Mad Maudlin

by Mercedes Lackey

  It was in a drawer in a desk in Ria's study—what Ria called "pizza money"; only a couple of hundred dollars. Kayla took it all, stuffing it into her jeans pocket.

  Then she called Hosea. No answer. She slammed the phone down in disgust, not bothering to leave a message.

  Looks like I'm on my own.

  But where was she going to go? Where would they go?

  They can't stop, not for more than a few minutes. So they have to keep moving. Subways won't work, because the trains always come back to the same place and the shadows might be smart enough to figure that out.

  And they know—at least Ace and Magnus know—that New York isn't good for Jaycie. So they'll want to get him out of here.

  So that leaves train or bus, to get out of the city. And bus is cheaper, and stops in more out of the way places.

  "Next stop, Port Authority Bus Terminal," Kayla said. And hope I'm right.

  * * *

  "What did you do to her?" Ace demanded, when they finally stopped running.

  "Nothing," Jaycie said. "Just . . . nothing. A little shove. But we had to get away. I don't trust her. She was lying."

  "She had to be lying," Magnus said, sounding desperate. "I can't have a brother! And for it to be . . . Eric? It doesn't add up. He'd have to be, like, old, and that guy wasn't. Not that old, anyway."

  "Well, we can't go back there now," Ace said pragmatically. "So where are we going to go? I've still got Jaycie's money." At least we have that much.

  "And I can get more," Jaycie said positively.

  Ace pulled them into the shelter of a doorway and dug out her wallet. It was thick with cash. She counted it quickly, and blinked at the total she arrived at. Almost a thousand dollars.

  Where could they go? Big cities were best—nobody looked twice at you in a big city. But maybe all big cities would make Jaycie sick. And people were looking for all three of them, she knew that now. Whatever else Kayla had lied about, she didn't think she'd been lying when she'd said Magnus' parents were looking for him. And Magnus seemed to think they were, too.

  Move now. Think later.

  "Come on," Ace said wearily.

  * * *

  Eric had gone to try to reach Jaycie's Protector first for two reasons—one, if it had worked, it would have simplified everything and given him a powerful ally. And two, it would have been much more difficult—and possibly dangerous—to cast the spell with the kids in tow, assuming he'd actually caught up with them at Ria's.

  But now Eric wondered if he should have skipped that step. Even with Lady Day to get him around the city quickly, he'd lost valuable time. And the windows of Ria's penthouse were dark.

  Still, checking to see if someone was there—or had been there—would only take a minute or two.

  He parked Lady Day in the yellow "no stopping, standing or breathing" zone in front of the building and walked in.

  "Hi, Ramon. Anybody home?"

  "Hi, Eric. Good to see you again, sir." It had taken Eric weeks to get the staff of Ria's building to use his first name, because he loathed being called "Mr. Banyon." He still couldn't get rid of the "sirs," though. He supposed that was part of what most of the tenants in a place like this paid for.

  "Ms. Llewellyn's still away, and you just missed Ms. Smith. She was here for a few minutes with some friends of hers. They didn't stay. And she left about half an hour ago," Raoul said helpfully.

  There was something odd about the way he put it. They didn't stay . . . she left . . .

  "Were they together when she left?" Eric asked, on a hunch.

  "Oh, no, sir," Ramon said. "They left, and Ms. Smith went on up to the penthouse alone."

  That didn't make any sense. Ramon had to mean that Kayla had been here with Magnus, Ace, and Jaycie. But if they'd split up, he ought at least to be able to locate Kayla now.

  "Thanks, Ramon. Have a good evening."

  He went back out to Lady Day and mounted, letting the elvensteed find her way out into traffic again.

  "Let's find Kayla!" he shouted over the noise of her engine, and felt the elvensteed's eager assent.

  * * *

  They caught up to the taxi at a light.

  Kayla was sitting inside—alone—hunched forward on the seat, looking cross. Eric leaned over and knocked on the passenger window.

  She glanced up—angry, startled, not recognizing him at all, even though he'd taken the obvious precaution of removing his helmet so she could see his face. Then her expression cleared into one of utter relief and delight, and she made a grab for the door.

  At that moment, the light changed and the taxi pulled away.

  Eric followed, watching the silent pantomime of Kayla arguing with the driver, but it was another several blocks before the man managed to find a hole in traffic and pull over. He pulled up just behind the cab and dismounted from Lady Day once more. She balanced, rather smugly, on her two wheels, but he didn't worry about anyone noticing, not right now. If anybody saw, they'd probably just think it was some new kind of motorcycle. New Yorkers were notoriously unflappable. They took pride in it. Unsinkable, unflappable New Yorkers.

  Kayla flung herself at him and hugged him hard.

  "Oh, Jesus, Banyon, where've you been?" She pulled back and punched him in the arm. Hard. "We were worried half to death. I thought Ria was going to lose it big time. You better call her if you want to live. And . . . nice hair." She grinned, reaching out to flip his hair back over his shoulder.

  "First things first," Eric said. "There's an Unseleighe Shadow Pack after Jaycie. He's—"

  "An elf. Yeah, I got that part. I Healed him up earlier this evening an' he dropped the moonlight and roses long enough for Ace and Magnus to see what he really looked like. And then this dark stuff started boiling out of the walls and we ran like hell. That's the short version. I tried to get them to Ria's, on account of it's being shielded there, but they wouldn't go for it. Almost did. But at the last minute, the elf-boy knocked me on my ass with a light show and they bolted."

  Eric winced. "Any idea where they're headed?"

  "I'm guessing Port Authority. They know they gotta keep moving because of the Shadows, an' I told them the city's making Jaycie sick, and I think Ace believes me."

  "Come on then," Eric said.

  * * *

  Port Authority Bus Terminal, at Ninth Avenue and Forty-Second Street, on the western end of Times Square, was open 24 hours a day. It had been built in 1950, and gotten a multimillion dollar overhaul that had finished at the end of 2001. The terminal itself covered five stories, plus a three-floor car park on the top level, and on a typical day, 200,000 people used it. It was big, sprawling, and complicated, and over thirty bus lines called it home. Not an easy place to search, even at this time of night, with most of the place shut down.

  Eric left Lady Day outside the main entrance, not bothering to park—the elvensteed could fend for herself, and move if she needed to.

  They went inside.

  "We'll check the ticket windows first," Eric decided, looking around. "They might still be buying their tickets. Then the gates."

  "Sounds like a plan," Kayla said doubtfully.

  "Best we've got," Eric said grimly. "I just hope they're here—or it's back to square one, and we're running out of time and choices."

  * * *

  "Which one?" Magnus said, as they walked into the bus terminal. He'd been here once before—on his way down from Boston, but he hadn't been paying a lot of attention then.

  "Greyhound," Ace said decisively. "It goes the most places, and we can get off at any of the stops if we see someplace we like. Come on."

  She led the other two over to the ticket window and studied the list of destinations critically. Miami. That was good. Three one-way tickets would only be a little over three hundred dollars. Miami was a long way from New York. And at least it would be someplace warm.

  She told the clerk her destination, hoping nothing would go wrong. It seemed to take a long time to print out the
tickets. The clerk told her the gate number, and added: "You'd better hurry. It's a long way to the gate, and the last bus for tonight leaves in half an hour. Next one won't be until tomorrow morning."

  "Thank you, ma'am," Ace said politely. She turned around to hand the tickets to the boys.

  And stared.

  Magnus was right there, looking bored and irritated.

  But Jaycie was gone.

  She grabbed Magnus by the arm and hustled him out of earshot of the ticket agent. By now Magnus had realized that Jaycie wasn't with them, and was looking around wildly.

  "Where is he?" Ace hissed.

  "I just—"

  "Well, find him!" As an afterthought, she thrust Magnus' ticket at him, precious little good it was going to do him now, since certainly neither of them was going to leave without Jaycie. She looked up and down the concourse. It looked like the world's largest shopping mall, even with half the places closed up for the night. Jaycie was nowhere in sight.

  "You check down that way—I'll go this. We'll meet at the gate in half an hour. That's when the bus is supposed to leave. If we've got him, we can go. If not, we can keep looking for him together."

  "What if he just . . ." Magnus said, and stopped. Neither of them wanted to be the first to say it. What if he's just run out on us?

  "He wouldn't do that," Ace said, but there was no certainty in her voice. "He needs us." We need him. Jaycie . . .

  She turned away, starting to run.

  * * *

  His head hurt. He was sick. And everything was going wrong. He wanted chocolate. He wanted Coca-Cola. And most of all, he wanted it to be yesterday, before that Healer girl had come back and spoiled everything with her tales.

  Jaycie wandered through the terminal, looking into the barred windows of the closed shops. What he wanted was in there, but he couldn't get in. Simple locks were no problem, and he could charm nearly anyone he met into giving him anything, but these doors were sealed with bars of steel, and there was no one about to charm.

  All he wanted was a few cans of Coca-Cola. And some chocolate. He didn't feel at all well without it. And it would be hard to talk Ace and Magnus into letting him have them now. They might actually believe the Healer girl had been telling the truth. And he wasn't completely sure of his ability to convince them otherwise.

  He'd go back to the others once he had what he needed. And maybe he could talk them out of leaving the city. The Healer girl—who knew far too much about Jaycie's kind—had said this was a safe place, a place the Sidhe didn't come. They should stay here.

  But the Shadow Hunt was here. So that meant this place wasn't safe either. But who would send a Shadow Hunt after him? It made no sense.

  Then he saw bright lights up ahead, and a familiar logo, and forgot all about the Shadow Hunt. He couldn't read the languages of the World Above, but he knew its symbols very well.

  Coca-Cola.

  * * *

  "There he is." Kayla's voice was a low whisper. She nudged Eric and pointed.

  She'd had the advantage—at least she'd known what the kids were wearing when they'd started running. That made Magnus easy for her to spot.

  She and Eric slid over to him.

  Knowing what he now knew—that it had been Jaycie's magic he and Ria had sensed in the beginning, not Magnus', Eric was free to cloak himself and Kayla in an invisibility spell, so they were able to approach Magnus unseen. He might not have noticed them anyway; he was alone, walking quickly through the Terminal, obviously searching desperately for something or someone.

  "Miss me?" Kayla said, stopping in front of him just as Eric dropped the spell.

  To Magnus, it must have seemed as if she'd appeared out of nowhere. He staggered backward, and bumped into Eric.

  The boy had fast reflexes. He gathered himself to bolt just as Eric grabbed his arm, and between Jaycie's true appearance and the Shadow Hunt, he'd seen enough strange things tonight not to waste time boggling at inessentials. He struggled for a moment, but Eric was stronger than he was—and had the advantage of having been trained in swordplay Underhill besides. That put muscle on you.

  When Magnus realized he couldn't break Eric's grip, he stopped fighting.

  "I'll scream," Magnus threatened.

  "Call the cops," Eric pointed out reasonably, "and you go straight back to Boston."

  Magnus shut up as if he'd been gagged.

  "Where are Ace and Jaycie?" Kayla demanded.

  Magnus remained stubbornly silent.

  "Look," Eric said. "I don't want to send you back to Boston. I want to help you."

  "Yeah, she already told me you're my brother. I don't believe it," Magnus said flatly.

  Stalemate.

  * * *

  Where would he go? Ace wondered desperately, running through the half-empty terminal. Suddenly Kayla's words earlier came back to her—about Jaycie being a junkie, kind of, hooked on Coca-cola. She remembered how he'd drunk it practically every moment he was awake, back at The Place, going through two or three six-packs a day.

  He hadn't had any all night.

  She looked around for the nearest security guard and ran over to him, taking a deep breath and trying to look calm.

  " 'Scuse me, sir, could you tell me what's open to get something this time of night? Just candy bars or Cokes?"

  He thought about it for what seemed a maddeningly long time.

  "Well, not much this time of night. There's Hudson News—there's one up on Third Floor North, but I think that's closed this time of night. The one on Second should be open, though. There's a map right over there."

  "Thank you!" Ace said. She hurried over to the map. There it was, smack in the middle of a bunch of other shops, as many as a mall. She got her bearings, and headed for it at a dead run.

  * * *

  Jaycie stood in front of the cooler at the back of the newsstand, happily chugging down Coca-Colas. He drank three immediately, and felt much better. He tucked another six into the pockets of his parka for later, set the empty cans back into the cooler, and turned to walk out of the kiosk.

  "Hey—you gonna pay for those?"

  Jaycie smiled—it had always worked before—and wished very hard that the man would just let him walk away. But he was a little dizzy from the sudden rush of caffeine—his system wasn't as used to it after the Healing as it had been before—and the man only frowned.

  "You gotta pay for those, you know," the man repeated. Not angry, but not letting Jaycie walk away, either.

  Jaycie took an uncertain step backward. He didn't have any money. He'd given all of it to Ace. Should he run?

  Slowly the lights began to dim.

  * * *

  There was a sudden blast of light down the concourse.

  Eric's first thought—everyone's first thought these days—was: bomb!

  Eric flung Kayla and Magnus to the ground, throwing up as much of a shield over all of them as he could in that instant. But the seconds passed, and there was no shock wave, no fireball, no rain of debris. He looked up, abruptly sensing the currents of Sidhe magic.

  There was an Elven Warrior in the Main Concourse of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

  She was tall, wearing full battle armor that gleamed bright silver, a long blue cloak hanging from her shoulders. With a gleaming two-handed broadsword she was swinging at shadow-things that boiled and snapped around her, half smoke, half dog. She'd already pretty much demolished the newsstand. Alarms were going off—Eric could hear them—and in moments police and security would arrive.

  He hauled himself up off Magnus and Kayla and went running toward her.

  * * *

  The Shadow Hunt had found them. Jaycie turned to run. There was no time to argue, to even try to cast a glamourie, or to try to sweep the Shadows back into the Overworld. He had to find the others and run before it was too late.

  Then the world exploded in a flash of light, and she was there. She'd found him and she'd take him back, to all the terrible things he'd fled
from.

  He ducked away from her and fled in the only direction left. The man behind the counter leaped out and began to pursue him, only to be knocked sprawling with one blow from his Protector's armored fist.

  Suddenly the air was filled with bells. Mortal bells. Warning bells.

  "Jaycie!"

  Ace grabbed him. He struggled, but she clung to his jacket, and he could not throw her off without hurting her.

  "She comes for me!" he cried in terror.

  Ace turned to run, and found herself staring directly into the barrel of a security guard's gun.

  * * *

  They all started gathering together at Neil's about ten o'clock. Fafnir had picked tonight because it was his night off, and he wasn't sure how long this would take, especially if something really dramatic happened. It would be nice to have a good solid payoff after putting up with all their crap for a whole year and more. Sure, September 11th had helped—after that, everybody had wanted to believe that there were Secret Good Guys out there working behind the scenes to make everything better. But it was over a year since then. He needed to hammer them a little. Make sure he got some really nice Christmas presents.

  With both the Inner and Outer Circles gathered, and no outsiders tonight—tonight he wasn't looking for new blood—there were almost two dozen people there. That number jammed Fafnir's own living room to the walls, but Neil's living room wasn't even really crowded. Fafnir felt the dull angry heat of resentment. Why should Neil live in a place like this just because he had that nice soft brokerage job, and Fafnir be crammed into that grubby downtown apartment, even if it was free? It wasn't fair. He deserved more. He was better than Neil, better than all of them. He was smarter. He had more imagination. He'd made all of this up. All the stuff about the False Guardians, and the True Guardian and the Secret Master, and the Inner Planes—he'd gotten some ideas from the comic books, and a little from what Andrew had told him, but most of it was his own idea. He was the one who deserved to be living like this, not a Wall Street drone like Neil!