The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) (8 page)

She tightened her grip on the rock and the flicker. The way her luck was running lately, the intruder would probably come looking for her, and the woodshed was the obvious place to start.

But the footsteps kept going, down the graveled driveway to the road. When Sedona risked a peek around the edge of the shed she could see the beam of a flashlight dancing wildly in the fog but it was impossible to make out the running figure. A moment later the bouncing light vanished, too.

She sat there with her back against the shed wall, trying to calm her abused senses. She hadn’t been this rattled since the Disaster. But at least she wasn’t sliding into unconsciousness this time. She was pretty sure the psychic side of her nature hadn’t been shattered.

Pretty sure. She just needed time to get her act together, she thought.

The auroras started then, the brilliant green lights flooding the night sky, infusing the thick fog with an eerie green glow. It didn’t make it any easier to see things in the mist, but at least the world was no longer so oppressively dark.

Maybe she was hallucinating again. No, she had seen the auroras last night and the night before that. Everyone else in Shadow Bay had seen them, too. The locals said they were a common atmospheric event around Halloween. The waves of light were real.

A familiar rumble came out of the fog.

“Lyle,” she said. “About time you showed up. Hope you had fun tonight. I had a blast.”

Lyle appeared out of the glowing green mist. She wouldn’t have been able to see him at all if it were not for the fact that he had all four eyes open. He hopped up onto her knees and made urgent little noises.

“It’s okay,” she said. She reached out to pat his head. “But I need a minute here.”

Lyle rumbled again, jumped down off her knees, and disappeared into the green mist.

“Just when you think you’ve found the right guy,” Sedona said, “he ups and disappears on you.”

Damn. Now she was talking to herself. This was not good. Maybe she had hallucinated Lyle. It was a deeply disturbing thought. Maybe the drugs they had given her in Blankenship’s lab had done more damage than she had realized. Maybe there had been no psi-trap in the bedroom tonight. Maybe she wasn’t seeing aurora light reflected in the fog. Maybe she was permanently lost in a dreamscape.

More footsteps echoed in the mist. She listened closely. Boots, this time, and moving fast. She wondered if she was now having auditory hallucinations. Dreams were strange.

She listened hard, wondering if the boots would go into the house. But they didn’t. They came directly toward the woodshed.

Lyle materialized out of the bright fog. All four eyes still open. But this time he chortled reassuringly and bounced up onto her thigh.

Relief flashed through her. She clutched him close.

The boot steps came to a halt. She was suddenly pinned in the beam of a flashlight. When she looked up she saw a large dark shadow looming in the mist.

“What the hell is going on here?” Cyrus said.

“It’s sort of complicated,” Sedona said.

She put down the rock and struggled to get to her feet.

Cyrus reached down and helped her stand.

The physical contact was a mistake. She knew it instantly but by then it was too late. She was in the midst of a post-burn buzz. The crash would come later, but for now all of her senses were at high-rez and not under full control.

“Wait,” she gasped. “You don’t want to do this.”

But Cyrus had already scooped her up into his arms. “Take the flashlight.”

She took the flashlight in her right hand. She was still clutching the flicker in her other hand. She aimed the flashlight at the front porch.

“I’m trying to explain something,” she said. “I’m a little jittery at the moment. I’m not in full control of my senses. I think I may have been psi-burned.”

Cyrus carried her up the steps. “What are you worried about?”

Small sparks and flames leaped in the atmosphere. One of them nipped at the front of his shirt. She smelled charring fabric and realized that she had accidentally rezzed the flicker. She groaned.

“Well, among other things, I might set your shirt on fire,” she said.

He looked down and smiled. She felt a rush of energy—Cyrus’s talent, not her own, she realized. The tiny flames that threatened his shirt evaporated. So did the little sparks in the atmosphere. Her frazzled senses seemed to sigh in relief.

“How did you do that?” she whispered.

“Why do you think they call me Dead Zone Jones? I’m a cooler.”

“I didn’t think that coolers really existed,” Sedona said. “Thought they were a myth.”

She was pretty sure she had her senses back under full control. She didn’t think there was any danger that she might set fire to the curtains. But who knew?

She sat on the sofa, feet slightly spread. She leaned forward, her elbows braced on her knees. She watched Cyrus pour hot water from the kettle into a cup. He was still dressed as he had been earlier when he had arrived on the island, but it looked like he had used his fingers to comb his dark hair straight back behind his ears.

“For obvious reasons, it’s not the sort of talent you advertise,” Cyrus said. “As a general rule, most people tend to run in the opposite direction as fast as they can. No one wants to get close to someone who can dampen another person’s talent.”

She gave that some thought. “Your men know about your talent. Doesn’t seem to worry them.”

“That’s because in our world, power of any kind gets a lot of respect. Why do you think I joined the Guilds in the first place?”

“Oh, I see.”

“Socially, however, I run into a few problems.”

She nodded in understanding. “Probably not the kind of thing you mention on a first date.”

“Or the third or fourth of fifth date. The matchmaking agency gave up on me.”

“Geez. Talk about the ultimate rejection.”

“Tell me about it.”

Coolers were so rare as to be relegated to the category of legend and myth—and not in a good way. It was impossible to measure a cooler-talent. What couldn’t be measured was hard to demonstrate in a scientific fashion. And there was no getting around the fear factor, Sedona thought.

When it came to paranormal talents, coolers were considered bad news. Stand too close to a high-rez cooler when he was using his talent and your own psychic senses were temporarily frozen; useless. It was said that really strong talents could permanently ice another person’s aura and stop his heart.

There were a lot of names for folks with Cyrus’s kind of talent—psi-zombies, flat-liners, and icers—but coolers was the most polite and also the oldest. It derived from Old World casino jargon. Got a player on a hot winning streak? Just send in the cooler. All he or she has to do is walk past the table, get a fix on the way-too-lucky player, and send out a little whisper of energy to neutralize any talent he was using to control the cards.

Back on Earth a lot of successful gamblers had probably never realized they were using a little psi-energy to count cards or influence the dealer. Here on Harmony, where almost everyone had some natural paranormal ability, casino managers had to take precautions to protect the natural house edge. Sedona knew that any of them would have paid a fortune to get the services of a genuine cooler.

Well, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally setting the cottage on fire.

Flat-liner or not, Cyrus looked surprisingly good in her kitchen. What’s more, he was acting like he had every right to be there. She was not sure what to make of that, but she was still too frazzled to think about it.

The bad news was that, although she was back under control, she was still in the midst of a serious post-burn buzz. It was a well-documented fact that using a lot of talent had some side effects, one of which was that the adrenaline rush spilled a lot of biochemicals, including some significant sex hormones, into the bloodstream. True, she hadn’t ever experienced a rush like the one that had her on edge at the moment. But, then, she’d never had an occasion to share the aftermath with a man as interesting as Cyrus Jones, either.

“So you think that whatever happened to you when you were kidnapped is responsible for this new fire-starting talent you’ve got now?” Cyrus asked.

“I suspect my new ability is a result of those experiments that damned Blankenship conducted on me. All I know is that when I went on that last contract job I was a gatekeeper. A really strong gatekeeper, but, still, just a gatekeeper.” She thought about it. “Now I’m something else, as well.”

“Multi-talents are very . . . rare,” Cyrus said quietly.

The soft, masculine timbre of his voice sent another frisson of sensual arousal across all of her senses. This was not going well. She made another effort to pull herself together.

“You don’t have to tiptoe around it,” she said. “I did my research. I’m aware that most multi-talents go crazy while they’re still young and end up dead or permanently hospitalized.”

“But you feel okay,” Cyrus said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Well, yes.” She wiggled her fingers. “Except for this little fire-starting talent I seem to have developed.”

“Interesting.”

He took a pretzel out of a jar and walked toward her across the hardwood floors, the mug of tea gripped easily in one strong hand. There was a very focused gleam of curiosity in his eyes but he did not sound concerned. Most strong talents would have been running for cover about now, she thought.

Then again, there probably wasn’t much that could make Cyrus run. Besides, given the nature of his own talent, he didn’t have much to fear from someone like her.

She was probably the one who ought to be running for cover.

She realized that Cyrus was still watching her closely. She could almost feel him weighing and judging; making decisions that could affect her new life here on Rainshadow. It occurred to her somewhat belatedly that she should have kept her mouth shut.

“Forget your new talent,” Cyrus said. “We’ll get to that later.”

That sounded ominous.

“We’ve got other priorities right now,” he continued. “Drink some tea and tell me what happened here tonight.”

When she took the mug from him she got another little lightning jolt of awareness. She had known from the start that she was attracted to him and that the attraction was dangerous, but she had been in full control until now. Going to bed with a Guild boss was definitely not on her agenda. She had taken care to avoid that sort of complication from the start of her career.

“Before we get to whatever happened here tonight, I’d like to ask a favor,” she said. “I would really, really appreciate it if you would not mention the possibility of me having a second talent to anyone.”

“No problem,” he said easily. “You have my word on it.”

She raised her brows. “Just like that?”

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Is there more to the business of making a promise?”

She thought about that.

“No, I guess not,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but I think I believe you.” Or maybe she just desperately wanted to believe him.

“Guild bosses are good at keeping secrets,” Cyrus said.

“Right.”

What they were really good at doing was keeping secrets that they figured would give them an edge. For all she knew, her secret might very well fit into that category as far as Cyrus was concerned. She must not forget that.

There was some hopeful chortling from the back of the sofa.

Cyrus handed the pretzel to Lyle who took it in one paw and fell to crunching with typical enthusiasm.

Cyrus lowered himself onto the sofa and sat a short distance away, not quite touching Sedona. He probably knew that she was still in the grip of the aftermath thing, she thought. He had no doubt been there on a number of occasions himself.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re holding that blackmail material over my head, remember?”

She drank her tea and did not respond. As threats went, her vow to release the file on Blankenship’s lab was puny and they both knew it.

“Let’s get back to what happened in here tonight,” Cyrus said.

“Okay,” she said. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

“Lyle showed up at my window. He made a lot of noise. I got the impression he wanted me to follow him.”

“Sadly, this is not the first time Lyle has had to rescue me. If this keeps up, he may start looking for someone else to bond with, someone who doesn’t need so much help getting out of trouble.”

Cyrus gave Lyle a considering look. “Got a feeling that Lyle isn’t the kind who would leave a buddy behind.”

She smiled and inhaled the aroma of the tea. Something inside her started to relax. The tisane was a special blend of herbs that Rachel Blake, the owner of Shadow Bay Books, had mixed for her the day she had arrived on the island. Rachel was an aura reader with a talent for creating just the right individual blend for each client.

She drank some tea, savoring the warmth, and lowered the mug.

“I walked right into a small psi-trap tonight,” she said.

“Here?” Cyrus asked. “Inside the cottage?”

She could not tell if he believed her or not. It would be perfectly reasonable for him to conclude that she had hallucinated the whole thing. It took a special kind of talent to work trap energy. People who could do it were usually referred to as tanglers. Most respectable, reputable tanglers pursued careers in para-archaeology. But there were those who took different paths.

“Someone set it in the hallway.” She glanced across the room. “Whoever it was loosened the bulb in the fixture there and in the bedroom as well. I suppose the tangler wanted to make sure I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary before I blundered into the device. It was under the carpet. I stepped right on it.”

Cyrus looked at the darkened hallway. There was a hard, assessing expression in his eyes. She could almost feel him running scenarios and calculating odds.

“You think you used your new talent to escape the trap,” he said.

“I know I did.” She drank some more tea, cradling the mug in both hands. “I nearly set the cottage on fire.”

Amusement came and went in his eyes. “That explains the slightly smoky smell. Thought you’d burned something in the oven earlier. All right, tell me the rest, step by step.”

He looked intrigued, she decided, not shocked or horrified—just seriously intrigued.

“There’s not much to tell,” she said, trying to recall the details. “The dreamlight energy was generating a lot of hallucinations. I was totally disoriented. I went on autopilot. You know how it is when your intuition kicks in and all of a sudden you’re using your talent without consciously focusing it.”

“Been there,” he agreed.

She looked at the flicker on the coffee table. “Evidently, all I need is a spark or a flame of some kind to ignite my new talent. I used that flicker. Once I had a kind of shield around me, I got out of the cottage and hid.”

“Who were you hiding from?” Cyrus asked in that same neutral voice.

Sedona turned her head to look at him. “I was dazed from the force of the initial blast. But I figured that whoever had set the trap would come back to see if it had worked. I was right.”

Cyrus’s eyes were chips of ice now. “The tangler came back?”

“Yes. Shortly after I got outside I heard the footsteps and caught a few glimpses of light from a flashlight bouncing in the fog. Whoever it was went into the house, stayed there for a moment or two, and then left in a very big hurry.”

Cyrus did not speak for a moment. He just sat quietly, contemplating the fire. She exhaled slowly, deeply.
Should have seen this coming,
she thought.

“You don’t believe me,” she said. “I don’t blame you. Hey, I recently escaped from a secret Guild lab. What can you expect? I probably hallucinated the whole thing. All indications are that I’m an unstable multi-talent who has become a full-blown conspiracy freak. Thanks for making the tea. You can go back to your own cottage now.”

“I told you, I’m a Jones,” Cyrus said. “Got a long history of conspiracy buffs in my family. Got a few ancestors who were rumored to be multi-talents, as well. I’m not going anywhere, at least not until dawn.”

She choked and sputtered on her tea. “What?”

He did not respond. His attention was fixed on the hallway. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the concept of him spending the night when he got to his feet.

He crossed the room and stood looking down the short, dark hallway into the darker bedroom. Experimentally he rezzed the wall switch. When the light didn’t come on, he took the small flashlight off his belt and walked slowly, deliberately into the hall.

Ever hopeful of a new game, Lyle hopped down off the back of the couch and scurried after Cyrus.

They both disappeared. A low growl emanated from the hallway. Probably Lyle, Sedona decided. She had a hunch that Cyrus’s growl would sound a little different—a whole lot sexier.

She drank some more tea and waited.

Cyrus reappeared a short time later, Lyle bouncing along at his heels.

“Someone was here, all right,” Cyrus said. “There are partial footprints on the carpet that don’t match yours. Remnants of psi-trap energy in the hallway, too.”

She raised her brows. “You can sense that?”

“One of the side effects of being a cooler. Don’t worry; the residue isn’t strong enough to give you nightmares. But what’s really interesting is that there are some traces of the tangler’s energy. Fear, I think. Maybe even a little panic. Must have been caught off guard when he didn’t find you lying unconscious in the hallway.”

Sedona made a face. “Nice to know I may have made him a tad nervous, at least.”

“You probably scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t be sure that you weren’t hiding somewhere waiting to attack whoever came to see if the trap had worked.”

She exhaled slowly. “If only. Unfortunately it was all I could do just to get myself out of the cottage without setting fire to the place. I was the one in a panic. Sure you’re not picking up my vibes?”

“I can sense some of your energy, too. For the record, it doesn’t feel unstable.”

She stilled. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Cyrus regarded her with a considering air. “You were fighting for your life but you were in control. I can tell that you’re an off-the-charts talent. You’re right; I think you could do some actual damage if you tried.”

She looked down at the flicker. “I gotta tell you, that’s scary. Who knows what I might do if I got really mad and lost control altogether?”

Cyrus’s smile was startlingly sexy. “Excellent question. I think it explains why whoever came after you used a trap to try to catch you instead of a mag-rez pistol.”