"Let him go, Liz," Boo said.
"But he thinks I'm your assistant! Why won't you let me—?" Mr. Winslow made a left turn out at the end of the corridor, heading for the long escalators that led to the lobby. She could just catch him.
"It doesn't really matter what he thinks, does it?" Boo asked, interrupting her.
Liz jerked her hand loose, but she was suspicious. She regarded Boo with narrowed eyes.
"All right, why did you want that man to get out of the way so quickly?"
"I don't know whether y'all noticed it," Beauray said, casually, "but Mr. Winslow has this little trick of waitin' in the middle of a sentence until you meet his eyes. That means if we have him standin' here havin' a nice conversation, we can't keep watchin' the set."
Liz's eyelids flew up in surprise. "Why, you're right. I apologize. But the next time I see him, I'm going to set him straight. I am not an assistant."
"I was tellin' the truth when I said we had to keep a low profile, wasn't I?" Boo asked, his blue eyes innocent.
"Yes, but..."
"Well, I'm helpin' you keep your cover," he said, in his easygoing way, as if that should settle everything. Liz glared at him. In any case there was no way to call Mr. Winslow back. Beauray had scored on her once more. She was not going to let that happen again.
The music had started again. Spotlights, faint in the brilliant noon sunshine, played around the interior of the stage. Michael came up the back stairs, and a pale golden light hit him, setting fire to the metal of his guitar strings, turned the flesh of his hands and face to incandescent ivory, and gilded his black hair. He looked so beautiful Liz forgot for a moment to breathe.
Lights came up on the other two musicians, setting halos playing in their long hair. Michael started forward, but the spot stayed where it was. Michael frowned down, then up.
"Hold it," he said. "Hold it!" The music died away. "What's wrong with the lights now?"
Just as everyone looked up into the flies, a gigantic flash of light burst overhead. Liz almost threw a spell to protect the people on the stage. Only well-honed reflexes kept her from crushing the components in her hand when she realized it was just a light popping. Sparks showered down onto the stage. The stage crew threw their hands up over their heads. Only Michael stood there in the rain of fire, looking authoritative and indignant. "Was that my key light?"
"Someone check!" shouted the stage manager, setting his staff into a flurry of motion.
Boo took a firm but not dangerous hold of Liz's wrist, and pried her fingers open. She stared at him in surprise as he picked up the fragile wax shell she had been clutching. "Y'can't use that in here, Liz," he said.
"And why not?" Liz asked. "It's perfectly safe. It's a fire-prevention cantrip."
"You'll have to forgive me sayin' so, but it don't have the range to cover the area of the stage."
"I could double the amount," Liz said, indignantly. "That would be more than plenty."
"Well, then it will be too heavy to have the range you want, no matter how loud you chant. What if you're not as close as you are right now?"
"And I suppose you have something better?" she asked, peevishly.
"Sure do," Boo said, companionably. "I checked with HQ this mornin'. They said I can give you these." He handed her a couple of sachets. Liz glanced at them dubiously. They smelled strongly of myrrh and purslane, a protective herb traditionally ruled by the element of water. She had to admit they were beautifully constructed, the edge of each fragile paper envelope sewn shut with corn silk. "You can have the formula later on. If these give satisfaction, that is."
"Oh, thank you," Liz said, trying not to sound sarcastic. Helping the poor cousin, she thought, furiously. Thought he knew it all. Their government could obviously pay for higher quality than her government. Another way of shamefully showing off. "This isn't the spell you think it is," she said, now ashamed of the irregularly-shaped bubble containing a cluster of damp crystals like a handful of bath salts sealed in waxed paper.
"Well, actually, I think it is," Boo said, returning the components to her between cautious thumb and forefinger. "Our intelligence is pretty good."
"We've made improvements, and..." Liz stopped just short of telling him she was a hereditary witch and knew how to put together a workmanlike spell, dammit! With dismay she realized he probably knew all that, too. Annoyed at her own outburst, she reasserted her professionalism. There was a job to do. She'd give him a piece of her mind later. With grace, she accepted the spell components and his instruction on how to chant the incantation.
"Bimity polop caruma?"
"Caruna," Boo corrected her. "It's an `n.' " Liz nodded. It was ironic that though the Americans claimed to believe less in magic than the British, their department produced a better line of counterspell that they didn't believe would do anything to counteract the occurrence that they didn't believe could happen.
"Quiet!" shouted the stage manager. Liz looked up, startled, wondering if they'd been overheard. But they hadn't been the only ones making noise. Liz just became aware of the last faint echoes of a mechanical screech, as the huge box overhead swayed slightly. She felt giddy just looking up at the Jumbotron. She had enormous sympathy for the workers who had to climb the narrow iron catwalks twenty-six stories above the ground to maintain it.
Hugh Banks walked out to the center of the stage, accompanied by a representative from building maintenance, a heavyset man in khaki coveralls. They looked up at the grid. The burned-out spotlight was a black dot at the edge of the framework.
"One of those posters of yours was touchin' the light," the supervisor said, with an experienced nod. "Coulda started a fire. Lucky just the one light went out."
"We need that spot functioning again," the stage manager said, reading from a complex diagram. "Can you fix it?"
"We'll just have to replace that light filament," the supervisor said. "Have to raise the Jumbotron to do it. It can't be done while it's lowered."
"Wait until after the rehearsal," the stage manager said, with a sigh. "Five o'clock, all right?"
"No problem."
"This is supposed to be the technical rehearsal," Michael Scott said, peevishly. "What about the cues?"
The stage manager spoke into his headset again.
"We're on it," Ken Lewis's voice echoed over the public address system in the vast room. "I'll swap another spotlight as Michael's key light for the time being."
"Good?" Banks asked Michael. The guitarist nodded, not happily.
The group began again. And again. The third attempt was interrupted by the arrival of the backup singing trio and the hired percussionist, Lou Carey.
"Very sorry we're late," Carey said. He was a razor-thin black man with a razor-thin mustache under his narrow nose. "We got the time wrong."
"All right, then," the stage manager said. "Get in your places."
"Should we get our costumes?" one of the singers asked. A tiny girl with huge brown eyes, she had a thrilling contralto voice that resonated pleasantly even without amplification.
"You'll have to get dressed during the break," Michael said. "We're delayed enough as it is."
"Places for the fourth number, please!"
Michael started picking out a moody and frustrated melody. Liz recognized it as Green Fire's well-known rant against environmental destruction. It was powerful and disturbing. She knew every note, swaying slightly with the music.
The others joined in. The latecomers hurried toward their assigned spots, eager to catch up and join in. Eddie Vincent brought his hands down onto his synthesizer keyboard for a crashing crescendo that imitated a rising gale. Fionna's voice would rise out of the music like whitecaps on the crest of a foaming sea and tear the soul out of the audience.