They might need that little bit of good luck to help get them through the night. She herself had grounded firmly in Earth power and filled up her personal batteries as far as they would go before entering the Superdome. She wished that they'd been able to find Robbie. So many questions were left unanswered. Was she working for anyone else, and if so, who? What was her motive? Why attack Fionna, whose music espoused largely benevolent causes?
Nigel Peters came into the dressing room, looking haggard. He headed directly for Fionna and took the cigarette out of her fingers.
"Give me that!" she wailed. "I need it."
"Don't constrict your voice with smoke, darling," he said. "Here." He handed her a drink instead. Fionna gulped it greedily. Laura Manning stepped forward and deftly made up Fee's mouth again with bright orange paint. Fionna didn't even notice her. She was too preoccupied.
"What'ch you starin' at, Ms. Mayfield?" she demanded, brogue on full red alert.
"I..." Liz stopped herself from sounding too familiar with all these people here. "What's the matter? I know you've done hundreds of these shows. This isn't even your largest crowd. You couldn't possibly have stage fright."
"It's not that." Even under the heavy makeup, Fionna looked white-eyed. She refused to make eye contact with Liz.
"Don't be a fool," Liz said briskly, stepping right in front of her to get her attention. "You've proved that there really is bad magic attacking you. It's real."
"Oh, that really helps!" Fionna exploded, glaring at Liz. But the attack of bad temper did help her. It helped her forget how frightened she was for a moment. Curse Elizabeth Mayfield and her Yank scarecrow. They were right much too often.
The scarecrow had something to say as well.
"It's better to be afraid of real things, Ms. Kenmare," he said, aiming those blue, blue eyes at her. "You can do something about 'em. Meantime, you just give 'em the best show you know how. You'll be fine once you're out there."
"And what the hell do you know about show business?" Fionna demanded, shooting looks of hate at both agents.
"Apart from small parts in school dramas, nothing," Liz said, cheerfully. "But you're an old pro, Ms. Kenmare. These are your fans. They love you. All you need to do is go out there and... er, wow them. There's nothing new for you in that."
"This," Fionna said tightly, "is the first time in two years we've done a show without any effects."
"I see," Liz said. And she did. Fionna herself was on show, as she hadn't been for ages. Once upon a time, Phoebe Kendale had been a part of those same small school productions as Liz. Those were as bare bones as any skeleton, but she'd shone as a natural performer, drawing every eye. Once she'd gone into music, Green Fire had been a small group that played coffee houses and small venues. In part, it had to have been her charisma that rocketed them into the view of some unknown talent-seeker. Since they had made the big time Fee had hidden behind all the fancy touches available to her. She's forgotten that her talent means something, Liz thought sympathetically. She considered reassuring Fee, but realized how stupid it would sound coming from a secret service agent who supposedly had never met the star in all her life. And Fee probably wouldn't be grateful for it anyhow.
Lloyd was underimpressed. "This is what they pay you for, from my tax dollars? Pep talks?"
"If that's what's needed," Liz said. "And now, if you'll forgive me, I have to concentrate."
She withdrew to the side of the dressing room to ready the arsenal in her handbag. Everything had been replenished from the suitcases in her hotel room and augmented by materiel from Boo-Boo's bottomless pockets. She flicked through them, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen packets, plus whatever charms she knew that didn't require a physical component. The most important tools she had were likely to be the litany of her memorized spells of protection. She started muttering them to herself, readying a framework to weave around Fionna. It was a shame they hadn't found the girl. It was a shame they hadn't had time to go over the facility again before the concert began. All they could do was concentrate on the focus of every attack so far.
Fee went back to pacing. It was hard because the damned floor was parquet wood. Every little crack broke her mother's back. She was afraid of causing bad luck to her mother, or anyone else! That kind of thing rebounded upon one. Instead of wanting to run out into the street, she wanted to find a tiny, enclosed place and hide in it until this was all over. Ten minutes. Eight minutes. Six minutes.
Liz watched Fee twisting her feet to fit inside the narrow boards, and guessed what was going through her mind. Little acts like that didn't do much good, not when there was so much power floating around. Fee had a right to be nervous. The heady feeling she had sensed earlier was greater than before, growing as the Superdome filled with people excited about the upcoming concert.
The assistant floor director appeared at the door of the dressing room. "Ready for you in five, Ms. Kenmare. Will you come upstairs with us now?"
"This is it, darlings," Nigel Peters said. He came up to clasp Fee's hands and lead her toward the door. Fitz caught up the train of her green dress and followed like a royal courtier. The others fell into step behind them.
The tunnel at the top was dark. The only light was provided by tiny laser flashlights directed at the floor by stagehands invisible on either side of them. Liz could feel those thousands of people out there all waiting excitedly for the moment when the show would begin. The crew was taut with anticipation, too. The red dots shook as they guided the group safely to the curtained enclosure behind the north end of the stage behind the huge speakers. The rest of the band, musicians and singers waited there, concealed in the dimness. Spotlights went on, shakily, Liz thought. Hugh Banks was invisible in his circle of video monitors just behind the stage, but she could hear his calm voice counting out, "Ready in three, two, one."
The unseen crowd erupted in a thunderous roar as Michael, looking like an angel in shining white silk, led the band out onto the stage. As they appeared, each man and woman was encased in a spotlight's beam, transforming them from people to tall, white church tapers. He raised a hand as the others took their places, and brought it down across his guitar strings in a deafening thrummm. One, two, three beat Voe's drumsticks, and the music leaped to life. It filled Liz's ears, and caused her ribcage to hum.
She hung back with Fionna, standing on the first step, eye level with the bottom of the stage. She had the impression of a mosaic of faintly gleaming dots in the middle distance. Faces. Thousands of faces. All these people had come to see Green Fire, to see Fionna. Every seat was packed. So was every square inch of floor right up to the foot of the stage. The tunnel behind them was an artificial lifeline to the empty spaces behind the scenes. She could well understand why Fionna might want to flee, but why she couldn't. The very force of their anticipation took hold of her, pulling her, making her want to go forward into the spotlight. She could go out there, in a pale, slinky blue dress, burst into song, and make them love her! Her, Elizabeth Mayfield!
Oh, yes, of course, she corrected herself wryly. What would she sing? "Happy Birthday"? "God Save the Queen"?
She became aware that Fee was clutching her left forearm. Lloyd loomed over both of them from behind her.
"Stay where I can see ye, all roit?" Fee asked, in a breathy whisper. Just for a moment, Liz's old school friend peered out from behind the bright face paint.
"We'll be with you the whole time," Liz assured her. She drew a circle over the other woman's head, dropping the net of protection over her and closed her hands to seal the spell. Fee nodded once, then she was gone. Glowing Celtic knotwork appeared in midair, the product of Tommy Fitzgibbon's careful tailoring, then another candle appeared on the stage, a green one. Fionna's key light flashed on, revealing her to the audience. The shouts and cheers grew louder.
Borne forward on the crowd's acclaim, Fionna Kenmare sailed straight out to the center of the stage, where a dozen lights hit her all at once. She threw her head back, and wi
th a wild scream, leaped straight into her song, landing between one note and another. Liz held her breath. She was fantastic. They were all fantastic. Rehearsal had been a much-diluted image of what was to come. No matter how scared Fee had been, she would give them a terrific show.
A hand encircled her elbow, startling her out of her reverie. She glanced to her left. Boo-Boo stood there, a grin on his face. He brought his mouth very close to her ear, to be heard over the incredible din.
"Wish we could just stand here and enjoy it," he said.
Ah, yes, Liz thought, with regret. They were on guard, and their unknown perpetrator was still on the loose. Boo nodded forward. After exchanging glances with the stage manager, the two agents slipped into their watching post, in among the gigantic speakers. Lloyd was already on stage, an ominously large presence in self-effacing charcoal among the thick cables that snaked up a decorative pillar to a platform containing now-to-be-unused special effects materials. His head turned as the agents appeared. He regarded them for a moment, then the head swiveled back to continue the ongoing surveillance of the arena.
Invisible to the crowd, Liz and Boo stood in reflected darkness while the show went on only feet away from them. The arguments and disagreements that occurred during rehearsal had dissipated, and were forgotten. No disharmony existed in the circle of the stage. No mental or emotional space separated the hired musicians and backup singers from the band itself. They were all one in an uplifting tornado of sound. The natural magic arising from Green Fire's fierce music was benevolent. They loved their fans, and their fans loved them. The stage was surrounded by a sea of tossing hands as the patrons in the seats on the arena floor got up to dance.
Fionna circulated about the big stage, one hand clutching the microphone, the other beckoning, exhorting the audience to get into the spirit of song with her. Vibrated nearly off her feet by the rhythm pounding out of the towering speakers, Liz almost wished she'd worn earplugs, but then she'd have missed the way that the whole sound came together. The contact high of magic was heady. She drew on it, keeping her protective spell strong.
As Fee rounded the west side, heading for the rear, her eyes were scanning. Liz wondered what she was worrying about. Had she spotted Robbie in the crowd? When they settled on Liz and Boo-Boo in the shadows, her shoulders relaxed visibly. Elizabeth relaxed, too. Fee just wanted to make sure they were keeping their promise to stay with her. Across the way, Lloyd shifted. Jealous again, Liz thought, though the man's face was the blank mask he assumed on duty. Liz felt a certain amount of sympathy for him. He couldn't protect her from this kind of danger, and he hated that.
Michael stepped forward, coming up beside Fionna. The two of them circled, challenging one another line by line with the melody. Liz watched his fingers fly with fascination, then gave herself a mental slap on the wrist. She was not to fall into a trance, no matter how wonderful it was to have the Guitarchangel playing only steps away. Her job was to protect Fionna.
Which was not too difficult at present. Robbie had not turned up again, according to Hugh Banks, the floor director, who was hovering around behind the scenes, whispering orders into his headset. Liz was concerned with the steady buildup of magical energy in the hall, but perhaps the threat would not be realized, since the antagonist who might have misdirected it was gone.
She had been trying all this time to work out the ramifications of a magical onslaught against someone like Fionna Kenmare. What purpose could it possibly serve? She was famous, but there were hundreds of music stars with household name recognition. It had to be because of the magic. She was associated with it. No one would blink an eye if tomorrow he or she read a headline that said there had been a magical blowout at a Green Fire concert. But what was the international connection? No foreign presence had been remarked upon at the site of the previous attack in Dublin. Only an insider could have recognized the undercover agent for what he was.
The biggest puzzle was why Robbie?—and, more to the point, how? How had she channeled her natural though untrained knack for magic into a formidable, focused weapon without it showing up on the radar of either Boo-Boo's department or Liz's own? The incantations involved must be new, powerful and far-reaching, the product of some heavy-duty research. That made Liz nervous. The department had a watchlist of hundreds of fringe groups that called themselves Satanists or black magicians. It would be horrifying to find one that had actually found a means to attain massive quantities of power. She sighed. She didn't relish bringing up such a suggestion in her next report to Mr. Ringwall. He was having enough difficulty accepting the notion that magic or other inexplicable causes were actually to blame. Her reports were probably the talk of Whitehall right now.
Colored spots and lasers arced over and around the stage, creating patterns of light and shadow through which Fee and Michael moved as though they were the Fair Folk dancing in the woods. The lighting effects that had been arranged to take the place of the pyrotechnics looked amazingly good considering Liz knew they had been put together in haste. Michael slipped past them, his long black hair plastered to his head. Time for his first costume change. Fionna, accompanied by the traditional Irish instruments and the backup guitarists, was giving the audience a ballad of frustrated love. Her voice soared to the dome.
Liz touched Boo-Boo on the arm. When she caught his eye, she tilted her head toward backstage. He nodded. She wanted to check around. He crossed his arms, and continued a dispassionate scanning of the stage and the audience.
Liz moved into the dark space. The stagehands were busy with a piece of the set, a tiered dais that went in the middle of the stage for one of the numbers. Hugh Banks was still there, shouting into his headset mike, but now he was red-faced with frustration. Something was not going well.
Michael shot back through the tunnel, now clad in black leather pants and gleaming black silk shirt, hair flowing and dry again. He clapped Liz on the shoulder with an encouraging pat. The roadie nearest the entrance handed back his guitar. Michael stepped onto the stage. His key light hit him within a few paces, but it was late. Liz winced, knowing how picky the guitarist was about timing.
As soon as he appeared, Fionna backed away from center stage, ready to change into her white silk dress. Her light didn't turn off quickly enough. Fee gave a snort of frustration as she came off stage into the capable hands of Fitz and Laura.
"They love you, me darling," Laura shouted at her. "It's going marvelously." Liz followed them downstairs to the dressing room, where the costume change was accomplished within moments. Fee stood and stared at nothing while they ripped the green silk off and zipped her into the peach-nude sheath. She gulped a tepid mineral water and strode upstairs, fringes flashing in every direction. Her retinue followed in silence, not wanting to break her concentration.
The crowd roared with delight as Fee reappeared, all in white under the lights. She twirled, letting them see the new dress. Did Liz imagine the tiny stumble? That uneasiness Liz had sensed while observing the stage manager continued to build, small mistake piling upon small problem. Liz felt rather than heard when Voe slipped a beat, throwing everyone else off just slightly. Eddie's fingers fumbled a note, flattening a chord. The audience didn't seem to care. The rapport had been established. The magical give-and-take between them and the performers that Liz so loved was beginning. Energy was building like the Pyramids.
"Ready to cue the cascade of rainbow light," Banks said to his headset. "This replaces the Roman candles over the conclusion of this number. Yes, maybe. We'll go to a short instrumental break after this, give Fee a chance to breathe. Somebody make sure she has something to drink on hand when she comes off. God knows she'll need it. She must be sweating buckets. Ready? And... cue!"
* * *
In the bar, Robbie was getting nicely suggestible.
"Why, if Fee wasn't in the picture," Ken said, "you could just lift your little finger, and Lloyd would come running right to you." Involuntarily, Robbie's little finger raised itself off the
surface of the bar. "Yeah, you could give him a little wink, and the guy would be on his knees." Wink. Ken grinned. He could go on like this all night.
That magical electricity Robbie was generating had aroused Ken's hopes. If his supposition was correct, his idea could fulfill the conditions of his assignment and save his butt.
"Hey," he said casually. "It's seven-thirty. Time for the concert to begin. Boy, if we were back in the Superdome, the first number would be beginning right now. Michael likes everything to start right on the dot."
Robbie seemed to understand some kind of response was called for, and stirred herself out of her drug-and-alcohol-induced haze to make it. "He's very prompt."
"That's right," Ken said. "You'd be heating up your stuff right now, wouldn't you?"
"It's already ready," Robbie said, and giggled at the rhyme. "Already ready. To go. Everything. Lasers. Lights. Rockets."
"Lots of rockets," Ken agreed, keeping his voice low and smooth, like a snake creeping up on an innocent prey. "I know you've got all your cues on computer, but you don't really need the list, do you?"
"I"—hic!—"memorize everything," Robbie said, unsteadily. "Otherwise, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Got to do my job. My job!" Tears started leaking from her eyes. "All gone."
"No, baby, no," Ken said lightly, mentally crossing his fingers. "You've still got your job. You've got to do the special effects for the concert. Everybody's counting on you. Look out the window. Down below, there are eighty thousand people in the dark waiting for the show to start. Are you ready? Cue the first effect. Wait for Gary to tell you to go on three, two..."
"No," Robbie interrupted him, growing agitated. "Nigel fired me. He doesn't want me to do it."
"Sure he does, baby."
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