Mad Maudlin

by Mercedes Lackey

  It was not that they were beyond help. It was that they needed more help than one man could give. And there were so very many of them.

  In the end he left again, sick at heart, casting a glamourie over them so that they would forget he'd ever been there asking questions. Even if these children did not know Magnus, their friends might. A careless word, and Magnus would know that the hunt was near. Eric couldn't afford that.

  When he got back to Guardian House, he saw that Hosea's lights were still on. He might as well stop in there to see if he could salvage something from the night.

  * * *

  "Ah was hopin' you'd come around," Hosea said a few minutes later, when they were both seated in the Ozark Bard's warm and comfortable living room. "It's lookin' kinda like Ah've got a conflict o' interest, and Ah'm not sure what to do about it."

  Hosea explained about having been called out Thursday night to the scene of a murder—which seemed to dovetail with a series of similar murders that the other three Guardians were investigating. And though there had been no trace of occult energy—not even the ghost of the murder victim—at the site, each of the deaths bore a similarity to the one Bloody Mary murder that Hosea did know of.

  "So," Hosea shrugged, "is this Guardian business—or Bard business?"

  Eric frowned, puzzled as well. He had to admit that he'd never encountered a situation quite like this before. He thought hard. "I'd have to say . . . if there's something unnatural out there killing people, that's probably Guardian business. But if it's somehow drawing its power from the shelter kids, then shutting that power off at the source is our business. So maybe it's both." And he felt his stomach twist when he said that, because the last time it had been both Bardic and Guardian business, it had ended with the death of one of the Guardians. "And in that case, how are you coming with the tunes, Hosea?"

  For the next half hour, Eric listened to the pieces Hosea had composed: short simple songs, easy for a young child to sing and remember. None of them promising more than they could deliver. All offering messages of hope, and encouraging endurance.

  Eric offered some advice, suggested a few changes here and there. But overall, the direction in which Hosea was going was good, and he found no fault with it.

  Talk then turned to Eric's own quest, and there Eric had little either new or good to report.

  "Starting Tuesday, I guess we're going to be doing it Ria's way. And I guess that's for the best," he said reluctantly.

  "What's for the best is findin' the little'un," Hosea said firmly, "whatever that takes."

  "I just keep feeling like I'm missing something," Eric said. "Something really obvious." He shook his head, unable to follow the vagrant thought to its source. He shrugged, letting it go. "And so to bed."

  * * *

  The Place sort of quieted down after midnight. Everybody was usually out by then, doing whatever they thought they had to do to survive.

  Magnus grimaced. They called it "going on dates," but their "dates" had precious little in common with the kind he'd heard about back home. Heard about, but never gone on himself, even though St. Augustine had been co-ed, because Mommy Dearest had been certain that nothing should stand in the way of his glorious future as the next Van Cliburn.

  Next David Helfgott, more likely. He'd never bought into all that child prodigy crap his parents had been so obsessed with. There'd been a few authentic ones at Auggie-Dog, and Magnus knew he wasn't anything like that. Real kid geniuses tended to flare up early and crack up early, too, becoming pretty average adults if they stayed in the music field at all. Or else they went totally bonkers.

  But after the last few days, he was starting to wonder. Maybe he really had been a musical genius. Because he was going crazy.

  Magnus sat leaning against the wall, drumming gently on his sleeping bag with his sticks. The sound wasn't enough to wake Jaycie—nothing would wake Jaycie—and Ace was still up, reading by the light of a battery lamp. She was studying for her GEDs, though her chances of taking them, Magnus sometimes thought, were about as good as him getting into a band.

  But he had to believe. He had to believe the three of them could get off the street. Somehow. Only he was starting to think it was going to be just the two of them . . . Ace and Jaycie. Because Magnus was starting to think he was losing it.

  He'd managed to convince himself that La Llorona wasn't coming after him. Maybe the kids had it wrong. Maybe he was too old to bother with. Something. He'd started sticking close to The Place after dark, and had totally given up his late-night roaming, but lately, even during the day, he'd gotten the feeling he was being watched—that something was calling his name, just below the threshold of audibility.

  But no matter how hard he tried, he could never see the watcher.

  When that happened, he'd stopped going out at all, day or night, and that seemed to help, as if whatever was watching him couldn't see him here. But it hadn't done a thing about his dreams.

  In them he was always running. Running from, running to—he was never sure. But running, and there was a voice calling him to come to it, calling urgently, desperately, longingly. And the voice was . . . himself?

  He was definitely going over the edge.

  "Do you ever stop doing that?" Ace said, without looking up from her book. She didn't sound angry, only curious.

  "Nope," Magnus answered, without missing a beat. "You ever stop studying?"

  "Try not to," Ace answered, still not looking up. "Never got much chance to, back . . . where I used to be."

  "Well," Magnus said, pretending he hadn't heard the almost slip. "I never got much chance to do this, back where I used to be, either."

  Ace closed her book with a sigh, marking her place carefully. "Well, that's enough of that for one night. Algebra—geometry—calculus! Lord have mercy!"

  "They're not that hard," Magnus said, surprised.

  Ace gave him a dour look.

  "Well, they aren't," Magnus said defensively. "At least it isn't a bunch of dull novels or poems or something with a bunch of names and dates."

  "Like English and history?" Ace said with a crooked smile. "Look here—and I don't mean to pry—but I'm guessing you'll need your certificate same as I will. If you're willing to help me with my hard parts, I can work with you on yours."

  "Like I'm going to have to go to college to be a musician," Magnus scoffed.

  Ace shrugged, turning away. "Just an idea."

  "No—hey—wait—" For some reason, the idea of disappointing her made him feel bad. "It's a good idea. Not that I'm going to need it. But you will. And it'll pass the time."

  "Well, I don't want to take you away from beating that sleeping bag to death. There might still be some life in it."

  "No, really. When do we start?"

  "Tomorrow," Ace said, smiling. "If I have to look at this fool book one more minute tonight I'll tear it up. Well, hello, Jaycie. Decided to join the world?"

  Jaycie climbed out of his sleeping bag and wandered over to them, yawning. "I wanted to see what you were doing," he said, sitting down companionably halfway between them.

  Without waiting to be asked, Ace passed him a Coke. It wasn't cold by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fairly cool, just from sitting out in here. The Place was warmer than being outside on the street, but that didn't mean it was warm.

  "Sometimes I do wonder if you're part hummingbird," Ace said teasingly. "Live on sugar syrup and never gain an ounce."

  "Perhaps I am," Jaycie said seriously.

  He reached out and picked up Ace's book and paged through it curiously, but Magnus could tell he was only looking at it, not reading it. He'd never seen Jaycie actually read anything, and he was pretty sure by now that Jaycie couldn't. Maybe he was—what was that word? Dyslexic? Where you couldn't read or anything? It didn't really seem fair.

  So when was it you started expecting life to be fair? Magnus thought sourly.

  Jaycie closed the book carefully, and handed it back to Ace with a
curiously formal gesture. "This is a work of great knowledge."

  "Yeah. I just hope I can get all the 'great knowledge' out of it and into me," Ace said with a sigh.

  "It will take time," Jaycie said.

  "You got that right," Ace said. She came over and hugged him. "But don't you worry about it. I'll manage. And Magnus is going to help me."

  "That's right," Magnus said impulsively, and was rewarded with one of Jaycie's most dazzling smiles.

  "Then all is well, with friends to help," Jaycie said. He settled down next to Ace with a sigh of contentment. "Read to me?"

  "Okay. Which one do you want?" Ace said. In addition to her textbooks, she had a small library of fantasy novels—scavenged, mostly, out of the dumpsters behind bookstores. Jaycie never tired of hearing the same stories over and over.

  That was something Magnus had never been able to figure out. Fantasy. Trying to escape from the real world by reading about a bunch of things that weren't real, that you knew couldn't be real . . . he couldn't see the point. It was like trying to lie to yourself. It was more important to know about the way the world really worked, so you could do your best to avoid the next horrible surprise it set up for you.

  But Ace liked them. And Jaycie liked them. So he kept his mouth shut.

  "Read me the one about the elf who gets mugged," Jaycie said placidly. "I like that one."

  "Just a couple of chapters, okay? It's long. Let me see if I can find it." Ace rummaged around for a few moments and came up with it—coverless, of course, and rain-spotted, its pages fanned out by many readings.

  She sat down on her sleeping bag, next to her light, and patted the space beside her encouragingly. Jaycie came over and sat beside her, and after a moment, Magnus joined him, first tucking his drumsticks carefully away in his bag. The three of them settled down close together—it was warmer that way—and Ace opened the book, holding it so that the light from the lantern fell directly on the page, and started to read.

  "Chapter One: Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty: It was April 30th and it was raining. . . ."

  * * *

  Hell, Marley Bell had decided, was being willing to sell out your principles and not being able to find a buyer.

  "Look," he said wearily to the man named Nichol. "If you don't understand what I'm telling you, at least write it down so that someone, sometime, will. Before you kill somebody else. There is a principle in the Art known as shielding. I suppose the mundane equivalent would be a force field. The idea is that nothing goes in, and nothing gets out. The magician controls his own shields. He opens them to admit those entities whom he summons, and to allow his evocations to go forth. There's more, but this is the bottom line, and this is where your problem is."

  "And why is that?" Nichol said, as blandly as if they were discussing the weather.

  Marley had decided some time before that he hated Nichol. It was the first of the many small defeats that had followed the first and largest, for he had set aside both love and hate years before. But he hated Nichol.

  They were back in the interrogation chamber to which Marley had been brought on the first day he'd come here. The only other places he'd seen had been the small windowless cell where he slept and ate, and the workroom that had been set aside for his use. He wasn't sure how long he'd been here. It no longer mattered. He was quite certain he was going to die here.

  "Because this place is completely shielded and magic-dead," Marley said in a dull exasperated voice. "It is cut off from the Higher Planes. That means I am cut off from the Higher Planes."

  At first he'd plotted rebellion—to send a cry for help, or at least a warning—out along the Astral Plane. His kidnappers had found and ransacked his sanctum, and brought everything here—his sword, his knives, all his magical tools and equipment. He'd had—so he thought—the means, even though they'd destroyed half his components with their ignorant meddling and the rest were woefully distempered and out of alignment, nearly useless to him.

  At first they had intended to watch him work. He had pointed out that an observer would sabotage his attempt, not daring to object further. They had seemed to accept that, to his trembling relief.

  But when he had stepped into the hexagram, even the simplest conjurations had been beyond him. Fire had not come to his summons, nor his familiar to his call, nor would an image form in the speculum-stone. All he had gotten for his efforts had been a crushing headache and a sense of emptiness, but he had continued trying until he was too exhausted to try any longer.

  At least he was no longer afraid, at least not the way he had been. He'd despaired too far for that.

  "Is all this mumbo-jumbo supposed to mean something to me?" Nichol said pleasantly, jarring Marley back to the unwelcome present.

  "Surely you have a specialist to check my work and prove the truth of what I'm telling you," Marley said blankly. It was beyond belief that they didn't. Even a non-Operant . . . but if they didn't, he could be doing anything, committing any fraud—

  "We trust you," Nichol said, and hit him.

  The beating was dispassionate, delivered in a thoroughly professional manner, but after the first few blows, Marley was in no position to appreciate its finer points, even if he had possessed the particular esoteric skills to assess it. He screamed and cowered, desperately trying to escape that which could not be escaped.

  "But maybe you'd better try harder next time," Nichol said, and left him.

  * * *

  When he left Bell's cell, Nichol went up several floors, to the Director's office, and waited to be admitted. He didn't have to wait long.

  "How is our project coming?" Wheatley asked genially. He did not invite Nichol to sit down.

  "The subject's complaining that the building's shielded," Nichol said laconically. He smiled slightly. "I encouraged him to think outside the box."

  Wheatley grimaced. "Well, of course it's shielded! We'd have Spookies all over us otherwise; if we're looking for them, naturally they're looking for us. They're clever, dangerous, and completely without mercy, Mr. Nichol. Always remember that. In the meantime, I trust you didn't damage our little lab rat?"

  "He'll be ready to go again in a couple of hours. I didn't even break the skin," Nichol said, with the assurance of long experience.

  "Interesting that he should mention it, though," Wheatley said musingly. "There's no way he could have known unless he'd been told. But the Spookies are known to have human agents . . . it's possible this Bell might be one of them. In which case, he might be useful to us in another way, assuming the creatures feel any loyalty at all to their assets. After we've exhausted every other possibility of course. And thoroughly debriefed him."

  "I'll make a note in his file, sir," Nichol said.

  Chapter Eight:

  Carolan's Welcome

  On Monday, when they weren't even looking, they found him.

  Kayla and Eric had spent the morning checking abandoned buildings on the Lower East Side—dangerous in itself, as condemned buildings were condemned for a very good reason, and most of them were falling to pieces. Eric was feeling cross and absent-minded—and trying hard not to share either emotion with Kayla. Not only was getting uptown to keep his appointment with Oriana going to take a big bite out of the afternoon, he'd promised to see Ria this evening to make arrangements to bring in the professionals.

  When he came out of Oriana's—the session hadn't gone well, more indication of how foul his luck was running lately—Kayla had suggested cutting across town and seeing what they could turn up at this end of Manhattan.

  "Hosea said that Serafina said there was supposed to be a couple of flops up here somewhere around St. John. With all the rebuilding going on, there's a lot of tenements waiting to be torn down," Kayla said encouragingly.

  "Sure," Eric had answered. He didn't have any better ideas. Just a lot of dead ends. He'd barely managed to keep from snapping at Kayla when, after they'd crossed Lex, she'd spotted a grocery store and wanted to stop. Didn't she ever stop e
ating? Where was she putting it all?

  "Chips, soda. Feed the beast. It won't take long."

  He followed Kayla along the aisles—more from inertia than any interest in making his own purchases—as she dawdled along. He forced himself to remain calm. It wasn't as though there was anywhere he actually needed to be, after all. All they had to look forward to was an afternoon of running down more dead ends. Even a false lead would be more action than they'd gotten so far.

  He was watching his feet, rather than his partner, when Kayla suddenly stopped and he almost ran into her. He glared at her with irritation, but she wasn't paying attention to him.

  He began to give her a little shove to get her moving again.

  "Eric!" Kayla hissed, elbowing him savagely in the ribs. Eric looked where she was looking, just as she kicked him painfully in the ankle as a further inducement to silence and attention.

  Magnus was walking along at the other end of the aisle, pushing a cart.

  Eric quickly looked away, feigning an intense interest in the row of bottles in front of him.

  There was a girl with Magnus. The two of them were concentrating on the list the girl held in her hand. Eric moved casually around the end of the row, where he could watch them more easily. He didn't dare use the least hint of Bardic magic, not if Magnus' own magic had awakened. And it did seem to have—he could feel it from here. Talent, raw and untrained.

  From behind an end-cap display of potato chips, Eric watched his brother. The teenager looked healthy—not thin, not drug-wasted. Was he in love with the girl beside him? They certainly seemed to be very close. . . .

  "When they leave, I'm going to follow them. Alone," Kayla said firmly. "Don't argue. There isn't time. One can do it better'n two. I'll fit in, and they can't be going far. Look how much they're buying."

  Eric stole another glance. It was true. The shopping cart was filling up with bags and boxes. Nothing that needed a refrigerator or a stove to cook it, he noticed. In fact, most of it was ready to eat.

  "All right," he said reluctantly.