After Glow

Chapter 11

Two newspaper vending boxes flanked the entrance to Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors. The one on the right belonged to the Cadence Star. Lydia picked up a copy of that paper first. The headline was commendably restrained, as befitted a family newspaper. New Guild Chief Takes Command.

Lydia breathed a sigh of relief and moved on warily to the box on the left and peeked inside. There were only a couple of copies left of that day's issue of the Tattler. She was forced to conclude that the headlines plastered across the cover in type that was at least two inches high probably explained the brisk sales.

New guild boss has mystery mistress.

The smaller headline underneath read, Will London Bring Her to the Restoration Ball or Keep Her Hidden Away in Secret Love Nest? The accompanying photo showed a picture of Emmett getting out of his Slider in front of the Guild office tower.

Lydia reluctantly shoved some coins into the slot and took out one of the remaining copies. A flashy amber-colored Coaster pulled up to the curb with a flourish just as she started to walk toward the front door of the museum. The hood and tail fins of the vehicle were decorated with flames the color of green ghost light.

The door of the Coaster slid open and Melanie popped out. She leaned down to blow a farewell kiss to the man at the wheel. The pose caused her short, stretchy red skirt to ride up so high in back that the lacy edge of a pair of black panties was revealed.

"Thanks for a great evening, Jack." She spotted Lydia and waved. "Well, good morning, Mystery Mistress."

"Hey, is that her?" The door on the other side of the Coaster opened. Jack climbed out and grinned across the low roof of the Coaster. Sunlight glinted on a tiny, faceted crystal set in his left incisor. "Introduce me, Mel."

"Sure." Melanie swept a hand out with the air of a magician. "Lydia Smith, meet Jack Brodie. Jack, this is the Mystery Mistress herself, and I am happy to tell you that she will be at the Restoration Ball. I know this for a fact because she asked me to help her pick out her gown. We're going shopping this very afternoon."

Jack ducked his head. "An honor to meet you, ma'am. When we saw the papers this morning Mel told me that she not only knew who you were, she actually worked in the same office with you. I didn't know whether she was just putting me on or what."

Jack seemed pleasant enough, Lydia thought, and he was certainly very good-looking. He was turned out in typical, swaggering, ghost-hunter style-lots of rugged khaki and leather. He wore a chunk of amber in his belt that was big enough to serve as a hood ornament for the Coaster. A lot of male ghost-hunters seemed to think that people equated the size of their amber with the size of another portion of their anatomy.

"Thank you," Lydia replied. "A pleasure, I'm sure."

"Wait'll I tell the guys down at the Guild Hall that I met the boss's, uh, lady friend, in person. They're all real curious about him, you know. Heard about what he did while he was in charge of the Resonance Guild. Lotta guys are a little worried, to tell you the truth."

Lydia clutched the Tattler. "Why in the world would they be worried about Emmett?"

"Well, they say he's not what you might call a big supporter of some of the old Guild traditions." Jack glanced both ways along the sidewalk, leaned over the roof of the Coaster, and lowered his voice. "They heard that he turned the Resonance Guild into some kind of damned business corporation."

"Jeez," Lydia murmured. "What a concept."

"Yeah, weird, huh? Course, London's here now, not in Resonance, and things work a little different in Cadence. We still got Guild law and Guild tradition in this town."

Lydia gave him a thin smile. "Good to know the old ways haven't been forgotten by the Cadence Guild."

"No, ma'am, that's for sure." Jack rechecked the sidewalk to make certain no one else was within earshot and lowered his voice a little more. "Speaking of tradition, I heard a rumor that Mr. London might have to handle a real Council challenge at the confirmation meeting on Thursday afternoon."

She had no idea what a Council challenge was, Lydia thought, but she did not like the sound of it.

"A Council challenge?" she repeated carefully.

"Yeah." Jack's eyes glinted with anticipation. "Never seen one, myself. Haven't had one of those since Mercer Wyatt took over thirty years ago. Should be interesting."

Alarm bells clanged loudly.

"What is a Council challenge, Jack?" Lydia asked.

"It's an old tradition that dates all the way back to the founding of the Guilds. Any member of a Guild Council can issue a challenge to a boss. If the challenger wins, the Council has to choose another leader. The guy who beat the boss usually gets the job."

Lydia frowned. "I take it this challenge thing is not a multiple-choice quiz?"

"No, ma'am." Jack chuckled and then did another quick survey of the vicinity. His voice went down to a raspy whisper. "It's a full-on hunter duel."

Lydia went ice cold. "Duels between hunters are illegal."

"Sure. But small duels go on all the time. You know how it is. A couple of guys drink a little too much Green Ruin and decide to go into some dark alley and see who can pull up the biggest ghost. Nobody pays much attention unless someone gets fried real bad and turns up in an emergency room. Then there's an investigation and a few hands get slapped, but that's about it."

"So typical of the way the Guild handles things," Lydia stated.

Jack either did not hear her or else he failed to pick up on the sarcasm.

"Now a Council challenge duel is different," he said. "It's not like an ordinary hunter match."

"In what way?"

"Well, for one thing, it's held at a secret location somewhere deep underground. Hell, been so long since they used the old dueling grounds, I doubt if anyone but the Council members even know where they're located."

"I see."

"The other thing that makes a Council challenge duel a little different from your average Saturday-night back alley burn-fest is that you're talking about a match between two of the most powerful hunters in the whole damn Guild. Nobody gets that high in the organization unless he can melt amber."

Lydia exchanged a quick glance with Melanie who was starting to look intrigued.

Melting amber was an expression. Very few hunters had the power to do it. The stuff didn't actually melt when a lot of psi energy was forced through it, but a very strong ghost-hunter could pull so much para-energy that the tuned amber he used to control it lost its focus. When that happened, it was said that he had melted amber.

Ruining a chunk of amber that had been exquisitely and expensively tuned by a specially trained focus-energy para-resonator was not a problem for other types of para-resonators. Most people, even very strong ephemeral-energy para-rezes such as herself, used psi energy in subtle, nuanced ways. But ghost-hunters were all about raw power.

She happened to know for a fact that Emmett was one of the small percentage of hunters who could melt amber. Presumably all of the other members of the Cadence Guild Council were capable of the same feat. A duel held underground where each duelist could summon very large, extremely dangerous ghosts might well prove lethal to the loser. At best, he would be lucky to survive and if he did make it he would no doubt be so badly psi-fried that he would be a candidate for a nice, quiet para-psych asylum for the rest of his life.

Lydia was suddenly aware that her mouth had gone dry. She stared, wide-eyed, at Jack.

"You said that there hasn't been a Council challenge since Wyatt took over the Guild. Do you mean that in the entire time he's been running things no one ever tried to take him? I find that a little hard to believe."

Melanie raised her brows. "She's right. Is Mercer Wyatt so strong that no one ever dared to challenge him?"

"Wyatt's strong, all right," Jack said easily. "But a couple of the other Council members like that new guy, Foster Dorning, are probably just as strong or stronger."

"So why hasn't anyone ever issued a challenge to Wyatt?" Lydia demanded.

"'Cause he's smart, that's why." Jack winked. "Way too smart to leave himself open to a challenge."

Lydia glared. "I'm waiting for the amber to resonate here, Jack. Go ahead, tell us how Wyatt has managed to avoid a challenge for three decades."

The bit of crystal set in Jack's tooth sparkled when he gave her a knowing grin. "Because, except for about a year after his first wife died when he was covered because he was officially in mourning, Wyatt has always been real careful to make sure he's married."

Lydia stared at him, openmouthed. She noticed that Melanie had a similar blank expression on her face.

Lydia recovered first. "What's marriage got to do with it?"

Jack shrugged. "There's a damn good reason why the Guild chiefs of all the cities are usually in either a Marriage of Convenience or a Covenant Marriage."

Melanie tipped her head inquiringly. "And that reason would be?"

"A little thing called Guild wife rights." Jack's handsome features screwed up in what might have been close thought. "I guess technically it would be Guild spouse rights. But the fact is, there's always been so many more male ghost-hunters than female hunters that I don't expect it's been much of an issue. And for sure there's never been a woman Guild boss in any of the cities."

"I've never heard of these so-called Guild wife rights," Lydia said tersely. "Explain."

"Old tradition," Jack said. "Goes back to the early days when the Guild Councils worried about the organizations being torn apart by in-fighting and rivalries. They wanted to make sure that there were as few challenges as possible, especially in the upper echelons, because they needed trained, experienced hunters badly during the Era of Discord. Couldn't afford to waste good para-rezes in duels."

Lydia exchanged a quick glance with Melanie and turned back to Jack. "How do these Guild wife rights work?"

"Heck, I'm no expert in Guild law." Jack waved one hand across the roof of the Coaster. "Way I understand it, the Councils each instituted a rule that allows a Guild wife to go before the Council and halt any challenge that has been made that involves her husband."

Melanie whistled softly. "And that actually works?"

Jack spread his hands. "Sure seems to have worked for Mercer Wyatt all these years. Works for the other Guild bosses, too. Rumor has it there's only been one boss who was challenged in recent years and that was because he wasn't married."

"Which one?" Melanie asked.

"London." Jack's teeth flashed in another grin of anticipation. "He didn't have a wife when he took over the Resonance Guild six years ago and there's talk that he had to deal with a Council challenge."

Melanie looked quickly at Lydia and was clearly alarmed by whatever she saw there.

"Hey, obviously he won," she said very brightly.

"Yeah." Jack nodded cheerfully. "They say London is strong, all right. Should be one hell of a match if they go for it."

Lydia could not move. She felt as if she had been carved from quartz.

"Gotta run," Jack said. He ducked his head at Lydia. "Like I said, nice to meet you, ma'am." He winked at Melanie. "See you Thursday night, babe, right?"

"My place," Melanie agreed. She twinkled at Lydia. "I'm having a few friends over for drinks and pizza. We're going to watch the Restoration Ball festivities on the rez-screen. Can't wait to see you walking up that red carpet."

"For sure," Jack said. "Never knew anyone personally who got to go to that fancy shindig. Wait'll I tell the guys at the Hall."

He slid back into the Coaster and rezzed the engine. Flash-rock melted and the vehicle shot away from the curb with a low, throbbing whine.

Melanie frowned at Lydia. "Hey, are you okay? You look a little sick."

"No, I am not okay, I'm horrified. I knew this job was risky."

"Yours or Emmett's?"

"Not funny, Mel. I'm talking about Emmett's new position, of course. Damn, damn, damn."

"Take it easy. You're overreacting."

"At the start of this mess, I was afraid that whoever tried to kill Wyatt might go after Emmett. He assured me that wasn't likely to happen because he's convinced that the attacker was only interested in Wyatt. But nobody said anything about this stupid Council challenge tradition."

"I'm sure Jack was just spreading hunter gossip." Melanie patted Lydia's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. After all, everyone knows this is just a temporary job for Emmett. Why would anyone bother to challenge him to a duel?"

"Who knows? Guild Law and traditions are so murky that no one outside the organizations can say how they work."

"Look, London knows how to handle a Guild Council. He did it for six years in Resonance, remember?"

"I know, but this is Cadence. Things might work differently here, for all we know."

Melanie urged her gently through the entrance of the museum. "Don't worry about London. He can take care of himself."

"That's what he keeps telling me. I just wish I could believe it."

Melanie smiled very slowly. "Well, well, well."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've got it bad, don't you?" Melanie was genuinely sympathetic. "You're in love with Emmett. That's why you're letting your imagination make you crazy."

"I'm dating him," Lydia said tersely. "Obviously I'm fond of him."

"Sounds like something a lot more intense than fond, if you ask me."

"We have an arrangement," Lydia mumbled.

"Oh, sure, an arrangement." Melanie chuckled. "Lydia Smith, Mystery Mistress, has an arrangement with the boss of the Cadence Guild. Nope, sorry, I'm not buying that one, pal. Sadly, as I've so often pointed out, you just wouldn't know how to have a casual, no-strings-attached affair with a man."