by Hiatt, Bill
“Yeah, the situation could have been very threatening, I guess, but why does Carrie Winn care about me one way or the other? What makes me so special that she would have to lure me to bed in the first place?”
“That is the right question, for sure. Why does Carrie Winn, who has pretty substantial wealth and power, feel she has to meddle with a sixteen-year-old? Sure, she knows who you are, I mean your previous lives, but so what? You haven’t shown any inclination to attack her.”
“So we end up where we started, with a lot of questions and precious few answers,” I said glumly.
“No, we aren’t exactly at square one. The reason she wants you does lie somewhere in your identity. She wants something from one of your previous lives, or she wants to use your abilities for her own purposes, or at least make sure you are neutralized as a possible enemy, but I’d say the last is the least likely. Had she really just wanted you out of the way, surely she could have just killed you.”
“Maybe that little unplanned jaunt into Annwn was an attempt at just that.”
Nurse Florence leaned forward a little in her chair. “That could be, I suppose, but someone like Winn could easily have dispatched you in a less spectacular way, like having that pwca you thought was Stan get the drop on you. She clearly knew who you were some weeks before you knew who she was, and at that point you were much weaker than you are now. No, if she didn’t strike then, simple murder is not what’s on her mind.”
“Perhaps I’ll get a better idea on Halloween. She’s asked the Bards to play at another big party she’s throwing then.”
Nurse Florence’s jaw dropped. “You aren’t thinking about going, are you? And on Samhain, the most dangerous possible time?”
“I don’t see how we are ever going to know what she’s up to unless we give her another chance to show her hand,” I said in the best reasonable tone I could manage.
“Listen, Cowboy, you aren’t getting near Awen again if I have to tie you up and throw you in some little corner of Annwn.”
“You said yourself she wasn’t trying to just kill me.”
“That doesn’t mean she won’t if conditions change, such as if you figure out whatever her plan is and get in her way, or even slip and reveal to her somehow that you know she is your enemy.”
“Whereas, suddenly having nothing to do with her won’t tip her off at all. Look, I’m not thrilled about this any more than you are, but if I suddenly seem hostile, or even aloof, that could be far worse than playing along, and you know it.”
Nurse Florence sighed and gave me a worried smile. “I admit you have a point. But the more time you spend with her, the greater the danger. And what about your other band members? Do you really want to put them in danger?”
“I’d have to magic them to stop them from going at this point. Anyway, lots of other people will be there. The press will be there. Carrie Winn can hardly afford to do something noticeably violent with so many potential witnesses.”
“I suppose you have a point there also. Well, if your mind is made up, I will help you—but I still won’t let you back over there until after you complete some homework I’m going to give you.”
I wrinkled my nose disdainfully. “Just what I need.”
“No, I’m serious. Right now she knows far, far more about you than we know about her. Going into her lair blind again is too dangerous. I’m willing to work up some additional magic defenses for you, but you must do your part, with Stan’s help, if you like, and gather what information you can.
“First, you need to try to figure out who Carrie Winn is.”
“I thought that was pretty obvious.”
“No, her public facade is obvious enough, but who is she really? She seems to possess enormous magical power. Mortals with that kind of punch don’t exactly grow on trees in this era. Is she a reincarnation of some past power, as you are, or is she someone who just lived straight through, as Morgan seems to have? Is she even human? I don’t see any signs of faerie blood, but she could hide them easily enough.”
“You are not exactly talking about a simple Google search, you know.”
“No, but she seems to employ a veritable army from what you have told me. I’m not just talking about her security. She has drivers, maids, gardeners, cooks, and many others. They all live somewhere. At least some of them must have family, friends, people they talk to. I have never heard any particular gossip about Carrie Winn, but someone, sometime, must have seen or heard something we can use, perhaps something they attached no particular significance to.”
I realized how tense I was when a knock on the door made me jump. Stan stuck his head in.
“Is this a private party, or can anyone join?”
“Sure!” said Nurse Florence. “Come on in. This conversation concerns you, too.”
She quickly filled Stan in on what she wanted me to do.
“Would it help if we could get a list of all her local employees?”
“Absolutely!” replied Nurse Florence quickly. “You have an idea.”
“Sure. I designed the website for Winn Development Company, and they want me to do some updating this week. I’ll be sitting at a computer tied directly to the office server. I’m willing to bet a simple employee list isn’t going to have much security around it, so for sure I can get all the company employees. But I think I remember the office being networked with her house. Her home employees are probably not part of the company—though they could be, since it’s privately owned, not publicly traded—but we might just luck out.”
“Way too dangerous!” I said, shaking my head emphatically.
“I’ll be safe,” said Stan, with a little smile. “I’m not the one whose bones she wants to jump.” I blushed despite myself, but I was not about to back down.
“If you’re caught…”
“Carrie Winn hasn’t even been in the office most of the time when I was working before. I heard she doesn’t come in much, anymore—she does most of her work from home, another pretty good indication she could have a connection to the work server. And I doubt every single employee she has is evil, much less some kind of monster.”
“It might work,” said Nurse Florence thoughtfully. “Particularly, Tal, if she’s an aware reincarnate like you, she may not have much of a knack with computers.”
“Hey!” I said defensively.
“Dude, you know that’s totally true,” said Stan with a smirk. “Ever since your…awakening, you’ve always had a really hard time getting computer information to stick.”
“Of course,” continued Nurse Florence, “she’s certainly wealthy enough to have a top tier computer security provider lock everything down, but taking that kind of precaution may not have occurred to her.”
“I won’t allow it,” I said firmly. “Way, way too dangerous.”
“Since when are you the boss of me, Tal?” snapped Stan, suddenly angry, even a little red in the face. “This is you boxing Shar for me all over again. You’re more overprotective than my mom these days. You won’t let me fight my own battles or help with yours. Are you really that certain I’m not good for anything but being an object of your pity?”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” I said slowly, “that I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you?”
“How do you think I’d feel if I didn’t help, and then something happened to you? I’m just going to an office in the middle of the business district in broad daylight—and Ms. Winn probably won’t even be there. You want to go to Awen on Halloween night when you know she is going to be there. Who’s running the bigger risk?”
“She apparently doesn’t want to kill me. I don’t know she would have the same qualms about killing you.”
“Gentlemen,” Nurse Florence interrupted quietly but sternly, “we are not getting anywhere this way. Tal, I think we can take precautions to make sure Stan is…well, as safe as he is going to be. If I’m not satisfied with the situation, I’ll be the first to say no.” Stan looked about to p
rotest, but arguing with me was one thing. Arguing with someone like Nurse Florence was quite another for him, so he let the matter drop, at least for the moment.
“We have to make the rest of this conversation faster than I’d like, or people will start to wonder what both of you are doing in the nurse’s office for so long. Finding out who Carrie Winn is is only half the battle. You also need to figure out how to use your magic more effectively. I’m not as troubled by the fact that you can’t reach Annwn as I am by the fact that you haven’t made any progress on fusing magic and science.”
“I’ve tried, really hard.”
“I’m sure you have, and we’ve had some distracting crisis every few days, but the only way to protect yourself, to say nothing of your friends, will be to do something Carrie Winn doesn’t expect. You survived in Annwn because Morgan had never seen a hurricane before and didn’t at first know what to do with it. That was some good applied meteorology. You beat the pwca because, on the spur of the moment, you found new ways to direct your sword fire.
“Here’s what I think. Magic is always at least partially about visualizing the outcome you want. Those of us who can use magic are better at that than the average person. For us it becomes real because we can see it in vivid detail in our head.”
“I see where she’s going!” said Stan excitedly. “If you could visualize the technology you wanted to affect in vivid detail, and then if you could visualize it differently, maybe you could affect it.”
“Yes, like, oh, let’s just pick a random example, you could cause guns to misfire, or not fire at all.” I raised both eyebrows at that.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t realized how vulnerable all of us would be in the face of Carrie Winn’s armed security guards. Drawing White Hilt and getting riddled with bullets isn’t exactly a winning strategy—and Merlin himself if he were here couldn’t cast a spell faster than a bullet could hit him.
“Why do you think there are so few of us around now? You must remember we were more numerous when the first Taliesin was alive. As long as we could cast a spell if need be as fast as someone could swing a sword or throw a punch, we could survive. But once weapons developed that could strike faster than we could, particularly from a distance, it was no longer a contest. Those of us who survived initially basically went into hiding, not letting many people know who we really were, much less what we could do.
“Now if, as you say, Ms. Winn’s guards are armed, they probably are crack shots, but they aren’t necessarily also experts in hand-to-hand combat. If suddenly their guns fail them, Tal, you and a few well-trained friends might just have a chance of defeating them. With their guns still working, forget it.”
“I can’t seem to visualize the inner workings of most equipment well enough. Hurricanes or making various shapes with fire are still pretty close to the natural world. The workings of a gun are much further away.”
“You can’t visualize those things, but I can,” pointed out Stan. “I’ve always been good with mechanical drawing, schematics, equipment repair, and you know I build computers from scratch. The question,” he said, addressing Nurse Florence, “is how to get what’s in my head into Tal’s.”
“Agreed, and that may not be as hard as we have always assumed. Tal, when you channel magic through your music to alter people’s moods and even ideas, you are effectively projecting some of your thoughts at them…”
“And if the connection between minds is like a conduit of some kind,” interrupted Stan, “then there is no reason in theory why the thoughts could not flow in both ways along it.”
“Exactly! Tal, if you can send thoughts, and you clearly can, you should be able to receive them. Obviously, Carrie Winn has figured out at some point how to do that. And we already have abilities, like being able to see through the eyes of nearby animals, that are obviously related to what a more scientific age would call telepathy. If you think about it, the ability of creatures like kelpies to lure people by assuming sexually desirable forms suggests that they can read people’s minds, at least in that one area.”
“That’s a pretty tall order in the next couple of weeks,” I said at last. “Become fully telepathic, absorb the scientific visualizations from Stan’s mind, and use them to enable myself to manipulate technology, and not just at some novice level but like an expert.”
I had seldom seen Nurse Florence look so utterly serious. “Tal, it’s either that, or we lose…possibly our lives, but certainly more than we will want to part with. Whatever Carrie Winn wants, she will not stop until she gets it—unless we stop her. She is clearly a powerful spell caster, and even if we can beat her in that arena, another ‘pretty tall order,’ she also has a small army at her disposal, and we certainly can’t beat that as things stand now.”
Another knock at the door, and again I jumped at it—time to switch to decaf. This time it turned out to be Jackson.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Nurse Florence, but I need to talk to Tal.”
“That’s okay, Jackson,” replied Nurse Florence, her tone now remarkably detached. “We were just chatting, anyway. Tal, Stan, I’ll see you later.” Nurse Florence busied herself with paperwork on her desk as if we had just been killing time, and Stan and I walked out with Jackson.
“What’s up, Jax?” I said casually.
“We’ve got another gig, man,” he replied excitedly. “Well, that is, if you agree. I’ve already talked to the other guys.”
“I’m all ears. What’s the gig?”
“The band for the homecoming dance canceled at the last minute. Ms. Simmons ran into me in the hall and asked if maybe we could do it. I know it’s not as cool as playing the Winn party, but it should be fun, and it pays.” Jackson gave me his patented, light-up-the-room smile.
This was actually the longest conversation I had had with him since Founders’ Day. I had forgotten how hard it was to disagree with him, not that I really wanted to.
“Sure, Jax, it sounds like good exposure for the band.”
So I guess I was going to the homecoming dance, after all.
CHAPTER 14: HOMECOMING
Before the homecoming game I did my usual team morale routine (the fight song and similar material with a magical undercurrent designed to set every player up for maximum performance). After, Stan and I sat in the stands, cheering enthusiastically as our team crushed the visitors, a former league champion, 113 to 6. Dan, whom one sports writer had recently compared to a young Joe Namath, was, as usual “on fire,” and the rest of the team played as well together as they ever had. Ironically, though I wasn’t a football player, the team’s success was one of the few things in my life I could still count on to lift my spirits. None of the players (except Dan in defender mode) could possibly have known how much I actually contributed to their success, and probably most of them had a hard time consciously accepting that my singing to them before games made that big a difference, but instinctively they knew I was contributing something, and, with the recent exception of Dan, they showed that appreciation in a variety of ways that made me less alone. At the beginning of the year, I could have counted Stan as a friend, and probably some of the band members…and that was it. Now, though none of the players were as close to me as Stan was, a number of them could have called me friend and meant it. Some of their good will infected cheerleaders and other athletes, so that I could literally feel the good vibes anywhere on campus, an effect the boxing match had heightened considerably.
I suppose on one level it was childish to want to be popular, but if you had been hospitalized and then watched most of your friends drift away from you, or if you had known people were whispering about you as you walked down the hall, you would understand.
Later, as the Bards set up for their unexpected gig, I felt their warmth around me. No surprise there, since they had never turned their backs on me in the first place. Jackson had been fidgety for a while after Founders’ Day, but even he seemed over that, and my contribution to their musical successes was muc
h more consciously obvious to them than my contributions to the football team. None of them lacked talent exactly, but we had never really meshed completely before my awakening. Now, when we played, we fused into one being. Okay, the magic helped, but I’m not sure it was just magic. Sometimes people just need a little push to achieve their potential, and when I suddenly became a much better musician, they felt the pull toward a higher level.
You might wonder how much popularity a rock/Celtic fusion band could ever achieve, regardless of musical talent. You have to understand little communities like Santa Brígida. There wasn’t usually a lot for high schoolers to do. The mall was too small to really be a good hang-out, there was only one movie theater, which tended to cater to an older crowd, and a lot of the activities the region was known for just didn’t work for teenagers. Go antiquing in Summerland? Boring. Visit the various little museums, famous houses, art galleries, etc.? More boring. Wine tasting? Not until you’re 21. If you were a surfer, it was easy to catch some waves and some rays, even in winter, and if you were a hiker, the Los Padres National Forest was just to the north. But a lot of people didn’t really do either, and especially with the hiking, you had to plan in advance—never a teenage strength. Yes, there was Santa Barbara, but it was a drive, and the highway traffic tended to be sluggish most of the day, so SB wasn’t just something you could do on the spur of the moment either, especially on school nights—particularly if your parents were like Stan’s, for instance.
What I’m working up to is that most of the teenagers in Santa Brígida were often faced with the stark choice of watching the grass grow or listening to the Bards play. Even when we were, in Stan’s words, “a garage band that should never have gotten out of the garage,” we sometimes won the contest with the grass. Once our sound really came together, we could even have an impromptu concert at the park or the beach—I had worked out a very flexible permit arrangement with city hall—and draw a fair crowd. You might have thought some parents would get nervous, but actually they generally loved us. Bored teenagers are often sullen teenagers, if you hadn’t noticed, and most parents try to avoid that situation like the plague. Besides, we were local kids who were also relatively clean-cut and relatively good students—hadn’t two of us just been honored at Founders’ Day? We didn’t smoke, drink, do drugs, use profanity, or appear on magazine covers in scantily clad poses. In the beginning I think some parents actually shoved their kids in the direction of our performances. And once we got a following, we got paying gigs: Bar Mitzvahs, quinceañeras, sweet sixteen parties. After the appearance at the Troubadour, in fact, we had to start turning down some offers. (Remember this was wannabe Montecito, and a lot of parents jumped at the chance to get a band “on the cheap” that had played the Troubadour—who knows, some day we might be someone, and then they could say we had performed for them “back when.”)
