At 9:30 the following morning, Ace met Derek Tilford at the red brick courthouse on Bacharach Boulevard. She'd taken a taxi there, just in case anyone might be watching—you could say a lot of things about Margot's car, but you couldn't say it was inconspicuous. Hosea said he'd be along later; even if the hearing was a closed session, a Bard had ways of being where he thought he ought to be. She hadn't been able to eat much; her stomach was too full of flutterbyes and her shoulders all in knots. Hosea had somehow managed to wolf down enough for both of them. She wondered how he could do it.
Maybe it was just that it wasn't his parents trying to put the shackles back on him.
Mr. Tilford was waiting for her on the steps of the courthouse. He smiled approvingly when he saw her, and escorted her inside to a conference room where they could go over last-minute details.
Her clothes had been carefully chosen for the occasion: a gray skirt, navy sweater with a white blouse, navy pumps. She looked old enough to vote. She certainly looked like someone who could be on her own and take care of herself responsibly.
She had documents showing she had a job, working in the internship program at LlewellCo, and if it wasn't quite true, the papers would certainly stand up to any legal scrutiny. Come to that, Ria probably had someone somewhere in the organization who would swear convincingly about all the work Ace had been doing as an intern. She was studying for her GED, and in a few more months she would have finished all her high school courses and gotten her diploma.
"Today's hearing should really be little more than a formality before the Court grants your petition," Mr. Tilford said. "Judge Springsteen has a great deal of experience in Family Court matters. I've looked over her record, and I haven't seen anything to worry me. The fact that you ran away from home counts against you, of course, but set against that is your parents' insistence on an inadequate level of home-schooling without proper State oversight, their failure to notify proper authorities when you disappeared, the fact that your father has insisted on your performing on stage from earliest childhood without any recompense to you, and the fact that he has forced you to continue to do so against your expressed desire to quit."
"It makes him sound like an awfully bad man," Ace said softly. Her stomach knotted again; she didn't want Billy to sound like he'd been abusing her! For one thing, it would make her mama very unhappy. For another, well, by Billy's lights, he hadn't been abusing her, only—
—only forcing her into a mold she didn't fit into—
—but he'd thought he was doing his best by her—
—hadn't he?
"Perhaps a bit rash," Derek Tilford suggested. "And certainly, as Ms. Llewellyn has undoubtedly informed you, you are entitled to financial recompense for your contribution to the success of Fairchild Ministries, Incorporated, over the approximately twelve-year period during which you performed as part of the, ah, Ministry."
"I don't want any of his money—I told Ria that," Ace said forcefully. "It would be like taking blood money."
"Indeed," Mr. Tilford said noncommittally. "But forgoing such a sizable and legally proper claim on the Fairchild assets, which the most conservative estimate would have to place at well over a million dollars, if not as high as five million, should present yet another inducement for the Fairchilds to withdraw any opposition they might make to your petition."
Ace blinked. She wasn't quite sure she followed what Mr. Tilford was saying, but it seemed to mean that if she promised that she didn't want to be paid for all the singing she'd done in the choir, they might be grateful enough to let her go.
One thing she was sure of: as much as Billy might say he loved her, he loved money and the limelight more.
"What if it doesn't work?" she asked.
"Then, Ms. Fairchild, we will try something else until we find something that does work. In the worst possible case, if your petition is denied and you are ordered by the Court to resume residence beneath your parents' roof, you will have at least forty-eight hours in which to comply. I have known Ria Llewellyn for many years. A great deal can happen in forty-eight hours when Ms. Llewellyn sets her mind to it."
Ace felt a sharp pang of relief. She hadn't known Ria for as long as Mr. Tilford had, but she'd certainly known her for long enough to know that he was right about that.
So even if the worst did happen, it wouldn't be quite the worst.
She'd still have time to escape . . . somewhere. And if that somewhere happened to be a place where Billy Fairchild couldn't get even if God Himself gave him a hand—which God Himself certainly would not—well, there were worse things.
Like being under Billy's thumb again. Because where Billy was, Gabriel Horn was too. And Gabriel Horn was not ever going to let her go again once he got his hands on her.
Maybe she'd even deliver her letter to Jaycie in person. She didn't know if she'd like living with a bunch of elves, much as she liked reading about them in books—Jaycie had hated his home so much he'd run away to New York and tried to kill himself rather than go back to his family, after all, and even if the letter he'd sent said he liked the new place he was living just fine, Ace wasn't quite convinced.
But anything—anything!—would be better than being where Gabriel Horn could get at her.
"Are you ready to go?" Mr. Tilford said.
Ace took a deep breath. "I'm ready," she said.
Walking into the courtroom was just like walking on stage had always been; a sudden sense that she was the center of attention. The feeling was just the same, even though she could count the number of people here on the fingers of both hands and have some left over. This wasn't like the courtrooms she'd seen on television. This place was old, smelled musty; the red carpet was worn thin where people did a lot of walking on it. The woodwork was dark, the walls a dingy cream.
Her father was sitting over at a table on the right, with a man she didn't recognize beside him. She looked for Mama and didn't see her, and felt a confused mixture of disappointment and relief, then let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding in. Gabriel Horn wasn't there.
On the right was their table. She followed Mr. Tilford up to it and sat down. It was faintly sticky, probably with layers and layers of polish that no one had bothered to remove before they added another layer.
She didn't see Hosea anywhere, but he'd warned her that she might not see him even if he was there. He'd promised her he'd come, though, and she had to believe that.
"All rise for the honorable Andrea J. Springsteen," said the bailiff.
Hosea slipped into the back of the courtroom just as everyone was rising for the entrance of the judge. Nobody noticed him, even though he was a big man and normally drew stares, one way or another, just about everywhere he went.
But one of the first bits of shine he'd ever learned—even before he'd met Eric—was the ability to make people just not pay any particular attention to him, and he'd only gotten better at it under Eric's guidance. Nobody had noticed him walk in here—even with Jeanette slung over his back—and nobody was likely to notice him sitting here in the back unless they bumped right into him.
He sat down when everyone else did, pulling the soft-sided banjo case onto his lap, and looked around. There was Ace, looking as fretful as a cat on a hotplate. And there, on the other side of the room, was her Daddy.
Only there was something not quite right about him.
Hosea had grown up believing in ghosts and spirits as naturally as New Yorkers believed in winning lottery numbers. In the mountains where he'd been born there were lonely places that were haunted by things that had once been human . . . and things that had never been human. People relied on modern medicine from the Flatlands when they could get it, but when they couldn't—or when it failed them—they turned easily back to the older ways of herbs and charms and spoken prayers. The loving grandparents who'd raised him had both had extensive experience of the outside world, yet neither had hesitated to turn to root-cunning and prayer to set things right. Hosea's grandfather had plowed and planted by the moon until the day he'd died, and the rocky little hill-farm in Morton's Fork had never failed to feed them.
So long before Hosea had met Eric, or Toni, Paul, José—and Jimmie, God rest her courageous soul—he'd known what magick was, and how it looked.
He was seeing magick now.
The Reverend was not a conjureman himself. Ace had talked about him maybe a little more than she'd realized, and Hosea had formed a good idea of the man. He might not be right with God according to Hosea's lights, but Hosea didn't think he was the sort to involve himself with hoodoo. Not knowingly.
But he reeked of it. He was carrying something that someone had given to him—or slipped into his pocket without his knowing it. Something that wasn't a kindly thing.
Hosea summoned up his mage-sight—it came a lot more easily these days—and as he did he could see a baleful red glow shining right through Billy Fairchild's jacket pocket. Worse, long tendrils, drifting as slowly as smoke, were moving inexorably toward the judge's bench.
It didn't take Bardcraft to know that if those tendrils touched the judge, she was going to see everything Billy's way.
Hosea unzipped Jeanette's carrying case and laid his hand across the silver strings of the banjo. He couldn't play it in here—not and stay unnoticed—but he needed to keep the magick in whatever fetch-bag Billy Fairchild was carrying from doing its work.
What had Eric told him once? "It's not the music, really, Hosea. The power's inside of us. The music's just the way we express it. With a little practice—well, a lot of practice—you'll be able to do what you do without the music. You can BE the music."
He guessed he was going to have to skip the practice and get straight to being the music. Right now.
He pressed his fingers hard against the strings, feeling the silver press into his calluses. There was a faint silvery shiver from the banjo, as if Jeanette were trying to waken into life. He let his mind fill with the music he knew so well: "Callie's Reel," and "Sally Goodin," and the far-too-appropriate "Devil Went Down to Georgia": rollicking tunes, filled with life and power and force. And with them he called up a mighty wind, a wind that existed only in the same place that the red tendrils existed, blowing them back toward Billy Fairchild, away from Judge Springsteen.
With his mage-sight, he saw the ghost-tendrils bending backward, like the streamers of smoke they so resembled, blow away and dissolve. But as soon as he stopped willing the power, they reformed, stronger than before, and he had to begin again. Only now it was a little harder to think of the tunes, to hold them in his mind, and a little harder to call up that ghostly wind. The baleful power wasn't weaker, though. If anything, it was pushing harder, as if his opposition had made it stronger.
Hosea felt a twinge of alarm.
If Eric were here, he could have destroyed the fetch-bag, or put a shield around the judge that the smoke-things couldn't get through, or done a dozen other things, but Eric had years of training. All Hosea could do was keep sweeping the baleful power back, knowing that his ability to do even that was growing steadily weaker.
The hearing went on for a very long time. She'd thought it would be quick, with the judge just looking at her papers and making up her mind, and that only the lawyers would have to talk. But she read everything over carefully, listened to both the lawyers say why her petition should—and shouldn't—be granted, and then she wanted to ask Ace and her father both a lot of questions.
They both had to come up in front of the judge by themselves, and it took all Ace's will to walk those few short steps to stand beside her father. Daddy was just as mad at her as she'd ever seen him. He didn't like that she'd cut her hair, he didn't like that she was wearing makeup—although she'd had to wear makeup for the broadcasts, he and Mama had never let her wear any out on the street—he didn't like her clothes. The clothes Mama had bought for her had always been lacy and frilly—"real pretty dresses," Mama had always said, to make her look like Daddy's little angel. She'd never worn a pair of jeans in her life until she'd run away. Now she looked—well, she looked like a girl fixing to be a professional woman, an independent woman, a girl who wasn't reckoning herself to be a girl anymore. Daddy didn't like that, not one bit. He wanted her to still be "Little Grace" who always did what she was told and never questioned anything.
But he was smart enough not to go on at her with the judge watching. All he said was, "Your mama misses you, Heavenly Grace," in that sorrowful way of his, when they were both standing before the judge.
Ace knew better than to answer back. She clamped her mouth shut—hard—on all the things she longed to say. Misses me so much she never wrote me, or called me—and neither did you. I wonder why that was? She looked up at the judge, trying to make her face say nothing at all.
"Reverend Fairchild, I've heard what your lawyer has to say, and I've heard what your daughter's lawyer has to say. Now I'd like to hear what you have to say."
"I'm a man of God, your Honor," Billy said solemnly. "I have nothing to hide."
Judge Springsteen raised an eyebrow. "Let's start with the claim that your daughter was forced to participate in your . . . evangelical activities against her inclinations. What do you have to say to that?"
Billy's face was a study in honest amazement, and Ace gritted her teeth. "Your Honor, my daughter always loved to sing! Her voice was a gift from the Lord Jesus! Ever since she could walk, she'd climb up on stage and sing right along with the choir. I never thought for a single minute . . . but if she don't want to do that any more, I won't ask her to. Just so she comes home where she belongs."
"And the matter of her schooling?" the judge asked, shuffling through the papers.
"Honey, you know your mama and I just want what's best for you," Billy said, speaking directly to Ace now. "You come home and we'll talk about it. If you're really set on going away somewhere to college, I guess we've raised you so you can tell right from wrong."
The judge turned her attention to Ace. "You've heard what Mr. Fairchild has had to say. Are you willing to withdraw your petition, Ms. Fairchild?"
He sounded so reasonable—so reasonable—and how could the judge know that the second he got her back in his hands he'd go back on every promise he made, every pledge, that even if the judge made him swear on a mountain of Bibles he'd hold that no promise made to the "ungodly" was anything but a pledge made to be broken?
"I'm sorry," Ace said, looking down and shaking her head. "I can't do that."
"Now you listen to me, Heavenly Grace—" Billy began, the heat coming into his voice, and that hard tone she remembered only too well.
"Please remember where you are, Mr. Fairchild," Judge Springsteen said, rapping her gavel once. After a moment, she continued. "Emancipated minor status is a major step, not to be undertaken lightly. Your parents would like to try again to become a family with you. I can appoint a social worker to make regular visitations to your home to make sure your legal rights are respected. I can also order the three of you to attend family counseling sessions with a counselor of my choice in order to ease the transition, if you agree to return home."
Yes, and how long before the counselor is bought off with Daddy's money or Daddy's charm? How long before the social worker gets tired of making visits? Ace knew, from the talk she heard over at Guardian House, just how strapped all the Social Services were for money to pay for personnel. Seemed like the politicians in charge liked the way that people like Daddy handled their family affairs, and aimed to see there weren't many resources to interfere with suchlike. The judge could order all she liked, but Ace wasn't being beaten—not physically, anyway—nor sexually abused, and she'd be pretty low on any social worker's already too-crowded checklist. Ace could imagine all too well what would happen. Two, three weeks at the most, and the visits would become phone calls, and quick ones at that, and the counselor would write The End to the counseling sessions in order to tend to somebody who had a habit of whipping his kids with an electric cord.
"Well, now, Heavenly Grace, that sounds like the best—" Billy began.
"No." Her voice was barely a whisper. "No," she said again, more loudly. "I don't want to go back. I don't want to live with them. They won't change, because they don't see any reason to change, no matter what. They think they know best, and that won't change either. You don't know him, Judge Springsteen. I do. I know what he'll do. No."
But there wasn't any anger in her words, only a kind of mournfulness. She hadn't thought saying that would make her feel so sad. It wasn't as if she thought she could go back and live like a family, even if Gabriel Horn weren't there to turn her life into a nightmare. There was no way Judge Springsteen or anyone else could remake Billy Fairchild's character; make him anything other than the charming, selfish, manipulative, driven man Ace had grown up with. Oh, he was all fine words and promises now, but if she could go back, if she did go back, Ace knew just what would happen. The judge could appoint as many social workers as she liked, order as much counseling as she liked, and Daddy would find some way to sweet-talk his way around all of it, just the way he'd always sweet-talked his way around anything that didn't suit him. Or, now he had money, real money, change-the-world money, he'd buy his way out of what he didn't want to do.
The judge looked disappointed. "You may return to your seats," she said.
Hosea could hear the words being spoken in the courtroom, but they came to him only faintly and almost without meaning. Sweat ran down his brow with the effort he was making; his shirt was soaked with it.
If he failed, Ace would lose her case. Each time Hosea had swept the red tendrils back, a little more understanding of their purpose had seeped into him. The charm Billy Fairchild carried was meant to bend the judge's will to his, and Billy wanted his daughter back beneath his roof.
If Ace was told to go back to her parents, she'd run away again, and one of the few places left for her to run was Underhill. No one wanted that.
And then Billy and Ace got up from their seats and stepped toward the bench. Hosea saw the red tendrils rise up—almost triumphantly—and reach toward Judge Springsteen. Now they didn't have as far to go to get to her.
He could not let them touch her.
He gathered up the last of his strength, and knew it would not be enough.
He thought about all that Paul and the others had told him about the Guardian's gifts—little enough, save that it was unlike the power of a Bard in every way. Not something you were born with and practiced at—something you were lent by a greater Power; a gift that worked through you for reasons of its own. Something that came and went at its own will; called into the world by need, and vanishing as soon as the need had gone.
There was need. And Ace had asked for his help.
Hosea swept his hand across the banjo's strings, making them ring softly.
If yore going to come, come now.
The judge stared at them all for a long moment before she finally spoke.
"I'm not going to rule on this today," she finally said. "There are a number of points that complicate this petition, including the fact that the petitioner is only eleven months away from her majority. It's possible that there's a third solution that would best serve the interests of both parties. I'd very much like to see either the petition or the opposition to it withdrawn. You can expect my final ruling on this case a week from today."
She raised her gavel to bring it down, and then her gaze lengthened, focusing on something behind the litigants.
"Young man," she said sharply. "What are you doing in my courtroom?"
She'd seen him. His charm to stay invisible had broke wide open, and she'd seen him. "Ah'm sorry, ma'am," Hosea Songmaker said meekly, getting to his feet. "Ah 'spekt Ah got lost."
Before she could question him further—or order her bailiffs to throw him out—he ducked out the doors at the back of the courtroom. As the doors closed behind him, he heard the rap of her gavel.
He'd barely managed to keep the hoodoo away from the judge—and he wasn't quite sure he'd managed it completely, or whether the Guardian gifts had come, there at the end, because she hadn't ruled one way or t'other, now, had she? Maybe it had only been his Bard's shine, because he'd brought in real music, instead of just the music in his head. At the end, he'd had to risk playing a few notes on Jeanette, and that was why she'd seen him.
But if Ace hadn't gotten the ruling she'd wanted, then neither had Billy Fairchild. And a lot could happen in a week.
He stood on the court steps, breathing deeply. The cold air felt good in his lungs—the calendar said it was spring, or close enough, but March in the Mid Atlantic States was nothing like the March weather where he'd grown up, and Hosea missed the mountains. Still, just now, he could do with the chill; he was sweating like he'd chopped a whole month's worth of firewood, and he was just about that tired, too. He shrugged the strap of the banjo case higher onto his shoulder. He wanted to have a good long chat with Jeanette as soon as possible, and get her thoughts on what had happened in that courtroom today.
He hadn't recognized the style of magick that had been on the Reverend, and that troubled him. In his time with the Guardians, he'd thought he'd seen just about every kind of magick there was to see—black, white, and plaid. He knew he'd recognize the kind he'd seen today again if he saw it—all forms of magick had a distinct signature—but as it was, he knew he couldn't even describe it well enough for Paul to begin to make an educated guess as to who—or what—might have whipped up the original charm. He hadn't seen the thing itself, after all: only its effects.
And that wasn't even the most urgent question that needed answering. The important question—and one somebody had better get an answer to right away—was who close to the Reverend Billy Fairchild had the power and the skill to make something like that, and what else were they doing?
Was it a Guardian problem or a Bard problem? This was the dilemma that Hosea always faced at times like these. He'd managed to knock the hoodoo back on its heels with his Bardcraft, but if the Reverend's fetch-bag had been created by a black magician, he was pretty sure that made this a Guardian problem.
He sighed. Best to take himself out of sight now. Since he was one hundred percent sure he'd be calling on Reverend Fairchild later, he decided he didn't want to be caught loitering here.
Just in case that influence charm wasn't the only charm in the Reverend's pocket.
Ace glanced back just in time to see Hosea leave the courtroom. Billy didn't care; all his attention was elsewhere, and he was too full of anger to pay any attention to something as trivial as who'd snuck into the courtroom. The judge's gavel came down, and then the bailiff was commanding them to "all rise" again. They stood while the judge left the courtroom.
She kept her eyes straight ahead, but at the edge of her vision she could see Daddy arguing with his lawyer in furious whispers. Before he could come over to their table, Mr. Tilford was on his feet and had the two of them out and into the corridor. He walked quickly, so that Ace had to hurry to keep up, and within minutes they were seated in his car in the parking lot across the street.
"You did very well in there today. Now we have a week to encourage your parents to withdraw their opposition to your petition," Mr. Tilford said, starting the car. "I'm afraid you'll have to return for the final ruling, though. Fortunately, the judge didn't make any restrictions regarding your place of residence in the interim. I can give you a ride back to the city now, if you'd like."
It was tempting—she felt safe in New York, even if that safety was an illusion. Hosea could bring back her things.
But then she realized that she didn't want to leave just yet. She wanted to talk to Hosea.
She had a suspicion—something not even really strong enough to call a hunch—that something that had been supposed to happen in that courtroom today hadn't happened.
Something bad.
Gabriel was in Toirealach's office when Billy found him. He'd been making last minute arrangements to welcome the Bard and his young brother—everyone was so distracted by their preparations for Friday's concert and the expected crowds that they would hardly notice any of the small plans that Gabriel footed on his own, and Christian Family Intervention operated almost as an independent fief beneath the larger umbrella of the Fairchild Ministries anyway.
Many months ago, Gabriel had taken a minor department of Billy's organization—mostly concerned with publishing dreary pamphlets on the Christian Family and funneling money into suitable outreach programs—and remade it in his own chosen image, filling it with a hand-picked staff. Some of them were human—for those cases where all that was needed was a kidnapping and a good scare, followed by a little talk, to make the children of his clients see reason. But the rebellious children of the sort of folk who would come to a place like Christian Family Intervention were generally not so amenable to simple manipulation—nor was Gabriel inclined to waste such tender, tasty morsels. So the larger part of the staff was not recruited from the ranks of humans. Most of them were Sidhe—simple spells could do what all the rehabilitation programs in the mortal world could not.
And a great many of the children who were brought into CFI were sent to the grey room to meet the Soul-eaters, and none of their parents had ever complained afterward about the spineless puppets they'd gotten back. Well, most of those parents wanted spineless puppets, if it came down to that. So long as the child could parrot whatever his parents said, stayed close to home, and never, ever spoke a rebellious word again, they were happy. And if the bright, gifted creature that they had once called "son" or "daughter" was replaced by something that would probably grow up to an adulthood that featured being fitted with a paper hat, a uniform in primary colors, and a nametag and a preoccupation with French fries, well—too bad.
Gabriel was certain Michael and Fiona Banyon would not complain either. Or at least, not immediately. And his revenge upon the Bright Bard who had stolen his Jachiel from him would be complete, for when Bard Eric left the Chamber of Silences, his Gift would be gone, along with his will.
"We have the name and location of the boy Magnus's school," Toirealach said. "We'll take him there, and use him for a dagger at the Bard's throat. The mortal Bard will not know who has him until the silver fetters are on his wrists—and then it will be far too late."
"Very good," Gabriel purred gloatingly. "And then—"
The doorknob rattled. The door was locked, of course. A furious pounding immediately followed.
"Gabriel!" Billy Fairchild could thunder like a righteous summons to God's judgment onstage, but just now, there was a whining undertone to his bellowing that set Gabriel's teeth on edge. "Open this door! Open this door right now! How dare you lock any door against me!"
I will not have to listen to that much longer, he promised himself. He swept his mortal glamourie back around himself—noting as he did that Toirealach O'Caomhain had done the same—and went to open the door.
Billy was standing on the threshold, his face scarlet with anger. What immediately drew Gabriel's attention, however, was the state of the talisman he had slipped into Billy's pocket before he'd sent him off to the courthouse this morning.
The Sidhe could create enchanted objects—a cloak, a cup, a sword, boots filled with magic—that would render their wearer invisible, nourish (or poison) him in ways mortal food could not, slay a dozen enemies at a blow (and cause wounds that would not heal), allow their wearer to run faster than the fastest horse. But it had been centuries since such things had been done as a matter of course. Such toys were only of use to mortals, after all—the Sidhe could do all these things and more by drawing directly upon the power that infused the very air of Underhill, and was available, albeit in a weaker form, here in the World Above. Since the Great Withdrawal, most of the Sidhe had been far less inclined to put objects of magickal power into the hands of mortals, lest they find them turned against their own kind.
But what Gabriel had slipped into Billy's pocket was not something as simple and straightforward as an enchanted object. What he had given him was no less than Magic Itself.
The Sidhe cast spells as naturally as they breathed, but few of them could have done what Gabriel had, for the art was nearly lost. Take a spell, give its components solid form, turn it into an amulet or a talisman that anyone, mortal or Sidhe, might carry and wield.
Of course, such devices lacked the power of a spell freshly cast, one with the caster's own will directly behind it. And that had been just as well in the case of the Talisman of Compulsion Gabriel had given Billy Fairchild, for had the empty-headed fool been exposed to one-tenth of Gabriel's natural power, he would have been burned to ash.
But the talisman should have ensured Billy's victory in the courtroom today, and Gabriel could see from Billy's thoughts that it had not. Worse, its power had been thoroughly drained, and Billy himself reeked of Bardic magic.
"Is something wrong?" Gabriel asked, as if he didn't already know. "The hearing—"
"Come on up to my office," Billy said, glancing meaningfully at Toirealach.
Once the door to Billy's private office had closed behind them, Billy went over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a stiff drink. His hands still shook with barely suppressed anger.
"That heathen bitch said she couldn't make up her mind!" he snarled, gulping down the whiskey as if it were ice water. "She looked right at my little Heavenly Grace—oh, Gabriel, it would have broken your heart; she stood right there dressed like a man-woman and painted up like a harlot—and said she couldn't make up her mind it was God's will that a daughter belonged with her parents!"
"But she hasn't ruled against you?" Gabriel asked, wanting to make sure the matter was clear, at least in Billy's mind.
"Said she'd give her answer in a week." Billy slammed his empty glass down on the top of the credenza. "Said she'd like it best if one of us gave in before then—what good's that fancy lawyer I hired if he can't win a simple case like this?"
"You haven't lost yet," Gabriel said soothingly. "I suppose the judge wanted to avoid too much adverse publicity."
"Publicity?" Billy yelped. "There wasn't anybody in that courtroom but me and her and that high-toned New York lawyer bought and paid for by that Ria Llewellyn that's trying to steal my child!"
So whatever Bard had spoiled his plans—and Gabriel was fairly sure it wasn't Eric Banyon; he knew where Bard Banyon was—Billy hadn't seen them. Which meant the Bard must be a powerful Bard indeed, to conceal him or herself and still cast the spells that had foiled Gabriel's.
After all the work he'd gone to—putting pressure on judges, distracting and misleading Ria Llewellyn, expending all his most subtle glamouries to get the case heard in New Jersey instead of New York—that there should still be a Bard arriving to foil his plans at the final hour nearly maddened Gabriel.
And even if he personally cast a glamourie on the judge, making sure she would rule the way he chose next week, there was no guarantee that the Bard would not be there again, and break it.
No. The judge must rule the way Gabriel wished of her own free will. And that meant something important must change in Heavenly Grace's family in the next seven days.
But first, he had to soothe this fool. Otherwise Billy would rampage around like a maddened bull, wrecking everything in his path. There were too many important things going on this week, too many delicate situations Billy's rantings could overturn. So much as it made Gabriel's back teeth ache with clenching, Billy would have to be appeased and patted. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, Billy. I'm sure she's taking her time simply because she knows you're such an important man. Unfortunately, Ria Llewellyn is also an important woman. Before the judge rules in your favor, she needs to give every indication of fairness and impartiality." With the words, Gabriel put forth the force of his will, to smooth the ruffled feathers and ease the anger.
As usual, Billy answered to the pull on the reins as he'd been conditioned. The anger oozed out of him.
"So you think next week my little angel will come home?" Billy asked hopefully.
"I am confident that next week the judge will find a compelling reason to deny Heavenly Grace's petition," Gabriel said smoothly. "If she hasn't already withdrawn it herself."
Derek Tilford brought Ace back to the hotel, and parked in front of the entrance.
"Are you quite sure you'll be all right here?" he asked.
"I'll be fine," she said, though she wasn't really convinced of it at all and was trying hard not to panic. She looked around the parking lot, and didn't see the pink Cadillac anywhere.
Maybe Hosea was taking the long way back. As soon as she got inside, she'd call his cellphone and find out where he was. Then she'd call Ria.
"You're sure?" Mr. Tilford said again. He sounded doubtful.
"Right as rain," Ace said, summoning up her sunniest smile. She popped out of the Mercedes before Mr. Tilford could think of a good reason to keep her, and hurried off across the parking lot toward her room.
Neither she nor Derek Tilford noticed the nondescript man in the nondescript car that had followed them from the courthouse and waited until the Mercedes left before driving away.
Hosea drove only a few blocks—enough to take him well away from both the hotel and the courthouse—before parking again, sliding over to the passenger side of the front seat, and taking Jeanette from the case and slipping a set of silver picks over his fingers. He had questions that wouldn't wait, and right now, there was only one person who might be able to give him some answers. Thank Heaven the Caddy's heater was efficient; there was nothing worse than a cold banjo for being out-of-tune.
"Hello, Sweetheart," he said softly, as he began to play.
He felt Jeanette's flash of annoyance—she hated pet names nearly as much as he liked to tease her—but she quickly grew serious.
:You stink of Sidhe magick,: Jeanette's ghost said succinctly. :Unseleighe magick. What the hell have you been up to, Hosea? If you get us both killed, I'll—I'll find some way to haunt you personally, I swear it—:
"Killed" in Jeanette's case was a relative term, but if the banjo that she haunted were destroyed, she'd have no chance to finish her redemption and pass on. She'd simply cease to exist with grim finality.
But all that was far from Hosea's mind at the moment. Not when she had just given him the key to what was puzzling him, and it was a key he had in no way anticipated.
"Unseleighe magick?" Hosea said, so startled he stopped playing.
That made no sense. He'd faced Aerune mac Audelaine in battle. He should recognize an Unseleighe spell.
And more to the point, what was Parker Wheatley doing launching his crusade from Billy Fairchild's pulpit, if Billy had an Unseleighe Magus casting spells for him—or on him?
With an effort, he resumed playing—a version of "Danny Deever" he'd written himself. Nearly all of Kipling's poetry did well set to music. "'What are the bugles blowin' for?' said Files-on-Parade . . ."
"Jeanette, are you sure?"
:Oh, no, I'm just talking to amuse myself,: the ghost snapped irritably.
Hosea grinned, despite his worry. Jeanette hadn't been much of a "people person" in life, and death and an afterlife hadn't done a lot to sweeten her temper. But irritable or not, she was a good friend and ally when it counted, and had proved herself again and again.
"How much of what went on in the courtroom did you see?" Hosea asked.
He felt rather than heard her wordless snarl of exasperation. :WHAT courtroom, you gormless farmboy? I see what you see, I hear what you hear—when you're playing this damned yammerstick. The last thing I saw was your hotel room last night. Did we win, by the way?:
"Yes and no." As the bright rills of music ebbed and flowed through the car, Hosea filled Jeanette in on what had happened at the hearing, seen and unseen.
:You're in trouble,: she said succinctly, when he'd finished. :If you want my guess, this Sidhe you're hunting isn't working with Billy. He's working with Wheatley. Wheatley and Aerune had a partnership. Aerune's gone. So Wheatley needs another partner; working with an Unseleighe Sidhe worked once, so Wheatley's gone back to the same well.:
"And Billy's fetch-bag?" Hosea asked.
:Wheatley needs Billy's organization since he doesn't have government funding any more. What better way to ensure it than to be able to do Billy-boy a few favors? If I were him, and I wanted to persuade him I'd helped him out, I'd say I'd blackmailed the judge, though, not that I'd slipped him a magick spell,: Jeanette said judiciously.
All that made perfect sense; all the dominos were lining up. "Ayah. That's be the way to play it, I reckon." Hosea chewed on his lower lip for a moment, thinking on it.
Just then his cellphone rang. He set the banjo aside and rummaged in the pocket of his jacket until he pulled it out.
"Hosea Songmaker."
"Hosea, where are you?" Ace's voice was skittery with worry, just on the right side of panic. He felt guilt; she was the one who'd been up there in the cross hairs, and she had to have felt it, felt like she was all alone. She'd had to stand by the side of Billy Fairchild and stick up for herself, and then get told she was going to have to wait to hear what was going to happen. And here he was, gallivanting around, without telling her.
"Just sittin' on a side-street, havin' a little chat with Jeanette," Hosea said. "Didn't mean to worry you none."
He heard Ace let out a long breath. "Are you coming back soon?" she asked plaintively. "I want to talk to you."
"Ah guess Ah'm about done here," he said. "Ah'll be along."
He picked up the banjo again just long enough to tell Jeanette he was going back to the hotel, then put the instrument back in its case. He checked his watch. He'd have just about enough time to shower and change and make a phone call or two before driving out to keep his appointment with the Reverend Billy Fairchild.
And any members of the Unseleighe Court he might have watching over him.
Magnus squirmed in his seat, while trying not to catch the teacher's eye. It was hard to keep his mind on his schoolwork today—or even to look like he was. Not that History was his favorite subject. Who cared about the Treaty of Ghent? He bet whatever country it had been signed in wasn't even there anymore anyway.
History was the last class of the morning; Magnus made a desperate effort to keep from yawning, his mind wandering, as Mr. Goulburn continued to lecture. If The Ghoul wasn't the most boring speaker in the entire history of the universe, he was definitely in the top ten.
Magnus knew he ought to pay more attention to the lectures, but deep in his heart he knew he really only had to show up in class, do the reading, and somehow manage to pass the tests, and he didn't need the lectures for that. His math and science grades were high enough to pull his average up to respectable levels—his English grades were fair—but he truly hated history.
Today more than usual.
The tasteful, expensive, and oh-so-classic dark wooden student-desk (dark wood didn't show ink) felt like a set of Colonial stocks.
Eric had promised he'd call the moment he heard anything about how Ace's hearing had gone. The school insisted that students turn their cellphones off during class hours—and confiscated any that weren't—but his multifunction watch was set on "stun," and even his techno-Luddite brother Eric could handle text messaging. He'd get the news as soon as there was any.
Magnus wished he'd gone to the hearing. It wasn't like the world was going to come to an end if he missed a day or two of school. And it couldn't really make that much of a difference to whether the State of New York decided to roll over and play nice, he told himself. Sooner or later Eric was going to be declared his legal guardian . . . and if he wasn't, well, now that Magnus had gotten a taste of freedom, he bet that within six months he could have his parents begging Eric to take him off their hands.
Just then there was the faint hiss that indicated the classroom intercom had come on. It was funny: there were cellphones and computers everywhere, and practically every student at least had a pager, but the Administration still relied on the hot new technology of half a century ago when it wanted to tell them something. Goulburn broke off in the middle of a description of the Battle of New Orleans—which was actually starting to get Magnus's attention—and waited to see what would happen.
"Magnus Banyon, please report to the principal's office at once. That is all."
Magnus sat bolt upright as every eye in the class was riveted on him. What the hell?
He knew he wasn't being called out of class because he'd done something violating the many rules in the Cooties & Runt Code of Conduct. Other than his neckties—and the rules only specified that the students must wear ties, not what kind of ties—his conscience was entirely clear. If there was one thing Magnus knew well, it was how to skate close to the edge of a set of rules without falling off. Magnus looked down at his wrist, but there were no messages there. He glanced at the time. Eleven-thirty; Ace would probably be out of court by now, but she might not have had time to call yet. But maybe Eric was here to take him out of school for something else.
He got to his feet amid restless stirrings and stifled snickers from his classmates. Goulburn cleared his throat sharply for attention, and the noise subsided.
Magnus stuffed his history books back into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then walked out the door.
Even in the hallowed halls of the Coenties & Arundel Private Academy for Boys, discipline reigned supreme. The paneled oak halls were silent. The stained glass windows glowed serenely. The scent of lemon-wax permeated the atmosphere. Only the faintest hum of higher learning emanated from the classrooms Magnus passed on his way to the staircase.
Jerks, he thought succinctly.
He'd been here long enough to know what most of his classmates intended to do with their lives, and there wasn't an ounce of fun in any of it. Even though they were all within a few years of his age, they already had their futures all planned out: law, medicine, politics . . . a few wild and crazy souls were going to become architects or bankers. The right Ivy League university, the right contacts, making the right friends, and then a serene slide into the Old Family Firm or something like it. One or two were going to teach—at the university level, of course. Nothing so plebian as public high-school or elementary-school teaching for them.
The thought of having his life planned out that far in advance—and such a boring life, too!—made Magnus's blood run cold. Was there such a thing as a Stepford Teenager? If they wanted a life without challenges, without surprises, without fun—why not just buy a pine box now and lie down in it? Because Life was supposed to be unexpected.
He walked sedately down two flights of stairs—the wide oak banisters were made for sliding, and the stairs just begged to be taken three at a time, but both actions earned major demerits, and there were always hall proctors around even when you couldn't see them—to the first floor, and turned down the hall that led to the principal's office.
And slowed.
And stopped.
Because it had suddenly occurred to him that there was something very, very wrong with the scenario he was walking into.
The principal wasn't calling him to the office for some disciplinary action. That meant someone had shown up asking for him. He'd immediately assumed it was Eric, but he'd just realized that was impossible. Or pretty unlikely at the very least.
Eric wasn't the brightest crayon in the box by any means, much as Magnus loved his brother, but even he should have thought to message ahead to tell Magnus he was here.
So whoever had called Magnus down to the principal's office wasn't Eric.
There was a really short list of people who weren't Eric that Magnus was willing to go anywhere with. Ria. Hosea. One or two of Eric's other friends from Guardian House. And every single one of them would have messaged ahead.
It would be just like his parents to try something at his school.
He stepped quietly out of the middle of the hall and moved slowly along it. The principal's office was around the corner, but the door into the outer office had a glass pane in the top half, and directly at the end of this hallway was a marble-topped table with an antique gilt-framed mirror hung over it. The mirror was large, and heavy, and angled slightly out from the wall. If you stood in just the right place, you could see the office door reflected in it.
He didn't like what he saw.
There were two men in black suits standing at Ms. Castillo's desk. They were as tall and as wide as professional wrestlers, and as alike as two clones. Ms. Castillo was sitting at her desk, but she was doing absolutely nothing, simply staring straight ahead, eyes wide open, as if she were asleep sitting up.
He couldn't exactly see Principal Kinross, but he could see part of a grey business suit standing at the edge of Castillo's desk. It wasn't moving either.
Weirdness. Very bad weirdness. And actually, Magnus didn't care for weirdness even when it was good. He backed away quickly the way he'd come, and when he could no longer see the doorway in the mirror, he turned and ran.
He didn't really have a plan—all he intended to do was run until he'd opened up enough distance to feel safe enough to stop and call Eric—but he didn't get that chance.
By the time he reached the street he knew his grace period had run out—they were after him now in earnest, and he knew that whoever they were, he had no intention of letting them catch him. He felt it in his gut, in the back of his neck; he didn't have to look back. There was a Presence back there, and he fled from it like a homeboy from a SWAT team.
Midday, midweek, midtown; the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. Magnus shoved through them recklessly, hoping they'd slow down his pursuers as much as they slowed him. He felt his backpack fall and didn't stop to retrieve it.
He got to the corner and plunged into the street, crossing with the light but running dangerously close to the edge of the moving cars, where the human traffic was thinnest. He gained the sidewalk again, and as he did, he heard screaming behind him, mixed with the screech of brakes and the blare of horns.
That was enough to make him look back; there were few things that could make a New Yorker stop and take notice.
Two black wolves the size of ponies were loping along the sidewalk on the other side of the intersection. People were running out into traffic to get away from them.
His nerves screaming with atavistic fear, Magnus turned and ran again. At least the fear was giving him an energy and a speed and strength he hadn't known was in him.
Now he wasn't being even marginally polite about the people he shoved out of his way: when you had monsters chasing you, all the rules changed. He scrabbled in his pocket for his cellphone, not taking his eyes from the sidewalk ahead of him; both Eric and Ria were on his speed-dial, and right now, he didn't care which number he hit.
Just as his fingers closed over it, another giant wolf bounded out in front of him. He didn't see where it had come from—it was just there.
It jumped at him. The people around him shouted and ran. Magnus hit the sidewalk with bruising force, staring up into the impossible red eyes of the wolf, and felt as if his heart was going to explode with terror.
The red eyes seemed to grow larger. . . .
The sun shone into Eric's bedroom, illuminating the desk in the corner. Music paper was spread out across it, several bars of an unfinished composition jotted down with a music pen.
Although a Bard improvised music as easily as he breathed, and improvisation had always come easily to Eric, at Juilliard he'd also learned the more rigorous discipline of traditional classical composition. There was a certain appeal to writing down a piece of music that would be played the same way—more or less—every time, a piece of music that could be handed on to someone else, and even though it was no longer something he was required to do, Eric liked to keep those skills in practice. Besides, there were very few things he could give his Sidhe friends as presents, but a piece of original music was something a wealthy, nigh-immortal elf couldn't make—or buy—for himself.
He set his pen down for a moment and glanced at the clock. Still too early for any news.
Maybe this weekend they'd all do something—Eric grinned at the unfamiliar concept—fun. Maybe they could go down to Six Flags, or something. Magnus would pretend to hate it, but Eric bet he'd jump at the chance to stuff himself with junk food and ride things guaranteed to subject the human body to more G-force than the average astronaut. And Ace could use a major chance to blow off steam—that kid was wrapped way too tight. Maybe he could even talk Ria into coming along. Provided he could come up with a suitable form of bribery. Although it might take blackmail to get Ria onto the Nitro Mega Coaster. . . .
Just as he was about to pick up his pen again, a sense of unfolding disaster struck him with the force of a physical blow.
Everything had been fine a moment before, but suddenly the room seemed dark and cold, even though nothing had changed. He felt as if a shadow had come into the room and whispered horrors in his ear, and he didn't know what, or why.
All he knew was that there was some warning of danger that had slipped through the wards of Guardian House as if they weren't even there.
"Greystone?" he said aloud. "I got a red alert! What's happening?"
Nothing, the gargoyle's mental voice answered promptly within his mind. If it's a warning, it's one that only you can hear. Be careful, laddybuck.
Fear was a powerful motivator. Five minutes ago, Eric wouldn't have thought he had the energy to run down the stairs rather than wait for the elevator.
If he was the only one who could hear the warning, if it was something that could pass through the formidable shields that protected Guardian House from harm, then the warning had to be about someone closely connected to him.
And that was a short list, Eric decided, as he ran toward the parking lot to pick up Lady Day.
Greystone had already alerted Toni Hernandez, and there were few things a Guardian couldn't take in stride. Eric didn't know where Kayla was right now—he was pretty sure Columbia was on break—but Toni would track her down and check in with her, just to make sure she was all right. Since Kayla had moved into Guardian House, she'd become something of an unofficial mascot to the Guardians, and they'd keep her from coming to harm.
Ria . . . well, he pitied the trouble that tried to take Ria on, actually.
That left Magnus. Magnus, who was no kind of Mage, and all alone, at school.
Vulnerable.
He flung his leg over Lady Day's saddle. She'd caught his emotional turmoil from several flights away; almost before he'd settled his weight in the bike's saddle, the elvensteed had backed out of her parking spot and was flying down the street toward Magnus's school.
His stomach was a cold knot of dread, as he bent his head against the wind of Lady Day's passing. He'd been worrying about Magnus from the moment he'd known there was a reason to worry. Magnus was a good kid—no, a great kid—but his stubborn insistence on shutting out the uncanny aspects of the world (hard to do, living in Guardian House with a talking gargoyle for a friend, but Magnus managed) was going to get him into trouble some day. Maybe today was the day.
Eric turned Lady Day onto Broadway—it was fastest, even at this time of day—and the elvensteed settled down to making serious time, dodging taxis and pedestrians and ignoring any traffic laws that didn't happen to suit her, such as the speed limit.
They'd only gotten as far as Columbus Circle when suddenly half-a-dozen enormous black shapes came lunging out from among the other cars toward them. After a moment's stunned incredulity, Eric realized what he was seeing.
Wolves.
Wolves—but worse. They were to normal wolves what a birthday candle was to a forest fire—they were all the primeval terrors of night and the ancient forest given fur and fangs and flesh. And what made them so horribly wrong was that they were here, on a New York City street on a raw March day. Their pupilless eyes glowed Unseleighe red, and they seemed to know what he was thinking—and be laughing at him. Fire and ice crawled through his veins as he made eye-contact with them.
He didn't dare start a full-blown duel in the middle of Broadway. And worse, Eric didn't know if they had anything to do with the warning he'd felt, or were just an awful coincidence. Elves didn't do New York. But then, elves didn't attack Bards, either.
He threw a shield around himself and Lady Day just as one of the beasts dodged in, snapping at his foot. Lady Day swerved and tried to evade them, but they herded her—slamming against Eric's magickal shield and dashing in front of the elvensteed—toward Central Park. They couldn't touch him—but they could overset Lady Day by allowing her to hit one of them, and send her and Eric under the wheels of a truck or car.
All around them, brakes screeched and horns blared. Another urban legend in the making? Maybe. Eric didn't have the leisure to think about it.
Lady Day put on a burst of speed, dodging through the oncoming traffic, slamming up over the sidewalk, and bouncing bone-jarringly up over the low wall surrounding the park. The Unseleighe dire-wolves fell back, but only a few paces, letting her run, and as soon as she was headed deep into the park, they closed up again.
There were people in the park, but not as many as there were on Broadway. Now he could fight.
Or better yet—run. He could be in Misthold before they had a chance to—
But suddenly he heard a jangle of disharmonic harpsong, and his shield was ripped away.
Before he could react, he felt powerful jaws clamp down on his ankle, yanking him from Lady Day's saddle and hurling him to the ground. One of the dire-wolves landed on top of him—it weighed more than Eric did—knocking the breath from him, and beneath it all, the harp played on, like Stravinsky on crack, making it hard to think. He thrashed under the wolf's weight, but it wasn't moving, and every time he tried to take a breath, the wolf got heavier—
He could hear Lady Day fighting, hear the yelps and stifled yips of the other dire-wolves, and beneath those sounds, the sound of a powerful automobile engine approaching.
The dire-wolf sitting on his chest backed off.
Eric rolled to his knees, gasping for breath. He felt strangely weak, and cold all over.
Lady Day—in horse form now—stood like a stag at bay, surrounded by a panting half-circle of dire-wolves. Just beyond her a black limousine stood parked. Eric readied his spells.
The back door of the limousine swung open.
Jormin ap Galever sat in the back. He was holding Magnus against his chest, with a silver knife to Magnus's throat. Magnus's head lolled limply; he was unconscious, but Eric could see from the rise and fall of his chest that he was still alive.
"Will you join us, Bard?" Jormin called cheerily.
Eric gritted his teeth and got to his feet. He kept his expression as stony as he could, even though his heart felt as if it had stopped, and his thoughts were running in panicked circles like frightened mice. The unspoken message was clear: resist in any way, and Jormin would kill Magnus. And no elven treaties protected Magnus.
"Fine." He turned to Lady Day. "Go home. I'll tell you what to do later." This is not the time to argue about this, girl. . . .
Through the link they shared he felt her reluctant obedience, and felt a pang of relief. He didn't trust Jormin to let her go once Eric's back was turned, and captured elvensteeds were great prizes for the Dark Court. . . .
Lady Day sprang backward, out of the circle of dire-wolves, and galloped away. In seconds the sound of hoof-beats was replaced with the mournful howl of a high-powered motorcycle engine receding in the distance.
Someone yanked his hands behind him. Automatically he started to struggle, but Jormin pressed the knife closer to Magnus's throat, and he stopped.
He felt the touch of something cold and heavy on his wrists. Bracelets?
Cold . . . the cold seemed to seep into his blood, flowing through his veins with every beat of his heart, until it was a struggle to breathe. He felt his knees grow weak, and the day darkened around him.
And then he knew nothing more.