- Chapter 10

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# Chapter Ten:
O'Mahoney's Frolics

It was a special Wednesday evening meeting of the Inner Circle—Fafnir had the smaller group meeting several times a week now, usually after the Outer Circle met, but tonight, he had told them, was to be special, for them alone.

He had provided them a new revelation last week: an audience with the Master Guardian who lived on the Esoteric Plane, from whom the Guardian Power flowed. It didn't matter that none of them had actually seen the image in the crystal or heard the Master Guardian's voice; by now they were all convinced they had.

Eventually, he would hint them around to understanding that the Master Guardian had actively blessed the plan to kill the False Guardians, but that there was no need to worry, that it wasn't murder, since the False Guardians weren't human any more, if they ever had been. In fact, to further soothe their fears, Fafnir would tell them that the False Guardians wouldn't even bleed if you cut them, but simply vanish in a puff of dust like the vampires on Buffy, so nobody would have to worry about getting in trouble with the police.

Who knew? It might even be true for all he knew. And once they'd helped him kill Paul Kern, Fafnir didn't really care what happened to any of them anyway.

But he needed to get them to do what he wanted first. Which meant he had to completely convince them not only that the False Guardians were real—and they were fairly convinced of that already—but that the False Guardians were after all of them now, and with deadly intent.

Which required a little assistance.

He glanced over to where Amanda was sitting on her mother's lap. Such a pretty child. Fafnir's interests in her lay in quite another direction than her physical charms. However, Sarah told him that Amanda did modeling work, which was good. It meant she was already used to doing things she didn't like, and following orders.

He'd discovered that the child was a natural psychic quite by accident. The day the Eye of the Inner Planes had first been delivered, Sarah'd had the girl with her. Amanda had stared into the shining ball, fascinated, and Fafnir could actually feel the power rising off her skin.

He'd distracted her at once—no telling what she might say if she went all the way into a trance—but he'd started working on Sarah immediately, telling her how fortunate she was to have such a powerful medium in her daughter, and saying how unfortunate it was that most young psychics burned out early because of their inability to properly ground and shield, or lost their powers because no one knew how to train them. It hadn't been long before Sarah was bringing little Amanda to him for lessons.

But the only lesson Fafnir was interested in teaching Amanda was how to go immediately into trance, where her powers would be entirely subject to his control. Once he had that—it hadn't been difficult—he'd started using Amanda as a channel to mold an Artificial Elemental, using her energy, and Sarah's, and his own, to give his own imagination form and life. He'd read about things like that in books, and the directions seemed simple enough to follow. He'd been working privately with Sarah and Amanda for several weeks now.

He'd been very careful. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Amanda. He just wanted to use her.

And now that he'd laid the groundwork, the Inner Circle could add more energy, feeding his creation, making it grow until it was strong enough for him to take control of directly.

He'd been a little surprised at first to find that this magic stuff actually worked and was so easy, but then, once he'd thought about it, he'd realized there was no reason why it shouldn't be easy. These Guardian guys existed, after all, and some, or maybe even most, of what they did was handwaving and persuasion, just as it had been in Andrew's case. And as far as Fafnir could tell from his reading, magic was just another kind of software. You followed the directions, and if you'd done everything right, and hadn't skipped a step, and the hardware was working right that day, you got results.

The last of the Inner Circle arrived, and Fafnir locked the door behind them. He waited until they had all settled and taken their places, then motioned to Sarah to bring Amanda into the middle of the circle, where the Eye usually rested.

"Last week you heard the words of the Master, of how it will soon be time to bring our battle to the Ancient Enemy. But before we do, it is only right that we protect ourselves against what they may try to do to us. And so, with your aid, I will attempt to summon one of my allies of old: a Protector. But I will need all your help in this."

But they weren't going to summon up an ancient ally. They were going to create something entirely new—their energy, his direction, and little Amanda as the focus and gateway. And then, instead of the protection they thought they'd created, Fafnir would have at his command an elemental assassin answerable only to him. And when his disciples found themselves savagely attacked by paranormal forces—sent, or so he'd tell them, by the False Guardians—well, then he'd have all the cooperation from them he needed, wouldn't he? They'd be convinced that not only what he'd told them was the truth, but that the False Guardians, having discovered that Fafnir had people helping him, were going to ruthlessly and coldly eliminate those people.

And since, without knowing it, they would all have helped create the monster he'd use to stalk them, any little private defenses they might have would be absolutely useless . . . .

"What must we do?" Luke asked.

Fafnir favored them all with his most benign expression, one he'd practiced for hours in front of a mirror. "All of you know Amanda, Sarah's daughter. She has been sent to us in our hour of gravest need. She is a natural gateway to the Ethereal Realm. When I have sent her into trance, she will be able to carry our call to the Ethereal Plane, and then—I may only hope—the Protector will hear. If it hears, and comes, it will be able to offer us some small protection, for I fear that the False Guardians are very near to learning what we have done and what we plan to do."

He waited, knowing they had to sell themselves on the idea before he went any further. That was the most important part of any con job: never rush the mark. He knew he had them all hooked already, though. Six months ago half of them would have just gotten up and walked out. Now they were all looking expectant, as if he'd offered the lot of them free unlimited high-speed Internet access. After a few moments, each of them hesitantly voiced their agreement.

"You want to help Master Fafnir, don't you, sweetie?" Sarah said to Amanda. "Come on," she said coaxingly.

Amanda hid her face against her mother's shoulder.

"She is shy among so many," Fafnir said, hoping that the kid would for God's sake not make an ugly scene that he'd have to think up some way to explain away. He took his pendulum out of his pocket.

The weight at the end was a faceted sphere of leaded crystal. It sparkled in the candlelight. "Amanda," he said in his most commanding voice. "Look at the dancing light."

Reluctantly, Amanda did.

* * *

She didn't want to be here, but she was a good girl, and Mommy said they had to come, and that Master Fafnir was a nice man. But she didn't like him, and she didn't like looking at the dancing light. She didn't want to look at the dancing light, but she had to look at the dancing light, because Mommy said to, and Master Fafnir said to. Only when she did, everything went away, and she couldn't make it come back no matter how hard she tried until they let her, and she hated that. She couldn't cry, she couldn't move, and Mommy wouldn't understand why it was so bad.

Please don't! Amanda cried inside, where nobody could hear her. Please make it stop!

But no one listened.

* * *

Kayla actually managed to get a few hours' sleep that night, for a miracle, curled up inside a worn-out sleeping bag in a Neverland gone horribly wrong. She'd watched both Magnus and Ace turn down opportunities to go out on "dates," and watched Jaycie eat an entire bar of baker's chocolate without throwing up, so she couldn't say she hadn't gotten some entertainment out of the deal. But Eric not showing up had been a definite bummer.

She watched the three of them, taking mental notes. Even if she hadn't known that Magnus was Eric's brother and that Ace was a Talent, she'd have known there was something not right about the three of them. Something off, in a different way from the way the other feral kids weren't normal.

Take the fact that the three of them didn't talk about themselves, even to each other. The other kids did, and even if it was mostly all lies, it was still talking. Those three acted like they knew the FBI was after them, and weren't giving up the tiniest speck of information, even false information.

Was it the Feds who were after Jaycie and Ace? It wasn't impossible; she'd been on the receiving end of one lot of black-project jerks, Eric and Kory and Beth had been tangled up with two more, and then there was Robert Lintel and Threshold, which had been yet another black-ops thing Ria'd inadvertently financed and abetted, until she found out what was going on. Kayla and Eric knew who was after Magnus, so there was every reason for him to be paranoid, but who was after Ace and Jaycie? More than just parents?

Maybe the three of them would go for that "no questions asked" place of Hosea's after all. The only problem was, someone had to be around to sign the check to get them in, and that meant either Ria or Eric. And right now, Kayla couldn't get ahold of either one.

Around seven a.m.—about the time The Place started to settle down—Kayla slipped out and left. Eric had never showed up. She couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone wrong, very wrong, but she didn't know what.

* * *

Lady Day was parked in front of Guardian House when Kayla got there.

"Hey," Kayla said, greeting the elvensteed. "Guess that means Eric's back, huh?"

The 'steed flashed her lights and revved her engine.

"Hey, cut that out," Kayla said, glancing around to see if anyone was on the street. "Somebody's going to notice. And aren't you supposed to be in the back? This is a no parking zone. You want to explain to Eric why you've been towed?"

Although the elvensteed would just Gate out of the impoundment and come right back, Kayla knew. Which would create problems of its own . . .

She started to walk past the bike, but Lady Day moved forward, cutting her off and revving her motor . . . anxiously? Could a bike be anxious? Although Lady Day wasn't really a motorcycle; she was an elvensteed, a living thing.

"Hey!" Kayla said, jumping back. "Stop that."

She tried walking around the back of the bike. Lady Day backed up, cutting her off again. Kayla swore. "I wish you could talk."

But elvensteeds couldn't talk, not in any of their forms. The most they could do was share emotions through a psychic link with their riders. Which meant with Eric, not Kayla.

"Is there something going on inside you don't want me walking into?" Kayla asked. Playing Twenty Questions with a Harley clone. I gotta be losing it.

Lady Day flashed her lights several times and rocked back and forth.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Kayla demanded, frustrated.

"What's going on?" Hosea asked, walking down the front steps of the building with his banjo slung over his shoulder. Then: "What's she doin' out front?"

"I don't suppose Eric came home last night?" Kayla said hopefully.

Hosea shook his head. "And by the look of things, his lady friend here's pretty upset about it."

Lady Day flashed her lights and growled, a deep thrum of engine.

"Just like Lassie," Kayla muttered.

"Do you want us to go somewhere with you, girl?" Hosea asked.

* * *

"Took us long enough to figure it out," Kayla shouted into Hosea's ear a few minutes later.

The two of them were sitting on Lady Day's saddle—Hosea holding Jeanette in his arms—as the elvensteed roared across town. Kayla hoped the elvensteed's elvish cloaking device was in full effect, because otherwise they were just begging for half a dozen traffic tickets.

Hosea said something she couldn't hear.

Lady Day reached Central Park, and promptly took off into the park along one of the pedestrian paths, proceeding in a sudden ghostly silence as she stopped making motor noises—which were, for an elvensteed, strictly optional anyway. Kayla guessed that nobody could see them, because riding even a bicycle through some of these areas was forbidden, let alone a motorcycle.

Eventually they reached a clearing near the top of the park, and the elvensteed stopped. When they got off, she began racing around in circles again until Hosea sternly told her to stop. She crept off beneath a tree and stood there, looking about as pathetic as a motorcycle—or an elvensteed impersonating a motorcycle—could look.

Kayla and Hosea looked at each other.

"You're the one with the magic banjo," Kayla pointed out. "Do something magical."

Hosea set down his case, opened it, and took Jeanette out, slinging her strap over his shoulder. "Any suggestions?" he asked.

"Well, if Eric was here, he isn't here now. Can you see if he was here, maybe?" Kayla asked.

* * *

Hosea slung the strap over his shoulder, slipped his picks over his fingers, and carefully began to tune Jeanette.

This looked like a perfectly ordinary—if deserted—stretch of the park, the sort of place he liked to come himself. If not for the fact that Eric hadn't been seen since yesterday morning—and the fact that his 'steed was fretting so about it—Hosea wouldn't give the place a second look. But even a suspicious inspection didn't turn up much of anything. Trees. Grass. Broken bottle glass and discarded trash.

It's up to you and me, sweetheart.

Hosea began to play.

"Mama Tried"—he'd always liked that one. Beneath the music he could feel Jeanette stirring unwillingly, looking around.

:I hate that song,: she grumbled. Then: :Not dead. And not here,: she reported brusquely.

"Was he here?" Hosea asked, still playing. He swung into "Banish Misfortune"—that was one of Eric's favorites.

Confusion and irritation from Jeanette as she looked again. Hosea caught blurred symbol images of Kayla and Lady Day from her mind—both of them were easy for her to See because of their innate Power—then a distortion as Jeanette looked in a direction he couldn't follow.

:He was here. He stopped being here. It's all very confused, Hosea. It was a long time ago.: Jeanette's mental voice was a mix of irritated and plaintive.

Hosea brought the song to a close, sighing. The dead weren't bound by time the way the living were, and Jeanette was dead in every way that mattered. But they also tended to get just a little confused by time, and be a good deal better at looking into the past than the future. Either Eric really had been here a long time ago—and Lady Day didn't seem to think so—or something had been here since to muddle the traces Jeanette could pick up.

"He was here, but he isn't now. And we don't know what happened to him," Hosea said grimly.

"He said he was going Underhill," Kayla offered. "When he left yesterday."

"Well, that would make sense," Hosea said after a moment's thought. "Jeanette says he was here a long time ago, and that ain't right. But elves and ghosts don't quite seem to get along any too well, magically." If Eric had opened a Portal to Underhill here, the magic would dirty up the traces of his presence enough to confuse Jeanette's ghostly senses thoroughly.

Lady Day rolled over to them and flashed her lights silently several times. Kayla patted her on the gas tank. "I wonder why he didn't take his ride? That'd be fastest."

"Maybe the trip wasn't all his idea. You got any idea of how to get in touch with the Good Folks?" Hosea asked.

"Well," Kayla said slowly, "I know Eric e-mails Beth and Kory a lot. But I don't know how often they check their mail, and I know he says the Underhill servers run kinda funny sometimes. So if I e-mail them, I don't know how long it'll be before I get an answer."

"And Ah'd hate to worry someone if there wasn't any good reason," Hosea said slowly. "But maybe you'd better get in touch with them. Can't imagine why Lady Day'd be so twitchy if he'd just gone Underhill." He glanced at his watch. "Ah'd better get a move on to get to work. Why don't the two of you go on home and see what you can turn up there?"

Kayla turned back to the bike. "Does that work for you?" she asked.

Lady Day flashed her lights once, rocking back and forth unhappily.

"Look, we know he's in some kind of trouble now," Kayla told the elvensteed, "but until we can find him, there's not much we can do about it, is there? But we'll keep looking for him."

Lady Day sounded her horn in a long mournful beep.

* * *

Back at Eric's apartment, Kayla checked the phone—no new messages from anybody—and then switched on Eric's computer. Instead of sitting down, she wandered around aimlessly, picking things up and setting them down again.

It was funny how different a place looked when you knew its occupant wasn't coming home any time soon.

Dammit, Banyon. You picked a great time to go missing.

The only consolation was that she knew Eric could take care of himself if anyone could. He didn't have the brains God gave a carrot—at least in Kayla's opinion—but he always landed on his feet.

She sat down at the computer and opened Eric's address book, scrolling through it until she found Beth's Underhill address. She clicked on it, opening a new letter.

And stared at it. What could she say that wouldn't have Beth and Kory on Eric's doorstep as fast as their 'steeds could bring them here? Like that'd be any help.

But he had to be in Underhill. He'd said he was going there . . . hadn't he? Or as good as.

But if he'd gone to Underhill, he'd have taken his elvensteed.

Unless he'd been kidnapped to Underhill.

But then Lady Day would have just followed him to Underhill—would have taken her and Hosea along with her without so much as a by-your-leave, probably.

But she hadn't.

She'd taken them up to the Park. Where there hadn't been anything. Where Jeanette had said Eric had been, and wasn't now.

And that didn't make any sense either. Because Eric wouldn't just go wandering off. Not when he was trying to figure out how to get Magnus to come home with him.

Reluctantly, Kayla closed the e-mail client, her message unsent. Maybe she'd try a couple of other things before she scared Kory and Beth half to death.

I wonder how I find out if somebody's been arrested? No time like the present, Girl Detective.

If Toni was home, she'd know.

* * *

Hosea had several stops to make that day—no matter what else was going on in his life, he still had to cover rent and groceries, and that meant meeting his obligations.

But there was no reason why he couldn't earn the rent at the same time. . . .

Now that he knew what to listen for, he was getting more of the Secret Stories, tiny fragment by tiny fragment. Today, from the girls, it was more about the Blue Lady; how she not only protected children from the demons, but from the humans that demons had gotten to. Physical protection, that meant—which sure fit in with those murders he and the Guardians were looking into. But you had to be a Special One to call her in that way, and you had to be in the worst fear and pain of your life, because she didn't come for little things, and when she did come, there had better be something there for her to protect against, or she turned back into Bloody Mary.

Kind of like calling on Elbereth Gilthoniel, except that she'd turn into Shelob if you called her for no good and urgent reason . . .

From the boys, however, he heard about the angels and their ongoing guerrilla war against the demons. They had a base camp in a secret place in the heart of a tropical swamp, and from there they mounted their ongoing campaign to drive the demons out of Heaven and the strongholds they'd made on Earth. Fighting beside the angels were the good ghosts, who actually could not do much except serve as scouts, spies and messengers to the living, because they had no angelic powers. Oddly enough, the entire campaign, down to the camp in a tropical swamp, had a familiar sound to it; when one of the boys named Julio described the archangel Michael as dressed in fatigues and a beret, bearded and carrying a rifle, Hosea realized why.

He kept an eye out for Ace while he was down at the shelter, but didn't spot her, and that worried him, knowing what he knew now. He wondered who was after her to make her as skittish as she was, and if Eric had managed to get himself tangled up in that, too. He'd been in on the whole Threshold thing; what if there was another black ops project that was using kids instead of adults, and Eric had stumbled into them?

He called Kayla in the middle of the day from the shelter phone, to find out if there was any news.

"I don't think he's Underhill," Kayla said. "I was thinking about it, and if he was, wouldn't Lady Day just have followed him?"

"Maybe," Hosea said cautiously. He had to admit it sounded reasonable, but the amount he knew for sure about elvensteeds could be engraved on the edge of one of his silver banjo picks and still leave room for a couple of Bible verses.

"So I thought maybe we ought to look for him here first before we bothered a bunch of elves," Kayla said tentatively.

"Are you real sure about that?" Hosea asked. "It don't seem to me like it would do any harm to ask the Good Folks if they've seen him."

"And have Beth pitch spinning kittens all over Eric's apartment with Kory along to sing tenor?" Kayla asked crossly. "The weird thing is"—there was a very long pause—"elvensteeds can track their riders. Eric told me that once. Over hundreds of miles in the World Above. And across Gates in Underhill. I remembered it when I was thinking about how funny it was that she didn't just take us Underhill after him."

So if she can track him anywhere he goes, why doesn't she know where he is? Hosea thought.

The unspoken question hovered between them.

"Why don't you have Toni help you check the hospitals?" Hosea said, very gently. "Ah'll be home as soon as Ah can."

But it was several more hours before he could fulfill that promise.

On his way into Guardian House, Hosea ran into Caity coming out.

"Oh, there you are!" she said cheerfully. "I was just up knocking on your door." Her smile faded a little as she inspected him. "You don't look like you've been having the best day in the world."

"Ah might have lost track of a friend," Hosea admitted cautiously, not wanting to spoil her mood. "But Ah'm sure he'll turn up."

"I guess this isn't the world's best time to invite you to a party, then," Caity said, drooping a little. "But there's one at Neil's place tonight. He's going to be there, and he said I could bring you, so. . . ."

Hosea had never felt less like going to a party in his life, but the only person he could possibly be was the mysterious True Guardian Caity had talked about, and getting a closer look at the fellow was important. And Hosea suspected that if he turned down this chance, there wouldn't be another one. So he forced a smile, and said: "It sounds like just what Ah need to take my mind off my troubles. What time?"

Caity beamed. "I'll pick you up about eight." She hesitated. "Wear something nice, okay?"

"Ah'll turn up in my Sunday-go-to-meetin' best," Hosea promised firmly.

Caity stood up on tiptoe to bestow a quick kiss on his cheek, and hurried off. Hosea went on into the building.

He left Jeanette in his apartment and went down to Kayla's. She opened the door at his knock.

"Well, he hasn't been arrested," she said without preamble. "And he hasn't been committed—I called his shrink. She said she'd check the hospitals for me, too, but that I probably wouldn't hear back from her until tomorrow." Her face twisted.

Hosea held out his arms. Kayla flung herself into them, burrowing fiercely, choking on strangled sobs.

"Hush, now," Hosea said. "Wherever he is, Ah'm sure he's just a mite tangled up, is all. You know that boy's got himself a way with trouble. That's all it is. He'll be back in a day or two and apologize for givin' us all such a powerful fright, and everything'll be as right as rain. You'll see."

"You don't believe that," Kayla said, sniffling and pushing herself away.

Hosea fished out his pocket handkerchief and handed it to her.

"Ah do believe that we don't know," he said firmly. "And until we do know something for sure and certain, there's no point to borrowing trouble. Now, Eric's got a lot of enemies. But he's got a lot of friends, too, and he's got a powerful shine on him. You're doing the right thing looking for him the way you are, but Ah do wish you'd whistle up the Good Folks to help."

"You don't understand," Kayla said fiercely, scrubbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. "Kory couldn't do much even if he was here. New York is full of iron. Elves can't even survive here very long, let alone use their magic here all that well. So it's really up to us."

"Well," Hosea said, reluctantly going along with her argument, "that does put a different tail on the cat. Why don't you come upstairs and let me feed you? Ah've got to go out tonight, but no sense in either of us goin' hungry, now, is there?"

"Sure," Kayla said dolefully, stuffing the now black-striped handkerchief into her jeans pocket. "Not much anybody can do before tomorrow, anyway."

* * *

Hosea was just as glad he'd dressed in his best, but he still felt very much out of place when he and Caity arrived at Neil Grandison's apartment.

It was one of those glass-and-steel towers far uptown, the kind of place that looked as though it were steam-cleaned inside and out once a month, and where the tenants were probably chosen, not only by their financial worth, but by their appearance as well. Hosea wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn there was a building dress code.

As they rode up in the elevator, Caity gave him a number of last-minute instructions—not only to just be himself (as if Hosea would ever consider being anyone else), but to not "bother" Master Fafnir—"or to talk about the Work, because, you know, this is just a social evening, and there will be a lot of people here who don't know anything about it."

"Ayah," Hosea had said laconically. Apparently the Master was looking for a few more sheep, and Hosea set himself to do the best possible impersonation of a lamb ripe for the shearing that he could, setting his other worries—Eric's disappearance; where Kayla was spending her nights; the Bloody Mary murders that the other Guardians—the real Guardians, as he still couldn't help but think of them—were pursuing; the Secret Stories—out of his mind for the moment. He could afford no distractions tonight.

* * *

The apartment was large, decorated in what Hosea—who had seen more of them than people might expect to look at him—had come to think of as Rich Folks Style: wall-to-wall beige carpet, pale anonymous leather sofas, enormous expensive pieces of pottery, and modern art that didn't seem to go with anything else. Although somehow Miz Llewellyn managed to make her place look a bit more homelike, and Hosea suspected that Miz Llewellyn could buy and sell Mr. Neil Grandison out of pocket change.

There was a banquette set up as a bar in one corner, and the room was filled with people.

"Caity—hi. Is this your friend?"

A very manicured dark-haired man in a grey turtleneck and charcoal slacks came over, a tulip-shaped wineglass in his hand.

"Neil, this is Hosea," Caity said dutifully. "Hosea, this is Neil."

The two men shook hands. "You can put your coats in the back bedroom," Neil said. "He isn't here yet," he added, his tone pitched for Caity's ears alone, though Hosea had no trouble hearing him. Guess Ah'm not supposed to have any idea who he is, although it'd take a pure simpleton not to guess.

But Caity nodded, looking like a conscientious schoolchild, and bore Hosea off.

* * *

They supplied themselves with glasses of wine from the bar, slipped sterling silver wine charms over the stems—a little fairy for Caity and, interestingly enough, there was a banjo that Hosea laid claim to—and then circulated, Caity sticking as close by his side as a hen with only one chick.

Despite Caity's promises that this was to be a purely social evening, there seemed to be only one real topic of conversation, conducted in hints and allusions.

And occasionally outright.

"—well of course I gave him the apartment. It was the least I could do for a man like that. He has such power."

The speaker was a middle-aged woman with long auburn hair—Juliana, it would be, if she was talking about the apartment, Hosea guessed.

"Aren't you looking forward to, well, it?" the woman she was talking to asked. She was a few years younger, with shoulder-length, light-brown hair in a complicated style.

"I'll feel better when it gets here, if we're going to have to deal with them," Juliana answered cryptically.

Hosea would have liked to hear more—it wouldn't be easy to fill in the blanks, though it ought to be possible—but Caity took his arm and steered him determinedly away. "I want you to meet Gregory," she said firmly.

"So you're Caity's musician?" Gregory said amiably, when they were introduced. "Music can be an important conduit of power."

"Ah wouldn't know a lot about that," Hosea said modestly.

He had a bit of luck then, because someone named Faith came and wanted Caity to go off with her, and Hosea settled himself to listen. People, he'd found a long time ago, tended to talk if you listened, and Gregory—who'd had several glasses of wine—was no exception.

He got to hear a great deal about the ancient brotherhood of Guardians who had been chosen before the beginning of Time to stand against the Darkness, of how their numbers had dwindled over the centuries until there was only one, of how the False Guardians had risen up (from where was an interesting question that apparently nobody was asking) to overthrow the True Guardian, but how one day the True Guardian would reclaim his power and found a new order of Guardians to take up his ancient work.

"—but of course that's all just a legend, isn't it?" Gregory said, belatedly coming to the conclusion he'd been talking too much.

"Ah don't think it is," Hosea said quietly. "An' Ah don't think you think it is, either."

Just then there was a stirring by the front door—just like when the weasel comes into the henhouse, Hosea thought uncharitably—and someone who could only be Caity's "Master Fafnir" entered the room.

One of the women hurried forward to take his cloak from his shoulders—and it was a cloak, Hosea noted with mild amusement—Master Fafnir wore a cloak, and a broad-brimmed hat, and carried a silver-handled walking stick. I suppose he must think he's Orson Wells.

From Caity's description, Hosea had been expecting someone along the lines of Christopher Lee—tall, gaunt, saturnine, and Byronic—but Master Fafnir was none of these things. He was on the short side of average, a few pounds short of pudgy, and had the pale skin of those who spent all their time indoors under artificial light. His short brown hair was combed straight back, making no attempt to conceal a receding hairline, and his face was the sort at which you wouldn't look twice.

But his eyes made up for it all. They had the intense vividness that his every other feature lacked. They reached out and grabbed—and if it wasn't the kind of Power that Hosea was used to confronting in his work as a Guardian, it was a dangerous power nonetheless.

"And here is our newcomer—our Ozark bard," Fafnir said, moving through the crowd to stop before Hosea. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a small man, the resonant instrument of a trained actor—or of someone, like a politician, who knew just how potent a weapon a good voice could be. His voice sounded warm and hearty, welcoming, but Hosea, who could hear the music beneath the voice, heard another story—of someone who was calculating, cold, and avaricious, and was already assessing what use Hosea could be to him. He had certainly named himself properly—for Fafnir, the most avaricious of dragons, who amassed treasure for no other purpose than to possess as much of it as possible.

Hosea held out his hand, and Fafnir took it in both his own. He closed his eyes for just a moment, taking a deep breath. "You could do great things," he said simply, and moved on.

"Isn't he wonderful? And he likes you," Caity said excitedly, clutching Hosea's arm.

Hosea stood there for a moment, blinking. The man had a powerful personality. It wasn't hard to see how Fafnir had gotten all of them to follow him, at least in the beginning. The fellow was slick as greased ice, and if he'd been a little less suspicious, Hosea would have believed that Fafnir had seen right into him and known him for what he truly was.

But "Ozark bard"—now that was just highfalutin' poetry. Caity had certainly told Fafnir about him ahead of time when she'd asked if she could bring him, and for the rest, who wouldn't want to hear that they could do great things?

He hadn't thought he'd need to worry about shielding himself here, but charisma, and the pull of a large group all thinking the same way, could exert nearly the same amount of force as a trained magician's will. Now that Fafnir had arrived, Hosea could feel the pull of expectation all around him. Not nearly strong enough to entrap him, but worth warding against all the same.

"Listen to your own song," his Gran'daddy had always told him. "Ain't nobody can fool with you when you listen within." Both Paul and Eric had told him the same thing, though their words had been different. Hosea concentrated, until the nagging tug he felt from the other people in the room receded, and he felt sure of himself again.

When he looked around, he saw that Fafnir had seated himself in a large leather chair in a corner—very much as if by right—and the others had all gravitated to him, as if, now that he'd arrived, he'd become the focus of the room. Someone brought him a glass of wine, and several of the women clustered around him, sitting on the floor around the chair. Hosea was both relieved and discouraged to see that Caity was among them—relieved, because it meant she wouldn't be dragging him out of any more interesting conversations, and discouraged because it meant she was very much under "The Master's" spell.

But if there's one thing Ah know for sure, it's that you can't save fools from themselves, because fools have too much ingenuity.

Though a few people left—apparently not finding Fafnir as fascinating as their friends did—Hosea stayed, and since Fafnir had greeted him personally and seemed to take a personal interest in him, the others spoke openly in front of him. Fafnir didn't seem to object to that at all, apparently having decided Hosea was completely harmless. Hosea hoped that someday he'd get the opportunity to change the man's mind. Big and dumb don't always go together, Mister Weasel.

He wandered, seemingly aimlessly, among those who were left, but in fact he was looking for someone in particular. Caity had said that Neil had told her some things that perhaps he shouldn't have, and Hosea was hoping he'd continue the practice if Hosea could manage to strike up a conversation with him.

At last luck favored him, and he found Neil over by the bar, playing gracious host among the wine bottles. Hosea waited until the two of them were alone.

"How are you enjoying our little party?" Neil asked him.

"Waal, it's real fascinatin' and Ah'm right honored to meet Master Fafnir," Hosea said, laying on his country-bumpkin act for all it was worth, "But truth to tell, Ah'm kinda worried about the Exoteric Plane consequences of the Work," Hosea said gravely. "Not on the Inner, you know, but the Outer."

Bless Tatiana for providing him with all the passwords and jargon he needed for this. She'd done a little skit at the last Basement Party—something about a bunch of Satanists accidentally calling up a New Age guru instead of the Devil—that'd been funny, if peculiar. Paul had laughed until he'd nearly dropped his drink, though it hadn't made all that much sense to Hosea. But it had included a number of useful terms for him to trot out now.

Neil seemed to accept that Hosea knew what he was talking about—and even better, that he had every right to ask the question. "Oh, you don't need to worry about that," he said easily. "There won't even be a body. In fact, as soon as one of them 'dies,' everyone will forget that they ever even existed. So it's the perfect victimless crime—if you can call it a crime. I'd call it justice, myself. After all, even if they were human once, they aren't anymore." Neil drained his glass, and reached for Hosea's. "Refill?"

"Surely," Hosea said. The potted plants and ornamental vases at the Grandison residence had been drinking well tonight, as Hosea had no intention of taking more than a sip of wine here. No one with any claim to real Power drank much at all, he'd found—of course Eric stayed away from liquor, but none of the Guardians drank much beyond the odd glass of wine, and the Basement Parties were never fueled by anything stronger than wine and hard cider, and not much of that.

If he'd needed any more proof that this was a hoodoo operation, it was the amount of vintage this room full of pretend Guardians were putting away.

Neil turned away and refilled both their glasses, turning back and handing one to Hosea.

"Jealous?" Neil asked, nodding toward Caity.

Hosea looked over to where Caity was sitting, resting her head on Fafnir's knee. The Master stroked her hair as he would pat the head of a dog.

"Ah'd be a pure fool to be jealous of a man like that," Hosea said with complete honesty.

Neil smiled. "You're one of us already. And when we become Guardians—and she's an Acolyte—it's going to be a whole new world."

"Ah can believe that." A new world somewhere in Upstate New York, Hosea thought. And a considerably smaller apartment that has barred windows.

"You look like you're a million miles away," Neil said. His speech was very slightly slurred now, the pattern of the chronic drinker who was nearing his limit.

"Ah was just thinkin', Ah wouldn't want to have his enemies," Hosea said, nodding toward Fafnir. "You're a brave man to throw your lot in with him like this."

"Oh, Master Fafnir will protect us," Neil said with complete conviction. "He's got power."

* * *

Several of them—Caity and Hosea among them—were dismissed soon afterward. In the elevator down, Caity clung to him, giddy with something more than wine. Hosea had watched her closely, and she hadn't drunk that much.

But she was as flushed and coquettish as a woman in love—and not with him, Hosea realized glumly. With Fafnir—or worse, with the fantasy that Fafnir'd sold all of them on. And so she'd go on giving "The Master" money in the future—probably more than she could fairly afford—and doing things that made her just a little uneasy, and digging herself in deeper and deeper until she was too ashamed of what she was doing to ask for help to get out.

And right now, she wouldn't take Hosea's help even if he offered it, Hosea knew. She was in love with the whole idea of being part of a grand secret conspiracy for Good.

Would he have been, in her place? If Jimmie Youngblood hadn't had to die to make him a Guardian, if he hadn't already had the music magic? If somebody had walked up to him out of the blue and offered him something like this on a silver platter, promising him the chance to be a hero?

Hosea wasn't sure. But he did know that whatever Fafnir's secret society had started out as, it hadn't been anything like what it had now become, with all its loose talk of tidy convenient executions. Everyone in that room up there had gotten in deeper and deeper by degrees, until now someone like Neil could talk about killing someone as if it were the most natural thing in the world and never turn a hair.

What Fafnir was telling them seemed fairly clear to Hosea now—piecing together the various things he'd heard tonight with what Caity had told him earlier. Some of this group were supposed to become Guardians immediately, and the rest would become Acolytes—Guardians-to-be. And all of that depended on their executing the False Guardians once Fafnir identified them—which wouldn't "count," because the False Guardians would conveniently dissolve away into dust.

But Fafnir himself must know that wasn't true. Even if he did manage to capture and kill a Guardian, all he'd have for his pains would be a dead human being. The man was venal, not insane. He couldn't be intending to set these people up for murder—and even bedazzled as they were, when they were actually holding a knife to somebody's throat, they'd surely balk at using it.

And why should Fafnir give up his soft life just to prove he had ultimate control over the people he'd deluded? He could spin out this nasty game of his for as long as he could deceive his followers, and as long as they never actually tried to execute anyone as a False Guardian, it was simply another sordid and hateful scam, not an actual Guardian problem, wasn't it?

Or was there a plan behind the plan, one that didn't stop at murder?

* * *

He saw Caity to her door. She wanted him to come in and stay awhile, but Hosea wasn't even tempted. When he romanced a lady, he preferred her to be in her right mind, and thinking of him, besides. So he made the excuse of an early morning, and waited until he heard her do up the locks on the inside, and went to see Paul.

Paul's business was free-lance computer design, and so he kept owl's hours. Hosea wasn't surprised to see a thin thread of light beneath his door.

"Ah need to talk," he said, when Paul opened the door.

"I was hoping you'd be by," Paul said. "There's been another Bloody Mary murder."

"Another one?" Hosea said, appalled. "I was out—"

"It doesn't matter. I doubt you could have done any more than you did before, and it's not as if we had any warning. Same pattern, same clues that lead . . . nowhere. How do we stop something like that?"

Hosea sighed. "If'n you knew her True Name, maybe. But the little'uns say it's lost."

"Well, the more you can find of the Secret Stories, the better. Maybe there's a clue in there, somewhere. But that won't be what you wanted to chat me up about. Come on in. I've got tea on the boil."

Every inch of the walls of Paul's apartment was covered with books. Software manuals battled for shelf space with esoteric leather-bound tomes, and peculiar curios, both modern and ancient, were tucked into every spare corner of space that remained. What floor space in the living room that was not occupied by a couch, chair, and table was filled with computer equipment, and more computers and books packed every free corner of both bedrooms. The result made Kayla's far smaller apartment look spacious by comparison.

Hosea transferred an armload of books from the couch to the floor and sat down as Paul went into the kitchen, returning with two large white mugs. When Paul said he was boiling tea, he meant it; the brew he brought Hosea was thick and dark, as strong as coffee. Hosea cradled the mug in his hands and wondered where to begin.

"You look like a chap with a problem on his mind," Paul said, settling into the chair. "And I'm supposed to have all the answers."

"Well, it could be a problem for all of us," Hosea said, "since apparently we're the evil False Guardians that this feller name o' Fafnir intends to hunt down and destroy."

"Well, there's an interesting beginning to a story," Paul commented, gazing at the wall above Hosea's head—which contained, of course, more bookshelves.

Slowly, Hosea told him the whole story, as far as he'd pieced it together: that Caity, along with about twenty other people, had fallen under the spell of someone calling himself Master Fafnir, who said he was a Guardian who had been stripped of his power by a coterie of Evil Guardians, and that once the lot of them had hunted down and killed the Evil Guardians and restored Fafnir's Guardian powers, he would be able to make them all Guardians as well. And meanwhile, they were all supporting him, to the extent of free room and board at the very least.

"Fafnir," Paul said musingly. "Interesting choice for a nom de ombre. In Norse mythology, Fafnir was the eldest son of the dwarf king Hreidmar, and was turned into a dragon for his wickedness. Guardian of a great horde of gold, which he slew his father—some accounts say his brothers as well—to gain, a horde sometimes known as the Treasures of Light, though by all accounts the treasure was cursed, containing as it did the Rheingold. Slain by the hero Siegfried, eventually, Fafnir was." Paul sipped his tea.

"Knew about the dragon and Siegfried, didn't know about the other," Hosea said, interested in spite of himself.

"As for the rest, I'm sorry that Caity's involved, but I'd have to put the whole mess down to ordinary bloody-mindedness and cupidity on this Fafnir's part. Word does get out about us now and again. Sometimes the people we help talk more than they should, afterward. And a clever con man can put a lot together from very little. But it doesn't sound quite as if he actually knows anything about us and how we operate. After all, you were there tonight and he didn't spot you, did he?"

"Not that I noticed," Hosea admitted reluctantly. But he had to admit that if there'd been anything of True Power in that apartment this evening, he would have felt something.

"It's a nasty little game the man's playing," Paul said. "And a lot of people are going to be hurt—emotionally and financially—when it's over. But I wouldn't worry about it too much from our perspective. From what you say, there's no power there, other than the power of overpersuasion and the Big Lie. Those followers of your friend Fafnir's are living in the same fantasy world as all the other Charmed Ones, Chosen Ones, and Mage-Knights that litter the streets of this city, and until they do something actively wicked—or actually illegal—it's nobody's business but theirs, unfortunately. And Caity hasn't asked you for help with her problem. Remember that. We cannot intervene unless we are asked."

If there was one thing that grated on Hosea about the code the Guardians lived by, it was that, but he had no particular choice about accepting it. They could not intervene in a matter until someone asked them for help—or until their own Power demanded they intervene. And so far, neither thing had happened.

"So Ah guess there's nothing we can do?" Hosea said, disappointed.

Paul smiled. "I didn't quite say that. We can certainly see if the lads down at the Bunco Squad have an interest—it's a long shot, but worth a try. And you can go on being a good friend to young Caity. When she finds out that her guru's promises are nothing more than smoke and moonlight, she'll need one."

"And if they invite me back?" Hosea asked.

Paul considered the matter, gazing off into nothing for several seconds.

"Now that might be very amusing," he said at last. "Very amusing indeed."

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