If so, this was a very grave matter. Acorna and her people should know of it at once. Hafiz wished to contact his nephew and heir about the matter but decided on balance it was best to do so in person rather than trusting the corn units. Hafiz was far too practical to be overly brave, and Yasmin s ability to come and go without his knowledge had shaken him profoundly.
He forbade his house staff to say anything of the surprise visit to Karina until he could decide how to tell her himself and ordered the entire compound searched for the presence of his late wife. As he suspected, she had disappeared utterly and completely while he lay drugged on the floor of his own home.
At last, only three hours’ time from when he had last been at Karina’s side, Hafiz appeared in the marital bedchamber, where his bride lounged upon their connubial couch. She had been sleeping, he thought, but had awakened at his step.
“Karina,” he said, “You have convinced me. Our ship is being prepared and we shall soon depart for the Linyaari home world to visit Acorna and the others.”
Karina would have known at once that something was amiss even if she had not already encountered a deeply troubled and no doubt deluded woman claiming to be Hafiz’s true wife. She naturally assumed that the woman was a ghost, since Hafiz’s first wife was dead. Of course, she could have been one of the holograms Hafiz was always constructing to surprise a person in odd nooks and crannies, but why would he make an ugly hologram that claimed to be his wife? Had to be a ghost. Karina attempted to soothe and comfort her, to tell her to go back into the light, but the specter had merely looked annoyed. Presumably she had then gone on to haunt Hafiz, or had just come from haunting him, as the very next time Karina saw him he was behaving in a very peculiar fashion, as those who had received visitations from the other side sometimes did.
For one thing, Hafiz addressed Karina by name instead of calling her by one of his lengthy endearments. For another thing, he gave up without even a token tussle, totally unlike him, and let her have her way about seeking out Acorna’s people. And for a third thing, he hardly ever did anything in haste, but always with slow and deliberate preparation.
His sudden acquiescence so alarmed Karina that she backtracked slightly.
“My darling, perhaps we should wait a little after all,” she said, easing him down beside her with a light tug on his hand. “You look unwell. You perspire and your color is not at all good. I think you need a course of some of my special herbal teas and perhaps we should burn a cinnamon candle tonight to ease your-”
“Pack it, beloved!” he said. “Pack all of the tea and candles you -wish. Pack your gowns and jewels, pack your cards and stones and your crystal ball. But we cannot deprive Acorna and her people of our guidance for another day.”
Nor could they wait a moment longer, he thought privately, for Yasmin to return and spoil the honeymoon any more than she had already done. Hafiz worried his first wife’s troublemaking would be even more distressing next time-and more obvious to Karina. He wouldn’t allow that. Women were extremely difficult to understand, even for a man of his considerable amatory experience. But what worried him more than Yasmin s tricks was that the security of his stronghold had been breached. If he was to go, it had best be in all haste, before Yasmin’s unsavory associates followed her here.
In the meantime he had ordered a complete restructuring of his security strategies, changes in locks, codes, and passwords, and that the compound be totally remodeled and its defenses reinforced. In his early days of affection-very well, lust-for Yasmin, he had shown her everything -everything.
He deeply regretted that now, for even though he had added and altered several systems since the time of his first wife, still she knew too much. He and Karma would not truly be safe here, in his own home, until the presence of Yasmin was purged.