Ken chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to explain the love triangle. He knew that the boss he’d never met wouldn’t care about the emotional entanglement or the jealousy.
In retrospect, once he’d become aware of those issues, maybe he should have realized Robbie Unterburger hadn’t been the best choice for the job. It had been just too tempting to take advantage of such a natural magical channel. She’d responded so well when not under personal attack, but the moment she drew attention to herself, she became flustered, and hit out with everything she had, including SATN’s precious power storage. Ken had been lazy, and he was paying for it.
“ . . . Between one thing and another, it was more than I should have made her handle before the big moment.”
“Well, what’s done is done,” Kingston said, calmly. “There’s not much time left. My, er, friend assured me you could handle the job. There’s a lot riding on it. Bring that girl back and make this work.”
“She’s split,” Ken said, sullenly. “She’s vanished into the city.”
“You find her and bring her back. I thought you had a leash on her.”
“I do,” Ken said, sullenly. He wasn’t used to having his competence questioned, but he had to admit Kingston had reason to be upset. “I have a tracer that picks up the energy she emits. It’s an electronic dowser.” He took the device out of his pocket. It looked high tech except for the Y-shaped piece of wood attached to the top. He’d made it himself. New technology, not like his dad’s old means of water-witching with a plain hazel switch.
“Well, I don’t care if it’s a sign that says `You are here.’ Use it. A lot depends on this working out right. Go on! Go get her!”
“What about those agents?” Ken asked.
“That matter’s taken care of,” Kingston said. “Didn’t I tell you? Now, call me when everything’s back in place.” There was a click at the far end as the other man hung up.
Irritated, Ken switched off his phone. He looked back toward the control room, then past it to the door of the press box where the transmission lines into which he’d tapped ran into the building. His connections were still open. He ought to close them, or the evil power transmitted from SATN that acted as a catalyst for Robbie’s outbursts would continue to leak into the arena like gas. Little might be left over for the concert itself. The event was still hours away. Torn, he wondered whether he should go back or head out after Robbie. Suddenly, he heard the control room door open, and footsteps clap on the concrete walkway.
“ . . . Better see where Ken is,” said the technical director’s voice.
Ken started running for the escalators.
* * *
“Hey, Ben,” Boo-Boo hailed a gray-haired black man in a guard’s uniform standing at the guard station on the ground level. “You see a little thing go by, brown hair and glasses? She woulda been in a little bit of a hurry.”
“Yeah, I saw her, Boo-ray,” Ben said. He exchanged complicated handshakes with the FBI agent. “She flew out of here in a big hurry. Came out of the main door and practically jumped down the escalators.”
“She get a taxi?”
“Nah, she just went right straight out of here on foot,” Ben said, pointing. “Crossed Poydras without lookin’, and kept on moving. Looked like she was preoccupied, I’d say.”
“Thanks, Ben. I’ll be seeing you.” Boo-Boo looked worried as he took Liz’s elbow and hurried her out the door.
“What’s wrong?” Liz asked.
“She’s on foot. I’m guessin’ she’s gonna try to get back to the French Quarter,” Boo-Boo said. “She doesn’t know where she’s goin’. It’s that way, but that’s not the best neighborhood. It’s got some lonely stretches, where nobody sees nothin’, if you understand me. Most people don’t go walkin’ through it alone. A stranger, walkin’ fast, not payin’ attention to her surroundin’s, is just askin’ for problems.”
Liz’s eyes widened. “We’d better catch up with her.”
* * *
Two shadows peeled themselves away from the side of the Superdome, and fell into step a dozen yards behind Boo and Liz.
Liz held out the psychic detector that she carried with her in her purse disguised as a box of breath mints. The faint traces of energy that she could find on the sidewalk opposite the Superdome verified the security guard’s statement that Robbie had come this way, broadcasting a blue streak, so to speak. The girl had been moving fast, but still left behind a distinct trail. Liz shook her head at her own blindness.
“How could we have missed seeing the obvious? Robbie has had a longstanding grudge against Fionna, and she must have been with the company while it was in Dublin, the scene of our other agent’s attack.”
“One or two things are still botherin’ me,” Boo-Boo said, after exchanging a word with an old man eating a late lunch on a park bench. “Robbie Unterburger doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would take out the kind of revenge on a rival that she’s been wreaking. In fact, she seemed kind of freaked out by the effects. And yet, there don’t seem to be any doubt that she’s the source.”
“Could we be witnessing the birth of a rogue talent?” Liz asked. She’d read of such things in the departmental archives. Mass destruction often accompanied the emergence. Not that the reports lent any credence to the occurrences, citing instead natural catastrophes such as lightning storms and earthquakes.
“That’d be one good thing that came out of this situation,” Boo-Boo said. “That is, if we can catch up with her before she hurts herself or someone else too much just to be able to walk away. We could get her some trainin’, anyhow.”
“It’s not personal,” Liz said. Beauray glanced back at her with his brows drawn up in a question. “I have the strongest feeling that Robbie still doesn’t really want to hurt Fee. With the amount of power she’s slinging, she could have killed Fee any time. That gigantic poster might have come down in a single piece, but she caused it to explode into little paper flakes. She doesn’t mean any harm. She’s venting frustration, or so it seems to me. She just can’t control herself.”
“That amount of power in an untrained practitioner just didn’t seem natural,” Boo said. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it myself. We woulda detected it if that girl was buildin’ it all up inside herself. You get some spillover even in experienced people. It’s almost as if she was channelin’ it from somewhere. I’m more curious about that. Where’s it comin’ from?”
“We won’t know until we catch up with her,” Liz said, grimly. “So far, she’s managed to blend in far too well. She could stay hidden until it is too late.”
“Not really,” Boo said, encouragingly. “This is the Vieux Carré. It’s a community. We’re aware of strangers. Someone will know where she went.”
In reference to strangers, Liz had taken note of a couple of large, muscular men walking behind them on the other side of the street. Wearing the usual working uniform of button-down shirts and twill pants, they could have been a couple of bouncers on their way to work, or a pair of musicians going anywhere, but she noticed that they kept pace with her and Beauray, although taking care to remain at least a dozen yards behind them. They turned when she turned, crossing the nearly deserted street in the middle of the block to follow them along a narrow street that ran parallel to Rampart. Once they crossed Canal into a rundown street that led between a huge yellow brick building with boarded up windows and an empty lot, it became an undeniable fact that the two men were following them with a purpose in mind. A glance at her companion told her that he had noticed them, too. His hands, deep in the pockets of his ratty coat, were working.
Liz paused very casually to dig into her handbag, coming up with a handkerchief under which she concealed one of her government-issue containers. As though she was freshening up her lipstick, she unscrewed the small vial and dribbled a little of the powder into her palm. The men had no choice but to saunter slower, and pretend to study the elderly brick building. As they came within a few yards, Liz put her handkerchief to her nose and blew a few grains of the dust toward them. The grains, part of a sensing cantrip she had learned in her first year at the department, revealed no magic in particular about their pursuers. Ordinary common-or-garden thugs. Well, she’d heard there was street crime in New Orleans. She should be prepared. And she was not alone. That was good. She started walking again, faster. The two men behind them picked up the pace, too.