Silver Master

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  He picked up the pillow and breathed deeply. Everything inside him stirred into full awareness. He knew the fragrance. He would remember it for the rest of his life. His heart rate slowed. He wasn’t trapped in the Glenfield Institute; he was in Celinda’s bedroom.

  He recalled how she had wrapped herself around him, her body heat driving out the icy, postburn fever.

  “How you doin’, boss?” Trig asked from the doorway. He had a cup of coffee in one big hand.

  Davis realized that the only thing he had on was his briefs. “I’m okay. A little foggy about what happened, though.”

  “You pulled your invisible man trick when you took on Landry’s men. As near as Celinda can figure, you disappeared for about five minutes. Plus you de-rezzed a lot of ghosts.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. “What day is it? How long was I out?”

  “You weren’t out. Not the way you were last time. The fight with those goons Landry sent after you happened last night. You’ve been asleep for a few hours, that’s all. Normal postburn crash this time.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Trig sipped his coffee and lowered the mug. “You’re sitting there, aren’t you? You look fine to me. Course, you need a shave and a shower, but aside from that—”

  “What happened?”

  “Celinda took care of your little coma issue last night.”

  Davis went very still, remembering the feel of her heat and the sense of calm that had come over him.

  “How?” he asked.

  “She thinks it was a combination of her talent and the relic.”

  “Explain.”

  “She told me that she was able to resonate with the relic and restore your psi-wave patterns to normal. She thinks the artifact may be some kind of alien medical device designed to treat psi-related trauma.”

  “Huh.”

  “But there’s another possibility,” Trig said.

  “What?”

  “Better brace yourself, boss. Celinda is convinced that in the wrong hands the device might be very dangerous.”

  A grim sense of impending trouble came over him. “Let me guess. She doesn’t think Mercer Wyatt and the Guild are the right hands, does she?”

  “Nope. She wants the device to go to a medical research lab where it can be studied.”

  “Oh, shit,” he said very softly.

  “Yeah.” Trig sounded sympathetic.

  “If the device really is that valuable or that dangerous, Wyatt is not going to agree to let go of it. Where is it now?”

  “Araminta’s cookie jar. Celinda told me she figures that’s the last place any of Wyatt’s Guild thugs would think to look for it.”

  “Thugs?”

  “I believe that was the term she used,” Trig said.

  “Swell. The most potentially significant alien artifact ever discovered is hidden in a dust bunny’s cookie jar.”

  “Not like it’s unprotected,” Trig said quickly. “Got a feeling that anyone who tries to swipe it out of that cookie jar will have to deal with one really pissed-off dust bunny.”

  Davis contemplated his badly tangled case. “Got any other cheery news for me?”

  “Couple of things. First, I called Wyatt last night and told him that Benson Landry was after the relic. I also briefed him on what happened out there in the desert at the old ruin site.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Pretty much what you’d expect a guy in his position to say. He told me not to worry about Landry anymore. He’ll take care of him.”

  “One less thing to worry about. Did you tell him the relic had turned up again?”

  Trig exhaled heavily. “No. I thought I’d let you handle that. As far as Wyatt’s concerned, the relic is still missing.”

  “Something to look forward to. Anything else?”

  “Picked up a couple of fairly solid rumors about a guy who may have been the hunter you met up with in the lane the other night. He’s a former Guild man named Brinker who turned ruin rat a few years ago. Evidently he’s capable of generating a dopp ghost.”

  “Got anything else on him?”

  “He managed to eke out a living for a while working the underside of the antiquities business. But a couple of years ago he ran into an illusion trap. The experience left him with a bad case of parapsych trauma. The Guild took care of his medical expenses, but he never fully recovered. According to my information, he’s living in a flophouse in the Old Quarter.”

  “Got an address for him?”

  “Sure do,” Trig said.

  “Sounds like I need to have a conversation with this Brinker.”

  “One thing doesn’t add up, though,” Trig warned.

  “What’s that?”

  “Like I said, according to my information, Brinker is a real burnout case. Can’t even hold a job. Frankly, he doesn’t sound like the type who could get it together enough to engineer a complicated search for a stolen relic.”

  Davis thought about that. “I see what you mean.”

  Trig checked his watch. “It’s four thirty. Want me to stick around any longer?”

  “No. I can handle things now. Go home and get some sleep.”

  “Right.” Trig started to turn away. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “I will. Where’s Celinda?”

  “Sound asleep on the sofa. Finally.”

  Davis frowned. “What do you mean, finally?”

  “She had a hard time getting to sleep. Didn’t stop tossing and turning until about three AM. No big surprise, given what she went through.”

  “She was amazing,” Davis said.

  “Yeah, I got that impression.” Trig paused. “And to think you didn’t believe any woman could handle the invisibility thing.”

  “I said Celinda’s amazing.” He made his tone go neutral. “Doesn’t mean that she wants to have a long-term relationship with a Guild man who does a carnival act.”

  “Don’t be so negative, boss. Keep in mind that she knows your big secret, and she didn’t freak out.”

  “I repeat, it doesn’t mean she wants to get involved with me.”

  “Looks like the two of you are already involved, if you ask me. By the way, I stopped by your place on the way over here last night and picked up some fresh clothes for you.” Trig nodded toward a small overnight case on the floor. “Wasn’t sure what you had left from the wedding trip.”

  “Thanks.”

  Trig went down the hall. A moment later the front door opened and closed very quietly.

  Davis got to his feet and then stopped, unable to decide what to do next. He couldn’t get the image of Celinda asleep on the sofa in the other room out of his mind. The urge to go down the hall and look at her was almost overwhelming.

  But now she knew he was a circus freak.

  “Probably a bad idea,” he said to Max.

  Max yawned and stretched contentedly. Then he flipped over on his back, closed his eyes, and went back to sleep.

  “How come your love life is so much simpler than mine?” Davis asked.

  There was no response.

  After a while it occurred to Davis that he probably needed a shower.

  Chapter 28

  WHEN HE EMERGED FROM THE BATHROOM A SHORT TIME later, he listened very intently for a moment. No sounds of movement came from the living room. Evidently, Celinda was still asleep. Max had disappeared from the bed. A dull, silvery gray light infused the sky.

  He opened the suitcase that Trig had packed and found several items including a black crew-neck T-shirt and a pair of black trousers. He donned the T-shirt and trousers and then stopped to listen again.

  There was still no sound from the living room. He considered his options. He could either stay here in the bedroom until Celinda awakened, or he could go out into the kitchen and see if Trig had left any coffee.

  It was a no-brainer.

  He went barefoot down the hall. The drapes were open, allowing the pale light to illuminate the liv
ing room. He told himself that he would go straight into the kitchen and not even glance at the sofa. He discovered immediately that his normally inexhaustible well of willpower had run dry.

  Celinda was sound asleep amid a tangle of sheets and blankets. Her face was turned away from him on the pillow. He came to a halt, unable to move beyond the sight of her lying there in the early morning light. The memories of their night together in Frequency flooded back, igniting his senses.

  Forget it. Whatever you could have had with her is probably finished.

  As though she had been awakened by his thoughts, she stirred, opened her eyes, and turned her head to look at him.

  “Hi,” she said in a voice softened and warmed by sleep.

  “Hi,” he said. He couldn’t think of any other intelligent conversation. Do you still want me? was what he really wanted to ask.

  “How are you feeling?” she said.

  “Normal. Thanks to you.” Again the unspoken question went through his thoughts: Do you want to go to bed with a freak?

  She looked around the rumpled bedding. “Where are Max and Araminta? Don’t tell me they took off again?”

  “No.” He inclined his head toward the small balcony. “They’re dining alfresco at the moment.”

  She followed his gaze. The sliding glass door was open a few inches. Araminta and Max were perched on the railing, munching cookies while they watched the sun come up over the Dead City.

  “They were both pretty cool last night, weren’t they?” Celinda said proudly. “I couldn’t believe how they went after those thugs.”

  “You were pretty cool, yourself.”

  “Mmm. Well, you did most of the work. All I had to do was drive us all home.”

  He groped for words. “Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you about what I can do with silver light.”

  “Trig explained it.” She contemplated him for a long moment. “It’s a little disconcerting to watch someone disappear, especially when you don’t know there’s a rational explanation.”

  “It’s more than disconcerting.” He remembered the dream about Janet. “Even when people do know there’s an explanation, they can’t deal with it. It’s just too damn weird.”

  She searched his face with sudden understanding. “That’s what happened to your engagement, isn’t it? Your fiancée found out that you can go invisible, and she couldn’t handle it.”

  “I told Janet the truth. I even went invisible in front of her once to let her see what it was like. I could tell it bothered her, but she insisted she could deal with it. I don’t do it very often because it’s such a huge psi drain. But once in a while it comes in handy in the course of my work. As long as I don’t push it for more than a couple of minutes, I’m okay.” He paused. “Until a few months ago I was always in complete control.”

  “What happened?”

  “I think all those drugs they gave me while I was in a coma had some kind of long-term side effects. Occasionally now, when I dream, I pull a little silver light without realizing it.”

  “Without amber?”

  He nodded. “Janet and I were together one night when it happened. I woke up to the sound of her screams. Looked down and saw that a chunk of my leg was missing.”

  She gave him an understanding look. “An awkward moment in a relationship.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was definitely that.”

  “That was when the two of you decided you weren’t a good match?”

  “Things hadn’t been going well for a while,” he admitted. “We got engaged before I wound up in the hospital. After I got out, we both pretended that everything was back to normal. But it wasn’t. We started having problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “I lost most of my clients, for one thing. No one wanted to risk hiring a known burnout case. Business was bad. The rumor went around that I would never recover from the psi trauma. Some of our friends started avoiding us.”

  “I see.”

  “At any rate, the night I accidentally pulled the silver in bed was the last straw. Janet grabbed her keys, ran out of the apartment in her nightgown, and drove to her parents’ house. The next day her father phoned to say that they were all very sorry, but everyone hoped I would understand that no one wanted my genes in the family.”

  “Well,” she said briskly, “that certainly explains why you like to sleep alone.”

  “Beats waking up to a screaming woman in the middle of the night.”

  She arched her brows. “I would just like to point out that you really can’t blame the matchmaker for what happened. I’ll bet you never mentioned your unusual talent when you filled out the questionnaire, did you?”

  “No. I told you, it’s not the kind of thing you advertise.”

  “How did you expect your marriage consultant to find you a good match when you didn’t provide her with your full parapsych profile?”

  “What the hell was I supposed to do? List ‘invisibility’ in the Description of Psychic Talents section? Give me a break. She’d have figured me for some kind of nutcase. And if I had proven that I could do it, she would have told me I was unmatchable. Right after she stopped screaming, that is.”

  “That’s always the way it is.” Celinda made a tut-tutting sound. “The client is less than forthcoming on the questionnaires and then complains when the match isn’t perfect.”

  Was she teasing him? He couldn’t believe it.

  “Damn it, Celinda.”

  She drew her knees up under the bedclothes and wrapped her arms around them. “I did some thinking on the way home last night while you were sleeping. It’s not like there isn’t a long tradition of myths and legends about people who can make themselves invisible or appear to do so. Some of the stories go back to Old Earth tales.”

  “I know. Trust me, I’ve done the research. A lot of the tales are linked to military or combat traditions.”

  “Ninja warriors?”

  “Among others. I found a couple of legends involving invisibility when I studied records of an Old Earth group called the Arcane Society, too.”

  She frowned. “I remember running across a mention of the Society in a History of the Paranormal class I took in college. It was an organization devoted to psychic research, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. There are also plenty of stories about Old World magicians who could pull off invisibility.”

  She watched him very steadily. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “We’re human. Something here on Harmony is pushing the evolution of psychic talents in the population, but that probably wouldn’t happen if we didn’t already carry some innate genetic ability to access the paranormal plane. I think it’s possible that there may have been a few humans back on Old Earth who could do what I do.”

  She thought about that. “The talent is obviously rare. It’s likely to stay rare, too. Judging from what I saw last night, it exacts a huge price in terms of physical and paranormal energy.”

  “Yes.”

  She searched his face. “Trig told me how you wound up in the hospital for a long period of time after you rescued a little girl who had been kidnapped. To avoid the kidnappers you had to keep yourself and the child invisible for over five minutes. He said the resulting coma lasted for weeks.”

  “The real problem,” he said quietly, “was that I wasn’t unconscious that whole time.”

  She stared at him, eyes widening with sympathetic horror. “Dear heaven. You mean you were aware of what was going on around you, but you couldn’t communicate?”

  “For the first three days or so after I collapsed I was completely under. But after they got me into the hospital, they started experimenting with their damn drugs in an effort to bring me out of the coma. They succeeded, but only partway. I could walk if someone steered me. I could eat if someone fed me. But I couldn’t initiate any action. I couldn’t speak.”

  She tightened her arms around her knees, hugging herself. “I was in a similar kind of lim
bo after Landry shot me full of that heavy-duty tranquilizer drug. But at least I was only trapped for a few hours. I can’t even imagine how bad days and weeks in that condition would have been.”

  “The orderlies used to take me outside to sit on the veranda.” He grimaced. “They probably figured that looking at the gardens would be soothing. But I hated those gardens. Every time they sat me down on that damn veranda, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to walk away from that place.”

  “I understand.”

  “In fairness, it wasn’t the fault of the doctors. They’d never seen anything like my case before. They had no protocol for treating me, so they went with the experimental approach. In their place, I’d have done the same thing.”

  “What happened?” she asked. “How did they finally bring you around?”

  “They didn’t. For the most part, all the drugs did was suppress my psi senses and tranquilize me into a stupor. Eventually they tried a drug that was not very effective. I was able to surface long enough to say a few words.”

  “What words?”

  “‘Stop the damn drugs.’”

  “Good choice. How long did it take you to recover?”

  “Took about three days for the drugs to wear off enough so that I could move on my own without falling down. The first thing I did was check myself out of the hospital.” He smiled very thinly. “The director did not approve.”

  “How long would the psi coma have lasted if they hadn’t given you the drugs?”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged. “For obvious reasons, I don’t have a lot of practical experience with the problem. Going invisible for more than a minute or two just requires too much energy. Take it from me, it’s not pleasant sliding into even a short-term coma.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “The dreams are not sweet.”

  “You dream while you’re in that state?”

  “Yes.” He felt his jaw tighten. “After what happened last night, I should have been out for at least three or four days, maybe longer. I’ve never burned that much psi before. For all I know, I might not have come out of it at all. But what I experienced was just a routine hunter crash, the kind I get after working a normal level of silver. Trig said you used the relic on me?”