"You mean before we come back here tonight," Kayla said promptly. "More fun than studying. But I'm going to need some money."
Eric looked at her quizzically.
"I'm supposed to be a pickpocket, remember? Unless you want me to go around boosting wallets this afternoon, I'm going to have to pick up some ill-gotten gains somewhere for show-and-tell tonight. So I thought I'd hit up a couple of shops this afternoon to pick up some window dressing. And a couple of sleeping bags—I can say I went dumpster diving, or something."
"Good idea," Eric said fervently. Another night on that ratty floor and he'd start feeling his calendar age instead of his real one. "You can burgle my place. I've got a stash in the cookie jar in the kitchen. You already know the combination to my door."
"Works. And you?" Kayla said.
"Going to make an interdimensional phone call," Eric said, brandishing his flute. "See you later."
"Pick you up at your place about seven?" Kayla suggested. Eric nodded, and she waved, moving off.
* * *
Central Park was 843 acres in the heart of New York City, stretching north from Columbus Circle all the way to 110th Street—51 city blocks. It was the brainchild of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux who, back in 1858, when city development extended only as far north as 38th Street, decided that New Yorkers needed a "greensward." Despite all attempts to pave it over in the next century and a half, Central Park endured, with its miles of pedestrian paths, lakes, lawns, and woodlands.
There were a number of places in it where a person could be as isolated as they cared to be, particularly during rush hour on a Tuesday morning.
After about half an hour's walk, Eric found himself in an isolated grove of trees. If he shut out the city noises—and ignored the drifts of the faded paper and plastic garbage that accumulated in the months when the Park wasn't policed as often as in the spring, summer, and early fall—the place could do a pretty good imitation of a woodland glade. It was, Eric thought, the perfect place to cast his spell.
There were still more isolated places than the one he'd chosen, but those tended to be visited by serious bird watchers at odd moments—and bird watchers were uncannily good at sneaking up on you unheard. Strange to think of Central Park as a haven for birds other than starlings, sparrows, and pigeons, but it was. He'd run across the birders more than once; they policed the more remote spots for garbage and even had bird feeders set up high in the trees that they kept filled all year long.
Even if Jaycie were a Magus Major, if he was as young as he looked, he was too young to have much mastery of his magic—Elven magical training took decades, if not centuries—and the Cold Iron surrounding him here in New York would make his Sidhe magic work unreliably at best. Eric wasn't worried about being spied upon by Jaycie this far away from The Place, so Jaycie wouldn't know what he did here.
He meant to send out a Call to the nearest Protector in the World Above. Since there shouldn't be any Protectors in the World Above—since Protectors stayed very close to their Sidhe charges, and that meant Underhill—the one who came, if any came, should be Jaycie's. Then Eric would explain the situation, and Jaycie would go home before he could do any more damage to himself.
And if no one came . . . ?
Burn that bridge when we come to it, Eric told himself firmly. No matter why Jaycie had fled Underhill, he couldn't stay here.
But suppose you're sending him back to something really bad?
It was difficult to imagine. Protectors were bound with the strongest of oaths to put loyalty to their charges before anything—even the good of the Elfhame. A Sidhe Protector would die—literally—before harming their charge, or allowing them to come to harm. If Eric could summon up Jaycie's Protector, he need have no further worries about the boy's safety and well-being. If his own Elfhame was not a good place for him to be, Jaycie's Protector would simply take him somewhere else.
He raised the flute to his lips and began to play.
It was a clear morning—and therefore even colder than usual—and there was still frost on the grass under the shadows of the trees. Eric gazed at it—not really paying attention—as he filled the music with the magic of his intention.
Calling— calling— filling the notes with the image of the boy Jaycie, and the danger he was in from the World Above.
And suddenly spiderwebs of frost raced across from the frozen to the unfrozen grass, turning it all white and glittering in an instant. The trees went white as well, sparkling as if they'd been dipped in sugar.
And the day went dark. Not as if there were clouds, but as if someone had interposed a filter between Earth and the sun, leaching away the light.
Eric Banyon had faced Nightflyers, the Unseleighe Sidhe, the Wild Hunt. He'd riddled with a dragon. He'd traveled through parts of Underhill that were a close approximation of Hell.
None of it had prepared him for this.
He was surrounded by grief—drowning in it. Sheer anguish beat him to his knees. He couldn't tell if it was his own or someone else's. Pain—loss—devastating bereavement bordering on madness.
Shield!
He barely forced his shields into place—a sloppy discordant wail of clarinets—when whatever had come to his call changed tactics. Now he was at the center of a physical, not an emotional storm, though he could still sense the grief that lay beneath the attack.
He found himself at the center of a hurricane, but blood, not rain, was born upon the arctic wind. It glittered pinkly, freezing as it dashed itself against his shields, but Eric found time to strengthen them now—mellow wail of horns—and they stood firm against the assault as he staggered to his feet again.
What had come against him? What in heaven's name had he summoned? Was this what Jaycie was running from?
Grief—anger—terror—pain—
And he dared not risk a moment's distraction to try to communicate with it, whatever it was. Every ounce of his energy was concentrated on defense.
And he still couldn't see what he was fighting.
Then the attack changed again, the blood turning to shards of broken mirror, glittering wickedly in the dim bluish light. He could feel the pressure on his shields, and knew he had to risk an attack of his own, even though he didn't know what direction to launch it in. But anything was better than being battered to death by something he couldn't clearly see.
He ran a line of energy outside his shields—skirl of piccolos—and was rewarded with a sound like a string of firecrackers as the next assault struck it. His barbed-energy spell disrupted the mirror-storm, and the shards of glass fell everywhere on the bloody grass. In that instant, Eric got a glimpse of a tall figure standing off among the trees.
She wore long fluttering blue robes, and wept black tears from eyeless sockets. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Eric didn't have time to stop to think about it. He simply threw everything he had at her.
She'd been preparing another attack as well. The two spells collided in midair, writhing around each other like mating snakes. The flare was so bright that Eric had to cover his eyes.
When he could see again, she was gone.
Cautiously, he lowered his shields, feeling the last of his energy flow out of him like water into the ground. The battle, brief as it had been, had taken everything he had.
The tree behind where she had stood was burning. The ground around him was covered with blood, as if somebody had dropped a 55-gallon, blood-instead-of-water balloon with Eric as the target. And fragments of broken mirror were sprayed around him in a circular pattern.
But the sun was shining normally again, and his attacker seemed to be gone.
"What just happened?" Eric said aloud. With a shaky gesture, he put out the burning tree, swaying unsteadily on his feet. He felt as if he were going to fall over any moment, but he did not want to fall down into broken glass and yuck. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to take careful steps until he was away from the mess, and then leaned carefully agains
t the trunk of an undamaged tree a few yards away.
What was that? Nothing made any sense. The blood, the lamenting—that pointed to a banshee, but banshees were Low Court elves, tied to a Node Grove. Not only was there no Node Grove for fifty miles, Low Court Sidhe had nothing like the moxie of the thing he'd just faced.
But . . . blood and mirrors. There was one creature that description fit perfectly—and if he asked Hosea, he bet the rest of the description would fit, too.
But how had he managed to summon up the shelter kids' Bloody Mary while trying to call Jaycie's Protector?
Eric ran his hand through his hair, wincing at the grimy texture. He'd like to wash it, but he'd better just settle for a hot rinse if he was going to continue the masquerade tonight.
If Bloody Mary had come to his call, he must have tapped into the toxic imago that the shelter kids had created, Eric decided tentatively. If it's here, and strong enough to be committing murders, and tied to kids in the first place, I guess it qualifies as a kind of Protector. I suppose I just called it up when Jaycie's real Protector didn't respond.
It wasn't a wholly satisfying explanation, but it was the only one that fit the facts he had.
* * *
There was more than one way to skin a cat. The Earthborn had some truly enchanting turns of phrase, really they did. Sometimes Gabriel Horn wondered exactly how many ways there really were to skin a cat. . . .
But wondering things like that didn't get him any closer to finding Daddy's Little Angel, did they?
There was, however, one more place he could look.
Humans called it the Astral Plane. The Sidhe called it the Overlight. Neither race understood it very well; the closest the Elven Mages could come to explaining it was that the Overlight was the subtle energy that surrounded All That Was, the way the white of an egg surrounded the yolk. It was bound by fewer rules than even the Chaos Lands, and nothing of flesh could enter it. But magic could open a gateway to it from anywhere.
And there were creatures whose Mage-crafted essence was subtle enough to survive there.
The difficulty with searching the Overlight was that all places in it were everywhere and nowhere at once. It contained no landmarks, nor could any be forged there. To search it was to search the ocean.
But it was equally true that all magic, both human and Elven, resonated in the Overlight. And that magic could be used as a beacon—did one possess the power and skill, and if the magician were unwary enough—to track its wielder wherever they hid, in Underhill or the World Above.
If one had the proper tools.
Gabriel Horn had the proper tools.
There was, indeed, more than one way to skin a cat.
Night was a time that the wasteful Earthborn used for sleeping. Gabriel used it for other things. He had spent the hours of darkness seated before his Mirror of Air, gazing into the Overlight, looking for the girl.
The flares and flickering beacons of unshielded Elven magics he dismissed at once. At the moment they did not interest him. Likewise, he set aside all investigation of shielded human workings, of humans working in groups. None of these were what he sought tonight, nor were the flares of lesser Talents. He wanted the girl.
At the back of his mind was the minor irritation that when he found her this way, he still wouldn't know where she was, nor would he be able to reach her. But in the end, that didn't matter. She would have disclosed herself, and his hunters would harry her to a place where he could See her directly.
Perhaps it was time to add a few more of them to the hunt.
Withdrawing his attention from the mirror for a moment, Gabriel gestured.
At once the room began to fill with shadows in the way that water might fill a cup. Gabriel smiled. His Shadow Hunt were not bound by the laws that bound creatures of flesh. One by one they came to him, allowing him to stroke their heads with the hand that wore the silver ring and fill them with his purpose, before they leaped through the mirror to run free in the Overlight.
Oh, the Earthborn would have bad dreams tonight.
His Shadow Hounds would search tirelessly, bound by no law. When Heavenly Grace used her Gift—and she would use it eventually, she must—they would mark the beacon and follow it to its source, some of the Hunt returning to tell him that at last his patience and diligence had been rewarded.
And his Shadow Hunt would find her, no matter what blighted, magic-dead hellhole she had fled to.
They were terrifying. She would run. They would harry her from her refuge, back to a place where he could See her directly.
But it would be far more satisfying if he were there for the View. When the last of the Shadow Hunt had slipped through his fingers and run free, Gabriel returned to his contemplation of the Mirror of Air.
He did not have much longer to indulge himself. The sun was rising. In a few hours, he would need to resume his disguise and return to his work. It, too, was rewarding, in its own small way.
But wait—there!
Not Heavenly Grace. Not the quarry he sought. But a beacon of such Power that he was tempted to set aside all thoughts of the girl to claim it.
Perhaps he should go see . . . ?
Quickly he summoned one of the Pack, and sent it to follow the beacon to its source before it vanished. With the Hound as a guideline, Gabriel summoned his elvensteed and followed after.
* * *
He recognized the place immediately. The Accursed Lands. Almost he left again, but the flare of Power was too rich, too strong to ignore.
Bard.
Human Bard.
Undoubtedly a chattel of his Bright Court cousins, since no Bard bound to the Dark Court would dare to wander so, but what was he doing here? Gabriel ducked reflexively as a bolt of power lit up the sky. Fighting—in that copse of trees over there, just out of sight.
And—what a pity—so far from the protection of his lords and masters . . .
Gabriel waited.
He felt the moment that the Bard's foe vanished, and felt the Bard drop his shields. In that moment, he struck.
A simple spell, a spell of draining, of oblivion. The Bard was already tired. He could feel it. The spell was designed to dissipate the moment it was detected, but if it was not, it would go on, draining first magic, then life, from its victim.
And to make sure of his work, Gabriel cast a second spell, sweeping the area, sending out a Calling spell to those human predators who might well be nearby, calling them to come to the Bard.
And feast.
He would have liked to stay to see the results of his work, but he dared not remain. This place was too dangerous for his kind, and there was the faint possibility that the Bard might see him.
Gabriel set spurs to his elvensteed and vanished, well pleased with the morning's small entertainment.
* * *
The walk into the park that had seemed so pleasant on the way in wasn't nearly as much fun on the way out. Eric had a pounding headache, and felt as if he'd gone without sleep for three nights, not one. If he'd had the energy, he would have called Lady Day to come and get him, but the thought of even that simple Call seemed like too much effort. It wouldn't be too hard to find a cab once he reached the edge of the park; he'd go home, pop a couple of aspirin, catch a few hours' sleep, and try to figure out what to do next.
If he couldn't summon Jaycie's Protector, that meant a trip to Elfhame Misthold at the very least. Maybe someone there would be able to summon him or her—or at least, find out why that wasn't possible.
Drained, exhausted, and preoccupied, Eric forgot the first rule of New York: always pay attention.
"Gimme the flute, man. An' anything else you got."
The boy seemed to appear out of nowhere, stepping in front of Eric and grinning nastily.
Eric stopped, confronting his assailant. It was a boy about Kayla's age; a true Urban Primitive: leather jacket, tattered jeans, hair elaborately dyed and gelled. Eric realized with a sinking feeling that he must have wandered int
o gang territory without noticing—or worse, made himself the target for one of the wilding packs that roamed the park. He could feel and hear others coming up behind him, and saw the boy's smile widen as his friends moved into position. Eric realized he'd missed his one chance to run, but his brain seemed filled with grey fog, and he was so tired. . . .
But he dropped the flute instantly, raising his hands and summoning the energy for a spell.
He never got the chance to complete it.
Something hard hit him on the back of the head, knocking him sprawling. He bit his lip, tasting blood, and the world seemed very far away.
He reached out to his magic, only to be hit again before the spell could be fully formed. He felt his magic spin away, out of control, as someone kicked him in the head.
The boys moved in, laughing, continuing to kick and bludgeon him until he stopped moving. And long after.
* * *
Around noon, Kayla got up again and riffled Eric's cookie jar, then went off to find the things she needed for her pickpocket masquerade. Unless you were hooked up with a good fence, or were really stupid, the smart thing to do when you boosted a wallet was to toss the credit cards and ID, so she wouldn't come back with any of those. But if she'd grabbed a few purses . . . back when she'd been living on the street in L.A., Connie used to come back with the most amazing junk. Half-used makeup, and all kinds of crap. She could donate some of her own stuff to the cause, and maybe pick up a few donations from Tat and Margot, add a purse from an upscale consignment shop and a backpack from a Goodwill store, and she'd be all set for tonight.
Collecting the items she wanted took most of the afternoon, and then Kayla headed down to Jacob Riis, where Hosea was working. If anybody from The Place saw her, it'd be reasonable for her to be there, and she wanted to check in with Hosea anyway.
She arrived about the time Hosea was finishing up in the kitchen. Kayla drifted in and hung around, but she didn't spot anyone else she knew. Hosea spotted her, though, and his face was what you might call a proper study.
"You look like something the cat wouldn't drag in," he said, coming over to her. Kayla grinned at him.
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