Siren's Call (A Rainshadow Novel) Read Free Page A

bunnies had a cute mode—hence their popularity in children’s literature. When fully fluffed they looked like oversized wads of dryer lint with six little paws and two big, innocent blue eyes. The one on the dashboard of the sled, however, was not even trying to look adorable. She was fully sleeked out and her second set of eyes—the fierce amber ones that were designed for night hunting—were open.
    “I’m sorry,” Ella said. “I’ve got the sled rezzed to the max. I can’t drive any faster.”
    They were whipping through the maze of ancient Alien tunnels at a speed that was only a little faster than the average person could run. The sled looked a lot like a golf cart and it moved like one, too. It was powered by a sturdy, but simple, old-fashioned amber-based engine. Low-tech was the only option in the heavy psi-environment that permeated the catacombs and the great subterranean Rainforest. The Underworld had been engineered by the long-vanished Aliens, who had relied on as-yet little understood forms of paranormal energy. Sophisticated human technology such as high-powered engines, computers, and guns either exploded in your hands or simply flatlined in the eerie realms the vanished civilization had created below the surface.
    “I really hope you know what we’re doing,” Ella said. “Because I’m going to owe Pete a big favor once he finds out that I borrowed his sled.”
    Pete Grimshaw was the proprietor of Pete’s Underworld Artifacts, the shop next to her new office in the Old Quarter. A retired ghost hunter, he had closed early that afternoon in order to have a few beers with some old hunter pals.
    Ella had opened her little one-person consulting firm—Morgan Dream Counseling—less than a week earlier, but she had already discovered that short workdays and long nights in the local bars was business as usual for Pete. There had been no time to find him and ask permission to take his prospecting sled. The dust bunny that had scampered through her doorway a short time ago had been frantic. You didn’t have to be psychic to know when an animal was anxious and desperate.
    Ella drove the sled into a large circular chamber and stopped. There were more than half a dozen intersecting tunnels, each glowing with the acid-green energy infused in the quartz that the Aliens had used to construct their underground world. She looked at the dust bunny.
    “Which way?” she asked.
    She knew the small creature could not comprehend what she was saying, but under the circumstances, she figured her meaning was clear.
    The dust bunny faced toward one of the vaulted entrances and bounced up and down, making urgent little noises.
    “Got it.”
    Ella rezzed the sled and drove into the indicated tunnel. The dust bunny did not protest, so she concluded she’d made the right choice.
    It had been like this from the moment they had descended into the Underworld and commandeered the sled. Every time they reached an intersection in the maze, the dust bunny chose the tunnel.
    Ella glanced at the handful of simple instruments on the dashboard. The signal from the tuned-amber locator was still strong. Her route was clearly charted so she could find her way back. The tunnels were impossible to navigate without good amber, and Pete, being an old Guild man, was obsessive about keeping the sled’s amber tuned. In addition, she had plenty of personal tuned amber on her. There were nuggets in her stud earrings and a nicely carved piece on the pendant that she wore around her neck. She also had another chunk stashed in the heel of her shoe.
    Unlike Pete, who often searched for relics in the maze of the Underworld, her day job rarely took her into the catacombs. But the Alien music that sang in green quartz often proved irresistible.
    She had learned that she could find a kind of peace in the strange harmonies. On the nights when she knew that she was dwelling too much on the lonely future that awaited her—a future in which she was