“I’m glad to hear it,” Peters said. “My people will offer every cooperation.”
“Was there anyone strange in the building when the dress caught fire?” Boo-Boo asked the manager.
“God only knows. This place is the size of a palace, but everything was locked up. The rear doors were locked from the outside only. We had a grip stationed there to let our people in, but no one else. I suppose someone could have slipped in, and planted a booby trap.”
“Which your Mr. Fitzgibbon . . . didn’t see,” Winslow pointed out. Peters looked disconcerted.
“Er, yes.”
“I don’t think it’s too likely that what caused the trouble was in the dress itself,” Boo-Boo said.
“It came from a distance, then?” Peters asked, uncomfortable. “Something was shot at him?” Fionna sat bolt upright in her chair with her lips pressed together. Liz wondered what Boo was thinking, but he gestured to her not to speak. He looked amiably at the building manager.
“Well, no. All that flash powder hovering in the air, and those laser lights, there could have been a little accident.”
“Good!” Winslow exclaimed, then looked guilty. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Well, apart from Mr. Fitzgibbon having to make another dress.”
Laura Manning waved the idea away. “Oh, don’t worry about Tommy. He’s probably in there at this moment inventing a new confection in silk and lace. He lives to suffer. Ask him. Why, he’s even accused me of ruining his dresses with my nasty foundations and rouges. Greasepaint isn’t up in that lofty sphere with haute couture.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Winslow?” A man in firefighter’s rig with a clipboard appeared at the door. “Fire marshall. Everything seems to be under control. The building’s all right. The crews are withdrawing. You’ve got a mess up there, Mr. Winslow. Sorry about that, sir.”
Winslow was gracious. “You’re doing your very worthy job, Marshall. My thanks. My maintenance people . . . will already be on the job, Miss Fionna.” He offered her a courtly little bow.
In sharp contrast to the courtesy of the building manager, Lloyd Preston pushed his way in, a scowl on his face. He stood over Fionna, who reached out a thin and, Liz thought, dramatically trembling hand to him. “Everything’s okay. We can get right back to work.”
“But,” Liz began to protest. Everyone in the room turned to look at her.
“But what?” Lloyd demanded. Fionna sat bolt upright in her armchair, ready to flee the scene at the sound of a threat.
“But,” Boo said loudly, drowning her out, “we’ll be keeping an eye on things.” He nodded knowingly to Fionna, who shot them a look of relief. “We’ll get right on it.” He took Liz’s arm and hustled her out of the dressing room.
Chapter 9
Liz pulled Boo to a halt just outside the door.
“What was all that about?” she demanded, in a fierce whisper. “Don’t you want to keep the place under lock and key until we can have a thorough look around? This place is the size of a city!”
“There’s no time,” Boo said. “We don’t want them cancelling the concert, which they will if they think there’s some kind of assassin out there.”
“There may be an assassin out there!”
“I know,” Boo said, apologetically, “but it’s the concert itself that’ll bring him out in the open. If y’all whisk Miss Fionna away to the next stop on the tour, or cancel it altogether, it’ll just start over again, and we’ll never get a handle on it.”
“No,” Liz said, thinking hard. She hated to admit it, but he was right. “That’s true. Very well, then. We’ll need to question the grip if he let anyone in he shouldn’t have. Someone carrying a device or the wherewithal to cause that kind of long-distance conflagration.” Boo shook his head.
“We don’t have to do that. He’s clear. Of anyone toting magic, anyhow.”
Liz gawked. “How do you know that? We didn’t speak to him.”
“Oh, well, there wasn’t a sniff of magic in that whole corridor when we came in,” Boo explained.
Enlightenment dawned as Liz recalled Boo’s antics at the entrance to the Superdome. “Ah! So that was the meaning of that whole performance for the TV cameras. You were taking a reading.”
“And settin’ a detector,” Boo said, with satisfaction. “Are you familiar with the Acardian Gate theory?” Liz nodded, wondering if he meant the original theory, or the update that had come down from the research boffins in the last six months. “Well, now, let’s take a look at the rest of the Superdome. I want to see where they stove in the front doors, before they clean it up.”
* * *
Now that Boo-Boo was out of sight of the others, Liz could tell he was impatient to get back to the arena. Liz made him wait before they went upstairs so she could set a protective cantrip over Fionna’s dressing room. Not knowing where the attack might be coming from, if there was to be an attack, she drew power from the air around her and laid a spell on the door. As she gathered up the ball of energy, she could feel the tension permeating the Superdome. She disliked making personal magic in an unwarded space, but the cantrip itself was comforting, like a warm cat curled on one’s lap. As old as time, the little spell couldn’t stop anyone physically, but it would repel anyone of malign intent. It was layered with a fillip of her own invention that would alert her like a siren if something went wrong. She tied a knot in the energy and let it go, feeling it twang against the dressing room door. She hoped Fee wouldn’t stir from there until she got back from their perimeter walk of the building.
Boo took Liz’s arm and hurried her up the long ramps and escalators to the stadium level.
The fire department was withdrawing its equipment. The hoses which lay everywhere slithered underfoot as they were being rolled up. Liz saw Hugh Banks, the stage manager, trip over a coil that snaked around his foot. He got up, swearing, and went back to dressing down some of the stagehands.
Microphones were being brandished under the noses of the band members still on stage.
“Looks like a few of the reporters sneaked in,” Boo said easily. “Can’t blame ’em. Probably used police department credentials to get past the door.”
“We need to get them out,” Liz said, feeling frustrated that she couldn’t manifest a huge broom and sweep them all towards the exit. “They couldn’t have been here when the fire occurred, but we do not want them in the way.”
It was time for Boo to look startled. “Why are you so sure none of them could be responsible?”
Liz tried not to look superior. “They’d have had to hide for hours. Can you imagine any of them waiting patiently in the wings before pouncing on their prey? Look at them!” The reporters were doing a fair impression of sharks shoving their way into a netful of bleeding tuna parts.
“They do kinda have that Christmas mornin’ wrapper-tearin’ thing goin’ on,” Boo said, with a grin.
Just in case Liz had misjudged one of them, the two agents did a quick walk-by of as many of the reporters as they could. None of them paid either Liz or Boo more than a cursory glance to make sure they weren’t famous. Liz did a light magical frisking on them. None was imbued with more than a good luck charm’s worth of magic, though there were many such charms, amulets and mascots tucked away in purses, pockets, and backpacks. Liz had never seen so much superstitious paraphernalia outside of the Avebury Stone Circle gift shop. New Orleans was steeped in awareness of the supernatural. What a place for Fionna to have planted herself! If there was a malign magical presence it might well be camouflaged by the locals.
Green Fire was living up to its name. The musicians were trying to be patient and gracious in the midst of the turmoil. They weren’t succeeding. The reporters were relentless, trying to wrest any details they could about the attack. Eddie Vincent stood at the open side of his keyboards like a sentry, preventing entry to his sanctum sanctorum, and steering all questions toward the subject of the tour itself.
“Yeah, we’re really happy to be here in New Orleans. I’ve always wanted to come here. The music’s got its own soul, like. Fee has this vision of gathering up the spirit of the United States for the album we’re cutting when we get back home . . . No, man, I don’t know what happened. I was just setting up my boards. Sound good in here, don’t they?” His long fingers danced up and down the keys, sending a weird, discordant wailing echoing through the auditorium. “Yeah, it’s a thing I’m trying out for this gig. I think it’s a new sound. Can’t wait to see what they think of it in San Francisco.” The music attracted the attention of the other reporters on stage. Like rats to the Pied Piper, they turned away from other victims and crowded in on Vincent, who played more eerie-sounding music to the rapt crowd.