- Chapter 7

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# Chapter Seven:
Chase Around The Windmill

The report on Mr. Dorland was waiting on Ria's desk Thursday afternoon. She had Anita fax it over to Eric's computer, with a note that she'd be out of town over the weekend if he were trying to reach her. She hadn't heard from him since his visit Tuesday night, but she wasn't surprised; Eric would certainly be single-minded in his pursuit of his brother. She made a note in her PDA to call him Monday.

Philip Dorland wasn't the best in his field—which was nice; that meant the best was still available for her to hire—but he was very good, with a sixty percent success rate: astronomically high in the world of missing and runaway children. Of course, Dorland didn't have the advantages of magic to help him hunt, and he was working a month-cold trail. He was probably still checking the Boston area, trying to trace Magnus' movements there.

She'd put an operative on Dorland just as a matter of course; Eric couldn't object to that, and she had no immediate plans to tell him anyway. But it was always best to know what your enemy was doing, and if Eric didn't know that Dorland was the enemy, Ria did.

But for now it was time to turn her attention to other things, and other inquiries.

* * *

Early Friday morning, Ria went down to the garage beneath her new apartment, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder, a set of car keys jingling in her hand. She greeted the garage attendant by name, and walked back to her car.

She'd called down earlier, so they'd already taken the cover off the Jag and made sure it was gassed up and ready to go. A 1964 Jaguar E-Type, British Racing Green, and as temperamental as a skittish elvensteed. But the mechanic had given it a complete check-over just last week, and this would be one of the last times she'd be able to drive it this year. Alas, that was the problem with one of these temperamental mechanical beasties; your mechanic saw it more than you did.

She backed out of her slot—the powerful engine purring like a very large kitten—and nosed out into the street. Threading the car expertly into the morning traffic, she headed north.

Once she was on the Saw Mill, Ria was able to open it up a little—nowhere near the Jag's top speed, which was somewhere around 180, but if she decided to come back to the city tonight there might be a stretch of the Taconic where she could give the old lady her head a bit.

Her destination was Amsterdam County, several hours north of Manhattan, along the eastern bank of the Hudson. Taghkanic College and the Margaret Beresford Bidney Memorial Psychic Science Research Laboratory—to give the Bidney Institute its full unwieldy name—were there, and both worth a look, but neither was her destination today.

Once she'd found out about Parker Wheatley, Ria had started doing her homework, but there'd been no sense limiting her inquiries to this side of the Veil. With Aerune out of commission, Wheatley would obviously be trolling for a new Sidhe padrone, and Ria didn't move in the right Underhill circles to find out whether he had a chance of finding one.

She could, however, locate and hire someone who could.

Inigo Moonlight billed himself as a Confidential Inquiry Agent and Researcher of the Arcane. Ria suspected he'd been doing pretty much the same thing at least since Queen Victoria had ruled the waves—and why not? The man was—or at least seemed to be—a full-blooded Sidhe (not that she'd ever met him in person). If anyone could tell her whether Parker Wheatley was—still—trafficking with the Unseleighe Sidhe, it was Mr. Moonlight.

So she'd hired him, which presented difficulties of its own.

Inigo Moonlight was . . . eccentric. Brilliant—Ria never wasted her time hiring less than the best—but eccentric. He had a phone but didn't, so far as she'd ever been able to determine, answer it, so there was no use in calling him, and he conducted all his business by letter. And why not? He had plenty of time.

Ria did not. If she wanted to know what Mr. Moonlight had unearthed without waiting out an interminable exchange of letters, she'd better go and see him.

Inigo Moonlight lived in an artists' colony named Carbonek just outside of Glastonbury, New York—another oddity. The colony had been there since the turn of the century—the nineteenth century—and unlike most artists' colonies, it valued anonymity and isolation for its inhabitants above all things.

She supposed there was a certain symmetry to the idea of one of the Sidhe—member of a race with no creativity of its own—living in an enclave devoted entirely to creativity. She wondered how he managed it.

Several hours later she'd reached Amsterdam County Road 4, which wound down into the town of Glastonbury. Glastonbury—most of the towns in this area had fanciful names out of myth and literature; there was a Tamerlane on the other side of the river—was a small Hudson River town, too far off the beaten track to be really touristy—and no passenger trains ran on the west side of the Hudson—but thanks to the nearby college, it had a good selection of shops and services. She drove around a bit until she found a cafe-bakery (named, misleadingly, Bread Alone), and treated herself to an early lunch before driving on.

Taghkanic College had been founded in 1714 on the site of an old cider mill, but everything around it had remained farmland for quite some time thereafter. Even now, the pernicious urban sprawl that was eating the Hudson Valley alive had not reached this far north; once Ria was out of Glastonbury and back on the road again, all she saw was trees, apple orchards, and occasional glimpses of the river. Finally, about ten miles outside of town, there was a small sign off to her left, easy to miss: Carbonek.

"I suppose it goes along with Glastonbury," Ria muttered to herself, turning onto the narrow, one-lane road.

The road was barely wide enough for one car, and without shoulders or turnoffs. Though the road was surprisingly good, Ria drove very slowly, mindful of the possibility of other vehicles and of pedestrians—and, for that matter, deer, which were becoming increasingly a problem on the roads. Dense hedges grew right up to the sides of the road, so tall she could see nothing beyond them. If she met anybody coming the other way, one or the other of them had better be prepared to back up for quite a distance.

To her relief, a couple of miles along, the road widened out into a lane and a half, and the high hedges diminished and finally disappeared, to be replaced by a low drystone wall. She could see trees in the field beyond, towering venerable evergreens.

A little farther, and she came to a set of gates.

Two massive fieldstone pillars supported a wrought-metal arch—not iron, Ria noted, but bronze, long weathered to green by time and the elements. The metalwork was in the style of the followers of William Morris, and spelled out one word: "Carbonek."

The Castle of the Grail, which none but the pure in heart and soul might enter. Well, let's give it a shot, shall we?

A brass plaque on one of the pillars announced that this was Private Property. The other said that TRESPASSERS were FORBIDDEN. But the gates—massive things of oak, that looked as if they'd just come from Morris's own workrooms—were standing open, so Ria drove through.

Just inside the gates there was a blacktopped parking area—necessary in a region that required plowing and shoveling several times a winter—and the road did not extend any farther. Ria pulled in and parked. There were a number of vehicles already there, from battered vintage VW bugs, to no-nonsense pickup trucks, to a few nondescript vans and sport utilities.

She got out of the car and stretched, looking around. The air was sharply cold, and she could smell the river, though she could not see it. Ria inhaled deeply, relishing the fresh air. City girl she might be, but it was nice to get out into the countryside every once in a while.

There was a large building on her right, as anonymous as a barn, and thoroughly locked. No help there, unless she wanted to break in. She turned to the path leading away from the parking lot. It bisected another drystone wall, and beyond that she could see rows of cottages on either side of the path.

They looked anachronistically English, from their slate roofs and whitewashed exteriors, to the white picket fences outside. She walked toward them. She knew from his mailing address that Inigo Moonlight lived in something called Avalon Cottage, which would be right in line with the Arthurian motif of this place.

The cottages were constructed in blocks of four with cross-streets intersecting. Peering between them as she passed, Ria could see that there were large back gardens, and other cottages beyond. And probably, elsewhere in the colony, there were large communal studios for those whose art required large spaces and specialized equipment. And surely—somewhere—perhaps in the barn she'd passed on her way in, there was a place for the residents to receive their mail, because nowhere did she see a mailbox on any of the cottages, nor did she think a postman would relish tramping all over the quaintly retro Carbonek on foot, especially in the winter.

To her relief, each cottage was clearly labeled on an enameled plaque beside the door, its name easy to read from the gate. All of the cottages seemed to have placenames out of the Arthurian mythos—there was a Tintagel, a Camelot (of course), a Badon, a Lyonesse, a Winchester, a Camlann . . .

But no Avalon. Perhaps it came and went, like its namesake.

All the garden plots were neatly kept, though their makeup varied wildly, from a full English "cottage garden" (now bedded down for the winter, of course), to one empty of growing things entirely, where grass had been replaced by colored gravel laid in pleasing patterns, with a boulder or two for decoration.

What they lacked was any rhyme or reason to the naming. She didn't even know how many cottages there were. The residents might value their privacy, but surely this was taking matters to extremes?

"Excuse me, are you looking for someone?"

Busted.

Ria turned at the sound of the voice. A woman had leaned out of the window of Sshalott Cottage. Her long white hair was pinned up in an untidy bun on top of her head, and there was a ferret draped around her neck.

"I'm looking for Avalon Cottage," Ria said, mentally crossing her fingers. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat.

But the woman did not seem to be inclined to have Ria flung out as a trespasser. Instead she smiled, looking pleased.

"Ah, you're looking for Mr. Moonlight." The woman reached down out of sight and scooped up another ferret, absently adding it to her living necklace. "Avalon Cottage is all the way down at the end of the lane, past Broceliande and Logres. You'll know it by the roses. He does grow the loveliest roses," she added with a happy sigh. "Good luck!"

Reaching for yet a third ferret—apparently she had an infinite supply of them—the woman turned, her arms full of squirming mustelids, pushing the window closed with an elbow.

Roses? At this time of year? Ria set the question aside for later. She continued down the path, wondering why luck would be called for.

She soon discovered the answer, as the path grew steep, narrow, and twisting. The block of cottages ended, and the trees thinned out as well. The cottages the ferret woman had named were larger than the ones in the cottage-blocks, and each stood alone, surrounded by the ubiquitous white picket fences.

Broceliande's tenant was a sculptor. Ria heard the ring of steel on stone as she approached. He was out in the garden, muffled to the eyes against the cold, hammering away at an enormous block of granite. He did not look up as she walked by. Other sculptures stood about the garden. Ria stopped, and looked, and made a note to find out who he was—and more to the point, who his agent was.

Logres' tenant apparently did not care for plants overmuch. The grass within the yard was neat and very short, and there was nothing else at all within the fence. All the windows were heavily curtained with dark fabric. She had the oddest desire to walk up to the door and demand to know what it was the inhabitant did, and strictly controlled herself. You're far too grown-up to indulge yourself in idle fancies, Ria my girl.

All the same, the desire to know was very strong. Perhaps he—somehow she didn't doubt it was a "he"—was a reclusive writer, working on some odd literary masterpiece. Or perhaps a jeweler, creating small splendid treasures in secret. This place had a peculiar Brigadoonish aura to it, as if it existed outside of time—partly, she was sure, because the cold raw November weather ensured that she saw so few of the colony's inhabitants. She was sure the place would seem very different in summer.

But even in the cold, she smelled Avalon before she saw it.

She made her way carefully down the last of the path—a path by courtesy, now. The Hudson stretched out before her, and the gentle slope of the eastern bank. Here on the western bank, they were hundreds of feet above the surface of the river, and the cottage was perched on the very edge of a sheer drop to the water below. A racket like roaring surf momentarily assailed her ears, accompanied by the lonely wail of a train whistle; a southbound freight train was running on the tracks far below.

The loveliest roses. Indeed.

The fence, and the cottage itself, were covered in roses—red, white, yellow, pink—and every single one of them was in full bloom.

Roses, Ria told the roses firmly, bloom in June, not November.

The roses were unimpressed.

She made her way to the gate. This close, the scent of roses was intoxicating, and Ria could feel the tingle of Elven magic that had coaxed them to bloom out of season. She lifted the latch of the gate and walked inside.

The whole of the garden had been devoted to roses. She was no expert, but it seemed to her that everything here was the older varieties—nothing from later than a century or so ago, at least. These were roses from a time when roses had been prized for their fragrance above all things. The scent was intense enough to drink in like wine.

She walked through the roses and up to the front door. Through the overgrowth of roses, she could barely make out the enamel plaque beside the door: AVALON COTTAGE.

Looks like you've come to the right place.

There was an antique bellpull beside the door, and a brass knocker in the shape of a grinning woodland imp holding a ring in its jaws. She was hesitating between the two when the door swung open.

"Come in, Miss Llewellyn," Inigo Moonlight said. "I have been expecting you."

* * *

"I do hope you didn't have any difficulty finding me?" Mr. Moonlight said, pouring tea.

"None to speak of," Ria said politely, accepting the delicate porcelain cup. She sniffed the sweet scent of oranges and cloves appreciatively. It was herb tea, of course. Inigo Moonlight would as soon drink rat poison as caffeine—sooner, in fact. The rat poison probably wouldn't hurt him.

He had not bothered to cast a glamourie about himself, and appeared before her in his true form, though dressed in mundane, if rather old-fashioned, clothing. He was quite the oldest Sidhe she had ever imagined seeing. All the elves were fair-skinned, but Moonlight's skin was nearly translucent with age. His hair was white in a way that suggested that all color had been bleached from it by time. How old could he be? A thousand? More?

But his eyes were still the intense green of cedars in twilight, and age, whatever cosmetic changes it had wrought, had not enfeebled him.

She was resigned to a certain amount of pleasantry and commonplace, but Moonlight surprised her by coming quickly to the point, once he had settled her with tea and cookies in the parlor overlooking the garden with its splendid view of roses and the river.

"You will be eager to hear my report. And I confess I was preparing to contact you, as there has been an alarming new development in the past week. I shall, of course, at your pleasure, continue to pursue it as well as the other matters you have asked me to consider, but it had occurred to me that it might possibly be a problem in a sphere in which you yourself might be better equipped to, shall we say, confront the considerations of the world?"

"Something new?" Ria asked, leaning forward. "With Wheatley?"

"Indeed." Inigo leaned back, setting down his own cup of tea untasted and steepling his fingers. "The complete details are in my report, but—to summarize—Parker Wheatley has not succeeded either in forging a new Underhill alliance or in successfully making an overture to any member of either Court. Nor have he and his Paranormal Defense Initiative captured any member of any Court, Bright or Dark, High or Low."

"That's good news," Ria said.

"What I am about to tell you is not. I have discovered that Wheatley is making ever-so-discreet inquiries about De Rebus Nefandis, a ninth-century grimoire—or, more properly, a book which could be used to construct one. Why this is a matter of particular concern is that De Rebus Nefandus—'Concerning Forbidden Things,' as the title might be rendered in English—describes the ancient spells once known to humans, that could compel the Sidhe. Though he did not write them down in his book, the ancient monk who is the author of this tome described them well enough that a superior magician might—would!—be able to either reconstruct them or create something similar, if he could study the only extant text describing them."

" 'Only'?" Ria asked. "There's only one copy of the book?"

"The only copy that survives is in the Vatican Library," Moonlight said. "Unfortunately, Mr. Wheatley now knows it is there."

"And," Ria said, "if he gets it . . . ?"

"If he has it, and a Mage to do his bidding, that Mage may call us and force us to appear, bind us, compel us, force us to do his bidding and work no harm against him." Moonlight sighed, shaking his head. "From what you have told me, and what I have since learned from my own young operatives, it would be unfortunate in the extreme were Mr. Wheatley to discover some way to acquire De Rebus, or to gain sufficient access to it for his fell purposes."

It would be like Wheatley having Aerune back—on a leash. Ria didn't care for the idea. But something else interested her as well. Normally the Sidhe were impervious to the usual run of sorcery and human magic. The only way to take them out was Elven magic or sheer superior firepower, mundane or magical. Imagine having a set of spells custom-tailored to tie them up in knots . . .

"I'm not suggesting that we let Wheatley get his hands on this book," Ria said slowly, "but I've seen the damage the Dark Court can do to people's lives. Do you really think that humans having a magical defense against the Sidhe is such a bad thing? Maybe everyone needs a few spells like that."

Moonlight picked up his teacup and sipped from it. He did not answer her directly.

"Perhaps you will forgive me for speaking so plainly, but I fear it is the privilege of the old to lecture, and the burden of the young to listen. I have seen much in my life, both good and bad. . . . Magic is for the elves, Dreams for the humans, Miss Llewellyn," he said gently. "Give either race what is the other's birthright, and it does not go well for them, in the end. Oh, the magic of a few does not hurt us—but magic in the hands of the many would be devastating. But without humans, we elves cannot survive, nor would humans long survive without us, I think. You know it to be true of your own knowledge, for did not your young Bard once see a vision of what the world would be like, did the portals no longer connect our two worlds? For each race, a living death, followed by death in truth, so much is the fate of each race intertwined."

Ria thought back to what Eric had told her of his vision of an L. A. in which Perenor had harnessed the Sun-Descending Nexus for his own personal use. A grey, bleak Orwellian place, where no one laughed, no one dreamed . . .

Was that what the elves—who did not dream themselves—gave humans? Dreams?

"So what you're saying is that elves and humans need each other?" Ria asked dubiously.

"Danu created us both," Moonlight answered ambiguously. "And humans and elves both are Her children. Each supplies what the other lacks. Though woe betide he, Sidhe or human, who tries to take it for himself."

It wasn't exactly a straight answer, but Ria supposed she was used to that. She already knew that a Sidhe who tried to dream was risking—and often finding—death. And as for humans who practiced magic, well, the burn rate there was just as high, if not higher.

"But Eric is a magician, and he's human," Ria said, puzzled.

"Your young friend Eric is a Bard," Moonlight said, correcting her gently. "There have always been Bards among the Earthborn; it is a power they are born with, not something culled from ancient books and pacts with powers best left unroused by humans. A Bard is not a Magus."

Moonlight might see a distinction there, but it was a bit subtle for her. Eric quacked like a duck, after all. He cast spells—didn't that make him a magician?

She shrugged. Arguing with the elves was like riddling with Dragons. Nothing good ever came of it. They returned to the topic of Wheatley.

"We know he doesn't have that book. But he might have a magician. If he does, I need to know," Ria said. "And—obviously—to make arrangements to remove the magician from the PDI before either one can do any harm. Meanwhile, I'll keep working on getting the PDI shut down. If they don't have any real results to show, it shouldn't be too difficult."

"If Parker Wheatley does have a compliant magician, De Rebus Nefandis may not be as safe as we hope," Moonlight said solemnly. "The days when the Vatican Library was properly sealed and warded are long past, I fear, and any competent Earthborn Mage may summon one of the Lesser Host to do his bidding. It would be a simple matter to send such a creature to steal the volume—and what I can imagine, Wheatley and his Mage will stumble onto, eventually," Moonlight said unhappily.

"Which means I'd better not waste any time," Ria said briskly. "Looks like I won't be spending the weekend leaf-peeping after all. It's a bit late for it, anyway."

"I shall telephone you if I learn anything of urgency," Moonlight said, surprising her. "Come into the garden. I shall cut some roses for you to take with you."

* * *

Heading back toward the city—the cockpit of the Jaguar fragrant with both the scent of roses and the scent of the small parcel of orange-vanilla cookies that Mr. Moonlight had urged upon her at the last moment—Ria's mind roved over all the things Inigo Moonlight had told her, not the least of them the strange interdependency between elves and humans.

He'd spoken as if humans and magic should be completely separate—as if no human should have sorcerous powers, only Gifts and Talents like Eric's or Kayla's. But that only made Ria wonder even more furiously: What about the Guardians?

They had magic.

Where did they fit into Inigo Moonlight's cosmology?

* * *

It was evening by the time she reached her apartment. Ria took the time to arrange the flowers in a bowl on her coffee table—the huge creamy-pink blossoms made an odd counterpoint to the starkly functional slab of black granite—then phoned Eric.

He wasn't home, and his cell wasn't answering. Neither was Kayla's. She sighed, and called his apartment back to leave a longer message on his home phone, sent one to Kayla as well, then settled down to read Moonlight's report.

It was handwritten, of course, and even though the pages of Spenserian script were as flawlessly clear as any professional calligrapher's, she still found it rather heavy going. But it was all there—plenty of nothing, in exhaustive detail. Wheatley had no Otherworld contacts—and apparently, until very recently, hadn't even had any particular idea of how to go about looking for them properly.

She muttered to herself, setting the report aside. She wondered if Wheatley had actually managed to get his hands on a magician—and if he had, if it was one of the rare competent ones who actually knew what he was doing and had the power to do it. Then she dismissed that aspect of the problem from her mind entirely. Let Moonlight follow it up. That was what she was paying him for. She'd attack the problem of Wheatley from another angle entirely.

Pulling out her PDA, Ria opened it to her address book, picked up her phone again, and began making calls.

* * *

In the last two days, the two of them had hit up every shelter and flop in Lower Manhattan, and come up dry. And they still had a lot of places to check. On the other hand, Kayla had to admit, Eric was really getting into the role of obsessive weirdo.

He'd probably have still been at it tonight if she hadn't dragged him home with a combination of pleading and threats, pointing out that he wasn't going to do anybody any good—particularly Magnus—if he collapsed himself.

There was no magical trace of Magnus anywhere around the shelters, but they still had the list of addresses that Serafina had given Hosea. If Kayla could get Hosea to sit on Eric long enough, maybe she could convince him to let her check out some of those on her own. It wasn't like it would be all that dangerous, particularly in daylight or early evening when the inhabitants would all be sound asleep—or out.

Or maybe early morning. Yeah, that'd work. Not only would Eric still be asleep, so would everybody at her destination. Runaways, like any other small scavenger, were creatures of twilight and the night, sleeping as far into the day as they could manage. Besides, that way they slept through the heat of the day in summer, and were awake for the worst of the cold in winter. So that was how she'd handle it. And that way she wouldn't have to talk Hosea into going along with her plan.

She finally got Eric herded back into Guardian House, and down to her basement apartment.

"I have food," Kayla said firmly. "And you need to eat."

* * *

The basement apartment was tiny—one room, with a cubbyhole kitchen and a small bathroom with a stall shower. There was only one tiny window—at ground level, which meant it was high up in the wall.

When she'd moved in, Kayla had painted: the walls were black, stenciled with Celtic borders halfway up their height in a glittery dark purple. The ceiling was the same deep purple as the Celtic border, painted with swirling clouds and a yellow crescent moon by one of the House's more artistic tenants. A bead curtain of iridescent dark purple moons and stars had been set up to screen the studio's kitchen from the rest of the space, and a long mirror wreathed in black silk vines and roses had been hung on the bathroom door. The battered linoleum floor had disappeared under several motheaten but still serviceable Oriental rugs, and the small window was garlanded in a black lace curtain. Fortunately the furniture—a futon, several bookcases, a table, and some chairs, were spatter-painted in lurid shades of pink, green, and purple, or she'd never have been able to find them.

Eric found the effect claustrophobic—the dark colors made the small space smaller—but he didn't have to live here, and Kayla seemed to like it.

"I'm thinking of repainting," Kayla said, as she vanished into the kitchen. The bead curtain swished and jingled around her, glittering in the light of several floor lamps.

"Too cheerful for you?" Eric gibed, sitting down on the futon.

"Everybody likes a change," Kayla called back. He heard the whoosh as the old gas stove lit and the clatter of pots and kettle. She came out with a plate of sliced bread and butter.

"Tea in a minute, chili to follow. I was thinking maybe purple—you know, bring the ceiling color down? And pale toward the floor, almost lilac. And then stencil silver stars all over everything. Doesn't take much talent for that. And Ria called. She wants you to call her back, but it can wait until after you eat. Won't take that long for the three-alarm to heat up."

Eric picked up a slice of bread—thick bakery slices, with a quarter-inch of butter on top—and bit into it, only then realizing how hungry he was.

"You keep your phone in the refrigerator?"

"Wireless e-mail. And on the refrigerator, thank you very much. You may have noticed this is not exactly the New York Hilton."

"I have seen bigger closets," Eric admitted. Kayla's laptop was crammed into one corner on a triangular desk Hosea had built for her, surrounded by stacks of textbooks and a growing collection of electronic peripherals.

"But it's mine-all-mine," Kayla said with satisfaction. She walked back into the kitchen. "Besides, the rent's good."

* * *

After dinner, Eric went up to his own apartment. He thought of going out again—it wasn't that late yet—but he supposed he should at least call Ria back first, and maybe see if Hosea was around. He shouldn't be sluffing off his work with Hosea, and he ought to see how Hosea was coming with that task he'd set him.

But Ria first.

She answered on the first ring.

"Hello, Eric. I was wondering when you'd surface."

Caller ID was a wonderful thing, Eric reflected. It was one of the many shocks, large and small, that had awaited him when he'd first returned to the World Above from his long sojourn in Underhill. Being able to tell who was calling before you picked up the phone had been the stuff of science fiction when he'd been a kid. Now it was the stuff of everyday life.

"I got your e-mail. I thought you were supposed to be away all weekend."

"Plans changed. I don't suppose I need to ask if you've had any luck?" Ria responded.

Eric sighed, a wordless answer. "Kayla and I have had an extensive tour of all the places tourists don't visit, but no luck. A few more places to try . . . Give me until Monday evening, okay? If I can't find him then by magic, we'll try professional help. And how was your day?"

Ria chuckled ruefully. "I found a place where roses bloom in December, even in the World Above. I met a woman who juggles ferrets. And I learned a couple of things I didn't want to know. The usual sort of day."

"Sounds fairly typical," Eric agreed blandly—and maybe it was, for people like them. "Roses in December?"

"I admit it's only November, but I'm sure they'll still be in bloom next month," Ria said, sounding faintly puzzled by the notion. "Listen, I— Oh, damn, there's my other line. I have to go."

"Talk to you soon," Eric agreed.

He closed the phone—another item out of a Star Trek future—and regarded it unhappily. He knew that calling in help was the right thing to do, but the self-imposed deadline didn't make him any happier. A little more than 48 hours, and some faceless professionals—albeit ones he'd brought in himself—would be out on the streets looking for Magnus.

And if Eric's brother realized they were looking for him . . .

He'll do what I would have done. Run like hell.

Eric sighed, and got to his feet. He'd go out again after all. He reached for his tattered trench coat, and stopped. For where he was going now, he needed a different look entirely.

* * *

She did not know how long she had been seeking the boy, but Rionne ferch Rianten was beginning to despair of finding him.

Bad enough that she had lost him. That was shame enough for a thousand lifetimes.

But not to find him again . . .

The horror of it was nearly enough to drive her mad.

Her hound was dead, and her elvensteed left behind to heal, on the long road that had brought her here, and Rionne missed them desperately, for they would have been aid and companions in her search of this mortal hellpit.

She had followed Jachiel through Gate after Gate, ignoring all treaties sworn by her masters, passing through lands where worse than the Great Death would await her were she discovered therein. And no matter how hard she rode, no matter what spells she summoned to her aid, Jachiel had evaded her.

Until she had followed him here.

Here to where the air stank of deathmetal and of death itself, and her powers failed her in mad prankish ways. But the bond between Protector and Charge endured where nothing else could, and so she knew that Jachiel was here. . . .

Somewhere.

Should one hair upon his head have been harmed by those who had brought him here, her vengeance would be terrible, worthy of the songs of a thousand Bards, but she must find him first. And the task of finding him, that should have been so simple, had become unbearably hard, and Rionne feared that she would die without completing it.

She knew she was dying now—that something beyond her understanding was happening to her in this place. Did she not find herself wandering the streets through the dark hours like one bespelled, with no notion of how she had come to be where she was? Sometimes she thought she almost slipped into Dreaming, thinking she had found him again, but it was never so. She was always alone, wandering strange human streets, her very bones aching with the pain of the lost children that she felt all around her, for a Protector's heart was bound to the care of children.

It was as much as she could do to survive on these streets at all, but the closest Gate—the one she had come through to reach this place—lay firmly in the control of Gabrevys's enemies, and she dared not use it to slip back Underhill to rest herself. With Jachiel to accompany her, she might beg truce and safe passage through that Gate, for no one—no sane creature, which these mortals were not—would harm a child. Without him, she dared not, lest knights of the Seleighe Court set upon her and slay her for trespass and truce-breaking, leaving her dead with her task undone.

It was not death Rionne feared—for she had sworn an Oath at Jachiel's Naming to give up her life for his should that be needed—but to fail with Jachiel unsafe was an unendurable thought. How could the child, how could any child be safe here?

She could not save them all. That was the bitterest pain. She roamed the streets at night—for the glare of the sun sapped her strength even further, and she had none to spare—seeking the one to whom she was bound, and heard them, all of them, calling out for someone to help them, to save them from the horrors their mortal kindred inflicted upon them.

She could not save them. She could not save them all, she could not even save the ones she heard. . . .

"Please don't! Please make it stop!"

The cry cut through her like a knife of ice against her bones. Rionne dropped her sword, clutching her head with both gauntleted hands. No, she begged desperately. You are not my Jachiel! I cannot help you!

But the call, the pain, was too strong for her weakness. Somewhere a child was in danger. A child needed her. They called to her in their dreams, in their waking, with their desperate hearts, willing her to serve their need. . . .

Her form began to shimmer, to change. Elven armor shimmered and flowed like water, becoming long pale draperies. Rionne forgot herself, forgot her name, forgot her purpose. Borne upon a tide of magic, weeping bloody tears of sorrow, she drifted toward the call. . . .

* * *

Several hours later Eric was back at Guardian House again. He was considerably lighter in the pocket, as the old saying went, though he'd handed over the money more out of pity than out of any need to use bribes to solicit or compel the truth—a Bard, after all, was a master of Truth in all its guises.

He'd stopped first at Kinko's, where a little work had enabled him to copy and enlarge the photo of Magnus from the bus pass. Some Bardic magic had sharpened and enhanced the image, disguising its origins. Thus armed, he'd gone down to the West Side Highway, to talk to those who gathered there by night.

Yes, they'd seen him. Some of the ones who said that were even telling the truth. But those who were didn't know how to find him. Someone suggested asking Cleto, but when the name was mentioned, Eric knew that Cleto, whoever he was, was dead. There was no help to be had there.

They were young, terrifyingly so. Youth was their stock in trade, and they bartered it ruthlessly. They didn't know what to make of Eric, and though he ached for them, their hopelessness and their danger, he didn't know how to help them.

It was not that they were beyond help. It was that they needed more help than one man could give. And there were so very many of them.

In the end he left again, sick at heart, casting a glamourie over them so that they would forget he'd ever been there asking questions. Even if these children did not know Magnus, their friends might. A careless word, and Magnus would know that the hunt was near. Eric couldn't afford that.

When he got back to Guardian House, he saw that Hosea's lights were still on. He might as well stop in there to see if he could salvage something from the night.

* * *

"Ah was hopin' you'd come around," Hosea said a few minutes later, when they were both seated in the Ozark Bard's warm and comfortable living room. "It's lookin' kinda like Ah've got a conflict o' interest, and Ah'm not sure what to do about it."

Hosea explained about having been called out Thursday night to the scene of a murder—which seemed to dovetail with a series of similar murders that the other three Guardians were investigating. And though there had been no trace of occult energy—not even the ghost of the murder victim—at the site, each of the deaths bore a similarity to the one Bloody Mary murder that Hosea did know of.

"So," Hosea shrugged, "is this Guardian business—or Bard business?"

Eric frowned, puzzled as well. He had to admit that he'd never encountered a situation quite like this before. He thought hard. "I'd have to say . . . if there's something unnatural out there killing people, that's probably Guardian business. But if it's somehow drawing its power from the shelter kids, then shutting that power off at the source is our business. So maybe it's both." And he felt his stomach twist when he said that, because the last time it had been both Bardic and Guardian business, it had ended with the death of one of the Guardians. "And in that case, how are you coming with the tunes, Hosea?"

For the next half hour, Eric listened to the pieces Hosea had composed: short simple songs, easy for a young child to sing and remember. None of them promising more than they could deliver. All offering messages of hope, and encouraging endurance.

Eric offered some advice, suggested a few changes here and there. But overall, the direction in which Hosea was going was good, and he found no fault with it.

Talk then turned to Eric's own quest, and there Eric had little either new or good to report.

"Starting Tuesday, I guess we're going to be doing it Ria's way. And I guess that's for the best," he said reluctantly.

"What's for the best is findin' the little'un," Hosea said firmly, "whatever that takes."

"I just keep feeling like I'm missing something," Eric said. "Something really obvious." He shook his head, unable to follow the vagrant thought to its source. He shrugged, letting it go. "And so to bed."

* * *

The Place sort of quieted down after midnight. Everybody was usually out by then, doing whatever they thought they had to do to survive.

Magnus grimaced. They called it "going on dates," but their "dates" had precious little in common with the kind he'd heard about back home. Heard about, but never gone on himself, even though St. Augustine had been co-ed, because Mommy Dearest had been certain that nothing should stand in the way of his glorious future as the next Van Cliburn.

Next David Helfgott, more likely. He'd never bought into all that child prodigy crap his parents had been so obsessed with. There'd been a few authentic ones at Auggie-Dog, and Magnus knew he wasn't anything like that. Real kid geniuses tended to flare up early and crack up early, too, becoming pretty average adults if they stayed in the music field at all. Or else they went totally bonkers.

But after the last few days, he was starting to wonder. Maybe he really had been a musical genius. Because he was going crazy.

Magnus sat leaning against the wall, drumming gently on his sleeping bag with his sticks. The sound wasn't enough to wake Jaycie—nothing would wake Jaycie—and Ace was still up, reading by the light of a battery lamp. She was studying for her GEDs, though her chances of taking them, Magnus sometimes thought, were about as good as him getting into a band.

But he had to believe. He had to believe the three of them could get off the street. Somehow. Only he was starting to think it was going to be just the two of them . . . Ace and Jaycie. Because Magnus was starting to think he was losing it.

He'd managed to convince himself that La Llorona wasn't coming after him. Maybe the kids had it wrong. Maybe he was too old to bother with. Something. He'd started sticking close to The Place after dark, and had totally given up his late-night roaming, but lately, even during the day, he'd gotten the feeling he was being watched—that something was calling his name, just below the threshold of audibility.

But no matter how hard he tried, he could never see the watcher.

When that happened, he'd stopped going out at all, day or night, and that seemed to help, as if whatever was watching him couldn't see him here. But it hadn't done a thing about his dreams.

In them he was always running. Running from, running to—he was never sure. But running, and there was a voice calling him to come to it, calling urgently, desperately, longingly. And the voice was . . . himself?

He was definitely going over the edge.

"Do you ever stop doing that?" Ace said, without looking up from her book. She didn't sound angry, only curious.

"Nope," Magnus answered, without missing a beat. "You ever stop studying?"

"Try not to," Ace answered, still not looking up. "Never got much chance to, back . . . where I used to be."

"Well," Magnus said, pretending he hadn't heard the almost slip. "I never got much chance to do this, back where I used to be, either."

Ace closed her book with a sigh, marking her place carefully. "Well, that's enough of that for one night. Algebra—geometry—calculus! Lord have mercy!"

"They're not that hard," Magnus said, surprised.

Ace gave him a dour look.

"Well, they aren't," Magnus said defensively. "At least it isn't a bunch of dull novels or poems or something with a bunch of names and dates."

"Like English and history?" Ace said with a crooked smile. "Look here—and I don't mean to pry—but I'm guessing you'll need your certificate same as I will. If you're willing to help me with my hard parts, I can work with you on yours."

"Like I'm going to have to go to college to be a musician," Magnus scoffed.

Ace shrugged, turning away. "Just an idea."

"No—hey—wait—" For some reason, the idea of disappointing her made him feel bad. "It's a good idea. Not that I'm going to need it. But you will. And it'll pass the time."

"Well, I don't want to take you away from beating that sleeping bag to death. There might still be some life in it."

"No, really. When do we start?"

"Tomorrow," Ace said, smiling. "If I have to look at this fool book one more minute tonight I'll tear it up. Well, hello, Jaycie. Decided to join the world?"

Jaycie climbed out of his sleeping bag and wandered over to them, yawning. "I wanted to see what you were doing," he said, sitting down companionably halfway between them.

Without waiting to be asked, Ace passed him a Coke. It wasn't cold by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fairly cool, just from sitting out in here. The Place was warmer than being outside on the street, but that didn't mean it was warm.

"Sometimes I do wonder if you're part hummingbird," Ace said teasingly. "Live on sugar syrup and never gain an ounce."

"Perhaps I am," Jaycie said seriously.

He reached out and picked up Ace's book and paged through it curiously, but Magnus could tell he was only looking at it, not reading it. He'd never seen Jaycie actually read anything, and he was pretty sure by now that Jaycie couldn't. Maybe he was—what was that word? Dyslexic? Where you couldn't read or anything? It didn't really seem fair.

So when was it you started expecting life to be fair? Magnus thought sourly.

Jaycie closed the book carefully, and handed it back to Ace with a curiously formal gesture. "This is a work of great knowledge."

"Yeah. I just hope I can get all the 'great knowledge' out of it and into me," Ace said with a sigh.

"It will take time," Jaycie said.

"You got that right," Ace said. She came over and hugged him. "But don't you worry about it. I'll manage. And Magnus is going to help me."

"That's right," Magnus said impulsively, and was rewarded with one of Jaycie's most dazzling smiles.

"Then all is well, with friends to help," Jaycie said. He settled down next to Ace with a sigh of contentment. "Read to me?"

"Okay. Which one do you want?" Ace said. In addition to her textbooks, she had a small library of fantasy novels—scavenged, mostly, out of the dumpsters behind bookstores. Jaycie never tired of hearing the same stories over and over.

That was something Magnus had never been able to figure out. Fantasy. Trying to escape from the real world by reading about a bunch of things that weren't real, that you knew couldn't be real . . . he couldn't see the point. It was like trying to lie to yourself. It was more important to know about the way the world really worked, so you could do your best to avoid the next horrible surprise it set up for you.

But Ace liked them. And Jaycie liked them. So he kept his mouth shut.

"Read me the one about the elf who gets mugged," Jaycie said placidly. "I like that one."

"Just a couple of chapters, okay? It's long. Let me see if I can find it." Ace rummaged around for a few moments and came up with it—coverless, of course, and rain-spotted, its pages fanned out by many readings.

She sat down on her sleeping bag, next to her light, and patted the space beside her encouragingly. Jaycie came over and sat beside her, and after a moment, Magnus joined him, first tucking his drumsticks carefully away in his bag. The three of them settled down close together—it was warmer that way—and Ace opened the book, holding it so that the light from the lantern fell directly on the page, and started to read.

"Chapter One: Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty: It was April 30th and it was raining. . . ."

* * *

Hell, Marley Bell had decided, was being willing to sell out your principles and not being able to find a buyer.

"Look," he said wearily to the man named Nichol. "If you don't understand what I'm telling you, at least write it down so that someone, sometime, will. Before you kill somebody else. There is a principle in the Art known as shielding. I suppose the mundane equivalent would be a force field. The idea is that nothing goes in, and nothing gets out. The magician controls his own shields. He opens them to admit those entities whom he summons, and to allow his evocations to go forth. There's more, but this is the bottom line, and this is where your problem is."

"And why is that?" Nichol said, as blandly as if they were discussing the weather.

Marley had decided some time before that he hated Nichol. It was the first of the many small defeats that had followed the first and largest, for he had set aside both love and hate years before. But he hated Nichol.

They were back in the interrogation chamber to which Marley had been brought on the first day he'd come here. The only other places he'd seen had been the small windowless cell where he slept and ate, and the workroom that had been set aside for his use. He wasn't sure how long he'd been here. It no longer mattered. He was quite certain he was going to die here.

"Because this place is completely shielded and magic-dead," Marley said in a dull exasperated voice. "It is cut off from the Higher Planes. That means I am cut off from the Higher Planes."

At first he'd plotted rebellion—to send a cry for help, or at least a warning—out along the Astral Plane. His kidnappers had found and ransacked his sanctum, and brought everything here—his sword, his knives, all his magical tools and equipment. He'd had—so he thought—the means, even though they'd destroyed half his components with their ignorant meddling and the rest were woefully distempered and out of alignment, nearly useless to him.

At first they had intended to watch him work. He had pointed out that an observer would sabotage his attempt, not daring to object further. They had seemed to accept that, to his trembling relief.

But when he had stepped into the hexagram, even the simplest conjurations had been beyond him. Fire had not come to his summons, nor his familiar to his call, nor would an image form in the speculum-stone. All he had gotten for his efforts had been a crushing headache and a sense of emptiness, but he had continued trying until he was too exhausted to try any longer.

At least he was no longer afraid, at least not the way he had been. He'd despaired too far for that.

"Is all this mumbo-jumbo supposed to mean something to me?" Nichol said pleasantly, jarring Marley back to the unwelcome present.

"Surely you have a specialist to check my work and prove the truth of what I'm telling you," Marley said blankly. It was beyond belief that they didn't. Even a non-Operant . . . but if they didn't, he could be doing anything, committing any fraud—

"We trust you," Nichol said, and hit him.

The beating was dispassionate, delivered in a thoroughly professional manner, but after the first few blows, Marley was in no position to appreciate its finer points, even if he had possessed the particular esoteric skills to assess it. He screamed and cowered, desperately trying to escape that which could not be escaped.

"But maybe you'd better try harder next time," Nichol said, and left him.

* * *

When he left Bell's cell, Nichol went up several floors, to the Director's office, and waited to be admitted. He didn't have to wait long.

"How is our project coming?" Wheatley asked genially. He did not invite Nichol to sit down.

"The subject's complaining that the building's shielded," Nichol said laconically. He smiled slightly. "I encouraged him to think outside the box."

Wheatley grimaced. "Well, of course it's shielded! We'd have Spookies all over us otherwise; if we're looking for them, naturally they're looking for us. They're clever, dangerous, and completely without mercy, Mr. Nichol. Always remember that. In the meantime, I trust you didn't damage our little lab rat?"

"He'll be ready to go again in a couple of hours. I didn't even break the skin," Nichol said, with the assurance of long experience.

"Interesting that he should mention it, though," Wheatley said musingly. "There's no way he could have known unless he'd been told. But the Spookies are known to have human agents . . . it's possible this Bell might be one of them. In which case, he might be useful to us in another way, assuming the creatures feel any loyalty at all to their assets. After we've exhausted every other possibility of course. And thoroughly debriefed him."

"I'll make a note in his file, sir," Nichol said.

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