Jayne Castle - Deception Cove

This past year she had tried her hand at the magic business. It seemed like the perfect career for a woman with her skill set. As it happened, however, any halfway-experienced magician could routinely make objects disappear on stage. The fact that she used psychic energy to achieve the effect did not impress anyone in show business. She was a one-trick wonder.

Still, the ability to disappear at will, along with whatever she happened to have physical contact with at the time, did have its benefits.

“Shit,” Tattoo Head yelped. He halted abruptly and stared at the place where Alice had been seconds earlier. “Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know,” Stocking Cap said. He was clearly jittery. “This is too weird. Maybe that last dose of green dust was bad, man. Gotta find a new dealer.”

“It’s not the dust,” Tattoo Head said, edging back toward the entrance of the alley. Fear shivered in the atmosphere around him. “Maybe that magic act of hers is for real. Maybe she’s a witch or something.”

“No way. Are you crazy? No such thing as a witch.”

Alice hurried toward the alley entrance. She could not remain invisible for long, not now. She had used a lot of energy on stage. Psychic energy was subject to the laws of physics, just like any other kind of energy. Use a lot of it and you needed time to recover. But she was sure she would only have to bend light for another minute or two. Stocking Cap and Tattoo Head were starting to panic.

On her shoulder Houdini chortled gleefully. The sound echoed eerily in the night. So did her footsteps and the rattle of the suitcase wheels on the pavement.

“Shit, I can hear her,” Tattoo Head said. “It’s like she’s a ghost.”

That proved too much for Stocking Cap.

“I’m getting out of here,” he said.

He whirled and fled toward the alley entrance. Tattoo Head was hard on his heels. They nearly trampled Alice in their haste. She got out of the way, hauling the suitcase to one side, and she stood with her back to the brick wall as the pair thudded past.

They did not get far. A man materialized in the shadows at the front of the narrow passage. Moving with the swift, efficient speed and agility of a specter-cat, he did something fast and ruthless to Tattoo Head and Stocking Cap. Alice could have sworn that she saw a spark of dark paranormal lightning flash in the night, but it winked out before she could be certain.

She blinked and saw Tattoo Head and Stocking Cap were on the ground. Neither moved.

The newcomer walked to where his victims lay and collected their knives. Then he crouched and went swiftly through the pockets of the unconscious men.

Just when you were convinced that a day could not get any worse, Alice thought. She stood frozen, her back to the alley wall, suddenly afraid to make any noise. She held her breath and struggled to keep the invisibility shield wrapped around herself, Houdini, and her burdens.

For his part, Houdini no longer appeared concerned. He was alert and watchful but he was back in dryer-lint mode. She was not sure what to make of that. On the one hand, it was reassuring to know that he did not sense another threat. Then again, maybe he was simply relishing the extended performance.

Evidently satisfied with his search, the man who had taken down Tattoo Head and Stocking Cap rose easily to his feet and started walking toward her.

As he came into the full glare of the alley door light, she saw that he was wearing wraparound, mirrored sunglasses.

Mirrored sunglasses . At midnight .

She just had time to realize that the stranger looked somewhat familiar before it dawned on her that he was looking directly at her.

“You must be Alice North,” he said. “Your great-grandfather and mine were partners in a seafaring business a long time ago. My name is Drake Sebastian.”

That explained a lot, she thought, including the sunglasses-at-midnight thing. The Sebastians kept a low profile, but given her personal interest in the family, she paid attention when a member of the clan occasionally appeared in a rez-screen video or in the newspapers. Drake was the heir to the corporate throne—the man slated to take over the helm of the family empire—so lately he had been showing up more than any of the other Sebastians.

Drake was never seen in public without his mirrored glasses. They were his trademark. According to the media, he did not wear them for effect. The unique mirrored lenses had been developed specially for him in a Sebastian company research lab. It was no secret that following a lab accident three years earlier he had developed a severe sensitivity to light from the normal end of the spectrum. Now, without his special sunglasses, Drake was even blinded by a low-watt lightbulb.

For the past year there was only one thing Alice had feared more than her obsessive ex-mother-in-law’s unrelenting harassment. Her worst nightmare for months was that the powerful Sebastian family might figure out that something very bad had happened on Rainshadow Island a year ago and that she was responsible.

Now it appeared the clan had, indeed, sent someone to track her down—and not just some low-ranking security agent. It was the next president and CEO of the family empire standing here in the alley. And he was looking straight at her even though she was bending light with all of her talent.

No doubt about it. This is officially a really, really bad night , she thought.

“You can see me,” she said.

The overhead light glinted on Drake’s mirrored glasses. His mouth curved in a mysterious smile, an edgy combination of masculine satisfaction and anticipation that sent shivers of awareness across her senses.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I can see you, Alice North.”

“Crap.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

ALICE LOWERED HER SENSES. NO POINT WASTING ANY more energy, she thought. She was close to exhaustion. It was clear now that she was going to have to make another run for it soon. In the meantime, she needed to conserve her talent.

She called on her other talent, the kind she used to conceal her emotions on stage. She was pretty good when it came to acting. She had learned the art early in life. It was one of many useful life lessons she had been schooled in at the orphanage. Rule Number One: When in doubt, brazen it out . The corollary of which was, Fake it ’til you make it .

“Got some ID?” she asked coolly.

It didn’t seem likely that one of Ethel Whitcomb’s minions would take the enormous risk of using the Sebastian family name as a cover. But when it came to Ethel you could never be sure. Revenge was a powerful drug for some people, and Ethel was a true addict. To get a fix she would take any chance, pay any price—even if that price meant pissing off a powerful business rival.

Drake didn’t miss a beat.

“Driver’s license or Sebastian, Inc. ID?” He smiled again, gravely polite this time.

“Company ID,” she said. “Fake driver’s licenses are ten bucks apiece anywhere here in the Quarter. But a Sebastian, Inc. ID card would be a little harder to come by.”

“What makes you think you’ll know a piece of genuine Sebastian, Inc. ID?” he asked, reaching inside his leather jacket.

“Give me a break. Everyone knows that Sebastian, Inc. is in the high-tech security business, among other things. I’m betting their ID cards are very hard to forge.”

She was on thin ice and she knew it. How would she recognize a false ID when she had no way of knowing what the real thing looked like?