Claire studied Ria's face, an uncompromising appraisal in her light blue eyes. "If it couldn't be done, you wouldn't be worried, Ria lass. So you think there's something out there for our Mr. Wheatley to catch—and you don't think it would be a good thing if he did."
Ria hesitated, caught unexpectedly off-guard. She hadn't expected Claire to be able to follow the argument to its logical conclusion so quickly. What should she do? If she told her that Wheatley wasn't hunting demons, but elves, the woman would think she'd gone stark staring mad.
Wouldn't she?
"I don't think it would be good for anyone at all if Mr. Wheatley caught anyone and put them in a cage on television. And as you'll remember from the Marley Bell case, Mr. Wheatley is prone to make mistakes," Ria said carefully. "And I wouldn't put it past Mr. Wheatley to manufacture whatever evidence he needed, either, at this point. He's not going to want to lose another sponsor ever again, and I think he'll come up with whatever it takes to prevent that from happening." There. That covered all bases.
"Then we'll just have to save him from himself—though saving a fool from his foolishness is a fool's errand," Claire said, giving Ria a measuring look. "Any road, he'll be appearing on tonight's Praise Hour to speak his piece—it shouldn't be anything too much different than the speeches he's been giving over the last few months, but I'll tape it and make a transcript for the file. You might want to watch it yourself."
"I think I will," Ria said. "Maybe you'd like to stay and watch it with me—frankly, I'm not sure I can stomach all that Hallelujah-and-send-me-your-money by myself."
Claire snorted in agreement. "And you can send out for dinner—it's nothing to be facing on an empty stomach, and that way I'll know you've had at least one decent meal today."
* * *
The two women watched the program in grim silence on the plasma-screen television that had been concealed behind the panels of an inlaid Chinese screen mounted on the far wall of Ria's office. The remains of their meals were piled up on one corner of the conference table for the cleaning service to deal with—Ria's choice would have been Japanese from Nobu, but she had deferred to Claire's taste and had sent out a messenger for the sort of thing that Claire considered a "real" dinner—in which roast beef figured prominently. Now they sat rather primly together on the leather couch facing the wall. It wasn't the first time Ria had seen Billy Fairchild's Praise Hour, though she'd never let Ace suspect that she watched it. Ria believed in knowing her enemy.
Claire had gotten Ria tapes of his older shows, the ones out of Tulsa, when Ace had still been leading the choir, and she'd watched them too—both for comparison, and to give herself a better idea of the range of Ace's power, since she'd never seen her young charge's Talent in action.
The difference was astounding . . . and disturbing.
Oh, the sets hadn't changed very much. The production values were a little slicker, there was the look of a bit more money, but that wasn't it.
Before, he'd been pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of his kind: love, forgiveness, hellfire, and Full Gospel. Having Ace had been what made him special enough to break out of the pack.
Now, his message had changed. Profoundly.
Oh, it was cleverly done, of course. Unless you were listening closely you wouldn't quite be able to put your finger on the difference. But now Billy was preaching hate, not love. Hate the sinner and the sin. Salvation through purification: purge yourself of weakness (and Billy identified tolerance with weakness), purge your country of sinners, take vengeance upon the ungodly for past wrongs. . . .
That was the heart of the problem. It wasn't enough to purge yourself of your so-called "weakness" and pack yourself full of prejudice, no, you were supposed to inflict your intolerance and prejudices on others, and institutionalize them as the law of the land.
He was calling for a crusade in the most ancient sense of the word: a real-world war against everybody who didn't share his exceptionally narrow vision of what was right.
And in the background was Parker Wheatley. Just as Claire had said he would be. And since he was right up there on the podium, leprechaun-green suit and all, it was pretty clear he was going to get his chance at the microphone before the program was over.
Right now, though, Billy was holding forth on his idea of the New Crusade. And it was ugly. This was very new, and part of the program that, had any of Billy's followers somehow missed the last several months of broadcasts, would be something of a shock to the system.
This, Ria thought, faintly chilled, is very interesting. It's ratings suicide. You can't grow a market share with a message like this, not in this day and age, not for long—and whatever else Billy Fairchild is, he's a clever little demagogue who loves power and money more than he loves his version of his God. Sure, he'll pick up the hardcase audience, but at some point he'll be losing followers at the same rate that he gains them, and once he's got the fringe-fanatics, he'll plateau. Say what you like about American people, when you go to either extreme, you lose all but the lunatics.
So why is he doing this? Does he mean to make the Sidhe his target? Wheatley can't have convinced him of their existence this fast—and if he had, Billy would be putting out a far more focused message. Besides, he's been hatemongering ever since Ace left, from what I can tell. Odd, that. He might have changed the message, but more than that, the intensity of the message had changed. It's not just that he's gotten a lot more blatant about it over the last few weeks . . . he's gotten more aggressive, too.
Parker Wheatley, as expected, said his piece. Ria nobly restrained herself from putting an expensive little antique bronze statuette through the television. But she certainly thought about all the things she would like to introduce Wheatley to, and vice versa. About the time the choir had finished singing and a message was being displayed about an upcoming free Christian music concert to be held on the casino grounds, Ria's private phone line rang.
She picked up the phone. There were only a handful of people who had that number, and she would leap out of a shower if any of them called—because none of them would call "just to chat."
It was Hosea, calling to see if Ria knew about Parker Wheatley's peculiar reappearance.
"Yes-s-s," Ria drawled. "I do have to say that I don't think green is really his color, Hosea."
She heard an appreciative chuckle from the other end of the line. "Ah'll be sure to tell Ace you said so, Miz Ria."
"Do. And tell her this certainly isn't anything for her to worry about. She just needs to concentrate on her court date tomorrow, that's all. If Wheatley wants to chase little green men that he has no chance of catching, that's his privilege. Certainly his association with Billy Fairchild isn't going to do either of them any good. I doubt that the judge is going to find the pursuit of imaginary creatures—no matter what Billy calls them—to be any sign of a stable mind."
"That's all right then," Hosea said agreeably. "We'll see you some time tomorrow."
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Ria said, and Hosea laughed out loud.
"Ah speckt Ah'd better mind my manners a deal better than that, ma'am," he said.
Ria acknowledged the joke with an answering laugh and hung up.
"Brave speeches to the troops?" Claire asked, with a tilt of her head towards the phone.
Ria sighed. "No sense in worrying the children. And even if Wheatley is planning to go back on the game, it will take him time to put even a small tactical force together. And unfortunately, he isn't breaking any laws that I know of by being a nutcase. Or a nuisance." The only problem is that I can't tell from this if he's managed to find another Unseleighe patron who thinks they can play with mortal fire and not get burned. I suppose the simplest thing to do would be to ask Eric to check that out through Prince Arvin, but I hate to distract him when he's so involved with his custody case right now—and besides, I REALLY hate owing favors to elves.
"So there's nothing to hang him on . . . until he goes out and starts kidnapping pe
ople again," Claire said grimly.
"Look on the bright side," Ria said lightly. "Maybe you'll find out he has a drug habit first. Or likes underage hookers. Or surfs kiddie-porn sites on the Internet."
"Aye," Claire said. "There's always hope. But I doubt anyone who survived in Washington as long as he did will be so cooperative."
"Oh, you never know," Ria said absently. "Sooner or later, everyone makes a mistake."
Chapter 5:
Preacher's Daughter
At 9:30 the following morning, Ace met Derek Tilford at the red brick courthouse on Bacharach Boulevard. She'd taken a taxi there, just in case anyone might be watching—you could say a lot of things about Margot's car, but you couldn't say it was inconspicuous. Hosea said he'd be along later; even if the hearing was a closed session, a Bard had ways of being where he thought he ought to be. She hadn't been able to eat much; her stomach was too full of flutterbyes and her shoulders all in knots. Hosea had somehow managed to wolf down enough for both of them. She wondered how he could do it.
Maybe it was just that it wasn't his parents trying to put the shackles back on him.
Mr. Tilford was waiting for her on the steps of the courthouse. He smiled approvingly when he saw her, and escorted her inside to a conference room where they could go over last-minute details.
Her clothes had been carefully chosen for the occasion: a gray skirt, navy sweater with a white blouse, navy pumps. She looked old enough to vote. She certainly looked like someone who could be on her own and take care of herself responsibly.
She had documents showing she had a job, working in the internship program at LlewellCo, and if it wasn't quite true, the papers would certainly stand up to any legal scrutiny. Come to that, Ria probably had someone somewhere in the organization who would swear convincingly about all the work Ace had been doing as an intern. She was studying for her GED, and in a few more months she would have finished all her high school courses and gotten her diploma.
"Today's hearing should really be little more than a formality before the Court grants your petition," Mr. Tilford said. "Judge Springsteen has a great deal of experience in Family Court matters. I've looked over her record, and I haven't seen anything to worry me. The fact that you ran away from home counts against you, of course, but set against that is your parents' insistence on an inadequate level of home-schooling without proper State oversight, their failure to notify proper authorities when you disappeared, the fact that your father has insisted on your performing on stage from earliest childhood without any recompense to you, and the fact that he has forced you to continue to do so against your expressed desire to quit."
"It makes him sound like an awfully bad man," Ace said softly. Her stomach knotted again; she didn't want Billy to sound like he'd been abusing her! For one thing, it would make her mama very unhappy. For another, well, by Billy's lights, he hadn't been abusing her, only—
—only forcing her into a mold she didn't fit into—
—but he'd thought he was doing his best by her—
—hadn't he?
"Perhaps a bit rash," Derek Tilford suggested. "And certainly, as Ms. Llewellyn has undoubtedly informed you, you are entitled to financial recompense for your contribution to the success of Fairchild Ministries, Incorporated, over the approximately twelve-year period during which you performed as part of the, ah, Ministry."
"I don't want any of his money—I told Ria that," Ace said forcefully. "It would be like taking blood money."
"Indeed," Mr. Tilford said noncommittally. "But forgoing such a sizable and legally proper claim on the Fairchild assets, which the most conservative estimate would have to place at well over a million dollars, if not as high as five million, should present yet another inducement for the Fairchilds to withdraw any opposition they might make to your petition."
Ace blinked. She wasn't quite sure she followed what Mr. Tilford was saying, but it seemed to mean that if she promised that she didn't want to be paid for all the singing she'd done in the choir, they might be grateful enough to let her go.
One thing she was sure of: as much as Billy might say he loved her, he loved money and the limelight more.
"What if it doesn't work?" she asked.
"Then, Ms. Fairchild, we will try something else until we find something that does work. In the worst possible case, if your petition is denied and you are ordered by the Court to resume residence beneath your parents' roof, you will have at least forty-eight hours in which to comply. I have known Ria Llewellyn for many years. A great deal can happen in forty-eight hours when Ms. Llewellyn sets her mind to it."
Ace felt a sharp pang of relief. She hadn't known Ria for as long as Mr. Tilford had, but she'd certainly known her for long enough to know that he was right about that.
So even if the worst did happen, it wouldn't be quite the worst.
She'd still have time to escape . . . somewhere. And if that somewhere happened to be a place where Billy Fairchild couldn't get even if God Himself gave him a hand—which God Himself certainly would not—well, there were worse things.
Like being under Billy's thumb again. Because where Billy was, Gabriel Horn was too. And Gabriel Horn was not ever going to let her go again once he got his hands on her.
Maybe she'd even deliver her letter to Jaycie in person. She didn't know if she'd like living with a bunch of elves, much as she liked reading about them in books—Jaycie had hated his home so much he'd run away to New York and tried to kill himself rather than go back to his family, after all, and even if the letter he'd sent said he liked the new place he was living just fine, Ace wasn't quite convinced.
But anything—anything!—would be better than being where Gabriel Horn could get at her.
"Are you ready to go?" Mr. Tilford said.
Ace took a deep breath. "I'm ready," she said.
* * *
Walking into the courtroom was just like walking on stage had always been; a sudden sense that she was the center of attention. The feeling was just the same, even though she could count the number of people here on the fingers of both hands and have some left over. This wasn't like the courtrooms she'd seen on television. This place was old, smelled musty; the red carpet was worn thin where people did a lot of walking on it. The woodwork was dark, the walls a dingy cream.
Her father was sitting over at a table on the right, with a man she didn't recognize beside him. She looked for Mama and didn't see her, and felt a confused mixture of disappointment and relief, then let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding in. Gabriel Horn wasn't there.
On the right was their table. She followed Mr. Tilford up to it and sat down. It was faintly sticky, probably with layers and layers of polish that no one had bothered to remove before they added another layer.
She didn't see Hosea anywhere, but he'd warned her that she might not see him even if he was there. He'd promised her he'd come, though, and she had to believe that.
"All rise for the honorable Andrea J. Springsteen," said the bailiff.
* * *
Hosea slipped into the back of the courtroom just as everyone was rising for the entrance of the judge. Nobody noticed him, even though he was a big man and normally drew stares, one way or another, just about everywhere he went.
But one of the first bits of shine he'd ever learned—even before he'd met Eric—was the ability to make people just not pay any particular attention to him, and he'd only gotten better at it under Eric's guidance. Nobody had noticed him walk in here—even with Jeanette slung over his back—and nobody was likely to notice him sitting here in the back unless they bumped right into him.
He sat down when everyone else did, pulling the soft-sided banjo case onto his lap, and looked around. There was Ace, looking as fretful as a cat on a hotplate. And there, on the other side of the room, was her Daddy.
Only there was something not quite right about him.
Hosea had grown up believing in ghosts and spirits as naturally as New Yorkers believed in
winning lottery numbers. In the mountains where he'd been born there were lonely places that were haunted by things that had once been human . . . and things that had never been human. People relied on modern medicine from the Flatlands when they could get it, but when they couldn't—or when it failed them—they turned easily back to the older ways of herbs and charms and spoken prayers. The loving grandparents who'd raised him had both had extensive experience of the outside world, yet neither had hesitated to turn to root-cunning and prayer to set things right. Hosea's grandfather had plowed and planted by the moon until the day he'd died, and the rocky little hill-farm in Morton's Fork had never failed to feed them.
So long before Hosea had met Eric, or Toni, Paul, José—and Jimmie, God rest her courageous soul—he'd known what magick was, and how it looked.
He was seeing magick now.
The Reverend was not a conjureman himself. Ace had talked about him maybe a little more than she'd realized, and Hosea had formed a good idea of the man. He might not be right with God according to Hosea's lights, but Hosea didn't think he was the sort to involve himself with hoodoo. Not knowingly.
But he reeked of it. He was carrying something that someone had given to him—or slipped into his pocket without his knowing it. Something that wasn't a kindly thing.
Hosea summoned up his mage-sight—it came a lot more easily these days—and as he did he could see a baleful red glow shining right through Billy Fairchild's jacket pocket. Worse, long tendrils, drifting as slowly as smoke, were moving inexorably toward the judge's bench.
It didn't take Bardcraft to know that if those tendrils touched the judge, she was going to see everything Billy's way.
Hosea unzipped Jeanette's carrying case and laid his hand across the silver strings of the banjo. He couldn't play it in here—not and stay unnoticed—but he needed to keep the magick in whatever fetch-bag Billy Fairchild was carrying from doing its work.
What had Eric told him once? "It's not the music, really, Hosea. The power's inside of us. The music's just the way we express it. With a little practice—well, a lot of practice—you'll be able to do what you do without the music. You can BE the music."
Music to My Sorrow Page 13
