“Good grief, why would I want a blowtorch?”
“Makes a handy weapon.”
She winced. “I see.”
Drake crouched in front of the fire, watching the flames through his sunglasses. “Fire is one of the few forms of normal energy that can be used inside the Preserve.”
“Are there a lot of dangerous animals on the other side of the fence?”
“Until recently, the only dangerous critters we had to worry about were the human variety. But that’s not true any longer.”
“Right, those mutated sea creatures who are living in the cave pools.”
“And maybe other things as well.” Drake glanced back over his shoulder at the dark woods that bordered the cove. “There’s so much psi in the ecosystem inside the Preserve now that it’s bound to have an effect on the plant and animal life.”
Houdini splashed out of the cove, dragging his life preserver by the cord. He paused to shake the water from his fur and then trotted over to the fire. He stared at the emergency rations.
“I think he’s hungry,” Alice said.
“I know I am.” Drake got to his feet. “Time to open up some of those tasty instant meals. Sorry I forgot to bring the wine.”
Alice smiled. “So am I.” She glanced toward the cove. The cruiser was slowly disappearing into the fog. “Why do I have the feeling that I’m never going to see my suitcases and my costumes and props again?”
Drake ripped open one of the containers. “Don’t worry, we’ll come back for the boat and your stuff after we take care of business on the island.”
There was nothing in the suitcases that could not be replaced, she reminded herself. Nevertheless, her whole life—or what was left of it—was in the two suitcases she had been forced to leave on board the boat.
Get a grip, woman. You’re alive and so is Houdini. That’s all that matters. She did not doubt for a moment that they had all been in serious danger a short time ago.
“You saved us, Drake,” she said quietly.
“What?”
He opened another container and then a third.
She watched him break a seal on each package. The scent of heating food wafted toward her.
“Piloting the boat through those awful currents and that fog was brilliant work,” she said. “You saved all of us.”
He glanced at her, amber light flashing on his glasses. “You and Houdini wouldn’t be here in the first place if I hadn’t brought you here.”
“Yes, well, we are here and you saved us. That’s all that matters tonight.”
He looked amused. “You’re a real live-in-the-moment kind of woman. A lot of folks would be pissed as hell at me if I’d brought them into a situation like this.”
“It wasn’t like my life was going so great in Crystal City. At least now I’ve got a shot at getting Ethel Whitcomb out of my life and making a few bucks to boot. I can contemplate a whole different future, thanks to you.”
“We’re not there yet.” He glanced toward the fog-bound cove. “You were serious when you said that just about everything you own is in those suitcases, weren’t you?” he said.
“Yes.” She settled down on a large chunk of driftwood. “Ethel Whitcomb has done a pretty good job of destroying my life this past year. It’s amazing what you can do to another person when you’ve got a lot of money and power.”
“You’ve been living out of a couple of suitcases for damn near a year?” Drake asked. He sat down beside her and handed her one of the emergency meals. He gave another one to Houdini and took the third for himself. “That’s all? Nothing in storage? No property?”
She watched Houdini explore his emergency meal. He seemed enthralled with the little compartments in the plate, each of which was filled with different food. He dithered between the pear crisp and the stew.
“It wasn’t like I owned a lot of stuff before Ethel set out to ruin me,” Alice admitted. “Nevertheless, I had a job, a car that was almost paid off, some savings in the bank, and a couple of credit cards.”
“All gone?”
“My job in the museum gift shop vanished first because Ethel Whitcomb owns the Whitcomb Museum. The director, Aldwin Hampstead, had no choice but to let me go after Ethel put some pressure on him. The car was mysteriously repossessed soon after that. The credit cards got cancelled. When I realized what was going on, I managed to get my money out of the bank before Ethel could find a way to put a lien on it, but it was a near thing. I’ve used up all of my savings just trying to stay one step ahead of the Whitcomb thugs. You’d be surprised how much it costs to buy new IDs every few months.”
Drake whistled softly. “You really have been on the run.”
She ate some stew. There wasn’t much flavor but it wasn’t terrible, and best of all it was pleasantly warm. Houdini made his decision. He went for the pear crisp.
“Good choice,” she said. “Always eat dessert first. You never know when one of Ethel’s creeps will show up.” She paused and then smiled a little as a thought struck her. “I have to say that is definitely one bright spot about returning to Rainshadow. It’s highly unlikely that Ethel Whitcomb’s people will come after me here, not now with this fog and all communications down.”
Drake ate some of the stew. “If they do manage to follow you, they’ll have to go through me to get to you. That’s not going to happen.”
The mag-steel edge on the words was so lethally honed she was pretty sure that it could have drawn blood.
She managed a breezy, flippant smile. “Oh, wow, I’ve got a bodyguard now as part of our deal?”
“Yes,” he said, very seriously.
Some of the survival-mode tension that had been churning inside her for the past year eased a little.
“I believe you,” she said.
Chapter 11
DRAKE KNEW THE EXACT INSTANT WHEN ALICE CAME awake on a rush of nightmare-fueled adrenaline. He crouched in front of the tent.
“Take it easy,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”
She sat up so quickly she bumped her head against the roof of the small tent. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked past him into the fog.
“What?” she whispered.
He knew what she was seeing. The hallucinations had been growing stronger for the past hour. Like primal monsters of the night, they hovered just beyond the glow cast by the fire.
“They’re not real,” Drake said.
She ignored him, still caught between the dream world and the waking state.
“Houdini,” she gasped. “Houdini.”
The dust bunny hopped off the driftwood log where he had been sitting earlier, keeping Drake company, and raced into the tent. Alice clutched him close and took several deep breaths.
“What in the world is going on?” she finally asked.
Her voice was remarkably steady given the disorienting and disturbing circumstances, he thought.
“The energy in the fog is creating hallucinations,” he said. “It’s similar to the kind of thing that happens when you go through the psi-fence.”
She pulled herself together with visible effort. “You took off your glasses.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the amber lantern?”
“The firelight seemed to be more effective against the fog, so I decided to conserve the lantern energy,” he said. He did not add that he thought it best to save the lantern in the event that they wound up spending another night out in the open.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“So far,” he said. “I wondered how long you were going to be able to sleep through the effects of this fog. An hour ago the energy levels started to get really hot. It’s turning into a paranormal storm that affects the senses, generating audio and visual hallucinations.”