by Bill Fawcett
“Ms. Lacey?”
The door opened a crack and a dark brown eye peered out of the blackness beyond. “Yes? What is it? I’m resting.”
“Ma’am, Pat Henry sent me. We’d just like to make sure that you’ve got everything you need.”
The gap widened and a very attractive, slim African-American woman not that much older than he smiled cordially at him. “That’s nice of him. Yes, I’m fine.”
“I wondered whether you wanted an escort to take you around the exhibit hall or the art show?”
“Maybe later,” she said, patting a yawn delicately with a purple-taloned hand. “I have an appearance at the Fantasy Romance track later on, and I just wanted to get some rest. Is there something else?”
Dale had strict orders from Pat not to impose, but to bring up the subject and leave it to her whether to volunteer to help.
“Well, ma’am ...”
Lacey cut him off with a gesture of those sharp fingernails. “Not ma’am. It sounds so old.”
“Well, Ms. Lacey, we’ve got a little problem brewing up,” Dale began shyly. He explained the situation. “I understand that the spell takes a lot out of you, but it would help a lot if ... well, Pat said you’re one of the best. He’d consider it a big favor if you would help seal the place up. Just around the perimeter of the convention center. It’s important. I know you did it once before—before ...”
“Before I became famous?” Ms. Lacey smiled at him. “I’m flattered to be asked. Tell Pat that I promise to make sure that everything is sealed up in place and no one will get in where he or she is not supposed to be, if I have anything to say about it. Will you tell him that?”
She gave him a brilliant smile. Dale couldn’t help but be dazzled. “I sure will, ma’am—I mean, Ms. Lacey. Thanks a million. You don’t know what it means to us.”
“Oh, I think I do,” the actress said, with a little smile that brought out a dimple in her right cheek. “Go away, now. I’ve got to prepare myself.” She gave a theatrical sigh. “You understand. Would you mind having someone send up a bottle of champagne?”
“Sure,” Dale said, hopelessly star-struck. “Thanks, Ms. Lacey!”
“No problem,” the actress said. She waited until he withdrew, almost bowing, and closed the door on him.
Dale ran toward the elevator, jabbing the stud on his earpiece as he went. “She says okay, Everette. Tell Pat Ms. Lacey’s on board. I can’t believe anyone said she’s a problem. She just couldn’t be nicer.”
The soft voice chuckled in his ear. “Just likes to be needed, I guess,” Everette said.
“Oh, yeah, she said she wants some champagne. Do we have that, or does the hotel bring it?”
“Room service can get that for her. I’ll give them a call and put it on the convention’s tab. Good job, Dale.”
* * *
James Fulbright sneezed. Red Georgia clay dust sifted into the small storage room through leaking joints between slabs of concrete. The room had no windows. The only connections to the outside world were a painted steel door and a ventilation duct in the ceiling that kept belching cold air down on their heads. He wrapped his arm around his wife, Tera, who sat huddled against him for warmth. Their thin summer clothes were no protection against the air conditioning.
Several other people occupied the cramped space with them. James recognized some of them from previous conventions, among them a prominent former author guest of honor, a few fans and three media guests, whose friends in Hollywood would hate them for their talents, which had nothing to do with their skills at portraying characters in TV shows. He didn’t want to let on that he knew about them in front of the others.
“But what are we doing here?” one of the latter, a tall, skinny twenty-something man asked for the hundredth time. He and his girlfriend were game designers. “Why us? Are we under attack by terrorists? They can’t hold us for ransom. I haven’t got any money.”
“I don’t know,” James said.
“All we can do is wait to hear their demands,” said the British woman seated beside Tera. Her accent made the last word ‘demahnds.’ She had very bright, dark-blue eyes and fine brown hair, and projected an aura of calm. She clicked the small phone in her right hand again. “My mobile still has no signal.”
“I’m worried about our daughter,” Tera said.
“She’ll be fine,” James said. “The daycare people are like family.”
“I want to get out of here. Now!”
“We’ve all tried the door,” the skinny man said. “No one’s going anywhere unless you can walk through walls.”
“Well, no one can do that,” James said. They all laughed uncomfortably.
“I could use a drink,” said the author.
“I second that,” said the British woman, extending a hand. “By the way, my name’s Anneli Madden.”
“James Fulbright. This is my wife, Tera.”
“Pierce,” said the male game designer.
“Nan,” said the female game designer.
Somehow, introductions helped make things feel a little less insane.
Clanking sounds came from the door. James rushed at it, and was thrust backwards by a couple of men in work shirts and blue jeans. He sat down hard on the concrete floor and sprang up again. They were strong for their size and build. James picked up a familiar, strong, acrid scent. He and Tera exchanged nervous glances, then he made another attempt to get past the disguised fire ants. One twisted his arm behind his back with no effort at all. James struggled, trying to raise enough power to fling the ant away. The damper that kept his spells from working was still in place. Who had cast it, and why?
Three more of the disguised ants came in, all but carrying a dark-skinned woman in expensive silk trousers and a lace, bead-trimmed camisole.
“How dare you treat me like this! Don’t you know who I am? Bastards! Put me down!”
Obediently, they dumped her on the concrete floor.
“Ow!” the woman howled. She scrambled to her feet. James noticed her shoes were spindly and fragile-looking. “Not like that, you morons! No, don’t close that door!” She stumbled forward. The ants pushed her back and started to pull the door shut.
The British woman moved more swiftly than they did. She blocked the door with her strong leather walking shoe. “I demand to be released at once. Release us all!”
“You don’t give orders,” the first ant said. James groaned. Soldiers. They were the biggest and strongest of the ants except for the queen.
“Who are you? Why are we here?”
“Please,” Tera said. “I have a little girl. You have to let me go to her.”
One of the soldiers lunged for her, hands out. Tera flinched. The British woman took her firmly by the wrist and pushed Tera behind her. “Don’t tell them anything that will make you more vulnerable to them,” she advised. “Ask them. We need information.”
“What do you know about dealing with jerks like this?” the author asked.
Anneli smiled. “I’m in the Foreign Service.”
But the fire ants were done talking. They kicked Anneli’s foot out of the way and slammed the door shut.
“Curses,” Anneli said. She tugged the door. It didn’t move a millimeter. She sat down against the wall once again. This time she tented her hands and furrowed her brow in concentration. After a few moments she wove her fingers together in a different way. After a moment, she sighed.
James recognized the pattern, and smiled. “Your powers aren’t working either, are they?”
She looked astonished, then smiled. “I should have guessed I wasn’t the only one. You’re a magician?” James and Tera nodded.
“Me, too,” said the stout woman with dishwater hair and a Shrek T-shirt.
“Us, too,” said the tall young man.
They all turned to the peevish
writer, “It’s got nothing to do with me. It’s all a mistake. I just want to get out of here. Why did I tell my agent I’d come to this stupid convention?”
Tera shook her head. “Her, too,” she said. James nodded. Tera’s sense was never wrong. “And ... and you, Ms. Lacey?”
The actress very perturbed. She got up and paced, the thin sandals rasping on the cold floor. “She took my face,” Shawna Lacey shrieked. “Of all the balls! How dare she?”
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Lacey,” James said. “Believe me, DragonCon apologizes deeply for anything that might have happened ...” Shawna was not placated. “If I could do one single solitary spell I’d burn that bitch to a cinder.” She snapped her fingers.
“Well, we might as well try practical matters,” the British woman said, rising to her feet. “Would one of you gentlemen give me a leg up.”
James followed her eyes avidly. “Are you going to try to climb up through the ventilation ducts?”
“Heavens, no!” Anneli exclaimed. “You watch too many James Bond movies. I just want to see if I can’t turn down the air conditioning. Americans always cool their buildings down to deep freezes.”
James obliged. A reduction in the blast of chill air perked everyone up. The British woman brushed off her skirt and sat down again.
“Now, should we try singing a song or something, just to get to know one another?”
“I’d rather die,” said the author from New York.
“You and me both,” said the Hollywood actress.
“Not to worry,” Anneli said, unperturbed. “I only wanted to raise the group’s spirits. Chances are if we can raise some positive energy, we can mass together enough of a spell to alert someone as to where we are, or at the very best, open that door.”
James liked her straightforward attitude. “Ms. Lacey, I love your movies. Tell us about the one you liked doing best.”
Shawna left off her pout and thought for a moment. “Well, it pretty much has to be Death to Zombies. When my agent told me that I got the part ...”
James sat back. A trickle of good energy started to build. It wouldn’t be long before they could take action.
* * *
“Champagne?” Pat asked, when Everette reported back to him.
“Yeah. Is it okay?”
Pat frowned. “Shawna Lacey never drinks champagne. She’s a teetotalist. Never touches alcohol. Are you sure it was her?”
“Well, Dale seemed to be sure. He’s seen every movie, knows everything about her—just everything.”
“I don’t know. Could she have sent her double?”
“No way. Dale wouldn’t have been fooled by a double. He’s too much of a fan-boy. What’s the problem? Maybe she just has a guest in her room. None of our business.”
“It is our business,” Pat said, uneasily. “That just sounds wrong. I’d better look into it. Where is Brenda?”
“In the conclave center,” Everette said. “The filk sing is starting. She’ll probably stay all night.”
Pat glanced at the window. Dusk was falling. Pretty soon the humans would start their filk sing. Both terms were misinterpretations of the word ‘folk,’ but each had come to have importance in its own cultural setting. Only the dragon song tended to be a lot louder, punctuated with gouts of fire instead of cigarette smoke. In the meantime, the lobbies of all four hotels were filling with human visitors displaying their hall costumes. DragonCon had a reputation for attracting master costumers. Unfortunately, the elbow-to-elbow crowds made it all too easy for enemy forces to infiltrate. Pat hoped the spells cast by the newly arrived magicians, Ms. McCaffrey, and Ms. Lacey would be enough to keep them from finding their way into the conclave.
* * *
“What do you mean, you haven’t found the eggs?” Hedaera the Ant Queen demanded angrily, walking back and forth in Shawna Lacey’s suite with her cell phone held between mandible and antenna. She had dispensed with the human shape and resumed her normal appearance, guaranteed to give a hotel worker a heart attack—which it had, incapacitating the room service waiter who had brought her her desired champagne. He’d made a nice snack in between gulps. The skeleton and empty bottle were tucked under the tablecloth of the service cart, waiting for pickup by whoever made up her room for the night. “It’s been magic-free for days! All you had to do was follow the scent!”
The soldier-general at the other end sounded flustered and upset. “The concealment was breaking down. We thought we were getting close to the target—but all the trails we were following have dissipated. Are you sure the dragons haven’t all left?”
“They can’t leave!” the Ant Queen exclaimed. “Not until their eggs hatch. And I want them before they do.” Delicious, savory, rich eggs, with the embryo enveloped in the tender sac, waiting to be devoured in turn. One might be enough for her, but two would assuage her appetite even more. And the adults! When her small subjects had bitten them, the flavor made its way through the shared intelligence to every member of the hive. The Queen, at the top of the pyramid, experienced the sensation multiplied almost into infinity, and she craved more. After years of defeat, she had spent years laying myriad eggs to build up her army. Now countless fire ants occupied the underground passages beneath Atlanta, all born to one purpose. “Find them!”
Millions of her subjects wandered unseen through the convention center, creeping along walls, infiltrating ceilings and airways, hitching a ride on the clothing of the thousands of human attendees. It hardly mattered if most of them were killed; their shared intelligence was passed along to all those in its echelon. The echelons reported to thousands of captains, all identical, all female, and from there to the soldier-generals. The Queen could hear their thoughts without the telephone, but the electronic medium allowed her to shriek her orders directly to each.
“My scouts have found whole parts of the hotels blocked,” the soldier said. “Some wizards must have escaped our attention.”
“They have found some we did not,” Hedaera said, not pleased about it. “They are under guard, but you are to try to capture or incapacitate each of those as the opportunity arises. Until the way is clear, we will not find the nesting ground. We have the force to overwhelm any opposition. All we need to know is where it is!”
“There is all that fresh meat wandering around aboveground,” the soldier said, peevishly. “We could fill the hive for years with what is there, and easily captured.”
“Don’t think of your stomach!” the Queen raged, even though she had been doing just that. “I want dragon meat, nothing else. Swarm everywhere. Follow every single scent, no matter how faint.”
The soldier did not argue. It, too, had experienced the savory taste. Its entire army wanted more. It clashed its mandibles. “We will continue to search, Mother.”
* * *
The sensitives among the human attendees of the convention began to get headaches. Not overwhelming migraines or sinus headaches, but just the vague sensation of pressure as if two fingers were pressing on their temples. Tera clutched her head as the captive magicians concentrated all their efforts on sending a message to someone, anyone, who would come looking for them, filled the space around her. It was like being a ping-pong ball under a magnifying glass in the hot sun. Any minute, she felt, she would begin to melt. She hoped it would work before then.
What little power they had been able to raise in the dampening field the ants had shut them into would never be enough to open a door made of cold steel, so the magicians had to work on getting someone else to open it for them. At the behest of the British woman, who proved to be good at analyzing what move needed to be made next, and how to coax everyone else into helping her do it, they focused their gifts upon a point in the floor.
“Picture a beacon like a laser beam,” James advised.
“What’s it pointing at?” asked Pierce.
He and Tera exchanged glances
. “It had better be Pat Henry,” Tera said.
“Pat,” James agreed.
“We haven’t met him,” the author from New York said. “Then let me direct it,” James said.
“I’ve always wanted to direct,” Shawna said, almost automatically.
“Yeah, that’s going to help,” said Nan, sarcastically. “All right, mister. We’ll drive. You steer.”
* * *
“We’re locked in and we can’t get out,” sang the Celtic band at the end of the ballroom lobby. “We’re in a cellar down below. Where it is, we don’t know. Oh, come on down and let us go. Oh, oh. Oh, oh!”
“I love that song,” said one of the lanky twenty-somethings in the large crowd listening to the music.
“Me, too,” said his friend, an equally thin girl with black leggings and a belly stud, swaying to the beat. “What album was it on?”
“I think it was on the Pat Henry anthology,” the young man said.
He frowned. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“No,” the girl agreed. “Doesn’t he do jazz?”
* * *
A middle-aged man with a gray ponytail smacked a card down on one of his opponent’s.
“I play the Pat Henry on your ghoul,” he declared.
The elderly woman across from him with the peacock feather medallion clipped to the hair above her left ear leaned over and peered at the pasteboard.