License Invoked (22 page)

Nigel wailed behind them. “But we don't have any chrysanthemum skyrockets! The fire marshall wouldn't approve them! Or those spinning Catherine wheels! Where are they coming from?”

It was just bad luck that Michael was passing close enough to the rear speakers for Nigel's frantic voice to be picked up on his guitar mike and carried throughout the auditorium speakers. The band paused for half a beat, not knowing what to do. The audience heard and felt the hesitation, and shuffled uncomfortably. The rowdy ones picked up on the uncertainty, threatening to start rioting again. Liz felt control slip. She dug deep into the new power reserves, refreshing the protection spell around Fionna and keeping the peace.

On stage, Michael gave the musicians a stern look. They were to carry on and pretend nothing was wrong. Even though their lead singer was hanging in midair kicking like a hooked salmon. Even though they were surrounded by rockets as though they were on a battlefield under attack. The Guitarchangel whipped the band into a musical frenzy, using gestures and shouts. He strode around the stage, urging the audience to clap along with the beat.

As he passed Liz his next circuit around, he hissed, “Do something!”

“We're trying!” she growled back, frustrated, not wanting to interrupt her multiple chants for long.

Boo's cell phone rang, somewhere deep in his pockets. Liz shot him an exasperated look.

“You'd better answer it,” she shouted. Boo scrabbled for the little box. He popped it open.

“This is Tiger,” the tinny voice in his ear said. “I think I've seen your lady, man. She walked by with some guy a little while ago. I couldn't get to the phone until now.”

“Which way they goin'?”

“Toward Decatur.”

Boo reached into Liz's shoulder bag and felt for the little cell phone. He turned it on and tucked it into her neck.

“I know where she's gone,” he shouted. “Keep things together here.”

Leaving Liz chanting, Boo-Boo trotted out of the Superdome arena, out the back door onto Giraud Street.

A taxi swung into the curb at his wave. Boo-Boo clambered into the back seat. The young black man behind the wheel twisted around to exchange hand slaps with him.

“Hey, Boo-Boo, where y'at? Where you want to go?”

“The Quarter,” Boo-Boo said, settling back against the seat. “Run the lights. I'll make it right later.”

Ken Lewis held Robbie cuddled against his chest on the grass in the shelter of the gazebo overlooking the riverfront, hoping passersby would take them for a pair of overamorous lovers in the dark enjoying the fireworks display along with the thousands of other people hanging out along the Moon Walk. At least, he was enjoying it. He doubted whether Robbie was truly aware of them in any intellectual way. She'd had quite of few hits of LSD and one or two of Rohypnol. The “date rape” drug made her easier to manage. She reacted to exterior stimuli, including his voice, without conscious will power. It was too bad he'd had to drug her so heavily, but he couldn't let that strong moral backbone of hers interfere with his last chance to make his plan work. No matter how he played up the provocation she had been suffering, she didn't really want to hurt anyone, not even Fionna. Who ever heard of somebody with the perfect opportunity to take revenge on a hated rival without consequences who didn't take it?

On the way to the park he had picked up a bottle of tequila and a couple of glasses, and he had more acid in his pocket, all the better to make sure she didn't regain control of her faculties before the show was over. He splashed some of the booze into her glass and held it up to her lips.

“Had too much,” she said, her voice slurred. Tequila dribbled out of the corners of her mouth.

“No, you haven't,” Ken said, wiping up the spill with the cuff of his shirt. “The night's just beginning.”

“Oh, all right,” Robbie said. She swallowed and made a face as the liquor burned its way down to her stomach. “Oooh.”

“Now, concentrate,” Ken said. He squeezed Robbie's face between thumb and forefinger and held her head up, making her look at the pulsing waves of white-hot light shooting up into the night. “Follow the sequence exactly. Can't you hear the director? He wants the flames to rise higher. Higher. Higher! Yes!”

Robbie's chin sagged slackly against his palm, but her muddy-colored eyes were fixed on the starbursts filling the air over the river.

“Like that?”

“Wonderful, baby. You're the best. Keep it up. More. Yes, more!”

He caught the indulgent smile of an older couple sitting close by on the grass. So what if they thought he was talking about sex. This was better than sex. This was better than anything.

Ken kept up the description of what he wanted to go on in the arena. Robbie acted as if she could see what he was talking about, responding to cues as he gave them. It was like leading her in a guided meditation minute by minute through the concert, except with added explosions and starbursts and a special surprise ending. Inside her head, the stage was laid out before her. Her slide pots and push buttons were underneath her hands. When she operated her controls, the special effects came to life in her mind. Yes, if he could keep her going like that, he could bring her to cause a disaster when the audience was the most worked-up and the power was at its highest level.

He'd forgotten about the fireworks display. Pure serendipity. To Ken, it was just Satan's way of telling him he was in the right place at the right time.

He found it hard to believe that he could be working magic without any physical contact. He felt naked without the familiar technology surrounding him. But doing sorcery by remote control was definitely the way of the future. The satellite feed from SATN-TV had helped to prime the pump, and now the pump was running full strength. By the time he lowered the boom on the concert center, he'd be able to send Mr. Kingston a bolus of magical energy not just threefold, but three thousandfold. It ought to blow the roof right off SATN. Ken watched the fireworks, feeling smug. He ought to hit Kingston up for a bonus on top of his fee. It would have been worth it just for locating Robbie in the first place.

What a conduit she was. He could feel the edge of the power as it poured through her body. She almost crackled with it, but at the same time was totally unaware of it. She didn't know any more than the paper a message was written on knew its contents. Roberta Unterburger, special effects engineer, was a special effect in herself. The perfect dupe. He and she had sat there in the midst of Green Fire's company for months waiting, while Ken had plotted and planned for just exactly this moment. No one had suspected a thing. Now it didn't matter if they knew the whole story. Nothing they could do would stop the destruction of Fionna Kenmare, and everyone in the Superdome with her. There'd be headlines all over the world tomorrow morning, but only three people would ever know who was responsible: him, Mr. Kingston, and Mr. Mooney.

Ken could even monitor the havoc he was causing. It was a shame he couldn't watch, but now and again he could hear through the earphone on his headset. The audio only seemed to arise in momentary bursts, maybe coinciding with bursts from Robbie exerting her psychic gift and causing something to happen, but Ken felt as if he was sitting at his console in the control room in the Superdome, listening to the chatter. The disconnected cord hung down on his chest, but thanks to Robbie's gift, through the Law of Contagion the headset was still a part of what it had touched. As much as he was having fun giving Robbie ideas, he really enjoyed those little glimpses into the pandemonium at the concert. The crew was going nuts. In the background he could hear the roar of the crowd. They sounded scared. No one understood what was happening, not even those nosy secret agents. The effect was better than he could have hoped.

“Okay, you see those red fireballs?” he asked, lying back on the grass and pointing to the sky. Robbie nodded obediently. “Let's make 'em chase the band around. Give 'em a little hotfoot. It won't hurt 'em,” he assured her as she started to writhe uncomfortably. “You have my solemn word on it.” She relaxed.

“Okay,” Robbie said. “If you're sure.”

Ken grinned wickedly above her head, out of her line of sight. He enjoyed feeding her suggestions. “I'm sure, baby. Go for it.”

He heard a blaze of static in the earpiece. It cleared to reveal the businesslike mutter of the technical director's voice giving instructions to the crew. Then—

“What the hell . . . ?” Lowe demanded. The connection cut off. Too bad, Ken grinned. They were making headlines. He'd have to read all about it in the morning.

Robbie started to sag backward against his chest.

“Oh, no, baby, we're not done yet.” He helped her sit up. She swayed to the music in her head while he poured her another drink which he laced with another dose of acid.

“Don' wanna . . .” she said, as he held the cup to her lips.

“Come on, baby, you're doing really well. Everyone loves you.”

“Not Lloyd.” Robbie's face contorted. Tears filled her eyes.

“Yeah,” Ken said. “Him, too! He loves the way you're making this all work. Come on. Make a big purple monster just for Lloyd. When he sees what you can do, he'll forget all about Fionna.”

“Forget . . . her,” Robbie said. She squeezed her eyes closed, concentrating. Her hands played up and down on her invisible controls.

“Is it a really big, purple monster?” he asked encouragingly. “With lots of teeth and scales and long, ba-aad claws?”

“Yes,” Robbie said.

He leaned back on the grass and whistled. “Baby, you are the best.”

* * *

The taxi dropped Beauray at the end of Toulouse where the railroad tracks crossed it. As the car bumped the last hundred feet and came to a halt, Boo-Boo worried that Lewis had poor Robbie hidden away someplace he'd never find her. Once the skyrockets had started to go off inside the Superdome he hadn't really needed the phone call from Tiger to tell them where Lewis and Robbie had gone. He remembered about the fireworks festival that was being sponsored by WBOY.

His greatest concern was that they might not be on the Moon Walk itself. The riverfront was lined with old warehouses that had plenty of windows open to the northeast from which she could see the fireworks but not be easily seen by anyone else, like him. He didn't have much time. Night had already fallen, and the embankment park was hundreds of yards long. If he didn't spot his quarry pretty quickly he would have to ask the local police to help him search the surrounding buildings. Fortunately, most of the police were friends of his; he wouldn't have to make the request official.

Whistling and a loud boom! heralded the eruption of a gigantic globe of colored sparks that pattered lightly down into the Mississippi to the accompaniment of cheers from the thousands of bystanders crowded on the brick-and-concrete walk to watch. Boo-Boo pulled out his little phone and hit the speed dial.

“Liz? Did y'all just get a purple chrysanthemum in there?”

“Yes, Beauray, we did,” the British woman replied very slowly and deliberately. She sounded like she'd downed a whole economy-sized bottle of Valium. That was real professionalism for you. Underneath it all she must have been twitching like a freshly caught fish. The sounds of the concert behind her almost overwhelmed her voice. “Where are you?”

“Down by the Moon Walk.”

“The Moon . . . of course! The exhibition we heard announced at the radio station.” The gal had a great memory. Too bad she had that ol' stuffy accent that made her so hard to understand. “Have you found our subject?”

“There's probably about as many people here as there are where you are,” Boo said, scanning the area around him, “and most of them are standin' up.” A family of obvious tourists pushed between him and a stainless steel sculpture, being careful not to touch him. “It's also pretty dark. The street lamps distort things a little. This is goin' to be a challenge. I'll try a findin', but I don't know how it'll do. I'd better not run down the phone battery. I'll get back to you when I find 'em.”

“You do just that,” Liz said, calmly, as though she was asking him to tea with the Queen. The connection ended. He switched off the telephone and stuffed it back into his pocket.

The finding spell he liked to use best took a good pinch of lodestone powder. Boo-Boo felt around in his coat for the various packets and bundles of cloth he kept handy. He had a bad feeling that he might be short on lodestone. The call from Washington hadn't left him much time to stock up before he had to meet the jet. His fingers explored the threadbare recesses of the inside lining of his jacket, coming up with little bits and pieces. Here was henbane, holy basil, a small bunch of chili peppers tied with red thread, and a whistle. There was that last bite of beignet left over from the stop he'd made at the Café du Monde with Liz and the group. He chewed on the stale chunk while continuing to sort out the contents of that deep pocket. If lodestone powder was anywhere, it was there. In the meanwhile, he recited the words of the incantation to himself. It helped if he got it right the first time.

Nothing in his preparations required that he stand still. He kept moving, hoping to catch sight of Robbie. There was half a hope that Ken Lewis wasn't with her anymore, but Boo-Boo couldn't rely on that. His profile of the missing Ms. Unterburger still would not stretch to make her the mastermind that had engineered small psychic attacks on Ms. Kenmare, let alone sabotaging a whole concert. A pity they hadn't looked closer at the quiet Mr. Lewis. Now that Boo-Boo thought about it, there might have been an offensive cantrip going on to keep them from paying much attention to him. And all that time Boo thought it had been the man's aftershave.

The park had its own soundtrack going. Jazz belted out of the loudspeakers clinging to trees and light poles. You could see people walking along sort of bouncing to the beat. That was healthy, he thought. It was just like he'd been telling Elizabeth Mayfield. Give in to the rhythm, and let it move you with it. Too many tourists came to New Orleans and just brought a bubble of their own homelands along with them. They never got to feel what the city had to offer. Of course, Liz's circumstances were extraordinary. It wasn't often he got to work with an agent from any other department, let alone a foreign national. Kind of nice for a change.

The next fusillade of Roman candles filled the black sky with their lines of white fire. The noise surprised his ears a moment later, almost making him drop the minute bundle in his fingers. He imagined that if there was a correlation going between this display and the mayhem being visited on the Superdome, they'd have a kind of delayed reaction, too. A shame that the delay wasn't enough to give much notice to Liz what was coming before it happened.

There was barely enough of the vital component left for the spell. He had a hair and a little fluff from the upholstery of Robbie's chair that he mixed in with it, all the while chanting the ancient words, with a few new twists that the government researchers had worked out over the last fifty years. Passersby saw him talking to himself and playing with pocket lint. The other local practitioners would understand, but strangers would leave him well and truly alone. That kind of anonymity was what the Department required of its agents, part-time or full-time.

Eighty percent of the people in the park were stationary, having staked out a good place to watch from. The other twenty percent strolled around. Kids with sparklers ran around sketching glittering arcs in the air. Made a pretty good disguise for the glowing witchlight of the finder spell once he got it going.

Strangers in the thick crowd made plenty of room as he wandered past them. He guessed he was describing such an irregular path that they thought something was wrong with him. He had to look carefully into each of their faces. The kind of heady magic he was pursuing could interfere with perception.

He gave them a reassuring kind of smile, but they backed off anyway.

Within a few moments he located a trace. This might be easy after all. He followed it back to the concrete steps where the two must have entered the park, but from there the trail meandered around and around. Boo didn't like the crazy psychic vibes that he picked up as he went. The girl was messed up somehow. Probably had a lot too many drinks somewhere, making her far too suggestible. Boo-Boo winced as the sky filled with fireballs, picturing the same thing happening back at the Superdome. He followed the silver pointer wherever it went, hoping that his meager supply of lodestone would hold out until he located his quarry.