Cruz sensed the slight elevation of energy that accompanied the almost invisible tightening of Flagg's finger on the trigger. He sent out a wave of muffling psi fog, enveloping Flagg in a senses-disorienting haze.
Flagg screamed. He floundered wildly in the psychic mist, lost his balance, and sprawled on the floor. The pistol roared. The bullet smashed into the ceiling. He tried to get off another shot, but Cruz kicked the weapon out of his hand.
The door slammed open. Jeff and several people wearing Frequency PD badges charged into the room.
Cruz quickly shut off the hot energy he had been generating, afraid that the fog would sweep over the others, even though he had been using the increased focusing power of the obsidian to direct the currents only toward Flagg. There was another reason for caution. He did not want the police questioning the nature of his talent. As far as the world was concerned, he just had a strong affinity for amber. It was Sweetwater family policy to keep it that way.
But no one coming through the door seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. The cops surrounded Flagg. One of them pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
Jeff walked over to Cruz. "You okay, boss?"
"Sure." Cruz glanced down at his ring. "Did you feel anything when you came through the door?"
Jeff lowered his voice. "You mean that psi fog you generate? Nope."
"You know something? Lyra's special tuning service really works."
"Told you so. Get everything?"
Cruz reached inside his shirt and removed the recording device. "Every last word."
The cops had Flagg on his feet.
Cruz looked at him. "You were wrong."
"About what?" Flagg muttered.
"Nobody ever said Sweetwaters were always the smartest guys in the room. But we do tend to be lucky."
"I want a lawyer," Flagg said.
Chapter 33
LYRA BALANCED THE PAPER BAG FILLED WITH COFFEE and tea supplies in one arm and opened the back door of the gallery with her free hand. The first thing she noticed was that the lights were off. The second thing was that there was no illumination coming from the main sales room, either. Nancy had said that she was going to close early in order to set up for the private auction, but it was late afternoon, and the sun had gone down behind the green wall. The early twilight was descending rapidly on the Quarter.
There should have been lights.
"Nancy?" Lyra hovered in the doorway. A cold, prickling sensation slithered through her. The darkness in the back room seemed unnaturally heavy. "I brought the extra cream and coffee. I also threw in some more cookies, just in case."
Master Quinn appeared in the doorway that separated the back room of the gallery from the sales room. He was dressed as usual in his long amber robes, several chains of amber beads around his neck.
"Your friend won't be needing the cookies," he said in his serene guru tones. "Close the back door, put the sack on the table, and come with me."
He walked across the room and opened the door of what looked like a closet. The top of the underground stairwell loomed in the darkness. Paranormal currents wafted into the room.
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."