Jayne Castle - Ghost Hunter

A faint, high-pitched hum echoed in the distance. Elly stilled.

"I think I hear a sled," she whispered.

Doreen cocked her head, listening.

The whine of the engine grew louder.

Doreen's bruised face went pale. "You're right. Sound gets distorted down here, but if we can hear him, we have to assume he isn't too far away. Probably another ruin rat. He might be able to help us."

Elly looked back over her shoulder. "Or not."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm convinced that dust bunnies have an animal version of parapsych senses. Rose's judgment when it comes to people has always been amazingly accurate. For whatever reason she doesn't think we should stick around to find out who is piloting that sled. I vote we go with her."

Rose scurried back toward Elly, made urgent, anxious noises, whipped around, and ran off again.

"That settles it," Elly said. She grabbed Doreen's arm and started forward at a run. "Follow that bunny."

Doreen did not argue.

Rose rounded a corner at top speed, claws clicking on the quartz floor.

Elly and Doreen ran faster.

"Little sucker sure can move when she wants to," Doreen panted.

The engine noise grew louder.

"Damn." Doreen glanced back over her shoulder. "He's getting closer, and I think I'm picking up some ghost energy. He must be following us. How can he be doing that?"

"Your amber," Elly said. "He must have your frequency."

"Oh, shit," Doreen said. "It must be Frazier or whatever his name is. He had plenty of opportunity to get my frequency."

"Toss your amber into one of the chambers."

"Are you nuts? We're underground. If we lose this amber, we'll never find our way out."

Elly touched one earring. "I've got some."

Doreen looked at her earrings, startled. "That's tuned amber you're wearing?"

"Yes."

"I thought it was just a fashion statement. You never said anything about having strong para-rez senses."

"I'll explain later. Trust me, this amber is tuned. And the frequency is unique. There's no way Palmer could know it, because he doesn't know that I have a strong parapsych profile."

"What kind of profile? Hunter? Tangler?"

"Neither. Look, can we talk about this some other time? We've got a situation here."

"But I always work with my own amber," Doreen said uncertainly.

Elly felt a trickle of energy across the nape of her neck. She looked down the length of the tunnel. Blue light sparked in the distance.

"Oh, damn. Looks like a blue light special. It must be Frazier. You have to get rid of your amber, Doreen."

Doreen followed her gaze. "What is that thing? It looks like ghost light, but it's blue. And it's whirling in a weird way."

"He's using your amber to guide that ghost."

"This is so weird." Doreen whipped off her pendant and hurled it back toward the advancing vortex.

The ghost swooped down on the necklace and locked on to its frequency.

"Okay, I believe you now," Doreen whispered.

"That bought us some time," Elly said. "Hurry. Rose is moving fast."

Up ahead Rose veered around another corner, paws scrabbling frantically on the glowing green stone. Elly followed her, Doreen close beside her.

But when they turned the corner, a massive wall of quartz blocked their path. The hallways on either side were solid. There were no branching corridors or vaulted chamber entrances.

Elly slammed to a halt. Doreen did the same. Together they stared in mute horror at the quartz wall.

"There's no way out except back the way we came," Doreen said flatly. "Maybe we can reach that last intersection before Frazier does and turn down another passageway."

Elly shivered beneath a gentle tide of strong, pulsing energy. It was different from what she normally sensed underground. It had an eerily familiar feel.

"Do you sense anything unusual?" she asked.

Doreen frowned. "I'm scared to death, if that's what you mean."

"I'm talking about psi energy waves." Elly moved closer to the wall. "I think they're coming from the quartz."

"I'm not picking up anything except the usual." Doreen broke off, distracted. "I can hear the sled again."

Elly listened to the faint vibrating whine of the sled's motor. Frazier was still hot on their trail.

"Come on." Doreen grabbed her wrist. "We've got to at least try to find another intersection."

Elly did not take her eyes off the wall. "Look at Rose."

"What?"

"Look at her."

Rose had come to a halt directly in front of the solid quartz wall. She was standing on her hind legs facing the barrier.

Incredibly, a small hole materialized in the quartz at dust bunny height. Rose zipped through it and promptly disappeared.

The hole closed behind her, leaving Elly and Doreen gazing at the solid, glowing quartz.

Elly looked at Doreen and saw the despair on her face.

"He's closing in on us," Doreen said. "We're trapped."

COOPER WATCHED THE FREQUENCY NUMBERS WAVER AND abruptly vanish from the screen of his personal amber-rez locator. Doreen's amber had just been fried, most likely by ghost fire. Not a good sign.

Elly's coordinates still registered strongly, though. That gave him hope. He tromped hard on the throttle, trying to coax a little more speed out of Bertha Newell's rickety old sled. There wasn't much to be had. He was already moving dangerously fast as it was. At this rate he could easily slam into an illusion trap or a ghost before he had time to steer clear.

But he had no choice. When he had arrived at Newell's private tunnel gate and discovered that Doreen and Elly hadn't made it out, he had known in his gut that things had gone wrong. That led to the chilling conclusion that Frazier was more than likely involved.

He whipped the sled around another corner and shot down a long green hallway, all of his senses open to the currents of psi power that flowed through the catacombs.

*****

DOREEN GAZED, BAFFLED, AT THE SOLID QUARTZ WALL. "It may be some form of illusion trap energy, but it's not like any I've ever worked with. I'm not sensing anything. If I hadn't seen Rose disappear through that wall just now, I'd swear it was solid quartz." She put her hand on the stone. "It even feels solid to the touch. If this were true illusion trap energy, my hand would have passed right through it, and I would have triggered the trap."

"But I can feel the energy patterns." Elly studied the wall, wonder and amazement unfurling inside her. "They're similar to the patterns I pick up from those green flowers that Rose brings me."

Doreen looked at her. "You pick up psi energy from plants?"

"It's okay, I'm not really crazy. At least, I don't think I am. The thing is, if I concentrate a little, the wavelengths in that wall become crystal clear. I can almost see them in a way I can't explain."

A small section of the wall shimmered. Another hole opened up. Rose poked her head through and chattered loudly. She disappeared again. The wall sealed itself.

"She wants us to follow her," Elly said. "Maybe I can do this. Everyone in my family can de-rez psi energy waves of one kind or another. I know, theoretically, how it works."

"Go for it," Doreen urged. "Not like we've got a lot of other options here. The de-rezzing techniques are the same for ghost or illusion energy. The variables are the type of energy and the location on the spectrum. I don't know what you're working with here, but if you can sense wavelengths, the idea is to dampen them by focusing your own psi energy through your amber. I can't explain it any more clearly than that. You have to fee l your way into the pattern."

Elly did not respond. She was too busy feeling her way into the pattern. It was easier than she had anticipated, probably because she had been attuned to plant psi energy for years, she thought.