Jayne Castle - After Glow

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."

Emmett felt the psi energy leaking out of the hidden rat hole long before Cornish and Verwood had finished pushing the empty shipping casks out of the way. His senses weren't picking up the usual fleeting wisps of power that were common in the Old Quarter, rather the strong, steady pulses that indicated an entrance into the catacombs. He was aware that Fuzz, still perched on his shoulder, was tensed as if he was about to spring.

"I followed Maltby here a couple of nights." Cornish stepped back to dust off his hands. "He never saw me. He went inside and stayed gone for hours. Figured this was where he had his hole. I came back one evening when I knew he was passed out from doing Chartreuse. I poked around a bit." He waved a hand at the floorboards. "There's a trapdoor there."

Verwood aimed the flashlight at the boards and glanced at Emmett. "Want me to open it, Boss?"

"Go ahead."

The dilapidated building in which they were standing was in the old warehouse district near the South Wall. All of the buildings along this section of the riverfront had been abandoned and boarded up years ago. Eventually it would probably be redeveloped but not for a long time. There were other, more fashionable sections of the Quarter that would get the gentrification treatment before this one did.

Verwood reached down to pry up the hinged section of flooring. The door into the catacombs opened with a squeak and a groan.

They all looked down into impenetrable darkness.

Cornish grinned. "Illusion trap. Maltby installed it to protect his little hole."

Emmett looked at him. "You didn't mention that it was trapped."

Cornish jerked as if Emmett had touched him with the point of a blade. "Hey, hey, it's okay." He stepped back hastily. "I'm a pretty fair tangler. Used to work the ruins on a regular basis. I can de-rez this for you. I did it the night I found it and then reset it so Maltby would never know."

"Do it," Emmett said evenly. "Destroy it so that it can't be reset."

"Sure, right, no problem." Cornish skittered closer to the opening.

Emmett and Verwood exchanged glances and then both moved back several paces. The first rule of working in the catacombs was not to stand too close to a tangler who was de-rezzing illusion shadow, no matter how small. That went double if you had never seen him work before and didn't know how competent he was. One small mistake on the tangler's part and everyone in the vicinity got caught in the explosion of nightmares that swept out on paranormal frequencies.

Cornish worked the shadow quickly and then held up both hands with a magician's flourish. "There you go, one trap de-rezzed. Maltby kept a little base station down there. Fixed it up real nice. When I went in I found one of those small, one-man mag-sleds, bottled water, food, even a portable lav."

Emmett moved back to the opening in the floor and looked down. A flight of rickety, human-made steps disappeared into deep darkness. But the flashlight beam cut through it with no trouble. Not illusion shadow, just an absence of light.

"I'll check it out," Emmett said to Verwood. "You stay with Cornish."

"Hey, I'm outta here," Cornish howled. "You promised I could go if I showed you the rat hole. I even de-rezzed it for you."

Emmett ignored the protest. "Watch him, Verwood. He doesn't leave until I verify that there are no more traps."

"Got it, Boss."

Cornish subsided, grumbling.

Emmett and Fuzz descended the shaky steps. The flashlight picked out the damp walls of a tunnel that had been dug with human tools. The atmosphere was dank and humid. The close confines triggered a latent claustrophobia Emmett hadn't known he possessed.

But the pulse of psi energy was stronger now and he knew that Fuzz was feeling it, too. The dust-bunny's little claws were squeezing and contracting on his shoulder and the small beast was leaning forward so far he was in danger of falling off his perch.

The steps spiraled downward and turned a corner. The tunnel walls were so tight now that Emmett had to force himself to breathe normally.

Then he saw the reassuring crack of green light up ahead. The fact that there were no suspicious dark patches and no suspicious tingles of energy meant that it was untrapped. He paused at the entrance and called back up to Verwood.

"I'm going in."

"Right, Boss." Verwood's voice was muffled and far away.

Emmett turned sideways to slide through the opening in the catacomb wall. The very existence of such cracks in the green stone had puzzled the experts for years. After all, the quartz seemed virtually indestructible, so how was it possible that slits and holes and crannies had occurred?

A number of theories had been advanced, including the possibility that at some time in the past massive earthquakes had proved more powerful than the alien-engineered quartz.

Others had concluded that the damage had been done in the construction process and had gone unnoticed. A third school held that the rat holes had been created by the thieves, renegades, and outlaws among the ancient Harmonics who had had access to the tools and machines that had been used to build the underground maze.