There were small, narrow doorways at the base of every building, but no windows. The experts had concluded that the Aliens had initially attempted to colonize the surface of Harmony but something in the atmosphere had proven hostile or, perhaps, downright lethal to them. In spite of their advanced technology, they had been forced to go underground. There they had apparently flourished, at least for a time.
Humans were thriving on Harmony, but the ancient beings who had come before them had either given up and left or, as some archaeologists theorized, perished due to a natural disaster or a virus.
“You said your goal was to hide somewhere inside,” Gabriel said. “Did you head for one of the towers?”
She looked at the ruins of a nearby structure. There was a doorway at the base. A sliver of a memory whispered through her.
Run. Run. If you get inside you can go down into the tunnels. You’ve got your amber. You’ll be safe there.
“I tried to get into that tower,” she said. “It’s the closest to the hole-in-the-wall. I remember thinking that if I could just get down into the tunnels, I could disappear. I had my amber at that point, so I wasn’t worried about not being able to navigate. But they caught me before I could get through the doorway.”
She started walking across the glowing quartz that paved the ancient streets of the Dead City, dodging broken chunks of stone and toppled structures. Gabriel fell into step beside her. Otis bounced ahead, all four eyes still open.
Lucy stopped just outside the narrow entrance of the shattered tower. Through the doorway she could see the top of a glowing spiral staircase that led down into the tunnels.
“This is as far as I got,” she said. “They grabbed me before I went through the doorway. Someone gave me an injection. That’s it. That’s all I remember until I woke up down below.”
Gabriel said nothing. Instead he began to prowl the rubble of green quartz near the entrance of the fallen tower. Curious, Otis bounced over to join him. Lucy watched the two of them for a long moment.
“The thing that I don’t understand is the motive,” she said after a while. “My father has money, but there was no ransom demand.”
“There wasn’t much time for the kidnappers to send one,” Gabriel pointed out. “You apparently escaped within hours of being taken. Once they lost you, they lost their leverage.”
She folded her arms. “Okay, that’s true.”
“If your memories are accurate—”
She winced. “I know. I can’t trust my memories. You don’t have to spell it out.”
“Ransom money is not the only motive for kidnapping someone. If your memories are accurate to any degree, we should consider the possibility that you possess something the kidnappers wanted.”
“Such as?”
He looked at her. “Isn’t it obvious? Your talent.”
She stilled. “I thought about that. The thing is, there are plenty of weather channelers in town now.”
“But how many are available for an illegal operation in the Ghost City?”
Anger sparked through her. “To be clear, Mr. Jones, I’m not available for off-the-books contracts. I have a reputation, or at least I had a reputation, for integrity as well as talent.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
“That is very good to know.”
“I was just thinking out loud. You’re an independent and you were—are—one of the best, if not the best, in town. In addition, your family doesn’t live here. If I needed a weather channeler for an off-the-books project, someone whose disappearance might not be noticed for a while, I’d pick you in a heartbeat. You’re not affiliated with Roxby’s and you are known to work with small-time operators. If you got into trouble in the Ghost City while channeling for an anonymous independent prospector—well, accidents happen in the Underworld.”
The temperature of the balmy desert night seemed to plummet. Lucy shivered. Otis hurried toward her and made anxious little noises. She picked him up and held him close. He offered her the toy dust bunny to pat.
“If I hadn’t been able to get that text off to Veronica, it would have been at least another day or two before she or my landlady noticed I was missing,” she said. “Are you telling me you’re starting to believe that I was kidnapped?”
“I think there are questions that need to be answered,” Gabriel said. “After we find the thief who stole that Arcane Society artifact, I’m going to reopen your case. As the new Guild boss in town, I’ve got every right to do that.”