The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

really did not want to have to deal with the new boss of the Rainshadow Guild.
    It was no secret that this was Jones’s first job as the CEO of a Guild. It was not entirely clear what his previous position had been, but she would have bet good amber that he had been promoted out of the ranks of the Chamber’s mysterious security division. They had fancy titles for the hunters who conducted Guild-sanctioned investigations—security specialists or something along those lines. But an enforcer was an enforcer, regardless of whether he worked for a mob boss or the Chamber.
    Chamber enforcer to Guild boss was not a common path of advancement through the Guild hierarchy, but she had heard of other such instances. Adam Winters, the new Guild boss of Frequency City, was rumored to be a former enforcer. The Chamber probably assumed that if a man was tough enough to hunt the human monsters who possessed lethal amounts of paranormal talent, he was tough enough to control his own territory. She hadn’t met a lot of enforcers in the course of her work with the Guilds—they were a rare breed and they tended to keep low profiles. But those she had known all had an ice-cold edge.
    Cyrus Jones had that edge and a lot more going on. Dark secrets whispered in the atmosphere around him. It wasn’t just raw power that she sensed. She was pretty sure she was picking up the vibes of the kind of mag-steel will that was required to handle a high-rez talent.
    The edge was there, too, in the ruthless planes and angles of his hard face and his lean, rangy, broad-shouldered build. He was wearing the classic ghost-hunter uniform—khaki trousers and shirt, leather boots, leather jacket, and heavy leather belt. All of it looked well-worn. All of it sent the message that he had seen a lot of action in the Underworld.
    Like every self-respecting hunter he wore amber. There were chunks of it set in his buckle, his watch, and the hilt of the knife he wore on his belt. And that was just the visible amber, she thought.
    Sedona knew that it had come as a shock to the hunters who had recently arrived on the island to discover that here on Rainshadow, even well-tuned amber wasn’t strong enough to steer a person safely into and out of the forbidden territory known as the Preserve. Only those with unique talents could handle the paranormal forces inside the psi-fence.
    But the Guild wasn’t on the island to deal with the problems inside the Preserve. That was the job of the Rainshadow Foundation. The Foundation had brought in the Guild to do the one thing ghost hunters did best—neutralize the chaotic forces and assorted hazards that were always waiting down below in the catacombs.
    The maze of ancient tunnels on the island had only recently been discovered in the aftermath of some very powerful storms. Researchers and explorers from the corporate and academic worlds were eager to go into the Rainshadow Underworld to start collecting data. But that kind of expensive and dangerous—and potentially quite lucrative—fieldwork required security. For as long as anyone could remember, the Guilds had had a monopoly when it came to providing escort and protection services for those going underground.
    “I’m sure you’ll want space to set up a temporary office, Mr. Jones,” she said. “This morning when I saw your name in our files I called Anna Fuentes down at the Bay View Inn. She said she’s got a lovely two-room suite with a connecting door. It will be perfect for a field office. Very conveniently located to the center of Shadow Bay, I might add.”
    “I don’t need the extra room,” Cyrus said. “The Guild will be renting space from the owners of the Kane Gallery.”
    “I see.”
    She gave him her patented, no-room-at-this-inn smile and drummed her fingers on the counter. Fletcher Kane and Jasper Gilbert, both retired ghost hunters, owned the gallery. They would be only too happy to accommodate the new boss. Once a Guild man, always a Guild