It disappeared around the corner, and Bayta and I headed off on foot for Zumurrud District and Karim's bar.
Makarr, which seemed to be mostly residential, was pretty quiet tonight. Zumurrud, in contrast, was hopping. The populace was out in force, most of them young, most of them angry or frustrated-looking, nearly all of them drinking. Judging by the buzz of conversation leaking out their open doors, the taverns and gaming rooms were doing a brisk business. So were the street corners and doorways where we'd seen the kids congregating earlier in the day.
Fortunately, none of the simmering anger beneath the hard drinking seemed directed specifically at the two strangers walking through their midst. Still, we collected our share of curious glances and suspicious glares. Occasionally, I saw one of the youths who'd seen us that afternoon nudge one of his buddies and mutter something under his breath.
Twice, outside the entrances of particularly boisterous taverns, a group of thrill-seekers looked as if they were considering stepping into our path. Both times, I slipped my hand quietly but pointedly beneath my jacket and got a grip on the Beretta that McMicking had given me. The would-be toughs spotted the gun, got the message, and backed off.
The street with Karim's bar was as busy as the rest of the district. Unlike the rest of the neighborhood, though, this particular block came equipped with quiet sentries. The four teens I'd had my brief run-in with had now become two pairs, one set standing casual guard at either end of the block.
The closer pair spotted us as we approached. One of the teens was Oved, the boy I'd had the staged tussle with earlier. He gave us a microscopic nod of acknowledgment as we approached while his partner wandered off toward a quiet alleyway, comm in hand, presumably to call Karim with the news of our arrival.
Behind Oved's grim expression, I noted as we passed, his eyes showed the slight puffiness of recent tears. Karim must have told him Lorelei was dead.
The bar was doing brisk business tonight. I spotted Karim in the back by the bar, pretending to watch the bartender making the drinks. He caught my eye as we came in and nodded sideways toward the office door.
I glanced over the clientele as Bayta and I headed back. They were for the most part older men, most of them displaying the same simmering frustration that I'd seen in the more teen-intensive parts of the district.
I wondered if there were any police informants among them.
The office was dark except for a small writing light that didn't illuminate much beyond the center of the desk. I closed and locked the door behind us and headed for the hidden trapdoor. "Shouldn't we wait for Mr. Karim?" Bayta asked as I pushed the desk chair out of the way.
"Why?" I asked. "We know how to get in."
"Rebekah might be more comfortable if he came in with us," she said, a little crossly.
I looked up at her. "Would she?" I asked.
Bayta's lips compressed briefly. "I don't know. I just thought …" She trailed off.
Another hunch? "Okay, fine," I said, straightening up. "We wait for Karim."
I was only going to give the man two minutes to show before I headed down without him. Fortunately, less than half that time elapsed before there was the click of a disengaging lock and Karim slipped into the office.
"Were you followed?" he asked as he relocked the door behind him.
"Ask your sentries," I said. "They're the ones who know who belongs here and who doesn't."
He grunted as he stepped past me and stooped down to tackle the hidden door. "Anyway, I'm glad you're here," he said. "I think something's happened. Rebekah is frightened. Really frightened."
"Did you ask her why?"
"She wouldn't tell me." He looked pointedly up at me. "But she wasn't like this until after you left this afternoon."
"A lot of things happen in a city this size over the course of a few hours," I reminded him. "Not all of them have anything to do with us."
"True," he agreed. But his eyes lingered on my face another moment before he returned his attention to the trapdoor.
A few seconds later, he had it open. "I'll go first," he said.
"No, you'll stay here," I told him. "If there's trouble, we'll need someone to lock down the door."
He snorted. "A futile gesture," he scoffed. "Others will have seen you come in here."
"And tearing the place up while they look for the rabbit hole will take time," I countered. "Time is always a good thing to have."
Again, his eyes searched my face. "As you wish," he said. Stepping away from the shaft, he gestured me toward it.
"Thank you." I gestured in turn to Bayta. "After you."
Silently, she got her feet on the ladder and started down. With one final look at Karim, I followed.
We passed through the curtain and into the hidden room. Rebekah was again sitting cross-legged on the bed, just as she'd been the last time I was here.
Karim was right. In the past few hours something had definitely happened to the girl. Her face was drawn and even paler than it had been earlier. Her shoulders were hunched, and her throat was tight. "Hello, Rebekah," I greeted her cautiously.
"Hello, Mr. Compton," she said. Speaking to me, but with her eyes locked on Bayta.
I looked at Bayta. Her eyes were locked just as tightly on Rebekah. "This is Bayta," I said, looking back at Rebekah. "You asked about her earlier."
"Yes," Rebekah said, an odd breathiness in her voice. "I'm …honored …Ms. Bayta."
"Just Bayta," Bayta told her. She had some of Rebekah's same breathiness in her voice, too. "We've come to get you out of here."
To my surprise, a pair of tears trickled down Rebekah's cheeks. "It's too late," she whispered. "I can't go."
"Of course you can," I said, taking a step toward her. "If you're too weak to handle the ladder—"
"Don't touch me!" she snapped with sudden fire.
I braked to an abrupt halt. For a second there a real live scared ten-year-old had peeked out through all that unnatural maturity I'd seen in her earlier. "Sure," I soothed, searching her face for some clue to her reaction. "Do you need me to carry you out?" I asked.
"No," she said. "I told you, I can't go. I can't move. If I do, he'll know where I am."
An unpleasant tingle went up my back. "You mean the Modhri?"
She closed her eyes. "Yes."
I touched Bayta's arm, nodded back over my shoulder. Together, we backed out of the room into the passageway, stopping at the curtain. "Okay, I give up," I murmured. "What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know," Bayta said, her eyes focused on something about five-sixths of the way to infinity. "But I think she's telling the truth."
"I'm so glad to hear it," I growled. "Are you saying the Modhri's developed his own psychic radar now?"
"It's not radar," Bayta said. "I don't know what it is. But she is in danger, Frank."
"Why?" I demanded. "What can possibly be so important about a lone ten-year-old girl? I mean, this isn't—"
"It isn't what?" Bayta asked.
"Never mind," I growled. I'd been about to tell her this simply wasn't how the Modhri did things.
But how the hell did I know how the Modhri did things? I didn't even understand how this whole group mind thing worked, let alone what kind of alien thoughts or motivations he might have.
I took a deep breath. Fine. Western Alliance Intelligence had trained me to be a detective. It was about time I did some detecting.
Assume Karim was right, that something new and critical had happened sometime in the past four hours. What could that something be?
Bayta and I had visited Rebekah. We'd been hauled away for a visit to Veldrick. We'd run across McMicking and had dinner with him. Veldrick had tried to have me thrown into jail for a few hours, possibly because he was trying to move more of his coral.
Trying to move more of his coral …