Shouts of anger and surprise went up in the outer room.
“What the fuck?”
“What happened to Reynolds?”
Celinda reached the tunnel entrance in time to see one of the khaki-and-leather-clad hunters crumple to the floor. He sprawled there, unmoving. The other four stared at him, dumbfounded.
She was still several feet away from them; nevertheless, she could perceive their violently pulsing psi energies quite clearly. Her senses were naturally a lot stronger underground.
“Maybe he had a heart attack or something,” one of the hunters said uneasily. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“We came here to get the woman,” another hunter growled. “We’re not leaving without her.”
The man who had been speaking jerked violently and fell to his knees, groaning. His head snapped forward, as if from a blow. This time he crumpled flat on his face. His psychic energy still pulsed, but it was as if everything had suddenly been thrown into neutral. He was alive, she realized, but unconscious.
“What’s happening?” one of the hunters shouted. “What’s going on here?”
She shivered. Welcome to the haunted alien ruins, folks. Step right up. You’re going to get your money’s worth today. There’s a real live ghost in the chamber with you.
For the first time it struck her that Davis, Max, and Araminta might, indeed, be able to handle all five hunters by themselves.
The three men still on their feet were looking around uneasily. One of them was checking a device in his hand.
She retreated a step, putting her back against the wall.
“I’m getting two readings,” the hunter said. “Shit. One is right here in the chamber.”
“There’s no one here but us, you idiot,” one of the others barked. “You’re probably picking up my amber or Greg’s.”
A piercing shriek rent the tense atmosphere in the outer chamber. It came from the hunter who had been trying to sort out the readings on his locating device.
Celinda peered around the opening in time to see that Max had rematerialized. As she watched, he launched himself up the pants leg of one of the hunters. Araminta was right behind him, going for the other leg.
The man screamed again and began swiping madly at the front of his trousers.
“Get them off me! Get them off me!”
Max reached the man’s waist, heading for the throat.
The terrified hunter swung wildly at Max and managed to connect. Max went flying but not before drawing blood.
The hunter yelled again and batted at Araminta. She leaped away from his khaki-clad leg, but Celinda saw that the fabric was already damp and darkening rapidly.
“Something bit me!” The hunter staggered back, cradling his bleeding hand against his side. Looking haunted, he produced a knife, threw up an energy ghost as a shield, and started to retreat toward the staircase.
The air behind him shimmered. He jerked, but he did not go down. He whirled to confront the unseen menace behind him, knife slicing wildly at the air.
Then he toppled sideways, landing on the floor with a jolting thud. The blood from his wounded hand ran onto the green quartz. The ghost he had rezzed winked out.
Celinda looked anxiously at Max. He had landed adroitly and was already back on his feet, evidently unharmed.
More ghost light flared. The two hunters who were still on their feet had managed to regroup sufficiently to put their backs to each other. They had generated two large, violently pulsing balls of energy to protect themselves and were retreating toward the foot of the staircase. Both had drawn their knives.
Dark, disturbing energy poured off them in sickening waves. Fear, Celinda thought. The stuff was so strong it threatened to drown her own senses.
Her first impulse was to try to dampen the psi-based energy before it overwhelmed her. Her fingers tightened convulsively around the ruby amber relic in her hand. Power tingled in her palm.
Suddenly she knew in a way that she could not explain that she had a choice. She could, indeed, suppress the men’s fear, or she could enhance it. If she chose the latter, she was also very certain that she could block the intensity of the waves so that she would not be swamped by them.
Acting on instinct, she pushed her own para-rez power through the ruby amber. Working gingerly at first but with growing confidence, she sent pulses of resonating energy designed to augment the frequency of the waves the men were generating.
The hunters’ fear metamorphosed into unholy terror. They both started screaming. The ghosts they were attempting to manipulate ebbed and flared in a pattern that even to her inexperienced eyes looked increasingly feeble and disorganized.
She barely managed to pulse enough additional psi through the ruby amber to protect her own senses from the onslaught. But her mental barricades held, muting the impact of the hunters’ over-rezzed response.
On the floor, the leather vest worn by one of the fallen men seemed to open of its own accord, revealing a chunk of amber hanging on a metallic necklace. As she watched, the amber disappeared into thin air.
She realized that Davis was probably close to melting his own amber. He had just confiscated some backup.
Araminta and Max circled the wobbling energy ghosts warily, searching for openings.
The air in front of one of the UDEMs shimmered. The rapidly weakening ghost winked out. A heartbeat later, the second ghost disappeared.
“What’s happening?” one of the men shouted.
“How in green hell should I know? Maybe this place really is haunted. Let’s get out of here.”
“What about Landry?” the first man insisted.
“Screw Landry. We can’t fight what we can’t see.”
Knives in hand, the men fled toward the staircase.
The first hunter stumbled over some unseen object and went down. His head jerked to the side. He lay still.
The second one shrieked and kept on shrieking. Max and Araminta were scampering up his pants leg. He swiped at them with his knife, dancing on one foot.
His legs went out from under him. He fell to his knees and sprawled on the floor.
A deathly silence filled the chamber. Celinda looked at the figures of the fallen men. She sensed psi energy from all five. They were alive, but all were unconscious.
The air shimmered again, bright and silvery.
Davis appeared, standing amid the sprawled hunters. He was breathing hard. Sweat ran in rivulets down his face and saturated his shirt.
He still held the mag-rez in one hand. She knew then that he had used the butt of the gun as a club during the combat.
He looked at her, eyes as hot as a mirror struck by sunlight.
“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Now.”
“Are you all right?” she asked, too shaken to demand an explanation.
“Yes, but I won’t be for long. I only pushed it this far once before. The burn isn’t going to last very long. I can feel it fading already. The crash is going to be bad.”
“You melted amber?”
“Three times, but that’s not the problem. Move.”
He was deadly serious. She snatched up her tote, dropped her wallet, the plastic containers of food, and the relic inside, and held her hand out to Araminta.
They followed Davis and Max up the spiral staircase.
“You’ll have to drive,” Davis said.
“I sort of figured that.”
