Obsidian Prey

Chapter 36

"WE GOT TO THE GALLERY JUST AS NANCY WAS COMING up the stairs from the hole-in-the-wall below her basement," Cruz said. "She filled us in on what had happened."

"I went back to the surface to get help," Nancy explained. "The amber in the heels of your shoes was good enough to help me make my way back here, Lyra, but I knew I'd need a locator and some manly assistance to find you and deal with Quinn."

"The amber in my shoes is not my best," Lyra said. She glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven. The auction was due to start in an hour. "It's strictly for emergencies."

Jeff looked at her. "You keep tuned amber in the heels of your shoes?"

"Every last pair I own," she said. "I'm a tuner and an indie prospector. Trust me when I tell you that the combination has made me downright obsessive about amber."

They were in the main sales room of the Halifax Gallery. She and Nancy were rushing through the last-minute preparations for the auction, setting out the hors d'oeuvres and napkins. Vincent was on the counter eating some of the cookies that had been intended for the attendees.

Cruz and Jeff lounged against the counter on either side of Vincent. They had recovered Quinn's body and hauled it back to the surface, where they had quietly summoned the forces of Amber Inc. Security to make things go away. Quinn's death would be attributed to a stroke, according to Cruz. Lyra did not doubt him.

"It all started with that damn amethyst ruin," she grumbled. She arranged neat rows of champagne flutes on the buffet table. "I swear, everything went wrong after I found it. The Dore luck struck again."

There was a stark silence behind her. She turned and realized they were all looking at her.

"What?" she asked.

Cruz cleared his throat. "Well, you and I met because of the ruin, and I like to think that wasn't all bad luck."

She glowered. "You know what I mean. If I hadn't discovered that ruin, I would never have ended up in Quinn's Harmonic Meditation class. He wouldn't have started stalking me and sending those purple orchids."

Nancy fanned out some napkins. "You have to admit, the flowers were beautiful. Very pricey, those amethyst orchids."

Lyra shuddered. "I never want to see another purple orchid as long as I live."

"The problem was that we had two things happening at the same time," Cruz said. "The theft of the artifact and Quinn trying to make Lyra think she was going mad so that she would turn to him as her savior."

"But she never went that route," Nancy said. "She was too strong-willed. I'm the one with the weak mind. I can't believe that bastard put me into a trance and questioned me about the artifacts without me even knowing it. I still can't remember the incident."

"It's not your fault," Jeff said. "I pulled the Society's ancestry records on Quinn. He comes from a long line of powerful and very unstable psychic hypnotists and illusions talents. The only reason Lyra was able to resist his attempt to put her into a deep trance was because her affinity for amethyst gave her some limited immunity to his talent. But even she couldn't escape the hallucinations he induced."

"Neither could I," Cruz added. "So don't blame yourself."

Nancy wrinkled her nose. "Well, I guess that does make me feel a little better. I mean, if even a Sweetwater had a few problems fending off Quinn, I can accept the fact that I allowed myself to get hypnotized and spilled my best friend's secrets." She looked at Lyra. "Good thing you never gave me the coordinates of that chamber where you stashed the pyramids. I'd have blabbed those, too."

"Wouldn't have made any difference." Lyra stepped back to admire the array of glassware. "One way or another, he needed me to tune the stones."

Cruz looked at her. "What do you think happened there at the end?"

"I think that I was right all along," she said, straightening a plate of canapes. "The pyramid stones were some sort of psychic art form, just as the other objects that came out of the ruin are, but on a grander, more powerful scale."

Nancy picked up a tray of tea sandwiches. "A whole symphony orchestra for the psi senses instead of a single violin?"

"Exactly," Lyra replied. "The tremendous power of the pyramid stones may have been no big deal to the aliens. The equivalent of going to a rock concert, maybe. They were clearly more adapted to the psychic side of their natures than we are to ours. But for a human, the performance was literally overwhelming."

"Why the explosion of psi energy there at the end?" Cruz asked. "Why didn't the currents from the pyramid simply zap Quinn's senses? Instead, all three pyramids were destroyed."

She looked at him across the row of champagne bottles. "He wanted my special service. He insisted that the pyramid stones be tuned to his personal wavelengths. I gave him what he wanted. But he could not channel so much energy. No human could. The wavelengths rebounded back into the stones and overloaded them."

Cruz smiled slowly, a feral smile that said more than words ever could. "You set a trap, and he fell into it."

She swallowed hard. "I tried to warn him that the stones were dangerous, but he refused to believe me."

Jeff frowned. "But how did you know what would happen when you tuned the pyramids for him?"

"I couldn't be absolutely certain of the outcome," she admitted. She looked down at the plate of canapes she had put on the table. "I'd never actually tuned one of the pyramids before. But I'd experimented a little with them, and I had a sense of how the currents in the stones would react if they were channeled into a human mind."

"Well, that does solve the problem of what to do with the three pyramid stones," Cruz said. "They're just so much pretty amethyst now. Good for nothing more than making jewelry."

"But there may be others," Lyra said. "Quinn kept talking about his grandmother's journal. Evidently she believed there might be a number of pyramids."

"We'll deal with that problem if and when it arises," Cruz said. "Right now you and Nancy have an auction to run."

Jeff looked at the three paintings hanging on the wall. "Those are the pictures that you're putting on the block tonight?"

"That's right," Nancy said. "They're by a very hot new artist named Chimera. I'm expecting all three to go for top dollar."

"Huh," Jeff said. "If you ask me, Vincent can paint as good as that Chimera guy."

Cruz studied the paintings. "You know what? I think you're right."

Lyra exchanged a quick, uneasy glance with Nancy. Some things were a little too complicated to explain in a short period of time, especially to a couple of men who were in the security business. In addition, there was no way to know quite how Cruz and Jeff would view the facts of the situation, given the strict Sweetwater code.

She put on a breezy smile.

"That only goes to show how much you two know about modern art," she said. "It's all in the eye of the beholder, remember?"