attracted to him, that was excellent. But in all likelihood she was playing him in order to distract him from the missing relic. Either way, though, it made for an intriguing evening, just as he had anticipated. Frustrating as hell, though. He had been half-aroused ever since he’d picked her up at her door.
They managed to get through a couple of glasses of wine and dinner without discussing the artifact. In fact, three hours later, when the check arrived, Davis was a little stunned to realize how much they had talked about without even straying toward touchy subjects like relics and Guilds.
Either Celinda was an expert when it came to the feminine art of distraction, or else she really did feel some of the sizzle he was experiencing.
She looked up as the waiter came back with the plastic box that contained the uneaten portion of her grilled fish.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the box.
Davis got to his feet. “Is that for you or Araminta?”
“Araminta. I told you, she’s been eating like a very large farm animal lately. I’m a little worried, to be honest. Does Max eat a lot?”
Davis shrugged. “Seems like a reasonable amount for an animal that size.”
“What do you feed him?”
“He seems happy to eat whatever I’m eating.” He smiled a little. “Or drinking. Whenever I open a bottle of beer, he insists I give him some.”
“Wonder what they eat in the wild?”
“Probably better not to ask.”
Outside, the air was a warm, silken cloak. The night was luminous with the faint green glow of the nearby Dead City wall. Parking around restaurants and nightspots was always at a premium in the Quarter. He’d been forced to leave the Phantom a block and a half away in a narrow side lane.
“Why don’t you wait here,” he said to Celinda. “I’ll get the car and bring it around.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I love the energy here in the Quarter, especially at night.”
She felt it, too, he thought. The energy of the night was all around them. Screw the damn relic. He’d worry about it later. Next year, maybe.
He looked at her. “You’re right. Great energy.”
She smiled.
He took her arm, savoring the feel of soft, bare, female skin under his fingers. In a heartbeat his senses opened wide to the night and the woman beside him. Take it easy; you don’t want to scare her off. But she didn’t look scared.
He managed to wait, just barely, until they left the main street and walked a short distance into the shadowy lane where the Phantom was parked. He stopped in front of the vestibule of a darkened doorway, turned Celinda toward him, and pulled her into his arms. She did not resist. Her hands went to his shoulders.
In the faint, green glow that emanated from the towering quartz wall at the far end of the lane, he could see that her eyes were deep and mysterious, and her lips were slightly parted. Definitely not scared.
He wrapped her close and kissed her hard, letting her feel the rush that was heating his blood.
She made a soft, urgent little sound. Her hands slid from his shoulders, moving up around his neck. She opened her lips just a little and gave him a taste of the sultry heat that awaited him.
Kissing her was a little like going down into the catacombs and getting a dose of alien psi, only better. This high swept through him with the force of an oncoming summer storm. It was sexual and highly physical, but it was something more, something that caught him by surprise. There was a sense of mind-bending rightness about kissing Celinda. She was just what he’d been needing for longer than he could remember.
She whispered something he did not quite catch against his mouth. Her fingers tightened in his hair. He could feel her soft breasts crushed against his chest.
He felt his control start to slip. That hadn’t happened in longer than he could remember either. Instead of making him uneasy, he suddenly felt free in a way he hadn’t for years.
The hunger inside him grew more intense. He dragged Celinda deeper into the vestibule and pushed her up against the stone wall, bracing her. She nibbled on his left earlobe. He almost climaxed then and there. He couldn’t believe she was using her teeth on him.
He moved his hands downward on either side of her body, savoring the contours of breast, waist, and thigh. She did not try to stop him. In fact, he could feel one of her elegantly curved calves gliding up the side of his trousers. She shuddered a little in his arms.
He found the hem of her dress and shoved it up to her waist. Then he gripped her buttocks and started to lift her off her feet so that she would have no choice but to wrap her legs around him and squeeze tightly just to hold on.
She gasped and pulled her mouth away from his.
“Wait,” she managed breathlessly. “Hold on a minute. I think things are getting a little out of control here.”
He groaned. “Celinda—”
“We should both cool down a bit,” she said, taking several deep breaths. “I mean, this isn’t even a real date, is it? More like a business dinner.”
He came back to his senses with a disorienting jolt.
What the hell was he doing? He’d only met her this afternoon, and he’d been about to take her up against a grimy wall. He’d never taken a woman against a wall in his life. He caught her face between his hands and rested his forehead against hers.
“Don’t know how it is in your line,” he said, “but I gotta tell you my business dinners don’t usually end like this.”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “Neither do mine.”
He opened his mouth to apologize. The sound of footsteps stopped him cold. There were plenty of other people out on the streets of the Old Quarter enjoying the warm summer night, but until now he and Celinda had been alone in the tiny lane. He listened closely.
“What’s wrong?” Celinda whispered, going very still.
“Probably nothing.” He spoke directly into her ear.
“Oh, jeez. First date I’ve been on in four months, and I’m going to get mugged, right?”
Very gently he put his hand over her mouth to silence her. He turned her slightly so that he could watch the mouth of the lane from the cover of the shadowed vestibule.
A figure stood silhouetted against the brighter lights of the main thoroughfare behind him. He was tall and spindly, a scarecrow of a man. The outline of a loose-fitting wind-breaker was visible. He had a cap pulled down low over his eyes.
The figure hesitated a few seconds longer, as though seeking his quarry. After a while he moved warily forward, heading toward the Phantom.
Davis put his mouth close to Celinda’s ear again.
“Stay here.”
He made it an order, not a suggestion. He could tell that she didn’t like it, but he was pretty sure she was too smart to sabotage him at this critical juncture by making a scene.
He released her and moved quietly out of the doorway.
The figure in the cap had reached the Phantom. He leaned down to peer through the window into the darkened interior.
“Looking for something?” Davis asked behind him.
The scarecrow froze for an instant. Then he jerked upright and whirled around. Davis got a brief glimpse of haggard, death’s head features, and then the lane exploded in a raging inferno of green ghost light.
Not one but two wild, acid-colored balls of alien psi energy flared and pulsed on other either side of him, trapping him.
Doppelganger light, Davis thought. There weren’t many hunters who could generate a dopp, especially outside the tunnels. He had some immunity—he was descended from a long line of hunters, and almost all ghost hunters could sustain a brush with ghost light—but no one, hunter or not, could survive a close encounter with this much raw energy.
