He guessed he was going to have to skip the practice and get straight to being the music. Right now.
He pressed his fingers hard against the strings, feeling the silver press into his calluses. There was a faint silvery shiver from the banjo, as if Jeanette were trying to waken into life. He let his mind fill with the music he knew so well: "Callie's Reel," and "Sally Goodin," and the far-too-appropriate "Devil Went Down to Georgia": rollicking tunes, filled with life and power and force. And with them he called up a mighty wind, a wind that existed only in the same place that the red tendrils existed, blowing them back toward Billy Fairchild, away from Judge Springsteen.
With his mage-sight, he saw the ghost-tendrils bending backward, like the streamers of smoke they so resembled, blow away and dissolve. But as soon as he stopped willing the power, they reformed, stronger than before, and he had to begin again. Only now it was a little harder to think of the tunes, to hold them in his mind, and a little harder to call up that ghostly wind. The baleful power wasn't weaker, though. If anything, it was pushing harder, as if his opposition had made it stronger.
Hosea felt a twinge of alarm.
If Eric were here, he could have destroyed the fetch-bag, or put a shield around the judge that the smoke-things couldn't get through, or done a dozen other things, but Eric had years of training. All Hosea could do was keep sweeping the baleful power back, knowing that his ability to do even that was growing steadily weaker.
* * *
The hearing went on for a very long time. She'd thought it would be quick, with the judge just looking at her papers and making up her mind, and that only the lawyers would have to talk. But she read everything over carefully, listened to both the lawyers say why her petition should—and shouldn't—be granted, and then she wanted to ask Ace and her father both a lot of questions.
They both had to come up in front of the judge by themselves, and it took all Ace's will to walk those few short steps to stand beside her father. Daddy was just as mad at her as she'd ever seen him. He didn't like that she'd cut her hair, he didn't like that she was wearing makeup—although she'd had to wear makeup for the broadcasts, he and Mama had never let her wear any out on the street—he didn't like her clothes. The clothes Mama had bought for her had always been lacy and frilly—"real pretty dresses," Mama had always said, to make her look like Daddy's little angel. She'd never worn a pair of jeans in her life until she'd run away. Now she looked—well, she looked like a girl fixing to be a professional woman, an independent woman, a girl who wasn't reckoning herself to be a girl anymore. Daddy didn't like that, not one bit. He wanted her to still be "Little Grace" who always did what she was told and never questioned anything.
But he was smart enough not to go on at her with the judge watching. All he said was, "Your mama misses you, Heavenly Grace," in that sorrowful way of his, when they were both standing before the judge.
Ace knew better than to answer back. She clamped her mouth shut—hard—on all the things she longed to say. Misses me so much she never wrote me, or called me—and neither did you. I wonder why that was? She looked up at the judge, trying to make her face say nothing at all.
"Reverend Fairchild, I've heard what your lawyer has to say, and I've heard what your daughter's lawyer has to say. Now I'd like to hear what you have to say."
"I'm a man of God, your Honor," Billy said solemnly. "I have nothing to hide."
Judge Springsteen raised an eyebrow. "Let's start with the claim that your daughter was forced to participate in your . . . evangelical activities against her inclinations. What do you have to say to that?"
Billy's face was a study in honest amazement, and Ace gritted her teeth. "Your Honor, my daughter always loved to sing! Her voice was a gift from the Lord Jesus! Ever since she could walk, she'd climb up on stage and sing right along with the choir. I never thought for a single minute . . . but if she don't want to do that any more, I won't ask her to. Just so she comes home where she belongs."
"And the matter of her schooling?" the judge asked, shuffling through the papers.
"Honey, you know your mama and I just want what's best for you," Billy said, speaking directly to Ace now. "You come home and we'll talk about it. If you're really set on going away somewhere to college, I guess we've raised you so you can tell right from wrong."
The judge turned her attention to Ace. "You've heard what Mr. Fairchild has had to say. Are you willing to withdraw your petition, Ms. Fairchild?"
He sounded so reasonable—so reasonable—and how could the judge know that the second he got her back in his hands he'd go back on every promise he made, every pledge, that even if the judge made him swear on a mountain of Bibles he'd hold that no promise made to the "ungodly" was anything but a pledge made to be broken?
"I'm sorry," Ace said, looking down and shaking her head. "I can't do that."
"Now you listen to me, Heavenly Grace—" Billy began, the heat coming into his voice, and that hard tone she remembered only too well.
"Please remember where you are, Mr. Fairchild," Judge Springsteen said, rapping her gavel once. After a moment, she continued. "Emancipated minor status is a major step, not to be undertaken lightly. Your parents would like to try again to become a family with you. I can appoint a social worker to make regular visitations to your home to make sure your legal rights are respected. I can also order the three of you to attend family counseling sessions with a counselor of my choice in order to ease the transition, if you agree to return home."
Yes, and how long before the counselor is bought off with Daddy's money or Daddy's charm? How long before the social worker gets tired of making visits? Ace knew, from the talk she heard over at Guardian House, just how strapped all the Social Services were for money to pay for personnel. Seemed like the politicians in charge liked the way that people like Daddy handled their family affairs, and aimed to see there weren't many resources to interfere with suchlike. The judge could order all she liked, but Ace wasn't being beaten—not physically, anyway—nor sexually abused, and she'd be pretty low on any social worker's already too-crowded checklist. Ace could imagine all too well what would happen. Two, three weeks at the most, and the visits would become phone calls, and quick ones at that, and the counselor would write The End to the counseling sessions in order to tend to somebody who had a habit of whipping his kids with an electric cord.
"Well, now, Heavenly Grace, that sounds like the best—" Billy began.
"No." Her voice was barely a whisper. "No," she said again, more loudly. "I don't want to go back. I don't want to live with them. They won't change, because they don't see any reason to change, no matter what. They think they know best, and that won't change either. You don't know him, Judge Springsteen. I do. I know what he'll do. No."
But there wasn't any anger in her words, only a kind of mournfulness. She hadn't thought saying that would make her feel so sad. It wasn't as if she thought she could go back and live like a family, even if Gabriel Horn weren't there to turn her life into a nightmare. There was no way Judge Springsteen or anyone else could remake Billy Fairchild's character; make him anything other than the charming, selfish, manipulative, driven man Ace had grown up with. Oh, he was all fine words and promises now, but if she could go back, if she did go back, Ace knew just what would happen. The judge could appoint as many social workers as she liked, order as much counseling as she liked, and Daddy would find some way to sweet-talk his way around all of it, just the way he'd always sweet-talked his way around anything that didn't suit him. Or, now he had money, real money, change-the-world money, he'd buy his way out of what he didn't want to do.
The judge looked disappointed. "You may return to your seats," she said.
* * *
Hosea could hear the words being spoken in the courtroom, but they came to him only faintly and almost without meaning. Sweat ran down his brow with the effort he was making; his shirt was soaked with it.
If he failed, Ace would lose her case. Each time Hosea had swe
pt the red tendrils back, a little more understanding of their purpose had seeped into him. The charm Billy Fairchild carried was meant to bend the judge's will to his, and Billy wanted his daughter back beneath his roof.
If Ace was told to go back to her parents, she'd run away again, and one of the few places left for her to run was Underhill. No one wanted that.
And then Billy and Ace got up from their seats and stepped toward the bench. Hosea saw the red tendrils rise up—almost triumphantly—and reach toward Judge Springsteen. Now they didn't have as far to go to get to her.
He could not let them touch her.
He gathered up the last of his strength, and knew it would not be enough.
He thought about all that Paul and the others had told him about the Guardian's gifts—little enough, save that it was unlike the power of a Bard in every way. Not something you were born with and practiced at—something you were lent by a greater Power; a gift that worked through you for reasons of its own. Something that came and went at its own will; called into the world by need, and vanishing as soon as the need had gone.
There was need. And Ace had asked for his help.
Hosea swept his hand across the banjo's strings, making them ring softly.
If yore going to come, come now.
* * *
The judge stared at them all for a long moment before she finally spoke.
"I'm not going to rule on this today," she finally said. "There are a number of points that complicate this petition, including the fact that the petitioner is only eleven months away from her majority. It's possible that there's a third solution that would best serve the interests of both parties. I'd very much like to see either the petition or the opposition to it withdrawn. You can expect my final ruling on this case a week from today."
She raised her gavel to bring it down, and then her gaze lengthened, focusing on something behind the litigants.
"Young man," she said sharply. "What are you doing in my courtroom?"
* * *
She'd seen him. His charm to stay invisible had broke wide open, and she'd seen him. "Ah'm sorry, ma'am," Hosea Songmaker said meekly, getting to his feet. "Ah 'spekt Ah got lost."
Before she could question him further—or order her bailiffs to throw him out—he ducked out the doors at the back of the courtroom. As the doors closed behind him, he heard the rap of her gavel.
* * *
He'd barely managed to keep the hoodoo away from the judge—and he wasn't quite sure he'd managed it completely, or whether the Guardian gifts had come, there at the end, because she hadn't ruled one way or t'other, now, had she? Maybe it had only been his Bard's shine, because he'd brought in real music, instead of just the music in his head. At the end, he'd had to risk playing a few notes on Jeanette, and that was why she'd seen him.
But if Ace hadn't gotten the ruling she'd wanted, then neither had Billy Fairchild. And a lot could happen in a week.
He stood on the court steps, breathing deeply. The cold air felt good in his lungs—the calendar said it was spring, or close enough, but March in the Mid Atlantic States was nothing like the March weather where he'd grown up, and Hosea missed the mountains. Still, just now, he could do with the chill; he was sweating like he'd chopped a whole month's worth of firewood, and he was just about that tired, too. He shrugged the strap of the banjo case higher onto his shoulder. He wanted to have a good long chat with Jeanette as soon as possible, and get her thoughts on what had happened in that courtroom today.
He hadn't recognized the style of magick that had been on the Reverend, and that troubled him. In his time with the Guardians, he'd thought he'd seen just about every kind of magick there was to see—black, white, and plaid. He knew he'd recognize the kind he'd seen today again if he saw it—all forms of magick had a distinct signature—but as it was, he knew he couldn't even describe it well enough for Paul to begin to make an educated guess as to who—or what—might have whipped up the original charm. He hadn't seen the thing itself, after all: only its effects.
And that wasn't even the most urgent question that needed answering. The important question—and one somebody had better get an answer to right away—was who close to the Reverend Billy Fairchild had the power and the skill to make something like that, and what else were they doing?
Was it a Guardian problem or a Bard problem? This was the dilemma that Hosea always faced at times like these. He'd managed to knock the hoodoo back on its heels with his Bardcraft, but if the Reverend's fetch-bag had been created by a black magician, he was pretty sure that made this a Guardian problem.
He sighed. Best to take himself out of sight now. Since he was one hundred percent sure he'd be calling on Reverend Fairchild later, he decided he didn't want to be caught loitering here.
Just in case that influence charm wasn't the only charm in the Reverend's pocket.
* * *
Ace glanced back just in time to see Hosea leave the courtroom. Billy didn't care; all his attention was elsewhere, and he was too full of anger to pay any attention to something as trivial as who'd snuck into the courtroom. The judge's gavel came down, and then the bailiff was commanding them to "all rise" again. They stood while the judge left the courtroom.
She kept her eyes straight ahead, but at the edge of her vision she could see Daddy arguing with his lawyer in furious whispers. Before he could come over to their table, Mr. Tilford was on his feet and had the two of them out and into the corridor. He walked quickly, so that Ace had to hurry to keep up, and within minutes they were seated in his car in the parking lot across the street.
"You did very well in there today. Now we have a week to encourage your parents to withdraw their opposition to your petition," Mr. Tilford said, starting the car. "I'm afraid you'll have to return for the final ruling, though. Fortunately, the judge didn't make any restrictions regarding your place of residence in the interim. I can give you a ride back to the city now, if you'd like."
It was tempting—she felt safe in New York, even if that safety was an illusion. Hosea could bring back her things.
But then she realized that she didn't want to leave just yet. She wanted to talk to Hosea.
She had a suspicion—something not even really strong enough to call a hunch—that something that had been supposed to happen in that courtroom today hadn't happened.
Something bad.
* * *
Gabriel was in Toirealach's office when Billy found him. He'd been making last minute arrangements to welcome the Bard and his young brother—everyone was so distracted by their preparations for Friday's concert and the expected crowds that they would hardly notice any of the small plans that Gabriel footed on his own, and Christian Family Intervention operated almost as an independent fief beneath the larger umbrella of the Fairchild Ministries anyway.
Many months ago, Gabriel had taken a minor department of Billy's organization—mostly concerned with publishing dreary pamphlets on the Christian Family and funneling money into suitable outreach programs—and remade it in his own chosen image, filling it with a hand-picked staff. Some of them were human—for those cases where all that was needed was a kidnapping and a good scare, followed by a little talk, to make the children of his clients see reason. But the rebellious children of the sort of folk who would come to a place like Christian Family Intervention were generally not so amenable to simple manipulation—nor was Gabriel inclined to waste such tender, tasty morsels. So the larger part of the staff was not recruited from the ranks of humans. Most of them were Sidhe—simple spells could do what all the rehabilitation programs in the mortal world could not.
And a great many of the children who were brought into CFI were sent to the grey room to meet the Soul-eaters, and none of their parents had ever complained afterward about the spineless puppets they'd gotten back. Well, most of those parents wanted spineless puppets, if it came down to that. So long as the child could parrot whatever his parents said, stayed close to home, and never, ever spoke a rebellious w
ord again, they were happy. And if the bright, gifted creature that they had once called "son" or "daughter" was replaced by something that would probably grow up to an adulthood that featured being fitted with a paper hat, a uniform in primary colors, and a nametag and a preoccupation with French fries, well—too bad.
Gabriel was certain Michael and Fiona Banyon would not complain either. Or at least, not immediately. And his revenge upon the Bright Bard who had stolen his Jachiel from him would be complete, for when Bard Eric left the Chamber of Silences, his Gift would be gone, along with his will.
"We have the name and location of the boy Magnus's school," Toirealach said. "We'll take him there, and use him for a dagger at the Bard's throat. The mortal Bard will not know who has him until the silver fetters are on his wrists—and then it will be far too late."
"Very good," Gabriel purred gloatingly. "And then—"
The doorknob rattled. The door was locked, of course. A furious pounding immediately followed.
"Gabriel!" Billy Fairchild could thunder like a righteous summons to God's judgment onstage, but just now, there was a whining undertone to his bellowing that set Gabriel's teeth on edge. "Open this door! Open this door right now! How dare you lock any door against me!"
I will not have to listen to that much longer, he promised himself. He swept his mortal glamourie back around himself—noting as he did that Toirealach O'Caomhain had done the same—and went to open the door.
Billy was standing on the threshold, his face scarlet with anger. What immediately drew Gabriel's attention, however, was the state of the talisman he had slipped into Billy's pocket before he'd sent him off to the courthouse this morning.
The Sidhe could create enchanted objects—a cloak, a cup, a sword, boots filled with magic—that would render their wearer invisible, nourish (or poison) him in ways mortal food could not, slay a dozen enemies at a blow (and cause wounds that would not heal), allow their wearer to run faster than the fastest horse. But it had been centuries since such things had been done as a matter of course. Such toys were only of use to mortals, after all—the Sidhe could do all these things and more by drawing directly upon the power that infused the very air of Underhill, and was available, albeit in a weaker form, here in the World Above. Since the Great Withdrawal, most of the Sidhe had been far less inclined to put objects of magickal power into the hands of mortals, lest they find them turned against their own kind.
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