War For The Oaks Part 33

Eddi shook her head. "I don't want to have to say that I got a little fey, and you got a little dead."

Carla looked down, and shrugged. "Well, neither do I. But this is a party. If there's a truce on, it's safer than a lot of parties I've been to."

"I can't stop you, can I?"

"No."

"You're a jerk," Eddi said gently. "Watch your step, then. These people are weird."

"I know that. I work with three of 'em." But Carla nodded once, unsmiling, and Eddi felt better.

chapter 16 Party Up.

It was the reviews that startled her. The quality of Eddi and the Fey was easy to get used to. The almost telepathic musical unity that enabled them to pick up an idea and run with it, their growing sense of showmans.h.i.+p, the development of a group style and a characteristic sound-Eddi felt comfortable with those. It was the reviews that were strange.

They were good reviews; they came as close to gus.h.i.+ng as reviewers ever did. What bothered Eddi was the praise for things that weren't there. The additional voices that the reviewer thought were from the digital sampler. The electric fiddle part on a song that didn't have one. The lighting effects.

"What lighting effects?" Eddi wailed from the depths of the couch in the practice s.p.a.ce. "I can understand the rest of it-Dan does enough neat stuff with the keyboards that you could mistake it for almost anything. Especially if you were busy dancing, which G.o.d knows they all were." She propped herself up on one elbow and lectured Dan, Carla, w.i.l.l.y, and the phouka. "You notice that not one reviewer has admitted to spending the whole night dancing."

"Whatsisname came close, in City Pages" Dan said generously.

"Hah. They're all afraid it'll ruin their reputation for critical reserve. But where did they get the lighting effects?"

Carla was tuning her drumheads. "Maybe," (thump) "whoever was running," (thump) "sound was playing," (thump, thump) "with the lights, too."

"The Uptown's got a fixed light setup-once you focus 'em, they're either on or off. They could have done more than that at the benefit, but n.o.body did."

w.i.l.l.y, who was sitting on his amp, looked at the phouka. The phouka looked at the floor.

"Uh-huh," Eddi said, glaring at them both. "Enough with the conspiracy of silence. What have you been doing?"

The phouka smiled up at her, a glowing look that nearly robbed her of breath. But it was w.i.l.l.y who answered her.

"We haven't done a thing. You have."

Eddi stared at him.

"Yes, you have. They're your images. Or in some cases, sounds. When you're wrapped up in making music, there's more of you in it than you think." w.i.l.l.y stretched his long legs out before him and leaned back. "You're casting illusions."

She looked at Carla. Eddi could no longer scoff at the possibility of magic-she'd promised the phouka she wouldn't. But Carla was free to doubt a.s.sertions like w.i.l.l.y's.

Carla only said, "She is?"

"Mmm. Just be glad she started with illusions. If her subconscious was dabbling in the elements, she could have set the Uptown on fire."

"Rubbish," the phouka said cheerfully. "With all due respect, of course. You know perfectly well that manipulating the elements is conjuring of a high intellectual order. It does not happen by accident." Eddi suspected that the last sentence was for her benefit. She was grateful; it was nice to know that she wouldn't burn down her apartment building in her sleep.

"So, how did I know how to do this?" Eddi asked, more or less of the phouka. "Have you been whispering in my ear?"

He shook his head irritably. "Were you taught to pull yourself upright, or to crawl?"

"It's not the same. Those are normal developments."

The phouka raised one eyebrow.

"This isn't normal," Eddi snapped.

w.i.l.l.y rose from his amp, a quick, impatient movement. "Does it matter? You've got power, you've started to use it. Learn to control it, before somebody does it for you." He ducked under the strap of his guitar and began to play scales.

"How likely is that?" Eddi said.

w.i.l.l.y's hands stopped, and he looked up. His face was suddenly made younger with doubt and concern.

"I'm not sure. But I know it can be done. And if I know, then it's certain she does."

Eddi didn't have to ask who "she" was. "Then I suppose I'd better start practicing."

There was a rattle of feet coming fast up the iron stairs outside. Eddi stopped halfway from the couch to her guitar, w.i.l.l.y and the phouka were suddenly still as well. When the door opened, it was only Hedge, and Eddi could see the tension go out of her bodyguards.

"h.e.l.lo," Eddi said, "you're late."

Hedge ducked his head and looked embarra.s.sed. He was even messier than usual, his brown hair every which way, his gray sleeveless sweats.h.i.+rt dark with sweat down the middle, gra.s.s stains on his jeans.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and shot her a look full of appeal.

"It's okay. We haven't started yet, anyway. What kept you?"

He turned his amp on and picked up the Steinberger. "Midsummer's Eve," he muttered, as if that explained everything.

Dan grinned. "Been rollin' beer kegs, huh?"

Hedge turned one of his smiles on, and when he spoke, he was as close to laughing as Eddi had ever heard him. "Beer, whoo! Gonna be s'prised. One big blowout t'night!"

"Uh-oh." Carla shook her head at Dan. "I don't know if I should let you go, Party Boy."

"Gonna have to carry you home-you better let me go."

Eddi turned to quiet them down and start practice. She paused when she saw w.i.l.l.y. He was watching Dan and Carla with an odd, stricken look, a mingling of recognition and regret. Then he dropped his gaze, squatted beside his amplifier, and toyed with the midrange control.

"You guys want to warm up with something," Eddi said gruffly, "or work on the new one?"

"New one!" Dan said promptly. "Let's do some motorcycle music."

They knew the tune and the words; now it was time for the real work, the business of making the song sound like Eddi and the Fey. Eddi gave them her rough outline for the arrangement; they worked the parts over, and put it all together.

Dan played a keyboard line like a question that demanded an answer, and w.i.l.l.y punctuated it with a harsh chord. After two of those, Carla joined w.i.l.l.y with a distant growl of thunder on one of her toms.

Hedge's ba.s.s began to throb with the hungry rhythm of tuned engines and tires on pavement seams. There was the digitally sampled crash of a cymbal that went on and on, gla.s.s breaking in slow motion-and the band welled up behind it like water, into the first verse.

Fantasies of violence, Breaking bottles on the wall, Hungry for the motion, for the action, For it all.

Road noise on the night street, See the taillights through the blinds.

Out there where your dreams slide Toward the night side, For it all.

Eddi launched into the chorus looking for the effects of her magic. She saw, heard, felt nothing. A quick glance at the phouka, where he sat on the dilapidated couch, gave her no clues.

For it all, for it all, What you're aching for, Where the magic's real and you're like a fire in the sky, when the deal calls for a sacrifice And you know you cannot die.

For the edge the best ones live on, For it all.

You want to be a hero With the axe about to fall, You'd buy it for the love and for the glory, For it all.

You want to dress in black And lose your heart beyond recall, Hunt a dream through rain and thunder, On your honor For it all.

Would she feel it? Would there be a tingle, or the stinging feeling she'd had when the Seelie Court's power swirled around her? Another chorus, and the bridge: .

In your head, no car is fast enough, In your heart, no love is true.

Will it ruin all your solitary fancies If I tell you that it isn't only you?

Keep your ankle off the tailpipe, Keep your bootheels off the street; We'll hit the throttle, hit the redline, We'll find the edge, We'll make it sweet, We'll go for it all.

Properly, the song would fade out, with Hedge's ba.s.s the last thing to go, roaring off into distance. They simulated it with instruments dropping out one by one, Hedge leaning on his volume pedal, then backing off slowly. Carla added a tattoo on the bell of one cymbal, very soft, at the end.

"Good," Eddi told her. "Keep that. w.i.l.l.y, not so much early Pete Townshend on the lead break."

"Aww."

"Next pa.s.s we add harmonies." Eddi looked around her microphone at the phouka. "Well?" she asked him.

He said, "Lovely."

"I didn't mean the song. Did I do anything weird?"

"No," he replied, grinning.

They did the song twice more, taking it apart and putting it back together. After each one, Eddi stole a look at the phouka, who shook his head. "Break," she declared at last, in disgust, and went to sit next to him.

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Nothing, my primrose. It's an excellent song, and it's taking shape wonderfully."

Eddi stared at him sternly until he began to laugh.

"Oh, my heart, my heart. You want magic to dance at the end of a stick for your pleasure. Tell me, are you performing? Are you gathering up the music and flinging it out to your audience, as if it were a truth you wanted them to believe?"

She was furious with him for laughing, and refused at first to follow his logic. But he grabbed her wrists when she moved to stand up, and shook them gently.

"w.i.l.l.y's words to the contrary, matters are not at so desperate a pa.s.s. Pay no attention to making magic, Eddi. Make music, and let the magic come when it will."

"What if it never comes?"

The phouka looked down at her hands, released his grip, and glanced quickly up again. "Then perhaps you'll never need it."

Whether or not she would ever do magic, she did none that afternoon. Once, during the last verse of the new song, she felt the narrowing of her concentration that she often felt onstage-as if the song, and the s.p.a.ce in which it echoed, and the duration of it, were the whole world. But when she noticed, wondering Is this it?, it was gone.

It was a long, hard practice, and the breeze through all the windows that would open was warm. When she called a halt at seven, Eddi felt like a damp bathroom rug. "Go home, guys," she said. "We've got a party to go to tonight."

"Tower Hill Park at dusk?" Carla asked.

w.i.l.l.y shook his head. "Not dusk. Wait until full dark." His smile had little amus.e.m.e.nt in it. "The truce begins at sunset. Don't risk getting there too early-you might tempt fate."

Dan stole a glance at Carla. "Oh my. What'll we do to pa.s.s the time?"

"Let's go home and soak your head," Carla said, blus.h.i.+ng. "We're gone, guys."

Eddi heard them giggling as they went down the stairs, heard their voices, though what they said didn't reach her. Hedge put his equipment away and nodded to Eddi. "See ya," he said, almost clearly, and went down the stairs.

She moved around the room, unplugging the coffee pot, closing windows. w.i.l.l.y, to her surprise, made no move to leave; he sat on his amp, angled over his guitar, playing softly. She recognized the melody after a moment, though she couldn't name it. A folk song, about a woman who swore she'd never marry because her lover was drowned at sea.... "Quitting time," she told him gently.

He smiled, but didn't look up. "I'll lock it. You go on home."

Eddi studied him a moment, then looked over his head at the phouka. She nodded toward the door. He frowned. But he went out, and she heard his boots banging on the metal stairs.