Ace smiled at him. Apparently he was forgiven. "Sometimes you just have to take a chance."
Just then there was a faint flurry in the air. Suddenly a cream-and-red touring bike of no exact make sat parked in an empty parking slot a few feet away.
"Took you long enough to get here," Eric said to the elvensteed.
"Now what?" Kayla asked.
"We call that cab," Eric said. "And we head back out to the cathedral and casino. If we can't do anything else to stop what's happening there today, we can at least make sure that Gabriel's bomb doesn't go off."
I hope.
"At least we can make sure we get everybody cleared out before it does," Ace said, with the same finality. "Somehow."
* * *
The taxi arrived promptly—the first thing that had gone completely right in quite a while—and the driver had no objection to taking Molly as a passenger. The four (five) of them rode in the taxi while Eric followed on Lady Day.
By the time they reached the road that led toward the Heavenly Grace Business Park, it was a little after eleven o'clock. Traffic was heavy—all apparently on its way to the concert—and a lot of the cars had bumper stickers like "Keep America Pure" and "White is Right" on them, and symbols that were almost—but not quite, of course—Nazi flags.
They were still at least five miles from the gates, but traffic had already slowed to a crawl. Eric stood up in his seat and looked ahead—he could already see people just giving up and starting to pull off on the verge and park. Soon traffic wouldn't just be slow, it would be stopped entirely.
No matter what Magnus thought, Eric wasn't quite old enough to have been at Woodstock I, but nobody of any age could have missed the endless retrospectives of the event, so Eric was perfectly aware of how snarled the traffic around a big outdoor concert—especially one that really was free—could get. Very soon now the cars weren't going to pull off to the side of the road to park. Their drivers were just going to abandon them in the middle of the road and start walking in to the concert, and then the fun would really begin.
He flagged the taxi down and pointed for the driver to pull off. Fortunately there was a cross-street ahead; he saw Kayla speak to the driver, who turned into it—a better idea than Eric's—and stopped.
Eric pulled up beside the driver's side window.
"I had no idea the traffic was so heavy," he said, digging into his jeans for his wallet. "You'd better turn back. We'll walk from here."
The others, taking their cue from him, began piling out. Eric added a generous tip to the amount on the meter. It wasn't going to be easy getting out of here.
The driver must have agreed, for instead of turning around, he simply drove off down the road in the direction he was headed.
"And once more I say, 'now what?'" Kayla said, when they were all standing on the side of the road.
"We walk in. I'm sure it won't be the first time you snuck into a rock-concert," Eric said.
"Yeah, Bard-boy, but it's definitely going to be the first time I snuck into a Neo-Nazi rock concert. Did you see some of those bumper stickers?" Kayla answered.
Eric simply shuddered. New York might be the most cosmopolitan city on Earth, but there were a few things its inhabitants were insulated from. And now it finally started to feel real. He found himself clenching and unclenching his fists, and he was getting the beginning of the cold he always got in his belly at the start of a fight.
A fight. And he was taking Ace and Magnus, both utterly unacquainted with fighting, into the middle of it. And Kayla, utterly unsuited.
But if he stopped to ask himself what he thought he was doing—he would stop. And so would they.
And people would die.
"Are you going to be okay if we go in there?" Eric asked.
Kayla shrugged. "Unless I run into one of your heavy hitters, I'm going to be more than fine. That's the really sick thing, Eric. All those people out there right now? They're really happy. They think they're good people surrounded by other good people and having a great time. They just think some other people—blacks or Jews or gays or Muslims or pick your label—have to be killed, or put in camps, or gotten rid of some other way. But most of them don't even hate those people. Not usually. They just think it's their duty, and it's right, and it's sad but it's something that has to be done. And the people that make me want to scream are the ones that convinced them that this is the truth."
"I guess you're going to have to scream later," Eric said. "We'd better start walking. But the minute we get this bomb thing dealt with, I'm going Underhill and coming back with either a good strong leash for Prince Gabrevys or a really good reason why I can't have one."
As soon as we get this bomb thing dealt with. As if I had any ideas how.
"Hmph," Hosea grunted. "Ah'm thinkin' if you cain't put a leash on him, Ah'm gonna. An' about now, Ah'm thinkin' it oughtta be made outta Cold Iron."
Eric nodded; he hoped he'd be able to get help from Misthold in dealing with Prince Gabrevys, but he was already considering the possibility that he couldn't. He wasn't sure what he was going to do in that case—the last thing he wanted to do was start a war Underhill, but the next to last thing he wanted was to have to watch his back every moment for the rest of his life just because an Unseleighe Prince had decided to start a vendetta.
"Count me out," Kayla said, shaking her head. "I've had enough of Elf Hill for a lifetime."
Maybe, Punkette—but Elf Hill has a habit of not letting go.
They headed back up the road toward the gate, cutting through the traffic as soon as there was a gap. As far as any observers could see, Eric was wheeling his motorcycle along beside them, but in fact, Lady Day was doing all the work, and he was just resting a hand on one of her handlebars.
The closer they got, the colder he became. Because ideas still weren't coming to him.
Wish we'd been able to ask old Adam for some advice. Someone from the OSS now—there was someone who would have had some creative notions for this situation.
As they got closer, they started to hear music in the distance—not live, Eric thought; probably something canned being run through the amps on whatever stage was set up.
They were walking right back into the dragon's lair—which was an insult to the few dragons Eric had ever met, none of whom could ever have come up with something this vile—and Eric still didn't have any clear idea of what he was going to do about the problem when he got there. Worst of all, the people he was bringing with him were by no stretch of the imagination a crack commando team.
Kayla was an Empath and Healer. Great after the battle was over, but not a lot of use in a fight. In fact, the fight itself would probably lay her out cold.
Magnus didn't, as far as Eric knew, have any expressed magick at all. He'd been lucky enough to escape with his life once, and now Eric was dragging him right back into danger. The trouble was, there were no safe places—even if Magnus agreed to stay somewhere out of harm's way, it was just as likely that Gabrevys would find him wherever he was and use him as a weapon against Eric and the others. And stashing him somewhere would be splitting the party again. Nope. It was ab-so-lutely guaranteed that if the party got split up, both parts would end up in trouble.
Ace was a powerful Talent, it was true. The only trouble was, her power worked just as irresistibly on her own side as on the other side, and once she'd created an emotion in people, she couldn't direct how they responded to it. In a controlled environment like Billy Fairchild's Praise Hour, that didn't matter. In the chaotic venue of a rock concert, it could matter quite a bit.
Hosea was Eric's apprentice, and a Guardian. Both of those things counted for a lot, but Eric had no illusions: the magickal muscle they were facing could eat the two of them for breakfast and not even get indigestion. A trained, Unseleighe Master Bard, an Unseleighe Magus Major, and who knew what sorts of allies. Some of which he already knew were resistant to Cold Iron.
Why are we doing this? he asked himself. But he kn
ew the answer.
Because we're the good guys, and we have to try.
Around them, more and more people were starting to walk in. The line of cars heading toward the gate had slowed to a crawl, moving at barely two miles an hour now. The people on foot were easily outpacing those still in their vehicles.
Kayla picked up Molly and cradled her in her arms. The little pug was gallant and willing, but there was no way she could walk all the way to the casino and cathedral, and she'd only slow them down if they kept to her pace anyway.
"Your purse is ringing," Magnus said to Kayla.
Kayla passed Molly to Ace and dug in her backpack. The ringing sound got louder. She flipped open the phone, and after listening a moment, she passed it to Eric.
"It's for you," she said with a smirk.
"Um . . . hello?" Eric said.
"Where are you?" Ria asked.
Oh, please tell me you have a crack SWAT army ready to storm this place.
"A couple of miles up the road from the concert site," Eric said. "The place is jammed. We're walking in."
Please tell me you want us to turn around and leave.
"That's the best news I've had all morning," Ria said. "I hope you can do something when you get there."
You hope we can do something. That is not what I wanted to hear.
"That doesn't sound good," Eric said. "I don't mean to sound cranky, but weren't you supposed to be calling the cavalry?"
"Put it this way. I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there were a few favors left for me to pull in, and I used them. The bomb squad is all set to go in and take the casino apart."
A familiar sound overhead caught Eric's attention, and he looked up. There were three helicopters in the sky over the casino. Two of them were obviously press. The third one looked a lot more businesslike. Ria's? Or Horn's?
Or someone else's? There was always Wheatley to think about.
"And the bad news?" he asked.
"They can't get in. I don't know what it looks like from where you are, but there are almost five thousand people packed in at the site down there, and Pure Blood, the other bands, and the local bikers and skinheads have got the crowd so worked up about 'Federal persecution,' Waco, and Ruby Ridge, that the sight of anything that even looks like an agent of the government is going to start a full-scale riot. Bottom line: they aren't sure about the bomb, and they are sure about the riot. They're talking with someone in the organization about arranging to get a team inside quietly, but that's going to take time."
"And time is what we probably don't have," Eric said grimly. "But they're set to go in?"
"The moment it's clear," Ria said.
"I guess what we have to do is clear it," Eric said. "Thanks, Ria."
"Thank me after they find the bomb," Ria said. "If there is one."
He handed the phone back to Kayla, and summarized Ria's conversation for the others.
"Mr. Horn said he'd hired security, too," Ace said miserably. "Special security."
"I guess the Feds aren't going to get in there one minute before he wants them to," Kayla said.
"But we need to get in there now," Hosea said. He dug around in his pocket and produced a brightly colored plastic rectangle on a lanyard; the press-pass Gabriel Horn had given him two days before. He hung it around his neck. "Ah guess if we run into any of that 'special security' of Mr. Horn's, Ah'll tell them Ah'm with the band."
Magnus gave a cynical snort.
Up ahead they could see people climbing over the low wall that separated the business park from the road. It wasn't very high—less than five feet—and more a matter of decoration than security.
"I think that's our cue," Eric said, nodding toward the others.
Hosea boosted the others over the wall—Kayla and Ace first, then Molly, then Magnus and Eric. Then he handed Jeanette over the wall to Eric, then heaved himself over, swinging himself across the top of the wall like an Olympic gymnast working out on the vaulting horse. He dropped lightly to the grass on the other side.
"Hey, what about your bike?" Magnus said.
"She's coming," Eric said. "Look."
For a moment, it seemed a black mare hung poised in the air over the wall, legs outstretched in a leap. Then she landed, neat-footed, and there was only the touring bike again, looking as pleased with itself as a machine could look.
"What if somebody saw that?" Magnus said, sounding scandalized.
"Think they'd believe it?" Kayla asked. "Everybody knows motorcycles don't turn into horses and leap stone walls. And I don't care if these are supposed to be Christian bands, I'll lay you good money more than half this crowd is stoned on something already. Trust me, I'm a Healer, I can tell these things. C'mon, Gus, let's get going."
Eric put a hand on Lady Day's handlebars again. It might make sense for them to split up—it would certainly be faster, and he could take one passenger with him on Lady Day—but now more than ever Eric knew they should stay together. Apart they were too vulnerable. All of them.
Don't split the party.
They began to walk as quickly as they could toward the concert venue. The music got louder; an insistent primal beat.
They were moving through crowds of other people, all heading in the same direction. Apparently the cars were being diverted down to the far entrance, because the road that led right past the casino held nothing but pedestrians, and looking back, Eric could see that the casino entrance was blocked with bright yellow sawhorses and cars, and several men wearing black security uniforms were standing around beside the cars. They were letting pedestrians in, but no vehicles. Despite the fact that the road was empty and available, the pedestrians were walking across the lawns and the landscaped areas toward the music. Eric wondered if Billy Fairchild'd had any idea of what he'd been letting himself in for when he'd agreed to host a free concert here. Tomorrow this place was going to look as if it had hosted a tractor-pull, not a concert.
It's going to look a lot worse than that if you can't pull a rabbit out of your hat, Banyon, he told himself grimly. By now the ice had taken over his gut and was edging up his spine. Strangely it was not fear. Maybe he'd been in too many fights already for that.
Maybe it was just hubris.
Ria had said that this was a flashpoint crowd on the edge of riot, but Eric neither saw nor sensed any sign of that here on the fringes. The thing it reminded him of most strongly was the Eloi moving toward the Morlock's call: docile, eager, and oblivious.
At least the lack of cars made their progress faster now. They soon drew even with the Casino and Cathedral of Prayer.
To Eric's mage-sight, the building shimmered with darkly scarlet wards so dense and many-layered that the building itself was nearly invisible. From that he could assume that there was, in fact, a bomb inside, but he couldn't sense it. He doubted he could even walk through the door.
He blinked, banishing his Othersight. What he could see with his regular vision didn't look any better. Standing in front of the side door of the building were about a dozen of those skinhead bikers Ria had mentioned, looking armed for bear. Even if they could take the muscle out, they couldn't get into the building—he doubted anyone with the least scrap of Talent could.
He heard Kayla take a sharp breath.
"Oh, god," Ace said in a choked voice, looking up and pointing.
The others looked where she indicated.
There were people, crowds of people, clearly visible at the office windows of the upper stories of the casino and cathedral looking out over the crowd: the casino itself might be closed, but either the rest of Billy Fairchild's empire was open for business, or he'd offered it up as a coign of vantage for those interested in seeing the concert but not mingling with the groundlings.
Eric felt a pang of something too deep for horror. How many people does Gabrevys need to kill to do whatever it is he's trying to do? he thought with frustrated indignation. That Gabrevys should try to destroy him and Magnus was almo
st reasonable in comparison—that was revenge, and revenge was understandable.
But this . . . ? This huge amassing of unnecessary deaths, just because you could—that was pure Unseleighe evil.
Having reached the building, they'd reached the edge of the concert crowd as well. The audience filled the entire space between the clear-space at the foot of the stage—kept clear by more of the biker-Security—and the empty building at the other side of the parking lot. It was one of the original buildings that had been here when Billy had bought the place; a long low building only two stories tall, and just far enough away that none of the audience had yet been tempted to climb up on its roof to get a better view of the bands.
Eric suspected that Ria's estimation of the number of attendees had been conservative. There were a lot more than five thousand people here. Either Billy had underestimated the draw of the bands on the bill when he'd talked to Hosea, or Gabriel Horn had been lying. There might be as many as ten thousand people here already.
The entire parking lot had been cleared of cars. The stage had been set up directly in front of the casino and cathedral—which meant that the giant light-up three-story cross was directly behind it. At the moment the stage was empty, but two giant video screens flanked it, playing music videos.
The stage itself was draped in red, white, and black—instead of blue—and some of the audience were carrying home-made banners and placards. Some of them bore crosses.
Some of them didn't.
"Welcome to Nuremburg," Kayla said to Eric. Her voice was a little slurred; she sounded slightly drunk on the intense emotions of the crowd. "I hope you've got a plan?"
He did. Seeing the crowd, the stage, one had come to him.
"Some people are getting up onto the stage," Hosea reported. "Warm-up band, Ah guess."
"Perfect," Eric said. "Now here's what we do . . ."
Chapter 10:
Where The Bands Are
A band called Lost Angels was deafening the audience—and the five of them—with its second number by the time they had everything they needed.
Music to My Sorrow Page 29
