She opened the door of the receptionist’s office and walked inside. An extremely polished, professional-looking woman sat at the desk. She was dressed in a conservative business suit. The sign on top of her desk said that her name was Miss Allonby
“Please sit down.” Miss Allonby’s tone was as crisply refined as her appearance. “I don’t believe I caught your name?”
“Susan Baker.” Celinda took a seat. “As I told you a moment ago, I was referred by Senator Padbury’s wife.”
“Yes, of course. You do understand that Dr. Kennington is extremely busy. He rarely takes new clients these days.”
“I’m hoping he’ll make an exception for me.”
Miss Allonby rezzed the computer on her desk and turned toward the screen. “I’m afraid the first available appointment isn’t until the end of next month.”
“That will be fine,” Celinda said.
Chapter 36
THE LOCKPICK FOUND THE FREQUENCY. THERE WAS A soft click. Davis opened the door and walked into the room. A heavy dose of alien psi rezzed all his senses. He didn’t need to survey the room to know that there was a bolt-hole into the catacombs somewhere nearby.
The distinguished-looking man seated at a large desk near the window looked up, startled.
“You’ve got the wrong door,” he said, patrician features darkening in an irritated scowl.
“I don’t think so, Dr. Hollings.”
Recognition flashed across the face of the man who called himself Kennington. Alarm and something close to panic followed almost immediately. He leaped to his feet, staring at Davis as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Guild business. Among other things, I’ve come to collect the other ruby amber relic.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hollings had recovered some of his composure now. Very casually he started to reach toward the top drawer of the desk.
Davis took the mag-rez out of his pocket. “Hands in the air, Hollings.”
Hollings’s jaw clenched, but he raised his hands. Davis crossed the room, went behind the desk, and opened the drawer. A mag-rez gun gleamed dully inside. He scooped it out and ejected the cartridge.
“I assume this used to belong to Brinker?” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You should know better than to keep one of these things this close to a bolt-hole,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of alien psi floating around this room. No telling what might happen if you actually pulled the trigger.”
Fury leaped in Hollings’s face. “Listen, you son of a bitch, I don’t know what you think you’re doing—”
The door of the receptionist’s office opened directly behind Hollings. Davis saw a dark-haired woman in a severe suit. She stared, openmouthed, at the scene in the inner office. Celinda was directly behind her.
“What in the world is going on in here?” the receptionist gasped. “Doctor? Are you all right? Shall I call the police?”
Hollings did not reply. He launched himself at Davis, eyes wild. He seemed oblivious of the gun in Davis’s hand. Somehow you just don’t expect a sensible person to charge a man holding a mag-rez, Davis thought. But it only went to show how unpredictable things could get when the situation escalated into violence.
Miss Allonby screamed.
He didn’t dare fire the mag-rez. If he missed or if the alien psi warped the shot, he could easily hit one of the women.
He moved, trying to sidestep Hollings, but he came up hard against the desk chair, which spun away beneath his weight.
Hollings plowed into him. He was already off balance, thanks to the encounter with the chair. The force of the impact sent him sprawling.
Hollings did not seem interested in engaging in fancy hand-to-hand combat. He ran toward a door at the back of the room, yanked it open, and vanished into the unlit space behind it.
Davis rolled to his feet and went after him. The last thing he heard before he followed Hollings into the darkness was the receptionist. She was still screaming.
Chapter 37
MISS ALLONBY FINALLY QUIT SHRIEKING. CELINDA EASED her down onto a client chair.
“Take it easy,” she said soothingly. “Would you like a glass of water?”
Miss Allonby looked up at her, bewildered and fearful. “What is this all about?”
“Dr. Kennington’s real name is Hollings, and I’m sorry to inform you that he is involved with stolen antiquities. The Guild hired Mr. Oakes to retrieve a relic that was taken from the Guild vault.”
“Dr. Kennington?” Miss Allonby was thunderstruck. “Dealing in stolen antiquities? Why, that’s impossible. His list of clients includes some of the most important people in Cadence.”
“Listen, Miss Allonby, I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but this is Guild business. There’s someone outside watching the front door of this office. He’ll know what to do. I’ll go get him.”
“It’s all right,” Miss Allonby said. She gazed into the middle distance and miraculously regained her composure. “I already know what to do. I have my instructions.”
There was no time to decipher that odd comment. Celinda gave her one last reassuring pat on the shoulder and then went through the second door into the building lobby.
The all-too-familiar waves of twisted energy flooded her senses just as she reached to open the front door.
“If you’re looking for the panhandler who was watching this place, don’t waste your time,” Benson Landry said behind her. “I took him out of the picture a few minutes ago.”
Chapter 38
THE OLD, DIMLY LIT STEPS LED STRAIGHT DOWN TO A jagged gouge in the catacomb wall. Davis could see the slice of eerie green light waiting at the bottom. Hollings was just ahead of him, a dark figure bounding down the two-hundred-year-old staircase.
A few seconds later Hollings stood silhouetted briefly against the emerald glow. Then he vanished into the tunnels. Davis leaped the last few steps and went through the opening at a run. He had to keep Hollings in sight. He didn’t have the man’s amber frequency. Without it and minus one of the new locator devices, he wouldn’t be able to track Hollings if he lost visual contact.
But when he got through the ragged hole in the wall, he had no trouble spotting his quarry. Hollings wasn’t trying to flee deep into the catacombs. Instead he was going through another, man-sized opening in the green quartz wall.
Humid heat and the chaotic scents and sounds of the rain forest spilled out into the tunnel. Nothing else followed. The thick foliage grew right up to the opening, but not a single stray leaf or vine drifted out into the tunnel. No creatures wriggled or slithered through the gap. The invisible psi barriers the aliens had installed to keep the jungle from invading the catacombs held fast.
The wall of psi had no effect on humans. Hollings fled through the gate into the rain forest. He looked like a man who knew where he was going, a man with a plan.
Davis went after him, moving from the sterile green quartz tunnel into the verdant rain forest in a single stride. When it came to pursuits, the jungle was no better than the catacombs. In the tunnels a man could vanish by going around a corner. Here in this underground world of green, he could disappear by concealing himself behind one of the vine-choked trees.
Hollings was making no effort to hide, however. He shoved his way frantically through a forest of tall fern trees. Davis followed, opening his hunter’s senses. He probed for the telltale whisper of dissonance energy that would be all the warning he got before he blundered into a ghost river or a psi storm.
Hollings showed no such hesitation. He had obviously come this way on other occasions and felt confident that the path was clear of ghost energy and other hazards.
Davis was less than ten feet away when Hollings stopped and whirled around.
“This is far enough,” Hollings said. He raised one hand, aiming the ruby amber relic as though it were a gun. “You’re a dead man, Oakes.”