"All I did—" Hosea began again. He took another step back from the door.
"Enough. Quiet," Toni said, though not to them. Eric breathed a sigh of relief as the wailing ceased.
:I dunno, Boss. It's quiet as church on Sunday out here. Gotta be something inside: Greystone said, cutting Eric in on his side of the conversation.
"What's going on?" Jimmie demanded. The four Guardians seemed to commune silently for a moment.
José ran a hand through his disordered hair. "I've never heard anything like that in my life. It even woke the little ones," he said, speaking of his beloved parrots.
"As well as everyone else in the building, Sensitive or no," Paul said tensely. "You might have a little explaining to do, Toni."
"What was—or is—it?" Toni demanded, more sharply this time.
Jimmie slowly lowered her gun. Eric heard the click, loud in the stillness, as she put the safety on.
By now several of the tenants had reached the first floor. Without seeming even to notice the gathering in the lobby, they hurried past them and out the front door, to cluster in a tight knot on the sidewalk staring anxiously back at the building.
"Well, if that don't beat all," Hosea said, gazing at the door with surprise. "It was locked when I tried it just a moment ago."
"Locked?" Jimmie said. "It's never locked from the inside."
The exodus of tenants had ceased and the door had swung closed again. Jimmie walked over to the door and grasped the handle. It opened easily. She stared at the others in confusion.
"Try it again," she said to Hosea, stepping back from the door.
He glanced back at Eric, who nodded.
As Hosea approached the door, they all felt the House tense, as if preparing to give voice again.
"Wait," Toni said. Hosea stopped, his hand inches from the door. "You try it," she said to Eric.
Shrugging, Eric walked over to the door. He hesitated for a moment, steeling himself for the psychic equivalent of an electric shock, but there was nothing. The door opened silently and easily. He opened and closed it several times. Nothing.
"No one else had any problem; neither Bard, Guardian, nor civilian. Only this young man," Paul said.
"I think we'd better find out why," Toni answered grimly. She glanced out at the cluster of people on the sidewalk.
"You figure out what to tell them, and with Eric's permission, we'll convene a council of war at his place—in, say, about fifteen minutes?" Paul said.
"Sure. No problem. I'll put up some coffee." And maybe get my heart started again. "C'mon, Hosea. No point trying to leave now."
* * *
The hallway outside the apartment was empty when Eric and Hosea reached it. Eric's door swung open peremptorily as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, but, to his relief, stayed still and allowed him to close it himself. He didn't bother to lock it. He'd just had a taste of how very efficient the House's security systems were.
"Just the way I'd want to start a Monday morning," he said, sighing. He looked at Hosea with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I know you're going to have to go over it again when the others get here, but . . . what did you do?"
Hosea looked troubled, and when he spoke his Appalachian drawl was thicker than Eric had ever heard it. "Nothing I ain't done most every other morning. I figured I'd just take my traps with me when I went down to Miss Llewellyn's office, and that way I wouldn't have to double back to get them. So I locked up, same as I always do, an when I got to the front door, it was locked. And all of a sudden, something started hollering in my head." He shook his head ruefully. "I hope Miss Hernandez ain't too put out with me. That woman's got a temper on her when she's bothered, and that's the certain truth."
Eric regarded Hosea, puzzled. He knew the other man was telling the truth—and the whole truth, as he knew it, at that. Unfortunately, it didn't answer any of Eric's questions.
"Why should everyone else be able to leave and not you? Why this time and none of the others?"
* * *
It was a question still unanswered half an hour later, as Eric, Hosea, and the four Guardians—with Greystone listening in from his perch outside the window—gathered in Eric's living room. Toni had given the other tenants the cover story that there'd been an explosion in the boiler that provided the building's steam heat, but that it was all taken care of now and the building was perfectly safe. The explanation would do as long as nobody thought too closely about it, though of course, those who had sensed the House's alarm for more or less what it was would have to be told something more. And the six of them were no closer to the truth than they had been downstairs.
"So what was different about this time?" Jimmie asked Hosea.
The country Bard shook his head in bafflement. "Nothing I know of. I was going to go and get settled in to my new place, and then come back here to pick up Eric—you know, so we could go busking in the subway?"
"Wait a minute," Jimmie said slowly. "What `new place'?"
"I'm moving out. Miss Ria, Eric's ladyfriend, she offered me a place to hang my hat for a few months, an—"
"That's it," Paul said, interrupting him. "It's got to be. It's the only thing that's changed. This time you weren't just going out for a few hours. You were leaving."
The six of them looked at each other.
"Well, now we know that much," Toni said sourly. "Not that we know anything at all."
"We know that the House doesn't want Hosea to leave," Jimmie said slowly. The four Guardians looked at each other. "And we know what that means."
"No we don't," Eric said. "At least, the two of us don't."
Jimmie and Toni looked at each other, and again Eric had that sense of unspoken communication. After a long moment, Jimmie answered him.
"You know that the House picks its tenants for its own inscrutable reasons. If it wants you, you can stay. When it doesn't want you, you go—you have to. But sometimes, it really wants somebody. And when it does, it encourages them—strongly!—to stay. My guess is that your friend here wasn't taking the hint. So it stopped hinting—and yelled."
"But there are four of us," José said, as if continuing a different conversation. "There've never been more than four. Why him? Why now?"
The House wants Hosea? As a Guardian? Eric thought blankly. José couldn't mean anything else.
"It's not as if there's a hard-and-fast set of rules about this sort of thing," Paul offered, looking thoughtful. "There are four of us, and as we know, that's a lot of Guardians to gather in one place. Why not five?"
"No vacancies?" Toni suggested. "The place is full, Paul. Every apartment's rented, and they're all good people. Who am I supposed to evict?"
"There's that studio in the basement," Eric said. "You could clean that out. We'd help."
"Just a doggone minute, here," Hosea said. "What's this all about?"
"I think," Eric said slowly, "that it's about you joining the Occult Police. Becoming a Guardian."
"I can't do that!" Hosea protested. "I ain't a—a—" He groped for the word. "A root doctor like you folks. I got me a little shine, sure, but I'm a Bard—leastways, I'm gonna be one as soon as Eric here gets to training me. Right now I don't know much of anything."
The four Guardians looked at each other again.
"Well," Paul said, "it does look like you're going to have the time to learn whatever it is you're here to learn, my young friend. Because no matter for what purpose the House wants you, I truly don't believe you'll be allowed to leave until you agree to stay."
"As much sense as that makes," Jimmie offered.
"The basement apartment's not much, but I can get it cleaned out and painted by the end of the week," Toni said. "Then it's yours."
"I don't want no charity," Hosea said, looking stubborn. "I've got a place to go to, all ready and waiting for me. I don't have to stay here."
Oh, brother! Eric thought. No wonder the House'd had to shout, if that was how Hosea had been responding to its gentle
r suggestions.
"You may be stubborn as a pig in mud, but I guarantee, this place is stubborner," Jimmie said. "Don't pick a fight you can't win, Hosea."
"Por favor," José begged. "For the sake of my little ones. And to spare me another awakening like this one."
Toni was looking at Hosea critically. "Well, maybe you're wrong, Jimmie. As far as I can tell, he hasn't been Called." The others nodded agreement, seeing something Eric couldn't. "But the House wants him to stay. Mr. Songmaker, would you consider doing us all a very great favor and staying on until we can get this sorted out? The rent won't be much for that small a studio, and I've got a certain amount of latitude in what I charge, anyway. Eric tells me you'll be getting your busking license soon, and I can wait for the rent until then. Besides, if you do stay, I won't have to wake José up any time I need some heavy lifting done," she added with a grin.
Hosea still hesitated.
"Do it," Eric said firmly. "I don't want another wake-up call like that one, either. We need the time to figure this out."
"I hate to disappoint Miss Ria that way," Hosea said tentatively.
"She'll survive," Eric said. "You aren't irreplaceable there. But it looks like you are here."
"Well . . . okay," Hosea said. "I accept your kind offer, Miss Hernandez. And I'd just like to say that I'm sorry for putting you good folks to all this trouble on my account."
"Don't mention it," Jimmie said, smiling crookedly. "Battle, murder, and sudden death our specialty. And I'm just as glad to know that we aren't going to have to find out what kind of crisis requires five Guardians on tap."
"It's settled, then," Toni said briskly. "C'mon, Hosea. You can help me empty that place out and figure out where to stow all that junk." She got to her feet.
"I guess I'll go knock on a few doors and reassure our Sensitives that the Last Trump hasn't blown," Paul said, also getting to his feet.
Toni and Hosea left, and in a few moments the others followed.
"Hey, Jimmie? A word?" Eric said, as she prepared to follow them out.
Jemima Youngblood stopped and turned back to Eric, closing the door.
"What's really going on here?" he asked. "Is Hosea a Guardian now, or what?"
"I wish I knew," Jimmie said, sounding as puzzled as Eric felt. "I've never heard the House alarms go off like that for anything else—not even the time it suckered that child molester into the basement so we could deal with him quietly, or the time one of our other tenant's guests found his ritual tools and decided it'd be fun to conjure up a demon. But . . . you recognized Hosea as—what? a fellow Bard?—the first time you laid eyes on him. Well, it's the same for us. One Guardian always knows another. And as far as that recognition factor goes, Hosea isn't a Guardian. I just wish I knew what the House knows that we don't."
Yeah. Me, too, Eric thought. "Oh, well. At least he'll be close by for his Bardic training."
"Look on the bright side," Jimmie agreed. She glanced at her watch. "Nine-thirty. And I'm working four to midnight this month. If I don't get my head down soon I'm not going to be worth much at all."
"You'd better go on and get some sleep, then," Eric said. He opened the door for her. "Sleep well."
"Thanks," Jimmie said. "And thanks for convincing your stubborn friend to take the path of least resistance. I'm not surprised the House had to yell to get his attention."
"We'll try to avoid that in the future," Eric agreed.
But how? he wondered, long after Jimmie had left.
NINE:
PUT YOUR HAND INSIDE
THE PUPPETHEAD
Bonnie Wing and Kit Duquesne were friends of Beth's from the old days back in L.A.—Bonnie was a scriptwriter for animated series, and Kit had been a show runner until deciding that the Hollyweird pressure cooker wasn't for her. By a flukey stroke of luck, a spec script of Kit's had been auctioned about the time she was deciding to get out, and she'd used the money to put a down payment on a down-at-heels New York apartment building that faced Inwood Hill Park. With her lover Bonnie, Kit had moved back East and started fixing the place up.
Beth, Kory, and Eric had stayed with the two of them last year when Beth and Kory were getting Eric settled in to his new digs, and Beth had welcomed the opportunity to renew her friendship with the two women. Beth and Kit—a tall regal blonde, equally adept with ritual blade and rattan sword—had been in the same coven back in Los Angeles, and Kit had started another one when she'd moved back East; Kit was the closest thing to a real-life Rupert Giles of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame that Beth knew. If anybody could solve the problem that Chinthliss had set them, it was Kit Duquesne.
"Beth—and Studly!" Kit stared at them in surprise through the crack in the door. There was a rattle of chains and deadbolts, and then she opened it all the way. "Come in—when did you get back?"
"We're just in town for a day or so. We left Maeve with Kory's family, but we did bring pictures," Beth answered. "Sorry to just drop in like this. . . ."
"No! It's great to see you both! I'll put on the tea. Bonnie's on a deadline, for BattleMages or Teddybear Bikers from Hell or some damn thing. She'll be out in about an hour."
Kit walked off to the kitchen, leaving them in the large sunny living room for a moment. Two futon couches were angled to take full advantage of the high windows, and a large air conditioner wheezed and rattled as it did battle with the August heat. Hallow, a very large gray tabby, slept atop it, oblivious to the noise. Two more—a tiny black kitten (new since Beth's last visit) and a regal long-haired white cat (Mistwraith)—drifted over to inspect the newcomers. Kory knelt down, and the kitten, taking this for an invitation, promptly swarmed up his arm and settled itself on his shoulder, purring noisily.
"Do you really think she can help us?" Kory asked quietly, straightening up and offering his fingers to the kitten on his shoulder, which promptly bit down with an expression of blissful contentment.
"I hope so. I don't know of any Sidhe with the kind of experience we need," Beth said.
"And how," Kory asked her, "will you phrase the question?"
"Talking secrets?" Kit asked, walking back in carrying a tray. "Bonnie's been baking—she always does when she's putting off work—and you reap the fruit of her procrastination. Ah, I see you've met Beltane. Don't let her bully you. Hallow is terrified of her," she added, indicating the sleeping tabby.
She set the tray down on the large handmade coffee table in the center of the room. Mistwraith instantly hopped up to investigate, and was set on the floor—several times—by Kit.
Maeve's baby pictures were brought out and admired, herb tea and orange muffins were served and consumed, and idle chitchat about the building, Bonnie's work (in addition to her various cartoon gigs, she also wrote a comic called The Elite, which was starting to gather a following), and various events mainly of interest to New Yorkers occupied several minutes.
"Now," Kit said, putting down her empty mug. "What's the deal? It can't be love of the Big Apple that brings you here twice in three months. Are you and Studly Do-Right here on the lam again?"
Beth smiled. "No, but we do have a problem we need some help with. It's kind of a long story."
Kit sat back on the futon couch. "We've got all day."
Beth looked helplessly at Kory. Coming here had seemed like such a great idea, right up until the time came to tell Kit why she was here. Kory was right. Figuring out what to say was going to be harder than she thought.
"We need to buy a computer system for a dragon," Kory said simply, "and we're not sure what kind will work in his kingdom. Beth thought you might be able to help."
Beth's jaw dropped.
"Uh-huh," Kit said, poker-faced. There was a long pause. "What does a dragon need with a computer?"
"Dragons prize novelty and innovation above all things. Also, he wishes to `surf the net,' " Kory added, with the pride of one who has mastered an unfamiliar vocabulary.
Kit looked at Beth. Beth smiled weakly. Somehow, telling the simple
truth had not been on her list of approaches to the problem of getting Kit to help them.
"Joke?" Kit asked, when it became apparent that Beth wasn't going to say anything.
"No joke." Beth sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound. . . . "Kory, it might help if you showed her."
Kory glanced at her, eyebrows raised, then dispelled the glamour that made him look like nothing more exotic than a very tall human. Beltane purred harder, and Mistwraith jumped up into his lap.
Kit stared at Kory and said nothing—very eloquently—for several minutes. "Bright Court or Dark?" she said at last.
"Bright," Kory said, sounding faintly miffed.
And that's a hell of a first question for someone who ought to never have seen an elf before, Beth thought.
"That's all right, then," Kit said. "And you aren't planning to start a War of the Oaks in Central Park, or anything like that?"
"Why does everyone ask that?" Kory wondered plaintively.
"It's a book," Beth explained. "Several books, actually. No, we're just passing through, Kit, honest. Most Sidhe don't want to have anything to do with New York. There's too much Cold Iron here for them."
"Uh-huh," Kit said again, still in that noncommittal tone. Whether she believed them or not, Beth still wasn't sure. "So, you want a computer that will work in Elfland? It won't be cheap, I can tell you that."
"No problem," Kory said.
* * *
The story of whatever experience it was that had made Kit so ready to believe in elves would be a tale for another time. Kit didn't go into it and Beth wasn't sure she wanted to ask right now; Kit simply accepted Kory and moved on to a series of questions about the computer. Beth wasn't sure whether she was disappointed or not. Over the years, she'd kind of gotten used to people being weirded out by the idea of Real Live Elves, and here Kit was taking it far more calmly than she'd taken the news that Beth was going to have a baby.
And if Beth had hoped for more dramatics from Bonnie, she was to be disappointed there as well. When Bonnie finally emerged from her office (looking rumpled and distant, most of her mind still obviously on her writing) and saw Kory—who had seen no reason to restore his human-seeming—she barely blinked. Bonnie was petite and dark, her classic Oriental beauty making her look fragile and innocent. This impression usually lingered with new acquaintances until they saw her fight.
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