A Host of Furious Fancies

by Mercedes Lackey

“Columbia,” Elizabet said. “She got the acceptance letter last week. They’ve got a good computer school. She’s thought the matter over carefully and decided she wants to train to be a Web designer.”

  “Well, she’ll never lack for employment,” Ria answered. More to the point, Web designer was a solitary profession with odd hours. Though Kayla’s great Gift was Healing, you couldn’t set yourself up as a free-lance medic without running into legal trouble, and even if Kayla’d had the patience, taking a medical degree to legitimate her skills would have been nothing more than a quick trip to early burnout or even death. A Healer and Empath needed a lot of time alone to process the pain from those she touched. There were going to be a lot of times when she’d really need to get away from people altogether, and Web designer would be a career where she could tailor both her hours and her interactions with others.

  “And certainly I can cover her tuition. Just have the billing office get in touch with me. Which dorm will she be in?”

  “Well, that’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Elizabet sounded hesitant. “Columbia doesn’t really have a lot of student housing, and I’m not really sure I’d be all that comfortable with Kayla around a couple of hundred other teenagers. She’s a great kid, and of course she wrote the book on street smarts, but I think sometimes that we just tend to forget that she is a kid. I was hoping more for a situation where she’d have some adult supervision.”

  I think I know where this is going. Of course Elizabet was right—dropping an Empath into a cauldron of teenaged angst would be like dropping a firecracker into a tank of gas, personality issues aside. And Ria owed both Kayla and Elizabet so much that anything she could do in return would never be enough.

  “I’ll be happy to keep an eye on her,” Ria said. “I’ve got a huge apartment that I hardly ever see. I’ll be glad to have her stay with me.”

  Elizabet let out a sigh of relief. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said. “I know that babysitting a teenager is nobody’s idea of fun . . .”

  “Kayla’s hardly your typical teen. And street-smart or not, she’s never seen anything like New York before. Here, I’ll give you my home address. Just crate her stuff up and ship it when you’re ready. I’ll be sure to meet her plane.”

  “You’re a doll, Ria!”

  They chatted for a few minutes more about various things, and Ria gave Elizabet the address of her Park Avenue apartment—and be damned to the co-op board if they don’t like it; I can always buy the building!—and several emergency phone numbers. She also made a promise that they both knew was empty: that she’d do her best to keep Elizabet’s young apprentice out of trouble. Kayla was drawn to trouble as the moth to the flame.

  What am I getting myself into? Ria wondered as she hung up the phone.

  What am I getting myself into? Eric wondered, not for the first time that week. He still hadn’t been able to bring himself to mention the idea of becoming Hosea’s mentor to Hosea; every time he rehearsed the words in his head they ended up sounding arrogant and stupid. But the longer he delayed, the guiltier he felt. Tonight. At the party or after. For sure.

  They’d made the rounds of the usual spots this afternoon. The take was a little lower than usual—it was August, and a lot of Gothamites were fleeing the city for cooler climes—but still respectable. Hosea had insisted on knocking off early; he had a recipe he wanted to try for the party tonight. He’d called it “pocket dumplings,” but when he described them, Eric recognized the recipe for Cornish pasties. Makes sense. Just about everyone from that neck of the woods hailed from the British Isles originally. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a Grove tucked away somewhere in those hills . . .

  So they’d gone shopping, and then Hosea had firmly shooed Eric out of the kitchen. “I’ve seen what a kitchen looks like once you’re done with it, Mister Bard. You just do your part and eat what I cook.”

  Eric had wandered around the living room for a while, unable to settle. He thought about going for a walk, but the idea held little charm—Manhattan in August was hazy, hot, and humid, and he hated the thought of leaving his spell-driven air conditioning.

  I wonder how Jimmie’s doing? He hadn’t seen her in the last couple of weeks; she’d been working on Friday when they’d had their get-together. But Paul had told him her schedule, and she should be home now. He decided to go see her, maybe cadge a cup of tea.

  A few minutes later he was standing in front of her door. He knocked gently, and after a few minutes heard her walking down the hall. She opened the door.

  “Eric. How are you?” She tried for a smile and missed. Eric tried to keep from looking as shocked as he felt. Jimmie looked like something the cat had dragged in—deep puffy black circles under her golden eyes, and lines in her face that hadn’t been there a month earlier.

  “I’ve come at a bad time,” he said.

  “No.” She opened the door wider. “Come on in. Really.”

  He stepped past her, into the hall. It was lined with shelves full of books on every conceivable subject—Jimmie Youngblood was a voracious reader.

  In the living room window, an elderly a/c wheezed and thundered, working hard to cool the room. Eric walked over to it and touched it lightly. He reached out with his power, asking it to remember the days when it was new. It instantly began to purr quietly, and the temperature dropped appreciably.

  Jimmie sighed in relief. “Thanks. You could make real money doing that.”

  “If I ever need a second job,” Eric said. “But are you sure this isn’t a bad time? ’Cause frankly, Scarlett, you look like hell.”

  Jimmie shrugged. “Going from days to nights is always hard, and I haven’t been sleeping well. It’s not the nightmares. That charm you did for me worked fine, and they haven’t come back. I’ve just got this feeling of impending doom. Every morning I wake up expecting to go into the bathroom and see a banshee doing laundry in my sink.”

  Eric smiled at the feeble joke. Legend held that those who saw a banshee washing her bloody garments were doomed to die within the fortnight. “But neither Greystone or the House has noticed anything?”

  “Nothing,” Jimmie answered tiredly. “I’m starting to wonder if I’m turning into one of those cranky old ladies who goes around prophesying the end of the world.”

  “Not you,” Eric said gallantly. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to help? I mean, I know I’m not a Guardian—”

  “You wouldn’t want to be,” Jimmie interrupted, cutting him off. “Once you get the Call, your life doesn’t belong to you any more. You never know where you’re going to be sent, or what you’ll have to do. And it’s not like there’s an instruction manual for being a free-lance occult do-gooder. Sometimes I wish there was.” She walked into the kitchen and came back a few moments later with two tall glasses clinking with ice. “Tea. Or as Grandma used to say, ‘sweet tea.’”

  Eric took his glass and sipped. It was sweet—sweet and cold and delicious, tasting faintly of mint.

  “The secret, so she told me, was to put the sugar into the hot tea, so it dissolves completely. Then add the mint, wait for it to cool on its lonesome, and chill. I sure do miss her. She came up North to take care of us kids after Mama died, and never stopped complaining about Yankee ways until the day she died.”

  “You’ve never said much about your family before,” Eric said.

  “That’s because I don’t have one anymore—well, outside of Toni and the guys. And you, Eric. You’ve been a real friend. I’m glad the House chose you,” she said, sitting down on the couch beside Eric.

  “Me, too,” Eric said. He sipped his tea. “Hosea’s cooking for the party tonight, and suggested I could be of the most use by making myself absent.” He hesitated, wondering if he should mention that he might be taking Hosea on as an apprentice. “When a Guardian trains their successor . . .” he began.

  He was interrupted by a healthy snort of laughter from Jimmie. “Oh, my! I just wish we did
! But that’s not the way it works for us. If we’re lucky, we get to meet our successor and pass on the Call in person, but that’s about it. Usually it arrives like a bolt out of the blue, and then it’s sink or swim time.”

  “Doesn’t sound really efficient,” Eric said, probing gently.

  Jimmie grinned, savoring a private joke. “Who are we to argue with the Powers that Be’s way of doing business? But seriously. There’s no way to train for this job. You can either handle it, or someone else comes along pretty quick to replace you, on account of you taking a quick trip on the hurry-up wagon. Of course, you can spend a long time fooling yourself. I was pretty stubborn when my Call came. Thought I was losing my mind. It’s different for everyone. Paul stepped right up like he was born to it when his Call came—but then, he’d been involved in the occult for years. I was just a dumb street cop.” She drained her glass in several long swallows and set it down on the floor beside the couch. “And I sure wish I could shake this case of the blue-devils. I even took your advice . . . I did something I swore I’d never do.”

  Eric raised his eyebrows inquisitively. Jimmie sighed.

  “I tried to get ahold of my brother. All I had was a P.O. box address from about a dozen years back. I wrote to it. But he never wrote back. I could use my contacts on the Force, maybe; see if he’s Inside somewhere. But I don’t really want to rake up old bones at the Job. Y’know, sometimes it doesn’t seem like it when the Post gets going, but there’s nothing a good cop hates more than a bad one.”

  Eric waited, sensing there was more to say. But if there was, Jimmie drew back from it.

  “He didn’t even resign. Just disappeared when Internal Affairs came calling. Damn near broke Dad’s heart.”

  And yours, Eric thought, but didn’t say so.

  “So what’s the deal, Eric? You look like somebody with something on his mind besides my little problems.”

  “Yuh got me, podnuh,” Eric said. “It’s not really a problem. It’s just . . . Hosea came to New York looking for someone to train him as a Bard. And I’ve got an awful feeling I’m it.”

  “Can you?” Jimmie asked, cutting to the chase.

  “Yeah, well, technically . . . yes. My teacher thinks so, anyway.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Eric could almost hear Jimmie thinking it over.

  “So, don’t you like him?” she asked.

  “Sure I do,” Eric said quickly, leaping to Hosea’s defense. “He’s a great guy. It’s just that . . . what if I screw up?”

  He’d never been responsible for anyone but himself, not even Maeve. That was what it came down to. She was Kory and Beth’s. Not his. Saving the world was one thing (though he wasn’t over-confident about his abilities there, either, if truth be told), but crises tended to boil up and blow over pretty quickly. Taking on an apprentice was a long-term commitment to another person—and at Juilliard, he’d had ample chance to see the harm that a bad teacher could do.

  “What if you don’t—screw up, I mean?” Jimmie asked reasonably. “Spend all your time worrying about what might happen, and you’ll never get anything done. Good advice. I ought to take it sometime,” she said broodingly.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure this out eventually,” Eric said. It sounded like hollow comfort, even to him. “Maybe it’s all blown over and this is just the aftershocks. Meanwhile, why not come to the party this evening? Shake off that gloom’n’doom feeling?”

  “I should,” Jimmie said. “I will. Wouldn’t miss the chance to sample your friend’s masterwork.”

  She forced a smile, and the talk turned to other things.

  The basement was already full when Eric and Hosea came down, balancing two large cookie sheets covered with warm, golden-brown pasties. Alex was there, talking computers with Paul, and Margot and Caity were spreading a paper tablecloth over the top of the washing machines, converting them to a makeshift buffet for the evening.

  The basement of Guardian House ran the entire length of the building. Part of it was walled off, forming the “magical bunker” that Toni had told Eric about in his first days in the building, and there was even an apartment down here—a small studio, its only access to the outside world a high narrow strip of windows along one wall. No one lived there; it’d been vacant since her predecessor’s time, Toni had told him once, and was now used for storage.

  Eric introduced Hosea to the others. Tatiana—in full war paint and more trailing shawls than Isadora Duncan—camped and vamped at him, cooing about “big, strong men” until Hosea actually blushed. Seeing that, she relented, and went off to get them drinks from the bar-by-courtesy, though aside from a couple of bottles of wine, there was nothing stronger than fruit punch there.

  By the time Ria arrived, the party was in full swing. Someone had brought down a boombox, and a World Music sampler—mostly ignored—vied for attention with the fragmented sounds of various musicians trading licks. The live music usually came later in the evening, when everyone had mellowed out and finished exchanging gossip and news. Hosea’s pasties had vanished early on, but Toni had brought empañadas—a Puerto Rican specialty—and Paul had brought a couple gallons of the Famous Punch (a mixture of exotic tropical fruit juices, savory and non-alcoholic). Eric had a glass of it in his hand when he “felt” Ria arrive, and went upstairs to guide her down.

  “Cozy,” she said, looking around the basement. “Done in early catacomb?”

  She was wearing a pale gray silk business suit and looked like the well-tailored heroine of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. She had on a pair of green jade earrings that played up the green of her eyes, and her ice-blonde hair was held back by a wide clip of the same material.

  “Think of it as a trendy after-hours club,” Eric said cheerfully. “C’mon. I’ll get you a drink.”

  “I brought my own,” Ria said, brandishing a large bottle of white wine. “After the day I’ve had, I could use a drink.”

  “Trouble?” Eric said, leading her over toward the buffet.

  “More in the line of chickens coming home to roost. You remember Kayla, Elizabet’s student?”

  “How is she?” Eric asked.

  “Starting school at Columbia this fall. And living with me while she does.”

  Eric was startled into laughter. “The punkette and the Uptown Lady—how’d you get rooked into that one?”

  Ria looked faintly cross. “Elizabet asked me, as a favor. She doesn’t want Kayla living in the dorm, and wants somebody local keeping an eye on her. L.A.’s a long way from New York.”

  “And you’re elected,” Eric said.

  “I volunteered,” Ria corrected him. “But as for what I’m going to do with her when I get her here . . .” She sighed, shrugging. “How bad can it be? But I’ve got to say, what I know about teenagers you could engrave on the head of a very small pin.”

  “Well, she’s not exactly your ordinary teenager,” Eric said, imagining Kayla in Ria’s posh uptown apartment. Let’s just hope she doesn’t decide to redecorate. “Kayla’s a good kid. And like you said: how bad can it be?”

  “I’m sure I’ll find out,” Ria said darkly. “And pretty soon, too: Elizabet’s going to send her out here as soon as she can get a cheap flight so she can settle in and get her shields up to speed.”

  Though Los Angeles was a major city, it was far more sprawling than New York was. Manhattan’s population density would pose special problems for an Empath and Healer.

  “You know you can count on me for help. Babysitting, and so forth.” He expertly peeled the wrapper off the neck of the bottle and twisted the cork out, pouring a plastic cup half-full for Ria.

  “I’ll remember that,” Ria said. “And if you’re good, I won’t tell Kayla that’s what you said.”

  “Truce!” Eric cried, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “The last thing I want is to have Punky Brewster mad at me. C’mon, I’ll introduce you around.”

  The tenants were mostly cool—there were only a couple of remarks of the
“you’re that Ria Llewellyn?” sort—and finally Eric steered her over to where Hosea was.

  He was leaning against the wall, his banjo slung across his chest, intently trading riffs with Bill, a guitarist and sometime member of various Soho bands.

  The two of them waited politely until the musicians had finished, then Eric caught Hosea’s eye. “Hosea, Bill—I’d like you to meet Ria Llewellyn. She’s a friend of mine.”

  There was a moment as Hosea and Ria sized each other up, each recognizing the power in the other. Then Hosea held out his hand.

  “How do you do, Miss Llewellyn. Eric’s said a bit about you, all good.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ria said. “Are you still looking for an apartment?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hosea said. “But at the prices you cityfolk are charging, you’d think I wanted to buy the place, not just live there.”

  Even the most run-down studio apartment in a bad Manhattan neighborhood rented for $600–800 a month, and some Gothamites were paying a couple thousand a month for a place smaller than Eric’s living room.

  “I may have a solution, at least a temporary one. LlewellCo is going to be putting up some new low-cost housing on the Lower East Side as an anchor point for redevelopment of some pretty grungy neighborhoods. We’re relocating the current tenants, of course, but it’s going to be November or so before the building’s actually condemned. Meanwhile, the place is standing half empty. I’d been going to put in a security guard—idle real estate being the devil’s workshop—but if you’d like to move in and keep an eye on the place until we raze it, you’d have a place to stay—free—and I wouldn’t have to worry about squatters moving in and making trouble for the remaining tenants.” She smiled hopefully at Hosea.

  Wow. She sure played that one right, Eric thought in admiration. He knew Hosea wouldn’t even consider taking charity, but Ria’d figured out a way to offer him a free apartment that he’d still be paying for, in a sense—and she wasn’t lying when she said she’d need someone looking after the place.