"There's someone on that balcony. Stay down. Don't move."

He pushed her into a crouching position behind the counter and crossed the short distance to the sliding gla.s.s door. There he flattened himself against the wall and quietly unlocked the slider.

Vincent disappeared from the counter and reappeared on the floor near Cruz's left foot. He crouched there on his hind legs, attention fixed on the balcony.

Together they waited.

There was a soft thud when a dark figure jumped from the neighboring balcony onto Lyra's balcony. A few seconds later a second man landed.

Cruz slid open the window and moved outside. Vincent darted past him, going straight for one of the would-be intruder's ankles.

The man yelped in shock and pain. He kicked out wildly. Vincent went flying through the air and landed nimbly on the railing.

"What the h.e.l.l?" one of the men hissed. "What was that?"

The second man spotted Cruz.

"s.h.i.+t," he snarled. He raised a mag-rez.

Simultaneously, green fire flared on the balcony as the first man generated an energy ghost.

Cruz laid down a blanket of psi fog, more than enough to douse the intruders' senses. The ghost went out immediately. This time, at least, Lyra was out of range.

Both men yelled in panic as their senses evaporated. They floundered wildly. Vincent, clearly unaffected by the fog, just like last time, leaped from the railing onto the shoulder of the nearest man, going for the throat.

"Vincent, no," Cruz said. "I need them alive."

Lyra appeared in the doorway. "My G.o.d, Cruz."

She was too close, Cruz thought. She should have been swamped with the psi fog. But she was on her feet.

Deprived of their senses, the two men continued to reel about. One stumbled and collapsed. The other groped for the railing, missed, and nearly went over the edge. Cruz grabbed him just in time.

"I need something to secure them," Cruz said. "Get your jungle pack. There's some rope inside."

"Right," Lyra said. She turned to hurry toward the bedroom.

She should have been reeling and flailing.

"How are you doing that?" he demanded.

"Turns out amethyst is good for a few things besides making jewelry. It just took me a couple of tries to figure out how to use it to counter the effects of your talent on my aura."

She disappeared back into the loft.

He wanted to demand more of an explanation. She was, after all, the only person he had ever met who could resist the effects of the senses-numbing fog. But he had priorities.

He moved in on the first man, but before he could strike the blow that would have rendered the attacker unconscious, the nightmare struck.

The world suddenly warped around him. He was plunged into a bizarre dreamscape.

The buildings and rooftops of the Quarter came alive, twisting into strange, unnatural shapes that melted and folded in on themselves. Some rose to impossible heights. Others shrank and wavered out of existence. The familiar glow of the Dead City wall grew more intense, illuminating the world with ultraspectrum hues that pulsed in eerie patterns. The ethereal towers inside the wall acquired ever more fantastical and distorted shapes. The balcony undulated like a churning ocean. He staggered to his feet and grabbed for the railing. He missed and went down hard on one knee.

His hand brushed against the mag-rez. Instinctively he swiped at it. He could not use it in his current state, but he had to keep it out of the hands of the attackers. He heard the gun skid across the tiles, but he could not tell if it had gone over the side of the balcony as he had intended.

The next thing he knew, he was staring at the stars, seeing them as he had never before. The twin moons were too bright, too close, threatening to sear his senses. He turned his head to the side to avoid the intense light and found himself looking through the bars of Lyra's balcony straight across to the balcony of the adjoining apartment.

Something moved on the other balcony, a creature unlike anything he had ever seen. Whatever it was, it melted and re-formed and melted again.

Aliens, he thought. They have finally come back. Maybe they have been here all along.

"Ghost s.h.i.+t," one of the attackers whispered, awed. "He's down."

The strange being on the other balcony spoke, its voice echoing darkly as though it came from the depths of a crypt.

"Destroy him," the voice ordered. "Get the woman."

Two distorted forms loomed over Cruz, blocking his view of the alien on the other balcony.

"You deal with him," one of the men said. "I'll grab the woman."

"s.h.i.+t, there's that rat again. It bit me once. I'm probably gonna need shots."

"Shoot it. Shoot it."

"I can't. The gun's gone. The SOB pushed it over the side of the balcony."

"Cruz." Lyra's voice rose in a scream of fear and rage. "What did you do to him, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds?"

"Forget the rat," one of the men said. "Drop the SOB over the side. I'll get her."

The second figure started toward Cruz. He halted abruptly. "Watch out. She's got something in her hands. A lamp."

Gla.s.s exploded.

Forget the alien, Cruz told himself. The two men were trying to grab Lyra. He had to stay focused here. Time to prioritize.

Ignoring the nightmarish shapes and images around him, he rezzed all the psi he could summon and pushed it through the black amber of his ring. Somehow he knew, with his hunter's intuition, that the only hope he had of protecting Lyra was to push back the strange energy that was being used to keep him locked in the eerie hallucination.

"Let me go," Lyra shrieked.

"The rat is back," the first man yelled. "It bit me."

"h.e.l.l with the rat, the woman just bit me."

Cruz pulled more energy, reaching for his limits and those of the obsidian.

The nightmare landscape wavered and suddenly dissolved. The world came back into focus. The creature on the balcony fled back into the adjoining apartment and disappeared.

Cruz knew the precise instant when the obsidian shattered into myriad shards. He shut down his senses, cutting off the rush of heavy energy as fast as possible, but he was a heartbeat too late, and he knew it.

The shards of fractured obsidian had already had a chance to act as individual psychic mirrors, reflecting his own energy back at his aura in chaotic waves that were already starting to inundate his senses. He'd been warned of the theoretical risks involved with pus.h.i.+ng obsidian too far. Now he was going to find out the hard way if the experts were right.

But first he had to save Lyra.

He staggered to his feet and saw the two men trying to maneuver a wildly struggling Lyra toward the front door of the loft. One of them had a hand over her mouth. They were both using their boots to try to fend off Vincent.

Cruz jacked up what was left of his exhausted senses, hoping for one last surge of adrenaline to help him push more energy through the backup amber in his watch. Nothing happened. He knew then that he had five, maybe ten minutes left before he went unconscious.

He yanked the knife out of his ankle sheath and went forward.

"I don't believe it," one of the attackers snarled. "The son of a b.i.t.c.h is back on his feet. Something went wrong. He was supposed to stay down."

"s.h.i.+t, he's got a-"

Cruz reached the first man before he could finish the sentence. He drove the knife deep, aware even as he struck that his aim was off. The aftereffects of the psi drain were already hitting him, playing havoc with his coordination and strength.

There was, nevertheless, a satisfying grunt of pain and fear. He jerked the knife out. Blood flowed over his hands. The man collapsed.

The second man dropped Lyra and ran for the door, Vincent on his heels.

"Vincent, come back," Lyra shouted. "Let him go."

Cruz was vaguely aware of the sound of the front door slamming open. He heard heavy boots pounding down the stairs. The second intruder was gone.

He sank slowly to his knees, the b.l.o.o.d.y knife still gripped in his hand. The green-hued shadows of the loft started to turn gray.

"Cruz." Lyra crouched beside him. "Oh, my G.o.d, you're hurt. What happened? Did they shoot you? I didn't hear a gun. Cruz, stay with me, here. I'm calling an ambulance."

There was a familiar chittering sound in his ear. Vincent sounded anxious. Cruz forced himself to concentrate. There was one more thing he had to do, something important; the most important thing he had ever done in his life.

"No ambulance," he whispered. "Call Jeff."

"But Cruz, you're bleeding."

"Not my blood. The other guy's. Call Jeff. Tell him I shattered obsidian. Tell him to take you to Amber Island."

"I can't go to your family's compound."

"Yes," he said, "you can and you will. I need to know you're safe, and that's the only place I can be sure you will be. Get your phone."

He heard the soft, melodic clash of the charms on her bracelet as she hurried across the room. A moment later she was back. She gripped his hand.

"Got it," she said. "But let's get something clear here. I'm staying with you. If we go anywhere, we go together. Do you hear me, Cruz Sweet.w.a.ter?"

He thought he felt a gentle surge of energy through her hand; her energy, not his own. For a few more precious seconds the darkness retreated. He was probably hallucinating again.

"Call Jeff," he repeated.

"I'm calling Jeff." With her free hand, she fumbled with the phone. "But whatever you do, don't let go. Do you hear me, Sweet.w.a.ter?"

"I hear you." He closed his eyes. "Nag, nag, nag."

"I've got a talent for it."

The night engulfed him. The anxious chittering of a dust bunny and the sound of Lyra's charms followed him into the darkness.

Chapter 23.

MOMENTS AFTER SHE MADE THE CALL TO JEFF, LYRA HAD a front-row seat from which to observe the dazzlingly efficient and astonis.h.i.+ngly powerful machinery of the Sweet.w.a.ter 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sume 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."