Obsidian Prey

Chapter 18

VINCENT WAS SWIPING BROAD, EMPHATIC STROKES OF bright, cheerful magenta onto a canvas when Gloria Ray walked into the little shop. At the sight of her he abandoned his rez-brush and bounced up onto the counter to greet her.

"Hello, handsome," Gloria said. She leaned over the counter to give the canvas an admiring glance. "Nice picture. Red is my favorite color."

Vincent chortled hopefully and batted at the shiny bits of bling that decorated Gloria's handbag.

"Don't worry," Gloria said. "I didn't forget you. I never forget a good-looking guy."

She took a small white sack out of the designer handbag, removed a cookie, and gave it to Vincent. He thanked her in his dust bunny fashion and fell to munching with polite greed.

Gloria smiled radiantly at the young man lounging on the end of the counter.

"You're new," she purred. "And you're cute. Want a cookie?"

There was nothing personal about the purring or the smile. Gloria always purred and glowed when she was speaking to a member of the male gender. Lyra was pretty sure it was some kind of psychic talent. Men certainly responded.

"Temporary help," Lyra said briskly. "Been a little busy lately. This is Jeff. Jeff, this is Miss Ray. She's one of my best customers."

"Hello, Jeff," Gloria said in her sultry tones.

Jeff reddened. "How do you do, Miss Ray."

He was cute, Lyra thought, tall and lean and endowed with the predatory grace that seemed to be a hallmark of the men on Cruz's family tree. He was also young, no more than twenty-two or twenty-three. He reminded her of the younger brother she'd never had.

"Do you have a talent for tuning?" Gloria asked Jeff, looking him up and down in a blatantly appraising manner.

Jeff turned a darker shade of red. "No, ma'am. Miss Dore hired me to take care of paperwork and the packing and shipping of the mail-order stuff."

Gloria smiled. "I'm glad to see she has such excellent taste in employees."

Jeff might have been a tough, highly trained bodyguard, but no one had prepared him for Gloria Ray. He looked as if he wanted to sink down through the floor of the shop into the tunnels below.

Lyra took pity on him.

"What can I do for you, Gloria?" she said.

Gloria studied Lyra with a knowing expression. "I have a new piece that I want tuned. By the way, I saw your picture in the papers. You were with Cruz Sweetwater. Is that good news or bad news, honey?"

"It wasn't news at all," Lyra said firmly. "It was business."

"Of course it was." Gloria smiled, her heavily made-up eyes gleaming with cool speculation. A lot of people—including, no doubt, her current lover, a powerful member of the Frequency Guild Council—took her at face value. They assumed that she was nothing more than the fluff-brained, big-bosomed, big-haired blonde bimbo she appeared to be.

The bosom and the hair might be seriously enhanced, but Lyra had dealt with Gloria often enough to know that her IQ was a lot higher than most people gave her credit for, certainly higher than that of her Councilman lover. She was also a woman of talent, although she went to great lengths to pretend otherwise.

There was a saying among professional amber tuners: "Only your tuner knows for sure." Tuned amber—like a finely tuned musical instrument—did not remain clear indefinitely. Over time and with use it gradually blurred and lost its focusing power. It eventually required retuning to restore maximum efficiency. Generally speaking, a properly tuned stone lasted the average user for several months, sometimes as long as a year.

But those who generated a lot of energy burned through their amber much more rapidly. Gloria was a frequent customer of Lyra's, bringing one or more pieces of tuned amber in for retuning every few weeks. That meant that she was a lot stronger than most people were aware.

As was common with a lot of above-average talents, Gloria preferred to keep her personal paranormal assets confidential. Like all smart, professional tuners, Lyra was always discreet about such matters. There was no quicker way to lose a client than to gossip about his or her psychic range. Those who generated the least wattage were always trying to make it appear that they were stronger. At the other end of the spectrum, the strong ones usually wanted to conceal their true power levels as well as the exact nature of their talents.

"What have you brought me?" Lyra asked.

"Take a look," Gloria said. She placed a green velvet jewelry box on the counter.

Lyra picked up the box and opened it. She gave an appreciative little whistle at the sight of the necklace inside. A brilliant carved stone of standard resonating amber glowed with the unmistakable luster characteristic of superior quality and resonating power. It was set in gold.

"Nice, Gloria." Lyra drew the necklace out of the box. "Very nice. Congratulations."

"Thanks." Gloria laughed with soft satisfaction. "Dear Hubert has been in a generous mood lately."

"I thought the bracelet he gave you last month was his personal best, but this tops that piece. What put good old Hubert into such a gracious frame of mind?"

Gloria offered Vincent another cookie. "He thinks that now that Benson Landry is out of the picture, the Council will move to choose Douglas Drake as the new Guild boss."

"And that's important to Hubert?" Lyra asked.

Gloria winked. "Very important. He and Drake are friends from the old neighborhood near the South Wall. They joined the Guild together, and they've watched each other's backs in the organization ever since they were first-year hunters down in the catacombs. They've clawed their way up through the ranks, each one helping the other. Hubert's daughter is engaged to Drake's son. If Drake gets the top job, you can be sure he'll make certain that his good pal Hubert will be well taken care of."

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Gotta love Guild politics. Talk about democracy in action."

"There's another angle. Wilson Revere is trying to make it appear that he's above meddling in Guild politics, but the truth is he wants Drake to get the top slot. Figures it will give him an edge against Amber Inc." Gloria met her eyes in a very direct look. "Word is that Amber Inc. would prefer to see just about anyone other than Drake at the top of the Guild."

Lyra nodded. "Thanks for the update, Gloria."

"Any time. Now, about my lovely new necklace. I want the full treatment."

"I'll take care of it right now," Lyra said.

She held the pendant in her hand and focused delicately through the amethyst amber of her charm bracelet. The majority of tuners used standard resonating amber because that was the only kind they could activate. Gloria and Jeff would naturally assume that she was using the amber that she wore so obviously in her earrings. But she had learned early on in her career that she could achieve an extra degree of clarity and focusing power in any piece of amber if she worked through amethyst.

She channeled psi delicately, feeling her way into the natural energy patterns of the stone. All amber—even a rough, raw chunk straight out of a mine—was capable of some focusing ability if you had enough talent to rez it and if you knew what you were doing. But the results were wildly unpredictable if the amber had not been tuned.

It did not matter how beautifully a piece of amber was carved and polished. If you wanted to use it to focus psi, tuning made all the difference. And the very finest tuners were those who could feel their way into the currents of latent power in a particular stone and align and stabilize them without loss of strength or clarity. A little distortion or a lack of full concentration on the part of the tuner at the critical moment, or simply insufficient talent, could ruin even the best amber.

It didn't take much to destroy the superior resonating power of a good stone such as the pendant. But it took real talent to bring out the full potential of such a piece.

She used dainty pulses of psi lightning to jump-start the currents of the pendant. The stone grew warm to the touch as she sent power into it. Once activated, the currents had to be carefully stabilized in a state of suspension. After that process was complete, anyone with even minimal psi, regardless of the type of talent, would be able to use the stone to focus.

But Gloria did not come to her just to get her amber tuned. If that was all she had wanted, she could have taken her business to any of a number of tuning shops in the city. It was the quiet word-of-mouth rumors of the very special services offered by Dore Tuning & Consulting that had brought the mistress of one of the most powerful men in the city into Lyra's shop.

She could do what very few other tuners were capable of doing, because it required nonstandard amber such as amethyst and a unique talent.

"Okay," she said. She held out the stone on her palm. "Touch the pendant."

Gloria obediently put one beringed and elaborately manicured fingertip on the amber stone.

"Ready?" Lyra asked.

"Say when."

"Focus," Lyra ordered softly. She jacked up her own senses, gently pushing more psi through amethyst, and concentrated on the pendant.

Virtually everyone possessed some degree of latent psychic talent, even if they weren't aware of it. But everyone's paranormal currents were unique to that individual, like fingerprints and DNA. Using her own talent, Lyra picked up the nuances of the wavelengths and intensity of Gloria's energy patterns and fine-tuned the pendant to resonate with them.

A moment later, she handed the pendant back to Gloria.

"Done," she said.

"Excellent." Gloria slipped the necklace back into the jewelry case and opened her purse. "Same fee as usual?"

"Yes, thank you."

Gloria removed her wallet. Instead of extracting a credit card, however, she took out a few hundred dollar bills and put them on the counter. Lyra collected the money swiftly and made it disappear into the till. She was acutely aware of Jeff watching everything with a fascinated and rather shocked expression. She knew what he was thinking. No one paid this much just to get amber tuned. But he had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

Gloria gave Vincent one last cookie and closed her purse. "See you all next time."

She waltzed out the door on her sky-high heels and disappeared.

Jeff absently patted Vincent and looked at Lyra. "Excuse me, Miss Dore, I know I'm just the bodyguard, but is there any chance you might tell me what that was all about?"

She smiled. "I'll explain, but you have to promise you'll honor the code."

"Yes, ma'am, what code would that be?"

" 'What happens in an amber tuning shop, stays in an amber tuning shop. »

His face fell. "Uh, well, the boss will probably ask me for a full report. And much as I'd like to know what you did for Miss Ray—"

"You're more afraid of what Cruz Sweetwater will do to you if you don't tell him the whole truth and nothing but, right?"

Jeff made a face. "The boss is what you might call a little inflexible when it comes to some things."

"Yes, I know. He operates under a code, too."

Jeff exhaled heavily. "Yes, ma'am."

She smiled. "And so do you?"

"Guess you could say that's part of what being a member of the family is all about."

"You make being in the Sweetwater clan sound like being a Guild man or a member of a crime family. Lots of secrets and a private code."

Jeff flushed. "Yes, ma'am. Guess there are some similarities."

"Tell me. Don't you ever find it just a trifle stifling to be part of such a close family?"

"Yes, ma'am." Jeff shrugged. "But you know how it is with family."

"Not really."

Jeff was beyond red now. He was thoroughly chagrined. "Sorry, ma'am. I know your situation is a little, uh, different."

She took pity on him. "Hey, don't worry about it. I'm used to being on my own. Besides, I've got Vincent."

At the sound of his name, Vincent mumbled and fluttered down from the counter to the floor. He scampered to his painting, picked up the paintbrush, and went back to his favorite game.

"Yes, ma'am," Jeff said. He watched Vincent splash paint on the canvas with a slightly puzzled expression.

She did not need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking. It was odd enough to be without any close relatives. Claiming a dust bunny as your next of kin was downright eccentric.

"And I've got friends," she added quickly. "Especially one very close friend. But never mind. I'll explain what I did for Gloria Ray a few minutes ago, and you can feel free to tell Cruz. Heck, it might be good for my business. I rely on word-of-mouth advertising to bring customers in for my special services, you see. It's not like I can advertise in the newspapers."

Jeff grinned, clearly relieved. "Thanks. So what did you do to Miss Ray's amber?"

"Essentially, I aligned the frequencies to her personal focus wavelengths. Other people could use the pendant, but they wouldn't be able to do what she can with it."

He frowned. "I don't get it. What can she do with her amber that someone else can't do?"

"Because the amber is tuned to her personal psi, its clarity and focus are greatly enhanced. The process doesn't make a person more powerful, but it does mean that the individual can use his or her talent with far greater precision. And that can sometimes be even more useful than a lot of raw psi talent."

Jeff made a face. "It sure can."

"The extra fine-tuning is especially important to people who possess strong talents, of course. They not only get better control; it takes less energy to work the amber. That, in turn, means that they are less likely to melt amber when they focus the full strength of their psi through a stone."

Jeff was definitely impressed. "So you're saying that Miss Ray has some kind of high-grade talent?"

"Let's just say that I do a lot of repeat business with Miss Ray."

Gloria Ray possessed an unusually strong level of intuition. She had confided to Lyra that it was an extremely useful asset in her career as the mistress of a wealthy, powerful man. Women in her position, she'd said, required an edge in order to stay on top of their games. They needed to know when they were in danger of getting dumped for a newer, younger model. More crucially, they needed to know when they were in real physical danger. Women who hung out with men like dear Hubert frequently learned the secrets of their lovers. And men with secrets sometimes concluded that the women they were sleeping with knew too much.

Gloria had come into Dore Tuning & Consulting the day after she had discovered that Hubert's former mistress had vanished under mysterious circumstances. Lyra had a hunch that Gloria was making plans to disappear under her own steam sometime in the near future.

Jeff glanced toward the door. "And here I thought she was just some councilman's arm candy."

"Never underestimate a woman, Jeff."

He nodded, very serious. "Yeah, the boss has been saying that a lot for the past three months." He frowned. "She paid you with cash. She didn't want a paper trail, right?"

"That was a very good observation. I'm impressed. As it happens, a lot of my special services customers prefer a degree of anonymity and discretion."

"Because they don't want others to find out about their talents?"

"Right."

"But why don't you want to advertise your special services in the usual way? It would give you a competitive advantage. There are a lot of tuners out there."

"The thing is, if I advertise, I'd have to offer the service to everyone who came through the door and asked for it."

He raised his brows. "I get it. You don't think everyone deserves the extra juice."

"There are some strange and dangerous people out there, Jeff. The last thing I'd want to do is fine-tune some amber for one of the bad guys and find out later that he used it to commit a crime or hurt someone."

He nodded somberly. "I'm with you."

"This way I get to vet my clients before I offer the service. If someone comes in asking about it, and I don't get good vibes, I can always say that the rumors about me are false."

He eyed her thoughtfully. "You can tell the good guys from the bad guys?"

"I can when I tune amber for them," she said. "There's another old saying in my business: 'It's in the psi. »

"Like it's in the blood?"

"Yep. Every time a person uses amber, he or she leaves his psi prints in the stone. Bad psi isn't hard to sense."

"Any chance I could talk you into giving my amber your special service?"

"What's your talent?"

He shrugged. "Officially, I'm an amber talent, like the other men in my family. And it's true, I use a nonstandard amber."

She glanced at the blue green ring on his hand. "Tourmaline."

"Right. But the truth is, I use tourmaline to focus my real talent. I've got a variation of the para-hunter talent."

"Cruz explained it to me."

"Figured he would have by now."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

Jeff looked embarrassed. "Sorry. Didn't mean to get personal. It's just that everyone in the family knows that you're the woman who broke the boss's heart, so it figures the two of you are pretty close."

She was so stunned she could hardly speak.

"What did you say?" she finally managed.

"I said, I assumed the boss had explained about the family talent."

She waved both hands to stop him. "Not that. The bit about the broken heart."

He shrugged. "It's no secret in the family."

"It's ridiculous. Some kind of stupid joke."

"We don't joke about that kind of stuff in my family," Jeff said.

"I don't know what Cruz told you, but I can assure you, I did not break his heart."

Jeff just looked at her, not speaking.

She sighed. "For Pete's sake. Forget it. Tell me about your version of the family talent."

"Right." Jeff was eager to change the subject. "I'm a para-hunter, so I've got the good night vision and the reflexes and all the rest. But what I'm really good at is reading a crime scene. I can walk you through the series of events that took place there. Something about the way psychic energy gets thrown off by acts of violence."

"Really? That sounds interesting."

A spark of excitement gleamed in Jeff's eyes. "Don't laugh, but I'd like to apply to the FBPI academy and become an agent."

"The Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation? Why would I laugh? Sounds like a fine and noble career goal to me."

Jeff made a face. "Not as far as my dad and the boss and Big Jake and everyone else in the family is concerned. We've always had sort of a weird relationship with official law enforcement. I can't figure it out, to tell you the truth. It's not like AI Security doesn't occasionally do favors for the FBPI, just like we do for the Guilds and the Arcane Society."

"Favors?"

"Well, sure, those agencies only come to us when they know they can't deal with the problem on their own, and they pay for the work we do, so I guess you can't really call it doing favors, but you get my point, right?"

"Uh, yes. Yes, I think so."

"The thing is, AI Security is a business. Bottom line is we work for people who can afford us. I want to be a part of real law enforcement, the kind that tries to get justice for everyone, even people who can't afford high-priced security agencies. I want to make a contribution."

"I understand," she said.

"More and more I feel like it's something I was meant to do."

"A calling."

He thought about that. "Maybe. In a way."

"Well, why not quit the family firm and follow your bliss? Apply to the FBPI academy."

He stared at her as if she had just suggested that he fly. "Quit Amber Inc.?"

She spread her arms wide. "It's a big world. Lots of opportunities for a motivated young man. Who says you have to stay in the family business for your whole professional career?"

"Well, that's sort of how things are at Amber Inc. If you're in the family, you work for the family firm. One way or another."

"Surely a few of your relatives have gone out on their own."

Jeff thought for a moment. "Well, there's my great-uncle Ned. He opened a travel agency."

"There you go."

"But mostly his company just handles corporate travel for Amber Inc."

"Oh."

Jeff cogitated for another moment. "The boss's father is a lawyer. So is his mother."

"Really? I didn't know that. Okay, it sounds like they didn't toe the family line."

Jeff sighed. "Their law firm has only one client."

"Let me guess. Amber Inc."

"Yeah." Jeff pondered briefly and suddenly brightened. "Aunt Brenda."

"What happened to her?"

"She's a doctor, a pediatrician at the Frequency Medical Center."

"The Frequency Medical Center was built by Amber Inc. Right. Well, Jeff, looks like you've got a problem. I'll tune some amber for you, but if what you really want is to become a genuine FBPI agent, you're going to have to kick over the traces and take a stand against family pressure."

He gave her a morose look. "You don't know my family."

"Are you kidding me? After what I went through since I met your boss? Trust me, I know your family."

He winced. "Yeah, I guess maybe you do. You know, you're not quite what I expected, Miss Dore."

She narrowed her eyes. A lot of men were prone to tasteless jokes about female amber tuners. The phrase getting one's amber tuned had multiple meanings in certain quarters frequented by males.

"And just what did you expect?" she asked coldly.

"I dunno," he admitted. "Should have known you'd be a little different, though."

"And why is that?" she demanded.

"Because you're the woman who broke the boss's heart."