They played for another half hour, watching the evacuation of the casino and the quiet removal of the crowd they had gathered along the back roads of the business park by the efficient security people that Ria had summoned. An ambulance had come for Wheatley. He was a problem—and probably not Eric's—for another day.
The concert audience hadn't left the business park, of course—it would take hours to move that many people out of here—but they were now at a much safer distance from the explosion—if there was going to be one.
Nobody noticed the five of them—though a rock band playing at full amplification ought to have been hard to miss. But what they were playing wasn't truly meant to be heard, only felt. After that last outpouring of grief-stricken weeping, Ace had sung lullabies, sending the crowd into an exhausted half trance. Old songs.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word, Papa's gonna buy you a mocking bird. . . . "
At last Eric saw two figures in Bomb Squad armor come walking out of the casino carrying a large chest between them. They loaded it into a van, which drove slowly away.
He caught Hosea's eye. The big man nodded, looking satisfied.
Looks like they got it.
Eric gave the others the high sign, and they wrapped it up in a soft sigh of chords.
It was over.
And it was only now beginning.
Ace lowered her microphone and switched it off.
"It's done, then?" she asked.
She looked tired, but not in a bad way. More as if she'd done a long hard job that had needed doing, and that in setting things right, she'd set things right with herself as well. Something had happened to her, when she'd given herself over to her Talent. As if she'd found just what it was she'd been looking for all her short life.
As for Eric . . .
He wanted to sleep for a week. No, make that two weeks. He couldn't think of the last time he'd been involved in casting a spell this long and involved—and powerful. In fact, he thought he'd only heard of things like this being done in the old story-songs he'd studied under Dharniel. Bards working together? Bards and Talents? Perish the thought!
Magnus!
Magnus was still sitting slumped over the drumset, his sticks dangling limply from his fingers. Eric walked over to him, and touched him on the shoulder. Magnus looked up, eyes just a little glazed. Not—quite—drunk with exhaustion, but close to it.
"How're you doing?" Eric asked gently. What he really wanted to do was hug his brother—hard—and reassure himself that he was okay, but he doubted that would go down very well.
"So that was magick, huh?" the teenager asked, stretching. His hair was as wet as if he'd just stepped out of a shower; he raked it back from his forehead with both hands and shivered, as if he'd only just noticed it was cold up here.
Eric picked up Magnus's discarded school blazer. The boy's shirt was soaked to the skin as well. After a moment's thought, Eric took off his own leather jacket and draped it over Magnus's shoulders instead.
"Yeah," Eric said. "That was magick." And magick the likes of which you'll never see again, if we're all very lucky.
"I don't like it," Magnus said succinctly. "But the music was okay, I guess."
"Can we get off this roof and maybe go find some coffee?" Kayla said, sounding unconscionably cheerful. "It's freezing up here and it's been way too long since breakfast."
Of course they couldn't simply leave. For one thing, they still didn't have a car. And for another, they had a lot of unfinished business here.
Except for Jeanette, they left the instruments where they were. Let someone else wonder what they were doing there. This time, the cleanup could be in someone else's hands.
As quiet as everything had looked from the rooftop, down on the ground, it was well-organized chaos. More emergency vehicles were arriving all the time, and with them, the press. As much as the police might want to keep the area closed to the press, Eric supposed it would probably take the National Guard to actually seal it off. The recently vacated stage made a perfect backdrop for interviews with shocked survivors and anybody who wanted to grab camera time, and the press wasn't shy about using it.
"No . . ." Ace said, and began to run toward the stage.
Eric took a second, closer look at the man currently surrounded by what looked like every reporter in the state: print, radio, and television.
He looked at Hosea.
"That's Billy Fairchild," the big man said grimly.
It was very clear that Billy was in his element. The gist of the story was in his mind of course, but he was able to let the words flow, just as he always had in his sermons, unplanned and impromptu, and so, the more genuine, at least in seeming. "—a sorrowful and terrible day for us all here at Fairchild Ministries, but as you all know, I receive hundreds of death threats every week for the message I preach. I'm only sorry that—"
"Did he tell you that he set this one up?" a new voice shouted, carrying clear and high over the murmur of voices around him.
Billy stopped as if he'd been stung; he felt more as if he'd been slapped. Because, in a way, he had been. The newscasters, scenting awards, trained their cameras on the intruder. There were scattered flashes, and the whirring sounds of machinery.
Ace grimly pushed her way through the mob of reporters.
"Did my Daddy tell you that he and Mr. Gabriel Horn planned to set off a bomb here today?" Ace demanded, walking over to her father. She turned and looked straight into the cameras. "I'm Heavenly Grace Fairchild. Maybe my Daddy's talked about me." Her face, instead of going hard and angry, went soft and vulnerable looking, as if she was about to cry. "He's sure been stalking me, right along with talking about me. You can find that out too, if you go look. He set all this up, but then, he's pretty accustomed to using people."
"Now Heavenly Grace—" Billy said. His voice held a stark note of pleading.
"He sure used me," she concluded, her jaw jutting. "That was why I ran away and why I am never going back."
There was a sudden frenzied babble as all of the reporters started shouting questions at once, and what had been a carefully orchestrated PR moment for Billy Fairchild degenerated into actual news. Ace looked up and saw two of Daddy's "Helpers"—his polite word for bodyguards—standing a few feet away—Abner and Joshua. She'd known them both for years. They looked confused—they knew her, and they didn't know whether they were supposed to hustle her out of the way or not.
She raised her voice, talking fast, knowing the reporters would shut up once somebody was saying something, knowing the cameras and the tapes would get it all. Hadn't she been to enough press conferences in her life to know how these things were managed? She ignored the shouted questions, ignored the microphones shoved in her face, and concentrated on staying out of Daddy's reach and saying her piece.
"They set it up between them," Ace said grimly, but let some of the tears of pain and frustration leak down her face. "Him and a man called Gabriel Horn, who's worked for him for years. The bomb was supposed to be a nice publicity stunt, no matter how many people got hurt, and get him in good with his new bad friends, the ones who think Jesus meant you to shoot your enemies, not love them. It's because of his doing things like that that I ran away from home, and why I'm suing for Emancipated Minor status now, so he can't drag me back to make me do things that are just as bad as setting bombs. I heard them plan the whole thing."
"Heavenly Grace, don't you tell lies like that!" Billy sputtered desperately. "She's lying—she's sick—she don't know what she's saying, poor thing."
But of course, she didn't look or sound out of her mind—only disgusted and ready to cry—and if there was one thing that reporters craved it was the scent of metaphorical blood. She had them. He knew it, and so did she.
By now Hosea and Eric had reached the stage as well and were standing at the back of the mob of reporters. Hosea simply looked at Billy.
When he saw Hosea, Daddy just looked horrified—as if he finally realized he might actually be in trouble, Ace thought sadly.
"I— I— Turn those things off! I have nothing further to say! My office will issue a complete statement tomorrow! Heavenly Grace, you come with me right now!"
Ace shook her head. "No, Daddy. Not now, not ever. You're a bad man, you tried to hurt a lot of people, and Jesus is weeping for you. He may forgive you, but I can't right now, and maybe I won't ever be able to."
Billy turned away, and Abner and Joshua closed around him and helped him from the stage. The looks on their faces as they gazed at her—shock, hurt, disbelief—nearly broke her heart. But not nearly as much as their hearts would be broken when they found out she was telling the truth.
The reporters surged around her, shouting more questions, and she felt a moment of pure panic, but now Eric and Hosea had pushed their way through the crowd and literally picked her up and carried her in the same direction Billy had just gone.
"Don't you worry none," Hosea said in her ear. "We're just goin' behind the police lines. Ah reckoned you wouldn't want to have any more truck with reporters than you had to."
"No," Ace said in a trembling voice. "I . . . I guess they're going to want to interview me now, aren't they?"
She heard Eric give a strangled snort of laughter as he set her on her feet at the bottom of the steps. "Ace, after that speech you just gave, I don't think there's anybody in the tri-state area who isn't going to want to talk to you, plus several federal agencies besides."
"I just . . . I couldn't let him get away with it. He was going to have them all believing him. After that it wouldn't matter what the courts said, or what the truth was. All anybody would remember was what they'd seen on the television." That much, she was sure of, as sick as it made her feel. People were tried and convicted on television, no matter what courts said. And Billy Fairchild had learned, and learned well, from every misstep that every other televangelist had ever made on television. He knew how to manipulate what went on before the cameras.
Well, so did she. "And in a year, or two," she went on, scrubbing at her eyes with her sleeve, "he'd be right back in business again, just like everybody else who's ever done a bad thing and gotten away with it. So this time—" she raised her chin, and looked first Eric, then Hosea, straight in the eyes. "This time, I made sure I got in my licks first."
Back behind the stage—where they'd slunk around less than two hours before, stealing instruments to put on their counter-concert—Eric saw uniforms from at least six different jurisdictions, and the "this is not a uniform" suits that meant the Feds had arrived. Good thing his conscience was clear.
He'd lost track of Magnus and Kayla when he and Hosea had made that mad sprint toward the soundstage to follow Ace. He knew they'd be together, at least, and Kayla wouldn't let anything happen to Magnus.
And right now he had bigger fish to fry—"fry," literally. Just as soon as he could get Ace settled somewhere safe, he had to figure out some way to get into the casino. The wards were off the building—he could see that—and he needed to get in there and see if Gabriel Horn—or Gabrevys ap Ganeliel—or whatever the Prince of Elfhame Bete Noir was calling himself these days—was still in there causing trouble. Gabrevys's Bard had run out on him with one of Wheatley's iron bolts in his back; if Gabrevys was weak enough, Eric ought to be able to call Lady Day and take him Underhill. Or at least, away from here. Maybe he could find a nice deserted steel foundry to dump him into.
Before the three of them had taken more than a few steps they were intercepted by a very courteous, very resolute man in dark glasses, a dark suit, and an expensive coat. He might as well have had the words "Federal Agent" tattooed on his forehead.
"Heavenly Grace Fairchild?" he asked. "Eric Banyon?"
"Yes," Eric said cautiously.
"Could you come with me, please? All three of you?"
We haven't done anything indictable, Eric reminded himself. At least not that anybody knows about. He glanced at the other two, shrugged, and followed.
Their anonymous minder led them around the side of the Casino and Cathedral. Dozens of official vehicles had arrived by this time—fire engines, ambulances, big black vans with satellite dishes on the top. Eric could see buses being loaded up with people who'd been evacuated from the building, with more waiting to go. The whole area along the side of the building had been cordoned off with sawhorses and crime-scene tape to form a combined command post and holding area—the reporters were clustered at the other side of the barriers—and Eric could see that there was a checkpoint set up down by the road as well. The authorities were doing all that they could to contain the scene, but it was a very big scene.
And now they're going to ask us what we were doing here, and I haven't got the faintest idea of what we're going to tell them. There's no way I can mess with this many people's heads, even if it was remotely a Good Guy type thing to do.
He heard a dog barking.
"Well," Hosea drawled, sounding relieved. "The cavalry does seem to have arrived."
"Ria!" Ace said, running forward to where Ria Llewellyn stood, next to a very long—and very black—stretch limousine. Kayla was standing beside her, and Magnus was inspecting the car as if he was expecting to purchase one like it in the very near future.
"Ria, indeed," Ria said, once they'd all gotten close enough not to have to shout. "Thanks, Jasper. I appreciate your finding my lost lambs for me."
"Any time, Ms. Llewellyn," the man in the sunglasses answered, tipping her a little two-fingered half salute. "Try not to let them go wandering off, okay? The scene's still hot."
"I'll do my best."
If there were such a thing as Fortune 500 Vogue, Ria looked as if she'd just stepped off the cover, from her white cashmere trenchcoat, to her Emmanuel Ungaro suit, to her Jimmy Choo stilettos. But the perfect ice-queen act was marred when she held out her arms and Ace flung herself into them.
"I got here as soon as I could," Ria said, over Ace's head. "I found Magnus and Kayla—well, they found me—"
"Say hey," Kayla said, offering a two-fingered salute of her own. She held Molly in her arms. The little pug wriggled all over with glee at being reunited with her friends.
"Looks like you'll make the evening news," Magnus said helpfully. "If we don't all get arrested."
"Nobody is getting arrested," Ria said firmly. "Except possibly Billy Fairchild and Gabriel Horn—if they can find Horn. They're still searching the building, but they haven't found him yet."
"Horn's Unseleighe," Eric said, making a long story—a very long story—as short as possible. "I don't know if they will find him if he doesn't want to be found—or if it would be very good for them if they did. Ria, I've got to get in there and look for him."
"What are you going to do with him if you find him?" Ria snapped. "And more to the point, what is Magnus going to do if Gabriel levin-bolts you in the back?"
Eric flinched as if he'd been slapped. He hadn't thought about what would happen if he was hurt or killed in a duel with Gabrevys.
No. He hadn't thought, period.
He was a parent now—well, a kind of parent. A small-g guardian, anyway. He didn't have the luxury of thinking only of himself anymore, or even of risking his neck just because it was the right thing to do.
He had to take care of Magnus and keep him safe, because that promise came first.
He turned to face Magnus.
"Well, go on, bro. What are you waiting for?" Magnus's voice was perfectly neutral. He could do a good job of hiding his feelings, even from himself. Because there'd been too many disappointments in his life, too many people putting the wrong things first.
"Forgot who I was for a moment," Eric said lightly. "Ria's right: I wouldn't know what to do with Gabrevys if I did find him, and I have more important things to do here. I'll need to go Underhill as soon as I can and tell Prince Arvin what he's been doing, though, since Jachiel is staying at Misthold. Gabrevys is Sidhe, and he's broken enough laws of the Sidhe to bring even the High King down on his head. Let them take care of him. I've got more important things to do."
Magnus stared at him in the blank way that told Eric that the talk of elves and elven politics had been nothing more than meaningless noise. Finally he said, "So what have you got to do here that's so important?"
Eric managed a wobbly grin. "Well, finding you a leather jacket that fits, for one thing. That one's way too tight."
"Yeah, well, you can't have it back. I'm cold, and I'd rather have a parka or something," Magnus grumbled. But his voice had lost its wary colorlessness.
"After that speech of Ace's, she's going to have more than a few questions to answer," Ria said. "Not that she wouldn't anyway—after today, a lot of people are going to want to take a very close look at the Fairchild Ministries. But I'm pretty sure we can put it off for a day or so—and come up with a reasonable explanation of events that doesn't include elves, goblins, or little green men."
"Ayah," Hosea said gravely. "Best stick to as much of the truth as possible."
Ria smiled. "Now Hosea, you know I always do that. There should be some way to tie Ace's little fact-finding mission into Eric and Magnus's kidnapping if we're creative enough, which will be useful all the way around. But we can worry about that tomorrow. Right now all I want to do is leave before some of those clever little vultures of the press decide to jump the police barricades and head this way, but we'll have to wait here until we're given permission. The traffic out there's a nightmare, anyway; we'll be lucky to get back to Manhattan by dinner time. It's just as well Anita made sure the car was fully stocked before I left."
"Hey, that must mean there's coffee in there," Kayla said with interest, setting Molly down. The pug immediately began to investigate all the fascinating smells in the vicinity, pulling Kayla around in a circle. "Hard to believe they're still finding people in there," Kayla started to say idly. "What were they doing, hiding under the . . . desks?"
Her voice went very flat on the last words, as if she'd suddenly forgotten how to talk. Ria reached out to steady her as she swayed.
"Kayla! What is it?"
"I don't know," Kayla muttered, shaking her head. "Those . . . it's like a hole. . . ."
Eric looked in the direction of the latest group of people being led toward the bus-being-used-as-ambulance. Most of them looked perfectly fine—if a little shocky—but in the middle of the latest group were two people wrapped in blankets being closely shepherded by paramedics.
"No," Eric said, shaking his head. "Oh, no, no, no, no. They weren't supposed to still be in the building. They were supposed to have run like hell. We did."
He moved away from the car—not quite running—toward the small group of evacuees.
"Sir? Sir?" A policewoman moved to block his way as Eric approached, her expression impersonally friendly.
"Those are my parents," Eric said flatly, silently daring the woman to try to move him. "Mom? Dad? Hey!"
The two elder Banyons were rumpled and disheveled, but their faces were serene. Far too serene, in fact. Though Fiona's makeup was mostly gone, and the remains were smeared across her eyes and cheeks in a messy blur, she looked uncannily youthful, as innocent and ageless as a nun. Beside her, her husband regarded the world with wide, all-accepting eyes.
They stopped and turned at the sound of Eric's voice, and regarded him attentively, but certainly without anything that could be considered either curiosity or emotion. After a moment, when he didn't say anything more, they turned away again and continued following the others.
Eric swallowed hard, stepping back. It wasn't hard to put together what had happened, though not all of the precise details. Somehow, after he and the others had left, Michael and Fiona Banyon had ended up in the Grey Room, and had met the fate that Prince Gabrevys had intended for him and Magnus.
"Are those your parents?" the officer asked, as if one or the other of them weren't quite sure.
"Yes," Eric said. It felt as if the words were coming from a very great distance. "Their names are Michael and Fiona Banyon. They live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Michael Banyon teaches at Harvard. My name is Eric Banyon."
The officer made a note. "You're with Ria Llewellyn, aren't you? They're being taken over to the ACMC on Pacific. Why don't you check in there as soon as you get out of here and find out when you can take them home? And . . . don't worry too much about they way they're acting. Shock can make people do a lot of funny things." The officer smiled—Eric knew she meant to be reassuring—and moved away, following the others.
Eric stood where he was, watching the evacuees loaded into the makeshift ambulance. He watched it drive off down the road, then turned and walked back to the car.
"They're being taken to the ACMC, whatever that is," he announced simply.
"The Atlantic City Medical Center," Ria said. "It's the largest hospital in the area. Everybody needing medical attention from this little party today is being seen there." She raised an eyebrow. "And if you don't start talking in full complete forthcoming sentences, I might have to do something painful to you."
"You remember I told you that Gabrevys had a bunch of Talent-eating nightmares that he was going to feed me and Magnus to?"
"I remember you promising me the full story about that at some point, yes," Ria said, with a bad imitation of patience.
Just at the moment, he didn't care if she was patient or impatient or waiting to smack him in the head with her Jimmy Choo. He felt as if he'd just been through an earthquake, as if the ground had dropped out from under him. "Well the particularly fun thing about these nightmares is that you didn't have to be a Bard or a Sidhe or a Talent for them to be able to eat you. They could eat anything similar, too. Creativity. Will. Imagination."
"Leaving behind the perfect piece of mindless cannon-fodder," Ria said, nodding. Her face lost that give me the answers NOW look, and she touched his shoulder for a moment. "And I take it that when you slipped through his fingers, Gabrevys substituted your nearest available relatives? Eric, my dear, I will not shed one tear for anything that has happened to those monsters. They brought it on themselves in the most literal way possible."
"But," Ace said softly, "nobody deserves to have something like that happen to them."
"Eric and Magnus certainly didn't," Ria agreed coolly. "But the people who tried to do it to them? Could be. Eric, unless you actually locked them up and fed them to the nasties yourself, unless you told them that room was a safe place to hide, or you somehow lured them in there, I'd have to say that this probably isn't something you can reasonably accept credit for—or blame. But that's between you and your shrink, of course."
"Sure," Eric said listlessly. He stared at the ground, but he didn't see it.
She was right. Anybody would say she was right. Oriana—his expensive and highly competent headshrinker—would say she was right.
But, dammit, in his heart he knew he'd been supposed to save them. He'd saved—or tried to save—a lot of people he didn't much like—like everybody here at this concert today, for example. It wasn't about picking and choosing who deserved saving. It was about saving everyone you could, because the bad guys didn't deserve to win.
"Eric," Magnus said, putting a hand on his arm. Magnus rarely touched anyone; Eric knew his brother was making a great effort. "You didn't do it to them. You didn't put them in there. I would have. You didn't. You rescued them. They were running the other way the last time any of us saw them. Why does it have to be your fault they're like that now and not the elf-guy's? I mean, you know. Bro. Quit making yourself out to be—thinking you've gotta be Spiderman—it's dumb. It's—"
"The concept you're groping for in vain—despite the very expensive education you're currently receiving—is 'hubris.' And for as long as I've known Eric, he's had plenty of that," Ria drawled mockingly, reaching out to ruffle Magnus's still-damp hair. "And now," she said, glancing around, "I think we can finally leave."
The evening news on every station—they watched it gathered together in Ria's apartment—was almost entirely about the cathedral and casino near-bombing. There were clips of Ace's statement—edited down to near-inscrutability—but she wasn't the lead sound-bite after all.
After they'd left the concert-site, a man named LeRoy LaPonte had climbed up onto the stage to deliver—until removed by police—a long disjointed statement about how he was the one who had set the bomb in the first place at the request of Gabriel Horn, who had intended the device to kill Billy Fairchild because Billy had sold out the glories of Christian Race Music to the evil minions of the New World Order as represented by government agent Parker Wheatley.
Gabriel Horn was still being sought for questioning.
Parker Wheatley was still in the hospital. No charges had yet been filed.
Eric Banyon would have found all this very interesting, but Eric wasn't among those watching the evening news. His news for Misthold wouldn't wait, nor did he think it was anything he could put into an email. As soon as Ria's limousine had arrived in New York—with Lady Day pacing the vehicle with gleeful ease—he'd changed to riding leathers and headed for the Everforest Gate.
It had been less than two weeks—World's Time—since the last time he'd ridden up to the gates of Elfhame Misthold. Then he'd been expected. Then, he'd been facing nothing more than an uncomplicated—if possibly dangerous—diplomatic journey to an Unseleighe Domain.
Now . . . well . . . he wasn't quite sure whether the news he was bringing Prince Arvin would change things, or not.
Though they weren't expecting him this time, they certainly knew he was on his way long before he got there. For all Eric knew, Lady Day had phoned ahead; he was never completely certain of the capabilities of the elvensteeds.
At any rate, Kory was waiting for him at the gate.
"There is bad news, Bard?" Kory asked anxiously.
"There is . . . complicated news," Eric said, dismounting. "But everybody's fine." Except, of course, for my parents. He hadn't even begun to think of what he was going to do about them. Hell. He couldn't even begin to think how he was supposed to feel about them.
"Complicated it must be," Kory agreed. "Prince Arvin's news is 'complicated' as well—I have written to you, but perhaps you have not received the letter?"
Eric groaned faintly. "I haven't been home in . . . a couple of days, I think. Except to change clothes. So if it's something you sent recently . . ."
"Very recently. But since you have come in person, Prince Arvin may tell you of this news himself."
Kory led Eric through the Misthold forest to a clearing. Chairs and tables had been set out, and Prince Arvin and the Lady Rionne were playing chess as several members of the court stood and watched.
The chess set was silver and black, and every single figure was unique. Eric didn't quite think that the whole scene had been set up for his benefit—though he wouldn't quite put that past the Sidhe—but he had to admit there was something incredibly symbolic about seeing two Sidhe, one of the Bright Court and one of the Dark, sitting in a faery glen playing chess.
Though they were probably just playing chess because they liked playing chess.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
"Sieur Eric," Arvin said, without looking up. "You were not expected, but you are always welcome, of course. . . ."
"But I come bringing trouble," Eric said in a low voice as he knelt. "Or at least, a problem."
"I shall match your problem with mine, then," Arvin said lightly, at last looking up with a smile. "And we shall see whose is more entertaining. Come, sit, and tell us what brings you to Misthold with such unseemly quickness. Two visits in a fortnight! We will become quite used to your presence once more."
A chair was brought for Eric and set beside Arvin, and he sat to watch the chess game.
"Prince Korendil told me that he'd written me about new developments here, but I haven't received the letter yet," Eric said cautiously, playing for time.
Arvin glanced toward Rionne. She sighed, shaking her head.
"You know well, Bard Eric, that by law and custom, Prince Gabrevys must be allowed visitation of his son and heir, yet it is equally so that such a visit must be arranged in advance, lest . . . misunderstandings occur. And who else may arrange such things, passing freely from Unseleighe Lands to these, save Prince Gabrevys's Bard, in whom he reposes all faith and surety?"
"Ri-i-i-ght. . . ." Eric said. Ask a Sidhe the time and learn how to build a wristwatch. But Rionne had very formal manners—or maybe that was just the way they'd done things in Bete Noir.
"Yet, Prince Gabrevys having no Bard, how can such a visit be arranged?" she finished.
It didn't seem to be a rhetorical question.
"What? Jormin's dead?" Eric looked from Prince Arvin to Lady Rionne in appalled confusion. He'd seen Wheatley shoot Jormin, but he hadn't thought the Bard was that badly hurt. . . .
And for a Sidhe to die . . .
"Now why should that venomous serpent be dead?" Rionne asked with interest.
"We have heard—and the Lady Rionne confirms—that Jormin ap Galever has sought Sanctuary at Elfhame Ombrehold," Arvin said. "Renouncing his allegiance to Elfhame Bete Noir and his former master. But it seems you know more."
"I saw him shot," Eric said, very slowly, and choosing his words with care. "With a weapon that fires darts of Cold Iron. By someone who knew him for what he was and wanted to take him prisoner. He and three of his followers managed to escape, but I didn't see where they went."
"Saw him shot?" Dharniel demanded. "In the World Above?"
No, in the back; it hurts a lot more . . .
"Yes," Eric said. "It's a long story. . . ."
Arvin raised a hand, and without haste, those watching the chess match discovered business that would take them elsewhere. Within moments, only Dharniel, Kory, and Rionne remained.
Rionne stood to go. Again Arvin raised his hand.
"Stay if you would, Lady. For it is in my mind that what touches upon Prince Gabrevys's Bard is a matter that speaks to your Task, at the end of things. And perhaps there is that which you could add to my Bard's tale, for lately you have had a privy message from Elfhame Bete Noir, have you not?"
"Privy," Eric recalled from his years on the Faire-circuit, meant "private." Apparently Lady Rionne had been conducting a clandestine correspondence with her home Domain.
Rionne smiled, and her smile was like the slash of a sword blade. "You are nearly as careful as I would be in your place, Prince Arvin. Myself, had I detected the messenger, I would have killed him rather than letting him complete his errand."
"To each his own way, Lady," Prince Arvin said easily, inclining his head. "I had hoped by such clemency to induce you to share the message's contents."
Rionne shrugged. "It is of little matter to you—or great. I cannot say. My steward wrote to tell me I am now landless. The wards and seals upon Prince Gabrevys's Domain have been loosed, and all that he has wrested from the Chaos Lands returns to it. Not at once, perhaps, but certainly at last. So he—and certainly all those of Bete Noir-that-was—will go elsewhere, if they have not already. Few of us are strong enough to hold our lands against the Chaos by will alone. Fewer still would care to."
She spoke so calmly, as if she were discussing the weather—assuming there was weather Underhill—that it took Eric a moment to make sense of her words.
Elfhame Bete Noir was dissolving back into the Chaos Lands from which it had come.
Every Domain had an anchor, something that allowed it to keep its form against the encroachments of the Chaos Lands. The Seleighe Domains drew their power from the Node Groves, but the Unseleighe Elfhames didn't have the same power to draw on. When he'd first ridden into Elfhame Bete Noir, Eric had wondered what forces gave the place its solidity and form.
He guessed now he knew what it was.
"He's . . . Prince Gabrevys is dead?" Eric asked.
"Or has decided to renounce the rulership of his Domain for some other reason," Prince Arvin said. "It is true that there are some. If he were found unfit to rule. If he were Challenged and lost. If he were maimed—for then, by the Law of Danu, he could not rule. If he lost his magick—"
"'Lost his magick'?" Eric echoed. "Wouldn't he be, uh, dead?" A creature of magick without magick was a lot worse off than a day without sunshine.
Dharniel smiled wolfishly. "One can have enough magick to live, but not enough to enforce one's will, young Banyon, and should he be in such wise, he could no longer hold the Borders of his Domain. But come! You were about to tell us all you know of Gabrevys and what he has been doing in the World Above."
Eric took a deep breath and organized his thoughts in light of this new information. Jormin fled. Gabrevys was dead—or at the very least, no longer the Prince of Elfhame Bete Noir. Elfhame Bete Noir was itself dissolving away into Chaos once more. "When I saw Prince Gabrevys last night, he was very much in health. . . ." he began.
The tale took a long time to tell, involving as it did Ria's guesses and Ace's guesses about Gabrevys's activities over the last few years. Some of the details of Gabrevys's activities for the Fairchild Ministry—as well as what he'd actually wanted with it in the first place beyond Ace's Talent—they didn't know and might never know. But on the central part of his tale Eric was quite clear: Gabrevys had done his best to find a legal (in elven terms) way to destroy Eric, and in the process had been willing to kill Magnus, Hosea, and—just incidentally—thousands of innocent people.
Dharniel sighed, shaking his head at Eric's obtuseness. "And does it come as a surprise to ye, young Banyon, that an Unseleighe Prince would bathe in mortal blood to get his own way? Be thankful that some follower of his slipped the silver dagger into his back, or that the Morrigan became displeased with his excesses, or whatever transpired to take him from the field of battle occurred before ye were called upon to face him in truth. Perhaps it was even the High King, moving in secret. Oberon's anger usually burns too hot for that—but his Queen might move him to something more discreet."
"It's sad and disturbing news, certainly," Prince Arvin said carefully, with a glance at his guest. "For the human lives destroyed, for the fact that we do not truly know what has happened to Prince Gabrevys, and for the fact that it makes Prince Jachiel's future so much more uncertain."
This time Rionne actually laughed out loud.
"Uncertain? When a Domain he never wished to rule has been put where it and its folk can trouble him no longer and Gabrevys can no longer compel him as liege as well as father? You have an odd way of seeing the world, Prince Arvin."
I suppose when you consider it that way. . . . Eric thought.
"And if Gabrevys no longer has an Elfhame at his beck, that makes everything simple, law or no law," Dharniel said, with what passed—in him—for cheer. "The next time I see him, I'll have the head from his shoulders for what he tried to do to my student. To destroy such a gift is worse than a crime—it is wicked."
"What of you, Eric?" Prince Arvin said. "If anyone has first right of satisfaction against Gabrevys, it is you."
Ria's words came back to him again. "And what is Magnus going to do if Gabriel levin-bolts you in the back?"
No.
He'd fight Gabrevys if he absolutely had to—for Magnus's life, or the lives of his friends, or to stop some greater evil. But he had dependents now, and that meant he had to choose his battles carefully.
"Let the Sidhe tend to the matters of the Sidhe. I have other things to do," Eric said simply. "And they're a lot more important than revenge."
The next day, Eric stood in a waiting room in the Atlantic City Medical Center. He'd come alone, riding Lady Day.
He'd promised Magnus that he could come next time, but there wasn't much point to his coming this time. Today Eric was just going to play out the charade of pretending he didn't know what had happened to his parents or what was wrong with them. Then, after a battery of tests that would turn up nothing, he could do what any concerned American offspring would do—sue the hell out of Fairchild Ministries, Inc., while making sure that Michael Banyon's expensive disability insurance kicked in, because he was fairly sure that his father would never be able to go back to teaching again.
In fact, he was pretty sure that neither of his parents would be able to be left unsupervised again, for the rest of their lives. He had the impression that watching cartoons was going to be the most exacting task they could manage, and even then, their attention span probably wouldn't hold past the first commercial break.
He supposed he ought to be down the hall, in his parents' room, playing the concerned son, but he couldn't quite manage that. He'd looked in, and what he'd seen had sent him down here to the waiting room.
They'd been lying on their backs in their beds, staring up at the ceiling. Eric was sure they'd continue to lie there, in exactly that position, unmoving, until somebody came and told them to do something.
If the room had been empty in truth, or if there had been two corpses lying in the two hospital beds instead of the two ravaged people, the room would have felt less empty than it did. Whatever had happened to them in the Grey Room, it looked as if it had been far more . . . thorough . . . than what had been done to Devon Mesier.
Perhaps they would recover some of their autonomy with time, but they'd certainly never be able to resume their old lives.
They were not moving in with him, though. In fact, they were not even going to be living in New York State. It had taken Anita Sheldrake about fifteen minutes to discover the perfect place—the perfect expensive place—in Massachusetts. Fall River Assisted Living Complex had everything on its grounds from a full-scale sanatorium, to condominiums, to rustic little cottages, and best of all, so Ria told him, it specialized in imaginary diseases of the rich. His parents would be very well cared for there.
He'd have to put the Cambridge house on the market, but of course neither he nor Magnus wanted it. And its sale would defer some of the immediate costs of the move.
But although Eric already knew what the future held, for today, he had to behave as if he didn't. He couldn't exactly tell the attending physician that the reason for his parents' condition was because a Sidhe Lord's personal nightmares had gotten at them and eaten up everything that made them human. . . .
"Mr. Banyon?"
Eric looked up.
A woman in hospital whites was regarding him with faint trepidation, as if he were about to do something overdramatic. "I'm Dr. Turin. I'm the attending physician on your parents' case. I know you'd like to take them home, but we'd really prefer to keep them for a few more days. Now, physically, they're in fairly good shape, considering their ordeal, but we'd just like to run a few more tests. . . ."
One week after the last time they had appeared in Judge Springsteen's courtroom, Ace and her father met there again.
This time, the circumstances were slightly different.
Sound-trucks filled the streets outside the courthouse, with all the major networks wanting an interview, a sound-bite, or even just footage of the players in the current hot story. The corridors of the courthouse were filled with reporters trying to cover what had become—despite all of Ria's attempts to prevent it—a huge media event. While criminal charges had not yet been filed against the Reverend Billy Fairchild for the events at the Pure Blood concert, it was only a matter of time, and the mysterious disappearance of both the members of Pure Blood and of Gabriel Horn did nothing to quiet things down. The few copies of the band's debut CD that had reached the market were selling and re-selling for fabulous prices, and if lawsuits had not kept their videos from being aired, the now-vanished band would have achieved all the prominence its label could have hoped for. As it was, it was fast becoming a legend.
Ace had already made a detailed statement to federal prosecutors about what she'd seen and heard that night in Billy's office. In the end, an explanation for her illicit presence in Billy's office hadn't been that hard to come up with: she'd been looking for something to make him withdraw his opposition to her Emancipated Minor petition. That was even the truth, in a way.
In exchange for her free cooperation, no charges would be filed against her, though technically of course, she hadn't been trespassing at all. She was, after all, Billy's daughter, not yet an Emancipated Minor and so a dependent member of his family still. She had every right to be there.
But despite—or perhaps because of—all the turmoil and publicity of the last several days, neither Billy Fairchild nor anyone else in his organization had quite gotten around to doing anything about the petition and countersuit that was still wending its way along in the Ocean County docket.
Judge Springsteen was a woman of discretion, and had no appreciation for having her courtroom turned into a three-ring circus. She'd managed to bar the press from the courtroom itself, though there was little she could do to keep them out of the building, and nothing she could do to keep them off the street outside.
This time Ria had accompanied Ace and Derek Tilford to the hearing. There was no longer any point to staying away, after all, not with her connection to Billy Fairchild's daughter being front-page news across the tri-state area. The three of them entered the courthouse through the back entrance, moving quickly, and were conducted by a pair of rather harassed-looking bailiffs to a secure waiting room.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Ace?" Ria asked again. "After everything that's happened, it's almost certain that the judge will rule in your favor."
"But not a hundred percent," Ace said grimly. "Even with Gabriel Horn—or whatever he called himself—gone. So . . . yes. I want to talk to them before the hearing."
"I'll go speak to opposing counsel," Derek Tilford said, going to the door.
Even now the man was playing to the gallery, Ria thought irritably. As the three of them waited in the empty courtroom—just about the only place in the building where they could be guaranteed a chance for Ace to speak to her parents without either interruption or eavesdropping—Ria could hear Billy Fairchild in the corridor outside, giving an impromptu press conference.
Her hearing was quite good. The subject was, as always, Billy himself: his unjust persecution, his many enemies, his good works, and the certainty the Lord was on his side. For a preacher, he surely spoke the word "I" a lot more than he spoke the word "He."
The Lord might be with him, but the IRS is a different matter, Ria thought with grim amusement. Without Gabriel Horn's Unseleighe glamourie to smooth the way—and his Underhill wealth to jump-start Billy's various programs—the many weak points in the Fairchild Ministries house of cards would soon be exposed. The civil suits being brought against Fairchild Ministries as a result of the Pure Blood concert were only the tip of the iceberg. Ria had friends in low places, and after she'd gotten the full story from Eric and Magnus about Christian Family Intervention and the Soul-eaters, she'd dropped a few words in the right ears. Once people started checking into the kids who'd come through that program—Devon Mesier for one—and took a really good look at them, there wasn't going to be any pit deep enough for Billy to hide in.
Then there was the question of where all that money had come from and gone to. Ria wasn't the only one to whom it had occurred that the two best places for money-laundering were a church and a casino, and here had been both, under the same roof.
And the IRS was looking into the legality of combining a church and a casino in the first place. Bingo was one thing . . .
All that, before the business of setting a bomb on his own property to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of people kicked in.
At last the doors opened, and the senior Fairchilds entered the courtroom. This time Billy Fairchild had an entire legal team with him—not that that would do him any good, Ria thought cynically.
And this time Donna Fairchild had accompanied her husband.
Billy's wife looked very much as her fans would have expected her to look, a combination of folksy and very "done." Her hairdo was elaborate, her makeup was emphatic without being vulgar, and her "ladies who lunch" suit managed to combine plaid, ruffles, and tweed and was just—barely—on the side of good taste. It was modest, though, as modest as a Mennonite, high-necked, with a skirt well below the knee. She wore low-heeled "sensible" shoes.
Ria priced the string of demure pearls around her throat at the cost of a new Mercedes.
She gazed around the courtroom, obviously looking for her daughter, and when she finally saw Ace, she looked horrified. She would have run forward then, but Billy's hand on her arm kept her beside him. In her place, like a good Christian wife.
The two of them reached the front of the courtroom.
Ace stepped forward.
"Mama. Daddy."
For once in his life, Billy Fairchild didn't try to bluster.
"I'm in a power of trouble, Heavenly Grace," he said simply.
"I know, Daddy," Ace said. "You did a lot of bad things. And there's not one thing I can do about what's going to happen now. I won't lie for you. And I'm telling you now, when that judge comes in today, you have to tell her that you're withdrawing your objection to my petition. Both of you have to tell her that."
"Honeylamb—" Donna began. Billy silenced her with a look.
"Now Heavenly Grace . . ." Billy began, and now the wheedling note was back in his voice.
"You have to do that," Ace said softly. "Or I promise you, I will be appearing on every talk show that's asked me. Every. Single. One. If it takes me every day for the next year to do it. And I will answer all their questions, and I expect the answers won't please you. I'm going back to New York with Ms. Llewellyn, and you're going not going to stop me."
"Billy," Donna said, turning to her husband as if she could no longer bear the sight of her daughter. "Don't you think . . . ? I mean, Grace can take care of herself. She's always been such a sensible girl, truly she has. And you know how those reporters twist things." She looked from Ace to Billy, obviously more distraught over making a scene than over what was actually happening. "It's only temporary," she added meaninglessly. "And maybe when that nice Mr. Horn gets back from that business trip you sent him on we can all sit down together and talk things out."
"You'd rather go off with strangers?" her Daddy asked her, as if he were hearing her for the very first time.
The question made Ace want to laugh aloud—or burst into tears—or both. It was he and Mama who were the strangers, and had been for as long as she could remember. And things wouldn't be better now that Gabriel Horn was gone—and he wasn't coming back, no matter what Daddy'd told Mama. From what Ria had pieced together, Fairchild Ministries was in a real mess right now, and things were only going to get worse. Daddy would want her to go right back to using her Gift in that ugly way he'd always made her use it, just to make him money and get him out of his trouble. No matter who it hurt.
"Yes," Ace said evenly. "I'd rather go off with strangers, than live one hour in your house. 'Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewithin.'"
Billy's face hardened—as hard as his heart had surely become. And the only reason she didn't cry right there and then was because she had cried up all her tears for him a long time ago. "Then go," Billy Fairchild harshly. "And burn in Hell with the rest of the sinners."
The actual legal proceedings were over quickly once the court convened. Billy and Donna Fairchild withdrew their opposition to the petition for the grant of Emancipated Minor status for Heavenly Grace Fairchild. Judge Andrea Springsteen granted the uncontested petition, which would become final in ninety days.
"I will make him regret that," Ria said, as they drove back toward New York. It was almost an hour later; Ria had considered it diplomatic to give the media its pound of flesh, and a carefully tailored sound-bite. It had been scripted and rehearsed in advance, of course; spontaneity was always much better when it was planned.
"Condemning me to Hell? Ria, he does that to most of America five nights a week," Ace said evenly. "Or did. I would rather be in that hell than his heaven."
"And I disapprove of that, too," Ria said, her tone lightening slightly. "But since it looks like he'll be losing his bully pulpit—along with most of his fortune—maybe I won't have to keep him on my 'To Do' list after all."
Ace licked her lips. "Don't think I'm feeling guilty," she said, finally. "'Cause I'm not. Did you ever read The Last Battle?"
Ria looked puzzled. "No. History?"
"Fantasy," Ace replied. "Or some people would call it that. It's supposed to be a kid's book. By a friend of Mr. Tolkien—C.S. Lewis. In the end of it—well, there's these folk that are the good people, with the Lion Aslan, that's supposed to be like Jesus, and there are some folk that are the bad people, with this devil-thing called Tash. Except it isn't that simple, and there are some good people who are on the side of Tash because they're ignorant, but they keep doing good, not bad. And in the end of the book, there's this little boy, with the Tash people, and he realizes that the last battle is over and he's being let into Heaven with the Aslan people. And he asks why, since he was with Tash."
She looked expectantly at Ria, who had an eyebrow raised. "So? What was he told?"
"That even if you did something in the name of Tash that was good, you were still doing it for Aslan," she replied, slowly. "And even if you did something in the name of Aslan that was evil, you were still doing it for Tash." Then she shrugged. "I think—I think I know who Daddy was really doing what he did for. Besides himself."
Ria raised an eyebrow. "Rather sophisticated for a children's book. But I would have to say that your father was definitely on the side of—Tash."
"I guess it's all sorted out then," Ace said slowly, still sounding faintly sandbagged by it all. "I got what I wanted. Eric's parents aren't going to try to take Magnus away from him any more. And Jaycie is—I guess—safe."
Ria shrugged. "As safe as things get in Underhill. And even though I doubt anyone would want to suggest such a thing to Eric, I suspect that in their current condition, his parents are happier than they've been in years. God moves in mysterious ways."
"Ria!" Ace said, sounding scandalized.
"Even the devil may quote scripture to her own purposes," Ria Llewellyn answered serenely. "And my happiness would be complete if I knew exactly what had happened to Prince Gabrevys. . . ."