Music to My Sorrow

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Now Heavenly Grace—" Billy said. His voice held a stark note of pleading.

  "He sure used me," she concluded, her jaw jutting. "That was why I ran away and why I am never going back."

  There was a sudden frenzied babble as all of the reporters started shouting questions at once, and what had been a carefully orchestrated PR moment for Billy Fairchild degenerated into actual news. Ace looked up and saw two of Daddy's "Helpers"—his polite word for bodyguards—standing a few feet away—Abner and Joshua. She'd known them both for years. They looked confused—they knew her, and they didn't know whether they were supposed to hustle her out of the way or not.

  She raised her voice, talking fast, knowing the reporters would shut up once somebody was saying something, knowing the cameras and the tapes would get it all. Hadn't she been to enough press conferences in her life to know how these things were managed? She ignored the shouted questions, ignored the microphones shoved in her face, and concentrated on staying out of Daddy's reach and saying her piece.

  "They set it up between them," Ace said grimly, but let some of the tears of pain and frustration leak down her face. "Him and a man called Gabriel Horn, who's worked for him for years. The bomb was supposed to be a nice publicity stunt, no matter how many people got hurt, and get him in good with his new bad friends, the ones who think Jesus meant you to shoot your enemies, not love them. It's because of his doing things like that that I ran away from home, and why I'm suing for Emancipated Minor status now, so he can't drag me back to make me do things that are just as bad as setting bombs. I heard them plan the whole thing."

  "Heavenly Grace, don't you tell lies like that!" Billy sputtered desperately. "She's lying—she's sick—she don't know what she's saying, poor thing."

  But of course, she didn't look or sound out of her mind—only disgusted and ready to cry—and if there was one thing that reporters craved it was the scent of metaphorical blood. She had them. He knew it, and so did she.

  By now Hosea and Eric had reached the stage as well and were standing at the back of the mob of reporters. Hosea simply looked at Billy.

  When he saw Hosea, Daddy just looked horrified—as if he finally realized he might actually be in trouble, Ace thought sadly.

  "I— I— Turn those things off! I have nothing further to say! My office will issue a complete statement tomorrow! Heavenly Grace, you come with me right now!"

  Ace shook her head. "No, Daddy. Not now, not ever. You're a bad man, you tried to hurt a lot of people, and Jesus is weeping for you. He may forgive you, but I can't right now, and maybe I won't ever be able to."

  Billy turned away, and Abner and Joshua closed around him and helped him from the stage. The looks on their faces as they gazed at her—shock, hurt, disbelief—nearly broke her heart. But not nearly as much as their hearts would be broken when they found out she was telling the truth.

  The reporters surged around her, shouting more questions, and she felt a moment of pure panic, but now Eric and Hosea had pushed their way through the crowd and literally picked her up and carried her in the same direction Billy had just gone.

  "Don't you worry none," Hosea said in her ear. "We're just goin' behind the police lines. Ah reckoned you wouldn't want to have any more truck with reporters than you had to."

  "No," Ace said in a trembling voice. "I . . . I guess they're going to want to interview me now, aren't they?"

  She heard Eric give a strangled snort of laughter as he set her on her feet at the bottom of the steps. "Ace, after that speech you just gave, I don't think there's anybody in the tri-state area who isn't going to want to talk to you, plus several federal agencies besides."

  "I just . . . I couldn't let him get away with it. He was going to have them all believing him. After that it wouldn't matter what the courts said, or what the truth was. All anybody would remember was what they'd seen on the television." That much, she was sure of, as sick as it made her feel. People were tried and convicted on television, no matter what courts said. And Billy Fairchild had learned, and learned well, from every misstep that every other televangelist had ever made on television. He knew how to manipulate what went on before the cameras.

  Well, so did she. "And in a year, or two," she went on, scrubbing at her eyes with her sleeve, "he'd be right back in business again, just like everybody else who's ever done a bad thing and gotten away with it. So this time—" she raised her chin, and looked first Eric, then Hosea, straight in the eyes. "This time, I made sure I got in my licks first."

  * * *

  Back behind the stage—where they'd slunk around less than two hours before, stealing instruments to put on their counter-concert—Eric saw uniforms from at least six different jurisdictions, and the "this is not a uniform" suits that meant the Feds had arrived. Good thing his conscience was clear.

  He'd lost track of Magnus and Kayla when he and Hosea had made that mad sprint toward the soundstage to follow Ace. He knew they'd be together, at least, and Kayla wouldn't let anything happen to Magnus.

  And right now he had bigger fish to fry—"fry," literally. Just as soon as he could get Ace settled somewhere safe, he had to figure out some way to get into the casino. The wards were off the building—he could see that—and he needed to get in there and see if Gabriel Horn—or Gabrevys ap Ganeliel—or whatever the Prince of Elfhame Bete Noir was calling himself these days—was still in there causing trouble. Gabrevys's Bard had run out on him with one of Wheatley's iron bolts in his back; if Gabrevys was weak enough, Eric ought to be able to call Lady Day and take him Underhill. Or at least, away from here. Maybe he could find a nice deserted steel foundry to dump him into.

  Before the three of them had taken more than a few steps they were intercepted by a very courteous, very resolute man in dark glasses, a dark suit, and an expensive coat. He might as well have had the words "Federal Agent" tattooed on his forehead.

  "Heavenly Grace Fairchild?" he asked. "Eric Banyon?"

  "Yes," Eric said cautiously.

  "Could you come with me, please? All three of you?"

  We haven't done anything indictable, Eric reminded himself. At least not that anybody knows about. He glanced at the other two, shrugged, and followed.

  Their anonymous minder led them around the side of the Casino and Cathedral. Dozens of official vehicles had arrived by this time—fire engines, ambulances, big black vans with satellite dishes on the top. Eric could see buses being loaded up with people who'd been evacuated from the building, with more waiting to go. The whole area along the side of the building had been cordoned off with sawhorses and crime-scene tape to form a combined command post and holding area—the reporters were clustered at the other side of the barriers—and Eric could see that there was a checkpoint set up down by the road as well. The authorities were doing all that they could to contain the scene, but it was a very big scene.

  And now they're going to ask us what we were doing here, and I haven't got the faintest idea of what we're going to tell them. There's no way I can mess with this many people's heads, even if it was remotely a Good Guy type thing to do.

  He heard a dog barking.

  "Well," Hosea drawled, sounding relieved. "The cavalry does seem to have arrived."

  "Ria!" Ace said, running forward to where Ria Llewellyn stood, next to a very long—and very black—stretch limousine. Kayla was standing beside her, and Magnus was inspecting the car as if he was expecting to purchase one like it in the very near future.

  "Ria, indeed," Ria said, once they'd all gotten close enough not to have to shout. "Thanks, Jasper. I appreciate your finding my lost lambs for me."

  "Any time, Ms. Llewellyn," the man in the sunglasses answered, tipping her a little two-fingered half salute. "Try not to let them go wandering off, okay? The scene's still hot."

  "I'll do my best."

  If there were such a thing as Fortune 500 Vogue, Ria looked as if she'd just stepped off the cover, from her white cashmere trenchcoat, to her Emmanuel Ungaro suit, to her Jimm
y Choo stilettos. But the perfect ice-queen act was marred when she held out her arms and Ace flung herself into them.

  "I got here as soon as I could," Ria said, over Ace's head. "I found Magnus and Kayla—well, they found me—"

  "Say hey," Kayla said, offering a two-fingered salute of her own. She held Molly in her arms. The little pug wriggled all over with glee at being reunited with her friends.

  "Looks like you'll make the evening news," Magnus said helpfully. "If we don't all get arrested."

  "Nobody is getting arrested," Ria said firmly. "Except possibly Billy Fairchild and Gabriel Horn—if they can find Horn. They're still searching the building, but they haven't found him yet."

  "Horn's Unseleighe," Eric said, making a long story—a very long story—as short as possible. "I don't know if they will find him if he doesn't want to be found—or if it would be very good for them if they did. Ria, I've got to get in there and look for him."

  "What are you going to do with him if you find him?" Ria snapped. "And more to the point, what is Magnus going to do if Gabriel levin-bolts you in the back?"

  Eric flinched as if he'd been slapped. He hadn't thought about what would happen if he was hurt or killed in a duel with Gabrevys.

  No. He hadn't thought, period.

  He was a parent now—well, a kind of parent. A small-g guardian, anyway. He didn't have the luxury of thinking only of himself anymore, or even of risking his neck just because it was the right thing to do.

  He had to take care of Magnus and keep him safe, because that promise came first.

  He turned to face Magnus.

  "Well, go on, bro. What are you waiting for?" Magnus's voice was perfectly neutral. He could do a good job of hiding his feelings, even from himself. Because there'd been too many disappointments in his life, too many people putting the wrong things first.

  "Forgot who I was for a moment," Eric said lightly. "Ria's right: I wouldn't know what to do with Gabrevys if I did find him, and I have more important things to do here. I'll need to go Underhill as soon as I can and tell Prince Arvin what he's been doing, though, since Jachiel is staying at Misthold. Gabrevys is Sidhe, and he's broken enough laws of the Sidhe to bring even the High King down on his head. Let them take care of him. I've got more important things to do."

  Magnus stared at him in the blank way that told Eric that the talk of elves and elven politics had been nothing more than meaningless noise. Finally he said, "So what have you got to do here that's so important?"

  Eric managed a wobbly grin. "Well, finding you a leather jacket that fits, for one thing. That one's way too tight."

  "Yeah, well, you can't have it back. I'm cold, and I'd rather have a parka or something," Magnus grumbled. But his voice had lost its wary colorlessness.

  "After that speech of Ace's, she's going to have more than a few questions to answer," Ria said. "Not that she wouldn't anyway—after today, a lot of people are going to want to take a very close look at the Fairchild Ministries. But I'm pretty sure we can put it off for a day or so—and come up with a reasonable explanation of events that doesn't include elves, goblins, or little green men."

  "Ayah," Hosea said gravely. "Best stick to as much of the truth as possible."

  Ria smiled. "Now Hosea, you know I always do that. There should be some way to tie Ace's little fact-finding mission into Eric and Magnus's kidnapping if we're creative enough, which will be useful all the way around. But we can worry about that tomorrow. Right now all I want to do is leave before some of those clever little vultures of the press decide to jump the police barricades and head this way, but we'll have to wait here until we're given permission. The traffic out there's a nightmare, anyway; we'll be lucky to get back to Manhattan by dinner time. It's just as well Anita made sure the car was fully stocked before I left."

  "Hey, that must mean there's coffee in there," Kayla said with interest, setting Molly down. The pug immediately began to investigate all the fascinating smells in the vicinity, pulling Kayla around in a circle. "Hard to believe they're still finding people in there," Kayla started to say idly. "What were they doing, hiding under the . . . desks?"

  Her voice went very flat on the last words, as if she'd suddenly forgotten how to talk. Ria reached out to steady her as she swayed.

  "Kayla! What is it?"

  "I don't know," Kayla muttered, shaking her head. "Those . . . it's like a hole. . . ."

  Eric looked in the direction of the latest group of people being led toward the bus-being-used-as-ambulance. Most of them looked perfectly fine—if a little shocky—but in the middle of the latest group were two people wrapped in blankets being closely shepherded by paramedics.

  "No," Eric said, shaking his head. "Oh, no, no, no, no. They weren't supposed to still be in the building. They were supposed to have run like hell. We did."

  He moved away from the car—not quite running—toward the small group of evacuees.

  * * *

  "Sir? Sir?" A policewoman moved to block his way as Eric approached, her expression impersonally friendly.

  "Those are my parents," Eric said flatly, silently daring the woman to try to move him. "Mom? Dad? Hey!"

  The two elder Banyons were rumpled and disheveled, but their faces were serene. Far too serene, in fact. Though Fiona's makeup was mostly gone, and the remains were smeared across her eyes and cheeks in a messy blur, she looked uncannily youthful, as innocent and ageless as a nun. Beside her, her husband regarded the world with wide, all-accepting eyes.

  They stopped and turned at the sound of Eric's voice, and regarded him attentively, but certainly without anything that could be considered either curiosity or emotion. After a moment, when he didn't say anything more, they turned away again and continued following the others.

  Eric swallowed hard, stepping back. It wasn't hard to put together what had happened, though not all of the precise details. Somehow, after he and the others had left, Michael and Fiona Banyon had ended up in the Grey Room, and had met the fate that Prince Gabrevys had intended for him and Magnus.

  "Are those your parents?" the officer asked, as if one or the other of them weren't quite sure.

  "Yes," Eric said. It felt as if the words were coming from a very great distance. "Their names are Michael and Fiona Banyon. They live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Michael Banyon teaches at Harvard. My name is Eric Banyon."

  The officer made a note. "You're with Ria Llewellyn, aren't you? They're being taken over to the ACMC on Pacific. Why don't you check in there as soon as you get out of here and find out when you can take them home? And . . . don't worry too much about they way they're acting. Shock can make people do a lot of funny things." The officer smiled—Eric knew she meant to be reassuring—and moved away, following the others.

  Eric stood where he was, watching the evacuees loaded into the makeshift ambulance. He watched it drive off down the road, then turned and walked back to the car.

  * * *

  "They're being taken to the ACMC, whatever that is," he announced simply.

  "The Atlantic City Medical Center," Ria said. "It's the largest hospital in the area. Everybody needing medical attention from this little party today is being seen there." She raised an eyebrow. "And if you don't start talking in full complete forthcoming sentences, I might have to do something painful to you."

  "You remember I told you that Gabrevys had a bunch of Talent-eating nightmares that he was going to feed me and Magnus to?"

  "I remember you promising me the full story about that at some point, yes," Ria said, with a bad imitation of patience.

  Just at the moment, he didn't care if she was patient or impatient or waiting to smack him in the head with her Jimmy Choo. He felt as if he'd just been through an earthquake, as if the ground had dropped out from under him. "Well the particularly fun thing about these nightmares is that you didn't have to be a Bard or a Sidhe or a Talent for them to be able to eat you. They could eat anything similar, too. Creativity. Will. Imagination."

 
"Leaving behind the perfect piece of mindless cannon-fodder," Ria said, nodding. Her face lost that give me the answers NOW look, and she touched his shoulder for a moment. "And I take it that when you slipped through his fingers, Gabrevys substituted your nearest available relatives? Eric, my dear, I will not shed one tear for anything that has happened to those monsters. They brought it on themselves in the most literal way possible."

  "But," Ace said softly, "nobody deserves to have something like that happen to them."

  "Eric and Magnus certainly didn't," Ria agreed coolly. "But the people who tried to do it to them? Could be. Eric, unless you actually locked them up and fed them to the nasties yourself, unless you told them that room was a safe place to hide, or you somehow lured them in there, I'd have to say that this probably isn't something you can reasonably accept credit for—or blame. But that's between you and your shrink, of course."

  "Sure," Eric said listlessly. He stared at the ground, but he didn't see it.

  She was right. Anybody would say she was right. Oriana—his expensive and highly competent headshrinker—would say she was right.

  But, dammit, in his heart he knew he'd been supposed to save them. He'd saved—or tried to save—a lot of people he didn't much like—like everybody here at this concert today, for example. It wasn't about picking and choosing who deserved saving. It was about saving everyone you could, because the bad guys didn't deserve to win.

  "Eric," Magnus said, putting a hand on his arm. Magnus rarely touched anyone; Eric knew his brother was making a great effort. "You didn't do it to them. You didn't put them in there. I would have. You didn't. You rescued them. They were running the other way the last time any of us saw them. Why does it have to be your fault they're like that now and not the elf-guy's? I mean, you know. Bro. Quit making yourself out to be—thinking you've gotta be Spiderman—it's dumb. It's—"

  "The concept you're groping for in vain—despite the very expensive education you're currently receiving—is 'hubris.' And for as long as I've known Eric, he's had plenty of that," Ria drawled mockingly, reaching out to ruffle Magnus's still-damp hair. "And now," she said, glancing around, "I think we can finally leave."