Landslayer's Law (12 page)

David lifted a brow, resisting the urge to ask for elaboration on a matter which Calvin seemed strangely reluctant to discuss. “You been back there?” he asked, instead.

A nod. “Uki was watchin’ me in his
ulunsuti
back in February—during the Great Snow—and saw how bummed I was by all that, so he zapped me off for a vacation in—excuse me—Indian Summer.”

“Friends in high places,” Gary muttered to Darrell, who was already inhaling Guinness number two.

David shook his head. “I dunno, man; still seems risky to me.”

Calvin cuffed him on the shoulder. “Can the serious shit, okay? You’re supposed to ask how Uki is, or whether I’ve decided to marry one of the Thunder Sisters, or something, not give me grief about responsibility.”

David masked his grimace with another swallow. “Something’s goin’ on,” he burst out. “I can feel it. The chaos beast is loose and something’s just waitin’ out there to dump on our heads.”

“Possibly,” Myra agreed with authority. “But don’t forget what night it is; don’t forget how tuned we are to that kind of thing; and don’t forget that everybody we’ve seen today is tied up with…magic somehow. I mean, think, lad; that’s bound to skew all our perceptions.”

“And speakin’ of perceptions,” Calvin cried, leaping to his feet, “I’ve just perceived the sound of a Ford V-8.”

“Should’ve named you Sharp Ears ’stead of He-goes-about,” David snorted.
Edahi—
Cherokee
for “He-goes-about”—was Calvin’s tribal name, which he anglicized as Fargo.

“Shoulda named you Smartass ’Possum, ’stead of White ’Possum,” Calvin shot back, already halfway through the door.

Myra lifted a brow at a smirking Liz. Then: “You don’t have one of those handles too, do you?”

Liz shook her head. “Missed that particular soirée.”

“I’ve missed ’em all,” Myra admitted. “Except one—which was enough, thank you very much.”

“Hasn’t hurt your paintings,” David retorted. “Don’t think I don’t know you only go Trackin’ with us ’cause you hope you’ll get to see the real thing.”

Myra sighed wistfully. “Well, it’d be
nice
to have the genuine Nuada Silverhand pose for one of my covers. Probably not handsome enough, though.”

Liz looked up from her reading. “No danger!”

Myra started to reply, but footsteps had sounded on the stairs: several sets, of various weights and pacings. She sighed again and eyed her refrigerator speculatively. “How did
I
wind up being ground zero?”

“Free beer,” David advised—and promptly rose to score another.

Two, rather, a second for himself and one for the voice he’d recognized from the cacophony now assailing the upper landing. An expected voice, as a matter of fact, with whom Cal was conversing animatedly. But there was also a third that sounded suspiciously—and disturbingly—young.

“Sandy!” he yelped, as the door opened to admit a much-encumbered Calvin, followed by a blondish, denim-clad woman roughly Myra’s age and size, but with far more striking features of a vaguely (but inaccurately) Native American cast. Like Myra, however, she sported a lithe, athletic build and evinced a similar disdain for makeup. Her hair hung past her waist. Sandy Fairfax—a high school physics teacher whose North Carolina cabin Calvin had been sharing for years—looked confused for the merest moment, then dropped her own load of gear to give David not only the obligatory hug, but also a pair of smooches: one for each cheek. Even as they embraced, David dragged her away from the entrance.

“Dave!” she protested. “What—?”

“Been waylaid in that door too many times today,” David confided. “And best I can tell, there oughta be at least one more of you.”

Sandy broke free and returned to the landing, to peer down the stairwell. “Gone for the last load,” she explained over her shoulder.

David gnawed his lip. “Who…?”

“Brock.” Calvin replied beside him, his face a mix of resignation, bemusement, and despair.

David rolled his eyes. “I hope you know what you’re doin’.”

Calvin rolled his in turn. “Ask Sandy.”

“Brock?” Myra called from the door. “Oh, right: the English kid—”

“American,” a young male voice corrected from the foot of the stairs. “Savannah, by way of Tampa—”

“Like Piper,” Myra mused, joining him. “God, this is becoming Grand Central Station.”

By which time the owner of the voice had puffed his way up to the top of the stairs, his breathlessness accountable in large part to the enormous suitcase he was lugging. It was a boy in his early teens; slim and fair-skinned, but with a flag of black hair hanging nearly to his waist—nearly as long as Sandy’s in fact—and dyed, to judge by the much lighter roots. He had intense blue eyes and looked, David thought, a little fey—as though he’d seen more than a kid his age ought to have. Not, he hastened to add, that Brock (whom he’d encountered exactly once, at the tail end of one of Calvin’s adventures) was much younger than he’d been himself when he’d first met the Sidhe on a July night. The kid was gazing at him oddly, too: as though he knew more about David than David would like for him to know. And there was a bit of what he suspected was adoration present as well, or perhaps hero worship. Calvin, he feared, had been blabbing.

“Hi, guy!” David grinned, relieving the boy of the suitcase. “Welcome to Athens—again.”

“Cooler inside,” Myra urged from the door. “And if I’m gonna have more guests, I’d kinda like to meet ’em.”

It was Calvin’s turn to blush. “Oh, right: I forget who knows who, since
I
know all you folks.”

“Right,” Liz chimed in. “Does everybody know everybody? I mean
really,
not just by reputation?”

“Myra Buchanan,” Calvin intoned formally. “Allow me to introduce Brock-the-badger No-name, hot off the boat from Merry-Olde.”

“Hot out of the car from Savannah, you mean,” Brock corrected, as he shook Myra’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he continued politely, with an accent which was an odd mix of British and Southern.

“Hi,” Myra beamed. “I’ve heard a bit about you myself, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, wow!” Brock enthused, blushing.

“That can’t be your real name,” Gary drawled, as he rose.

Brock froze, as though confronted with an ambulatory mountainside. “Brock’s an old term for badger, and badgers are real hard to kill. They also don’t have last names.”

“His
real
name’s Stanley Ar—” Calvin began.

“No!”
Brock shouted so forcefully everyone stared. “Sorry,” he continued, blushing. “Just as soon you didn’t, though.”

“Sorry,” Calvin echoed, ruffling the boy’s hair—which provoked a scathing glare. More introductions followed (neither Gary nor Darrell had met Brock before), then a chaos of questions and answers which got everyone sorted out. That concluded, Gary donned his shirt, grabbing Darrell by the ponytail as an afterthought. “Beer,” he announced. “We need to get more beer. C’mon, Runnerman; let’s do some runnin’.”

“Surprised you didn’t bring Don Scott while you were at it,” David murmured to Calvin as they arrayed themselves around the studio. Brock’s eyes, needless to say, were huge. So much for being a jaded city kid. Then again, Myra’s collection of knickknacks would’ve made all but the most ardent pack rat forsake that vocation in despair.

“Actually,” Sandy admitted from Calvin’s other side, “I asked Don, as a courtesy, but he wasn’t interested. Said he really wanted to keep on pretending everything was normal.”

“I wish him luck,” David snorted. “I’ve been tryin’ to do that ever since I was sixteen”—he regarded Brock curiously. “Uh, how old
are
you these days?”

“Secret,” Brock muttered, from where he was methodically working his way around the room. He’d managed about four feet—half a bookcase—and had just reached one of Myra’s numerous band posters. “Oh, brilliant!” he crowed. “Eidolon! They’re great! I’ve got all their CDs! Hey…they’re
from
here, aren’t they?”

“Actually,” Myra acknowledged drolly, “we know ’em—Morry, anyway: their piper.”

Calvin nudged David in the ribs. “We do?”

“Piper—
LaWanda’s
Piper,” David whispered back. “Morry Murphy’s his real name. James Morrison Murphy, if you wanta get technical.”

“Brilliant!” Brock repeated numbly. “Brilliant!”

“So,” Liz said to Brock, who had just skidded to an awestruck halt at the enormous floor-to-ceiling rack that housed Myra’s comic collection, “you’re going Tracking with us, I guess?”

Brock nodded absently. “Was stateside anyway, wanted to see Cal, tried to call him to see if we could connect, got Sandy, and we plotted the rest.”

Calvin grimaced. Sandy caught the expression. “Probably just as well,” she advised. “Haven’t heard the news today, have you?”

“No time,” David supplied. “Had a final.”

“Ditto.” From Liz.

“You’d probably have missed it anyway,” Sandy mused. “It was Carolina stuff, mostly.”

“And?” Calvin prompted.

She shifted position in the beanbag chair she’d claimed. “Short form: kid disappeared from my neck of the woods yesterday afternoon. Eight years old. White trash folks. Older brother who wants desperately to be cool—based on what I could tell from hearing him on the radio. Anyway, like I said: kid vanishes, brother says he was last seen playing hide-and-seek with some”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“‘really sharp-dressed kids who said they were from the mountain.’ “

David looked up at that, and a chill raced over him. “Little kid?” he whispered. “Jeans? Baseball cap on backward?”

Sandy regarded him sharply. “So you know…?”

“Depends. Know what?”

“That he was found—this morning—in Athens. On that very street outside this apartment.”

David swallowed hard. “Did…did he say how he got there?”

Myra’s face was dead serious. “He said the pretty kids brought him.”

Liz exhaled sharply. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about.”

Sandy stared at her. “How so?”

Liz glanced at David. “You want to tell her, or shall I?”

“I will,” David replied. “I’m the one who saw it.” And for the third time that day, he related the tale of the boy who’d appeared so suddenly on the sidewalk, and of the troubling Faery youth who’d abandoned him there. “Figured,” Sandy grumbled when he’d finished. “I think they’ve been hangin’ ’round my place too.”

It was Calvin’s turn to look alarmed, but Sandy merely shrugged. “If they want me, they’ll get me—but they’ll have to pass iron first. But yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw a couple watching the house yesterday; either that, or those were awfully solid shadows. Voices too—maybe. Couldn’t be sure; could’ve been the wind. Almost.”

David gnawed his lip. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “we should stay put tonight.”

Brock looked stricken. “You mean not…go Tracking?”

David shrugged. “Just a feelin’, but—I dunno. Forget it.”

“Speaking of forgetting,” Myra broke in. “Has anyone heard from Scott?”

As if in reply, the phone rang—in the bathroom, where someone had left it.

“Maybe that’s him now,” Myra sighed, rising.

“Was it?” Liz wondered when she returned.

Myra shook her head. “Piper.”

“Piper?” From Calvin.

“The aforementioned James Morrison Murphy. Wannie’s car just died out past Crawford and they need a ride.”

“I’ll go!” Brock volunteered instantly.

“Fine,” Myra grunted, already fumbling for her keys. “But since I’m the only one here who won’t scare ’em to death, I reckon I’d better go too.”

Liz grabbed David by the ear and yanked him to his feet.

“C’mon, blond guy,” she commanded, “
somebody’d
better start dinner.”

Chapter VIII: Midsummer Night’s Team

(Crawford, Georgia—Friday, June 20—late evening)

James Morrison Murphy—Piper to his friends, which was basically everyone present—lowered the chanter of the bagpipes on which, for ten minutes, he’d been puffing, and wiped his brow expressively, even as the applause began. His sad brown eyes were hopefully bright, his mop of curly dark hair wringing wet with sweat. His wiry body sagged visibly within his trademark Stewart plaid pants and white linen shirt. Beside him, LaWanda Gilmore—Juju Woman (among the other, more sinister, appellations she cultivated)—flashed a toothily wicked grin and laid her black Fender bass atop the nearest amp. A harem’s worth of gold bracelets tinkled on the strong, chocolate-colored arms bared by a scarlet tank top. The rehearsal hall—actually, the auditorium of a defunct high school in tiny Crawford, Georgia, twenty miles south of Athens (from which, six hours earlier, the two of them had been rescued from a defunct Pinto)—still reverberated from their last number: Gary Moore’s “Over the Hills and Far Away.” The rest of the impromptu band—Darrell on vocals and lead guitar and Calvin (after many protests) on drum—smiled expectantly.

“Well?” LaWanda prompted, folding her arms. The tiny gold beads that tipped her myriad braids glittered, but no more than her eyes.

“Great!” David roared, jumping to his feet from the ratty sofa from which, with Liz, he’d been spectating. Alec and Aikin aped his example from the sofa’s even scruffier twin. The rest of the tonally challenged (or rhythmically handicapped, as Liz preferred) crew chimed in immediately. “Wow!” was one summarization. “Far out,” a deliberately outdated other.

David poked the gawking Brock in the ribs and bent close. “What’d you think, Brit-Boy?”

“Brilliant,” Brock retorted. “Brilliant!” David suppressed a far too fatherly urge to ruffle the kid’s hair like Calvin had done earlier. He’d been that way himself not long ago: full of flash and fire and energy. His folks thought he still was. In truth…he was no longer sure. Brock, however—he was like a kid in a candy store; or, more like, a series of candy stores.

Though the boy had grown up middle-class in Florida, fear of an abusive stepfather (who’d raped Brock’s older sister, Robyn, right before Calvin met them a few years back, thereby precipitating that encounter) had driven both him and his sibling to seek sanctuary with friends in England. Brock sneaked back stateside occasionally; Robyn didn’t. But Brock had been to Athens only once before, and that in haste, and he had nearly overloaded on that small city’s wealth of Ameri-pop this second time around: first on food—Liz’s patented jambalaya (and dark Atlanta beer he was too young to legally consume)—then on the racks of hip new music in Wuxtry and Ruthless Records alike, next on books and magazines at Barnett’s Newsstand and Tennis Bird Shorts, and finally on live music itself.