Beth stared at him in horror. "You mean, just . . . turn him off?"
"If they couldn't turn up any next of kin, and he didn't look like waking up," Hosea said, "that'd surely be on their minds. Nobody wants to be cruel, but there's only so much money for charity, Ah'm findin' out, and a bed in a big city hospital costs a lot of money, and seems like there aren't ever enough of 'em to go 'round."
"But they can't," Beth protested. "They couldn't."
"Hey, Red," Greystone said reassuringly. "Nobody said it was gonna happen. Right, Hosea?"
"That's right," Hosea said. "Ah just mean to scare you a little, Miz Kentraine, on account of Ah suspect that's what they mean to do tomorrow, if Eric's as bad off as Kayla says. But you just let Miz Llewellyn's folks do all the talkin' there, and don't you pay no mind to what those doctors have to say. Little Bit an' me, we'll find Eric, no matter how long it takes. Ah promise you that. We'll bring him back to you. You can rest your mind easy on that."
Hosea might not be a fully trained Bard as yet, Kayla thought, but nobody could beat his bedside manner. By the end of the evening, Beth had actually relaxed a little and lost some of her haunted look.
"Ah suspect, too, it might be a good thing for you folks to go on back to Underhill after that meetin' tomorrow as well," Hosea said. "Kory here, he isn't going to be any too comfortable if he spends very long around here, is he?"
"I can stay as long as needful," Kory said firmly, but the guilty look that crossed Beth's face was all the answer to that either Kayla or Hosea needed.
"But neither one o' you wants to be around if people come askin' awkward questions," Hosea pointed out. "Specially if that fancy lawyer can't manage things with the police the way he says he can. You aren't any farther away than e-mail, and if you want to give me your address, Ah can write you myself on Eric's computer. And you can come back every few days. But your baby's going to be missing you."
"He's right," Kory said reluctantly, after a long hesitation.
"I guess . . . I just hate to leave without knowing. But Maeve . . . would you like to see a picture of her?" Beth asked hopefully.
Hosea smiled. "Ah was hopin' you'd offer."
"Me, too," Greystone chimed in.
They all crowded around as Beth dug into her purse and withdrew a small crystal oval. "Not exactly a photograph, but it's what they use Underhill. Here. Look."
She held it up. Captured in the crystal was the image of a golden-haired toddler about a year old, standing in a meadow. She wore a short green gown trimmed in sparkling embroidery, and a little cap trimmed with a rosette of ribbons that fluttered in an unseen breeze.
The picture was moving.
"Hey . . ." Kayla said, fascinated. As she watched, the child's attention was captured by something she couldn't see. Then an enormous butterfly with spectacular purple and turquoise wings floated into view, hovering just above her head. She grabbed for it, then sat down abruptly, off-balance, looking very surprised. The butterfly circled, and came to perch on her cap.
Beth turned the crystal over. The same meadow, but obviously a different day. Maeve again, this time dressed in riding clothes, being led around in a circle on the back of a tiny perfect elvensteed; a full-sized horse in perfect miniature. A tall, red-haired woman in armor was walking close beside her to make sure she didn't fall. Kory held the 'steed's lead.
"There's a couple of dozen in here," Beth warned. "Are you sure you want to see them all?"
"Of course we do," Hosea said, speaking for all of them. "She's beautiful."
"As soon as Eric's back, you gotta bring her around for a visit," Greystone said. "I gotta get my chance to babysit again."
Beth laughed. "You'll have to fight Lady Montraille for that honor. She never lets Maeve out of her sight!"
After all the pictures had been seen, it was time for Kayla and Hosea to go, though Greystone promised to stay and keep Kory company for a while longer, since neither one needed sleep as mortals did.
* * *
"Do you really think getting Eric back's going to be as easy as you told Bethie it is?" Kayla asked Hosea. He'd insisted on walking her all the way down to her door.
"Not easy," Hosea said, meeting her gaze unflinchingly. "But possible, no matter what's happened to him. Eric won't give up, and neither will we. And he's got a lot to come back for."
"Magnus," Kayla said, not needing to say more.
"Ayah. Ah don't say he took the best road there, but he took the road he took. Now you go get yourself a good night's sleep, and get ready to face those doctors in the morning."
"Oh God," Kayla sighed. "Sooner or later they're going to find out I'm not his sister."
Hosea grinned wolfishly. "Well, Little Bit, Ah'd say that by the time they do, Miz Llewellyn's money and lawyers will have made it so they won't care one bit."
* * *
Deep night was the best time for sorcery. At night the unawakened hive-mind that was New York was as close to somnolent as possible, and the Etheric Currents could be more easily manipulated.
Or whatever.
The man known to his followers as Fafnir, Master of Treasure, entered his apartment, closing the door behind him. As he did, he sloughed off his mundane persona and its worldly concerns as easily as a snake shed its outgrown skin. The mundane world and its tedious concerns was something he wasn't going to have to worry about much longer.
He went into the bedroom—it had a key lock; it wouldn't do for any of the sheep to wander in there accidentally and see something that would jar their preconceptions of who "Master Fafnir" was—and stowed away his briefcase and work clothes, taking care to cover them carefully in plastic bags as he did. Even this room smelled faintly of the frankincense he burned so profligately.
Changing into one of his Fafnir outfits—it was a role he lived every moment he could, as befit one that he intended to assume permanently—he went back to the living room again. There was important work to do before dawn and the city's awakening made it impossible.
He lit several of the candles and one of the braziers. Most of what he did was to set the stage for the sheep, but not all. The unconscious mind was a kind of idiot child as well: it required props and staging to be coaxed to perform properly. The trained will could only do so much.
Now they would see what Amanda and the Circle between them had managed to do.
He went into the kitchen to pour himself a snifter of Calvados before beginning—a gift from Neil; very nice. Returning to the living room—the frankincense was smoking nicely—he pulled over a small table and then went to get the crystal.
Setting the box on the table, he opened the lid. The "Eye of the Inner Planes" glowed with the luminescence of fine mineral quartz, and Fafnir smiled. Nothing more occult here than the power of money. Anything would serve—a mirror, a bowl of water, even a ball of ordinary glass—but why not use what his obliging sheep had provided? It was merely a place to rest the outer eyes while the inner eye did its work, after all.
He'd laid the groundwork in all those sessions with little Amanda, not only rendering her malleable and compliant, but preparing the shape and the intent of the Artificial Elemental to which his sheep had lent—and would continue to lend—the power of their credulousness. They hadn't the wit to know the difference between creating something and summoning something already created, and Fafnir had no intention of enlightening them.
It had been done before. It was, in fact, just about the simplest magical operation to perform. There was even a book about it, written back in the seventies, called Conjuring Up Philip, by someone named Iris Owen. That was where he'd gotten part of his original idea. Only his creature would be far more powerful than a simple table-knocking, Ouija-board-communicating spirit.
His would be lethal. And answerable only to him.
The others thought it was a Protector, a magical watchdog that would protect them from the False Guardians.
Wrong.
He concentrated on the crystal, letting h
is mind empty except for the single image. It had come to him when he'd first started working with Amanda, and it was as good as any other. . . .
A gaunt woman, tall, terrifying, her mouth open in a soundless scream of anguish. Pale blue draperies fluttered from her limbs, and she glowed with a spectral light. From eyeless sockets she wept endless black tears. . . .
There was a flicker of blue light in the crystal, and Fafnir drew back with a gasp. The room had suddenly grown cold. He drew a deep breath, rubbing his arms nervously.
Yeah, that should work.
He closed the box, rubbing his eyes. There hadn't been anything there, of course. A trick of the light. But if it worked on him, the sheep should be terrified.
Soon he'd call the Inner and Outer Circles together to—or so he'd tell them—make them all known to the Protector for purposes of their protection. That was when he'd call it up to attack them. His creation. Under his control. And he was immune to whatever it would do, of course.
He'd tell them that what happened next was a preemptive strike from the False Guardians. They wouldn't know the difference. He'd chosen them all very carefully: none of them knew enough about magic to challenge him. And they certainly wouldn't doubt anything he told them after his toxic thought-form ripped through the place. It might even kill a few of them, which would make it stronger yet. And then they'd be terrified, willing to do anything he said.
Then all he had to do was actually locate one of the Guardians. It shouldn't be all that hard. His sheep had friends in high places, there were very few things secret from a computer, and any reluctance they had to break the law should be gone once his creation had done a little damage. Then he'd find Paul Kern again—the right Paul Kern, the one who'd been a computer consultant at Andrew Reaney's firm about ten years ago.
And then he'd become a Guardian. And have real power.
He frowned. Maybe it would be a better idea to hold the meeting at Neil's. He wasn't sure how destructive that thing was going to be, and he had no desire to have his apartment trashed.
He took another deep breath, shaking off the last of his unease. Yes. Things were proceeding just as they ought.
* * *
At 2:30 the next day, Kayla sat in a hospital conference room with Kory and Beth on one side of her and Anita and Derek Tilford, the LlewellCo lawyer, on the other and listened to Dr. Rodriguez—who'd brought a lawyer along with him as well, it turned out—explain how it was really unlikely that Eric was ever going to wake up again.
The doctor used a lot of words like "massive cranial trauma" and "intercranial haemorrhagia" and "deep tissue bruising" and "no evidence of EEG activity," but it all boiled down to—bottom line—in the hospital's opinion, Eric was a vegetable, and if he hadn't woken up in the last three days, they didn't think he was going to wake up any time soon. Like ever.
And there were Decisions to be made—the way he said it, you could hear the capital "D" very clearly. And just who was going to make them?
Derek Tilford coughed gently. "Actually," he said, self-deprecatingly, "Ms. Llewellyn holds a power of attorney on Mr. Banyon's behalf to be exercised in just such cases. I have a copy of it here to add to the hospital files. I'm sure you'll find it all in order."
He passed the paper across the table.
Even if the ink ain't quite dry on it yet, Kayla thought. And who knew? It might be the real deal. Ria and Eric were tight, and there wasn't anybody else in the World Above who could stand up for Eric in a case like this.
"Ms. Llewellyn wishes every effort to be made to restore Mr. Banyon to full health," Anita said firmly. "In fact, in the case of the necessity of long-term care, she'd prefer to transfer Mr. Banyon to a private facility of her own choosing. Perhaps you could tell us when that might be possible?"
"Not for at least a week," Dr. Rodrieguez said, on firmer ground now. "Leaving aside the injuries to his head and spine, we've already had to operate once to control internal bleeding. I'd prefer to wait."
"So he could still wake up?" Beth said, her voice tight with hope. She'd kept quiet through most of the discussion of Eric's condition, but could contain herself no longer.
"We can always pray for a miracle, Ms. Connor," Dr. Rodriguez said, getting to his feet. "But I don't want to raise any false hopes. In my opinion, that's what it will take."
* * *
Hosea was waiting for them outside of Eric's new room.
"He isn't a pretty sight," he warned Beth as she put her hand on the door. "And he won't know you're there."
"I want to see him," Beth said stubbornly. Hosea stepped back. Beth and Kory went in. Kayla stayed with Hosea. She'd already seen Eric. And she didn't want to be anywhere near Beth when she did.
"How'd it go?" Hosea asked, once the two of them were alone.
"'Bout like you said. Hospital was setting us up to pull the plug, but it turned out Ria's got a power of attorney from Eric—fancy that—and LlewellCo wants to keep him plugged in. So now it's up to us." She hugged herself and shivered. "Anita said that Ria wants to move him to a private clinic, but the doctor doesn't want to move him until he's better . . . and I can't even start in on making him better until we can find him and put him all back in one piece."
"Which means we do it here," Hosea said. "It'll be a thought awkward figuring out how to work around those private nurses of Miz Llewellyn's, though."
"Damn," Kayla muttered. "Can't your Guardian friends do something about that?"
Hosea smiled faintly, considering the matter. "Ah expect they can at that."
A few minutes later, Beth and Kory left the hospital room. Beth was weeping, and Kory looked stricken.
"You'll help him, right?" Beth said fiercely. "He's going to be all right?"
"Ah promise you, we'll do everything there is to do," Hosea assured her firmly.
"Then fare you well, Bard," Kory said. "And Danu's fortune attend your work."
* * *
Late that same night, Hosea, Kayla, and Paul Kern returned to the hospital. No one saw them enter the building, or ascend to the wing that held the private rooms.
The three of them stood in the hallway and watched as Eric's private nurse—a no-nonsense woman in her fifties—left the room and walked down the hall.
"She won't remember leaving," Paul said quietly. "I can keep her out as long as you need me to."
The three of them went into the room.
Paul locked the door as soon as they were inside; with Greystone's help, his spell would keep nearly everyone from seeing or hearing anything that went on in here, but there was a tiny percentage of the population that was completely impervious to magic, and there was no point in taking chances.
Hosea set down his banjo case and opened it.
"You're not going to play that thing, are you?" Kayla asked, alarmed.
"Won't know till we come to it," Hosea answered mildly. He slung the strap over his shoulder and began to tighten the strings.
Kayla went over to the bed. Eric lay unmoving beneath the sheet and blanket, just as she had seen him before. It might be her imagination, but the sense of absence was nearly palpable.
"I'm just going to do a quick check," Kayla said. "Elizabet said not to Heal him before we got his mind to come back, but I want to make sure there ain't something goin' wrong in there that the doctors maybe missed."
"You need an anchor for that?" Hosea asked.
"Nah," Kayla said, taking a deep breath. "It's just physical stuff. Easy-peasy." Yeah, right.
She stuffed her winter gloves into her pocket and reached out and laid her fingers, very gently, against the side of Eric's face.
The hospital room fell away.
She raced through his body. Torn muscles; flesh cut by the surgeon's knife; the hard alien presence of surgical sutures; bruises and broken bones . . . she felt the power well up within her, wanting to reach out, to begin the work of Healing, and held it back with an effort. Not now. Not yet.
Even through the drugs coursing thro
ugh his bloodstream, she felt the pain. With an effort, she blocked it out, searching further, memorizing the damage so that she could ignore it later. All this, terrible as it was, would heal on its own in some way or another, given time. There was nothing here that was immediately life-threatening. The surgeons had done good work.
With an effort, she lifted her hand away, leaving her work undone.
"Fascinating," Paul said, watching her.
Yeah, I'm just a dream walking.
"There's nothing here that can't wait," Kayla said aloud, taking a deep breath.
"Then let's go," Hosea said, reaching out his hand.
Kayla took it, and reached out to Eric once more.
This time she forced herself to close her Healer's senses to the song of pain and damage that his body sang, isolating it and shunting it aside. She was seeking something else. She was seeking Eric himself.
As before, when she had sought Jimmie's consciousness in the Guardian's charred and ruined body, she found herself in a house.
It wasn't real. It was a construct, a symbol, a kind of fantasy that allowed her to do her work, the way she sometimes saw the bodies she worked on as machines, or video games, or even songs. She didn't waste her time trying to see the truth behind the symbol. That was pointless. It was okay for her to see a house. All she had to do was hunt through the place until she found Eric.
Simple. Not.
The place she found herself in wasn't Eric's apartment—or rather, only part of it was. This place had a lot more rooms, all of them dark. She summoned up a flashlight and used it to light her way.
"Eric?" she called. "Eric? It's Kayla."
No answer. And worse, no sense that there was anyone here listening.
She passed from a room that looked more or less like Eric's living room at Guardian House, down a long corridor lined with doors, all shut. Conscientiously, she opened every one and looked inside, stopping at intervals to call Eric's name and identify herself, and always receiving the same sense of absence in response.
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