Music to My Sorrow

by Mercedes Lackey

  And someone had. Someone in the service of one of their own had given Wheatley these weapons—or else how could Wheatley have come by his knowledge of them and their ways? And there was worse. He spoke of methods by which he could infallibly detect the presence of the Sidhe, piercing all glamouries, and Gabriel had no doubt that he possessed them.

  Such arts have been admirable—if Wheatley were Gabriel's pawn. And even so, the Unseleighe lord had a grudging admiration for the clever trick. Only think of using a human to slay one's enemies!

  But here and now, Wheatley and his deadly toys were nothing other than a terrible impediment to Gabriel's own intentions. For a moment Gabriel wondered if one of his enemies had sent Wheatley here to destroy his carefully crafted plans. If he used them—if he discovered how many of that foolish mortal Fairchild's newly hired employees were in reality the "demons" of his imaginings . . .

  All would be lost.

  To which Court should he look for such a subtle, elegant sabotage? The Bright Court had known for longer than the Dark how precarious Gabriel's position was; it was the Bright Court which even now held his son and heir Jachiel in its clutches; but such a feint was not Seleighe style, nor had he heard any rumors of a mortal Smith held hostage in any of the Bright Domains. And Wheatley himself might not know who had set him on.

  But why concern himself with such things now? Ferret out the cause later; now was the time for direct action, before all his plans were undone!

  And after his initial shock, he knew the course he must take to protect himself and his purpose.

  Wheatley must die.

  Proof against levin-bolts and glamouries his hideous garment might be, but not against a bullet. Gabriel would arrange it as soon as he could find a suitable lackey to bear the Cold Iron weapon.

  And Billy Fairchild—who had brought this traitor within the gate, who had concealed his presence from Gabriel with low animal cunning—Billy had outlived his usefulness as well. He was becoming far too independent for Gabriel's tastes. Whether he had acted on his own, or had been tricked by another, he had shown himself too clearly as the liability he was to be allowed to remain alive. Gabriel was far too fond of his own life and his own power for that.

  The Fairchild empire would survive. There would be, after all, a grieving widow. So much more malleable, so much more easily controlled. Gabriel was certain that not only would Donna Fairchild take strength from his presence and rise up to take over her husband's ministry, but that she would do exactly what Gabriel told her to.

  Yes. Gabriel relaxed fractionally, feeling the tide of red rage receding, and even managed to smile. Tomorrow was the hearing, after which little Heavenly Grace would be coming home. A few days after that would be the concert. And then, he would have time to take care of both Wheatley and his soon-to-be-former employer thoroughly.

  And permanently.

  * * *

  Ace had been too nervous to do anything but stay in her hotel room after they drove back from the casino and cathedral. Hosea had gone out to bring in something for dinner, and she'd dutifully given Ria a call on her cellphone to let her know that everything was all right. After that she'd tried to add a few more pages to her letter to Jaycie, but everything she'd written sounded angry and desperate. She wouldn't want to get a letter like that. Why would he?

  Finally, in disgust, she turned on the television and began flipping through the channels. In an effort to lure customers away from the casinos, the hotel offered dozens of channels with crystal-clear reception; she flipped impatiently past program after program, never pausing for more than a few seconds.

  Once her attention was caught by a familiar cadence. She'd stumbled across one of the religious channels, where an impassioned young man was leaning forward over the podium, making intense eye-contact with the camera.

  "Jesus—" he began.

  Ace quickly turned off the set.

  She'd just read a book instead.

  Half an hour later she was deep into Margot's new book, Bad Companions, reading about Prince Perigord and Azure Bowl's latest adventures as bodyguards to a temperamental princess who really, really, didn't want to get married. Considering that her bridegroom was a dragon, Ace could see her point. On the other hand, the princess was the sort of person that you'd want to get out of the house (or palace) just about any way you could, in Ace's estimation, so there might be some justice on both sides.

  About the time she reached Chapter Three, and Princess Klepsydra was about to steal some clothes and go sneaking off in the middle of the night to get into even more trouble, Hosea came back with a couple of large bags of food.

  "There's Chinese take-out for tonight," he said, as he came through the connecting door between their rooms, "and juice and muffins for the morning. And I didn't forget your coffees."

  Ace took the smallest of the bags from him gratefully, and went over to set them on the dresser, out of harm's way. When she turned back, Hosea was setting out cartons of Chinese on the table beneath the window.

  "Just how many people were you planning to feed?" Ace gibed. There was enough food here to feed both of them twice over, she was pretty sure, and she wasn't sure she was all that hungry.

  "Well, Ah wasn't sure what you'd be in the mood for, so Ah bought a little bit o' everything," Hosea said. "There's a refrigerator in my room, so anything left over will keep."

  But oddly enough, once the cartons were open, her stomach reminded her that breakfast had been a long time ago—and there hadn't been much of it, either. The food was surprisingly good, for take-out bought in a strange city where you didn't know much about the kitchen or the cook, and there wasn't much to tuck away for later when the two of them were finished.

  Hosea suggested going out to a movie, but Ace shook her head, cradling her second cup of coffee beneath her chin.

  "I know it's silly—I know I'm just as likely to run into him in New York as here—more, if he was really looking for me, but . . ."

  "Well, no harm in getting your rest. We have to meet Mr. Tilford over at the courthouse tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. Then Ah'll play least in sight, just like Ah was pokin' around after a story, and you can get shut of this trouble once an' for all. And maybe there's something worth lookin' at on the television for a couple of hours."

  He picked up the remote, lying on the bed where Ace had left it, and hit the "power" button.

  Immediately the screen was filled with the image of a dignified man in a bright green suit. The dissociation between his face, calm and dignified, and the surreal color of his suit—like something out of a comic book—drew their fascinated attention. He was speaking with calm intensity.

  "—have infiltrated our entire culture. These demons are alien in nature to everything we know and understand. There is no possibility of communicating with them on any meaningful level. Anyone who has ever attempted to do so has been horribly murdered. They have the ability not only to influence the thoughts of the weak-minded, but some people have actually become their willing slaves."

  "Is this the Sci-Fi Channel?" Hosea asked doubtfully. "Ah don't recognize the movie."

  "No," Ace said, sounding baffled. "This is one of the Christian channels. See that logo down in the corner?"

  "Worst of all," the man in the green suit went on, "is their obsession with children. I have studied this new demonic outbreak for years, and in all cases where they show themselves, they target children. Your children are their prey, and they can lure them away from you before you have any idea that there is anything wrong. You've all seen those pathetic faces on the milk cartons, the postcards, the television shows! Where do you think they have all vanished to? I know! I can tell you! They have gone somewhere where neither man nor law can ever find them!"

  Hosea's brows creased with puzzlement.

  "But there are ways to fight these demons, these child-thieves. They can be located, they can be identified—and they can be killed. With the Reverend Fairchild's help—"

  Ace g
ave a strangled gasp and nearly dropped her coffee. Hosea put a steadying arm around her shoulders. Both of them missed the man in the green suit's next few words, but they weren't hard to guess, from the number and address that flashed up on the screen, superimposed over the podium. Obviously this was the point in the spiel where people were encouraged to give, and give generously.

  The image on the screen pulled back from the tight close-up, and now Ace and Hosea could see that the man in green was standing in front of a drawing of hideous monster with dead white skin, enormous slanted green eyes without pupils, and long pointed ears. A mane of hair as white as its skin cascaded down its back. It was naked except for a ragged loincloth, and its fingers and toes ended in long hooked talons. Its mouth was open in a snarl, exposing long curved fangs. Above it was written the words "The Enemy Among Us!"

  "Tell me that ain't what I think it is," Hosea said, sounding stunned. Not half as stunned as Ace felt, though.

  "Thank you, Brother Wheatley, for that inspiring message of hope." Billy Fairchild stepped up to the podium. "What's that you say, friends? 'Reverend, he's telling us demons are after our children—where's the hope in that?' My friends, my dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, every day is a battle. And knowing our enemy is the first step to winning the war. It is the hidden enemies—the enemies that masquerade as friends—the enemies that we are forced to pretend are our friends—that do us the greatest harm—"

  The camera was focused tightly on Billy Fairchild now, and Parker Wheatley had apparently left the stage. Hosea moved to change the channel, but Ace stopped him.

  "No, wait," she said. "I want to hear this."

  "—knowing our enemies, fighting our enemies, the enemies of America, whoever and whatever they are, is the first step to living a truly pure Christian life! Every time we discover a new enemy among us—a new enemy we can search out and destroy—there is new hope for our victory in this battle, new hope to create the Kingdom of God on Earth that our Lord Jesus Christ promised us would come! Did he promise it would come through peace? No! The Lord Jesus did not promise us peace, but a sword—and it is the sword and the gun that all good God-fearing Christians must take up now, to purge and purify God's most holy creation of the enemies of God! Only then will we be worthy! Only then will we be able to build the New Jerusalem on the sacred soil of the United States of America: God's own country!"

  There was a great deal more in this vein, as Billy Fairchild whipped his congregation up into something little short of a mob. The message was clear, and not all that subtle, either: the destruction of worldly enemies brought spiritual salvation.

  At last the image switched to the Salvation Choir, and Hosea hit the "mute" button. The two of them looked at each other uneasily.

  "That's new, what he's saying," Ace said. She shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts. "It's . . ."

  "It's the kind o' thing that can get a body into trouble—and drag a lot of other fellers down with him," Hosea said.

  "And that other man," Ace said. "The one talking about—" she wrinkled her nose "—demons. The one Daddy called 'Brother Wheatley.' Wasn't that man in Washington that Ria was after named Parker Wheatley?"

  "Ayah," Hosea said, sighing. "He was hunting the Good Neighbors, so Miz Llewellyn said. And if you looked at the drawing that feller on the television had, it might look a little like one o' them, if you looked at it right. If you wanted to make elves look like monsters," Hosea said, his voice a mixture of anger and disgust. The more he had time to think about it, the more likely it was that this was Wheatley—Beth had told Eric about the lurid green suits that all of Wheatley's agents had worn, suits somehow proof against all Sidhe magic.

  "I thought she'd gotten rid of him," Ace said unhappily.

  "Got him out of his Washington job right enough," Hosea said. "He was working with one of the Good Neighbors; well, he wasn't good at all, he's a good part of the reason why Jeanette's locked up tight in my banjo here. But Eric did for that one; put him where he can't ever hurt anyone again."

  "Don't you people ever kill anybody?" Ace burst out. She covered her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry, Hosea, I didn't mean that, honestly I didn't, it's just—"

  "You've had a powerful fright, Ah know," Hosea said, patting her shoulder. "But Eric didn't want to kill Aerune any more than you would have if you'd been there. Ah reckon nobody with the Shine on 'em really wants to kill anything, less'n it's the only way. And Miz Llewellyn, well, Ah don't reckon she could have expected Mr. Wheatley to go off to work for your Daddy, now, could she?"

  That startled a tear-filled laugh from Ace. "And now he's telling everybody that people like Jaycie are demons out to steal their children."

  "Trouble is," Hosea said gravely, "there's just enough truth in it that he can make a power of trouble if he can figure out how. We'd better let Ria know, if she doesn't know already."

  * * *

  "You'll be delighted to know that an old friend of yours is doing well," Claire said without preamble, as she came through the door of Ria's office.

  Claire MacLaren looked like a kindly old Scottish grandmother, and nothing could have been farther from the truth. She was one of the very few people in the world who had the right to walk in on Ria Llewellyn unannounced at any time, and that was rare as blue roses. She was a private investigator, one of the very best there was, and more than that, she was a friend Ria could trust absolutely to always tell her the truth. That was even rarer than blue roses; Ria was a powerful woman, even discounting her half-elven heritage, and power made people, even honest people, lie to you. Money made them search for what they thought you wanted to hear. But nothing impressed Claire MacLaren: not power, not position, and certainly not money.

  Several months ago, Ria had put Claire in charge of a "watch and warn" list of people she wanted to keep track of. Some of them, Ria was nearly sure would never be seen in mortal lands again—like Robert Lintel, former CEO of Threshold. Others simply needed her watchful protection, like bookstore owner Marley Bell.

  And others . . .

  "Tell me," Ria said with a sigh, hitting the keyboard to save her work, and sitting back in her seat, as Claire pulled up a chair without needing an invitation. LlewellCo's business day was over, but not by more than an hour or so; a number of employees were still in the building, and Ria expected to be here for several hours yet herself. Besides, it was still the working-day on the West Coast. No point in closing up shop until the domestic operations were over. Disasters always happened five minutes before closing.

  "Ye'll recall we were keeping a close eye on young Billy Sunday and his wonder show down in New Jersey," Claire said, the disapproval as strong as the Scots burr in her voice. She was good, hard-headed Scots Presbyterian; the spectacle of televangelists (which she considered to be over-prideful ignoramuses who made themselves into television stars and turned religion into a marketable commodity) grated on her nerves. "Weel, it's that hard getting someone close to him, or getting good information that isn't the open-source glad-handing and PR, but I did manage to place someone on the fringes of his merry band. It seems that bad apples flock together—to mangle a metaphor, if you'll permit. Who should show up on Mr. Fairchild's doorstep to join his crusade but our own Parker Wheatley?"

  "Last seen trying to take his government spook-hunting agency private, with mixed success," Ria commented sourly. The fact that Parker Wheatley hadn't simply taken his lumps and gone into an innocuous retirement breeding fancy goldfish or collecting stamps was something of a sore point with her. The man was obsessed, a fanatic, and an ongoing thorn in her side. "I suppose it was only a matter of time before he went looking for a new source of funding, but I wouldn't have thought a respectable televangelist would touch him."

  Claire tilted her head to the side. "Weel, Ria my lassie, you've got to wonder just how 'respectable' a man who got kicked off the buckle of the Bible Belt and went on to build a 'prayer casino' is. Maybe launching a crusade against the 'demons among us'—
not that the silly fool Wheatley is likely to find any more of the craythurs now than he did when he was in Washington—would fit right in with everything else at Mr. Fairchild's sideshow. But I do wonder what this demon-hunting will actually involve?"

  That was a good question, and where Wheatley was concerned, unlikely to have a palatable answer. Wheatley had originally been the pawn of Aerune mac Audelaine, as Ria remembered only too well, and Aerune's plan had been to start a war—not between the Bright Court and the Dark, but between humans and the Sidhe. Aerune had wanted to exterminate the mortals whom he blamed for the death of his beloved Aerete uncounted centuries before. But in forging his cat's-paw, he seemed to have imbued Parker Wheatley with a fixed conviction that the Sidhe were the implacable enemy of humanity and must be destroyed, and apparently Wheatley didn't intend to abandon his mission just because he'd lost his insider position in Washington. Obsession could be a weapon, both for the obsessed and the object of obsession. Unfortunately, Ria had not yet thought of the key to turn his obsession into her weapon.

  "He'll want to recruit new spear-carriers," Ria said slowly, "and do as much as he can to re-create the PDI in the private sector. That will take money." And how many of Aerune's Sidhe-hunting weapons does he have left? Any of them? "Billy has money, maybe even enough to fund Wheatley properly, but he'll only hand over so much of it without tangible verifications. He'll want to see one of Wheatley's demons in the flesh. No one really expects you to produce an angel on demand—in fact, suggesting you could would make even the devout think about measuring you for a white coat. But say there are demons, and people will want to see something that convinces them, with or without horns."