"Join us," she said. "I could use your strength."
"Anything for Fee," he said. "I do love her, you know."
Liz smiled. "I know." The big man put one arm around her from behind and gestured to the others. In no time, he had them arranged in a nice, orderly, spider-web huddle, with more people gathering in.
The cluster of humanity with Liz at its core made Michael do a double-take on his next turn around the stage, but he continued on as though nothing unusual was happening. Bless him, he was an angel. Even after getting a hotfoot from little fireballs that had filled the stage, even after getting chased by laser-light monsters, he still kept his head. He trusted her. That gave Liz a warm feeling deep inside.
She was grateful to the rest of the crew as well. Even some of the ones who had been frightened before by the magical demonstration she and Boo-Boo had been forced to perform earlier had dared to join her. The rest were just grateful to have someone to hang onto while scary things were happening. She didn't mind having a friendly shoulder nearby herself. This was the single biggest magical exercise of her life—perhaps the largest on earth at that moment. She must not fail. She must not. The lives of thousands—not to mention her job—depended upon it.
Liz exerted herself to calm the group around her first. They were full of nervous excitement. If she broadcast the tension they were feeling, then the whole place could go up for grabs. She had a lucky moment while Michael performed a guitar solo at the front. While everyone focused on him, she drew in the blanket of peace for just one moment from the arena to wallop her crew into order. Their shoulders relaxed visibly. As soon as they were properly softened up, she opened up and threw her new, totally revamped and much more powerful calming charm over the crowd of fans.
When she did, she felt evil in the air. The magical charge that built up during a joyful event should be benevolent, or at worst, neutral. There was no doubt at all now that something within reach was trying to change that goodness into malignity. Stay pure, she urged through the link, radiating out to the very edges of her web of influence. Beauty. Justice. Generosity. Calm. Dark influence licked at the edges of the mass enchantment like a black flame. She must not let it catch in the fabric of it.
The others in her little group, even the least sensitive among them, seemed to feel the pull towards unity and leaned inwards, squeezing the breath out of Liz. The only protest she could make was a squeak. Lloyd heard the faint noise and shoved hard at the nearest offenders, making room for her. Liz gasped in lungfuls of air.
She began to feel hopeless. Though she was grateful for everyone's help, she had little chance of stopping an onslaught of these proportions herself. In spite of the efforts of the band, the malign quality that had crept into the music earlier had taken a firm toehold. While not a deep-seated fan of Green Fire's music, Liz had had to admit that they knew about composition, structure and creating mood. Except for the songs meant to scold, their repertoire tended to uplift, even liberate, the listener. What went into the microphones was positive. What came out of the speakers was growing steadily more negative. Liz found herself fighting a battle she couldn't keep winning for long.
It helped her a lot to have other people's energy to throw at the building wave of darkness, yet what they had to offer was limited by their lack of training. As Nigel had said, he had commitment problems. Others were blocked for just as many reasons. There just wasn't enough power. If she could have made contact with audience members, she might have been able to channel them into creating a more positive cycle. She was afraid to try. Such an action could backfire hugely if word of trouble started going around the auditorium. One whisper of black magic, and 80,000 terrified people would stampede for the doors.
All the people gathered around were depending on her, and her alone. She wished that Boo-Boo was there with her. It was a frightening thing to be left to her own meager devices. She wanted desperately for her mission to succeed. She gave a short, bitter laugh. Yes, she wanted to save the world. Willingness must count for something.
Not enough, she thought forlornly. If Boo-Boo failed to stop Robbie and Ken, all was lost. She sensed the bottom of the well in what the others had to give her, and drew hard on her stored fund of Earth power, the last drops of which Boo-Boo had fed her before he went away. Once again she felt herself tiring, almost falling back into Lloyd's strong arms as she surrendered even the last ergs of her own life-force to stop the evil from taking over. She was sorry for Fionna. It must have seemed like an amazing bit of good luck for her to have an old friend assigned to protect her. Too bad that Ringwall hadn't seen fit to send a more able and experienced agent to her rescue.
In a moment Liz would lose her grip on the containment spell, and the whole maelstrom would wind itself up into the largest force of darkness that this city had ever seen. She started to feel dizzy as the drain leached away her very consciousness. In a moment she would collapse like a deflated balloon.
Softly, a trickle of psychic energy began to creep up through the soles of her feet into her body. Liz felt it rise from the floor, running along her legs and body, straightening her spine and flowing out of her hands and her mouth. It couldn't be coming from Boo-Boo. He wasn't this powerful. Liz grew concerned as a mental probe she sent to feel for the bottom of the well of energy dove down for ages. There was no bottom. It felt gigantic. Endless. What incredibly powerful person could have arisen out of nowhere to help her? It couldn't be anyone in the company, nor a member of the audience, yet it poured from a single source. Who was her mysterious benefactor?
Suddenly, she realized she knew its identity. Not a who, but rather a what. The power was issuing from New Orleans itself. It didn't like this intrusive darkness being pressed down upon it, like a thumb in the eye. It wanted to bottle up the intruder to prevent it spoiling the ease of the Big Easy. As much as pure power could be, this was flavored with spice and lilting voices—and music. The city, and the French Quarter particularly, was protecting itself from outside malignity. It saw Liz as the means to protecting itself, and offered the wealth of its own influence to that end. Liz offered herself gladly as a conduit.
Energy coursed through her every vein, came out of every pore. She was afraid that it would surge through her with the force of a fire hose striking a tissue paper wall and tear her fragile body into pieces, but it didn't want to destroy her. It wanted to carry her along, make her a part of it. She opened up like a camera aperture, wider and wider, until the whole calm, easygoing identity of that unique city was coming in through her feet and out through her fingertips. Let les bonnes temps roulez. The city itself, with the driving backbeat of the Mississippi River in the background like Voe's drumming, provided the overwhelming music Liz lifted herself on. It was as though Bourbon Street itself raised up and tied around the Superdome like a gigantic ribbon of sound. Not only the goodness of rock and roll, but the cool breath of jazz, the warm embrace of soul, the heart of the blues, the edgy ribs of zydeco and the wry glue of Irish folk music wove together under her hands to form a leak-tight, flexible basket. The music of this great place stood against the evil infecting the acid-folk rock—the ultimate battle of the bands. Her enormously heightened sense allowed her to hear all of these pulses, the good outside holding the bad inside. She could contain the malignance, for now. But she couldn't hold it forever. Sooner or later one of these people was going to want to go home.