ago."

Lydia froze in the act of reaching for another cookie. "Your Greenies were involved in that? And here I've been blaming those two hunters who abandoned me—"

Enlightenment struck. "Well, jeez, now I get it. Those bastards were working for you, weren't they? They were closet Greenies."

Herbert sighed. "We prefer to use the proper name of our organization, Mrs. London. We are the Order of the Acolytes of Amatheon."

"Yeah, sure." She took a big bite out of the cookie and munched. "Just tell me what you and your cult had to do with what happened to me."

"We rescued you, Mrs. London."

She swallowed twice to get rid of the last of the cookie and then shook her head. "That's a lie. When I regained consciousness I was alone in the tunnels. There was no one else around." Except for Fuzz, of course, but there was no reason to mention him to Herb. She had never told anyone except Emmett and her closest friends about Fuzz's role in her adventure.

Herbert's mouth curved in a sad, weary smile. "It's the truth, although I admit there's no way I can prove it now. You were found unconscious by one of our excavation crews."

"You operate your own teams?" She hesitated as something else became clear. "Yes, of course you do. That's how you created this little underground empire, isn't it? You have your own equipment and a private staff of tanglers and hunters."

"Many fine dissonance-energy and ephemeral-energy para-rezes have become members of the Order. We also have a number of other professionals with various skills. Accountants, bookkeepers, administrators, clerks. We even have our own medical clinic. In short, we have created a complete community down here, Mrs. London."

"Do you have a license to excavate?"

"Of course. We obtained it in the name of one of our many business enterprises. This entire sector was turned over to us. It was unexplored when we acquired it. Our people cleared the traps and ghosts and mapped the passages."

"You know the Antiquities Act states that no individual or organization can lay exclusive claim to any of the ruins. You can own artifacts and relics, but you can't just claim as private property whole sections of the catacombs."

"Ah, yes, but there is a lovely little loophole, isn't there?" Herbert looked amused. "A business or institution can, with the appropriate certification, stake a claim for a period of several years for purposes of excavation, exploration, and research. During that time the organization has complete control over the entire sector in which it is licensed to operate."

He was right. There was no point arguing the finer points of the Antiquities Act with Herbert. He obviously knew it backward and forward.

She helped herself to another cookie. "You were saying something about having rescued me." Might as well keep him talking, she thought. Time was critical. The longer she stalled, the better the chances that Emmett would find her.

"Yes." Herbert rose from his over-gilded chair and began to pace the carpet. His strides were slow, thoughtful, imbued with an aura of grave importance. "One of our crews discovered you in a chamber in this sector. You were still unconscious. You were taken to the infirmary where you were diagnosed as showing all the symptoms of a bad ghost burn."

"What did your medics do to me?" she asked, not bothering to conceal her deep suspicion.

"You were given the customary psi-calming drugs that are usually administered in such situations. As I'm sure you are aware, people who have been singed are generally very agitated and confused when they awaken."

"In other words, you drugged me."

"I assure you, the medics followed standard emergency procedures. The drugs allowed you to fall into a normal sleep. We were then faced with a dilemma."

"What to do with me?"

"I regret to say that was precisely the problem. You see, the Philosopher has made it clear that we are to keep our work here in the catacombs secret until we have achieved our objective."

"Which is?"

Herbert came to a halt in front of a floor-to-ceiling wall hanging that featured a scene of the towering gates that guarded the Dead City above ground. He managed to position himself so that he was framed by the two great pillars. Lydia was sure that wasn't an accident. You had to hand it to Herb. He had flair.

"We are searching for the tomb of the great Amatheon," Herbert said. Awe and reverence reverberated in his words. "We have reason to believe that it is in this sector. We are very close to our objective, Mrs. London. But secrecy is vital at this stage."

"Why? You said yourself you control this entire sector. You can do whatever you want down here."

"Please, Mrs. London, don't act naive. You know as well as I do what it is like here in the catacombs. No sector can ever be completely mapped, charted, or secured. No matter how thoroughly the survey crews do their job, they cannot possibly locate and clear, let alone protect, every single chamber or corridor."

"Mmm," she said, going for noncommittal. She could not argue with him. He was right.

"Worse yet, once the word gets out that valuable antiquities have been discovered in a sector, the ruin rats descend like the human vermin they are. Somehow, they always manage to find their own entrances."

"In other words, you didn't want the outside world to find out what you were doing down here. You knew that if you called the authorities and told them to come pick me up from your infirmary, your secret would be out."

"Yes." Herbert shook his head. "I apologize, but in our defense, I must tell you that we only did what we felt was both reasonable and right at the time. While you were sleeping under the influence of the medication, we took you to one of the sectors that is administered by the university and left you at a regularly used entrance. We knew that you would be found very quickly and that was exactly what happened."

Liar. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the cup. She had walked for miles underground before locating an exit. Herbert was relying on her well-documented amnesia to cover up the cracks in his version of the truth.

"I see." She crossed her legs and tried to project an expression of reluctant interest. "Well, that does explain a few things. I suppose you know that I have no memories of those forty-eight hours."

Herbert nodded in sympathy. "It's common knowledge that amnesia is normal following a bad burn. Often the effects are even worse. Most people who go through what you went through are not quite, shall we say, normal, afterward."

"A lot of people still don't think I'm normal. I was fired from my job at the university because the para-psychologists didn't think I'd ever be able to work underground again."

"You can hardly blame them for their opinion, Mrs. London. Very few para-rezes are ever able to go back into the catacombs after experiencing serious dissonance trauma." Herbert gave her a blinding smile. "But you are obviously an exception to the rule."

"Mmm."

"I'd like to think that the reason you survived with your psi faculties intact was because we found you so soon after your encounter with the ghost and were able to treat you immediately with the latest medications."

He really was a great actor, she thought. Herbert was able to mix the truth and lies together in a seamless tale. If she hadn't regained some whispers of her memory, she might have bought the whole story.

But Herb had made a serious mistake. He obviously did not know about Fuzz's role in her rescue.

She knew exactly how she had escaped. Her memory of awakening in an empty corridor to find Fuzz crouched beside her, licking her face with his raspy little tongue, would be with her forever.

"Let's cut to the chase here, Herb. As long as I appeared to be just another burned-out para-rez with a case of amnesia, you didn't care what I did aboveground. But when you realized that I had recovered fully and was able to work again, you decided to grab me."

"To be blunt, yes."

"I went back into the catacombs for the first time last month." She swung her ankle, thinking quickly. "The news was in the papers because of the dreamstone find. Was that when you found out that I was resonating on all frequencies again?"

"Yes. I am delighted to say that you surprised all of us, Mrs. London."

"What do you want from me?"

Herbert clasped his hands behind his back and regarded her with somber determination. "We need you, Mrs. London. In fact, we are quite desperate for your assistance. You are our last hope."

She eyed him skeptically. "Yeah?"

Herbert unclasped his hands and started toward her. "Come with me. I want to show you something that will astonish you."