Just then, the lights went down. Eyes accustomed to the glare of the spots and the brightness of noonday were temporarily blinded. In the momentary dimness, there was the sound of stumbling feet, a thud, a clattering. The wild music died away in a whine like deflating bagpipes. Liz felt a wrench in her chest from the unfulfilled promise of the song. Eddie Vincent's deep voice reeled out a string of profanities.
When the lights came up a moment later, a spotlight highlighted the unfortunate percussionist flat on the floor with his feet tangled in a mass of cables. Several of the stagehands leaped forward to help him up.
"He pulled the power cords out of my rig!" Eddie shouted.
"I didn't do it on purpose, man!" Carey said, his cheeks glowing with embarrassment. "I was nowhere near your stuff! Somebody pulled me—or something. The next thing I knew, I was on my face."
"Get out of here," Eddie said, angrily. "Move it. Nigel!"
"Eddie, he couldn't have done it on purpose," the manager said, striding up the stage steps. "We all saw it. He was going toward the opposite side of the stage. He must just have gotten lost in the dark."
"What dark? It's noon! He got lost walking across a wide-open stage?"
"I didn't get lost. Someone pulled me into the cables," Carey insisted. "Someone took hold of my arms and yanked me over that way. It just happened."
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Eddie snarled. "What kind of story is that?"
"I couldn't see, man! I'm sorry!"
Hulking roadies in T-shirts and jeans began to gather around the keyboards, looking menacing. Liz couldn't tell whether they were prepared to defend Eddie or the other man. She sensed a measure of ill will in the room, but not necessarily between the two groups of stagehands. The energy simply didn't feel normal. She was uneasy, but couldn't put a finger on just what was bothering her.
"Please, guys," Nigel said, holding his hands up for attention as he pushed in among them. "This gets us nowhere. We've got to get through this, or there'll be no time to rest before the concert. I don't know about you, but I could sleep for a year."
"Look," said Hugh, "he said he was sorry. Forget it, eh?"
Eddie lowered his thick eyebrows at the newcomer, but shook his head. He managed to find a smile somewhere among his dour looks. "All right, man. Just keep clear, all right?"
"No problem," said the musician, backing away with his hands up. The unlucky man was glad to escape and take his place among his fellow temps, two more guitarists, a violinist, a flautist, a harpist and a woman playing the uilleann pipe. The harpist, a very tall man named Carl Johnson, gave him a sympathetic look. Eddie went back to frowning over his instruments.
Fionna, having thrown off Fitz and his paroxysms of fashion, appeared in her second costume, a white dress that consisted almost entirely of long fringe over a flesh-colored sheath. It was fabulously effective, even sexy, but at the same time Liz thought it made Fee look like a white Afghan hound. She wasn't quick enough to suppress a snort of laughter. Unfortunately, the outburst came during one of the rare moments of silence. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her. Liz felt her cheeks redden.
"And what the fokkin' hell do you think is funny?" Fee demanded.
"Sorry," Liz said.
"Pack up and move it the hell out of here!" Fionna shouted. "Go on with you!"
Boo pulled Liz further away from the stage and bent his head close to hers. "Don't stir her up. There's something wrong here."
"Can you feel it, too?"
"Yes, I can. Like sittin' on a powder keg, and everyone throwin' lit matches. It's makin' everybody touchy, but I can't find a source for it. Keep an eye peeled. I just feel somethin's goin' to happen. Don't know what, yet."
Fionna burst vehemently into song. The musicians caught up with her a line or so later, weaving their threads with the instrument of her voice. It was an angry song about injustice and killing the innocent. Unlike the quiet hurt the folk song had engendered the first night in O'Flaherty's, this one grabbed the listener by the ears and made him despise the abusers. Liz felt fury crackle in the air. The magic Green Fire were making was a dangerous kind. Fionna stalked from side to side of the stage, exhorting the invisible audience to join with her in hating the oppressors. She flung an arm around the microphone stand at the east side of the stage and screeched a verse into that one. The fringes whipped around the metal pole, but didn't drop back when she let go. As she took one whirling step away, the microphone followed her. It leaned dangerously for a split second, then crashed at her feet. Swearing a blue streak that could be heard from every speaker in the room, Fee stood and quivered with rage while the grips and Fitz jumped forward to help her free.
"Cut the damned fringe off the damned sleeves," Fionna's order echoed throughout the arena. Ears stunned by the level of the rock music, Liz couldn't hear Fitz's side of the discussion, but his pleading expression was eloquent. "I do not bloody care. I'm not a fokkin' snake charmer like St. Patrick!"
The costumer's face stiffened. Nigel Peters fairly leaped up the steps to make peace.
"Oh, no!" Fionna exclaimed, in answer to an unheard plea from her manager. "Do you think I want to have me own clothes making a fool of me?"
Nigel looked up toward the northwest and made a throat-cutting gesture at the booth. Fionna's microphone was turned off, rendering her inaudible to the rest of the people in the arena. She, Nigel and Fitz engaged in a three-sided pantomime row, only a few syllables loud enough to be understood. Nigel tapped his watch. As an argument, it was absolutely unassailable. There wasn't time to fuss. The show must go on. Sadly, Fitzgibbon produced his scissors and barbered the trim on the sleeves to three inches in length. A stagehand appeared with a broom. Fitz watched him sweep up the cuttings with the same dismayed expression a mother might watch her child's first haircut. Without looking back at him, Fionna returned to her spot at the east edge of the stage. The musicians struck up. Fionna grabbed the microphone and opened her mouth.
A mechanical shriek blasted out. Everyone jumped as steam started pouring upward from the pipes lined up in a long frame at the edge of the stage. Fantastic green figures swam upward along the insubstantial curtain. Snakes and birds twisted into Celtic knotwork, created with laser lights; Liz let out an admiring gasp, but it stopped everyone else dead.
"What in all the saints' names was that?" Fionna asked, recovering her wits.
"That effect isn't supposed to go until the sixth song!" came the despairing cry of the stage manager. "What's going on up there?" He seized the mouthpiece of his headset in one hand and started gesticulating with the other hand.
"Sorry," came Robbie's tremulous voice over the intercom. The steam ceased rising. "My hand slipped and pushed the cursor too far ahead on my instructions. It won't happen again."
"It had bloody not better," everyone on the stage muttered, almost in unison.
But it did. Little things continued to go awry. Effects happened late, or went off on the wrong part of the stage. Liz watched with the feeling that she was seeing a building being demolished a few tiles at a time with the debris falling on innocent passersby. The wonderful feeling that had pervaded the arena early that afternoon was gone without a trace, leaving behind it deep gloom. Much of it could be laid at Robbie Unterburger's feet.
"The girl is just plain off," Boo commented, not without sympathy, watching Fionna dodge tiny explosions that had been laid on the floor of the stage like an unlucky cowboy ordered to "dance" by a rival gunslinger. If Robbie wasn't clearly so apologetic, it would look like she was deliberately trying to make Fionna look bad.
"Do you think she senses the foreboding that's growing in here?" Liz asked. "She might be affected by it." The thought interested her greatly for a moment. "Is Robbie a sensitive? Could she be a possible recruit for either of our departments?"