Jayne Castle - Ghost Hunter

She closed her eyes to help concentrate. She found the resonating patterns in the wall and cautiously pulsed power through her amber, sending out her own unique brand of psychic energy in a counterpoint rhythm.

She sensed instantly when the wavelengths melded and canceled each other out.

Humid warmth and a vast energy wind flowed over her, stirring all of her senses. She was enveloped in an intoxicating aura of plant psi more powerful than she had ever experienced in her entire life.

"Elly, look," Doreen whispered.

Elly opened her eyes. A large section of the wall had disappeared, revealing an impossible landscape of heavily massed foliage.

A canopy of leaves formed by trees that were at once startlingly familiar and strangely different cast a heavy veil of shadow over a world of magnificent ferns, flowers, and vines. The lush scents of a vast greenhouse filled the air.

"Jordan's Jungle," Elly said softly.

Rose appeared in the opening, still sleeked out and in full predatory mode. She rumbled a warning.

"We're coming," Elly said.

"Oh, shit," Doreen said tensely. "Maybe Frazier does have your frequency."

Elly looked back and saw the small, whirling vortex. It was coming toward them like a well-aimed spear moving in relatively slow motion.

There was no time to use the earrings to close the opening in the wall. She tugged both pieces of jewelry out of her ears and hurled them straight at the vortex.

The energy spear swerved toward the fresh bait.

"Let's go," Elly said.

Together with Doreen and Rose, she plunged into Jordan's Jungle.

THE FREQUENCY OF ELLY'S AMBER DISAPPEARED FROM Cooper's personal amber-rez locator. He went cold to the bone. He did not want to think about what that might mean.

All he had now were the coordinates of Elly's last position in the catacombs. If she and Doreen moved very far from those, he would never find them.

But he was close. And Rose was with the women, he reminded himself. According to Emmett London, dust bunnies seemed to be able to navigate underground. Rose would never abandon Elly. Not if she was still alive.

He refused to contemplate the alternative.

He sent the sled skimming across a six-way intersection and shot down another glowing hallway, heading for Elly's last known location.

*****

ELLY CROUCHED JUST INSIDE THE SMALL CAVE. PEERING through the screen of ferns. Doreen knelt beside her. Rose sat on a nearby rock, fully fluffed, looking unconcerned once more. She fussed with her fur and fastidiously adjusted her necklace.

Jordan's Jungle was a surprisingly noisy place. They hadn't seen any wildlife except for a few small, very green lizards skittering over the nearby rocks, but the shrieks of unseen birds echoed through the high tree canopy.

Down below the cavern where she and Doreen hid, a large waterfall cascaded over stones, splashing into a dark pool that was covered with broad-leaved plants.

Layer upon layer of lush, thick greenery surrounded the grotto. From her vantage point, Elly could see the opening in the wall that she had created and a small section of the outside corridor.

"What's he doing?" Doreen whispered. "Can you see?"

A figure moved hesitantly through the opening and stopped almost immediately. Palmer looked around in obvious confusion and disbelief.

"He's inside," Elly said. "But he looks very nervous."

"I don't blame him." Doreen shuddered. "Who knows what's in this place? I'll bet there are all kinds of poisonous snakes and insects."

"Rose will give us a warning if something dangerous approaches."

"Fine. We get a warning. Then what? It's not like we've got anything we can use against that blue ghost light thing."

"I wonder how Palmer got my amber frequency," Elly said. "How did he even know I had one? No one except Cooper and my family know that I have some kind of psi thing going on with plants. Why would he suspect that I was wearing tuned amber?"

"I think we can worry about that later. Right now we've got other issues."

"Elly," Palmer shouted. His voice reverberated through the trees. "You are in great danger. Doreen and Cooper Boone are partners in the drug ring. Don't you get it? They're trying to set you up."

"I can't believe he's going to try a stupid line like that," Elly stated. "He must have a very low opinion of my intelligence."

"Palmer hasn't got a lot of respect for women," Doreen said. "And I'll have to admit I did my part to encourage that view."

"Don't blame yourself for not seeing through him," Elly said. "He's a very shrewd and manipulative man. He actually managed to get himself a seat on the Guild Council back home in Aurora Springs. That means he fooled my father and everyone else on the Council. No one realized just how dangerous he was until Cooper arrived on the scene. He understood right away that Palmer was a threat and took steps to remove him."

"Yeah? Too bad Cooper didn't do something a little more permanent."

"Got a hunch Cooper is thinking pretty much the same thing at this very moment."

*****

SHOULD HAVE KILLED THE BASTARD, OR AT LEAST FRIED HIS brains when I had the chance.

Cooper brought Bertha's sled to a halt behind the one Frazier had left in the hallway. He got out and went swiftly toward the opening in the wall.

The sight of the massed greenery was stunning. Looks like a full-blown rainforest in there. So much for Jordan's Jungle being a myth.

He stopped at the edge of the opening, flattening his back against the wall, and inhaled the heavy scents of the jungle. The humidity was an invisible wall of heat. He could hear the cries of birds and the distant rumble of a waterfall.

Palmer Frazier's voice rang out.

"Elly, you've got to listen to me. Cooper Boone is a very dangerous man. You grew up in a Guild family. Ever heard of a blue freak? That's what he is. I can protect you from him."

Cooper listened intently. If Elly was in there, she knew enough to keep silent. As for Frazier, he wasn't too far inside the entrance.

"I know all about your ability to sense plant psi," Frazier said. "Griggs figured it out. When he visited your shop he watched you working with the herbs and realized that you could do the same thing he could do with plants. A couple of weeks ago I sent him into your shop with one of the new amber frequency readers to get a reading on your earrings. Those new gadgets are really something. All he had to do was stand a few feet away from you. He was able to get your number without you ever knowing what he was doing. It was just a safety precaution to protect you in case Boone kidnapped you and took you underground."

Cooper rezzed blue ghost light, forcing it into a vortex. Using the blue storm as a shield, he moved through the opening.

He saw motion in a heavy stand of monstrous ferns not more than twenty feet away. Frazier was sticking close to the gate in the wall, no doubt afraid to move too deeply into the unknowns of the jungle.

The storm of blue energy caught Frazier's attention.

"Boone." He pushed through a fan of giant fern fronds. "You son of a bitch freak. This is all your fault."

A blue vortex flashed across the space that separated them. It struck the shield that Cooper had constructed. When the energy masses collided there was a brilliant, intense explosion of blue light that briefly lit up the primal darkness of the underground rain forest.

Another vortex arrow followed, and then another and another, until the air was filled with violent shafts of energy. Frazier was going for an all-out assault, hoping to overwhelm and disorient his opponent.

Cooper's shield flared and pulsed in response to the hail of arrows. The strobe light flashes became so intense, so eye-dazzling, that Cooper had to close his eyes and fight with only his psi senses to guide him.