A Host of Furious Fancies

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Choose quickly, Bard!” the leader of the Hunt called to him, holding out his hand. “You will have no second chance, and I think your shields will not hold against their weaponry! Choose! Them—or us!”

  The hell I will!

  He had to get out of here, and knew he’d only have one shot at escape. He reached inside himself, to where the music ran like a deep underground river, and pulled up a melody for which there were no earthly terms. As it filled him, he reached out for the half-created Nexus, twisting it around him as a stage magician might swirl a cape.

  And he vanished.

  The Bard was gone! Aerune snarled his displeasure, his breath coming in a serpent’s hiss. So close! And yet the Bard had dared to defy him! He would have liked to slay all those witnesses to his humiliation, but without a Nexus to draw from, he dared not waste the power. His vengeance must wait, and be all the sweeter for being so long denied. He wheeled his steed, slashing a Portal to Underhill open in the very air. His mount staggered beneath him, energy bled from every pore—he could hold this gate for seconds only, but it would have to be enough. Wielding his sword as if it were a whip, he drove the Hunt through the Portal ahead of him, letting it seal itself behind him.

  Angel stared at Elkanah for a long moment in the sudden, surreal silence. The guy with the flute, the guys on horses, had all gone pop like a soap bubble. The Threshold operatives were alone in Central Park, and in the distance Angel could hear the sound of sirens. Their little excursion here hadn’t quite gone unnoticed.

  “Does anyone have an explanation for what just happened here?” he finally asked.

  “We can worry about that later,” Elkanah said. There was a livid burn along the side of his face, and he looked like he’d been through the wringer. “Right now we’ve got to sanitize this place and get out of here before the cops show up. Get out the flamethrowers—and get the wounded into the trucks!”

  Those still on their feet hurried to obey, hosing down the dry grass to eliminate bloodstains, grabbing dropped equipment as fast as they could. Someone scattered a carefully prepared litter of expended fire-crackers and beer cans to dress the site for the police. In less than five minutes they were on their way, running dark through the Park to one of its northern exits.

  He was not looking forward to the report he was going to have to make.

  At six o’clock this evening, Robert Lintel had been a man well-pleased with himself and the world. It was midnight now.

  Things had changed.

  His men had vacated Central Park moments ahead of an army of cops. They’d lost Hancock. Beirkoff was a gibbering wreck. They hadn’t caught Aerune. And when another wild card had turned up—someone Aerune wanted more than he’d wanted Hancock, by all reports—they’d lost him, too. Half his men were dead—burned by lasers or hacked to death by swords—and all the survivors could tell him were a lot of confused tales about armored men on horseback, giant wolves, and monsters.

  Monsters. He’d thought better of them than that. They were supposed to be elite troops, the best soldiers of fortune that money could buy. And they ran away like a pack of frightened schoolgirls.

  Robert shook his head, pacing the expensive carpet of his top-floor office. He knew they were good. They’d never failed him before. So what had really happened out there?

  Before Campbell took off, she’d been babbling about elves and the hordes of faerie, but those things that had been in the park tonight certainly didn’t act like anything Robert had ever seen in a cartoon. Still, maybe she and her stupid telepath hadn’t been as crazy as he’d thought. Maybe there was something in what she’d been saying—maybe there were some kind of space aliens living here on earth, space aliens that had been the source for a bunch of legends about gods and elves and things, like that von Daniken guy said.

  Robert relaxed, pleased to have thought his way through to the truth. That had to be it. Not elves. Space aliens. He’d have Dr. Ram turn Vickie Moon inside out to find out what else she knew.

  Because whoever they are, they’re poking their pointy noses in where they’re not wanted, and if they can appear and disappear the way they’ve been doing, it won’t be long before they come here.

  He sat down in the cushioned leather chair behind his desk and pushed a button. “Find Beirkoff and get him up here. Bring Moon. I don’t care what time it is. That’s what I pay you for.”

  He sat back, thinking furiously. He was on the right track with T-Stroke, he knew it. That young guy who’d wandered into the middle of things—Elkanah said that this Aerune had spoken to him. If Aerune wanted him that badly, then so did Bob Lintel. The guy could obviously do everything the Survivors could do, and he didn’t seem to be in any danger of shrivelling up and dying either.

  If I get him and can find out how he does it, I can make more. And then I can write my own ticket. I don’t know where he’s gone, but he’s got to come back some time. And when I’ve got a stable of psychic assassins who can kill with a thought, I’m not going to have to worry about the Justice Department or the SEC anymore. I’ll be able to write my own ticket anywhere on the planet . . . and I think the U.S. Government would be more than interested in getting in on the bidding.

  But why wait? Nobody ever made a profit sitting on their hands. It was time to take the war to the enemy. . . .

  Fortunately Logan was still with Ria when all hell broke loose. She’d ordered up dinner from room service for both of them while she’d made some calls to the Coast. If junkies were turning into mages, somebody, somewhere was making the drugs that were turning them. And Ria wanted to find out who. It wasn’t impossible that this was some Unseleighe plot. Some of them positively doted on working through human pawns, using long convoluted plots like something out of a James Bond novel when a simple bullet to the head would be a lot more cost-effective.

  She was standing by the window, looking out over the city, when she saw the flash of light deep in the park. Seconds later the riptide of unexpected magic washed over her—Bardic, Unseleighe, and every shading in between. Ria staggered back, caught off balance by the sudden assault on her shields, and went down.

  She woke up as Logan was lifting her onto a couch. His dark face was impassive and wary. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. Her shields had gone to full strength in the second after the assault, but she could already tell that whatever it had been was gone now.

  Waving Logan away, she got to her feet again and walked carefully back to the window. There were four police cars pulled up on the street outside the park, lights flashing.

  “My,” Ria said coolly, eyebrows raised.

  Logan was already on the phone, calling his office. She heard him give his location and ask for a weather report. He listened for a moment, then hung up.

  “There’s been a report of shots fired inside the park and a lot of bright lights,” he said tersely.

  And more than shots, Ria thought. “I want to go down there. But I don’t want to get involved with the police.”

  He glanced at her, and she saw him think the problem over.

  “Let’s give it a while. I’ll check back with my office in a few minutes and see what the cops are reporting,” Logan said.

  Fifteen minutes later the police cars were gone. According to the frequencies Gotham Security monitored, the NYPD figured the disturbance was caused by some kids setting off fireworks. Ria knew better. The only question remaining was: what exactly had it been?

  She entered the park cautiously, Logan taking point. He was wonderfully incurious about what was going on . . . but then Ria was paying good money for that. She only hoped his perfect manners weren’t going to get either of them killed.

  By the time they reached the spot Ria had marked from her window, there was nobody in sight. She wasn’t particularly surprised to find it was the place Eric had been so interested in, but now the half-built Nexus was gone as if it had never been.

  Suddenly there was a shadow above
her—something big coming in for a landing. A pistol appeared in Logan’s hand—a Desert Eagle .60, capable of taking down a moose with one shot or punching right through a car’s engine-block.

  “Wait,” Ria said, raising her hand.

  The creature landed, and bounded toward her, talking all the way. It was Greystone, the talking gargoyle from Eric’s apartment.

  “Blondie, we got trouble, big trouble—Eric just went ‘poof’ on us, and somebody was holding a real brawl here when he went!”

  Running up behind him were a fortyish Latina woman and an exotic dark-skinned woman in a patrolman’s uniform. Neither of them looked surprised to see Greystone. So these must be the Guardians Eric told me about, showing up a day late and a dollar short. So much for the safety of the Free World. Ria glanced toward Logan, but his Desert Eagle had vanished as if it’d never been there. His face was impassive. Like a good bodyguard, he faded back behind her, where he could watch what happened without intruding.

  “Greystone, who is this? What’s she doing here?” the Latina asked.

  “She’s Eric’s ladyfriend, Ms. Hernandez,” Greystone answered. “She’s okay. Her name’s Ria.”

  “What’s happening? Where’s Eric?” Ria demanded.

  “Gone,” Greystone repeated, sounding as rattled as a gargoyle ever got.

  “We’re friends of Eric’s, too,” Hernandez said. “We, um, heard he was having trouble up here, but when we got here it was all over. And what brings you here?”

  “My hotel room overlooks the Park,” Ria said. It didn’t count as an answer, but at least it was a response. She knew what Eric had told her about the Guardians, and wondered what he’d told them about her. And, of course, how much of it they believed. . . .

  “I’m going to take another sweep around,” the patrolwoman said. “Nobody’s done a real search of the area. Maybe there’s a clue.”

  You certainly look like you could use one, Ria thought, but didn’t say anything out loud. If this was Toni Hernandez, then her friend the cop must be Jimmie Youngblood, another of the Guardians. But even if Youngblood was no ordinary cop, it never paid to antagonize the police. When Youngblood walked away, Ria returned her attention to Hernandez. It wouldn’t hurt to be sociable, especially since she wanted something from them.

  “Hello,” she said, holding out her hand, and smiling. “I’m Ria. Eric’s told me so much about you.”

  “I’m Toni,” the other woman said, smiling faintly at the inane exchange of social pleasantries. Ria took the proffered hand. Toni’s grip was dry and warm. “Jimmie and I are trying to figure out what happened here. And just now, we wouldn’t turn down any help.” She studied Ria consideringly.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Ria said, looking around. Whether I’ll tell you about it remains to be seen. “Maybe you could start by telling me what you do know? I know that Eric was very interested in this . . . location.”

  Toni sighed. “We asked him to take a look at it last night. Let’s just say there’s been some weird stuff happening, and this spot seems to be the eye of the hurricane. Eric said there were Dark Elves involved, building some kind of doorway . . . would you know anything about that?”

  From the look on her face, it was clear that Toni Hernandez would rather have cut off her hand than asked, but it was equally clear that she knew she was in over her head.

  “Less than you’d think, but some,” Ria said. “I can tell you right now that the doorway you’re worrying about is no longer a problem. It’s gone.” And Eric’s gone with it, damn the man. “Let me look around a little, okay?”

  “Sure,” Toni said, taking a step back. “But you won’t mind if Greystone keeps an eye on you, will you?”

  “As long as he doesn’t step on my feet,” Ria said, composing her face into another pleasant but totally unmeant smile. She turned away from Toni and began walking in a slow circle around the area where the Nexus had been, frowning in concentration. Both the other women had brought flashlights, but Ria could see clearly in dimmer light than this.

  The ground was cut up and torn in a wide area, almost as if someone had been trying to plow it, or to dig something up, and there were wide burn-scars defacing the grass that remained. Ria blinked, summoning up her mage-sight. Now she could see that a lot of magic had been thrown around here. There were the scars of levin bolts on the grass and the trees, and the entire place reeked of Unseleighe magics and human death.

  And as if that weren’t trouble enough, the Wild Hunt had been here as well. Perenor had sometimes spoken of the Unseleighe rade—he’d had the right to call one, but had never done so, dismissing the Hunt as too flashy and undisciplined for his needs. More to the point, Ria thought now, it would have motivated the drowsing Court of Elfhame Sun-Descending as nothing else could have, creating an opposition that Perenor hadn’t wanted to face. Every Elfhame within a thousand miles must know about this one—she was only surprised that the park wasn’t crawling with Highborn.

  But Central Park is in the middle of New York City. No elf would come here without a damned good reason. And you walked right into the middle of it, didn’t you, Eric?

  The Wild Magic she’d followed down into the slums was everywhere, stronger than she’d ever seen it before. Someone with Power had died here, in addition to humans and Sidhe. Ria could still see the dead wizard’s ghost, hovering like a plume of red smoke in the air. Dead, and recently, and slain by the levin bolt whose backlash she’d been hit with.

  But it wasn’t Eric, which was some small relief.

  Once she’d sorted out the Wild Talent and the Hunt, the remaining traces were easy to read. The lingering effects of very neatly done magic, all wrapped up with no loose ends, spelled Eric as plainly to her Second Sight as if it were a neon sign twelve feet high. He’d been throwing Bard-magic around as if he’d been trying to put out a fire, but even in the middle of a fight, his work was neat, disciplined, careful, the work of a fully trained Bard, confident in his skill. He hadn’t killed the Wild Talent—that wasn’t his style—so it had to have been the Unseleighe rade. But from what she’d seen before, the Wild Talent and the Unseleighe were allies of some kind.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Both Toni and Logan were giving her a lot of elbow room.

  Someone else wasn’t.

  “You gonna do a spell, Blondie?” Greystone asked hopefully.

  Ria shot him a deadly look. “I haven’t seen everything that’s here to see, yet—something else was here besides your Dark Lord and Eric, but it wasn’t magical, so it isn’t leaving traces.”

  “Does this help?” On its stony palm, the gargoyle held out an expended shell casing. “I found it on the ground.”

  Ria took it from him with a gratitude she was unwilling to show. “It might.” She held it in the palm of her hand, gazing intently down at the small piece of brass. :Speak to me, smith-wrought forging. Who has touched you? Where have you been?:

  The shell casing was too small to retain much information, but Ria gained a blurry impression of men with guns—many guns—all holding shells like this one.

  “There were soldiers here,” she said slowly for Greystone’s benefit. “Some kind of paramilitary group, anyway.” She handed the casing back to Greystone.

  She frowned, trying to piece the puzzle together. Eric, the Hunt, and a wild Talent had been here. So had a team of purely human mercenaries. Since she couldn’t imagine Eric allying himself with either group, the best guess was that Eric had been caught between the two and needed to get out of the way fast. The half-built Nexus would have been the weakest point in local reality, so he must have used it to escape to Underhill, which would explain why it had vanished so neatly. . . .

  Ria relaxed slightly. He was alive. Eric had a lot of allies in Underhill, and even enemies would treat a Bard with respect and probably be willing to ransom him back to his own people. So if he was in trouble at the moment, it wasn’t urgent trouble, and she could call in a few favors to make things easier for him if
it wasn’t possible for her to track him down herself.

  She walked back over to where Hernandez stood. She wasn’t interested in the situation here any further, but she supposed she owed Toni a hint of what the Guardians were dealing with.

  “Do you know what a Wild Hunt is?” Ria asked.

  Toni blinked, as if she were taken off-guard by the question. “Some kind of a . . . it’s when the dead ride out to hunt down the living, isn’t it?”

  “Close enough,” Ria answered. “Except that it’s usually the Unseleighe Sidhe riding, not human dead. Bottom line: a Hunt has ridden through here recently. It looks to me like they clashed with some men with guns—the police had a report of gunfire here in the park about half an hour ago, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. They checked it out and didn’t find anything. Decided it was kids with cherry bombs. But why would elves be fighting humans here? Or maybe that question should be asked the other way around: how did the men know the elves would be here?”

  That’s your problem, not mine, Ria thought. You’re the ones who didn’t want Eric’s help when he offered it, and I’m not a public utility. “I don’t know. But apparently Eric didn’t think you were taking his warning seriously enough and decided to look into things for himself. I know he came back here today around noon, but I wasn’t with him so I don’t know where he went from here.” Not that I can’t find out if I have to.

  Toni Hernandez looked as though she were going to press Ria for more details, and Ria was debating how much more to give her, when the other woman—Jimmie—came running back.

  “Look!” she said with excited self-mockery, “a genuine clue. Somebody’s been moving trucks—big trucks, heavy enough to leave tracks even with the ground being frozen—through the park. I found this near one of the sets of tracks. Someone must have dropped it while they were bailing.” She held it out to Toni. Toni took it, and held it up so Ria could see it.

  “It looks like one of those magnetic hotel-room keys,” Toni said, turning it over in her fingers. “But there’s no name on it. Just a logo.”