Summoned to Tourney (12 page)

The young man’s eyes widened. “You can’t fire me!”

“I just did.” He touched his intercom button. “Harris, please come to my office immediately.”

The young man clenched his jaw and spoke through his teeth. “If you fire me, Blair, I’ll go to the newspapers. I have a friend at the
Chronicle
, they’d love to hear about this project. I know that not all of the patients are here voluntarily, I know that you tricked some of them into signing the consent forms, some of these people aren’t mentally competent enough to sign a consent form—”

“Don’t bother,” Blair said, cutting off the torrent of threats. “If you talk to the press, you’ll be in more trouble than you can possibly imagine.” Blair leaned forward, elbows on his desk, narrowed his eyes, and smiled. “Keep this in mind, Smythe. I can find you. Anywhere. You know that’s the truth. If you try and sabotage this project, I’ll find you. And I’ll bring Mabel with me, or one of the others. You remember what Mabel did to Dr. Richardson, right? You were the one to find him, as I remember.”

Smythe’s face was as pale as the whitewashed concrete walls of Blair’s office. “All that blood from his nose and mouth ... she didn’t just kill him, I could see his brains oozing out through his ears… you wouldn’t do that to someone, sir!”

Blair’s smile widened.

A knock on the door interrupted them. “Come in,” Blair said, enjoying the sight of the young man’s bloodless face. Harris walked in, glancing curiously at Smythe.

“Escort Mr. Smythe out of the complex,” Blair said quietly. “He is no longer employed with Project Cassandra.”

“Of course, sir.”

Smythe swallowed awkwardly, and spoke. “I’m not scared of you, Blair. You—you wouldn’t do that deliberately to someone.”

Blair met his eyes and held them. “Do you really want to find out?” he said softly.

After a moment, the young man broke eye-contact and shook his head. Blair noticed with satisfaction that his hands were shaking as well. Harris walked him out, closing the office door behind him.

Blair leaned back in his chair, propping his feet on his desk. idiots, he thought.
I’m surrounded by incompetent idiots. Even Harris, who lost that kid today in San Francisco. He still can’t explain how the kid got out of a dead-end alley. Fools.

Then he smiled, thinking about his latest… patient.
Someone who can get through our top security systems, show up thirteen levels underground in a complex that’s supposed to be impervious to the best terrorists and foreign agents in the world… I want to take this one apart. I want to find out what he can do, find out how to use him.

I’ll need a good leash on this one, though. Probably the girl; that seems to be what brought him in here in the first place. She’s useless to me right now, anyhow. And she may be ruined completely—I underestimated the effects of her claustrophobia.

And then there’s the other boy. He registered even higher, a bright light shining in the darkness of San Francisco. We’ll get him, too.

I’ll prove to those bastards at DoD that we can do it. All of them that said I was a crackpot, that this could never work… they’ll see. When I show them someone who can walk through security systems like they don’t exist, or someone can ditch a top military agent like Harris in less than ten seconds, they’ll believe me then… they’ll have to believe me.

Still smiling, Blair shoved his chair away from the desk and left his office, walking down the corridor to meet his newest acquisition.

CHAPTER 6:
The Hanged Man’s Reel

“Kory? Beth?”

Eric stood in the front hallway, burdened with two armfuls of musical instruments, hoping against hope that the next thing he’d hear would be a resounding “Eric, you’re home!” from Beth, followed by a hug from Kory and a kiss from Beth. Then they’d all laugh about the weird events of the day, and probably still be laughing as they piled into the bubbling hot tub…

Only silence greeted him.

He walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, sitting down at the table and burying his face in his hands. He looked up longingly at the bottle of Black Bush on the counter, then away.

No. No whiskey. I’ve got to think, to figure this out—

It had gone so bad, so quickly. Now he didn’t know what to do. He’d envisioned disasters, figuring that their good luck was too good to last, but

they’d always been things like… Kory falling off a ladder while fixing the roof. Beth, slipping on the wet deck near the hot tub. Himself, setting the kitchen on fire while trying to make pancakes. But not this, never this.

His first impulse was to run. They’d kept a small amount of cash in the house for just that reason, in case the cops came knocking at their door one afternoon and they had to run fast. He could catch the night bus out of town with that money, be out of California and into Oregon by day break, and he’d be out of reach of the local cops. Except that blond man hadn’t acted like a cop—a local cop would’ve flashed a badge and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him before he could blink, and hauled him away in a black-and-white…

That expensive blue car. Policemen don’t drive Mercedes. In any case, he couldn’t leave Beth and Kory behind. Two years ago, sure, not a problem, but not now. They were the closest damn thing he had for family, and he wouldn’t abandon them.

The lyrics from a Faire song drifted across his thoughts: “No, nay, never… no, nay, never, no more, will I play the Wild Rover, no, never, no more…“

And I won’t,
Eric thought.
They’re depending on me. I won’t let them down.

Except how in the hell am I supposed to help them? I don’t know where they are, what could’ve happened to them…

What can I do?

He wanted to scream, or cry.

Instead, he set his flute case on the table, and opened it.

The flute lay there quietly against the crushed velvet, no hint of anything that had happened before reflected in the silvery metal. No sign of dragons, or elven sorcerers, or shadow-demons called up from the darkness… no hint of anything, in fact, just a simple musical instrument waiting to be played upon. Eric quickly fitted the pieces together, and played a quiet note, a long A tone. He slid down a mournful minor scale, then into a run of arpeggios. It was hard to concentrate, when his mind kept slipping back to Beth and Kory, and the dark fears that he kept suppressing, holding at bay—
I’ll find them. They’re out there, somewhere. I’m a Bard, I can use the magic, I can do it. I’ll find them.

Then he began to play “Planxty Powers,” an old O’Carolan tune, one that the Irish bard had composed in honor of Fanny Powers, perhaps his lover, certainly his friend. The tune brought back a rush of memories to Eric, of sitting around on haybales at the Renaissance Faire, drinking mulled wine and playing music with friends. Of the first time he’d met Beth; how she’d flashed her ankles at him while dancing a strathspey in the Scottish show, then asked him to teach her that strathspey tune, so she could play along on her ocarina.

And Kory… how he’d come home late from the Southern Faire, to find an elf living in his apartment… those earnest green eyes, asking him to help…

I won’t fail you, pal. I’ll find you… I’ll find you…

The music wove itself into strands of light around him, bright sparkles reflecting off the kitchen windows. He called it closer, and the light danced around him. Within it, he searched for them, calling up images of Kory and Beth, casting his vision out further and further into the city around him…

The light became a glow, with him encased at the heart. A softly glowing sphere, that showed him flitting images of the life of the city beyond; places they had been, places they had touched. The park, dark and mostly deserted now, shadows filling the space below the trees. The BART station near the house, as bright as the park was dark, trains pulling up to the platform in uncanny silence. The wharf, bustling with tourists. The Castro district, bustling with… a different kind of life. The Embarcadero, the Pig and Whistle where they sometimes played, the Opera House…

All of the scenes, flitting silently in, then out of focus, as his heart searched the city below for the people he loved.

Now the scenes were unfamiliar, and a little less focused; streets, houses, lawns…

Buildings, tall ones, like offices, but with a more closed-in look.

A corridor—

He caught a glimpse of Beth, and concentrated, trying to see exactly where she was. It was difficult, holding the melody and the magic, delicately reaching…

“Beth! Bethie, can you hear me?”

Blair smiled at the young boy seated next to the closed door to Room 12. Harris stood next to the door, an intense blue-eyed watchdog. “How are you doing, Timothy?” he asked.

“Just fine, Mr. Blair,” the boy replied. “The bad man inside, he’s stopped trying to get out. I guess he’s figured out that I won’t let him.”

“Good work, Timothy.” Blair nodded to Harris, who gently moved the boy away from the door. “Now let’s talk with this new fellow. Timothy, don’t open the door unless you hear my voice, okay?”

“You bet, Mr. Blair.”

Harris checked his handgun in its shoulder holster, and opened the door quickly, scanning the room before stepping aside to let Blair enter the room.

The newest acquisition to the Project was seated on the floor next to the red-haired woman. The woman seemed to be asleep, but even across the room, Blair could still sense the turmoil in her mind. The blond man looked up at Blair with eyes burning with fury.

That’s right, little fellow, Blair thought. Hate me. Give me a handle to use on you, a window into your thoughts. Let’s see what you’re afraid of…

:You think to imprison me, a Knight of the Seleighe Court? And now you try to entrap my mind! I’ll kill you first, bastard!:

Blair couldn’t understand all of that…
what in the hell is a Seelie Court?
… but he certainly understood the way the young man launched himself from the floor, hands reaching for Blair’s throat.

Harris intercepted easily, hurling the kid against the wall. Harris always made it look so easy.
Years of practice
, Blair thought, a little enviously. Harris was used to the difficult ones, the ones that tried to fight before they settled down to become a useful part of the Project.

Harris crossed to where the woman was slumped against the wall. Grabbing her long hair with one hand, he drew his handgun with the other, pressing it lightly against her temple. The woman flinched once at the touch of the metal against her face, but otherwise was completely unaware of anything happening around her.

The young man moved painfully from where he had fallen onto the concrete floor. A trickle of blood slid from his mouth; he ignored it, looking up at Blair and Harris with eyes filled with hatred.

“Now, let’s talk,” Blair said calmly, sitting down on the bare concrete floor. “I don’t think I need to explain Harris’ role in this, do I? Behave yourself and be a good boy, and tell me what I want to know, and nothing will happen to your friend. Understand?”

:Never, Unseleighe scum. I will kill you and leave your bodies lying for the forest creatures to feed upon, I will curse your names for a thousand years, I will laugh as your blood pools at my feet, I will do anything to kill you, even brave the touch of Cold Iron itself:

Blair blinked, astonished at the clarity of the young man’s thoughts. “I don’t think you understand your situation,” he said slowly. “You aren’t in any position to—”

He stopped short. The key—the kid had given him the key without even realizing it! Admittedly, it was the strangest phobia he’d ever heard of in his life, but it was a lock-hold he could use…

“I’ll be back in a minute, Harris,” he said thoughtfully, and left the room.

At the end of the hallway, in the new construction area, he found what he was looking for. It took a little improvisation with a pair of handcuffs and some wire, but then he had what he needed.

Of course, he didn’t understand why the kid was so afraid of certain kinds of metal, but that didn’t matter. The fears themselves were unimportant; it was the effect of the fears upon the subject that was so valuable. He walked back into Room 12, and held out the contraption with a smile. The kid’s eyes widened.

Blair moved cautiously toward the young man, handcuffs ready in one hand. Suddenly everything happened very fast; the kid knocked the handcuffs out of Blair’s hand, making a dash for the door; Harris dropped the handgun and tackled him from behind, wrestling with him until Blair could snap the modified handcuffs onto his wrists.

The kid screamed, a long gut-wrenching wail of despair, as the wire wrapped around the handcuffs touched his bare wrists. Then he fainted.

Well, it wasn’t exactly the response Blair had wanted, but it was a good start. He’d never seen such an immediate physiological reaction to a mental aberration, but that didn’t matter. It just meant that it would be easier to work with the kid, later.

Then he saw the pistol, lying on the floor next to the woman. She was staring at it, uncomprehending. Her hand twitched, moved toward the handgun…

“STOP!” Blair shouted at the top of his voice.

The woman jerked her hand back, clutching her hands to her mouth. She began to cry again.

Harris, breathing hard, reached down to pick up the pistol. “Sorry, boss,” he said. “Next time, I’ll be more careful.”

“You’d better be,” Blair said tersely. “We can’t afford any more mistakes.” He glanced at the unconscious blond boy. “We’ll start with him in the morning.”

The image faded. He reached out his hand, through the layers of light, as Beth’s face disappeared into the shadows.

Eric set down the flute.
So much for magic, he thought. After all’s said and done, it can’t help me find my friends.

He tried to think of another plan of action… maybe calling the cops? It would mean some awkward questions to answer, and possibly a lot of trouble over Phil’s death, but the more he thought about that, he decided it was worth the risk. Sure, they might have found some physical evidence that he and Beth were at Phil’s house after he was killed, but the odds that they could conjure up some proof that he and Beth were the killers…
not too damn likely
, he thought.
It’s worth the risk.