"That did occur to me," she admitted. "It is also possible that he really does need me to help him evaluate a specimen of amethyst. As you may have heard recently, there aren't a lot of tuners around who can work purple amber. The Fairstead Gallery is known for the quality of its raw amber specimens, and I've heard Wilson is an extremely pa.s.sionate collector."

"Wilson?" Cruz repeated in ominous tones.

"He insisted I use his first name. He's very casual, very laid-back for such a wealthy, powerful man."

"Wilson Revere would do anything to take down Amber Inc."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," she said lightly. "But I'm not particularly interested in the corporate infighting between the two major amber monopolies. I'm just trying to fire up my career as a consultant. Besides, it's probably your fault that he called me."

"My fault?"

"You're the one who had the Amber Inc. PR department identify me to the media as an antiquities consultant with an exclusive clientele."

"Pay attention, Lyra. You can't trust Revere any farther than you can walk in the catacombs or the jungle without good amber. He's using you."

"He sure is," she agreed. "He's using me to a.s.sess a chunk of amethyst for his collection."

"I know this guy. Believe me when I tell you that he has an agenda."

"No offense, Cruz, but you're starting to sound just the teensiest bit paranoid."

"You know the old saying: even paranoids have enemies."

"What is with RezStone and AI, anyway? I know you're business compet.i.tors, but the executives of most rival firms are usually capable of a modic.u.m of civilized behavior. At least in public."

Cruz smiled his. .h.i.t man smile. "We're polite in public. But we Sweet.w.a.ters have a saying: never turn your back on anyone from RezStone."

"Is that so?"

"It's a tough outfit," Cruz said. "You don't get into the top echelons unless you're willing to cross a few lines. The Revere family has had a reputation for being ruthless for the past fifty years. People who stand in the company's path have a habit of disappearing."

It took her a few seconds to get her mouth closed. "Are you seriously telling me that RezStone actually kills off people who get in its way?"

"Like I said, there are rumors."

She smiled. "Possibly propagated by Amber Inc.?"

He ignored that. "Revere doesn't hesitate to dabble in Guild politics, either. At the moment, it's no secret that he has a keen interest in getting one of his pals on the Frequency council elected as the new boss of the local Guild."

"Gosh. And the Sweet.w.a.ters have no interest whatsoever in making sure that the new Guild boss is a good friend of Amber Inc.?"

"Your cynical side is showing again. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to get involved with Wilson Revere."

She lowered her fork and twisted on the stool to face him. "Cruz, there's something you need to understand here. I already am involved with Wilson Revere."

She knew at once she had chosen her words badly. Cruz made no overt move, but his eyes went obsidian dark and hard. Green fire sparked in the depths. She felt energy pulse in the atmosphere. The hair lifted on the nape of her neck.

"Professionally speaking," she tacked on hurriedly.

Cruz nodded once, relaxing fractionally. "That's far enough."

It infuriated her that she felt the need to explain her relations.h.i.+p with Wilson Revere. She could not let Cruz Sweet.w.a.ter ride roughshod over her life again. This time they would do things on her terms or not at all.

"Furthermore," she said, trying to sound cool and confident; a woman who lived by her own rules, "I intend to remain professionally involved with Wilson Revere as long as he is willing to hire me to consult for him."

"d.a.m.n it, Lyra-"

"Give me a little credit here. I'm not an idiot. I know what I'm doing. Revere may have come to me originally to see if he could use me against you. But he and I are doing business together today, and I am going to do my best to impress him with my knowledge and affinity for amber. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I need the business. I went broke trying to sue Amber Inc. Consulting for Wilson Revere is going to go a long way toward getting me back on my feet."

"You should have taken the compensation AI offered you for the ruin, and you know it."

"I couldn't do that."

"Why not?" Cruz demanded.

"Because it would have meant acknowledging that AI had a right to do what it did. I won't do that. Not ever."

"You are one stubborn woman, Lyra."

"I'm a Dore. We do stubborn."

"Yeah, I've heard that."

"Who told you?"

"My grandfather."

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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 s.h.i.+ny 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 fas.h.i.+on 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."

"h.e.l.lo, 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 Sweet.w.a.ter. 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sets 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 l.u.s.ter 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 a.s.sume 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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.