Jayne Castle - After Glow

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."