"No offense," she said, gripping the banister, "but does it strike you that your statement might make you sound a trifle paranoid?"
"A healthy dose of paranoia is part of the standard Guild boss job description."
"I can understand that."
"Close the door and throw the lock. I've got a flashlight."
She swallowed hard and locked the door behind her. With Elvis on one shoulder and her purse slung over the other, she started down into the inky depths. She heard a small snick. The narrow beam of Fontana's flashlight shafted through the darkness. She got a little dizzy when she realized she could not see the bottom of the stairwell.
Don't think about it, just keep moving. That's the key.
Elvis clutched her shoulder with his hind paws, holding on tight but not sinking his tiny claws into her. She sensed his highly rezzed, battle-ready tension. It wasn't all that different from what she was picking up from Fontana. Males. Always ready to rumble.
Halfway down, she heard a muffled explosion overhead. A low roaring followed.
"What in the world was that?" she whispered.
"Sounds like the bastards just set fire to my house."
"Oh, my God."
"That's probably what my insurance company is going to say, too. It wasn't easy talking them into giving a Guild boss a policy in the first place."
"But if the house is on fire, that means we can't go back up these stairs," she wailed.
"Don't worry, there are other ways out of the catacombs."
But to get to one of those exits, they would have to travel underground, perhaps for a long distance. On the surface, the next hole-in-the-wall or an official gate might be only a couple of blocks away. But in the underworld, things were different. She'd heard enough about the strange maze of tunnels to know that there were no direct routes anywhere. Furthermore, only a tiny percentage of the vast network of catacombs had been charted. To say nothing of the hazards of illusion traps and drifting ghosts.
"You okay?" Fontana asked.
She took a deep breath. "I'm okay."
Suck it up, woman, you're an investigative reporter. Act like one.
The staircase wound deeper beneath the old mansion. She was getting dizzy watching Fontana's light spiral endlessly away into the shadows. She tried not to think about the tomblike darkness that surrounded her.
Eventually the twisting beam of light halted. Her head was spinning so badly she had to grip the metal banister with both hands to keep from stumbling into Fontana.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked, steadying her.
"Touch of vertigo," she admitted, closing her eyes. She was trembling, and they weren't even inside the catacombs. Dear heaven, how was she going to get through this?
The answer was simple. She was going to get through whatever came next because there was no other option.
"Take a couple of deep breaths," Fontana said. "Don't pass out on me."
It was an order, given with all the icy assurance of a man who expected to be obeyed. Well, he was a Guild boss, she reminded herself. They weren't known for their compassion and consideration.
Oddly enough, although she resented the brusque command, it had a bracing effect. Like a splash of cold water, she thought. She took some slow, deep breaths. Her head seemed to clear a little.
"I told you, I'm okay," she said.
If he suspected that she was lying through her teeth again, he did not let on.
"Stay here while I de-rez the door into the tunnels," he said instead.
She felt him move away from her. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the beam of his flashlight was shining on a massive plate of solid mag-steel. It looked like the door of a bank vault. She watched him enter a code.
"Who installed that?" she asked.
"The former owner."
She glanced back over her shoulder. "I suppose the good news is that, if the house is going up in flames, the Riders aren't going to be coming down that staircase behind us."
"That's it, think positive." He reached for the steel door handle. "If it makes you feel any better, there's no way they can know about this hole-in-the-wall. But even if they did, I doubt that they would follow us into the tunnels."
"Why?"
"Because they have to know that once we're in the catacombs, they'll be on my turf. Everything's different underground."
Chapter 22
THE HEAVY DOOR OPENED WITH PONDEROUS SLOWNESS, revealing a jagged tear in the tunnel wall. Fontana felt the familiar rush of psi first. It flowed out of the catacombs, an invisible wave that stirred his already rezzed senses. Next came the acid-green light. He turned off the flashlight There was no longer any need for it. Down here everything was made of quartz, and the stone glowed the same psi green night and day.
No one knew when the aliens had left Harmony. Some experts believed they had been gone for at least a thousand years. Others put the date much further back, maybe five or even ten thousand years. There were a few archaeologists who were convinced they had never left at all, just died out. Whatever the case, they had left the lights on.
He looked into the large rotunda that lay on the other side of the tear in the quartz. Half a dozen vaulted corridors branched off the circular space. He knew that there were an endless number of intersections leading off each of the branches and so on throughout the vast maze.
Here and there vaulted doorways opened onto strangely shaped chambers. No one knew what purpose the rooms had once served. Some were empty. Others contained the mysterious artifacts and relics that fueled the thriving antiquities trade.
The architecture of the catacombs was slightly disorienting to the human eye. The proportions never seemed quite right. Compounding the problem was the fact that the energy that emanated from the quartz had a subtle effect on the normal as well as the paranormal senses. His hunter para-rez talents gave him an advantage over people like Sierra, who lacked the ability to resonate with alien psi, but that didn't mean things ever felt normal down here. That, of course, was one of the big attractions for him.
Sierra followed him through the doorway. She looked around, her eyes a little haunted. He hated having to put her through this, but there was no alternative.
Elvis showed no qualms at all. He leaned forward eagerly, fully fluffed again.
The thick, mag-steel door closed with an ominous, reverberating clang. Sierra jumped a little and looked back over her shoulder.
"This way," Fontana said. He moved through the hole-in-the-wall into the tunnel. "I keep a utility sled down here. We'll use it to get to the nearest exit."
"Sounds like a good plan."
Something in her voice made him look back at her. She was clearly very tense, but she didn't look like she was going to faint. Still, he did not like the dread in her eyes.
"Don't worry," he said, trying to project a little reassurance. "I've spent a lot of time down here. I know my way around, and I've got plenty of amber and a compass. We won't get lost."
"Glad to hear that."
He realized now what was wrong with her voice. It was flat, almost a monotone. It was as if she was righting to keep all emotion out of it. She was hanging on to her self-control with willpower alone, he thought. Good thing she had a lot of it. Dealing with her unusual talent all these years had probably gone a long way toward developing that core of inner strength.
The sled was right where he had left it. He got behind the wheel. Sierra climbed quickly up onto the bench seat beside him. He rezzed the simple, amber-based motor, one of the few kinds of low-tech mechanical devices that worked underground.
Sierra gripped the edge of the bench seat very tightly on either side of her thighs and stared straight ahead. Elvis muttered into her ear, as though he, too, was trying to assure her that everything would be okay.