“Perpetual night,” he said.

Startled, she gave him another swift, searching glance. “You read minds, too?”

“Sadly, no. That would be another useful talent. But it was a good bet that you were wondering what the world looks like to me.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so personal.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re not the first person to be curious.”

“Perpetual night, huh? So the world is always dark for you?”

He smiled slightly. “I said it was always night. I didn’t say it was always dark.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The night is illuminated with a million shades of paranormal energy,” he said quietly. “I see light from that end of the spectrum the same way you see light from the normal end.”

“What kind of light-talent are you?” she asked.

“Still trying to figure that out,” Drake said.

They moved out of the alley and onto an empty sidewalk. Like all of the Old Quarters in the four major city-states on Harmony, the Colonial section of Crystal City dated back two hundred years to the era of the First Generation settlers from Earth. The founders had built the first towns around the ancient walls that surrounded the ruins of the large Alien cities.

The para-archaeologists estimated that the Aliens had vanished at least a couple of thousand years before the colonists from Earth had arrived, perhaps even earlier. But the unique green quartz the ancients had used to construct most of their urban sites as well as the vast array of underground passages that honeycombed the planet was virtually indestructible. And all of it glowed with an eerie green radiance that was noticeable to the human eye only after dark. There was no need for streetlights in the Old Quarters. The massive walls that surrounded the ruins cast an otherworldly radiance over the human-built scene.

In addition to the glow, the currents of psi that emanated from the towering walls and wafted up from the underground catacombs infused the Quarter with a little paranormal heat. Most people, even those with a low level of talent, found the sensation to be a bit of a rush. Alcohol and music enhanced the sparkly, slightly euphoric buzz. The background energy in the atmosphere was one of the reasons why many of the trendy nightclubs were located in converted warehouses and other Colonial-era buildings near the walls. But in spite of the clubs and theaters in the vicinity, the Crystal City Quarter, like all of the Old Quarters in the city-states, had a distinctly seedy atmosphere.

Drake surveyed the shuttered windows and graffiti-splashed buildings around them.

“Rough neighborhood,” he observed in a very neutral tone.

“Also a cheap neighborhood when it comes to rent,” Alice said. “And I don’t need a car. My apartment is only a few blocks away.”

“Very economical. Do you always leave the theater through that alley entrance?”

“Yes. But this is the last time I’ll be using that door.”

“Because of what nearly happened in the alley?” Drake asked.

“No, because the owner of the theater told me tonight that he has decided to cancel my lease. Alien Illusions closed this evening after only three performances.”

“Why did the owner cancel your lease?”

“He gave me the usual reason: low attendance. The magic business is very competitive. A new show, Catacombs of Mystery, opened here in the Quarter last week and it’s getting all the attention. Very high production values. Alien Illusions didn’t have the financial backing needed to compete. Actually, it didn’t have any financial backing at all.”

“That must have made things difficult.”

“Sure. Still, we were getting by, starting to draw bigger crowds.” She reached up to pat Houdini. “Thanks to the star of the show here. The audience loved Houdini. We were doing some very cool vanishing acts. I think we could have made it. I’m pretty sure the real reason the show got cancelled was because Ethel found me again and bribed the manager to shut me down. I’m certain she made it worth his while.”

“In the course of tracking you down, I did discover that your ex-mother-in-law has spent a lot of time and effort making your life miserable this past year,” Drake said.

“She thinks I murdered her son. In her position, I’d probably be obsessed with revenge, too. Just wish she’d focus on the real killer.”

“Assuming there is one,” Drake said quietly. “According to the police report, Fulton Whitcomb died of natural causes.”

“Ethel isn’t buying that opinion.”

“What about you?”

“I didn’t buy it, either. But since I’m the most likely suspect, I figure my best bet is to keep a low profile.”

The lights of a beer sign hanging in a dark window sparked on Drake’s glasses when he turned to look at Houdini.

“You said the dust bunny was the star of Alien Illusions?”

“Right. He’s the magician. At least that’s how we billed him. I thought it made the act sound more interesting.”

“If you gave Houdini top billing, what did that make you?”

“Me?” She smiled. “I’m just the box-jumper.”

“What’s a box-jumper?”

“Old Earth word for a magician’s assistant. Comes from all those tricks that involve putting a woman into a box and making it look as if she disappeared or got sawed in half or pierced with knives.”

“Got it,” Drake said, sounding satisfied. “The box-jumper is the only other person on stage who knows the magician’s secrets.”

Chapter 3

DRAKE WAS A LITTLE SORRY TO SEE THE SIGN ABOVE THE entrance of the Green Gate Tavern. He realized that he had been savoring the combination of the psi-rezzed night and the woman at his side. He could have walked with Alice through the Quarter until dawn.

Viewed through his mirrored-quartz lenses, the light of the illuminated sign was a sharp, bright green. He knew it was also the wrong shade of green, or, at least, not the same shade that Alice saw. He no longer saw colors the way other people did. There were limits to the technology of his lenses.

He was fine with the psi-lit atmosphere of the Quarter. The energy that emanated from the Dead City Wall was mostly in the paranormal range, the part of the spectrum that he could see clearly. True, the glow of the ruins looked different to him than it did to most other people—he could detect a much broader spectrum of colors in the wavelengths generated by the ancient green quartz, for one thing—but it wasn’t painful to look at.

A simple tavern sign, on the other hand, like the light over the stage door, would have temporarily blinded him if he had attempted to view it without his glasses. When it came to sunlight, he might as well have been a vampire. True, the light of day wouldn’t kill him but it literally dazzled his senses, rendering him blind.

Alice stopped in front of the door. “This is the place I told you about. We can talk inside.”

He studied the entrance. “Inside where you have friends.”

She gave him what he was pretty sure was a fake smile. But it looked good. He would take any smile he could get from Alice North.

“Exactly,” she said.

“I have no problem with that. Doesn’t matter where we talk.”

He really needed to keep reminding himself that he had a goal here in Crystal City and that time mattered. Normally he had no difficulty maintaining his focus on whatever objective he had set for himself. Various members of his family, including his mother, claimed he did that to a fault. But something about Alice was proving to be distracting.

He was well aware that she did not trust him. He was almost certain she was not just wary of him but flat-out scared, although she hid it well. She had every right to be nervous. He knew from what little he had found during the course of a hasty background check that she had been on her own ever since leaving an orphanage at seventeen. She had managed to survive and make her way without family ties in a world where family was the most important building block in the social structure. Among the descendants of the colonists, family was everything.