When he was finished he hoisted the doll under one arm. The thing was surprisingly heavy, because it had been built with old-fashioned materials from Earth in an era before plastics and synthetics had been developed. He gripped the flamer in his free hand.
“You can do the navigating,” he said to Lucy.
“Sure. Let me check the weather first.”
She went to the door. He was aware of energy shifting in the atmosphere as she heightened her talent. The sensation stirred his senses. Everything inside him tightened a little.
He made himself focus on the job at hand. Priorities.
Lucy stepped through the shimmering silver door. Otis bounded after her. A few seconds later they both reappeared. Otis chortled.
“All clear,” Lucy reported.
Gabriel tightened his grip on the big doll and followed Lucy and Otis through the shimmering doorway.
A thin quicksilver fog drifted in the empty lane. There was no way to know if it was day or night. In the Ghost City, it was always twilight.
“Now I see why that doll would have been worth stealing,” Lucy said. “It’s not just a valuable artifact; it’s a serious weapon that functions in the Underworld. There are people who would kill to get their hands on that technology. But a large doll isn’t what you’d call a convenient weapon.”
“Whoever paid Croston to steal the queen must have been convinced the technology could be reverse engineered. Theoretically, once you understand the basic operating principles, you should be able to design a much more convenient version of the weapon.”
“Maybe. But paranormal physics is complicated. It’s possible that only someone with the same talent as the original engineer—”
“Mrs. Bridewell,” Gabriel said.
“Right. There’s a good chance that only someone with her talent could re-create the power source in that thing,” Lucy said.
“That’s Peabody’s theory.”
Otis fluttered ahead down the lane, pausing here and there to examine a small piece of quartz. As far as Gabriel could tell, nothing he had found so far met his high standards.
The dust bunny darted through a shimmering door and disappeared.
“Don’t worry about him,” Lucy said. “He’ll catch up with us.”
She glanced down at the locator. “Turn left.”
They rounded the corner into another foggy lane. And stopped.
Two men armed with flamers exploded out of a quicksilver doorway. One got an arm around Lucy’s throat. He yanked her hard against his chest.
“That’s far enough, Jones,” he said. He wore a huge chunk of amber in his belt buckle. “Drop the flamer or I’ll use mine on the woman.”
“Take it easy,” Gabriel said. He crouched and set the flamer on the quartz pavement.
“Thanks for deactivating the damned doll for us,” the other man said. His greasy hair was tied back with a leather thong. “We’ll take it from here.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lucy had been running hot, concentrating on reading the weather ahead as well as keeping track of the indicator lights on the locator. The man had struck like a snake, wrapping his arm around her throat before she realized what was happening. He stank of adrenaline-fueled sweat. The vibe of his aura was spiked with blood-chilling violence. Psychopath.
“Now put the doll down, Jones,” the man with the ponytail ordered.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy caught a glimpse of her attacker’s belt buckle. Ostentatious, to say the least, she decided.
“Sure,” Gabriel said. He lowered the doll so that it was standing upright, deadly eyes pointed at Ponytail. “I take it you paid Croston to steal the queen. Did you kill him?”
“We were going to get rid of him, but the doll saved us the trouble,” Ponytail said. “Somehow the machine got activated. We didn’t want to get near it. We knew you and the weather channeler were on the way, so we decided to wait and let you do the hard work for us. The client thought you might be able to deal with it.”
Otis appeared, racing around the corner. He was sleeked out. Lucy knew he was going to go straight for the throat of Sweat-Stink.
“It’s a fucking dust bunny,” Ponytail muttered. He aimed the flamer at Otis.
“No,” Lucy said quickly. “Please. Don’t hurt him.”
“Stop that rat or I’ll burn it,” Ponytail ordered.
“Otis,” Lucy said quietly, “it’s okay. I’ve got this.”
Otis stopped, but he did not take his four eyes off Sweat-Stink.