Chapter 9

Hannah’s phone rang just as she got out of the taxi. It was not the first call she had received since returning to the surface. She had dumped the first two, both of which had come from Grady Barnett.

She reached into her clutch, intending to terminate Grady’s third call. Then she noticed the sleek steel blue Cadence parked at the curb.

“Well, what do you know?” she said, taking out her phone. “Your car did survive the night.”

Elias finished paying the cabdriver and turned toward her. Virgil was on his shoulder clutching the Arizona Snow doll by one little booted foot.

“You thought the car would have been stolen overnight?” Elias asked.

“Or stripped. It’s not that we don’t have a pretty good neighborhood watch set up here in the DZ—we do. But it’s designed to keep the local residents safe. Visitors are usually okay if they stick to the parking lots of the clubs and casinos because there’s plenty of private security. But leaving a fancy car like yours on a side street overnight is a risky move. It must have been a big temptation to some of our less scrupulous entrepreneurs.”

“My car can take care of itself.”

“Really?” The phone in her hand rang again. She glanced at the screen, expecting to see Grady’s number. A jolt of alarm spiked through her when she saw the identity of the caller. “Uh-oh.”

“Something wrong?” Elias asked.

“It’s my aunt Clara,” Hannah said. “Pretty early in the day for her. She’s a night person.”

Elias glanced at the newspaper stand on the corner. It featured the latest copy of the Curtain. The headline about their marriage was in very large font.

“What could possibly go wrong?” he asked.

She gave him a withering look. “Don’t worry. Even if she happened to see a copy, Clara knows you can’t believe everything you read in the Curtain.”

“Everyone says that. But they read it anyway.”

Hannah ignored him and took the call.

“Good morning,” she said, trying to infuse her tone with an upbeat note. “How are you and Aunt Bernice doing today?”

“How are we doing?” Clara repeated, her dark, smoky voice much sharper than usual. “I’ll tell you how we’re doing. We would both have fallen out of our rocking chairs, if we had rocking chairs. The headlines in the Curtain say you married Elias Coppersmith last night. It says his family controls a huge chunk of the hot-rock mining rights in the Underworld. It says he’s rich. It also says he’s a scion. What the heck is a scion? Sounds like some kind of refrigerator or a car.”

Clara Stockbridge was normally a monument of unflappability. When she had arrived in Illusion Town several decades ago, her name had been Clara Stockton. She’d had the height, the great bones, and the figure to get a job as a showgirl. She also had the intelligence, creativity, and savvy understanding of an audience, which had allowed her and her lover, Bernice Bridge, to create the masterful Ladies of High Magic show. The act had endured for nearly thirty years before Clara and Bernice had gracefully closed it down.

Somewhere along the way Clara and Bernice had married and combined their last names into Stockbridge. They had insisted that the baby girl they had found on their doorstep call each of them “aunt” not “mother” because, as Bernice said, Hannah had a mother. Marla Sanders was dead but Clara and Bernice had been her friends. They were absolutely certain that Marla had loved her infant daughter with all her heart and therefore deserved to keep the title of mother.

“I can explain, Aunt Clara,” Hannah said. “It’s a little complicated.”

“This is a yes-or-no question,” Clara said. “Is the story true?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of. What kind of answer is that? Honey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Aunt Clara.”

“What is going on?”

Hannah took a deep breath and plunged into the tale.

“Elias Coppersmith came to see me yesterday to get my help opening a dreamlight gate down at the Ghost City project. I agreed but before we could leave town a gang of bikers tried to grab one of us. We’re not positive but we think they might have been after me. Elias thinks it may be a case of corporate espionage. They may have been trying to keep me from rescuing the Coppersmith team.”

“What?”

“Elias thought I would be safer if I was his wife. It’s just an MC, Aunt Clara. Nothing to get excited about.”

“You were attacked? By a motorcycle gang? Where are you?”

“Home, safe and sound. The gang showed up when we left the Green Ruin Café last night.”

“But that’s right here in the DZ. We’ve never had a problem with motorcycle gangs in this zone.”

“Yes, I know, Aunt Clara.”

“The Club wouldn’t allow the competition,” Clara observed somewhat absently.

It was a fact, Hannah thought. Illusion Town had the usual democratic trappings—an elected mayor and a city council. It also had an effective police force. But everyone knew that the real powers-behind-the-scenes were the members of the Illusion Club. It was a very exclusive organization. The membership list was short. The Club was made up of the owners of the largest casino empires in the city.

“I know,” Hannah said. “I was amazed that the bikers would take the risk. Obviously, they’re not from around here.”

“Obviously,” Clara said.

Elias held out his hand.

“Let me talk to your aunt,” he said.

Hannah clamped the phone against her chest. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“I heard that,” Clara said, her voice somewhat muffled by Hannah’s bosom. “Put that MC husband of yours on the phone.”

Reluctantly, Hannah handed the phone to Elias.

“Meet Mrs. Clara Stockbridge,” she said. “My aunt.”

Elias took the phone.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he said. “No, I realize it’s not a good morning for everyone. Sorry, force of habit. I’m Elias Coppersmith.”

He gave a quick, detailed account of events and wound up with:

“No, I don’t know what’s going on yet, but until I do, I think Hannah will be safer with Coppersmith Security around her, Mrs. Stockbridge. Also, as my wife she’ll have an additional level of protection . . . Yes, ma’am. I understand. We’re leaving for the jobsite just as soon as Hannah picks up her Underworld gear. Meanwhile, I’ll have our security people coordinate with the Illusion Town police to start an investigation up here on the surface . . . Yes, ma’am, I agree, the Club won’t like having some biker gang think it can roar through town and frighten the locals. Bad for business.”

There was a lengthy pause.

Elias gave Hannah a speculative look as he listened to whatever Clara was saying on the other end of the connection.

“No, ma’am, I didn’t know that. I’ll keep it in mind,” he said. “Yes, I’ll take good care of her. Sorry about the headlines . . . What? No, I’m not sure what a scion is, either. I agree it doesn’t have a good ring to it . . . Right. It won’t happen again, Mrs. Stockbridge.”

Elias ended the connection and handed the phone back to Hannah.

“Your aunt says she wants to meet me as soon as we get back to the surface,” he said. “Also I’m not to call her ‘ma’am.’”

“Yeah, well, we’ll worry about that after the job is over.”

“She’s concerned about you.”

“I know.” Hannah exhaled slowly. “I love her, too. What did she say when you told her about the kidnapping attempt?”

“That got her to focus on the problem at hand,” Elias said, “which is keeping you safe.”

“I can take care of myself,” Hannah said, feeling rather grim. “Like your car.”

“I’m sure you can,” Elias said soothingly. “But your aunt understood that you would be safer with me until we can sort things out. If the biker gang was hired to keep you from going down below to open the dreamlight gate, the sooner we get that gate open, the better off we’ll be.”

“Amazing. Congratulations, by the way. Not many people can outtalk Aunt Clara.”

Hannah rezzed the lock on the front door of her shop.

“Your aunt said something else, too.”

There was a note in Elias’s voice that made her pause and look back at him.

“What?” she asked.

“She said that she understood our MC was a security move, not a romantic one. Nevertheless, the arrangement would put you and me in close proximity for a time. She said I should not expect to be able to take advantage of the situation.”

“Oh, geez.”

“She said you had issues with intimacy because of the nature of your talent and that if I did try to take advantage, I would regret it.”

“This is so embarrassing.”

“I don’t think she was threatening me,” Elias said judiciously. “Not exactly. I think she just doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Trust me, Aunt Clara was threatening you.”

“Could you give me a hint, at least?”

“About the nature of the threat?” Hannah asked.

“Will your aunt call in some favors and have me disappear into the tunnels if she thinks I took advantage of you?”

In spite of her embarrassment, Hannah laughed.

“No,” she said. “I’m not saying Aunt Clara couldn’t call in a favor or two if she needed it, but it wouldn’t be necessary in my case.”

“How bad are the intimacy issues?”

“Ever had an out-of-body experience?”

“No, can’t say that I have.”

“Stick with me and you might get one. I’m told they are very exciting and not in a good way.”

Her talent was also pretty much the last thing she wanted to talk about at the moment. She started to push open the door but paused when Elias’s phone rang.

He stopped on the front step and took the call.

“Hi, Mom. Let me guess: you read the Curtain. What? Yes, it’s true. Can’t wait for you to meet her but got a job to do first . . . You’re right. The Ghost City is a strange destination for a honeymoon. This is about rescuing that team at the second portal. If anyone can open that gate, it’s Hannah. I promise I’ll call as soon as we’re out of the Underworld. Right. Tell Dad not to worry. What? I can’t hear you very well. Bad connection. Got to run.”

He cut the connection and looked at Hannah.

“Turns out my mother reads the Curtain,” he said.

“No kidding. This MC of ours is clearly a problem for a lot of people. But at least it’s a totally fixable problem. We just need to file . . . Crap.”

She stared, stunned by the scene inside her shop. Her collection of artifacts and antiques and interesting hot rocks looked as if it had been struck by a tornado. Glass cabinets had been smashed, the contents strewn across the floor.

The intruder’s dreamlight prints were everywhere. They seethed on the floorboards and burned on everything he had touched.

She heard Virgil growl and she was vaguely aware that Elias was hauling her aside so that he could get through the doorway first. She noticed that he had the device he had called a silencer in his hand and she sensed his heightened energy field but she could not seem to wrap her head around the vandalism.

She said the only thing that seemed to sound logical.

“So much for the high-end locks I had installed,” she whispered.