“We don’t know how Jones will react if Bell vanishes again.”
“Then I suggest you be more careful this time,” Trenchard said through clenched teeth. “You’re telling me to do my job. You can damn well do yours. You’ll get your demonstration tonight. In return I must have more of the crystal immediately.”
Tuck shrugged. “If the demonstration goes off the way you say it will, there will be more liquid crystal.”
He straightened, opened the door, and went out into the never-ending gray fog that cloaked the Shadow Zone. Trenchard was wrong. The new Guild boss would notice if the woman disappeared. So would the press.
But if Jones and the woman both vanished together in the Underworld … things would be different. Accidents happened all the time down below. Everyone knew that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Trenchard waited until the annoying security man was gone before he gave in to his frustration. He grabbed a wrench off the workbench and hurled it against the nearest wall.
It was infuriating. A man of his genius should have been working for one of the top labs in a major city-state like Cadence or Resonance. Instead, thanks to a lack of appreciation for his bold concepts, he was stuck in the backwater of Illusion Town, reduced to taking orders from an unknown client who hired thugs like the swaggering, bulked-up Tuck.
The only reason he was sticking around was because the client had the two things he required to achieve his goal: money and the vision to comprehend the revolutionary value of the suppressor weapon.
Trenchard had long dreamed of creating the device. For years he had been confident in the theory and the design. The stumbling block had been the lack of the unique liquid crystal required for power.
The unknown client had supplied the makeshift lab and three canisters of the crystal. There was enough left to put on an impressive demonstration, but once it was gone his work would come to a halt. He could not bear the thought. He was so close to perfecting the suppressor. Just a few more tweaks.
He contemplated his mediocre lab. Located in an abandoned house on a dead-end alley in the Shadow Zone, it was not what he had anticipated when he had been recruited. But he understood the need for secrecy and security. Tuck had promised that if the prototype was successful, there would be a state-of-the-art facility and all the liquid crystal needed to refine the invention.
Trenchard crossed the room, raised the shade, and looked out the grimy window. The fog was so thick at the moment that he could barely see the abandoned buildings across the way.
He despised the Shadow Zone, with its sleazy casinos, motels that rented rooms by the hour, and ever-present gray mist. But he had to admit Tuck was right. It had been critical to set up the lab in a location where it would not attract any notice from the authorities. The old warehouse on the fringe of the zone made for perfect camouflage.
Trenchard dropped the shade, clasped his hands behind his back, and considered how he would carry out the demonstration designed to prove the prototype worked. It could be done. He had just enough of the liquid crystal to make a suitable impression on the mysterious client.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The vortex of paranormal energy struck with very little warning. Otis sensed it first. He had been trotting along the narrow alley of the gray quartz city, darting back and forth, investigating small, glittering stones that captured his attention.
He abruptly froze, sleeked out, and growled a warning.
Lucy picked up the sense of gathering forces almost as quickly as Otis. She had been running hot, her talent at full throttle, ever since she and Gabriel and Otis had gone through the Coppersmith Mining portal located in the Rainforest.
Once safely on the other side, Gabriel had picked up the trail of the thief almost immediately. They had been moving quickly through the deserted Alien city. It was like walking through a dreamscape.
Every structure around them—the paving stones, oddly proportioned buildings, fountains, and plazas—was constructed of a strange, quicksilver-gray quartz. Paranormal energy resonated, whispered, and sparked everywhere. The light, shimmery fog that swirled in the streets and alleys had a muffling effect.
“Stop,” she ordered softly.
Gabriel glanced at her and then studied the fog that drifted in the alley. “Storm?”
“Big one. I’m sure I could take it apart, but it’s easier to just get out of the way. No sense wasting a lot of energy now. I might need it later for something more dangerous.”
“Agreed.”
Lucy glanced around. She had been noting possible emergency bolt-holes since entering the city. It was part of the job. Like a pilot who keeps an alternate landing site in mind, she kept track of options for storm shelters.