License Invoked ts-5

by Robert Robert

  Wherever they had stopped, Nigel Peters had ordered drinks for everyone. Voe Lockney had fallen in love with Sazeracs. The band and crew put a serious dent in the Quarter's supply of good whiskey. They sang along with every song they knew, and applauded the performers with drunken abandon. Robbie Unterburger stared with mooncalf eyes at Lloyd, who ignored her. Patrick Jones did humorous imitations of the people they saw walking in the street. Sooner or later, they wandered into the open-air coffee shop named the Café du Monde and ate square doughnuts frosted a quarter-inch deep in powdered sugar. Liz watched it all, staying awake on adrenaline, sugar, and the odd-tasting coffee Boo told her was flavored with chicory.

  Dawn hadn't been far off their heels by the time everyone finally went to bed. By the time the technical run-through had gotten under way, noon had come and gone.

  Chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes, Nigel Peters had confided to the two agents that only with luck would they finish in time to take a decent dinner break and a rest before the concert itself. Everyone was on edge, but Fionna was in the worst mood possible. Her temper was beginning to affect everyone else.

  "All right then," Michael announced in his clipped voice from the center of the stage. His forehead was creased as though he had a headache. He probably had. "We'll just take it from the top again. And we'll do so until we get it right. If we can get the programme moving, the rest will follow more easily. Understood?"

  Mutters and groans met this announcement. Liz wondered if he'd ever been a schoolteacher. Fionna automatically trudged back to the short flight of steps at the rear of the stage. Later on, darkness would cover what was going on around her, but for now Liz could see everything. Laura Manning touched up Fee's wild makeup. Fitz, on his knees, fussed with the hem of the new green silk dress that was pinned to the shoulders of Fionna's black crop-top T-shirt. Because she would have to be sewn into the skin-tight sheath later, Fitz didn't want to have her wear it until then. Judging by the intricacy of the design and the handsome beadwork that outlined the LEDs, Thomas Fitzgibbon must have spent the rest of the night on his creation. He looked reluctant to get more than a few paces away from his creation, lest it burst into flames like the last one. His overprotectiveness was irritating Fionna. He kept getting in the way of her arm movements.

  As her cue came, Fitz started to follow her on his knees, holding the hem of the dress up so it wouldn't catch on the floorboards. She swept her hand down and accidentally smacked him on the head. The two of them jumped at the contact. Fionna stopped to give him a glare that would have frozen mercury solid.

  "All right, enough!" Fionna snapped out. "Go away. Now."

  He halted, and retired to the edge of the stage, hands fretting with the tape measure slung around his neck. Laura Manning gave him a wry look, professional to professional.

  "And, mark!" announced Hugh Banks, the stage manager, moving around the perimeter. "First sparklers start at six points around the stage. Six, isn't it, darling?" he asked, putting a hand to the headset he was wearing. He nodded. "And, off." The musicians carried on what they were doing.

  Liz and Boo-Boo were on guard with every piece of magical paraphernalia at their disposal. Both of them had been reluctant to let the other know what he or she was carrying, but Liz had pointed out that they'd only get in one another's way if they started popping off spells at random. Not until she opened her own bag of tricks and dumped it out to the seams did he relax and let her examine his arsenal. She was impressed, though she didn't let her emotions show, and hoped he felt the same way. It wouldn't do for the British Empire, however reduced, to be superseded by its former colony in any way. She matched him defensive spell for defensive spell, truth-finders, serum for healing burns (always vital to have on hand when one did a lot of candle work), concealment spells to protect covert movement, and so on.

  "Start again!" Fionna shouted, as the song they were playing fizzled noisily. "I can't stand these bleedin' crowds. Everyone who doesn't belong on stage, get off!"

  In particular, she turned to glare at the two agents. Nigel Peters started toward them, but Boo had taken Liz's arm, and was already escorting her down the stairs. Liz backed off through what would be the mosh pit to the closest possible vantage point where she could see the expanse of the stage. Peters gave them a grateful glance. He looked haggard, as though he hadn't slept all night.

  The looming Jumbotron hung further down from the ceiling than it had the night before. The barrels of stage lights and clusters of black-painted boxes were arrayed around the bottom of it. Liz guessed the mysterious boxes were part of the special effects equipment. Hanging from the lip of the Jumbotron on each side was an enormous poster of the band, concealing the lighting frame from the view of punters in the auditorium seating. Each enormous graphic showcased a different member in the center. Privately Liz thought the one featuring Fionna made her look like the bride of Frankenstein. Same open-mouthed, horror-struck expression. Liz grinned.

  A dozen men and women in blue jeans moved purposefully throughout the room with blackened aluminum boxes hoisted on their shoulders. Liz didn't recognize any of the people, and pointed them out to her fellow agent.

  "Television camera operators," Boo-Boo said.

  Liz was appalled. "They aren't broadcasting this concert, are they? Not when we have so much else to deal with? It could be a disaster!"

  Boo-Boo was happy to reassure her. "It's not being broadcast anywhere, although they're tapin' it for themselves. Those cameras have long zoom lenses. Mr. Peters said they want to cover the stage from a half-dozen points around the interior and show some of the good stuff on the Jumbotron screens. They don't want the folks in the cheap seats to miss the dramatic expressions, and all."

  "What a good idea," Liz said, appreciatively. "Those screens are a real benefit when the length of a football field separates fans from the stage." She remembered that from the control room alone the band looked smaller than figures on a wedding cake, and wondered how concertgoers felt about it. Nonetheless, she still felt nervous about the Jumbotron. The gigantic box hung perfectly steady on its moorings, but she didn't trust it a bit. It hovered over them like the cloud of doom.

  "Morning, Agent Boudreau," said a smooth voice from behind them. They turned to see Mr. Winslow, the building manager, dapper in his white suit. He came up to shake hands with Boo-Boo. "Just checking in... to see how things are going. Pretty well, eh?"

  "Well..." Boo-Boo began.

  Eddie Vincent brought his hands down flat on his keyboard, producing a discordant organ sting that blasted out of the speakers like the whistle at quitting time on a construction site. Everybody winced.

  Mr. Winslow's face contracted into a mass of pained pleats. "Well, I won't stay long. I don't want to be in the way."

  "I'm sure the band won't mind," Boo-Boo said.

  "Truth is," the manager said, with a wry grin as he retreated backwards toward the corridor, "this stuff hurts my ears. You young people... must like it, though."

  Boo put a forefinger to his lips and tapped it conspiratorially. "Well, I'm sorry to mention it, Mr. Winslow, but the two of us is supposed to keep a pretty low profile, so I'm goin' to say excuse me for now."

  "Oh! I understand," Mr. Winslow said, with the wide-eyed expression of someone pleased to have wandered into a real-life spy adventure. He shook hands with Boo again. "Nice to see you, Agent. And your... lovely assistant. Good afternoon, ma'am. We sure appreciate your helping out here." He gave Liz a half-bow.

  "Assistant! I'm not..." Liz began, eager to correct his misapprehension, but Boo-Boo's hand closed over her wrist.

  "Let him go, Liz," Boo said.

  "But he thinks I'm your assistant! Why won't you let me—?" Mr. Winslow made a left turn out at the end of the corridor, heading for the long escalators that led to the lobby. She could just catch him.

  "It doesn't really matter what he thinks, does it?" Boo asked, interrupting her.

  Liz jerked her hand loose, but she was suspicious. She
regarded Boo with narrowed eyes.

  "All right, why did you want that man to get out of the way so quickly?"

  "I don't know whether y'all noticed it," Beauray said, casually, "but Mr. Winslow has this little trick of waitin' in the middle of a sentence until you meet his eyes. That means if we have him standin' here havin' a nice conversation, we can't keep watchin' the set."

  Liz's eyelids flew up in surprise. "Why, you're right. I apologize. But the next time I see him, I'm going to set him straight. I am not an assistant."

  "I was tellin' the truth when I said we had to keep a low profile, wasn't I?" Boo asked, his blue eyes innocent.

  "Yes, but..."

  "Well, I'm helpin' you keep your cover," he said, in his easygoing way, as if that should settle everything. Liz glared at him. In any case there was no way to call Mr. Winslow back. Beauray had scored on her once more. She was not going to let that happen again.

  The music had started again. Spotlights, faint in the brilliant noon sunshine, played around the interior of the stage. Michael came up the back stairs, and a pale golden light hit him, setting fire to the metal of his guitar strings, turned the flesh of his hands and face to incandescent ivory, and gilded his black hair. He looked so beautiful Liz forgot for a moment to breathe.

  Lights came up on the other two musicians, setting halos playing in their long hair. Michael started forward, but the spot stayed where it was. Michael frowned down, then up.

  "Hold it," he said. "Hold it!" The music died away. "What's wrong with the lights now?"

  Just as everyone looked up into the flies, a gigantic flash of light burst overhead. Liz almost threw a spell to protect the people on the stage. Only well-honed reflexes kept her from crushing the components in her hand when she realized it was just a light popping. Sparks showered down onto the stage. The stage crew threw their hands up over their heads. Only Michael stood there in the rain of fire, looking authoritative and indignant. "Was that my key light?"

  "Someone check!" shouted the stage manager, setting his staff into a flurry of motion.

  Boo took a firm but not dangerous hold of Liz's wrist, and pried her fingers open. She stared at him in surprise as he picked up the fragile wax shell she had been clutching. "Y'can't use that in here, Liz," he said.

  "And why not?" Liz asked. "It's perfectly safe. It's a fire-prevention cantrip."

  "You'll have to forgive me sayin' so, but it don't have the range to cover the area of the stage."

  "I could double the amount," Liz said, indignantly. "That would be more than plenty."

  "Well, then it will be too heavy to have the range you want, no matter how loud you chant. What if you're not as close as you are right now?"

  "And I suppose you have something better?" she asked, peevishly.

  "Sure do," Boo said, companionably. "I checked with HQ this mornin'. They said I can give you these." He handed her a couple of sachets. Liz glanced at them dubiously. They smelled strongly of myrrh and purslane, a protective herb traditionally ruled by the element of water. She had to admit they were beautifully constructed, the edge of each fragile paper envelope sewn shut with corn silk. "You can have the formula later on. If these give satisfaction, that is."

  "Oh, thank you," Liz said, trying not to sound sarcastic. Helping the poor cousin, she thought, furiously. Thought he knew it all. Their government could obviously pay for higher quality than her government. Another way of shamefully showing off. "This isn't the spell you think it is," she said, now ashamed of the irregularly-shaped bubble containing a cluster of damp crystals like a handful of bath salts sealed in waxed paper.

  "Well, actually, I think it is," Boo said, returning the components to her between cautious thumb and forefinger. "Our intelligence is pretty good."

  "We've made improvements, and..." Liz stopped just short of telling him she was a hereditary witch and knew how to put together a workmanlike spell, dammit! With dismay she realized he probably knew all that, too. Annoyed at her own outburst, she reasserted her professionalism. There was a job to do. She'd give him a piece of her mind later. With grace, she accepted the spell components and his instruction on how to chant the incantation.

  "Bimity polop caruma?"

  "Caruna," Boo corrected her. "It's an `n.' " Liz nodded. It was ironic that though the Americans claimed to believe less in magic than the British, their department produced a better line of counterspell that they didn't believe would do anything to counteract the occurrence that they didn't believe could happen.

  "Quiet!" shouted the stage manager. Liz looked up, startled, wondering if they'd been overheard. But they hadn't been the only ones making noise. Liz just became aware of the last faint echoes of a mechanical screech, as the huge box overhead swayed slightly. She felt giddy just looking up at the Jumbotron. She had enormous sympathy for the workers who had to climb the narrow iron catwalks twenty-six stories above the ground to maintain it.

  Hugh Banks walked out to the center of the stage, accompanied by a representative from building maintenance, a heavyset man in khaki coveralls. They looked up at the grid. The burned-out spotlight was a black dot at the edge of the framework.

  "One of those posters of yours was touchin' the light," the supervisor said, with an experienced nod. "Coulda started a fire. Lucky just the one light went out."

  "We need that spot functioning again," the stage manager said, reading from a complex diagram. "Can you fix it?"

  "We'll just have to replace that light filament," the supervisor said. "Have to raise the Jumbotron to do it. It can't be done while it's lowered."

  "Wait until after the rehearsal," the stage manager said, with a sigh. "Five o'clock, all right?"

  "No problem."

  "This is supposed to be the technical rehearsal," Michael Scott said, peevishly. "What about the cues?"

  The stage manager spoke into his headset again.

  "We're on it," Ken Lewis's voice echoed over the public address system in the vast room. "I'll swap another spotlight as Michael's key light for the time being."

  "Good?" Banks asked Michael. The guitarist nodded, not happily.

  The group began again. And again. The third attempt was interrupted by the arrival of the backup singing trio and the hired percussionist, Lou Carey.

  "Very sorry we're late," Carey said. He was a razor-thin black man with a razor-thin mustache under his narrow nose. "We got the time wrong."

  "All right, then," the stage manager said. "Get in your places."

  "Should we get our costumes?" one of the singers asked. A tiny girl with huge brown eyes, she had a thrilling contralto voice that resonated pleasantly even without amplification.

  "You'll have to get dressed during the break," Michael said. "We're delayed enough as it is."

  "Places for the fourth number, please!"

  Michael started picking out a moody and frustrated melody. Liz recognized it as Green Fire's well-known rant against environmental destruction. It was powerful and disturbing. She knew every note, swaying slightly with the music.

  The others joined in. The latecomers hurried toward their assigned spots, eager to catch up and join in. Eddie Vincent brought his hands down onto his synthesizer keyboard for a crashing crescendo that imitated a rising gale. Fionna's voice would rise out of the music like whitecaps on the crest of a foaming sea and tear the soul out of the audience.

  Just then, the lights went down. Eyes accustomed to the glare of the spots and the brightness of noonday were temporarily blinded. In the momentary dimness, there was the sound of stumbling feet, a thud, a clattering. The wild music died away in a whine like deflating bagpipes. Liz felt a wrench in her chest from the unfulfilled promise of the song. Eddie Vincent's deep voice reeled out a string of profanities.

  When the lights came up a moment later, a spotlight highlighted the unfortunate percussionist flat on the floor with his feet tangled in a mass of cables. Several of the stagehands leaped forward to help him up.

  "He pulled the power cor
ds out of my rig!" Eddie shouted.

  "I didn't do it on purpose, man!" Carey said, his cheeks glowing with embarrassment. "I was nowhere near your stuff! Somebody pulled me—or something. The next thing I knew, I was on my face."

  "Get out of here," Eddie said, angrily. "Move it. Nigel!"

  "Eddie, he couldn't have done it on purpose," the manager said, striding up the stage steps. "We all saw it. He was going toward the opposite side of the stage. He must just have gotten lost in the dark."

  "What dark? It's noon! He got lost walking across a wide-open stage?"

  "I didn't get lost. Someone pulled me into the cables," Carey insisted. "Someone took hold of my arms and yanked me over that way. It just happened."

  "Do you think I'm stupid?" Eddie snarled. "What kind of story is that?"

  "I couldn't see, man! I'm sorry!"

  Hulking roadies in T-shirts and jeans began to gather around the keyboards, looking menacing. Liz couldn't tell whether they were prepared to defend Eddie or the other man. She sensed a measure of ill will in the room, but not necessarily between the two groups of stagehands. The energy simply didn't feel normal. She was uneasy, but couldn't put a finger on just what was bothering her.

  "Please, guys," Nigel said, holding his hands up for attention as he pushed in among them. "This gets us nowhere. We've got to get through this, or there'll be no time to rest before the concert. I don't know about you, but I could sleep for a year."

  "Look," said Hugh, "he said he was sorry. Forget it, eh?"

  Eddie lowered his thick eyebrows at the newcomer, but shook his head. He managed to find a smile somewhere among his dour looks. "All right, man. Just keep clear, all right?"

  "No problem," said the musician, backing away with his hands up. The unlucky man was glad to escape and take his place among his fellow temps, two more guitarists, a violinist, a flautist, a harpist and a woman playing the uilleann pipe. The harpist, a very tall man named Carl Johnson, gave him a sympathetic look. Eddie went back to frowning over his instruments.