Lydia knew only too well that Emmett London was not into amber accessories because they were fashionable. He was a very powerful dissonance-energy para-resonator—a ghost-hunter. He had the psychic talent and the training required to neutralize the dangerous, flaring balls of chaotic dissonance energy, the so-called ghosts, that drifted at random through the endless underground corridors of the alien ruins.

Ghost-hunters were a necessary part of any excavation team. They were, in essence, professional bodyguards who were hired from their Guilds to protect archaeologists, researchers, and others who explored and excavated the ancient catacombs beneath the Dead City.

Until she had met Emmett last month, she had held an extremely low opinion of hunters in general. She considered most dissonance-energy para-rezes to be little better than high-end mobsters. There was a hunters' Guild in every major city on Harmony and as far as she was concerned they were merely legalized criminal organizations run by ruthless bosses.

Emmett was the mysterious ex-boss of the Resonance City Guild. Shortly after his arrival here in Cadence last month, rumors had begun to circulate in the tabloids to the effect that he was the handpicked successor of the current boss of the Cadence City Guild, Mercer Wyatt.

Emmett denied any interest in assuming the leadership of the local Guild, but Lydia was not so sure he could avoid the job—not if Wyatt put pressure on him. There were a lot of old sayings about the hunters and the Guilds, one of which was, once a Guild man, always a Guild man. Granted, the conventional wisdom over-looked the fact that there were some female hunters but that was beside the point.