Burning Bright s-15 Read online

  "Why's the file in your direct access pool, Dave? You should have had to request-"

  Strevich held up one hand. "Don't," he said. "Look down."

  Kyle fought the impulse to do just that, but he'd known his friend long enough to recognize one of his figures of speech. He glanced down.

  "See that?" Strevich continued. "It's a land mine. Please don't set if off. I'd be grateful."

  "Okay, okay. But I'm going to be doing my own checking. Please let me know next time one drops in front of me."

  "If I can. You know the scan, Kyle-sometimes you swat…" Uncharacteristically, his friend let the metaphor trail off. "If I can," Strevich finished instead. "If I can."

  Kyle nodded. The message was clear enough, and he knew not to push. "Understood." he said. "Look, I gotta go-meeting to take, money to be had."

  Strevich nodded and punched what Kyle knew was the command key that took him out of whatever file he'd been scanning. "I see you're calling from Chicago."

  Kyle nodded.

  "The Truman boy?"

  "Hey, hey, hey," Kyle said, holding up his hand. "Look down." Strevich just grinned.

  "See that?" Kyle told him. "It's your shoe. That's all you need to know."

  "Got it."

  Kyle reached toward the portable telecom unit sitting on the table. "Feed me anything you can," he said.

  Strevich was just saying "Don't hold your breath" when Kyle cut the connection. He pulled the self-coiling cable connecting the datajack in his temple to the pocket phone, then sat for a while, staring at the Marriott's waterfall and pouring the last of the kaf from the self-warming carafe. It was, of course, real coffee.

  So, his old teammates in the FBI's Department of Paranormal Affairs were handling the Universal Brotherhood investigation. And since that fact wasn't public knowledge, it had to mean the case involved some metaphysical matter the government didn't want anyone to find out about. And that fact Kyle Teller found very interesting indeed.

  3

  The Truman Tower, its two longer sides sloping nearly to a point, jutted three hundred and fifty-two stories into the stormy Chicago sky. With the IBM Building gone, it was the tallest building in the city, but far short of holding that record for the world, despite its owner's wishes. Molded from blue glass and darker steel, it reflected and distorted the gray of the threatening sky and the bright orange and white wedge of the twenty-meter-long, lighter-than-air transport moored to its upper deck.

  Kyle took it all in as his car turned smoothly off the street, then angled up the main entrance ramp and onto the open promenade of the building's east side. The almost rural landscaping of me enormous grounds would have surprised him except that his computer notepad had just been feeding him images of it and other things Truman. Its programming had ranged far and wide as he'd slept, gathering information on the Truman family and empire from various online services and databases. That done, a pair of special smart programs in the computer had analyzed, compiled, and compressed the most important and relevant data into usable form. Then, as Kyle dreamt on, the notepad had downloaded the ready-for-viewing file into the tiny amount of cybernetic headware memory he'd dared risk as a mage. The data was sitting there awaiting his examination when he woke.

  Kyle had considered bringing along his special equipment, but ultimately rejected the idea. He'd amassed quite a collection of powerful magical foci for augmenting his own mystical abilities in the course of his career, yet he generally shied away from their use, fearing to create a psychological crutch. Better to do without, saving the foci for the rare emergency. An active magic item or spell-or even a magician's own use of astral perception or projection-created a bridge between normal space and the astral plane that could permit a spell or spirit originating in astral space to harm him. That peace of mind alone was worth the loss of potential power. Kyle's foci were currently stored in the hotel's secure vault, in a special box protected by a spell that would immobilize anyone who tried to open it without uttering a certain phrase. Kyle sincerely hoped members of the hotel staff would heed his warning not to tamper.

  The car slowed and stopped automatically at the curb in front of Truman Tower's three-story glass entrance. The gull-wing passenger door rose upward with a barely audible hiss, and Kyle stepped out, slipping his Meteor sunglasses into place. Already, an ork male attendant and a breathtakingly lovely woman in an angled suit of the latest corporate fashion were approaching him.

  The woman was tall and Nordic, with white-blond hair stylishly chopped to collar-length. She stopped a proper distance away and extended a perfectly manicured hand.

  "Mr. Teller?" Her voice was soft, surprisingly throaty. “I’m Hanna Uljaken, special assistant to Mr. Truman. We're very pleased you could come so quickly. I hope your trip has been pleasant so far." She smiled, and Kyle felt a warm tingling in his belly.

  He nodded, shaking her hand just as properly, but letting the contact linger slightly longer than custom. Without taking his eyes from her, he stepped aside to give the ork attendant access to the car. "I'm pleased to meet you, Ms. Uljaken. The trip so far, especially your company's arrangements, has been excellent."

  She smiled again and clasped her hands behind her back. "Good. But let's go right in. Mr. Truman and his wife will see you immediately." As the two began walking toward the glass entrance, the car pulled away from the curb in response to the attendant's spoken orders. It would await Kyle in the car pool, ready for him again when he was finished upstairs.

  "May I ask a question?" Kyle said casually.

  "Of course." The strong breeze ruffled Hanna Uljaken's hair and blew some strands into her face. She brushed them back into place with what looked like a well-practiced gesture.

  "Despite certain statements to the contrary," Kyle said, keeping one eye on her and another more cautious one on the building entrance, "there seems to be a decided lack of haste in all this." He paused to study her for a moment. "I was ready to begin from the time I arrived late yesterday afternoon."

  Hanna Uljaken held his gaze for a moment. "I'm sure Mr. Truman can brief you on any details that are still unclear." With that she passed through the automatic doors into the main lobby, Kyle only a step behind.

  "Welcome to Truman Tower," Uljaken said, pausing to gesture around the opulent lobby. "I'm sure we can arrange a special tour if you'd like." It was a smooth move, one she'd probably performed a thousand times for a thousand different guests, and it set him up perfectly.

  Beyond her, the lobby's glass ceiling sloped away from its three-story base to finally peak eleven stories later. Two enormous trees rose on either side, flanking a spacious reflecting pool and fountain. Light, it seemed, sprayed with the water, making a brilliant cascade down the fountain's many tiers. A small flock of birds wheeled above them, darting in and out of the trees. The scene was remarkable, and distracting enough to draw Kyle's attention away from the tall woman at his side. He removed and pocketed his Meteors. The fountain had him wondering if it was magic that created the light. Carefully shifting the focus of his perception from the physical world, Kyle let his senses extend into the astral realm. But what he saw was not quite what he'd expected.

  Except for the mundane auras of the two dozen or so people present, the lobby was painfully dull and lifeless. No sign of magic radiated from the fountain, nor was any energy present in the trees. They were lifeless, artificial but stunningly real to the unAwakened eye. In fact, Kyle could see only one source of magic in the whole lobby, and that was the single earring worn by Hanna Uljaken. Shifting again, he let his astral senses slip away and focused on her once more. Nothing in her expression indicated that she'd noticed his astral viewing, but then nothing about her aura or astral appearance suggested to Kyle that the woman was a magician.

  "It’s all very impressive," he said, returning her smile. "Perhaps I'll take you up on the tour later."

  As they resumed their approach toward the elevators he returned to the subject most on his mind. "The reason I
asked you about the lack of haste was so that I wouldn't have to ask Mr. Truman."

  “Tm sure Mr. Truman would prefer to speak about that personally," she said as they stepped into a wood and brass-trimmed car guarded by a hard-looking elven woman in a starched Knight Errant uniform. Kyle had learned from his data-gathering that Truman Technologies had recently begun using the security subsidiary of Ares Macrotechnology. The Knight Errant guard was apparently unarmed, but Kyle didn't doubt she had a weapon of some kind within easy reach. And considering her tactical position he also had little doubt that her reflexes, once cybernetically triggered, would be so lightning-fast that a weapon might as well be in her hands. He idly wondered what magical security was present in or around the building, suspecting he'd find out soon enough. As the elevator doors shut noiselessly, Kyle moved to the rear of the car and leaned against the wall. Hanna Uljaken stood about midway in, her body half turned away from him. With a barely perceptible motion the elevator began to rise upward, but Uljaken had neither touched a control panel nor spoken a command before the car began to move. The two of them were either being monitored by building security, or she had some form of cybernetic datalink to the building's systems. Kyle suspected the former, which might also explain why, beyond corporate propriety, she'd evaded his questions.

  The ride was fairly long, just shy of two minutes. He knew most megacorp elevators were capable of shuttling employees between floors at much higher rates of speed, but that also meant subjecting them to the effects of acceleration. Which was fine for the wageslaves or during emergencies, but for executives and their guests, any form of discomfort was to be avoided.

  Kyle took advantage of the ride to re-open his astral senses for a closer look at Hanna Uljaken. She was silent, apparently content to avoid further questions and simply escort him to her boss while offering him her exquisite profile. He had no problem with that. It would make his astral viewing a lot easier if he didn't have to worry about keeping up a conversation while his attention was elsewhere.

  First, he scanned the elevator itself, but saw no source or aura of magic. The car's interior was fairly dark, the only real light coming from the shimmer given by their auras and the faint, diffuse glow from the microscopic life in the air around them. Even that, though, was duller than Kyle would have expected. Truman Technologies, it seemed, had serious air filtration systems. He shrugged mentally. Interesting, but not particularly significant.

  Next he focused his attention on her aura, trying to see whether Hanna Uljaken was really a mundane or a magician skillfully masking the telltale evidence usually present in a magically active aura. Hers was erratic, chaotic, exactly as it should be. He watched carefully, studying it for any signs of regularity that would reveal the masking. When none appeared, he turned his attention to the earring.

  That item was clearly magical, obviously enchanted. Its aura was solid, with only the barest color hint of cycling energy. The item looked to be of fairly low-power or under only a simple spell, unless it were masked. He probed deeper with his senses, carefully exploring the lattice of magical energies that made up the enchantment. He wasn't likely to learn anything concrete using only his raw senses, but he might get a clue as to the-

  She turned slightly, looked at him, and gave him a small, seductive smile as she tilted her head slightly. He felt the involuntary warm tingle again, but he also saw the pattern of energy in the item shift with her gaze. Comprehension dawned and he returned her look with one displaying as much lustful will as he could muster. Considering the effects the item's magic was having on him, he suspected she suddenly felt like a fine head of beef placed before a famished dragon.

  Both Uljaken's own aura, and the item's, flickered for different reasons as she again turned away slightly. Kyle grinned. The woman certainly had no need of magic to boost her natural charisma and beauty, but she probably thought it gave her some edge in the fast-track corporate world. The idea made him suddenly think of Beth.

  The elevators doors opened, and Kyle followed Hanna Uljaken into a wide, finely carpeted hallway.

  "Mr. Truman's apartments are at the end of the hall," she said, her cool smile and composure intact. "Come."

  The corridor leading to the pair of carved mahogany doors was lined with paintings of various sizes, hung without apparent regard for period or style. Kyle noticed in passing that all seemed to be originals, or at least original copies. Though some looked familiar, he couldn't place or name any of them.

  When they came to the doors, Hanna Uljaken reached down and just barely brushed the golden handles with her well-manicured fingertips. The doors opened instantly, swinging outward in unison. She motioned him forward. Kyle stepped through, and the doors swung shut behind them. He paused as if giving the room a glance, but was in fact listening to the faint metallic click of some mechanism engaging when the doors actually closed. He suspected that his and Uljaken’s progress through the building was being carefully monitored and assisted. He wondered how far into the offices and residences that surveillance reached.

  The room he had just entered was five or so meters wide, and twice that deep. And it was done in pure white. Finely veined white marble was the material of choice, accented by a pinker variety and gold and copper ornamentation. Directly, ahead was a short staircase leading up to an area carpeted with a deep red and gray oriental. In each corner was a marble pedestal bearing a vase in tones matching the carpet. An open archway stood on either side. Hanna Uljaken led Kyle up the stairs, and through the archway on the left. In the distance, he could hear the faint sounds of a piano.

  As they walked down another corridor, the music grew louder. Kyle recognized Chopin, but not the name of the piece. The pianist was, to his ears, very skilled.

  Walking a few steps ahead, Uljaken led Kyle into a brightly lit room. One wall, facing east and the lake, was solid glass that let in the strong, but diffuse sunlight. There was a central area, furnished with a circle of couches around a sunken, glass-topped pond alive with brightly colored fish. On each side of the room stood two tall pillars, supporting nothing, but reaching to the entrance level where he and Ms. Uljaken were standing. The entranceway looked down on the room, which at first glance resembled a cross between a medieval hunting lodge and a Greco-Roman temple.

  On the far side were a series of consoles made of white wood and hints of silver. He suspected they contained media equipment and possibly a bar. Below them, as he followed Hanna down the steps, he could begin to see a large white Bosendorfer piano, the source of the music. Kyle could also see that the musician was a woman apparently in her thirties, dark-haired and dressed in a simple but obviously expensive skirt and sweater. He recognized her as Elaine Annworth Truman, Daniel Truman's wife of forty-five years, mother of their three children, activist for the underclass, a classically trained musician, and like her husband, a regular user of a variety of cellular cleansers and genetic rejuvenation therapy.

  Daniel Truman himself was seated on one of the sofas in the center of the room, next to a young girl who had to be his daughter Melissa, a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty of sixteen who was beginning to make a name on the international modeling scene. She looked up, most disinterested, as Kyle and Uljaken entered, but her father had not, intent instead on the datapad display on his lap.

  "Mr. Truman," Hanna Uljaken said just as they reached the foot of the stairs. "May I present Mr. Kyle Teller?" Truman set the display aside and stood up. He was a powerfully built man with thinning dark blond hair and sharp blue eyes. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Teller," he said, walking toward Kyle with outstretched hand. "My brother-in-law recommends you highly."

  Kyle knew he should respond. Not doing so was a grave breach of etiquette, but he found his attention distracted by what hung on the wall opposite the windows. He stopped, in fact, and stared.

  Truman only smiled, undoubtedly accustomed to such a reaction. "Stunning, isn't it? But it's best viewed from the middle of the room. From there you can see the dots very clearly.
"

  Kyle moved to that spot, still gazing in wonderment. "Wasn't this lost in the looting of the Art Institute after the IBM Building went down?"

  "Liberation, Mr. Teller," said Elaine Truman, "not looting. When the IBM tower fell and the city government foolishly decided it couldn't protect the museums any longer, the insurance companies declared the collections too great a risk and revoked their policies. It was either allow marauding hooligans to walk off with this country's greatest art treasures or move them to safer locations."

  Kyle reluctantly looked away from the enormous painting. "My apologies, Mr. Truman," he said. "Seeing this caught me utterly by surprise."

  "That's all right. As I said, my brother-in-law spoke very highly of you."

  "I was glad to be of help to him, though I must say his security people had already made a good deal of progress in finding your niece by the time I stepped in."

  Truman started to reply, but was cut off by his daughter. "And Anna-Marie thanks you for all you did, Mr. Teller." Her tone dripped sarcasm. "I'm sure she sends her love."

  He turned his head slightly toward her. "I'm glad it turned out well for everyone involved."

  Truman laughed, and Kyle was surprised at the family's overall demeanor. He'd expected something more forbidding. "This, of course, is my charming daughter Melissa," Truman told him. "She's in from Europe for a week or two."

  Kyle inclined his head in acknowledgment. "My pleasure." The girl gave him a squinty smile.

  "And this," Truman said, extending his hand toward his wife, who rose gracefully to take it, "is my wife Elaine."

  Kyle bowed slightly. "Your playing is excellent. It makes me regret not having continued with my own piano training."

  Elaine Truman smiled graciously. "From what they tell me, you have your own art to be proud of."

  Interesting turn of phrase, Kyle thought. "I think it's probably more a craft than an art, Mrs. Truman."