Obsidian Prey (24 page)

MOMENTS AFTER SHE MADE THE CALL TO JEFF, LYRA HAD a front-row seat from which to observe the dazzlingly efficient and astonishingly powerful machinery of the Sweetwater empire in action.

Jeff burst through the open front door of her apartment ten minutes after she called. He was not alone. He had a phalanx of Amber Inc. Security operatives with him.

“Hurry,” Lyra said. She was still crouched beside Cruz, gripping his hand.

“Got another man down over here,” someone said. “Still alive.”

“That’s one of the bad guys,” Lyra said. “The other one got away. Cruz is the one who needs help.”

Someone threw the lights. Lyra saw a lot of blood on the hardwood floor. She wondered, in a distant way, if it would be harder to remove than Vincent’s paint.

A stoutly built woman with short, spiky blonde hair went down on one knee beside Cruz and took out a stethoscope. A stretcher appeared. Within seconds there were so many people in the small loft that Lyra was afraid Vincent would get squashed beneath an Amber Inc. Security boot. With her free hand she picked him up and plopped him on her shoulder. His red beret had evidently come off during the battle with the intruders. He clutched it tightly in one paw.

“How is the boss?” Jeff said. His face was grim. “Is he still alive?”

Lyra realized that he was speaking to the woman holding the stethoscope to Cruz’s chest. Alarm zapped through her.

“Of course Cruz is alive,” she said before the med tech could respond. “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s going through some kind of burn-and-crash syndrome just like ghost hunters do when they melt amber. He needs some time to recover, that’s all.”

“The boss didn’t just melt amber,” Jeff said, his voice unnaturally flat. “When you called me you told me that he had shattered obsidian.”

“That’s what he said to tell you, but I assumed that meant he had melted his obsidian amber.”

“He told you that he uses black amber?” Jeff said, sounding startled.

“I’m a Dore. I know amber.”

“Sure,” Jeff said. “That figures. Thing is, black amber is so rare most people don’t recognize it. When they see it, they assume it’s some other gemstone.”

“What’s the problem here?” she asked tightly.

“Maybe you don’t know as much about obsidian as you think,” Jeff said. “You don’t melt it when you over rez it. You shatter it.”

“What do you mean?” She looked down at the black stone in Cruz’s ring. “There are no fractures in the obsidian.”

“Never mind; I’ll explain later. We’ve got to get him to the clinic.”

“You mean an emergency room,” Lyra said.

The med tech looked up. “No, a regular ER won’t know what to do with this kind of situation. The Arcane Society runs a private clinic. The doctors there are his best chance.”

Lyra tightened her grip on Cruz’s hand and pulsed a little more energy through her fingers.

“Okay, you’re starting to scare me,” she whispered. “The clinic sounds like a good idea. But I’ll warn you, Cruz was adamant about both of us going to your family’s compound on Amber Island, Jeff. When he wakes up and finds out that he’s somewhere else, he’s liable to be pissed.”

“Hell.” Jeff hesitated but only for a fraction of a second. “He must have been really worried about you.”

“Yes, well, those two men
were
trying to kidnap me,” she said quietly.

“In that case you are definitely going to Amber Island. We’ll take the boss to the clinic.”

“Sorry,” Lyra indicated the hand she was using to hang on to Cruz. “Where he goes, I go. Take your pick, Amber Island or the clinic, but either way, we stick together, at least until he wakes up.”

The med tech sat back on her heels. Lyra could see her name tag.
Benson
.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Benson said. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but Mr. Sweetwater appears to be stable. I vote we don’t disrupt the situation. If you take them both to Amber Island, the clinic can send a team to meet you there.”

“Right,” Jeff said. “Amber Island it is.”

The med tech who was crouched beside the fallen attacker spoke. “What do you want us to do with this guy? He’s alive. I’ve got the bleeding stopped. He’ll probably make it if he gets to an ER.”

“He goes to the Guild clinic,” Jeff decreed. “They can handle him without having to notify the cops.”

He continued giving orders with a precision and speed that would have done credit to a professional Federal Bureau of Psi Investigation agent.

There was one more skirmish a short time later when Lyra got into the back of the unmarked ambulance with Vincent on her shoulder.

“Sorry, ma’am, I can’t let any animals ride back here with the patient,” one of the techs said.

“The bunny’s with me, and I’m with Sweetwater,” Lyra said.

The tech opened his mouth to argue, but Benson shook her head.

“It’s okay,” Benson said.

“Yes, ma’am.” The tech stood back.

Benson got in and went to work slapping monitors on Cruz.

Jeff vaulted up into the rear of the vehicle and sat down beside Lyra. The doors slammed shut, and the ambulance pulled away from the curb.

“What happened back there?” Jeff asked.

She gave him a quick rundown of the events.

“Two men?” he asked. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound right. How the hell did two men manage to take down the boss?”

“I don’t know. He got both of them under control almost immediately. Then he sent me back inside the apartment to get something he could use to secure them. That’s when everything must have gone wrong. The next thing I knew, the two intruders were trying to drag me out the door. Cruz was just lying there on the balcony, not moving. I thought at first they’d shot him, but I didn’t hear a gun go off. Then, all of a sudden, Cruz was back on his feet coming at one of the men with a knife.”

“If he had to resort to the knife, it was because he could no longer use his talent,” Jeff said grimly. “For some reason he had to jack up so much psi he shattered black obsidian just to deal with a couple of street thugs. It doesn’t resonate.”

“That’s all I can tell you. Things happened so fast.”

Jeff took a phone out of his pocket. “You’re sure there were only two men?”

“Yes.”

Jeff spoke quickly into the phone, issuing more orders.

“Get a PF team inside Miss Dore’s loft immediately,” he said. “They’ll be looking for psi traces of two men, probably ghost hunters. At least one of them generated a ghost. One got away. We have the other in custody. Point of entry was the balcony. Exit was the front lobby of the building. Make sure all those locations get covered. I want a full report as soon as you have anything.”

Lyra touched his arm to get his attention. He looked at her, one brow raised in inquiry.

“There may be more blood from the one who got away,” she said. “I think Vincent bit both of them.”

Jeff glanced at Vincent, who was huddled on Lyra’s shoulder.

“Nice work, big guy,” Jeff said.

Benson smiled. “They say that with dust bunnies, by the time you see the teeth, it’s too late.”

“It’s a predator thing,” Jeff said.

He went back to the phone and spoke tersely for another minute before he ended the connection.

“What’s a PF team?” Lyra asked.

“Short for para-forensics.”

“Good grief, you mean AI Security has its own forensics lab?”

“Keeps things simple,” Jeff explained. “And also quiet. Remember what you said about discretion being important in the amber tuning business?”

“Yes.”

“Amber Inc. Security has a similar business philosophy.” He looked at Benson. “How’s he doing?”

“Believe it or not, he seems to be fine.” Benson checked the instruments. “Looks like just a real serious postburn crash but nothing worse.”

“I told you so,” Lyra said. But she was more relieved than she wanted to admit. “What’s the problem with obsidian amber?” she said. “I know very few people can rez it, but it can handle a lot of power, can’t it?”

“Sure, it will take a lot of psi,” Jeff studied Cruz. “The problem is that when it does get overloaded, it doesn’t just shut down the way regular amber does. Instead, the pattern of the waves breaks up in weird and unpredictable ways.”

“That’s what you call shattering obsidian?”

“Right. It’s like suddenly you’re pushing energy through a zillion little psychic mirrors. The psi gets reflected right back at your aura. Sets up an unstable resonating pattern that fries the senses of whoever is generating the currents through the stone.” He paused a beat. “The theory is that the effect is probably permanent.”

“Theory?” she said, alarmed all over again. “You mean you don’t know?”

“The problem is that we don’t have enough experience with black amber to be able to predict the outcome in a situation like this,” Benson explained. She did not look up from the monitor. “Very few people can even rez it, let alone actually generate enough power to fracture a stone. So, yes, mostly, all we’ve got to go on is theory.”

“Mostly?” Lyra whispered.

“I checked the Arcane Society files on the way to your address tonight,” Benson said. “There are only two other cases on record. In each instance the victim lapsed into a coma after shattering obsidian. One died. The other survived, but his para-senses were destroyed. He eventually committed suicide.” She paused a beat. “They were both Sweetwaters.”

Lyra tightened her grip on Cruz and pulsed more psi. “He’s not in a coma.”

“No,” Benson said.

“And he’s not going to slip into a coma,” Lyra said. “He needs to recover from the psi drain, that’s all. When he wakes up, he’ll be fine.”

Benson studied her for a moment. Then she switched her attention to Jeff.

“This is the one, I take it?” Benson said.

Jeff smiled slightly. “Yes.”

“Not quite what I expected,” Benson said.

Lyra glared at both of them. “What one?”

“The woman who broke Cruz Sweetwater’s heart,” Benson said.

HE’D LOST THE BIGGEST SALE OF HIS CAREER. THE AMETHYST relic was worth a fortune.

Valentine Fairstead’s hand shook as he opened the back door of the gallery. Frustration, rage, and anxiety coursed through him. It had been so close. He’d had Wilson Revere, himself, right there in the vault room. When it came to high-end clients, it didn’t get any richer. Well, with the exception of a Sweetwater, of course.

But he’d never even tried to court the Sweetwaters. For one thing, rumor had it that their private vault was already overflowing with priceless amber of every kind and description, both archaeological relics and laboratory-grade specimens. He had never come across any piece that he thought would interest anyone in that family.

Truth be told, he had always been relieved by that knowledge. For some reason, he had never wanted to deal with the Sweetwaters. Something about that clan made him nervous.

Wilson Revere, however, was another matter entirely. Revere was a sophisticated, polished, well-educated man with exquisite taste, just the sort of client that the Fairstead Gallery preferred to cultivate.

He got the door open and hurried into the back room. Turning, he swiftly unlocked the rear door. He breathed a little sigh of relief. The dark alley behind the gallery always made him nervous. You never knew who might be hiding behind a trash container. The Quarter was not the safest place in the city at night.

But the man he had come here to meet insisted that he arrive at midnight and use the back door. There were other instructions as well. He was not to turn on any lights until they were in the windowless vault room.

He made his way by feel into the main sales room. From there he groped a path between the ranks of display cases until he reached the door of the vault room. He de-rezzed the lock and moved into the small space. Finally, he was able to switch on a light.

The door opened a moment later. A man entered the room.

“About time you got here,” Fairstead growled. “I still say this is unnecessary.”

“You’re the one who screwed up the deal,” the newcomer said. “Now I have to clean up your mess. Open the vault.”

“Sweetwater never even saw the relic, I tell you,” Fairstead insisted. He went to work on the lock. “There’s no way he could have known it was in here.”

“He must have suspected something. Why else would he have turned up at your gallery today? He’s not one of your regular clients.”

“It was the woman, I tell you. He was with her, and she was here because Revere wanted an outside opinion. The fact that Sweetwater was present had nothing to do with the relic.”

“I don’t like it. Too much of a coincidence. We’ve got to cut our losses and fast.”

Fairstead pulled the heavy vault door open and stepped inside. “What are you going to do with the amethyst?”