Read Dark Light for Free Online

Council who stood a chance against him.”
    â€œExcept you.”
    â€œExcept me,” he agreed quietly.
    â€œWhat makes you so special?”
    â€œIt’s complicated.”
    â€œIn other words, you’re not going to tell me.”
    â€œNo,” he said.
    â€œJust another Guild secret?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou know, one of these days, someone really ought to introduce the concept of democracy to you guys. It’s this really cool way of running things. You get to elect your leaders.”
    He smiled. “Sounds inefficient.”
    â€œIt’s messy, but it works, and it sure beats dueling with ghost light. Never mind, let’s get back to Jenner. You said you didn’t kill him?”
    â€œI won the duel, but Jenner didn’t die because of his injuries. He was temporarily brain-fried, but he would have recovered.” He paused. “Although his para-rez talents would never have been as strong as they were before the duel.” In fact, they would have been nonexistent, but he saw no reason to elaborate.
    â€œIn other words, you really burned him.”
    He said nothing. The duel had been a hellish business that had almost cost him his life. Jenner had not only been a strong para-resonator, he’d worked deadly blue light, not regular green ghost energy. But there was no way to explain that to Sierra. The very existence of psi energy from the blue end of the spectrum was, like so many other things, a deep Guild secret.
    There was a small scurrying motion at his feet. He looked down and saw Elvis. The dust bunny hopped up onto the windowsill, cape flying.
    â€œWho got to Jenner?” Sierra demanded.
    He looked at her over his shoulder. “We don’t know. But the fact that someone took the risk of murdering a former Guild boss told us that the conspiracy was a bigger problem than we had assumed.”
    â€œHow much of a risk was there? He was a former boss, after all.”
    â€œJenner still had his secrets. I wanted them.”
    â€œWait a second, you think his fellow conspirators murdered him in order to keep him from betraying them?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAny idea who those folks might be?” she asked quickly.
    â€œI have a hunch about one of them, but there may be more. At the moment I can’t prove a damn thing.”
    â€œWhat about you?” she asked. “Is your position as the new Guild boss somewhat, uh, untenable, too?”
    â€œI think it’s unlikely that I’ll get hit by a truck this afternoon, if that’s what you mean.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    He turned to face her. “This isn’t the first time there’s been a problem deep inside one of the Guilds.”
    â€œImagine that.”
    The sarcasm was starting to irritate him, but he told himself he was big enough to overlook it, at least for the moment.
    â€œThere are procedures in place to deal with this kind of thing,” he said. “Given the power a Guild commander wields, the potential for misuse of that power is always present. The leaders of the organizations recognized that fact from the beginning. That’s why the Chamber was established.”
    Chamber was short for the far more unwieldy Chamber of the Joint Council of Dissonance Energy Para-resonator Guilds, the overarching governing organization of the Guilds.
    â€œI’m well aware of the existence of the Chamber, but everyone knows that the Guilds function autonomously,” Sierra said. “Individual chiefs respect each other’s territory.”
    â€œThat’s true unless a problem arises that might impact the safety and well-being of the city for which a particular Guild is responsible. I know you don’t appreciate the role of the Guilds in society, Miss McIntyre, but the truth is, their main job is to protect you and everyone else, not only from the natural hazards underground but from would-be tyrants like Vincent Lee Vance.”
    She blew