License Invoked (11 page)

The strong arms surrounding her helped to push the bogeys away. All her friends were gathered around her. They wanted to help. They were the grownups, there to protect her from the darkness. She felt as if she was a little girl again, crying in the nursery when the lights went out. They'll make it better. But they couldn't help. They didn't understand. She had followed every one of the superstitions to the letter, even the ones that made her feel silly. It wasn't enough to keep her safe. She drew a ragged breath and burst into tears.

Oh, I want my mummy
. 

Fionna sobbed uncontrollably. The evil was here. It had followed her here. The emotional storm inside her rose to hysterical proportions. It was hard to breathe.

She felt herself being shaken. A calm voice, a familiar voice, cut through her misery.

“Fionna. Fionna.”

Oh, it was that imperious prig, Elizabeth Mayfield. Forgot to set the tables again, or was it some equally tedious House task?

“Fionna.”

Go away, she willed the calm, insistent voice. Go away. Elizabeth was just another manifestation of the evils that surrounded her, haunted her. She tried to shut them all out, using the ward chants she had learned from the books. Go away, pesty voice.

“Fionna.”

She put her fingers into her ears. Two strong hands grabbed her sore wrists and pulled them away. She yelped, and went back to chanting.

“Fionna,” the voice continued, in an urgent whisper, sinking lower and lower and becoming more and more intense until it burned into her very being. It was a mere breath upon her ears. “Phoebe Kendale, if you do not open your eyes right now and snap out of your sulk I will tell everyone here how you jumped naked off Magdalen Bridge into the Isis River at dawn on Midsummer Day five years ago.”

Fionna's bloodshot green eyes flew open, glaring into Liz's serious blue ones. “You wouldn't! Of all the officious, interferin' candy-arsed bitches who ever walked the earth on hind legs . . .”

Liz stood up and nodded to Nigel Peters. “She'll be all right now,” she said.

“My God, how did you do it?” Peters asked, staring at his star in amazement. Fionna stopped raving and tensed up.

“Departmental secret,” Liz said curtly. But she gave Fionna a look that said if she indulged herself in another screaming fit the secret would be out. The singer crossed her bandaged arms and stared her defiance. Liz shook her head. Fionna/Phoebe was as stubborn as the day they had met. She left the woman to the ministrations of Laura and Nigel, who began to argue about whether to put Fee to bed or to go on with the rehearsal.

“Let's get back to it,” Voe Lockney said, fidgeting with his drumsticks. “We need the run-through.”

“No,” Lloyd said, cradling Fionna closely as if possession was nine-tenths of the law. Her eyes were closed again. “Call it off. Fee's frazzled. Let her rest this afternoon.” The band and the crew immediately broke into protests.

“Oh, no,” Michael Scott said, his blue eyes ablaze. “We'll be rusty enough. I have to hear the acoustics of this place.”

“Is she going to fold in the show?” Voe Lockney asked, looking at Fionna with bewildered eyes.

“I don't see what all the fuss is about,” Robbie Unterburger said, sourly. “I've had worse burns from flash powder.”

At the sound of the word “burns,” Fionna nestled closer into Lloyd's meaty arms. Robbie's lips pressed together as if seeing the couple like that hurt her. Eddie Vincent gave them a disapproving look.

“Godless,” the keyboard player muttered. “Marry him already, woman!”

“The evil feeling has dissipated now,” Liz said, as soon as she and Boo were out of earshot of the others. “Where did it go?”

“Where did it come from?” Boo asked. “We've checked all over this place. The portals were cleared. Everyone was clean. We missed a leak somehow. It'd have to come in a vent, or on a breach in the walls to the outside. Malignity has to be invited into a neutral space. The only psychic doodads here belong to Miss Fionna. That kind of thing leaves a mark on people. No one has any deep-seated stains I can see.”

“Too deep for you?” Liz asked.

Boo gave her a glance full of meaning. “Not for our detection methods, ma'am,” Boo said mysteriously. “Can't say more'n that.”

“This isn't like anything I've ever had to deal with before,” Liz said, pushing departmental rivalry aside until later. “Is she really under attack from some kind of malign spirit that follows her around?”

“I dunno, ma'am,” Boo said. “We need some special expertise here. I know people. We can have a couple dozen specialists here in an hour. There's a Santeria priestess I know. The local wiccans will want to be in on it, and there's the Evangelical healers. Maybe a shaman or two.”

Liz only gawked. “Is there anyone in this town that you don't know?”

The clean-shaven, heavyset man leaned into the SATN-TV camera lens. He was wearing a plain black tunic and breeches with white bands at his throat and wide white cuffs. The costume, coupled with the truncated-cone-shaped hat, evoked an image of a Puritan settler, but his speech had no relation to the founding fathers' simple message of religious freedom.

“Hate,” he said, with all the flourishes and dramatic pauses of his profession, “liberates you. Hate sets you free. The ultimate freedom comes when you allow yourself to reach inside and draw out the burning fires within, to destroy your enemies and vanquish them into the netherworlds. Hate creates power.”

Behind him was a clutch of stern-faced women dressed in a similar style, straight out of The Crucible. They were throwing handfuls of powder onto a fire that exploded in a flash and puffs of noxious, yellow smoke.

“Are you getting passed up for promotions because the boss likes a different candidate more than you?” the man asked. “Then, curse your rival! Curse the boss, too! There's no reason for you to take ill-treatment like that without calling down eternal wrath upon those who do you wrong. Join our congregation! We'll be happy to offer a ritual for you. All you have to do is send us a donation of $100, and we'll invoke Satan in your name. Watch our show, and add your prayers that vengeance will be yours. Now, here's that address. Send $100 to SATN-TV . . . .”

The slim man in khaki trousers waited until the announcer had finished with his spiel. “Cut! Speaker Downey, come on. How come you're not going to show some skin? I thought Satan worshipers were, you know . . . naked girls on the altar?”

“How dare you?” the head Puritan said, coming toward the producer with a face like an angry thundercloud. “Private worship is not for public display!”

“We could guarantee you a hell—sorry, Speaker—a heckuva lot more viewers in the prime time slot if you would make your pitch, you know, a little more adult-friendly?”

“You mean, washed in sin!” Downey stormed.

“I mean, that's what people want to see,” the producer said, imperturbably. “What you're doing now is strictly daytime—bored housewives and unemployed people with the tube on for background noise. The real money is in the evening, if you wanted to cater to the public a little, or after midnight for really hot stuff. Sheesh! Some of the evil you guys espouse is obviously sadomasochism! You ought to . . . let it show a little.”

One of the women sidled up to him, seductive even in the heavy-skirted costume. “You're a follower?”

“I . . .” the producer began, uncomfortable even while he was starting to look interested.

“We prefer to keep our show in the light of day,” Downey said, angrily. “Night is for the creatures of the dark, like . . . like that druid's wench!” He pointed at a poster of Fionna Kenmare and Green Fire that was being carried onto the set by a couple of grips. “The fire of our Master keeps us strong! Darkness surrounds her. Many of our viewers have called down curses upon her and her minions, but they bounce back at us. She is trifling with things beyond her ken! More power is needed to bring about her downfall!”

“Now, now,” said Augustus Kingston, coming out of the shadows and throwing an arm over Speaker Downey's shoulders. Only the ember of his cigar end had given away his presence to the others. As he got closer the producer could smell the tobacco over the sulphur from the brimstone incense. “Don't you get all het up about Miss Kenmare. She's gonna get what's coming to her.”

“She wastes the otherworldly power, brother,” Downey said, shaking his head. “Her motives are suspect! What fool would use magic and not employ it for personal gain?”

“Well, you are so right, my friend,” Kingston said, smoothly. “And if I have not said it lately, I, and all of my people here,” he pointed the cigar at the producer, trailing along behind them like a worried watchdog, “appreciate your help in dealing with wrongheaded women like Miss Kenmare, there. Yes, she's got wards around her. There're some busybodies interfering with right-minded people like yourself who quite rightly want to see her blasted into the underworld, but in the end those won't be a barrier. No one can stand against the might of pure evil.”

Downey's eyes gleamed from underneath the brim of his antique hat. “We will continue the fight, brother.”

“We sure will. You all run along,” Kingston said, with an avuncular smile. “We've got to set up for the afternoon telethon now.”

“They just stand there,” the producer complained, watching the black-clad worshipers file out of the studio. “I could get more interest out of an oil painting.”

“But they bring in the money from the grass-roots viewers,” Kingston said, transfering his cigar to the other hand and taking the producer by the upper arm and leading him out into the noisy foyer, where a young, redheaded woman in a headset was punching the controls of a computerized switchboard set. “Look at that. The telephones are ringing off the hook. You just let them do their business, and concentrate on making it look as interesting as you know how. We've got our prime-time specials all locked up for this week. Might have a special special for you later on. Keep up the good work.”

The producer looked doubtful. Kingston slapped him on the back and headed for the rear office.

The man was right, though. It would have helped a lot if they could have raised the kind of power Kingston dreamed of through normal operations, but they couldn't, not in a puny backwater like this, far off in the northwest states. But Kingston, and some of his acquaintances had a plan to put themselves on the supernatural map—and that goody-goody little singer was going to help them do it.

“SATN-TV, please hold,” the operator said, poking the flashing button with the end of a pencil. “SATN-TV, please hold. SATN-TV, yes, Mr. Mooney! He's expecting your call. I'll put you right through, sir.” She jabbed the HOLD button, and cleared her throat. “Mr. Kingston, Mr. Mooney on line three.”

* * *

Kingston sat down in a huge, black, leather swivel chair in his office and swung it away from the monitors trained on Studio One. “Eldredge, nice to hear from you.”

“Is this going to happen, Augustus?” Eldredge Mooney asked. His voice was a low growl, like a bear awakened prematurely from hibernation. “People are beginning to ask me questions. They want to see results!”

Kingston kicked back and put one polished black shoe on his solid, non-sustainably harvested mahogany desk. “Yes, Eldredge, it's going right on schedule. We all ought to be getting one powerful charge in the batteries tomorrow night. I can't wait for the rest of the Council to see the setup. I'm looking forward to having you all here.”

“This is the first major test of the system, you know.”

“Of course I know it! It's an honor to be the one to push the button, so to speak, and I am sure it's going to be a big success. I was just watching some of our faithful who are providing the charge that primes the pump, so to speak. This technology's just plain brilliant. The machines have been ticking over just fine on the reactions we're getting to the nut fringe. The indicators say we're already showing about eight percent feed, and that's without any input from out of town. Technology's wonderful, Eldredge. I don't know why we didn't have access to something like this before. And what with the Internet channels coming in line, we'll be able to blow anything we feel like right out of the water, so to speak. And, since naturally that's what we have in mind here, it's going to work like a charm.”

“It only works if you have direct access to the subject,” Mooney objected.

Irritated, Kingston puffed on his cigar, surrounding himself with a fiendish aureole of smoke. It was clear that they were underestimating SATN and the planning skills of its chief of administration.

He had little direct contact with Mooney and the rest of the influential circle he represented. He'd met them on-line, in a private chat room on a black-magic website. Kingston had been amazed to discover that so many like-minded individuals turned out to live in his neck of the woods, although Mooney was the only one he had met in person so far. The others were holding back, waiting until he proved himself worthy of being one of them. Membership in the Elder Council of Deepest Evil, as they called it, was held out to him as a carrot—although a heavy stick was poised to fall on his back if he blew the chance they were giving him.

Kingston was doing his best to make sure he wouldn't. He wanted to be a part of their number in the worst way. His fondest daydreams, even as a child, involved world domination. As a grownup, he'd be content just to increase his dominion to absolute power over those under his control, and that was what the Council promised. These men were the real deal. The satanists, cursers, death-talkers, all the wrongdoers who made CNN were pigeons compared with his long-distance comrades. These evil worshipers had discovered the power of high tech. The one inescapable problem was power. They needed it. The easy way to raise it was from a strong emotional surge from as many people as possible all at once. Fionna Kenmare put on a mighty powerful show. He'd seen one himself. If at a climactic moment something happened to her, the power released would be tremendous. That was what Mooney and his friends wanted, and he was poised to give it to them.

“We've got direct access, Eldredge, I told you. We've got the perfect conduit to Fionna Kenmare. Our person on the scene guarantees that the link has been made. Has been for some time. We've been running little tests, and I've got to tell you, they've all worked.”

“Wonderful,” Mooney gloated. “We can claim that she's being attacked because she espouses magic, never knowing that those attacks were just trial runs, and have nothing to do with her own wretchedly limited beliefs. Can the conduit be associated with you in any way?”

“Our focus person picked the perfect accomplice, Eldredge. No one will ever be able to trace it back to us . . . or you. It's all so perfectly hands-off.”

“This will mean big things for all of us, Augustus, especially you.”

Kingston sat back and put his other foot up on the desk, and blew a long stream of smoke at the ceiling. He liked being appreciated. “That's the general idea, Eldredge.”

“Well, I want an update later,” Mooney said, trying not to sound as though he doubted Kingston's word. Kingston knew the Council didn't want him to walk away at this point. Not with so much at stake.

“You'll get it,” Kingston said. “And, oh, Eldredge, keep CNN turned on tomorrow night. They've always got the most current coverage of late-breaking events. Nice hearing from you. Say hello to the missus for me.”