Mad Maudlin

by Mercedes Lackey

  It was funny how different a place looked when you knew its occupant wasn't coming home any time soon.

  Dammit, Banyon. You picked a great time to go missing.

  The only consolation was that she knew Eric could take care of himself if anyone could. He didn't have the brains God gave a carrot—at least in Kayla's opinion—but he always landed on his feet.

  She sat down at the computer and opened Eric's address book, scrolling through it until she found Beth's Underhill address. She clicked on it, opening a new letter.

  And stared at it. What could she say that wouldn't have Beth and Kory on Eric's doorstep as fast as their 'steeds could bring them here? Like that'd be any help.

  But he had to be in Underhill. He'd said he was going there . . . hadn't he? Or as good as.

  But if he'd gone to Underhill, he'd have taken his elvensteed.

  Unless he'd been kidnapped to Underhill.

  But then Lady Day would have just followed him to Underhill—would have taken her and Hosea along with her without so much as a by-your-leave, probably.

  But she hadn't.

  She'd taken them up to the Park. Where there hadn't been anything. Where Jeanette had said Eric had been, and wasn't now.

  And that didn't make any sense either. Because Eric wouldn't just go wandering off. Not when he was trying to figure out how to get Magnus to come home with him.

  Reluctantly, Kayla closed the e-mail client, her message unsent. Maybe she'd try a couple of other things before she scared Kory and Beth half to death.

  I wonder how I find out if somebody's been arrested? No time like the present, Girl Detective.

  If Toni was home, she'd know.

  * * *

  Hosea had several stops to make that day—no matter what else was going on in his life, he still had to cover rent and groceries, and that meant meeting his obligations.

  But there was no reason why he couldn't earn the rent at the same time. . . .

  Now that he knew what to listen for, he was getting more of the Secret Stories, tiny fragment by tiny fragment. Today, from the girls, it was more about the Blue Lady; how she not only protected children from the demons, but from the humans that demons had gotten to. Physical protection, that meant—which sure fit in with those murders he and the Guardians were looking into. But you had to be a Special One to call her in that way, and you had to be in the worst fear and pain of your life, because she didn't come for little things, and when she did come, there had better be something there for her to protect against, or she turned back into Bloody Mary.

  Kind of like calling on Elbereth Gilthoniel, except that she'd turn into Shelob if you called her for no good and urgent reason . . .

  From the boys, however, he heard about the angels and their ongoing guerrilla war against the demons. They had a base camp in a secret place in the heart of a tropical swamp, and from there they mounted their ongoing campaign to drive the demons out of Heaven and the strongholds they'd made on Earth. Fighting beside the angels were the good ghosts, who actually could not do much except serve as scouts, spies and messengers to the living, because they had no angelic powers. Oddly enough, the entire campaign, down to the camp in a tropical swamp, had a familiar sound to it; when one of the boys named Julio described the archangel Michael as dressed in fatigues and a beret, bearded and carrying a rifle, Hosea realized why.

  He kept an eye out for Ace while he was down at the shelter, but didn't spot her, and that worried him, knowing what he knew now. He wondered who was after her to make her as skittish as she was, and if Eric had managed to get himself tangled up in that, too. He'd been in on the whole Threshold thing; what if there was another black ops project that was using kids instead of adults, and Eric had stumbled into them?

  He called Kayla in the middle of the day from the shelter phone, to find out if there was any news.

  "I don't think he's Underhill," Kayla said. "I was thinking about it, and if he was, wouldn't Lady Day just have followed him?"

  "Maybe," Hosea said cautiously. He had to admit it sounded reasonable, but the amount he knew for sure about elvensteeds could be engraved on the edge of one of his silver banjo picks and still leave room for a couple of Bible verses.

  "So I thought maybe we ought to look for him here first before we bothered a bunch of elves," Kayla said tentatively.

  "Are you real sure about that?" Hosea asked. "It don't seem to me like it would do any harm to ask the Good Folks if they've seen him."

  "And have Beth pitch spinning kittens all over Eric's apartment with Kory along to sing tenor?" Kayla asked crossly. "The weird thing is"—there was a very long pause—"elvensteeds can track their riders. Eric told me that once. Over hundreds of miles in the World Above. And across Gates in Underhill. I remembered it when I was thinking about how funny it was that she didn't just take us Underhill after him."

  So if she can track him anywhere he goes, why doesn't she know where he is? Hosea thought.

  The unspoken question hovered between them.

  "Why don't you have Toni help you check the hospitals?" Hosea said, very gently. "Ah'll be home as soon as Ah can."

  But it was several more hours before he could fulfill that promise.

  On his way into Guardian House, Hosea ran into Caity coming out.

  "Oh, there you are!" she said cheerfully. "I was just up knocking on your door." Her smile faded a little as she inspected him. "You don't look like you've been having the best day in the world."

  "Ah might have lost track of a friend," Hosea admitted cautiously, not wanting to spoil her mood. "But Ah'm sure he'll turn up."

  "I guess this isn't the world's best time to invite you to a party, then," Caity said, drooping a little. "But there's one at Neil's place tonight. He's going to be there, and he said I could bring you, so. . . ."

  Hosea had never felt less like going to a party in his life, but the only person he could possibly be was the mysterious True Guardian Caity had talked about, and getting a closer look at the fellow was important. And Hosea suspected that if he turned down this chance, there wouldn't be another one. So he forced a smile, and said: "It sounds like just what Ah need to take my mind off my troubles. What time?"

  Caity beamed. "I'll pick you up about eight." She hesitated. "Wear something nice, okay?"

  "Ah'll turn up in my Sunday-go-to-meetin' best," Hosea promised firmly.

  Caity stood up on tiptoe to bestow a quick kiss on his cheek, and hurried off. Hosea went on into the building.

  He left Jeanette in his apartment and went down to Kayla's. She opened the door at his knock.

  "Well, he hasn't been arrested," she said without preamble. "And he hasn't been committed—I called his shrink. She said she'd check the hospitals for me, too, but that I probably wouldn't hear back from her until tomorrow." Her face twisted.

  Hosea held out his arms. Kayla flung herself into them, burrowing fiercely, choking on strangled sobs.

  "Hush, now," Hosea said. "Wherever he is, Ah'm sure he's just a mite tangled up, is all. You know that boy's got himself a way with trouble. That's all it is. He'll be back in a day or two and apologize for givin' us all such a powerful fright, and everything'll be as right as rain. You'll see."

  "You don't believe that," Kayla said, sniffling and pushing herself away.

  Hosea fished out his pocket handkerchief and handed it to her.

  "Ah do believe that we don't know," he said firmly. "And until we do know something for sure and certain, there's no point to borrowing trouble. Now, Eric's got a lot of enemies. But he's got a lot of friends, too, and he's got a powerful shine on him. You're doing the right thing looking for him the way you are, but Ah do wish you'd whistle up the Good Folks to help."

  "You don't understand," Kayla said fiercely, scrubbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. "Kory couldn't do much even if he was here. New York is full of iron. Elves can't even survive here very long, let alone use their magic here all that well. So it's really up to us."

&nb
sp; "Well," Hosea said, reluctantly going along with her argument, "that does put a different tail on the cat. Why don't you come upstairs and let me feed you? Ah've got to go out tonight, but no sense in either of us goin' hungry, now, is there?"

  "Sure," Kayla said dolefully, stuffing the now black-striped handkerchief into her jeans pocket. "Not much anybody can do before tomorrow, anyway."

  * * *

  Hosea was just as glad he'd dressed in his best, but he still felt very much out of place when he and Caity arrived at Neil Grandison's apartment.

  It was one of those glass-and-steel towers far uptown, the kind of place that looked as though it were steam-cleaned inside and out once a month, and where the tenants were probably chosen, not only by their financial worth, but by their appearance as well. Hosea wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn there was a building dress code.

  As they rode up in the elevator, Caity gave him a number of last-minute instructions—not only to just be himself (as if Hosea would ever consider being anyone else), but to not "bother" Master Fafnir—"or to talk about the Work, because, you know, this is just a social evening, and there will be a lot of people here who don't know anything about it."

  "Ayah," Hosea had said laconically. Apparently the Master was looking for a few more sheep, and Hosea set himself to do the best possible impersonation of a lamb ripe for the shearing that he could, setting his other worries—Eric's disappearance; where Kayla was spending her nights; the Bloody Mary murders that the other Guardians—the real Guardians, as he still couldn't help but think of them—were pursuing; the Secret Stories—out of his mind for the moment. He could afford no distractions tonight.

  * * *

  The apartment was large, decorated in what Hosea—who had seen more of them than people might expect to look at him—had come to think of as Rich Folks Style: wall-to-wall beige carpet, pale anonymous leather sofas, enormous expensive pieces of pottery, and modern art that didn't seem to go with anything else. Although somehow Miz Llewellyn managed to make her place look a bit more homelike, and Hosea suspected that Miz Llewellyn could buy and sell Mr. Neil Grandison out of pocket change.

  There was a banquette set up as a bar in one corner, and the room was filled with people.

  "Caity—hi. Is this your friend?"

  A very manicured dark-haired man in a grey turtleneck and charcoal slacks came over, a tulip-shaped wineglass in his hand.

  "Neil, this is Hosea," Caity said dutifully. "Hosea, this is Neil."

  The two men shook hands. "You can put your coats in the back bedroom," Neil said. "He isn't here yet," he added, his tone pitched for Caity's ears alone, though Hosea had no trouble hearing him. Guess Ah'm not supposed to have any idea who he is, although it'd take a pure simpleton not to guess.

  But Caity nodded, looking like a conscientious schoolchild, and bore Hosea off.

  * * *

  They supplied themselves with glasses of wine from the bar, slipped sterling silver wine charms over the stems—a little fairy for Caity and, interestingly enough, there was a banjo that Hosea laid claim to—and then circulated, Caity sticking as close by his side as a hen with only one chick.

  Despite Caity's promises that this was to be a purely social evening, there seemed to be only one real topic of conversation, conducted in hints and allusions.

  And occasionally outright.

  "—well of course I gave him the apartment. It was the least I could do for a man like that. He has such power."

  The speaker was a middle-aged woman with long auburn hair—Juliana, it would be, if she was talking about the apartment, Hosea guessed.

  "Aren't you looking forward to, well, it?" the woman she was talking to asked. She was a few years younger, with shoulder-length, light-brown hair in a complicated style.

  "I'll feel better when it gets here, if we're going to have to deal with them," Juliana answered cryptically.

  Hosea would have liked to hear more—it wouldn't be easy to fill in the blanks, though it ought to be possible—but Caity took his arm and steered him determinedly away. "I want you to meet Gregory," she said firmly.

  "So you're Caity's musician?" Gregory said amiably, when they were introduced. "Music can be an important conduit of power."

  "Ah wouldn't know a lot about that," Hosea said modestly.

  He had a bit of luck then, because someone named Faith came and wanted Caity to go off with her, and Hosea settled himself to listen. People, he'd found a long time ago, tended to talk if you listened, and Gregory—who'd had several glasses of wine—was no exception.

  He got to hear a great deal about the ancient brotherhood of Guardians who had been chosen before the beginning of Time to stand against the Darkness, of how their numbers had dwindled over the centuries until there was only one, of how the False Guardians had risen up (from where was an interesting question that apparently nobody was asking) to overthrow the True Guardian, but how one day the True Guardian would reclaim his power and found a new order of Guardians to take up his ancient work.

  "—but of course that's all just a legend, isn't it?" Gregory said, belatedly coming to the conclusion he'd been talking too much.

  "Ah don't think it is," Hosea said quietly. "An' Ah don't think you think it is, either."

  Just then there was a stirring by the front door—just like when the weasel comes into the henhouse, Hosea thought uncharitably—and someone who could only be Caity's "Master Fafnir" entered the room.

  One of the women hurried forward to take his cloak from his shoulders—and it was a cloak, Hosea noted with mild amusement—Master Fafnir wore a cloak, and a broad-brimmed hat, and carried a silver-handled walking stick. I suppose he must think he's Orson Wells.

  From Caity's description, Hosea had been expecting someone along the lines of Christopher Lee—tall, gaunt, saturnine, and Byronic—but Master Fafnir was none of these things. He was on the short side of average, a few pounds short of pudgy, and had the pale skin of those who spent all their time indoors under artificial light. His short brown hair was combed straight back, making no attempt to conceal a receding hairline, and his face was the sort at which you wouldn't look twice.

  But his eyes made up for it all. They had the intense vividness that his every other feature lacked. They reached out and grabbed—and if it wasn't the kind of Power that Hosea was used to confronting in his work as a Guardian, it was a dangerous power nonetheless.

  "And here is our newcomer—our Ozark bard," Fafnir said, moving through the crowd to stop before Hosea. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a small man, the resonant instrument of a trained actor—or of someone, like a politician, who knew just how potent a weapon a good voice could be. His voice sounded warm and hearty, welcoming, but Hosea, who could hear the music beneath the voice, heard another story—of someone who was calculating, cold, and avaricious, and was already assessing what use Hosea could be to him. He had certainly named himself properly—for Fafnir, the most avaricious of dragons, who amassed treasure for no other purpose than to possess as much of it as possible.

  Hosea held out his hand, and Fafnir took it in both his own. He closed his eyes for just a moment, taking a deep breath. "You could do great things," he said simply, and moved on.

  "Isn't he wonderful? And he likes you," Caity said excitedly, clutching Hosea's arm.

  Hosea stood there for a moment, blinking. The man had a powerful personality. It wasn't hard to see how Fafnir had gotten all of them to follow him, at least in the beginning. The fellow was slick as greased ice, and if he'd been a little less suspicious, Hosea would have believed that Fafnir had seen right into him and known him for what he truly was.

  But "Ozark bard"—now that was just highfalutin' poetry. Caity had certainly told Fafnir about him ahead of time when she'd asked if she could bring him, and for the rest, who wouldn't want to hear that they could do great things?

  He hadn't thought he'd need to worry about shielding himself here, but charisma, and the pull of a large group al
l thinking the same way, could exert nearly the same amount of force as a trained magician's will. Now that Fafnir had arrived, Hosea could feel the pull of expectation all around him. Not nearly strong enough to entrap him, but worth warding against all the same.

  "Listen to your own song," his Gran'daddy had always told him. "Ain't nobody can fool with you when you listen within." Both Paul and Eric had told him the same thing, though their words had been different. Hosea concentrated, until the nagging tug he felt from the other people in the room receded, and he felt sure of himself again.

  When he looked around, he saw that Fafnir had seated himself in a large leather chair in a corner—very much as if by right—and the others had all gravitated to him, as if, now that he'd arrived, he'd become the focus of the room. Someone brought him a glass of wine, and several of the women clustered around him, sitting on the floor around the chair. Hosea was both relieved and discouraged to see that Caity was among them—relieved, because it meant she wouldn't be dragging him out of any more interesting conversations, and discouraged because it meant she was very much under "The Master's" spell.

  But if there's one thing Ah know for sure, it's that you can't save fools from themselves, because fools have too much ingenuity.

  Though a few people left—apparently not finding Fafnir as fascinating as their friends did—Hosea stayed, and since Fafnir had greeted him personally and seemed to take a personal interest in him, the others spoke openly in front of him. Fafnir didn't seem to object to that at all, apparently having decided Hosea was completely harmless. Hosea hoped that someday he'd get the opportunity to change the man's mind. Big and dumb don't always go together, Mister Weasel.

  He wandered, seemingly aimlessly, among those who were left, but in fact he was looking for someone in particular. Caity had said that Neil had told her some things that perhaps he shouldn't have, and Hosea was hoping he'd continue the practice if Hosea could manage to strike up a conversation with him.