"They're here," she whimpered. "They're listenin' to me. They're comin' for me."
"Who's they, honey?" Lloyd asked, rocking the trembling woman in his arms.
"Let me see the burns," Liz said, starting to sit down at Fionna's other side.
"Piss off," Lloyd snapped, glaring at Liz. "I don't want you within yards of her. This is all your fault."
"All our fault?" Liz asked, blinking at him. "Are you mad? How?"
"This has been going on all along," Lloyd said, his face stony. "She tried to tell you."
"We needed proof," Liz said.
"To hell with your proof," Lloyd said. "I'm calling this all off as of now. You're out."
"It's not so easy as that," Boo said.
"Oh, yes, it is!"
"Oh, no, it isn't!" Liz said. "You might have believed her, but what could you do to help?"
As they argued over her head, Fionna clutched herself in fear. She had felt herself hauled to her feet from the stage, and had obediently followed Laura and Lloyd downstairs, while angry voices rang in her ears. She didn't follow half of it, didn't want to. With her eyes closed, she felt her arms stretched out. Something cool was swabbed along them, and the familiar feeling of gauze and sticky tape touched her skin. Fee was having a hard time keeping from raving out loud and crying for police protection or an exorcism. She might be Fionna Kenmare to millions of fans worldwide, but underneath the wild, Irish persona beat the upper-class English heart of Phoebe Kendale. Where Fionna delved into the supernatural with alacrity, Phoebe still thought it was a little naughty, something to taunt the Aged Parents with, who didn't like her choice of career or friends. She'd always known in her heart something bad would happen if she started to play with magic. Always. She'd been cautious. She'd followed every rite of protection she could find to counteract the dark forces just outside the light, just in case. Just to make sure. Never step on a crack. Never spill salt without tossing a pinch over her shoulder. Always wish on a star, a fallen eyelash, a candle flame. Don't let black or white cats cross one's path. But the evil had started to press too closely in the last few months. That was why she had come to New Orleans, in hopes of finding stronger magic than she had. But the bad ones had found her here, first. They were coming for her, just like before. She started to rock back and forth, worrying.
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?"
Chapter 10
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."