"And you keep off Lloyd," Fee added, not missing a thing. She interposed herself between the special effects engineer and her bodyguard. "He's here for me, not you."
That shot hit home. Robbie's face flushed even redder. The girl seemed really to have thought no one else had noticed. Liz felt very sorry for her.
"We get along," she said stoutly. "It's not against the law for him to be nice to me."
"So you don't deny you've been trying to steal him!"
Robbie saw the trap, but much too late. It was unwise of her to attempt to justify her feelings. If she'd been smart, she wouldn't have admitted to them at all. It gave Fionna another grievance she could level. Robbie shot out of her seat, standing as tall as she was able, but her voice betrayed how flustered she was.
"You're wrong! I don't have to steal him. I mean, I'm not trying to... There's nothing you can do if there's feelings involved! He only works for you. It's a financial arrangement. Not like..."
"You're trying to make out that there's more going on than there is, you silly creature," Fionna said, almost pityingly. "That in a minute I'm going to turn me back, and he's going to sweep you off your feet like Prince Charming and ride away in a Lear jet, leaving me to weep. Well, you're not a princess, missie. Nothing like."
"No! If anyone's the princess around here, it's you!" Robbie shouted. "You waltz around like the high priestess of something, but you jump if a shadow crosses your path. I'm trying to do my job!"
"You are trying?" Fionna exclaimed, her eyes widening as her brogue thickened. "You can't stay on cue! Your job is almost totally mechanized and you still screw it up! This is the dress rehearsal, damn yer sorry arse!" She flung a hand at the girl. "To hell with you. Those thousands of people are coming to hear my voice. Yer window dressin'. We'll do it without effects if we have to!"
Turning like a model on the runway, Fionna stalked magnificently out of the room, followed by Lloyd. Nigel offered an apologetic glance to the crew, but he couldn't look at Robbie.
With the agents and her bodyguard on her heels, Fionna strode back down the ramps to the arena door where the rest of the company was waiting for her. Their astonished expressions told her they had heard every word. The PA system had been switched on in the booth.
"Let's try it again," she said, calmly. She smiled at them, serene again but very, very firm. "Once, all the way through, no stops. All right?"
Everyone rushed to their places, unwilling to be the next to receive Fee's own brand of personal attention.
Liz shot a glance at Boo-Boo. His wary expression told her he felt the same magical buildup that she did. The pent-up energy that had been pressing at the edges of her magical conscious was reaching an overload. It could burst out at any moment.
She had no idea it would strike so soon. Fionna had no sooner stomped back onto the round stage when an explosion overhead made everyone's heart stop. The crew and band ran for cover, but they were in no danger from the debris. The snowstorm of colored dots fell in heaps directly on the cowering figure of Fionna. She shrieked and batted at the rain of trash.
"Who put confetti up there?" Hugh Banks demanded. "This isn't a parade!"
It wasn't confetti. The gigantic poster of Green Fire attached to one side of the Jumbotron had shredded itself into tiny bits. The huge faces on the three remaining posters seemed to mock the crew.
"Ah, no," the stage manager moaned, clutching his head. "It must be the one near the light that burned out!"
The falling flakes of paper whirled and twinkled under the beams of the intact spots. Liz was about to thank heaven that this wasn't another fire attack, when suddenly the ruins of the poster burst into flames. Fionna screamed, but stood helpless in the middle of the rising fire, like St. Joan at the stake.
"Somebody do something!" she cried.
This time, Boo-Boo was ready. He leaped forward, hands moving in a blur, and lobbed a handful of blue powder in the direction of the stage, chanting all the while. Between one shrill outburst and another, the powder spread out into a cloud that momentarily hid the star from view. The mass settled a moment later, revealing Fionna standing with her arms flung up to protect her face. The colored dots lay in half-singed piles around her feet. Her second cry for help died away as she stared around her. Lloyd shoved his way through the crowd and looked her over carefully. Then he took her into his arms. Fionna collapsed against him limply. She was too astonished to speak. Thomas Fitzgibbon broke the silence.
"This wasn't... this wasn't the lasers this time, was it?"
"What the hell did you do?" Michael Scott demanded, rounding on Boo-Boo and Liz, as Nigel Peters and Hugh Banks began shouting at everyone else to clear the stage. The stagehands swooped in with brooms.
"Just fire control," Boo-Boo said. "Government issue." He showed the packet, which featured the eagle of the United States holding a fire extinguisher in each outstretched claw.
"That wasn't just a chemical reaction," the guitarist said, with a wary eye. "What are you?"
"Government agent," Boo-Boo said simply, producing his ID. "It's not over yet, sir. Let's all just remain calm." But Michael and the others were anything but calm.
"I want to know what is going on!" the guitarist demanded. "Are you responsible for these outbursts?"
"I'm sorry, sir," Liz said, in an even voice. "I'm afraid we can't discuss details..."
"Don't `sir' me," Michael said, raising his eyebrows alarmingly. "You've been underfoot for two days. I've heard Fionna's complaints for the last months now. We've all heard them. The things that are happening to her are real, aren't they?"
Liz was saved having to reply by Fionna herself. With a wild scream, Fee started turning around and around, slowly at first, but faster and faster until the white fringes on her dress stood straight out.
"Now, don't play around, love," Lloyd said.
"She's not doing it, Mr. Preston," Liz said, removing a white silk cloth from her handbag. "Look at her feet." They weren't moving. Fee appeared to be spinning on her own axis with no visible means of propulsion.
"Fee, honey, don't make a fool of yourself," Lloyd said. He put his arms around her to stop her, and got taken up in the vortex. "Hey!" He whirled around and around until his feet lifted off the floor. Fionna was going too fast for him to hang on. With a yell, the burly security man went flying. He landed several yards away, rolling over and over, missing Eddie Vincent's precious keyboards by a foot. Lloyd lay on his back, shaking his head to clear it. Liz clicked her tongue. Too impetuous. That was no way to pull her out of a spin.
Liz held out the white cloth in the air by its center, and began to chant, drawing power from the earth as she went. It would take a lot of Earth power to take Fee away from the Air element that had claimed her. With a swift glance at the people around her, she lowered her voice to a mutter for the last words of the spell. With the final word, she dropped the cloth to the ground. Fee stopped spinning so suddenly she staggered.
"Thank heavens," Fionna said, swallowing. "Now, I—"
But whatever had Fee in its grasp was not through with her yet. The spinning began again, faster than before. Alarmed, Liz picked up the cloth and dropped it again and again. No response. Fionna became a green and white blur that lifted into the air. In a moment she'd bump into the Jumbotron. The enormous magical power building in the Superdome was not to be quelled by a simple dampening spell.