License Invoked

Chapter 6

Elizabeth had barely taken three steps outside before she was drenched in sweat. The heat and humidity of New Orleans wrapped itself around her like a hot, wet blanket, all prevailing and merciless.

Pausing in an attempt to orient herself while fighting off a sudden wave of dizziness, she turned to her companion, only to find him chatting with the doorman she had passed without really noticing.

"Hey, Boo!" the uniformed man said. "How ya doin', man? Ah didn't see you come in."

"Came in off Conti," Beauray was saying, all the while exchanging a bewildering series of handshakes and palm slappings with him. "No sense fightin' the crowds if you can walk inside."

"You got that right!" the doorman responded, throwing his head back in an exaggerated laugh.

"How's that pretty lady of yours these days?"

"Mean as a snake, and that's a fact!"

"Umm. Mr. Boudreau?" Elizabeth began. "I hate to interrupt, but..."

"Be right with you, darlin'," Boo said, holding up one finger in restraint. "Say, Willie. Did you see a cute little thing come out of here a while back? Green hair?"

"Hard to miss her," the doorman said, nodding. "She and the folks she was with headed up Bourbon towards St. Anne. Lookin' to party would be my guess."

He made an offhand gesture to indicate the direction.

"'Preciate it, man," Boo said, holding up his hand for a parting palm slap. "Got to roll, now. You tell your lady that Boo said, `Hey,' hear?"

"Later, Boo!" the man said, waving, then returned to his duties with an aloof, deadpan expression.

"Sorry 'bout the delay," Beauray said, putting a hand lightly on Elizabeth's back and steering her into the street. "I figured it would be worth the time to be sure we was lookin' in the right direction."

Thus began one of the strangest, most memorable walks of Elizabeth's life.

The world-famous Bourbon Street was closed to vehicular traffic at this hour, but was nonetheless choked with pedestrians. At first, Elizabeth was overwhelmed by a kaleidoscope of apparently random noise, music and lights.

"NO cover charge! NO minimum drinks!"

"... feelin' tomorrow, just like I feel today!"

"Spare change?"

"Oooh, Darlin'! Lookin' GOOD!"

"... Can't touch this!"

"Lucky Dogs! Get your Lucky Dogs! Right here!"

Within the first block or so, however, a certain order became apparent to her in the seeming chaos.

Most of the crowd were tourists or sightseers. They traveled in groups or pairs, lugging their cameras or hand-cams with them like identifying badges. While some of them wore three-piece suits that marked them as conventioneers, the majority were decked out casually in shorts, new T-shirts sporting New Orleans designs ranging from the silly to the obscene, and some of the most ridiculous hats it had ever been her misfortune to see. They moved at a leisurely pace, stopping often to look in windows, listen to the music radiating forth from various bars, or to take pictures of each other standing next to street signs, the little tap dancing kids, or even trash cans.

"Table dances! World famous love acts! NO cover charge!"

"Crawfish! Best eating in the Quarter!"

"... Hey now. Jump in the river now..."

"ICE cold. Get your ICE cold Coca-Cola here!"

In the space of a few blocks they had walked from Conti, Bourbon Street featured at least eight bars with live bands and/or singers, eight more with recorded music blaring from speakers, six shops featuring exotic dancing or other delights ("wash the girl of your choice!"), more than twelve souvenir shops selling masks and feather boas, coffee and beignet mixes in yellow cans, hot sauce with health warnings printed on the labels, metallic-covered plastic beads in a rainbow of colors, and the ubiquitous tasteless T-shirts. Every one of the shops overflowed with tourists.

Overhead on the first- and second-floor balconies (second and third floors here in the U.S.; Elizabeth realized they counted things differently here), stood crowds of men and women brandishing plastic cups full of beer. People in the dense crowd below shouted up to them, and threw bead necklaces up to the women on the balconies. When one flushed girl in her twenties had collected an armful of necklaces, she hiked her shirt up to her neck. She wasn't wearing anything underneath it. The crowd erupted in cheers of joy. New Orleans was more wide open than Elizabeth had ever dreamed.

This part of the city resembled an undermaintained amusement park. Worn, broken pavement, cracking paint, wrought iron twisted like lace and painted in muted colors. Men held up signs that advertised psychic readings, draft beers for $1.00, or that the end was near. Walls sported unexpectedly bright colors, yellow, purple, moss green, Venetian red. Buildings proudly displayed brass or ceramic plaques describing their origins, name, function, and first owners often dating back two hundred years or more. London could take a cue from the Big Easy's excellence of labelling. World War II had been over for more than half a century, yet the city seemed still to be trying to misdirect invading Nazis.

There were others in the crowd besides tourists. Some, like the shills outside the restaurants and topless bars or the couples selling roses from pushcarts, were obviously workers, not unlike the mounted, uniformed police who sat at each intersection like watchtowers in the flow of humanity. More subtle were the gaudily-dressed individuals who strutted stylishly up and down the street, stopping occasionally to pose for pictures with the tourists in exchange for tips. Also workers, but self-employed, not salaried. Then, there were what could only be thought of as "locals," making their way through the crowds with bags of groceries or baskets of laundry, obviously running household errands even at this late hour. It was an interesting reminder that the French Quarter of New Orleans was a functioning community where people lived and worked, rather than a planned, constructed amusement park.

Even more noticeable to Elizabeth, however, was that of this latter, non-tourist population, it seemed that at least two out of every three knew her escort.

"BOO-RAY! What's happenin', man?"

"Hey, Boo! Where y'at, bro?"

"Boo, darlin'! When you comin' by again?"

Every five or six steps, Boudreau was pausing to wave at someone or to exchange handshakes or greetings. Despite her impatience to be on their mission, Elizabeth could not help but be impressed with how well-known Beauray was, though she was a bit taken aback by the volume of the hailings... by both meanings. That is, they were not only numerous, they were loud!

People down here seemed to do all their conversing, not to mention their casual greetings, at the top of their lungs. If they happened to be across the street, on one of the everpresent wrought-iron balconies, or half a block away, it didn't really matter. They just reared back and shouted a little louder, neither minding nor caring that dozens of total strangers were forced to listen in to every word. It was completely different than anything in England, even in weekend street markets. Elizabeth put the fault down to the French influence that had founded New Orleans in the first place.

"Do you think we'll be able to find them?" Elizabeth said, making an effort to wrench Beauray's focus away from his friends and back onto her and their assignment.

"That depends. Do you happen to know if the folks we're lookin' for have eaten recently?" Beauray asked, leaning close to her so she could hear him over the street racket.

"Not really, no," Elizabeth said. "Why?"

"Well, it'll be rough findin' 'em if they've holed up in a restaurant somewheres," he said. "There're almost as many restaurants as bars in the Quarter, and it's hard to see into most of them from the street. If they're just wanderin' or stoppin' off once in a while for a drink, we should be able to find 'em with no problem."

"They seemed to have virtually ongoing food service in First Class, but that was hours ago," Elizabeth said. "I don't know what they had to eat up there, but the food in Economy Class was pretty ghastly. I ended up making do with a few candy bars, myself..."

Beauray halted in his tracks and cocked his head at her.

"Is that what's wrong?" he asked. "I must be goin' crazy, forgettin' my manners like that. Here I am draggin' you up and down the street, and all the while it never occurred to me to ask if you was hungry. I thought you were lookin' a mite peaked."

"I'm not really all that hungry," Elizabeth protested, embarrassed by the sudden attentiveness. "I don't think my stomach will catch up with me until tomorrow."

Beauray squinted at her, the blue laser beams boring into her eyes. "You sure?"

"I'm fine. Really," she insisted, though touched by his concern. "Tell you what. If it will make you feel better, I'll have another candy bar. They do sell them here, don't they?" she asked, playfully.

Beauray studied her for a moment, then shrugged.

"Well, as soon as your stomach catches up with you, you've got to promise to let me treat you to some of our fine N'Awlins cookin'. In the meantime, though, if it's a candy bar you want, I've got just the thing for you."

Taking her by the elbow, he steered her off the street and through the door of one of the numerous T-shirt shops that prospered between the bars and dance clubs.

The icy blast of the shop's air conditioning was such a welcome relief from the saunalike streets that for a moment Elizabeth thought seriously of asking Beauray to continue the search alone while she waited here. A few breaths later, however, her sense of duty and her companion returned to her at the same time.

"Here. Try one of these."

He thrust a cellophane envelope into her hands, containing what looked for all the world like a light brown cow pat... from an unhealthy cow.

"What is it?" she asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

"They're called pralines," he said. "It's a favorite candy in these parts. Go ahead and try it. They're good."

Unable to think of a graceful evasion, Elizabeth unwrapped his offering and took a cautious bite.

It was heaven!

Like most of her countrymen, Elizabeth had an incredible sweet tooth, and the candy she was now sampling was like nothing she had ever had before. It tasted almost like pure turbinado sugar, but with a smoother texture; like a very sweet toffee, but soft, and had a goodly dollop of chopped pecans mounded in the center.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like something more solid to eat?"

Beauray's voice brought her back to her senses, and she realized guiltily that she had wolfed down almost the entire praline in a very few bites.

"No. This is fine," she said hastily. "You're right. They're quite good."

Her companion frowned at her for a moment more, then shrugged.

"All right. If you say so," he said. "I surely do want to see you some time when you do have an appetite, though."

Elizabeth was inwardly writhing with embarrassment over her brief display of gluttony as they made their way back out onto the street. She was not, however, so uncomfortable as to fail to mark the location of the store in her mind. Before her stay in New Orleans was over, she planned to stock up on a few boxes of those pralines. Delicately, she licked her fingers, and smiled blithely at Beauray. Maybe they even had a mail order business so she could order more from England. A few of these would go a long way toward sweetening Ringwall's sour temper when she gave her expense report.

Music, music was everywhere in this city. Fee drifted from door to door, borne on an energy wave that carried her along the street without feeling its cobbles under her feet. The crowds were thick, but no one bumped into her. Fee found herself walking to the beat of the music pouring out of doorways, down from balconies, unexpectedly around corners from impromptu groups who had sat down wherever the muse had struck them, never paying attention to the people passing by. She might have been alone in this mob of people who were simply enjoying themselves.

She almost wished she was.

"Wait up," panted Robbie-cursed-Unterburger, striding to catch up with Fee and Lloyd on her short little legs. They'd almost lost her in the last crowd clustered around the entrance to a blues bar. They hadn't, more's the pity.

All of them were toddling along back there, her band, Green Fire, and her chief techies, but Fee resented Robbie most of all. She was so wet. The girl wanted to get close to Lloyd, and it killed her that she couldn't. You could see the pain and frustration in her eyes. Too bad. Lloyd belonged to Fee. Such a hunk, and so good when it counted. Like later on, if the music continued to turned her on as it was doing right now.

The blare of horns and pounding of drums and pianos pouring out of storefronts interrupted the eternal argument going on between the members of the band. They were always getting into it. You would never know that they were the best of friends, the way they sniped. It was as though Fee had three little brothers, though every one of the men was older than she. She was their leader, literally, figuratively and spiritually. She liked to think of herself as guiding them—although this was where she and Eddie disagreed the most. He could be so... Christian sometimes, positively pushing all the guilt buttons from her Church of England upbringing.

She let the sounds of New Orleans carry her along. This was so primevally strong, almost cavemanlike, smooth and rough at the same time, like the best whisky. The music filled her head. She scarcely felt the pavement under her feet. She breathed it in like the air, letting it take her where it willed.

"Let's go in somewhere," Fitzgibbon protested.

"No, Fitzy," Fee said, holding up her hand like an Indian scout. "Not until I find the right place."

"I want a drink," Voe said.

"You always want a drink," Eddie complained. He was such a Puritan, worse than Lizzie Mayfield. How very strange to have her appear out of nowhere. It was like old times having her around. How things had changed. Back then, they were earnest young women trying to earn degrees, and pretty good friends, really. Now Fee was rich and famous, and Liz was—what, a spy? But they still had something in common: magic. Fee pouted. Not that Liz truly believed in the connection. Not yet. But she would.

"Come on, my feet hurt," Pat Jones, the publicist, complained, falling a few feet behind on the narrow pavement. Some of the others joined in the grumbling.

"Enough!" Michael ordered them, spinning around quick as a snake striking. "You know there's no hurrying her."

A long way off, a plaintive note rang in the hot, moist air. Fionna raised her head, like a hunting dog hearing the horn. She smiled at the faint sound. "That way," she said.

It may have been due to the sugar rush from the pralines, or just that she was starting to relax a bit in this new, strange environment, but soon after merging onto the street again, Elizabeth found herself seeing the Quarter in a whole new light. To be accurate, she found herself feeling it differently.

There was an energy here, a pulse of life that blended with the beat of the ever-present music, at the same time exciting and relaxing. Attuned to Earth Magic as she was, Elizabeth was startled to find herself involuntarily drawing power from the streets... something that she rarely if ever could do in a city. She had been prepared for New Orleans to be different, even frightening. This new aspect, however, took her completely by surprise.

"My grandma and your grandma... Sittin' by the fire..."

"Gotta cigarette, man?"

"Carriage rides! Right here, folks!"

Even the scattered fragments of music and street pitches were taking on a different sound to her. Rather than sounding like random noise, they were like the fleeting bird calls in a heavily wooded area. True, they were still uncomfortably loud, but no longer the jarring, almost threatening cacophony it had seemed at first. She would have liked to relax and enjoy the experience, if not for the fact they still hadn't found Fionna.

"Either we've missed 'em, or they turned off somewhere," Boo said, coming to a sudden halt. "Let's double back and see if we can sniff out their trail."

Elizabeth realized they had reached the end of the brightly lit section of Bourbon Street. Beyond where they stood, the bars and shops gave way to shadowy private dwellings and dark storefronts. Definitely not an area she would choose to walk in alone at this time of night, and therefore a doubtful section in which to look for their wayward charges.

Nodding her agreement, she turned and let Beauray lead her back the way they had come.

He was still pausing occasionally to talk to people on the street, but now she was seeing more of a pattern to it. Some people who hailed them, he simply waved to without breaking stride. A few he would deviate from their path to approach by himself with greetings or questions. Only rarely in their stops would he introduce her to whomever he was speaking to, like the slender black man with a feathered cowboy hat and a carved, decorated walking staff, or the short, heavyset woman wearing a voluminous dress and long, braided hair. Amidst all the apparent freewheeling casualness of the Quarter, she could now see there was a closely defined pecking order. In many ways, the loud, raucous greetings masked a very subtle rendering of passing honors and acknowledgment of status. From what she could see, her companion was generally held in high regard in this colorful, close-knit community. With this awareness came a new resolve on her part to take closer note of those he made a point of introducing her to.

Close to the river, the mist swirling around their feet in the yellow lamplight, Fee heard the mellow strains of a fiddle and the plunk of a guitar swim up through the constant undercurrent of jazz pouring out of the storefronts. It was an omen. Irish music welcoming her to New Orleans. An omen. Fee was a great believer in portents. She turned right into a brick arcade. The flyers and maps on the cool walls definitely spoke of Fenian sympathies. Little pamphlets advertised talks by noted Irish philosophers and historians, as well as performances by Celtic musical groups.

Halfway between the entrance and a white fountain in a courtyard were two doors. To the left she saw a bar, with men in T-shirts watching a television set. It was from the right that the music was coming.

She pushed open the door just as the lights in the large room were coming up. A handsome, brown-haired man was sitting in the stage area with the guitar on his lap, singing in a warm tenor a song full of poignant longing. From the door, Fee joined in, lifting her high clear voice even over the amplified instruments of the rest of the players. The musicians stopped, surprised. The house lights came up, illuminating the bright green hair and black silk tunic blouse of the woman at the door. A murmur ran through the audience as they recognized her and the band.

"Mind if we sit in?" Fee asked.

"I think we've got 'em, now."

Beauray turned from a quick conversation with one of the corner hot dog vendors.

"According to Steve, here, they headed down Toulouse toward the river. Says he didn't see 'em stop at the Dungeon or Molly's, so I think I've got a pretty good idea of where they're goin'."

He gently took her elbow in his hand and steered her through the crowds on the sidewalk and down one of the side streets that crossed Bourbon.

It was remarkable. A scant half block off Bourbon, the whole makeup of the streets changed. Instead of crowds and music, bars and souvenir shops, the atmosphere was quiet nearly to the point of being meditative. There was only a light scattering of people, mostly walking slowly in couples or sitting on balconies talking in low tones. The streets were lined with clothing stores displaying handpainted fashions in the windows, small, comfortable-looking restaurants, and lots and lots of antique shops. Still, the energy she had felt on Bourbon was present, only mellower and more low-key.

She finally remarked on this to Beauray. "I'm surprised," she said. "I wouldn't have expected to find a creative power like this in such a famous tourist area."

"Oh, it's here, all right," Boo said, seeming pleased that she'd noticed. "It's my personal belief that a lotta folks are drawn here because of the spiritual energies, whether they know it or not. It's probably why we have so many writers and artists livin' here, not to mention all the musicians."

He gestured back the way they came.

"'Bout five or six blocks from here is Congo Square where Marie Leveau used to hold her big voodoo celebrations. Two blocks to our left is Jackson Square and the St. Michael's cathedral, that the pope visited back in the '80s when he was tourin' the U.S. And, of course, there's the river."

"The river?"

"The Mississippi River," Beauray said, with a smile. "The biggest in the U.S. It's about two blocks ahead of us now. If it were daytime, you could hear the calliope music from the paddle-wheelers playin'. I'll tell you, New Orleans is full of history and ghosts, but where I feel the energies most is standin' up on the Moonwalk there and watchin' the river roll by. That water has more history and energy in it than we can ever hope to imagine or draw on."

Their quiet conversation was interrupted by a group of noisy youths who rounded the corner heading toward Bourbon, laughing loudly and brandishing their plastic cups while supporting a comrade between them who appeared to be unconscious or grievously ill.

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in distaste as she watched them pass.

"Doesn't that bother you?" she asked. "I'd think the people who live here would be outraged at the number of tourists who just come here to drink."

Beauray glanced back at the group as if seeing them for the first time.

"Naw. They're just havin' fun," he said. "You see, folks come here to have a good time. If they drink a little too much or sing their way down the street, it's no real problem, so long as they aren't hurtin' anyone. Besides, tourist dollars are what keep the Quarter green. If you think that's bad, you should see this place durin' Mardi Gras."

"If you say so," Elizabeth said. "I'm still surprised at how tolerant everyone seems to be."

Her companion threw back his head and laughed.

"Heck, the French Quarter has a history of nearly two hundred years of carousing, kept women, pirates and duels. It's a little late for us to start pointin' fingers, don't you think?"

Not knowing quite what to say to that, Elizabeth changed the subject.

"Where is it exactly we're going?" she asked.

"Well, knowin' the general direction they headed, I'm playin' a hunch," Boo said. "There's an Irish pub just up ahead called O'Flaherty's. It has live music... very ethnic—Celtic—and the entertainers are real friendly about invitin' other singers up on stage with 'em. I'm bettin' that if your crew is lookin' to have a drink, it's a natural place for them to stop."

Almost as if summoned by his words, the faint sound of guitar music reached them, followed closely by a ringing female voice raised in song.

"I think you're right," Elizabeth said, quickening her step. "That's Phoebe... I mean, Fionna's voice now. I'd recognize it any—"

She broke off suddenly and came to an abrupt halt as the lyrics of the song became clearer.

"But my sons have sons..."

"What is it?" Boo asked, peering at her carefully.

Elizabeth said nothing, but stood listening in frozen outrage until the last few lines of the song had finished, to be replaced by enthusiastic applause.

"Are you okay?" her companion pressed.

"It's nothing," she said finally, shaking her head. "It's just... that song. It's an old IRA song. Very seditious. It's called `Four Green Fields,' and it talks about the Irish rebellion, essentially promising that it will never end. Considering how many people have died in Northern Ireland, both Irish and English, it's generally considered to be in poor taste and is seldom sung publicly. I'm surprised that it's something Fionna would sing."

Or, more accurately, that Phoebe would sing, she thought, but held her silence on that score.

"I guess we're a bit more liberal about our singin' over here," Beauray said, obviously uncomfortable. "I'm sorry if it upset you. If it makes you feel any better, folks sing songs about pert' near anything around here, includin' our own wars."

"As I was sittin' by the fire... Talkin' to O'Reilly's daughter..."

The music had started again, but this time it was a bouncy drinking song.

"It's nothing, really," Elizabeth said, forcing a smile. "Come on. Let's go in and join them."

As they sat at the bar in the back of the club keeping a leisurely eye on their charges at play, however, Elizabeth found it wasn't as easy as she hoped to shrug off the shock of hearing Phoebe Kendale singing that inflammatory song. How could people do that, she asked herself over and over again, dwell on bitterness and hurt? Peace was being negotiated in the province, to the delight and relief of both sides. Why constantly encourage people to vengeance and killing when the same energies could be channeled into healing and calming?

The warm energy she had been feeling while walking through the Quarter had fled. Instead, she felt cold and alone, despite the people at the tables and her companion sitting next to her. She tried to be glad that Fee was safe. Her old friend was very good at what she did. Funny how their lives had taken such different turnings. Fee's couldn't be more public, and Elizabeth's couldn't be more private, but there they were, joined together because of magic. She frowned.

"She's safe here," Boo said, only slightly misinterpreting her thoughts. "You don't have to worry about anything gettin' at her in here."

"I know," Elizabeth said distractedly. She pushed aside her feelings of discontent and concentrated on her job instead. The place was safe. How Fee had chosen it Liz couldn't say, but there was a measure of benevolent magic cast over the bar. They played fine music, and the drinks were good, too. The only disturbance present was what she had brought along with her.

Long after midnight, the group staggered out of O'Flaherty's and turned down Toulouse heading back toward the faint thread of music on Bourbon Street. Elizabeth had tried several times to beard Fionna/Phoebe, but the singer had been on stage with the musicians almost nonstop. On the way back to the hotel, Elizabeth tried getting her attention.

"Fee, listen to me," Elizabeth said. "You must stay put in the hotel in between rehearsals. It's for your own safety."

The other woman paid little attention. She was tripping along on air. Her performance had been a triumph. Another good omen for New Orleans. She was so glad she'd come.

"Fee!"

"It's Ms. Kenmare to you, Mata Hari," Lloyd said, nastily.

"She... she gave me permission to call her by her first name," Elizabeth said, keeping her promise to Phoebe in mind. Lloyd might have overheard their earlier conversation at the airport, but there was no reason to let all the city know Fee's secret. The streets were by no means empty even at that late hour. "Fee, you can't go walkabout in a strange place. What if something had happened?"

"Something did happen," Fionna/Phoebe said, seizing Lloyd's hand and swinging it like a child. "I was great! We were all great. I had a wonderful time. Didn't we, boys?" she called over her shoulder. No one answered her. Voe looked like he had a headache. Eddie grimaced disapprovingly, and Michael was above it all, striding along with a proprietary glance in each of the establishments they passed as though sizing them up for purchase. Elizabeth tried again.

"In future please let me know before you go out," she said, just as Fee swung into an enveloping embrace with Lloyd in the shadow of a barred doorway lit by neon. Elizabeth dodged around a man wheeling a double bass down the sidewalk to remain close to her. "I have to accompany you. I can't protect you if you persist in skipping out of the places I've checked. Things could have gone very badly back there."

Fionna and Lloyd snuggled together bonelessly into a single mass as though they were made of putty and started kissing. Elizabeth felt embarrassed interrupting. Fee wasn't listening anyhow. With a sigh, Elizabeth dropped back a few paces.

"Never mind," said Beauray. "You can't keep her in a glass case. We'll just have to keep a closer eye on her. That's why you have me."

That wasn't very much comfort. Mr. Ringwall would have expected a British agent to cover every eventuality personally. She was afraid she wasn't holding up her end very well, though she was glad to have Beauray around to help.

When at last she had seen her charge stowed away and the door warded with every seal at her disposal, Boo-Boo escorted Elizabeth to the hotel restaurant for a well-deserved bedtime snack.

"C'mon," he said. "I know the night cook. It'll perk you up."

Over a soothing bowl of jambalaya and some intensely good coffee in the nearly empty dining room, they discussed amulets and the physical component of spells, things that were covered neither by promises to her grandmother nor the Official Secrets Act.

As Elizabeth had suspected, Boo's myriad pockets were full of little bits of this and that. They reminded her of her grandmother's living room cupboard with the hundred tiny drawers. As they talked, he produced thread, feathers, pens, chunks of rock, even a dried lizard. Most of it was just what it appeared to be, but various small packets, wrapped in hanks of dirty cloth or folded in worn envelopes, gave off an intriguing glow to eyes that could see it. In the spirit of hands across the water, Elizabeth turned out some of the contents of her handbag for his inspection, all personal goods, but kept back the government-issue spell components. She suspected Beauray was doing the same.

"Y'know, if we're goin' to be workin' together so closely, I think you ought to call me Boo-Boo," the American agent said, putting away a couple of anti-clumsiness amulets made of copper and white thread.

Elizabeth gulped coffee, feeling it revive her a little. "If you wish, Boo-Boo."

"And I'm goin' to call you Liz," he continued. When she looked at him sternly, he smiled. "Elizabeth takes too long to say, 'specially if we get ourselves in a jam."

"It's not the usual thing," Elizabeth began. She almost said that this was her first big field assignment, but bit back the words. She was supposed to be in charge of the operation, after all. He might not respect her as much if she admitted her inexperience. "This is an important mission for me. I can't just... loosen up."

"You're in N'Awlins now," Boo-Boo said, winningly. "You just about have to. Y'all ought to take it easy. Go on. It'll be easier than you think."

"Well, all right," she said dubiously, rolling the name around on her tongue. "Liz." But she liked it. She hadn't had a nickname since school. "Yes, why not?"

"That's the spirit," Boo-Boo said, leaning back in his chair. "I think we're goin' to get along just fine."

Elizabeth decided it was time that she set a few things straight. "So long as you understand that I am in charge of this mission. Fionna Kenmare's case was assigned to me."

Boo-Boo's eyes glinted their fierce laser-blue at her though his voice stayed mild. "I hate to correct a lady, but you don't have any jurisdiction here without my say-so."

"What? My government asked for your assistance, not to take over!" Liz heard her words echo against the far walls of the room and dropped her voice. "This is my case."

"Well, y'know, there's national sovereignty to consider," Boo-Boo said. "If it was happenin', say, in the British Embassy, that'd be one thing. But we're right here in my city. If y'all want to go home on the next plane it'll be tomorrow afternoon. 'Course, y'all will miss the concert, and that'd be just too bad." His blue eyes flashed with fire. Liz realized that he could make good on his threat. Mr. Ringwall would go apoplectic if she was sent home. She took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Boudreau," she said.

"It's Boo-Boo," he said, the lines of his thin face relaxing. "We shouldn't be fightin', Liz. We both want the same thing."

Yes, Liz thought. Control. "Yes, we do." The last word ended in a yawn. "Oh! I'm sorry." She found herself unable to stop yawning.

"I apologize. Y'all must be frazzled. Are we friends?" Boo-Boo asked, rising to help pull out her chair.

"Certainly," Liz said, rising with a smile for him. He was really quite nice. She'd fight the fight over dominance in the morning, when she had her wits about her once more.

Before dropping her off for the night, Boo produced one more surprise from his pocket.

"You're goin' to need this," he said, placing a cellular telephone the size of a pack of gum in her hand. "Courtesy of Uncle Sam. Yours prob'ly don't work here. You can call home on this, but mostly it's to keep in touch with me." He switched it on and showed her the controls. "My number's set on speed-dial one. G'night, ma'am."

Liz glanced at the clock on her nightstand and did some math. Still too early in London to call in her report. She got into her nightdress, clicked off the lamp, and slid into the blessed embrace of smooth, cool, clean sheets. Sleep ought to have overtaken her like a race car, but she found herself staring at the ceiling in the darkness. She groaned. She shouldn't have drunk that coffee, or she ought to have had a gallon more and just foregone sleep for the night.

Fee Kendale might have been a spoiled brat, but why would anyone seriously want to hurt her? The thought stayed with Liz all that night, and kept her from falling asleep, troubling her even more than the coffee did. What if magic was involved? When, in desperation to distract her brain, she turned on the room television, it was no help. Picking her way through the multitudinous channels available, she found herself watching a chat show where the host and the audience seemed more interested in taunting and shouting at the homosexual guests than in listening to what they had to say. When the host actually rose from his seat to punch one of his guests in the face, knocking him sprawling, she turned it off in disgust.

Hugging her pillow, she drifted off to a troubled sleep, haunted by images of shouting faces contorted in hate.

The dour-faced male announcer stared into the camera lens. "SATN-TV, `The Voice of Reason in the Wilderness,' is now concluding its broadcast day. Thank you for watching. And now, the national anthem."

Over the familiar whine of the horns, the control room engineer, Ed Cielinski, began slamming tapes into the machines to cue up for the morning. The nighttime talk show looked like any one of three hundred others produced anywhere else in the country, but with one big difference. All the trappings were there, the host, the comfy chairs, the audience, but on stage there was also an altar in the shape of a pig. On its blood-red back was an upside-down pentacle, broken crosses and stars, a mangled crescent, plus black candles in holders. The aim of the show was to cause bloodthirsty controversy that almost always broke out in violence.

The police had finally dragged that night's combatants off the studio floor. A couple of them wanted to keep the fight going. The defender—designated victim, if anyone had asked Ed for his opinion—was being loaded onto a stretcher by paramedics with his neck in a brace. The host of the live broadcast, Nick Trenton, smug expression back firmly in place, got up, wiped the blood off his chin and straightened his tie. He strode out of the room. All in a day's work, thought the engineer. Trenton would never so much as glance backward at the problems he caused. It was all good for the ratings, Ed thought sourly.

Ed waited until the camera operators and lighting crew were gone, then turned out the spotlights. The last one, at the rear of the stage, over the gigantic enlargement of the rock group led by the lady with green hair, faded slowly to black. The next designated victim, Ed thought, not without a measure of sympathy. He slapped down the audio monitor switch as his employer, Augustus Kingston, the owner and station manager, walked into the room.

"Everything work okay?" he asked Cielinski.

"Yes, sir," said the engineer. "The frequency didn't interfere with the picture a bit. Went out nice and strong."

"How's reception on that special transmission line?"

"Nothing big. We haven't heard from our contact out in New Orleans yet."

"That won't be for a day or two," the old man said, rocking back on his heels in anticipation. "Let 'em get settled. Got to give it all a chance to build." He pulled a cigar out of his pocket. The engineer winced on behalf of his machines as his boss lit up and blew a plume of cloyingly heavy smoke towards the ceiling.

"Yes, sir, it's like casting your bread out on the waters, Ed," he said, laughing heartily. "You get it all back threefold. When we start casting that there bread out there, we're going to collect plenty back again. Them godless, magic-loving pagans won't stand a chance, now, will they?"

The engineer gulped quietly to himself. "No, sir."

The old man stopped for a leisurely puff, and stared into the ember of his cigar with a pleased look on his creased face. "No. No, they won't. And the justice of it is, they'll do it to themselves."