Guild Boss (Ghost Hunters #14)(25)

Gabriel surveyed structures looming in the yellow fog. “What’s the appeal of these old Colonial-era buildings?”

“History. And the fact that there’s a lot of hot energy in the area. It gives the tourists a thrill. Everyone wants to experience the kind of storm that happens in this zone.”

“And you can make sure that happens.”

“I told you, it’s not that hard to create one, because there’s so much energy in the vicinity.” She cleared her throat. “Nothing very big, of course.”

“But big enough to impress the tourists?”

“It doesn’t take much, because they’re primed to anticipate one. They want to experience a storm, so they get excited with just a small weather event.” She was starting to get nervous. It would not be a good idea to let the new Guild boss know what she could do with her talent. She stopped in front of a jagged opening in the glowing Wall. “Here we go. I went in this way on that night.”

“You’re sure?”

Lucy studied the opening, trying to pull up memories. As usual, all she got were bits and pieces of a puzzle. Scenes flashed and sparked and then vanished. Some she was sure were real. Others she suspected were hallucinations and fragments from a dreamscape. She focused on the ones that felt true.

“I can’t be absolutely certain, but this would have been the logical place for me to go inside.” She turned to look at the mist-bound parking lot. The lights of the limo speared the fog, but she could no longer see the big vehicle. “I remember a dark SUV sitting about where Joe is parked now. When I got out of the cab, I saw figures closing in on me. I started running. I headed straight for the Dead City. This would have been the closest entrance. I must have sensed the energy.”

There was no mistaking the currents of radiation that seeped out of the ruins through the crack in the Wall.

“Sounds logical,” Gabriel said.

They moved through the tear in the thick quartz wall and walked into the heavy paranormal atmosphere of the moonlit ruins. Excited, Otis scampered ahead of them and began investigating.

Lucy stopped, giving her senses a moment to adjust. Gabriel did the same.

Like the great Wall, the broken and shattered towers were luminous after dark. The handful of structures that had not been destroyed by the ancient catastrophe rose into the night, elegant and graceful, but the proportions struck the human eye as oddly distorted and warped, as if they had been designed in a surreal dream.

There were small, narrow doorways at the base of every building, but no windows. The experts had concluded that the Aliens had initially attempted to colonize the surface of Harmony but something in the atmosphere had proven hostile or, perhaps, downright lethal to them. In spite of their advanced technology, they had been forced to go underground. There they had apparently flourished, at least for a time.

Humans were thriving on Harmony, but the ancient beings who had come before them had either given up and left or, as some archaeologists theorized, perished due to a natural disaster or a virus.

“You said your goal was to hide somewhere inside,” Gabriel said. “Did you head for one of the towers?”

She looked at the ruins of a nearby structure. There was a doorway at the base. A sliver of a memory whispered through her.

Run. Run. If you get inside you can go down into the tunnels. You’ve got your amber. You’ll be safe there.

“I tried to get into that tower,” she said. “It’s the closest to the hole-in-the-wall. I remember thinking that if I could just get down into the tunnels, I could disappear. I had my amber at that point, so I wasn’t worried about not being able to navigate. But they caught me before I could get through the doorway.”

She started walking across the glowing quartz that paved the ancient streets of the Dead City, dodging broken chunks of stone and toppled structures. Gabriel fell into step beside her. Otis bounced ahead, all four eyes still open.

Lucy stopped just outside the narrow entrance of the shattered tower. Through the doorway she could see the top of a glowing spiral staircase that led down into the tunnels.

“This is as far as I got,” she said. “They grabbed me before I went through the doorway. Someone gave me an injection. That’s it. That’s all I remember until I woke up down below.”

Gabriel said nothing. Instead he began to prowl the rubble of green quartz near the entrance of the fallen tower. Curious, Otis bounced over to join him. Lucy watched the two of them for a long moment.

“The thing that I don’t understand is the motive,” she said after a while. “My father has money, but there was no ransom demand.”

“There wasn’t much time for the kidnappers to send one,” Gabriel pointed out. “You apparently escaped within hours of being taken. Once they lost you, they lost their leverage.”

She folded her arms. “Okay, that’s true.”

“If your memories are accurate—”

She winced. “I know. I can’t trust my memories. You don’t have to spell it out.”

“Ransom money is not the only motive for kidnapping someone. If your memories are accurate to any degree, we should consider the possibility that you possess something the kidnappers wanted.”

“Such as?”

He looked at her. “Isn’t it obvious? Your talent.”

She stilled. “I thought about that. The thing is, there are plenty of weather channelers in town now.”