After Glow

Chapter 6

THE FOG HAD rolled in off the river earlier in the evening. It had flooded Hidden Lane, thickening the already deep shadows that nestled in the narrow passage. It was one-thirty in the morning. Only a handful of the windows in the aging apartment buildings that rose on either side of the lane were lit at this hour.

Emmett was well aware that the lack of illumination did not mean that there was not a lot of lively business activity going on in the vicinity. Most of the entrepreneurs who plied their trades and sold their goods in this part of town preferred to work at night and in the shadows. The sole exception might be the Greenie huddled at a small table beneath the lane's single streetlamp, books stacked in front of him. He did not look all that happy to be on the job at that hour. Emmett didn't blame him.

The Slider fit, just barely, into a tiny space near the entrance to the flophouse where Maltby had lived. Emmett de-rezzed the engine and looked at Lydia with what he hoped was an expression of stern authority.

"Stick close to me," he ordered. "I go in first. If anything happens, you let me handle it, understood?"

"Relax." She unbuckled her belt and opened the door. "What can go wrong? I told you, I just want to have a quick look around Maltby's place. We'll be in and out in five minutes."

"Why doesn't that reassure me?" he said, cracking the door.

Fuzz, crouched on Lydia's shoulder, blinked his blue eyes and then, when he realized that Lydia was about to exit the Slider, opened his second set. His small body quivered with what looked like anticipation. He loved the night.

Emmett met Lydia and Fuzz at the front of the vehicle. He summoned a few stray wisps of ghost energy and fixed them to the license plate.

"Well, that should certainly ensure that the car is still here when we get back," Lydia said with wry appreciation. "No one in his right mind is going to steal a Slider from a ghost-hunter who is strong enough to attach a small ghost to it on a city street."

He shrugged. "Don't know about the fear factor but I do know that the ghost energy clinging to the car makes it a hell of a lot easier to find if it does get swiped."

He opened his para-rez senses as far as possible and knew that Lydia was probably doing the same.

Traces of psi energy trickled, seeped, and flowed all around them. There was nothing unusual about that, not in this part of town. But they felt stronger now than they had earlier in the day. Emmett was not surprised. Although the researchers had never been able to prove it, most people with even an ounce of para-rez sensibility—and that included virtually everyone since the second generation of colonists—were convinced that the ghostly currents whispered a little more loudly after dark.

One popular theory held that it wasn't the psi energy that was more powerful at night, rather it was that humans were simply more sensitive to it when the sun went down. It made sense, Emmett thought, that without the distraction of the solar radiation that came with daylight, the human mind might be better able to focus on other kinds of energy.

Whatever the reason, there was no denying that here, in the shadows of the walls of the Dead City, things got a lot more interesting between sundown and dawn.

It was difficult to see much of the Greenie at the table. The flowing robes and heavy cowl concealed gender, age, and features very effectively. It was only when the figure spoke to them that Emmett knew for certain it was a man.

"Have you found true bliss?" the Greenie murmured, thrusting a book toward Lydia.

"Not yet," Lydia said. "But I'm working on it."

"Read this and learn the thirteen steps that anyone can follow to the secrets of perpetual happiness. The keys to bliss were given to Master Herbert by the spirit of the ancient Harmonic philosopher, Amatheon. They are yours for the taking." The Greenie pushed the book into her fingers.

"Okay, thanks." Lydia dropped the book into her purse with an impatient movement.

The Greenie smiled from the depths of his cowl and held out a bowl. "A small contribution is expected. Little enough to ask when you consider that I have just shown you the path to bliss."

"Forget it." Lydia yanked the book out of her purse and dropped it on the table. "I'm not paying for perfect bliss. The best things in life are supposed to be free."

"If you cannot afford to make a contribution now, perhaps you will be able to make it later," the Greenie muttered.

"Sure," Lydia said, moving right along.

The Greenie glanced speculatively at Emmett.

"Save your breath," Emmett advised. "I'm a Guild man. I don't read much."

The Greenie sighed and huddled down into his robe.

Emmett took Lydia's arm and steered her away from the table and up the steps of the apartment house. The door that opened onto the small, dank foyer was unlocked, just as it had been that morning when he had arrived in search of Lydia. The smell in the front hall seemed to have gotten worse in the past few hours.

The entryway was lit by a dim, sputtering, fluo-rez bulb. If there had ever been a light in the narrow corridor beyond, it had burned out long ago.

"Apartment A," Lydia said. She started forward eagerly.

Emmett wrapped his hand around her arm and hauled her back. "I'll go first. I'm the hunter here, remember? The overpaid bodyguard?"

"Really, Emmett, we're not on an expedition underground. I really don't think—"

"Yeah, I've noticed that tendency. You ought to watch it."

He moved into the hall, every sense rezzed.

Nothing shifted in the shadows but he noticed that there was a thin line of light beneath the bottom edge of the door of the apartment directly across from Maltby's. That was interesting, he thought. There had been no sign of a neighbor when he had arrived earlier today.

He halted in front of Maltby's door and tried the knob. To his surprise, it turned easily in his hand. The cops and medics hadn't even bothered to lock up after they removed the body.

He eased the door open. Rusty hinges squeaked.

A faint scraping sound came from somewhere inside the apartment. It was followed immediately by the heavy weight of an unnatural silence; the tense, quivering stillness of someone who has been startled.

He reacted instinctively, pushing Lydia, who was right behind him, back down the hall.

"Stay there." He gave the order the way he had in the old days down in the catacombs when he had been responsible for the safety of an archaeological team: in a flat, hard voice that let everyone know that he expected full and immediate compliance. He had discovered the hard way that it was the only surefire means of securing the attention of the P-As who tended to get completely distracted by their work and often became oblivious to what was going on around them underground.

Lydia did as she was told, hovering in the corridor. Fuzz quivered in excitement.

Inside the apartment he heard a frantic scrambling sound. Not the rush of movement that indicated someone coming toward him, Emmett realized. More like the noise a person made trying to squeeze through an open window. The intruder had chosen flight rather than a confrontation.

Emmett entered the apartment swiftly, staying low and moving at an angle so that he would not be silhouetted against the weak light from the hall. Adrenaline kicked in, wild and potent. His prey was escaping.

He reached the doorway of the study in a matter of seconds but he knew at once that he was too late. Night air poured through the open window but the room was empty.

He started across the floor, unable to see anything except the pale square of gray light that marked the window. His booted foot struck a heavy bundle of what felt like thickly wadded up fabric.

Hell, not another body. He glanced down as he caught his balance. There was just enough light from the alley outside to reveal the bunched-up carpet that had snagged his boot. The intruder must have removed it to get at the floorboards, he thought. The guy had been searching for something.

The delay cost him a crucial few seconds. By the time he reached the window and flattened himself against the wall, he knew he was too late.

From where he stood he could see a section of the fogbound passage that ran the length of the building. The combination of river mist and darkness made it impossible to spot his quarry but he heard footsteps pounding toward the entrance of the alley. A lot of footsteps; he thought. Two people, not one. He considered summoning a ghost to stop the fleeing intruders out in the street. The problem was that he had no way of knowing who else might be in the vicinity. It would not look good in the morning papers if the headlines implied that the new Guild boss made a habit of singing innocent bystanders with wild ghost energy. The damn image thing.

"Emmett?" Lydia's voice came from the front room. She sounded anxious and alarmed. "Emmett, are you okay? Answer me."

"I'm okay."

So much for following orders. Out of nowhere he suddenly recalled the records of the inquiry into Lydia's Lost Weekend. They had been marked confidential, of course, but he had not had any trouble getting a copy through his Guild connections.

The two hunters who had been assigned to Lydia's team had testified that she had gotten into trouble because she had not obeyed their orders.

Sometimes it was all too easy to comprehend just how that might have happened, he thought. She was, by nature as well as by training, strong willed. In the pursuit of an objective, she could be very, very determined.

He turned away from the window and saw four eyes glowing in the darkness a short distance away.

"Thanks for the backup, Fuzz." He reached down and scooped up the dust-bunny, who was sleeked into full hunting mode. "But we missed 'em."

Carrying Fuzz, he walked out of the study and went into the living room. Lydia was a silhouette in the doorway.

"They're gone," he said.

"What happened?" she asked, closing the door.

"Some other folks got here first. They made it out through the window before I could grab them."

"You're all right?" she asked sharply.

"Fuzz and I are both fine. Probably a couple of burglars. Not a big surprise in this neighborhood. They must have got the word that Maltby was dead and thought they'd drop in to see if he left any drugs around."

"Hmm."

He did not like the sound of that hmm, but he chose to ignore it. Instead, he removed the flashlight from his pocket, rezzed it with a small pulse of psi energy, and played the beam across the room. "They really tore this place apart looking for his stash."

Together they surveyed the chaos that had overtaken the tiny living room. The carpet had been rolled up and shoved to one side. Foam spilled out of ripped cushions on the sofa. Books had been swept off the shelves and dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

"They were certainly looking for something," Lydia said ominously.

"Leftover Chartreuse, like I said."

"Maybe." She directed her own light at a dismembered sofa. "But there's another possibility."

He glanced at her. "You think they wanted to see if he left some clue about whatever it was he wanted to tell you? Don't go there, Lydia. We don't need any conspiracy theories to explain this search. Maltby did drugs, remember? Odds are this was done by a couple of opportunists looking for some free dope."

"You've got to admit that Maltby's accidental overdose today, the very day he chose to leave a message saying he had something important to tell me, is what you might call a very interesting coincidence."

"It's a coincidence. Period." Resigned, he led the way back to the study.

"I really hate when you get that tone in your voice," she said, hurrying after him.

"What tone?"

"The tone that says you know I'm right but you don't want to admit it."

"I'm a bigger person than that," he said. "I can admit when you're right."

"Really? Try it sometime when I've got a rez-corder handy."

She peered over his shoulder while he aimed the light into the room. "Jeez, they really made a mess in here, didn't they? Look, they even pulled up a couple of floorboards."

There was no denying that the study was in far worse shape than the other room. The drawers had been removed from the desk, the contents dumped on the floor. The reading chair had been overturned, the underside ripped open.

"Let's make this fast," he said, moving to the desk. "Someone else may decide to stop by tonight."

"We're looking for anything that has to do with Amber Hills Dairy." Lydia studied the floor. "I wonder if he had a hidden safe."

"If whoever was here ahead of us didn't find it, I doubt that we'll get lucky," he warned. "The intruders obviously spent a lot of time taking this place apart."

"You know what your problem is, Emmett? You're a worst-case scenario type of guy." She pushed aside some tumbled books to take a closer look at a seam in the floorboards. "You've got to learn to think positive."

"The beauty of planning for the worst-case scenario is that I'm rarely disappointed." He picked up a heavy textbook and flipped through it. There were hand-scribbled notes on every page. "Looks like Maltby never lost his interest in his old profession, in spite of the drugs."

"I told you, once upon a time, he was considered an expert in his field."

Ten minutes later Lydia gave up on the bookcase and stood looking around, her hands on her hips. "I hate to say it, but you may be right. Whoever got here ahead of us had a chance to search this room very thoroughly."

He resisted the temptation to say I told you so. "I agree."

"But they were still here when we arrived," she added thoughtfully. "Starting in on the living room, from the looks of it. Which implies that they did not find whatever it was they were looking for."

"Maybe there were no drugs left to find."

"Okay, let's say that the intruders were looking for Chartreuse." She folded her arms. "If that was the case, they wouldn't have had any interest in whatever it was that Maltby wanted to tell me. Which means his secrets are still here."

"Honey, there is nothing here that has anything to do with a dairy," he said as gently as possible.

"A milk carton," she whispered.

"What?"

"The poor man was dying. Maybe he wasn't trying to write a cryptic note in code. Maybe he was simply attempting to get an obvious message across to me." She unfolded her arms and rushed back out into the short hall.

"Now what?" he said to Fuzz.

They followed her into the small kitchen. She opened the door of the refrigerator. The interior light illuminated her face. He saw her eyes widen with excitement.

Moving closer he looked over her shoulder. There was half of a sandwich covered in mold and some unidentifiable sliced meat that had turned fuzzy and gray.

A carton of Amber Hills Dairy milk stood on the top shelf.

Lydia picked it up with great care. "Empty, I think." She hesitated and smiled slowly. "No, not quite."

He picked up a tiny tingle of psi energy.

"Trapped?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes." Gingerly she opened the top of the carton and peered inside. "No milk, just a very nasty little illusion trap. Well, well, well. Wonder what it's hiding?"

"Don't try to de-rez it now. Let's get out of here."

"Fine by me." She closed the top of the carton with satisfaction. "I've got what I came here for."

He switched off his flashlight, went to the front door, and checked the corridor through the cloudy peephole. No one stood in the hall.

He eased the door open and moved out of the apartment with Fuzz on his shoulder. Lydia followed silently, cradling the milk carton.

Without warning the door directly across the corridor opened a bare three inches. The chain rattled. A slice of a face appeared.

"You're the new Guild boss, ain't ya?" the man rasped. "Saw your picture in the papers tonight."

One of the many downsides of his new position was the very high profile that came with it, Emmett thought. On the other hand occasionally it could be useful.

"I'm Emmett London," he said. He did not introduce Lydia who was standing very quietly in the hallway.

"Thought so. Name's Cornish." He squinted at Emmett. "This thing with Maltby. Guild matter, huh?"

"Yes, it is."

Emmett sensed rather than saw Lydia's surprise and disapproval, but he paid no attention. He hadn't lied to the old man. As far as he was concerned, as long as Lydia was involved in this mess, it was a Guild matter. After all, she was sleeping with him and he was running the Cadence Guild. It was a simple enough equation.

"Maltby was murdered, wasn't he?" Cornish grunted, as if something he had been thinking all along had just been independently confirmed. "Knew he didn't accidentally OD. He didn't always resonate on what you'd call well-tuned amber but he was no fool when it came to his Chartreuse. He knew how to handle the stuff. Been using for years, y'know."

Lydia moved forward. "We're trying to find out what, exactly, happened here today. Can you help us?"

"Me? Nah." Cornish shook his head very fast. "I didn't see nothin'. Just heard a lotta noise out in the hall late this morning. Next thing I know there's you and the new Guild chief and a bunch of cops and medics cluttering up the place. Then I seen 'em carry out poor old Maltby."

"There were two people inside Maltby's apartment when we arrived tonight." Emmett reached for his wallet and deliberately took out a couple of bills. "Did you happen to see them enter?"

Cornish examined the cash with great longing. "Well, now—"

"Like I said, this is a Guild matter," Emmett said evenly. "I'm only in the market for the right answers."

Cornish hesitated, obviously pondering the risks of lying to the new boss of the Cadence Guild. Then he sighed heavily and shook his head with deep regret.

"Didn't see anyone go in the front door," he said. "Must've used the alley window. Heard 'em tearing the place up but never got a look at 'em."

"Thanks." Emmett handed the cash through the crack in the door. "The Guild appreciates your honesty, Mr. Cornish."

Cornish brightened at the realization that he was going to be paid, even though he hadn't been able to supply any useful information.

"Thank you, Mr. London, sir. Much obliged. Sorry I couldn't help you out a bit more. Glad you're takin' an interest in what happened to poor old Maltby. Me and him was neighbors for a lotta years. Gonna miss him, even if he was half barmy."

Cornish made to close his door.

"Wait, please," Lydia said urgently. "I have one more question. Did Professor Maltby have any visitors recently? Say, in the past two or three days?"

"Not that I seen." Cornish paused, pondering. "Didn't hear anyone knock on his door yesterday or the day before for that matter. But—"

"Yes?" Lydia prompted.

"Maltby went out the night before he took a little too much Chartreuse or whatever it was that really happened." Cornish shifted slightly, one shoulder bunching in a shrug. "There was nothing unusual about that, though. Long as I knew him he went out two, sometimes three times a week, always at night."

"To buy his drugs?" Lydia asked.

"Nah. Gone too long for that. Besides, he got his Chartreuse from the same guy who sells me—" Cornish stopped in midsentence, belatedly aware that he was about to implicate himself. "Uh, what I mean is, everyone around here knows that a Chartreuse buy don't take more than about sixty seconds. Dealers don't like to stand around chatting with the customers."

"How long did Maltby stay out at night?" Lydia asked.

"Hours," Cornish said. "Sometimes he didn't get back until damn near dawn."

Emmett removed some more cash from his wallet. "Any idea where Maltby went at night?"

"Sure. He had himself a secret hole-in-the-wall. Went down into the catacombs all by himself to hunt for relics. Didn't even take a hunter to watch out for ghosts. He was a tangler, a real good one. Worked on plenty of legal excavation teams back when he was a professor at some college. He knew how to find the good pieces and he knew the galleries on Ruin Row that would buy 'em without askin' too many questions."

"Maltby dealt in illegal antiquities?" Emmett asked.

Cornish shrugged again. "That was how he paid for his Chartreuse."