Jayne Castle - Obsidian Prey

The sensation chilling the nape of Lyra's neck meta morphosed into outright dread. She knew the feeling all too well. Her fight-or-flight instincts were surging. Something was terribly wrong. It wasn't just Quinn's presence here in the gallery or the lack of proper lighting. It wasn't even the fact that Nancy was nowhere in sight. It was the strange pulses of energy she was picking up. They were coming from Quinn.

Instinctively she readied herself to run. It was unfortunate that she was dressed for the auction in a tight, narrow-skirted black dress and three-inch heels, she thought. Not the best attire to wear when called upon to run for your life. But that was the Dore luck for you.

"Where's Nancy?" she said, fighting to keep her own voice calm.

"You will see her soon enough." Quinn motioned toward the stairwell with a graceful flourish. "After you, Lyra."

"I don't think so."

She dropped the sack and spun around, intending to run out into the alley, screaming. There had been no one loitering out there when she had entered the shop a moment ago, but maybe someone in one of the rooms above the shops would hear her.

But before she could take a single step, the world skewed and warped around her. The rear door of the shop narrowed and elongated. The ceiling was suddenly impossibly high. The three little steps down into the alley twisted endlessly in a terrible, writhing, Möbius strip. The pavement below was a winding river filled with heaving waves.

The floor beneath her feet fell away, and she went down hard amid the items that had spilled from the sack. She looked up and saw a specter bending over her.

"I have been patient with you," Quinn said. His voice seemed to come from a vast cavern. "But I will wait no longer."

"You're crazy."

"You still do not comprehend, but you will soon. Come with me."

The room snapped back into proper focus with dizzying suddenness. Lyra sat up cautiously, breathing deeply to control the nausea.

"You're the one who was causing the hallucinations," she said. "It was you all along. You've been doing something to me to make me believe that I was going crazy."

"My talent for inducing hallucinations is extraordinary. A rare gift that runs in my family." He reached into his robes and pulled out another chain. A pale stone caught the light. "I have been able to enhance it and control it with crystal amber."

"Why use your talent against me?"

"I have watched you in my class. I knew that you would try to resist me. Your will is strong. I had to demonstrate my power over you. I knew that it would be necessary for you to understand that I can control you utterly before you would submit."

"Submit to what, for Pete's sake?"

"To me. I am prepared to offer you what no other man, including Sweetwater, can give you."

"What?"

"Power." He gave her a scary, whimsical smile. "You could say that we were made for each other, Lyra Dore. Ours will be the ultimate in harmonic relationships."

"This is just so frickin' romantic. But I gotta tell you, you've got the wrong woman, Quinn. I'm not the romantic type."

"There is no mistake. I recognized you as the one the first day you entered my classroom."

"Is that so?" she managed. "How?"

"It was very simple, really. You were the only one in any of my classes who was not affected by the low dose of energy I use on the students," he said.

"Damn. No wonder everyone else was getting so much more out of those meditation classes. You were hypnotizing them with your amber."

"I brought them into harmonic balance. At least for the period of time they were in my studio. But not you. Never you."

Outrage swept through her. "And here I thought I was just a slow learner, a meditation class failure. You're a scam artist, that's what you are."

"That's a lie." For the first time, strong emotion lit Quinn's eyes. "I am no con man. I really can control the minds of others."

"Maybe. For short periods of time. But at the high level of power required to induce hallucinations, I doubt that you can maintain a focus for more than a few minutes before you exhaust yourself. Talk about a heavy psi drain."

Quinn smiled again, unconcerned. "I have found that even two or three minutes of a nightmare is long enough to control anyone I wish. No one can withstand such visions for long."

"Let's get back to Nancy. Where is she?"

"I told you, she is waiting for us." Once again, Quinn swept out a hand, indicating the doorway to the underworld. "And I can promise you that she will wait forever in the catacombs if you do not accompany me. I took the precaution of removing all of her amber."

"I can't believe that you would leave her down there without amber. That's a death sentence."

"One that only you can commute." He tossed a flashlight to her. "Get up."

She picked up the flashlight and got unsteadily to her feet. The nausea had receded, but she was still shaky. It wasn't just the aftereffects of the hallucinations, she thought. This was fear, pure and simple. She hated feeling afraid.

And from anger came strength.

She rezzed the flashlight and went toward the dark stairwell. "What, exactly, do you want from me, Quinn?"

"I know your secret, Lyra," he said. He followed her, his voice once again serene and assured. "I know your true power. You are so much more than a mere tuner. With me you will explore your true and full potential."

Another chill tightened her insides. She started down into the darkness. "What are you talking about?" she whispered.

"When you walked into my classroom shortly after your discovery of the amethyst ruin, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were the woman I needed."

"So I can tune amethyst," she said. "That's no secret. So what?"

"Do not try to deceive me. I know what the scientists and the researchers at the AI lab do not know. You found three of the pyramid stones."

She was stunned. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do. What's more, you can work the stones."

"How do you know that?"

"The only reason you would have taken care to conceal those particular stones from Amber Inc. is because you recognized their power. As soon as I researched your genealogical records, my conclusions were confirmed."

"You researched my ancestry?"

"It's all there in the records of the Arcane Society, my dear. As is the information that only one who is descended from a long line of crystal workers can rez the full latent energy of the stone. You are that woman."

She stopped halfway down the staircase and turned to look at him. "You're a member of the Arcane Society?"

"Yes."

"Wait a second. Are you telling me that the Society has my genealogical records?"

"One of your ancestors who came through the Curtain was Arcane. Didn't you know that?"

"No, I sure as heck did not know that."

"She evidently lost her connection with the Society during the Colonial era," Quinn said. "That was not unusual. Life was hard and chaotic in those early years. People were focused on survival. Many members of the Society drifted away. Their descendants have forgotten their roots."

"I can't believe this. The Society lets just anyone use their records to research someone else's family tree?"

"There is nothing private about an individual's family tree, either within the Society or outside of it," Quinn said.

"There sure as heck ought to be."

"Anger is a destructive emotion."

"No shit."

She arrived at the last step. On one side of the subbasement wall psi light glowed through the ragged crack in green quartz. She clicked off the flashlight and went toward it. Quinn followed.

"All right, I'm here with you in the tunnels," Lyra said, moving through the opening. "Where is Nancy?"