License Invoked

by Robert Asprin

  It helped her a lot to have other people's energy to throw at the building wave of darkness, yet what they had to offer was limited by their lack of training. As Nigel had said, he had commitment problems. Others were blocked for just as many reasons. There just wasn't enough power. If she could have made contact with audience members, she might have been able to channel them into creating a more positive cycle. She was afraid to try. Such an action could backfire hugely if word of trouble started going around the auditorium. One whisper of black magic, and 80,000 terrified people would stampede for the doors.

  All the people gathered around were depending on her, and her alone. She wished that Boo-Boo was there with her. It was a frightening thing to be left to her own meager devices. She wanted desperately for her mission to succeed. She gave a short, bitter laugh. Yes, she wanted to save the world. Willingness must count for something.

  Not enough, she thought forlornly. If Boo-Boo failed to stop Robbie and Ken, all was lost. She sensed the bottom of the well in what the others had to give her, and drew hard on her stored fund of Earth power, the last drops of which Boo-Boo had fed her before he went away. Once again she felt herself tiring, almost falling back into Lloyd's strong arms as she surrendered even the last ergs of her own life-force to stop the evil from taking over. She was sorry for Fionna. It must have seemed like an amazing bit of good luck for her to have an old friend assigned to protect her. Too bad that Ringwall hadn't seen fit to send a more able and experienced agent to her rescue.

  In a moment Liz would lose her grip on the containment spell, and the whole maelstrom would wind itself up into the largest force of darkness that this city had ever seen. She started to feel dizzy as the drain leached away her very consciousness. In a moment she would collapse like a deflated balloon.

  Softly, a trickle of psychic energy began to creep up through the soles of her feet into her body. Liz felt it rise from the floor, running along her legs and body, straightening her spine and flowing out of her hands and her mouth. It couldn't be coming from Boo-Boo. He wasn't this powerful. Liz grew concerned as a mental probe she sent to feel for the bottom of the well of energy dove down for ages. There was no bottom. It felt gigantic. Endless. What incredibly powerful person could have arisen out of nowhere to help her? It couldn't be anyone in the company, nor a member of the audience, yet it poured from a single source. Who was her mysterious benefactor?

  Suddenly, she realized she knew its identity. Not a who, but rather a what. The power was issuing from New Orleans itself. It didn't like this intrusive darkness being pressed down upon it, like a thumb in the eye. It wanted to bottle up the intruder to prevent it spoiling the ease of the Big Easy. As much as pure power could be, this was flavored with spice and lilting voices—and music. The city, and the French Quarter particularly, was protecting itself from outside malignity. It saw Liz as the means to protecting itself, and offered the wealth of its own influence to that end. Liz offered herself gladly as a conduit.

  Energy coursed through her every vein, came out of every pore. She was afraid that it would surge through her with the force of a fire hose striking a tissue paper wall and tear her fragile body into pieces, but it didn't want to destroy her. It wanted to carry her along, make her a part of it. She opened up like a camera aperture, wider and wider, until the whole calm, easygoing identity of that unique city was coming in through her feet and out through her fingertips. Let les bonnes temps roulez. The city itself, with the driving backbeat of the Mississippi River in the background like Voe's drumming, provided the overwhelming music Liz lifted herself on. It was as though Bourbon Street itself raised up and tied around the Superdome like a gigantic ribbon of sound. Not only the goodness of rock and roll, but the cool breath of jazz, the warm embrace of soul, the heart of the blues, the edgy ribs of zydeco and the wry glue of Irish folk music wove together under her hands to form a leak-tight, flexible basket. The music of this great place stood against the evil infecting the acid-folk rock—the ultimate battle of the bands. Her enormously heightened sense allowed her to hear all of these pulses, the good outside holding the bad inside. She could contain the malignance, for now. But she couldn't hold it forever. Sooner or later one of these people was going to want to go home.

  Oh, Boo, do something! she pleaded mentally.

  * * *

  Boo-Boo felt as though he was feeling his way blind in the dark. Ken Lewis had shown a distinct talent for concealment. Boo checked with friends, but neither he nor they had seen a good-looking man with a plain girl in blue jeans. When he stopped to consider his throbbing feet, he must have walked up and down the length of the riverfront twice already. He hadn't spotted either of his subjects. The trail wound around too many places. He was frustrated. Liz was back there alone trying to calm a nuclear bomb with a cup of chamomile tea. This exhibition would end pretty soon, as would the concert. Once the crowd broke up, his chances of finding two people in the mob dropped to parts per billion as everybody would make for his or her favorite bar. And that was just to start the night off.

  It was beginning to look as though he would have to ask for a search of the waterfront warehouses. His heart sank as he counted the myriad windows reflecting the flying sparks of color. Robbie could be behind any one of them.

  He'd give the Moon Walk five more minutes, and then call in the forces. Where could he get a view with some perspective?

  The band shell, a modern gazebo, was raised about five feet above the cobblestone path. If he stood on the railings he would be able to see a good section of the walk. As he made his way through the crowd towards the structure, the magic detector started flashing as it picked up one mighty strong trace. Boo followed it, hoping he had found them at last.

  When he had taken no more than six paces, the last of the lodestone powder ran out. The witchlight fizzled and went dark. Boo came to a halt, staring at his empty hand in dismay.

  A little boy nearby on the grass looked up at him with sympathy in his large brown eyes.

  “Aww,” he said. “Here.” He offered Boo one from his box of sparklers.

  “Thanks, little brother,” Boo-Boo said, giving the child a pat on the back. Might do in a pinch. He lit it and held it toward the gazebo, chanting the Words of Finding.

  The silver flame ran down the length of the wire and exploded outward in a single, blinding blast. Pay dirt! He ran toward the gazebo, shoving past dozens of holidaymakers with their faces to the sky. Just in the shelter of the slanted roof on the far side he saw a couple of familiar profiles.

  Boo-Boo stabbed the auto-dial button on his phone. “Liz!” he cried. “I've found 'em!”

  * * *

  Ken Lewis rolled back on one elbow, watching Robbie operate her invisible equipment. Now and again in his earphone he heard the crackle of confusion coming from the Superdome. He might have had a hard time in the beginning getting the sabotage under way, but now it was going so easy he was sorry he couldn't do it all over again.

  He could cause anything to happen that he could get Robbie to visualize. That opened up the range of possibilities for mayhem to well . . . everything. But there wasn't much time left. Once the power had been converted the way Mr. Kingston wanted it, he needed to cause a massive reaction to make it go back into the transmission line and sent off to SATN-TV. A devastating disaster would cause the appropriate reaction.

  How best to end the concert? Ken wondered dreamily as tantalizing possibilities danced before his eyes. Should he set fire to the roof and let it cascade down on the thousands of fans in the audience? Blow up the stage and launch goody-goody Fionna into space? Collapse the walls into a black hole? As long as Fionna Kenmare bit the big one, Ken could do what he liked. That had been the only non-negotiable stipulation Kingston had thrown into the contract. A mega-superstar knocked into eternity at the height of her powers and popularity ought to launch boatloads of fear and terror back through the link. And the publicity! Ken could just see the headlines. Every newspaper and television service would ca
rry the story tomorrow. It'd be a blow against good magic all over the world. That ought to be good for another bonus. Plenty of extra hate and fear to feed the Greed Machine. Maybe Robbie ought to set off a ton of fireworks right on the stage itself, and blow them all to pieces.

  Wait, he knew the perfect conclusion: the Jumbotron! What if Robbie dropped that on the band at the end of the concert? Everyone would be squashed flat, bang!

  “Honey,” he said, very casually, leaning forward over Robbie's shoulder, “you know that big box hanging over the stage? It's in the way. Gary wants you to take it down, right onto the stage.”

  “Won't it fall on people?” Robbie asked.

  “Well, maybe a few,” Ken said, picturing the headlines on the paper the next day: Rock Star Crushed to Death in Freak Accident. “Fionna, for one. C'mon, do it, baby. Just one big tug, and it'll all be over.”

  “No, I don't like that idea,” Robbie said. “It's dangerous.”

  “Robbie, it's in your instructions,” Ken said. “You have to.”

  “No, the fire marshall will never go along with it.”

  She was growing more agitated.

  “Shake it, baby!” he ordered, into a sudden silence on the riverfront in between jazz numbers coming over the loudspeakers. People turned around to look at him. He gave them a sheepish smile. They went back to watching, and he turned to glare at Robbie. She shrank away from him.

  “All right,” she said, in a very small voice. Ken heard the gratifying crackle of confusion in his earphone. She might not like it, but she was doing it.

  * * *

  “Oooh,” the crowd breathed.

  “What's going on out there?” Liz asked, from inside her cocoon. She sensed a frisson of excitement tinged with fear breaking out from inside the mass enchantment. The building began to rumble underfoot.

  Lloyd leaned back and peered out between the huge speakers.

  “More of the usual monsters,” he said, as though he was telling her the weather. “Michael just stomped a red rocket underfoot. The punters loved it. Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “That 'ere box is moving around.”

  “Which box?” Liz asked. She experienced a moment of alarm, which was quickly mirrored by her support group. Deliberately squashing her feelings, she let her gaze follow Lloyd's pointing finger straight up. The Jumbotron! It swayed and moved backwards and forwards on its moorings. Fionna, still in midair, had noticed its movement, too, and was waving frantically at Liz.

  Liz stood frozen in the midst of her support group. She had always had a horrible feeling that the Jumbotron might fall down. Her worst nightmare seemed on the verge of coming true. If the power continued to rise, not only the band, but hundreds of concertgoers near the stage, could also be crushed by it.

  “Boo-Boo,” she whispered, “hurry!”

  * * *

  “I don't want to make trouble for anyone,” Robbie said, her fingers twisting in knots. She had gotten to the weepy stage. Time for a little more liquid courage. Ken poured another splash of tequila in her glass and added a double dose of drugs. “This has been the best job of my life, working for Green Fire.”

  “Come on, honey,” he said, holding out the liquor, “they're no good to you.” She drank it without paying attention. She was numb.

  “Oh, yes, they are!” she insisted, muzzily. “Lloyd is always wonderful. Nigel is great. I really love Nigel. He called in those secret agents.”

  “Those spies are there to get you, baby,” Ken said, looking into her eyes seriously. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot.

  “They can't be,” Robbie said, shaking her head. The action was grossly exaggerated. Ken caught her just before she fell over. “They're too nice.”

  “They're here to take you away,” Ken insisted, whispering in her ear. “The government thinks you're a freak. They're evil. They'd lock you up in a little lab if they could. Run tests on you.”

  “Oh, no!” Robbie protested. “That's what you told me about the nice man in Dublin. He wasn't a spy. What happened to him, Kenny?”

  “You told him to go away,” Ken said, with major satisfaction. The guy had been a basket case the last time he'd seen him, slumped outside St. Stephen's Green shopping center off Grafton Street. No more sticking his nose into the Council's affairs for him. Robbie, annoyingly, picked up on his triumph, and started crying.

  “I did something to him, didn't I?”

  Hastily, Ken offered her more tequila. “Here, baby. Here's something to make you forget all about it.”

  “Don't wanna forget . . .” Robbie said, fighting him. She shoved away, put her hands on the ground unsteadily, trying to get to her feet. He'd pushed her too far. Let her relax a little, and work her back to where she could create the big effect he was hoping for.

  “Come on, baby,” Ken urged her, pulling her down beside him. She slumped into a boneless heap, staring at the sky. “You can't leave. The show's not over yet. You know what I want. Do it. Do it!”

  Robbie's voice was almost completely indistinct. He lowered his head to hear her. “The Jumbotron belongs to the Superdome. They'll get upset if we move it.”

  The fireworks changed tenor as the music shifted from the jazz piece to a martial march. Ken took her face between his hands and turned it toward the show.

  “Never mind the Jumbotron. Look at all those pretty flowers!” he said. “Picture ones just like that happening in the Superdome. Big, fiery flowers, with petals that burn the people they fall on. Burning your enemies to cinders. Picture them falling, falling, right on Fionna. Look at them!”

  A tongue of light sizzled up into the sky and burst right over their heads into a purple star twice the size of a football field. Robbie screamed and hid her head in her arms.

  “They're coming too close. Too close!”

  Bad move, Ken thought. He'd given her too much. He held the squirming woman in his arms, trying to keep her from burrowing into the grass.

  Some of the passersby had turned around at the frantic scream.

  Ken looked at the crowd apologetically.

  “Sorry,” he said. “She just accepted my proposal. We're engaged!” Indulgent smiles all round, left them alone. Decent people, giving decent privacy. They wouldn't be so nice if he told them what they were engaged in.

  But he'd miscalculated how much Robbie's system could hold. Her body lay limp on the ground, but her hands were frantically picking at the grass.

  “No no no no no no . . .” she murmured.

  “Hey, baby.” Ken turned her over. She drew her knees up to her chest and screwed her eyes shut.

  Ken heard activity nearby, the sound of hurrying footsteps, and looked up to see the agent dressed like a bum heading his way. He shook Robbie by the shoulder.

  “Robbie, you've got to finish off the concert hall right now!”

  “No no no no no no!” She started kicking and lashing out with her arms. Agent Boudreau was getting closer. He mustn't get Robbie. Ken tried to gather her up, intending to carry her away from the Moon Walk.

  She smacked him in the face with a wild swing.

  All right, so Ken had created a monster—but she was his monster! He couldn't let the agent take her away. Ken wasn't a natural practitioner. His superiors had equipped him with a few easy spells in case of emergency. The disappearance charms were all used up. No way to vanish handily into the crowd. Instead, he had to rely on offense.

  He sprang to his feet and assumed a martial arts stance.

  * * *

  Boo-Boo saw him assume a bent-knee crouch with his hands out at right angles. He'd been waiting for something like that. Ken had little magical ability of his own, or he wouldn't have needed Ms. Robbie in the first place. In a moment the agent had taken his opponent's measure. Ken Lewis had wrestled, most likely in high school, and had maybe a little storefront karate. He was no match for Boo-Boo in any way that the American agent could think of.

  From his pocket Ken whipped out a white envelope and
flung it down on the ground between them. It burst with a puff of white smoke.

  “Spirits dark, hear me call you, hold my foe still like a statue!”

  Boo-Boo almost scoffed out loud. Standard immobilization spell, only you were supposed to hit the one you wanted to freeze with the powder to make it work. Ken had wasted it on maybe an ant hill or a passing caterpillar. Boo-Boo wasn't impressed. The guy was so jumpy he was making stupid mistakes.

  But Ken was a dirty fighter. Under the cover of the white cloud, he rushed to close with Boo-Boo, pounding him over the kidneys with his fists. Luckily for Boo-Boo, his old friend of an army jacket, padded with years' accumulation of odds and ends, absorbed most of the force. Boo-Boo twisted out of his hold just in time to keep his ear from being bitten in half. Ken Lewis must have gone out of his mind. Boo-Boo grabbed his wrist and flipped it up behind the other man's back.

  “Now, you just hold still,” he said. He turned his head to look for Ms. Robbie.

  The poor young woman was lying on the ground, mumbling and writhing, her hands waving in the air. Her eyes were fixed on the fireworks, the effect of which she must still be transmitting to the Superdome. Drugged or bespelled, it was hard to say which.

  “What did you give her?” Boo-Boo demanded, shaking Ken's wrist. The other gasped but didn't speak. “What have you done to her?”

  An urgent beeping sounded nearby.

  “Beauray,” Liz's voice, much muffled, came from the depths of his pocket, “what is happening out there?”

  Ken took advantage of Boo-Boo's momentary distraction to kick out viciously. Boo-Boo took a healthy blow to the shin, but let his weight drop forward. He ended up sitting on Ken.