"Please don't tell me you hid those three stones somewhere in your apartment."
"Do I look that dumb? I stashed them down in the tunnels, of course. As soon as we get back to my place, I'll change and go underground to see if any of them are missing. If all three are still there, I think it's safe to say that the relic in Fairstead's vault is the one from the Amber Inc. lab."
"You do realize I'm not going to let you go down to your secret hiding place alone, don't you?"
"If you go with me, it will no longer be a secret."
"No," Cruz said. "It won't be a secret. Looks like you're going to have to trust me."
Chapter 20
CRUZ CONTEMPLATED THE NARROW, JAGGED, HOLE-IN-THE-WALL entrance to the glowing catacombs. He did not know whether to be furious or impressed. But then, that was a typical state of affairs when it came to his relationship with Lyra.
They were standing in the sub-subbasement of an old, abandoned warehouse. The dank, concrete room smelled of mold and damp. The pitch-dark space was illuminated only by their flashlights and the sliver of green psi that filtered through the slim opening into the tunnels. Water trickled ominously somewhere in the darkness.
He looked at Lyra. She was back in her prospecting attire: trousers, boots, and a denim shirt. Vincent was perched on her shoulder, excited, as usual, about the possibility of an adventure.
"This is how you've been coming and going from the tunnels since I last saw you?" Cruz asked.
In theory, the only officially approved ways in and out of the underground world were via the main gates guarded by the Guilds. Those entrances were usually located within the great walls that surrounded the Dead Cities. But there were countless hidden hole-in-the-wall entrances to the catacombs throughout the Old Quarters of all the cities.
The holes were not man-made. The green quartz was incredibly strong. No human-engineered tools yet invented could make a dent in the stone. But at some point in the distant past, cracks and fissures had been created in the catacombs. One theory held that they were the result of earthquakes. Some experts were convinced that the aliens themselves had made them using the same technology they had employed to construct the tunnels.
Over the years the unofficial entrances had been discovered and used by a motley array of independent prospectors and treasure hunters—the so-called ruin rats—who made their livings on the fringes of the trade in alien artifacts. Such cracks in the walls were also the entrances of choice for drug dealers, criminals fleeing from the law, thrill-seeking kids, gangs, and the occasional serial killer.
Lyra's secret hole-in-the-wall was located below the streets of one of the seediest neighborhoods of the Quarter. Just the sort of place where a serial killer might bring his victims, Cruz thought.
"I had to find a new entrance after I made the mistake of showing you the last one," she explained, de-rezzing her own flashlight. "I figured you'd have it watched."
That hurt. He'd promised, after all.
"No," he said, determined to rise above the jab. "I didn't have your old entrance watched. I never told anyone else about it. I gave you my word that I wouldn't."
"Well, that's great, but given events at the time, I couldn't be sure you'd keep your word, now, could I?"
"You really don't trust me, do you?"
"Like I said, I trust you to do what you feel you must do, but that doesn't mean that I can trust you to do what I want you to do. Nancy offered to let me use the entrance below her gallery, but I thought you might have someone watching that one, too."
He reeled in his temper with an effort of raw willpower. Time to get a grip. There were priorities here. He had to stay focused. He de-rezzed the flashlight and started toward the gash in the quartz.
"Let's go," he said.
She must have picked up on his slightly savage frame of mind, because she gave him a startled, uneasy look. But she and Vincent followed him into the glowing green world.
They all paused just inside to run through the usual amber-rez locator checks and to verify that all the amber they were carrying was working properly. The safety precautions were overkill, but only idiots skipped them. Amber was the only way to navigate underground. If you got lost in the tunnels, you ended up wandering until you died from hunger or thirst or until you blundered into an energy ghost or an illusion trap.
"First left at the intersection," Lyra said briskly.
The intersection in question was a disorienting rotunda that connected thirteen passageways. Each branching corridor seemed to vanish into infinity. Cruz knew that part of that impression was due to the optical illusions created by the maze and the fact that everything underground was relentlessly green. In addition, while the heavy currents of energy that flowed through the tunnels gave you a pleasant buzz, they also did weird things to the senses, altering perceptions in subtle ways.
Lyra knew where she was going, of course. He might have issues with her lack of trust and independent ways, but she was a pro underground. She had been working the tunnels since her teens, and more recently she had made several successful forays into the rain forest. Like him, she had an affinity not only for amber but for the alien underworld.
"Did your security people learn anything from those two men who attacked us?" she asked in a clear attempt to change the subject.
They had been forced to change subjects a lot lately, he thought.
"Nothing helpful," he said. "They are just a couple of local street goons who got hired for their muscle, not their brains. They met their employer only once, in an alley behind a bar in the Quarter. Claimed they didn't get a good look at his face."
"Which is probably true," Lyra said. "If I set out to hire a couple of thugs, I'd make sure they didn't see my face, either."
"You've got a point. But there was one unusual aspect to their story. I had intended to talk to you about it after you finished with Wilson Revere."
"I think it's safe to assume that particular consulting relationship has been permanently terminated," she said glumly. "Too bad. I coulda been a contender."
"A contender for what?"
"I have no idea. My grandfather used to say that a lot. He claimed it was a line from some Old World film. Never mind. Tell me about the thugs."
"I told you, they met the guy in an alley at night. They could have said it was too dark to get a good look at him. But when they were pinned down, what they actually told the interrogators was that there was something strange about him."
She frowned. "Physically, you mean?"
"They thought he was wearing some kind of mask, one that blurred and distorted his features."
"I've seen rez-screen films where the villain wears one leg of a pair of hose over his face. It changes his face in a really creepy way."
"They were asked about that possibility. They said it was more as if his face and his body were misshapen. And everything kept changing."
"What?"
"They said that sometimes it looked like the guy's head and body appeared elongated. At other times he looked too wide and twisted."
"Those two actually used a big word like elongated?"
"No, but you get my meaning. What they described was a man who managed to conceal his features by distorting them."
She thought about that. "Do you think he was projecting some kind of rez-film image of himself against the alley wall? One that looked real enough to fool the two thugs?"
"I considered that possibility. Both men had come out of a tavern to meet the guy. No question but that they'd been drinking. They were probably high on some street drug, as well. But the more they were questioned, the more their description of the meeting with the client sounded like an experience out of a dream." He paused deliberately. "What you might call a waking nightmare."