Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga (41 page)

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet," he
said. "I've left bodies from Nevada to Kansas City, just
practicing—and I'll be out in three to eight years for good
behavior, so don't forget to write and include a forwarding address
while I'm in the pen. I plan to remember you."

He started to toy with them then, because he
realized Julianne didn't have a gun, just his knife. Gussie tried
to tie his feet with his own shoelaces, but he kicked his feet
around, not even trying to hurt her, just harassing her.

She smacked his face good for him. "You cut
that out, degenerate," she said, and to Juli, "Give me that knife,
honey. I'll see that he holds still while you gift wrap him."

But he dodged her knife and kept playing
with them. Juli grabbed a foot and Gussie waited for her to start
tying, but suddenly she froze and the killer froze too.

Julianne, touching him, felt the monster in
him raging to get at her and Gussie, bragging about the foul
murders it had done of other women and all that it intended to do.
Farnham looked like a vicious giant-size weasel, wiry, mean, and
strong. The orange glow of the disastrous oil fires cast flickers
of shadow over his face and turned his teeth and eyes red.

He rammed into Juli, knocking her down and
dragging her.

Struggling with him, Juli heard the voice of
his inner dragon raging, muttering, whispering, shrilling at her as
it twisted from her hands, broke her arms free, kicked her with all
its might. It gloated inside itself, muttering, “watched her as she
floated down." Juli snatched at that clue, and others came tumbling
out of the monster's inner workings, "stabbed her with my knife,"
"took my razor blade and laid him in the shade and started me a
graveyard of my own," "been diggin' on your grave the best part of
the night."

The knife was lost, but Farnham's fingers
were digging into Juli's neck, and her eyes were turned up in their
sockets, going back and forth like a typewriter carriage across her
partially closed upper lids.

Farnham hunched his shoulder up and knocked
the knife from Gussie's hand, getting only a little gash for his
trouble, and kicked Juli over backward at the same time that he
struggled to his feet and dived out the flap.

Just in time to face the business end of the
gun Willie had carried with him from the ranch.

" 'Scuse me, mister. I can see you're all
tied up. But Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson and I would like you to join
us inside a while longer whilst we figure out what it was you were
so anxious to get away from."

After a while, the other refugees, who were
mostly in the way of the rescue efforts, came straggling back to
camp, and so did a few tired cops. They were able to get a make on
Farnham's fingerprints and take him off to jail.

But not before Julianne had changed him
forever.

"He's a what?" Willie asked indignantly when
she made her pronouncement. "Other than a scurvy-assed,
snake-bellied, lizard-tongued etc. etc. puke-faced murderin'
bastard."

"A channel," Julianne said. "He sort of goes
through in this life what we went through in Scotland with the
wizard's magic, except that he's not living through the ballad
people—they're living through him. And where you got victimized
girls and I got monster-taming heroes, he got murderers. All this
stuff he's been saying about his childhood may be unfortunate, but
the fact is that every ballad murderer in the history of the U.S.
has taken over some part of his personality. Furthermore, I think
it's pretty certain that our adversaries are exploiting his
misfortune by goading him to kill—"

"Misfortune! Good lord, woman, this
character was ready to fillet you and Gussie both, and you sound
like you're ready to be a character witness for him."

"Oh, no," she said. "I think he should be
put away for the rest of his life. But not before he brings all
those occupying souls forward." To Farnham she said, "Now then,
we're going to take off your gag in a moment. But first I'm going
to sing you some songs, and I want you to listen carefully so you
can sing with me when we remove the gag."

And she sang "Pretty Polly" and "The Banks
of the Ohio" and "Love Henry" (about a murderess who Farnham, given
his prejudice against the female sex, was appalled to find had
taken up residence in his skull) and "The Ballad of Omie Wise" and
"Tom Dooley" and "Old Reuben" and all the other songs that had spat
out at her when she came in contact with the murdering force inside
him.

Willie sang with her on some of them, the
choruses and such, and when Farnham was ungagged, even though part
of him kept thinking how silly this was, he knew these were his
songs, and in a way he was perversely pleased so that he hissed
them back at her. But something funny happened. With every verse
and chorus that he sang, he felt lighter and easier and less as if
he had to cut something or explode. It was the most rest he'd
gotten since those few times singing on the street blocked out the
voices. When he sang his songs, he didn't hear voices and he didn't
feel like killing anybody, even women. He released those entities
into the air, and they had to fly around out there being songs for
a while before they could come back and roost in his head.

As the police hauled him away, he was still
singing, and gentle as a lamb, even though the arresting officer
was a woman.

Juli grunted with satisfaction the others
didn't quite understand, but she knew that she had once more
transformed a monster. The man would never be safe to let out of
jail, but inside a jail full of other men, instead of a raving
murderer, he would be a jailhouse bard and spread a certain kind of
very powerful song throughout the penal system and beyond. She
dusted her hands and said aloud, "Take that, you devils."

Willie gave her a sideways hug and told her
she done good, and she explained to him and to Gussie about how
Farnham would carry on the songs now.

Willie nodded gravely' "Well, that's just
fine, darlin'."

"Willie, I'm so glad you're, like, getting
into believing in spiritual things after our time in Scotland. I've
always considered you to be a sensitive," Juli said gravely, taking
both of his hands in hers.

"Oh, I am.
Highly
sensitive. And I know that what you say
is more than likely true. Either that ol' boy will become a
jailhouse bard, just like you say, and have all the other prisoners
singin' too in self-defense, or more likely, what with his lack of
pitch and him havin' to sing acapulco and all, he ain't gonna be
there very long singin' away the way you say he needs to if he's
going to feel good, 'cause the rest of the boys'll give him what's
comin' to him just to shut him up."

CHAPTER 26

"It sounds to me," Heather-Jon said
disdainfully, "as if those women were doing just fine until that
guy came swaggering in brandishing his steel-barreled manhood."

"Excuse me, ma'am," Ute said, pulling out a
notepad. 'You wouldn't happen to be a poet, would you?"

"No, I'm not," she said.

"Could I use that phrase then?
Steel-barreled manhood? It goes with a composition I'm working on
right now."

"Be my guest."

"Thank you. And as for your remark, well, I
imagine Gussie and Juli could have kept Famham in his place until
the cops got back, but he was a dangerous man, and Willie had been
feeling useless for a long time. Both of the women knew Willie
pretty well, remember, so what's a little steel-barreled manhood
among friends?" Only Heather-Jon looked even mildly outraged. Mary
Armstrong snickered.

* * *

When the others got back, they were all glad
to see Willie, and he was powerfully happy to see them too. He held
Lazarus as if it were the Holy Grail and played as he had never
played before, he was so glad to feel that magic again. And to have
an audience. He borrowed some of Brose's fairy dust and put on just
the kind of shows that everybody needed. It pulled some people
right out of their sleeping bags where they'd gone to be sick and
heartsore. Even Gussie and the others with laryngitis lip-synced
the choruses—they were that good. He sang the songs he was best
at—his "strong-heart songs," full of hope and courage. "The Mary
Ellen Carter" with its chorus exhorting people to "rise again,"
"Gone, Gonna Rise Again," by John McCutcheon, and so many others,
plus all the ballads he could think of that made wonderful stories.
Nothing depressing or sad. He put people through their paces,
laughing, crying, but only so they could laugh in the next breath,
dancing right there in the mud and rain to the songs he and the
others played. Brose, Juli, Anna Mae, and the others were all glad
for the infusion of energy because theirs was plain tuckered
out.

And Gussie thought to herself, "Willie's
finally found his real niche. I never saw him so happy. He's being
useful. He's treating his music like he's a doctor healin' the
sick."

Everybody else felt it too. He was kind and
patient with everybody there, and an inspiration to boot. By the
time the camp started breakin' up as the rain stopped and people
started digging out their homes again, he looked tired and very
peaceful.

He handed Lazarus back to Faron saying,
"Here, son, you're the mandolin player."

Faron ducked his head and tried to give the
mandolin back. "Nah, Willie, Lazarus was given to you, and you're
the one who played it. You should have Lazarus Two too."

But Willie declined.

"A deal's a deal. Torchy's kept her end of
it, and now, I'm afraid, it's time to keep mine."

* * *

You better believe Torchy appreciated
Willie's integrity right about then, because she was on the hot
seat.

"I thought you were going to shut him up!"
the Chairdevil howled. "The others have been doing enough damage
without him, and those blessed songs are spreading like, like—"

"Like me," Plague and Pestilence said in a
pleased sort of way.

"Like him," the Chairdevil agreed. "These
damned civilians got no sense of decorum either. They sing the
songs on their jobs or in the bathroom, and they sing them at home.
Lullabies and play-party songs to quiet children are starting to
replace child abuse, and instead of firing the incompetent fools
like they're supposed to, the bosses are reporting that whistling
while they work is actually increasing worker efficiency,
particularly with proper soundproofing. Where one of the infected
parties goes, there's always someone who used to sing this kind of
thing who knows a billion other songs he or she gets 'reminded' of
after hearing some amateur yodel his stupid lips off."

"I thought you wiped the songs from memory,"
Torchy said. "So I don't really see how they can be coming back to
people who used to know them without direct contact from my—the
vector group."

The Chairdevil looked sly and sneaky.
He did it well. It was one of his best looks. "I didn't exactly
wipe them—just blocked them, you see. Little mental block.
Okay,
big
mental block.
Something like, 'look what happens to idiots who sing this kind of
stuff. It's bad for your health,' and now there are people
wandering around singing at the top of their lungs with apparently
complete impunity, and the block dissolves and all that stuff comes
pouring out. We messed up on the Turner woman's get and their
friends at Triumph music. They've been making home recordings over
the telephone with the Curtis and Randolph people and smuggling
computer disks. They've been passing these things on to children,
to people like this woman who runs a shelter in Seattle.
She
used to know way too many songs,
even wrote some, and she infected three-quarters of the city before
we knew it.

"That Street Pizza business has caught on
too, so now beggars beg by singing. The new Arts and Entertainment
section in the Kansas City paper says the new leader of the Street
Pizza people, a fellow named Todd, says street singing is a
venerable and old Seattle tradition. It's caught on in New York,
L.A., San Francisco, Philly, Boston, all the big places, even
Washington, D.C. Even the politicians have started remembering
songs from their activist days and are getting principles on us
again! Some uppity senator sassed Threedee the other day when he
told him to vote against more disaster relief for Tulsa."

"Well, I never!" the Expediency Devil
said.

"That senator will never again either, since
Threedee of course sicced a crazed assassin on him that very
afternoon. But he was singing "Which Side Are You On," with his
last breath and his fellow congressmen voted for the bill anyway.
Then there's that hit-and-run chanteyman on the coast—Hawkins. He's
infected the whole shipping industry again, longshoremen, net
menders, fishermen, tourists, cruise directors, anything that
floats. I've had Thor too busy in the Midwest to chase him down.
With all the music in the air these days, it's hard to track down
one fellow anyway. Except for your little friends, DD. Especially
MacKai. You promised him to me—"

"I recall our deal," Torchy said. "But you
didn't really commit to much. What was it you were going to give me
in exchange? Besides freedom from devildom and immunity from
persecution in the future?"

"So long as you pay your tithe," the
Chairdevil reminded her.

"What tithe?" she wanted to know. "Before, I
was paying mortgage on my kingdom, but that's long gone. I want to
be free and clear with MacKai gone."

"Fine."

"And I want a place to go—"

"Why, DD, you've had that all along," the
Chairdevil said warmly. "I'm afraid there's not much work in your
line anymore. Even with these songs back, people are still much too
logical and literal and scientific to believe in your kind of
nonsense."