Ace had left Hosea parked on the road outside and walked in, because Margot's pink showboat was just too darned noticeable. Fortunately the casino was doing a booming business even at this hour, and that had covered her approach.
Getting into the building wasn't a problem. It might be Atlantic City instead of Tulsa, but Daddy hadn't changed the locks. He still used numerical key-pad locks, and the access codes were various Bible verses. The one for the elevator was still John 4:13—the elevator was locked down for the night, but she typed in "5646413," and the elevator began to move. It played Muzak versions of praise-songs softly through its speakers. She shuddered at the banality of it.
She reached the top floor—of course Daddy's offices would be in the penthouse. The doors didn't open, and she punched in "628848," her mind automatically supplying the citation: Matthew 4:8. Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.
The doors opened. She stepped out into the corridor, listening hard, but everything was quiet.
She'd never been here before, but the place had a creepy similarity to her father's offices in Tulsa—not that it looked like them, because it didn't—rather, it looked like what he'd wanted them to be like. As if this place were the realization of a dream. It was easy to know where to go, and where everything ought to be—this was just the old Fairchild Ministry World Headquarters, redone and enlarged, but designed by the same mind just the same. She wondered what those men who'd suggested he leave Tulsa—Ria had told her about that—would think if they could see where he was now.
If they were smart, they'd be wondering where the money had come from.
At the end of the hall was a set of big mahogany double doors touched with gold leaf. The doors were closed now, but during the day, they'd be open, she knew. There'd be a big outer office and reception area, with Mrs. Granger's desk in the middle of it in front of another set of big mahogany doors, and behind those would be Daddy's private office and personal study, the one that would be in all the publicity photos.
She hurried up to the doors and punched in the keycode, automatically reciting the Bible verse in her head. The light on the lock went from red to green, and Ace eased the door open.
It was darker in here than it was out in the hall, and she risked using the little LED flashlight she and Hosea had picked up on the way over here. It put out a lot of light for its size, but the beam was really small, and probably wouldn't be seen from outside so long as she didn't shine it at the windows.
The room looked very much as she'd expected it to—larger and grander than the one in Tulsa, of course. There was a big oil painting of Daddy on the wall, and the same large glass cases holding some of the trophies and awards he'd gotten over the years. There were large silver bowls of fresh flowers on the side tables, though. That was new.
Ace shuddered again. The place reminded her of a high-class mortuary.
If this was a dream in realization, it was one that had died and been mummified.
She moved quickly over to Mrs. Granger's desk. There was nothing on it; as always, everything was locked away for the night, including her Rolodex. The desk was locked, of course, but for as long as Ace had known her, Mrs. Granger had kept the desk key under her blotter, and Ace found it easily.
She held it in her hand, hesitating. Mrs. Granger had been with them ever since Ace had been a little girl. She'd been one of the first people Daddy'd hired. She'd baby-sat Ace when Mama'd gone to the beauty parlor, and helped Mama pick out Ace's dresses when the money started to come in. Breaking into Mrs. Granger's desk seemed almost more wicked than breaking into the building.
I have to do it. I won't mess anything up, I promise. She took a deep breath and put the key into the lock.
She found the Rolodex quickly, but to her dismay, the card for Parker Wheatley only showed a Maryland address. He couldn't still be living there, could he? There was no office listed, or internal phone number, but he had to have an office in the building if Daddy was having him launch the crusade she'd seen on television. She kept looking.
The card for Gabriel Horn gave his home address as this building. Ace frowned. Was that possible? It gave his office, too: she memorized that as a place to stay away from.
She quickly checked through the file folders in the desk. Nothing useful.
Her neck ached with tension as she considered her options. This should have been easy; it wasn't. All right, then, it just wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought it should be. That didn't mean it was going to be hard.
Ace eyed the doors behind the desk nervously, working up her courage. I have to go in there. Daddy would want Mr. Wheatley where he could keep an eye on him. The Ministry ran on paperwork; she knew that much. If Mrs. Granger didn't have the file, it had to be in there.
She knew it was perfectly safe. It had to be, at this hour. Everything was dark in there. Daddy would be at home, wherever that was now. She could find out where Mr. Wheatley's office was, get what she needed, and leave.
She quickly put everything in Mrs. Granger's desk back the way she'd found it, tucked the key back under the blotter again, and headed for Billy Fairchild's office.
He'd actually been thinking of getting an apartment at the Tower lately—not that Donna wasn't still an everlasting helpmeet and joy, praise the Lord, but with Heavenly Grace still gone—and thankfully he'd taken Gabriel's advice not to burden Donna with all of this nonsense about the girl living right there in New York City and refusing to come home—Donna seemed just a bit peaked these days. With as much as he had to do at the Ministry, he didn't want to tax her with its problems when she was feeling so poorly. Not everyone had his natural vitality, Lord knew. It wasn't fair to ask it of her. Maybe putting in an apartment just off his office wouldn't be a bad idea. On late nights like this, Donna wouldn't sit up, worrying about him until he came home. He could just call her and let her know he was going to stay overnight, and she could just relax, and have a night on her own. Maybe watch one of those old romantic movies she doted on so much. And when Heavenly Grace came home again, they could have a Girls' Night again, pop popcorn and watch the old Shirley Temple movies she used to love.
At least with all this new business—the Crusade, the upcoming concert, he was spending less time than ever at home, so that was a blessing. He'd had a late meeting with some of the commissioners about some casino business, and some last-minute details about the concert. Hand-holding, really, and nothing Billy hadn't been doing one way or another since he'd cut his wisdom teeth. It had all gone without a hitch. Now he was headed back to the Cathedral and Casino of Prayer to see Gabriel. Gabe had said he had a few more last-minute ideas about the concert himself, and Billy had to admit that Gabriel's ideas were usually good ones. Just about as good as his, in fact.
He met Gabriel in the elevator, and they rode up to Billy's office together.
She'd just started to search Daddy's desk—it was going to take longer; he wasn't nearly as organized as Mrs. Granger—when Ace saw light flare under the door and heard voices in the outer room.
Someone was here.
And she was trapped.
Billy opened the door of his office and flicked on the lights.
"—went real easy. All they want to know is that they aren't gonna have another Woodstock or Altamont on their hands. Well, I told them that this is good Christian music we're going to be playing, and besides, we'll be hiring plenty of professional security to handle the crowds, none of these Hell's Angels or anything like that. Showed 'em the contracts we already have with the firm that handles the casino business, and told 'em we were gonna bring on more people just for this concert."
Billy sat down behind his desk, his hands stroking the smooth grain of the polished wood as if it were a beloved pet.
Gabriel smiled. "Of course. That was very wise of you. Now, on the whole, I thought we ought to go one step better for the concert venue itself. I've brought in a special private security team. They're professionals, experienced with crowds and concerts. There won't be any unexpected trouble. Of course, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."
He went to the sideboard and poured them both drinks. He passed one to Billy and sat down in the chair across from the desk. The office was a complex interweaving of spells, his own glamouries and those of the other Sidhe who had infiltrated Billy's organization over the last few years; everywhere his eye rested, he noted the subtle nets of persuasions and compulsions that he had woven around Billy Fairchild. There was a certain danger in this, of course. Another Sidhe would sense it at once. Fortunately, after Friday, there would be nothing to sense. . . .
Time to bring up the next step in the plan. "As you know, publicity thrives on controversy. And your . . . bold . . . stance has gathered its share of protest."
"Let the heathen rage," Billy said, sipping his drink and grinning with foolish triumph. "I'm not the man to back down from a little controversy."
"Precisely," Gabriel said approvingly. "In fact, the more they object, the more it proves that you're right to take the position you have, both on America's enemies, and in the way you promote the Gospel. And so, I think the faithful deserve to see a palpable demonstration of the rightness of your cause. A passion play, as it were. And as we both know, a passion play requires a sacrifice, or at least the appearance that one might be forthcoming, in order to have any impact."
Fairchild wasn't entirely stupid. "Go on," Billy said, leaning forward intently.
Gabriel waved his hand in the air. "You know that you receive hundreds of threats every week. And so far, thanks to our own care and foresight, nothing has ever come of any of them. What if—during the concert, when the media is here, not to mention our own camera crews—there were a bombing attempt on the Casino and Cathedral of Heavenly Grace? The main stage is going to be set up right outside. If a bomb were to go off there, the carnage would be incredible."
"But it won't go off," Billy said cautiously.
"Oh, of course not," Gabriel said soothingly. "We can arrange for the bomb to be so badly constructed that there's no possibility of its actually exploding. We might time the discovery of it near the end of the concert, so it doesn't disrupt things too much. But its presence will underscore a higher truth: that your Ministry is surrounded by those who wish to destroy it. That there is a Great Evil willing to kill perfectly innocent victims in order to get at you. In fact, seen that way, a bomb isn't really a hoax: it's just a tangible symbol of a greater truth."
Billy sat back in his chair. "'A greater truth,'" Billy said admiringly. "I like that! Gabe, you've got a good head on your shoulders. Now, I don't want to know anything more about this. I've got to be able to act natural when the time comes, you see."
And to convince yourself that you knew nothing about it, you pompous canting fool—!
"Don't worry," Gabriel said. "I'll take care of everything."
Crouched behind the half-open door to Billy's private study, Ace heard every word. Her blood turned to ice in her veins, and she felt the hair on the back of her arms lifting in horror.
She could easily believe that Gabriel Horn would do something so awful, but what she couldn't believe was that her father was going along with it.
It was true that he'd said a lot of things in the past that weren't quite true, but that was worlds away from something like this. Setting up a bomb scare was not only cruel and self-serving, it was far from harmless. From everything she'd heard, there were going to be at least a couple of thousand people out there Friday morning listening to this Judah Galilee, and when the discovery of the bomb was announced, they weren't all going to relax. They were all going to riot. People would be hurt, trampled, even killed. And that wouldn't be the end of it, either. People would start pointing fingers, looking for someone who could have planted a bomb, making accusations, maybe even taking the law into their own hands when they thought they'd found the perpetrator. And all the time the people responsible for it would be watching and saying it was out of their hands....
Billy Fairchild had always been greedy and selfish, and Lord knew he wasn't any kind of a good Christian, but three years ago, if someone had suggested doing something like this, he would have said no. He'd known better then. He wouldn't have set up innocent people to get hurt so that he could look like a martyr.
He sure wouldn't have sat there and gloated about it, and said he didn't want to know any more details so he could act innocent!
Tears gathered in her eyes, and she fought to remain silent. Gabriel Horn was the Devil Incarnate, she was sure of that now. She and Hosea had to get rid of him—send him back Underhill, if Jeanette was right about him.
And they had to stop the concert, or the bomb scare, or both.
Finally Daddy and Mr. Horn got up and left, but for a long time she couldn't bring herself to move, though Billy's office was dark and silent once more. She knew Hosea would be worrying about her, and at last the fear that he would try to come into the building after her gave her the will to get to her feet.
This time she found what she was looking for immediately: Parker Wheatley's employment application, and a bunch of pamphlets and clippings about something called the "Satanic Defense Initiative." The address on the application was the Maryland address from Mrs. Granger's Rolodex, but there was a note on a Post-It, scrawled in Billy's handwriting, with a local hotel address. He was probably living in a hotel until he could find an apartment.
She copied the address on a piece of paper and stuffed it into her jeans. Riffling through the file further—the pages were in no particular order—she found the memo from Ben about the offices he'd assigned Mr. Wheatley to. So now she knew where to find him in the building—and any Sidhe-hunting tricks he might have, too.
It was time to go. Definitely. She had the feeling she was already pressing her luck.
She was pretty sure that Daddy had left the building, but now that she'd seen Gabriel Horn again, and knew that he lived in the building, she was afraid to take the elevator, for fear she might see him.
Fortunately she doubted he'd be on the stairs. She couldn't for one minute imagine him doing anything that would raise a sweat.
The fire door with the glowing green exit sign over it opened noiselessly, and she closed the door behind her slowly and with painstaking care. The stairs were in stark contrast to the offices; bare concrete walls, rough concrete stairs, industrial metal railings. Any sound made in here would be amplified. She moved carefully, trying to keep her steps from echoing, glad she'd worn her sneakers. Fifteen flights, and then she'd be down on the ground floor and out of here. She'd get back to Hosea, they could leave, they'd call Ria and tell her everything, she'd stop Gabriel Horn from setting the bomb, they could go to Parker Wheatley tomorrow and tell him whatever they liked. . . .
And she'd be on her way back to New York. She never thought she would ever have thought of New York City as being "safe," but it was a sure sight safer than this place.
Voices in the hall beyond the stair-landing caught her attention when she'd only gone a few flights. She flattened herself against the wall beside the door, heart hammering.
"—and now, my child, let us go and visit a Bard. Yes, a true Bard. His name is Eric Banyon, and in a few hours we are going to destroy him, but it is only proper that we give him time to relish his fate first."
She recognized Gabriel's voice and risked a glance through the window set into the metal fire-door. Gabriel Horn was walking down the hall, along with someone she didn't know. His back was to her. She watched as he opened a door and stepped through it.
Eric? Eric was here? She stepped back and pressed herself against the wall again, breathing deeply.
This was worse than bad. Kayla had said he and Magnus had been kidnapped. Hosea thought they might have just gone Underhill, but he was wrong. They were here. And if they were in Gabriel Horn's hands, they were in the worst of trouble.
She pulled out her phone and dialed Hosea's cellphone.
She thought it connected, but she wasn't sure, and she didn't hear anything but static. After a moment, she closed the phone in frustration.
Think, stupid!
She couldn't go back inside and use any of the phones in one of the offices. The switchboard was shut down for the night, and if she tried to get a line out, it would light up on the Security desk. Whoever was down there on duty would know that somebody was where they weren't supposed to be, and come looking. Even if she did take the risk, Hosea couldn't get in without the elevator codes.
And what was she going to do alone? Hit Horn with her shoe? She'd told Hosea she could sing her way out, but that had been when she'd only thought she was going to run into ordinary people. Not Gabriel Horn. This wasn't a television show; she wasn't Buffy, to run in there and rescue them before the commercial break. She didn't even have a brick she could use as a weapon.
She hated the thought of leaving Eric here, but from what she'd overheard, Gabriel Horn wasn't going to do anything to him yet. No, if this was a television show, she had to be smart. She needed to be Lassie, not Buffy.
Run and get help, girl!
That was the smart thing to do. Run and get help. She could get Hosea—they'd come back in.
She ran down the stairs. Now that she knew where Gabriel was, she wasn't as worried about being heard, though she still struggled to compromise between speed and silence. She couldn't afford to be stopped now.
She was gasping and breathless when she reached the bottom of the stairs, and had to force herself to stop and look before she opened the door to the lobby.
Empty. With a shaky breath of relief, she eased open the door and stepped through it.
She'd just reached for the keypad to the outer door to unlock it when a heavy hand came down on her shoulder.
She let out a faint gasp, too shocked to scream.
"Why, it's little Heavenly Grace, isn't it?" an unfamiliar voice said. "Yes, I'm sure it is. What an unexpected pleasure. For me, of course—not you."
Sleep was one of the many baffling and entertaining things that mortals did, and Jormin had returned to the hotel at a time when he thought his master's two prizes would probably be engaged in that peculiar activity to set his spells deeper in their minds. Mortals could be induced to forget much while they slept, even Gifted mortals, and in their vulnerability, he might have the chance to unriddle the mystery of the strangeness in the apprentice Bard's magick.
But when he'd arrived, they were not there.
It did not worry him. They would not have run far, and with his magick upon them, they were easy to follow. It was a merry jest indeed to discover that they had fled directly to his master's feet.
He saw the apprentice Bard stopped upon the edge of the road in his Cold Iron chariot, and gave him a wide berth; he was not the greater prize, in any event. He followed the girl to the tower, and what he saw in her mind as she emerged made him decide, regretfully, that the little vixen must not be left to run free any longer. The matter must be set before his Prince at once.
Ace spun around. The man she was staring at was elusively familiar, and at last she recognized him. Judah Galilee. Hosea's Black Bard. As if he had stepped right out of one of those posters Hosea had brought back with him.
"Oh, do try to fight," he said cordially, smiling a cold smile. "Try your arts on me, worldling, and I vow by the Morrigan, I'll turn your bones to water, and believe me, I shall deeply enjoy every moment as much as you will regret it."
"Oh, please," Ace said hopelessly, pleadingly. "Just let me go. I can't hurt you. I just want—"
His smile widened, and grew even colder. "Now, pretty child, we both know I cannot, for this night you have seen and heard that which it were far better you had not. You're clever enough to know that—but not clever enough to come willingly, I do vow. So struggle, do, and despair. I shall enjoy that. I shall enjoy that a very great deal."
Judah looked like a rock star—from his long hair and flashy jewelry to his head-to-foot black leather—but he talked like something out of Masterpiece Theater. Like Jaycie had talked, at the very end, when he'd stopped pretending to be human.
Jeanette had been right. He was Unseleighe. There was nothing else that he could be. And the Unseleighe knew no mercy.
Something deeper than fear made her duck under his arm and bolt for the stairs. She knew even as she did that it wouldn't do her any good.
But she tried. She had to.
Eric struggled slowly toward consciousness. For a very long time all he had was the sense that he ought to be conscious, and a nagging sense of despair and wrongness. Nothing more. As if—when he did finally awaken, it would be to great sorrow.
But for now, all he could do was drift, barely aware. As if his very self had been stolen away.
At last, as if he were remembering the punch-line to an old joke, he realized why he should be awake. It all came back to him with a jolt, and all at once.
He was Eric Banyon, Bard of Elfhame Misthold. He'd received a warning. He'd been going to rescue his brother Magnus—but he'd been too late.
They were prisoners.
Of the Unseleighe.
As he strained toward consciousness, he heard someone calling his name.
"Eric. Eric."
Magnus didn't know if his brother heard him, but he had to keep trying. He had no intention of giving up. They were going to get out of here, and then somebody was going to hurt. A lot. He didn't know who, yet, but he bet that Eric would be able to tell him.
He'd awakened a while ago—he thought it was about an hour now—so abruptly that at first he'd been completely disoriented. It had taken him a few seconds to focus on where he was; to realize that whole thing about history class and the giant wolves hadn't been a bad dream, likely as that was, but reality. More of that magic stuff, only at this point even he was able to figure out that trying to deny that magic existed was only going to make things worse. No, he'd just better suck it in and deal with it.
He remembered nothing between the time the wolf had jumped out of the alleyway and knocked him down, and here.
He'd woken up tied to a metal chair. His ankles were tied to the legs of the chair with some kind of soft white rope, and his hands were tied behind the back. He had a pretty good idea of what his bonds must look like, because Eric was right there, in another chair set at right angles to his, just a few feet away, and they were probably tied up the same way.
Kinky.
This stuff was lots more fun when you saw it in the movies, when you were sure nobody was really getting hurt and besides, the good guys were going to get out okay.
The one good thing about this was that it was nothing to do with the 'rents. They'd send lawyers. They'd send cops. They wouldn't send giant wolves. Definitely.
And they wouldn't bother to kidnap Eric too. Why should they? He was about a thousand years old, and there was no way they could make him do anything. No, whoever it was that had decided to grab both of them had some other ideas in mind.
He looked around the room. Grey. Hard to tell what size, when everything—walls, floor, ceiling—was the same color, and looked sort of like it was coated in Teflon. Magnus shuddered. He wished he hadn't thought of that. Ace was always telling him how easy Teflon was to clean, because everything washed right off it. He didn't like what that made him think of.
He couldn't see a door, but there had to be one.
The room was dimly lit, but he couldn't see a light source, either, or where the light was coming from. If Eric and the other chair hadn't been there, it would have been easy to get dizzy in the dimness, but they gave him something to focus on.
He strained at his bonds, but they held fast. Besides the ropes, Eric's hands were shackled. The restraints were big, heavy things, like something out of an old pirate movie, and they looked like silver, not iron.
More kink.
When Magnus shook his own wrists he didn't feel a similar weight. He guessed the shackles must have something to do with magick.
He'd tried to wake Eric then, but Eric was out cold. He didn't look very good either—not bleeding or anything, but just not good. The way his head lolled was wrong, and he wasn't sleeping, he was stone cold out, and in a bad way. Magnus bet that if he could see clearly, Eric would be really pale.
Like a drug overdose. Like the way Jaycie had looked there, towards the end, when he was mostly unconscious from all that cola and chocolate.
For a brief moment, Magnus tried to convince himself that this was an ordinary kidnapping, that they'd both been drugged, that whoever had drugged them had just given Eric too much. But he couldn't manage it. Even if an armful of tranqs would work on an Ascended Jedi Master, or whatever the hell Eric thought he was, there were still those wolves. And those weird guys in Mrs. Castillo's office. And the kinky silver handcuffs.
And the fact that he was pretty sure the chairs were silver, too.
Who the hell would make a whole chair out of silver?
They were in real trouble. It was magick everywhere, and magick was the one thing he didn't know how to MacGyver himself out of.
He wondered if getting those cuffs off Eric would help. Maybe if he could get his chair over to Eric's, he could do something about them.
But when he tried to rock the chair, it didn't move at all. Like it was welded to the floor.
Magnus took a deep breath, forcing himself not to panic. He'd been in trouble before. He was still here. They'd get out of this. And then someone would be in deep, serious trouble.
"Eric?" he called. "Eric? Hey, stupid, wake up! Eric, wake up!"
"—up. Eric, wake up."
Eric forced his eyes open with a shudder and a gasp.
Grey. Everything was grey.
"Are you all right?" His voice was a croak. But it was Magnus's voice that had awakened him, so Magnus was still alive, and, presumably, still with throat uncut. So they were that much ahead of the game.
"Better than you are."
For all Magnus's bravado, Eric could hear the undercurrent of fear in his brother's voice.
He tried a little bravado of his own. "No . . . I'm good."
But he wasn't. He was awake, and that was a definite improvement, but his wrists . . . burned. He tried to summon up his magick, but every time he tried, it wouldn't come clear in his mind. Something was stopping it.
"Eric? We're going to get out of here, aren't we?" Magnus demanded.
"One way or another," Eric said firmly. He wasn't going to lie to Magnus, but there was no reason not to share what hope he had. "Greystone knows there's a problem. If we've both gone missing, he'll call in the cavalry." Ria. Toni and the other Guardians.
"You can't get us out of here, can you? Because of those things on your wrists?" Magnus said flatly.
"That's probably the reason," Eric said, doing his best to sound calm. "I think it's some kind of Binding Spell. I can probably overload it, given enough time. Meanwhile, tell me what you know."
Magnus's tale was quickly told, and Eric shared what he knew about his own capture as well, but it made no sense to him. For Prince Gabrevys to attack a Bard of the Bright Court would not just mean war between Elfhame Bete Noir and Elfhame Misthold—it would mean swift punishment from Oberon himself.
And if Eric was Gabrevys's target, why involve Magnus at all? There'd certainly been ways to capture Eric without involving his brother. And if Gabrevys meant to kill Eric, it would have made more sense simply to not let him wake up at all . . . because once he was awake, he had the potential, at least, to cause trouble. There was some piece of this that was missing, but the sense of it, even the shape of it, eluded him.
Missing pieces—better tell Magnus everything he knew. Shielding him wouldn't help, and might hurt. "Look, Magnus. There's something you don't know about all this," Eric said.
Magnus snorted eloquently.
"The Sidhe Lord who's got his hands on us . . . he's Jaycie's father. And I'm pretty sure he blames me for the fact that Jaycie's at Misthold."
There was a long silence.
"So he's just like Mom," Magnus said at last, bitterness in his voice. "Jaycie's happy now, and he'd rather be dead than go home, but this guy doesn't care."
"If he shows up here don't tell him that," Eric begged. "In fact, don't say anything to him if you can manage it. And don't believe anything he says—no matter how much you want to. Remember that the Dark Sidhe lie as easily as breathing. Easier. They love deception. They live on lies. They'll do and say whatever they can to cause the most pain; it's like a drug to them." He wracked his brain, trying to think of every possible thing he could warn his brother about while there was still time.
"Jaycie used to cry at night—and scream," Magnus said grimly. "When he was asleep."
Elves don't sleep, Eric thought, but then remembered that when Magnus had known him, Jaycie had been lost in Dreaming most of the time.
"If you see—" Eric began, but just then there was the sound of a door opening.
There was the sound of two sets of footsteps behind them, faintly muffled as if they moved over a rubbery surface.
They walked around and into Eric's field of vision: a tall man in a dark suit, accompanied by a dark-haired boy about Magnus's age. The boy had a pleasant, open expression, but there was something terribly wrong with him.
Hosea had always said that people with the Gift seemed to be more vividly there than people without it. At its simplest, Talent was human creativity, and everyone had it to some degree. What Eric was seeing now was something he had not thought could exist: a human with no spark of that most essential element of humanity, and it was painful to see.
The tall man smiled. "This is Devon Mesier. Say hello, Devon."
"Hello," Devon said pleasantly. He seemed completely uninterested in the fact that there were two people tied to chairs in front of him. It seemed to have no impact at all on him.
As for his escort, well, Eric might not know who he was, but he certainly knew what he was. The man tilted his head to the side. "What, Sieur Eric? No pleas for mercy for your brother? No haughty reminders of your inviolate status as a Bard of Misthold? Would that you had showed as much wisdom when you stole my son from me!"
Oh shit. Though the man before him remained cloaked in human seeming, Eric knew who he was now. And the excrement had definitely hit the rotating blades.
"I did not steal him," Eric answered evenly. "I offered Sanctuary to Prince Jachiel and his Protector, Prince Gabrevys, as you well know. He fled your Domain and would not return, and his Protector will not force him. Go and ask him yourself. Prince Arvin has offered you safe-passage."
Gabrevys smiled hollowly. "Oh, I shall . . . when I bring to Prince Arvin the tragic news of what has befallen you. Then shall the Law be my shield, for do I not act at the behest of blood? I shall not harm one hair of your head, nor spill one drop of your blood, nor do one thing that I have not been commanded to by the woman who bore you and the man who sired you. Aye, Bard Eric—if you can act within the Law, so can I!" Gabrevys threw back his head and roared with laughter.
Eric stared at him, stunned. His parents? His parents had made a pact with Prince Gabrevys? They couldn't have had any idea of what they were doing.
But that didn't matter, he realized with a sinking heart. It didn't matter what Gabrevys had done to trick them into it. They were his parents. By the Law of the Sidhe, Gabrevys's actions would be legal. He was following the request of Eric's own parents, the only way he could work against a Bard and get away with it.
"Let Magnus go," Eric said, desperately, now.
Gabrevys cocked his head. "Not so haughty now, eh, Bard Eric? And how shall I do that, when the bargain was for both of you? Return to me both my sons, the woman said. Make them my dutiful loving children once again, she begged. And so I shall. Come the dawn, you both shall be as young Devon here—obedient and compliant to her every whim. Alas, those gifts and talents she prizes in you will be gone, ravished away by my Soul-eaters, but she asked only for your obedience, my word upon that. No longer will you meddle in the affairs of your betters—nor will you remember them, or care."
Oh, this was bad. He might not be able to cast a spell, but Eric still knew truth when he heard it. Prince Gabrevys was telling the truth.
"Think carefully before you do this," Eric said. He forced himself to speak calmly. "You'll be acting within the Law, it's true. But you'll make a lot of enemies. And not all of them are bound by Sidhe law." Ria Llewellyn, just for starters, who'd never met a law she couldn't turn into a pretzel when it suited her. Beth. The Guardians? Possibly. Beth and Kory had allies that they could call on, too.
"Ah, do you pin your hopes on your foolish apprentice? Alas for you, that he will be dead by tomorrow's sunset," Gabrevys purred.
Just then Eric heard the sound of the door opening again. Gabrevys looked up and past him. Eric would have been willing to swear that for one moment the Unseleighe Lord looked utterly startled.
"Your reasons?" he snapped.
"She spied upon you, my Prince," another voice said. "Such a thing cannot be allowed. I have not harmed her." Since the door was directly behind Eric, he couldn't see the speaker, but Magnus could, and his face went absolutely white.
Whatever, whoever was behind him, it couldn't be good.
No, he knew from Gabrevys's smile that it wasn't good at all.
"Dear child, is it not entertaining that after so long attempting to avoid my company, you should come and seek me out?" Gabrevys said, his voice velvet over steel.
"I wasn't looking for you, Gabriel Horn," Ace snapped. "If you were drowning, I'd pour water on you. Ow!"
Eric abruptly felt as if someone had hit him in the stomach, and not just because Ace had suddenly been added to the hostage list. Prince Gabrevys was Gabriel Horn?
Everything suddenly made more—and less—sense.
Why Ace had been afraid of him without knowing why. Where Billy's sudden inexplicable wealth had come from. The bizarre dark turn his ministry had taken. The weird twists and turns in Ace's court case.
But why would an Unseleighe Prince be spending so much time on someone like Billy Fairchild? That had started long before Jaycie had run away.
A second Unseleighe—also wearing human glamourie—stepped into Eric's line of vision, dragging a wildly struggling, but now grimly silent Ace with him.
"You leave her alone!" Magnus shouted, thrashing wildly in his chair. "You sick piece of shit—you think Jaycie isn't going to find out about this? Kiss your kid goodbye, Darth Vader."
Eric winced.
"Magnus!" Ace gasped.
"My son is my concern," Prince Gabrevys said, all trace of humor gone from his face. "He will see reason, once the inconvenience that the two of you represent is removed." If not for the terms of his pact, Eric would have feared for his brother's life, but Gabrevys would honor his oath to the letter. They were safe—for now.
But Ace wasn't.
"And what is it that you think you heard, my bold and pretty child?" Gabrevys said, moving forward to where Jormin stood with Ace. She'd stopped struggling now, but her body was tense with hopeless defiance.
Gabrevys cocked his head as if listening, and Eric knew he was reading Ace's thoughts. He'd asked her what she'd overheard, and of course she couldn't help thinking of it now.
Gabrevys smiled, and ruffled Ace's hair, his good humor restored.
"You're thinking of the false bomb meant to be discovered in the late afternoon of tomorrow's concert, and how sad it is that your father has been so corrupted that he will permit such a thing. But allow me to ease your mind. There won't be a false bomb at all. It will be real."
Eric kept his mouth shut, because otherwise it would have dropped open. Bomb? Was there any end to the twists this thing was taking?
"I dislike Parker Wheatley a great deal, you know," Gabrevys continued in conversational tones, "And Billy Fairchild has grown quite inconvenient. It occurred to me that an elegant solution to so many of my trifling difficulties would be reached should both of them die in a very large explosion. I believe I shall frame Wheatley for the deed—the man is obviously unstable—and implicate your leaders in attempting to shut down Fairchild Ministries. The explosion will kill most of the attendees at the Pure Blood concert as well, generating what I believe is called 'a new rock legend,' and best of all, my people will be there to film it all, and carry away the tale, as will assorted members of the rock press—at least those who survive. Many of them will not. As will also be the case with your young disciple, Bard Eric; I'm very much afraid if by luck he will survive the explosion, he will tragically perish soon after, one way or another."
Eric felt his mind reeling. How had all this managed to happen without anyone noticing?
"Then Fairchild Ministries will be mine to do with as I will. It is such a lovely tool with which to sow hate and dissension among the mortals. Why, the footage of the bombing alone should provide a lovely feast of agony for my liegemen every time it is shown—all those dead and maimed children! And not at a distance, either. Close. In detail. Every nuance caught on film. The pleading of the dying, the screams of the injured. What an exquisite thought."
He reached out to cup Ace's chin in his hand, and stared deep into her eyes for a moment. She made faint mewling sounds of distress, but was unable to look away.
At last he released her, sighing in disappointment.
"I had, of course, hoped that the tragic death of your father would cause you to abandon your bid for freedom and return to your mother's side to comfort her," he said. "But now I see that even if I removed all memory of this evening from your mind and sent you on your way, you would be of little use to me. You have grown far too rebellious to make an appropriate pawn. No, I am afraid you must wait here with the others, meet with my—allies—and give them what they most desire so that they may give me what I require. In the morning, you may give your father a few brief hours of happiness before sharing his fate." If a smile could drop the temperature of a room, his plunged it to freezing. "What a tragedy! Billy Fairchild, newly reunited with his daughter, only to have the two of them perish at the hands of the ungodly!"
"Don't do this," Eric begged. "Prince Gabrevys—"
"Try my patience, Bard Eric, and I can kill her now," Prince Gabrevys snapped. "Her body will be found in the rubble either way. Or perhaps you would prefer I gave her to Jormin for a night's sport? Would you like that, my pretty one?"
"My master is kind," Jormin said softly.
"Choose, Sieur Eric—" Gabrevys began, then paused, his eyes full of unholy shadows. "No. I shall let the boy choose."
He turned those eyes towards Eric's brother. "Come now, young Magnus. Your brother has doomed you to terror and agony and to spend the rest of your life as a creature barely half alive. Shall the girl share your fate? Or shall I give her to Jormin?"
"She'd rather stay here," Magnus said, his voice filled with hate. "And so would I."
Gabrevys shrugged, as if it didn't matter in the least to him. "Very well. Jormin, tie her up."
Jormin flung Ace away from him, sending her sprawling, but before she hit the floor, ropes like those that bound Eric and Magnus appeared around her wrists and ankles, binding her ankles together and tying her hands behind her back. She hit the floor hard.
Gabrevys chuckled appreciatively, then crooked his finger in his minion's direction. "Come, Jormin. We will find you other entertainment. Come, Devon." The two Sidhe and Gabrevys's human victim walked from the room as if the other three had ceased to exist.
"I'll kill him," Magnus growled, an undercurrent of frenzied hysteria in his voice. "I'll rip out his heart with my teeth and feed it to him—!"
Eric concentrated on Ace. There was nothing he could do to get through to Magnus right now; in fact he wasn't really sure that Magnus would hear him if he spoke. He'd never seen Magnus so angry—he was completely consumed with rage, and the closest Eric had ever seen to someone who was in classic berserker-mode.
Too bad there was no useful way to employ that much anger.
Ace had rolled to her side and gotten to her knees. Her face was white with shock, and her eyes brimmed with tears, but Eric was glad to see that she seemed to be holding on to her control, if only barely.
"Where are we?" he asked her, perhaps more harshly than he had intended, but he was afraid if he sounded soothing, she'd lose it.
She made a faint sound of surprise. "Welcome to the Heavenly Grace Cathedral and Casino of Prayer in Atlantic City, New Jersey," she said. Her voice wavered, and she took a deep breath. "Magnus, shut up," she added in exasperation.
There was a sudden silence.
"What's going to happen to us?" Ace asked, looking straight at him. "You know, don't you?"
"At dawn—unless I can get these cuffs off and get us out of here—something called Soul-eaters are going to come in here and turn the three of us into zombies like that boy Devon," Eric said flatly. At this point, there didn't seem to be a lot of point in prettying things up.
"Courtesy of Mom and Dad," Magnus added, still sounding furious. "Who expect to get back a pair of musical prodigies, but are going to get a couple of 7-11 clerks instead."
"Apparently they eat Talent," Eric explained reluctantly. "All Talent. Creativity, imagination, will. Spirit. Real emotion. Anything that makes life worth the living."
He tried again to summon a spell—any spell. Nothing. But was it his imagination, or were the cuffs on his wrists not quite as cold as they had been?
"It won't work," Ace said desperately. "Hosea's waiting for me to come back. They think they're facing down a Bard, but he's a Guardian, too. And Ria knows there's something wrong down here—if I go missing, this is the first place she'll look."
"Yeah, that big explosion tomorrow'll probably clue her in," Magnus said sullenly.
Ace shot him a burning look. "Why don't I just see if I can get you untied? We've got a good few hours until dawn."
Struggling awkwardly, she began working her way around to the back of Magnus's chair.
One piece of business done, another yet to do. Sending Devon to his rest—the boy's parents had been so happy to get him such a respectable position as an intern at Fairchild Ministries, and Gabriel found his presence eternally amusing—and releasing Jormin to his pleasures—any untidiness could be concealed in the aftermath of the concert disaster, after all—he went to keep an appointment he had made several days before.
His destination was a tavern in the poorer part of town. Such places never changed—from a turf-covered hut at the village's edge with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out, to a rough wooden building at the edge of the high road with the drinks served across a bar made up of kegs and planks, they were all the same: places for mortals to seek out oblivion and trouble.
The mortal was waiting for him in a booth in the back. Gabriel sat down opposite him.
"I was afraid you weren't coming," he said anxiously.
"I had a little trouble getting away without anyone seeing me, LeRoy," Gabriel said. "You know how important it is that nobody see us together."
"Because They're always watching," LeRoy LaPonte said.
Gabriel had first become aware of LeRoy LaPonte a few months before, while looking through Billy's fanmail. To say that he read it would be entirely incorrect: he sifted through the letters as a mortal might sift through the grains of sand at a beach, looking for something that might catch his attention.
LeRoy's letter had. Painfully misspelled, nearly incoherent, it had rambled on about the New World Order and how Billy was surrounded by enemies who would try to stop him.
The letter had made no sense. But it had been filled with power and passion.
Gabriel had written back. He had shared his growing fears that nameless forces close to Reverend Fairchild were perverting his holy mission and causing him to waver in his commitment to purity. He had told LeRoy about the concert—having learned long since that LeRoy was a great fan of such music—and encouraged him to attend.
He had always intended that LeRoy should make a disturbance at the concert—it would be good publicity—but when his plans had changed, he had decided that LeRoy should make an even larger disturbance. . . .
"That's right," Gabriel said. He extended his glamour around LeRoy: no matter what he said now, LeRoy would believe it absolutely. But it was hardly necessary. "I have hard news for you. But I know you're strong, and I know you can take it like a real man."
LeRoy nodded solemnly.
"Reverend Fairchild has fallen to the Dark Forces. He's decided to sell out the music. At the concert tomorrow he's going to announce that he's shutting down Pure Blood and the other bands and is renouncing his Purity Crusade. The New World Order has gotten to him, LeRoy. You have to stop him. You're our only hope. You know what you have to do, don't you?"
"I have to stop him," LeRoy said. "I am the Sword of the Lord, His Avenging Angel of Light."
Not for the first time, Gabriel wondered what went on in mortals' minds. LeRoy's thoughts were so tangled and fragmented that they were nearly impossible to read.
"That's right," he said solemnly. "You are the Lord's Avenging Angel of Light, and Light shall be your weapon. The only way to save Judah Galilee and all the others is to blow up Billy Fairchild's false cathedral at the very moment he's trying to stop the music. Then he'll see he was wrong."
"Nobody will get hurt, will they?" LeRoy asked anxiously.
Gabriel stifled a sigh. Why did they always ask that? Mortals were as bloodthirsty as a pack of rabbits.
"No, LeRoy," he said. "Nobody will get hurt. An Avenging Angel wouldn't hurt anyone with innocence and repentance in their hearts, after all, would he?"
"No," said LeRoy, brightening. "I guess I wouldn't. But . . . the concert's tomorrow, and all, and I—"
"I have all the tools that you need to carry out your holy mission," Gabriel said smoothly. "I will show you what you need to do, and where to place it."
And when he was done, LeRoy LaPonte would not remember Gabriel's part in this at all. When he was caught and confessed—for Gabriel certainly meant for him to survive—the evidence that would also be found would link him with another Fairchild Ministries insider.
And then the fun would begin. . . .
Hosea was long past having second thoughts. He was well onto tenth thoughts by this time. And all of them were the same. This was a bad idea.
He'd been trying to talk himself out of the notion ever since Ace had gotten out of the car and started walking up the road. The trouble was, Hosea didn't have a better idea. She'd been right all the way down the line: she had the best chance of committing what was, when all was said and done, this burglary, and getting away with it safely. She knew how her dad thought; she probably knew not only how to get into any place he owned, but how it was likely to be laid out. And most anyone she met would think she was just back from whatever school Billy claimed she'd gone to.
But the longer she was gone, the more he remembered that the best chance wasn't a dead solid certainty.
Finally he knew, with a sinking sense of disaster, that she'd been gone far too long. Something bad had happened. He took a chance and moved the car into the business park.
Like its brethren along the Boardwalk, the Casino of Prayer was a 24/7 operation, and even at this hour, there were plenty of cars parked right outside. He was unsurprised to see how many of them were clear examples of people who were suckers for a fast talking salesman, and with more money than taste—and not very much money, when it came right down to it. The pink Cadillac fit right in, sad to say. If anything, it seemed tame.
There were other distractions as well. Horn's concert was tomorrow, and kids were already coming in to wait for it, settling in with blankets and sleeping bags and chairs around the main stage. Security wasn't even trying to keep them out, nor paying any particular attention to them, even though Hosea saw bottles being passed around and caught the sweet scent of pot. At least that meant Security wasn't paying any particular attention to Hosea, either. He parked in front of the casino without incident. Multicolored neon from the building's facade slid over the car's paint-job, turning it orange, purple, lurid magenta. . . .
He thought about going inside. It would be easy enough to say he'd just come back looking for a little background color for his story if anyone happened to recognize him from earlier in the day.
But wherever Ace was, she wasn't wandering around the casino floor. And from what she'd told him, he wasn't sure it would be all that easy to get into the office tower. Not without a touch of shine, anyway.
Just then his cellphone rang.
He whipped it out, but there was no one on the other end, only static, and the signal wasn't even strong enough for it to show a number.
He regarded the tower grimly. Only one person was likely to be phoning him at this hour of night—one person who couldn't get through, anyway. And Ace wouldn't be phoning from inside the building unless she was in a power of trouble indeed.
He got out of the car, and slung Jeanette over his shoulder. As an afterthought, he dug through the bag in the back seat that Gabriel Horn had given him and pulled out the laminated "All Access" pass on its scarlet lanyard and looped it around his neck.
It took him a while to make his way past the stage and through the small crowd, but, as he'd hoped, the pass gave him the perfect disguise. Though every instinct screamed at him to run, he moved at a purposeful walk, and if he didn't quite blend in to the crowd, at least he looked as if he belonged.
He was within sight of the doors to the tower lobby when he saw Ace come dashing toward them. But just as she reached them, Judah Galilee appeared behind her.
Hosea stood very still. One moment the lobby had been empty—he would have been ready to swear to that. The next moment Judah had been there. He watched from several yards away as Judah dragged Ace back toward one of the elevators.
Lord Jesus, protect that child, Hosea thought simply. He'd follow as quickly as he could, but he did not think his power was any match for Judah's, and he dared not risk being caught himself.
The Good Lord helps those who help themselves, Hosea thought, heading for the doors once he was sure the lobby was empty.
It did not occur to him to wonder why he did not stop to call Ria Llewellyn.
The outer doors were locked, but that was not enough to stop even an apprentice Bard. Mage-sight told him which buttons to press on the keypad, and in what order. The lock light went from red to green, and he was in.
He considered the elevator, and hesitated. It was too easy to get trapped in an elevator. From the direction he'd seen Ace come, she'd taken the stairs coming down, so that was the way he'd go up.
There was another lock there. It hadn't been used as recently, so the traces were harder to read. Hosea settled for just asking it to open. It took a little more work, but he managed it.
At each door on the way up he stopped, testing it, but Ace hadn't passed through any of them, and there was no one on any of the floors that he passed. From his tour, he remembered Billy saying that the whole building wasn't occupied yet. He and Gabriel Horn had offices on the penthouse floor. The record company's offices were on the floor below. The broadcasting studios and the Ministry offices occupied the three floors directly above the casino, and Billy's extensive publishing and mail-order empire occupied the three floors above that. But the only thing between floors six and fourteen was something called Christian Family Intervention on the tenth floor, as far as Hosea knew.
Of course, that might just mean that the other seven floors were occupied with offices and conference rooms.
Or there might be something on ten that needed a lot of elbow room. . . .
When he got to the fire door on ten, he took a good close look at it, and read emotional traces all over it, traces he recognized. Ace hadn't opened it, but she'd stopped here, and seen something that had frightened her badly.
Had she seen Judah? Had she been running from him, and been brought back here? Hosea simply didn't have enough information to be sure. What he did know was that he was only a few minutes behind Judah, and he'd do well to hurry.
For the first time, he felt a stab of regret that he'd never accepted the sword that Toni Hernandez had done her best to urge upon him ever since he'd become a Guardian. A sword—not an enchanted banjo—so she said, was the proper sort of weapon for a Guardian to carry into battle. And right now Hosea had to admit that it might be a little more practical if he had to face down Judah Galilee and whoever he had with him.
But when all was said and done, a sword just wasn't his style. And he was as much a Bard as a Guardian. The music magic had been his long before Jimmie Youngblood had bequeathed him her legacy. Whoever, whatever it was that was in charge of Guardians was just going to have to adapt to Hosea's style and choice of weapons.
It would have to be enough.
He eased open the door into the hallway and stepped out.
Without the distractions of earlier in the day, the crowd of other people getting in the way, he could sense the strange wrongness in the air that told him Judah and Gabriel were probably somewhere near. It still didn't "read" to his perceptions as Unseleighe magick—it felt, for example, nothing like what he'd experienced when they'd fought Aerune—so either Aerune hadn't been a typical Unseleighe, or these two weren't, or they were doing something to conceal their magickal signature.
To search the whole floor would take more time than he suspected he had, but Jeannette could search it faster than he could. He needed to get somewhere out of sight to call up her help—you could say a lot of things for Bardic magick, but it wasn't generally a quiet thing.
He glanced up and down the corridor using his mage-sight. Some of the doors glowed a dark baleful red, as if they'd been heated red-hot. Some were only faintly red. Some had no scarlet glow at all. Hosea picked one of those and told it to unlock itself—and just in time, too, for he'd barely eased the door most of the way shut when he heard footsteps in the hall.
He shut the door and dropped to the floor. They'd see a door that was open even a crack, but there was space beneath the doors. From his unorthodox vantage point, Hosea watched three pairs of feet walk by—a pair of gleaming black loafers, a pair of more ordinary lace-up shoes—and Judah Galilee's distinctive silver-heeled boots.
They passed out of sight and stopped. A few moments later Hosea heard the elevator rumble to a halt on the floor and stop, and the sound of footsteps entering it. The elevator went away. All was silence again.
None of the three had said anything, and that was frustrating, but only in bad novels did the villains stand around discussing their plans among themselves just so the hero could be enlightened. The villains already knew what their plans were—why should they bother to tell them to each other?
He'd just have to find out, which meant finding Ace first.
And pray he wasn't searching for her body.
He came out into the corridor again, and headed for the door that glowed most deeply scarlet—the offices of Christian Family Intervention. No surprises there, but a lot of worry; it was supposed to be a family counseling organization specializing in troubled teens. If this was the heart of the Unseleighe infestation . . .
The doors on this level didn't have keypad locks, but they were locked just the same. He looked at the knob and whistled a few bars of a melody. There was a distinct click, and Hosea turned the handle.
The outer office was an ordinary receptionist's office. In the glow from the hallway, he could see that it did not have an outside window, so he risked turning on the lights. He searched it quickly, just in case, but there was no one here. The door to the office beyond was locked as well—the sign on the door said "Director Cowan"—but Hosea opened it easily.
Here, too, there were no windows—but they would have spoiled the whole English Headmaster look that someone had been striving for, rather as if C. S. Lewis had shopped at Wal-Mart.
And there were people here.
Hosea checked, but they were no threat. A man and a woman, sitting on a leather couch that was against the far wall of the office. They were slumped against each other, eyes closed, deep in spell-bound Sleep.
He could try to wake them later. Right now finding Ace was more important, and there was another door to try. He stopped long enough to take Jeanette from her case and sling her strap around his neck. The way the door looked to his mage-sight, he would need all the help he could muster against what might lie beyond it.
Disturbingly, this door was not locked. One hand firmly wrapped around the neck of the banjo, he eased the door open. . . .
It always seemed simple in the movies—but in the movies, the ropes didn't slither under your hands like live things, doing their level best to re-tie themselves as fast as you tried to untie them. And she was working by touch, with her own hands tied behind her back. It really didn't help that Magnus was growling—there really wasn't any other word for it—and kept forgetting to keep his wrists together to give her as much slack as he could.
At least neither of them could see that she was crying.
No matter what had happened in her life before this, she had never actually felt as if there was no hope. There had always been hope; hope that Daddy would see reason, that Gabriel Horn would go away, that she could run away from home, that she and Jaycie and Magnus could manage to keep body and soul together, that one day they would have a real place to stay—
There had always been a hope.
There wasn't. Not anymore. She knew that; knew it blood and bone deep, with a despair that had no bottom. They weren't going to get out of here. They were going to end up like that dark-haired boy that Gabriel Horn'd had with him, the one that Eric had said had gotten all the Talent sucked out of him. But it would hardly matter, because then he was going to kill her, and her Daddy, and hundreds of other innocent people. And then he was going to go home to her Mama, and smile, and smile, and smile. . . .
Ace choked back a sob. She almost had one of the knots undone, but just as she pulled it free, she felt the rope pulling back the other way, trying to pull itself back into the knot again.
She looked up at the sound of the door opening.
"Hosea!" she gasped, in an urgent whisper. "Oh, quick—what time is it?"
It wasn't the oddest question he'd been asked by someone he was rescuing, but people the Guardians rescued tended to want to know things like the year, the country, and—on one memorable occasion—what planet they were on when help finally arrived. Hosea glanced at his watch. "A little after four."
Ace gave a choked laugh of relief that sounded just on the edge of hysteria; she looked as if she might burst into tears at any moment. "I told you he'd rescue us," she said to no one in particular.
"Sunrise is around seven," Eric said urgently, looking up at Hosea, and straining at his bonds. "We've got to be out of here before then."
"Happy to oblige," Hosea replied. He slung Jeanette over his back and pulled out his Leatherman multi-tool.
He'd expected to have to cut through the ropes, but they simply shriveled away at the touch of the iron blade. More of that Unseleighe muck, he reckoned. What he'd do if they ever managed to make themselves immune to iron and steel, he didn't know. Ace and Magnus stood up and hugged each other hard, as he knelt down and got to work on Eric's bindings.
"We have to get out of here 'cause there's a bomb," Ace said quickly, over Magnus's shoulder. "Gabriel Horn is setting a bomb to blow up tomorrow at the concert and kill everybody."
"Well, that does sound like his style," Hosea said mildly, getting to his feet after freeing Eric's ankles. Somehow, after all this, he wasn't too terribly surprised. "No wonder he was so anxious for me to have a front-row seat." He walked around to the back of the chair and regarded the silver cuffs. "Ah don't suppose you cain sing your way out of these?"
"Sorry," Eric said, looking hangdog, as if he somehow blamed himself for not being able to get out of trouble this time. "It's some kind of binding spell."
"Let's let Jeanette an' me give it a try then. Ah cain try cutting through the metal as a last resort." He smiled a lopsided smile. "Things hereabouts don't seem to like Cold Iron much, now, do they? We'll haveta see jest how they like a little Bard-shine."
He swung the banjo around in front and took a moment to tighten the strings. He supposed if he'd known he was going to become a Bard who needed to summon up the music magic at a moment's notice, he'd have picked a less temperamental instrument to carry around, like a guitar or a fiddle. But the banjo had been in his family for a very long time, and he trusted it, and besides—he had the feeling that there had always been a certain amount of shine in it, even before Jeanette had made it her home.
He struck a few experimental notes, then broke into a rendition of "Billy in the Low Land," a fiddler's reel that he'd always liked, and had adapted for the banjo. If you were looking to set something free, this was the tune to do it by.
It was a bright bouncy tune—the banjo wasn't a mournful instrument—and as the music spilled over his fingers, Hosea concentrated on the silver shackles.
Most magick glowed. This, embodied in the silver cuffs, ate light instead. He'd hoped he'd sense a locking mechanism, however artfully concealed, but there was nothing. However much it looked like a length of chain and two wide bracelets to his open eyes, to his magickal senses, it was just one seamless block of stubborn, swallowing Eric's hands up to the wrist, and sucking his magic out of him.
But Hosea was stubborn, too.
The reel came around to the repeat, and he picked up the pace. If there was nothing to open, maybe he could change the shape, or the substance, or turn them back into what they'd been before they were shackles. Anything to get them off Eric's wrists. You get off'n there, you! he thought at them. You don't rightly belong here, and you oughtta git back to where you come from, right quick!
He'd just about made up his mind that he was going to have to saw through them when there was a faint, ear-splitting wail; Ace and Magnus winced and covered their ears, and the cuffs turned themselves inside out and vanished.
Eric gave a faint startled yelp and leaned forward, rubbing his wrists.
"Thanks," he said, getting shakily to his feet. "Now, let's get out of here."
"There's a couple of people outside we're going to have to bring along," Hosea said. "All wrapped up in magick, just the other side of that door."
"It's locked," Magnus announced.
While Hosea had been working on Eric's cuffs, Ace and Magnus had gone over to the door. There was no handle on this side, only a dark door-shaped line in the wall.
"If they could open it, so can I," Eric said. Now that the Binding Spell had been lifted, he was himself again, as if a missing puzzle piece had been dropped into place. It had been—horrible. He never, ever wanted to find himself in that position again. If he ever saw someone coming at him with silver handcuffs like that—
Well, that wasn't important right now. What was important was that he get the kids away. The kids and Hosea, to keep them safe. Ria would kill him if anything happened to Ace. Scratch that, she'd kill him, then resurrect him so she could kill him all over again.
They'd get out of here, he'd send the other three back to New York—and then he'd figure out some way to stop that bomb from going off.
He summoned up his Flute of Air and played a few experimental notes, then a stronger skirl.
The door swept inward, spilling the strong light of the room beyond into the grey room. He'd never been so glad to see ordinary light before. It was like god-rays coming through black clouds.
The four of them stepped through the door in single file, Eric coming last, holding himself back by sheer force of will from rushing the open door.
"I am so glad to get out of there," Ace said fervently, turning to face him.
But Eric had stopped, staring at his parents, sitting side-by-side, unmoving, on the sofa.
"What are they doing here?" Magnus demanded, his face clouding. He started forward, but Hosea put a hand on his shoulder.
"Ah'd reckon they're here to pick the two of you up come the morning," he said, reasoning it out. "And Gabriel wanted them here early, just in case."
"Leave 'em," Magnus said flatly. "They came here on their own; we've got no responsibility to them."
"We can't do that," Eric said, immediately, feeling a sick anger even as he said it. He wanted to agree with Magnus—but he couldn't. Like it or not—he couldn't. Even if they had forfeited any right to his concern as a son, he still had a responsibility towards them as a Bard.
"Don't tell me you care what happens to them!" Magnus burst out. He sounded as if he were trying to keep from crying—or screaming. "You ran out on them the first second you could and never looked back. And don't you say anything," he added, turning on Ace. "It's not like you're trying to do anything but get away from your parents!"
Ace turned red with anger, and slapped him. Hard.
"Stop it," Eric said. He didn't raise his voice, but it cut right through the emotional storm about to break, and shattered it, leaving absolute silence behind. "No arguments. I'm not leaving anybody where Gabrevys can get his hands on them. And you owe Ace an apology, Magnus. If you can't figure out why on your own, maybe you'd better ask her politely to tell you."
He didn't look back to see what Magnus did; there wasn't time. He concentrated on the spell surrounding his parents. No way they were going to be able to drag them out, asleep as they were. They'd have to get out under their own power.
It was a Sleep spell, but not a simple one. Gabrevys was a Magus Major, and had had centuries to perfect his magick. Gabrevys might be able to break the spell with a touch, but Eric had to unravel it carefully, lest he cause further damage.
And they had to hurry.
He studied it for what seemed like an agonizingly long time, still in that complete silence that had fallen over all of them at his rebuke.
At last he summoned up his flute and began to play. Mozart. He'd always liked Mozart. Not as mathematical as Bach, but somehow more suitable on this particular occasion. There was spontaneous life in Mozart, and joy. They needed joy, here.
The spell appeared to his magickal sight as a darkly glowing cocoon of thread. Each strand must be teased loose and dissolved, and in the right order, too. Otherwise—
Well, he didn't know for certain what would happen, but he suspected it would somehow wrap more tightly around its victims, perhaps sending them into a sleep from which there would be no awakening.
At last the spell broke free—and as it did, Eric felt a flare of warning. There had been something incorporated into the spell that he hadn't expected—a kind of alarm.
Wherever Gabrevys was, he knew the spell had been broken, and he'd be coming back to find out why.
They didn't have much time.
"We've got to get out of here—now," Eric said.
Michael and Fiona opened their eyes, looking around in confusion.
"Eric—Magnus," Fiona Banyon said, getting to her feet. "Are you . . . are you ready to go home now?" She looked around the room, obviously searching for someone she didn't see. "Where are—"
"You have to come with us now," Eric said carefully. "Gabriel Horn lied to you, and so did the people who were working for him. You're in danger here."
His father gave a sniff of contempt. His mother frowned. "Eric, what are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?"
"No, no more than usual; he's the same old Eric," Michael Banyon said with a wry smile. "Fairy tales, or hallucinations; delusions of persecution. Well, Fi, at least we have Magnus. Come along, Magnus." He held out his hand peremptorily.
Magnus exploded. "Fuck you!" he shouted. "You think I'm going anywhere with you? After what you tried to do to me? You've spent all your lives trying to turn me into an obedient little puppet, and when nothing else worked, you hired a couple of thugs to do it for you. I wouldn't turn a dog over to you! Well I've got a surprise for you!—the thugs you hired didn't happen to be human. It would have worked great, only that precious musical talent that's the only thing you care about would have been gone for good."
"For God's sake, Magnus," Michael said in exasperation. "Don't you start too—I've heard more than enough fairy tales from your brother—"
"Where's Mr. Horn? Where's Director Cowan? What have you done with them?" Fiona demanded, interrupting him.
"They aren't here. They left hours ago, after they . . . drugged you," Eric said, hoping that if he sounded rational, they might actually pause long enough to listen to him, at least a little.
"Come on, Fiona. We'd better go get help," Michael said suddenly. He put a hand on her arm, drawing her toward the door.
Oh hell. That'll bring Gabrevys right down on us—
Eric summoned up his Flute of Air. His parents didn't recognize the truth when they heard it—small wonder—and there was no time to convince them. He'd just put a come-along spell on them . . .
Hosea put a hand on his arm.
"No," the Ozark Bard said quietly. "Iff'n you use magick to force them to do what you want—even for the best o' reasons—how are you better'n Gabriel an' his lot?"
Fiona exchanged a look with Michael, and the two of them edged towards the door, keeping a watch on Eric as if they expected him to suddenly leap on them.
"But—" Eric protested—
Then he let out his breath in a painful sigh, letting the flute dissolve.
He couldn't. No matter if they did bring Gabrevys down on them. Hosea was right. To take away another person's free choice by magick was wrong. And they didn't have time for anything else.
Fiona and Michael reached the door, snatched it open, and bolted out, slamming it behind them.
"You warned them," Hosea said. "You've done your part."
"Not that it will do any good," Eric said grimly. "Let's get out of here. And hope we're lucky enough to get out of here before the hunt shows up."
Hosea nodded; Magnus just snarled. Ace didn't say anything, but her face was white again. They ran out into the outer office, and then into the hallway. No point in trying to be quiet or subtle now—their only hope lay in getting out of the building before Gabrevys found them, or all four of them would probably end up back in that grey room.
He didn't see his parents anywhere.
He was definitely going to write to the Better Business Bureau about these people, Michael thought angrily, if not bring them up on civil and criminal charges both. He was positive that they'd both been drugged—his watch said it was nearly five a.m., and the last thing he recalled was that it had been midafternoon.
And as for the grateful, compliant offspring that Director Cowan had promised, Eric was the same irrational, delusional, defiant boy Michael remembered, and Magnus had grown much, much worse. Dangerously violent, in fact. No wonder Fiona had been terrified.
To make matters worse, they seemed to be trapped on the tenth floor. All the elevators were locked down for the night. They searched the entire floor, trying doors, finding nothing and no one, while Michael kept his ears open for sounds of Eric and his band of hippies. The look on Magnus's face had made him both angry and alarmed.
The door to Christian Family Intervention was still open, however, and the others seemed to have gone. Michael quickly urged Fiona inside and closed the door behind him. It shut with a comforting click.
The phone on the secretary's desk was shut off, which was infuriating, and so was the one in Director Cowan's office.
"I suppose you expect to simply wait here until he shows up in the morning?" Fiona demanded icily.
"All of this was your idea," Michael reminded her. Belatedly now, he checked his cellphone, but he hadn't charged it in a couple of days, and as he feared, it was dead.
"And I suppose you didn't want your son back?" she snapped. She strode over to the door at the far end of the office. "Come on, Michael—show some initiative for once. All of these offices probably interconnect. Maybe someone's left another cellphone in a desk." She flung open the door and ushered him in ahead of her.
The door closed behind them.
As their eyes adjusted to the dimness, they could see that whatever this was, it was no office. The room was empty except for two silvery chairs.
"Well that was another brilliant notion of yours," Michael said. He turned around to leave.
There was no handle on the door.