Dreamseeker's Road (14 page)

Like the Cartoon-and-Comics bash at the 40 Watt. “Who's playing, anyway?” Alec wondered. “I forgot.”

“Mrs. Atkins and The Woggles,” David shot back.

Aikin, intent on Shaken, was oblivious.

“Who's opening?”

“Who knows?”

“Best we be at it, then,” Alec said. “Here comes Ms. Death.”

“Treat?” Liz prompted, tossing each of them a Hershey bar.

“More like tricks, in
that
garb,” Alec giggled. He snared Elmer by an ear, and the mismatched foursome got moving.

“Cammie couldn't come?” Liz asked Aikin offhand, as they careened around the corner onto Clayton Street.

Aikin scowled minutely and muttered a terse, “Moving,” but David caught a trace of relief in his expression—which didn't quite fit. In fact, now he thought of it, Aik had been acting odd all day: breathlessly impatient on the phone when they'd worked out the evening's logistics, as though he'd been interrupted in the middle of something both strenuous and important—like sex (though if Mr. Forestry and his study wench had started pollinating, it was news to him)—then almost giddily up when he'd surprised them a few minutes back; and then antsy as an echidna on speed while they'd waited for Liz just now. None of which were like calm, quiet, terminally secretive Mighty Hunter Daniels. But maybe Aik had his own demons.

“Watch it!” someone slurred from behind, forcing David to skip sideways or be collected by a staggering fat man dressed, coincidentally, as Satan.

“Ego to exoreiso…”
David called back promptly.

“Nice buns, elf!” someone else—female—hooted approvingly, as he recovered.

Liz growled.

Alec and Aikin grinned.

“You know,” David told them, “I could get into this. Maybe I'll wear these to class.”

Liz slapped the pertinent location. “Don't you
dare
!”

David tickled her.

And the four of them moved on—but not in silence.

By resisting the snares of the tempting blues thudding up from D.T.'s Downunder, and the half-priced costumes at The Junkman's Daughter's Brother, they won through to Lumpkin Street. Another band was blaring from Frijoleros halfway down, all at odds with the upscale quasi pub subtlety of the Globe on the nearer corner, which had contented itself with artfully carved jack-o'-lanterns in each of its deep-set windows.

They angled across Lumpkin and Clayton on the fly (avoiding Jeff-from-Barnett's dressed as Elvis, a hooker in corset and fishnet hose, and the third generic flasher they'd been underwhelmed by in a block), to pause for breath beneath the Georgia Theater's marquee, where the classic horror film
Freaks
had been playing nonstop all day, accompanied by hourly beer specials. An overpriced parking lot came next. And then they saw the line down Washington Street to the 40 Watt. All block and a half of it.

Aikin groaned resoundingly.

“Oh cheer up, Fuddsy,” Alec chided. “It'll be
three
blocks in ten minutes.”

“Kill the wabbit,” Aikin snarled, with feeling.

David barely heard him; he was staring across the street at a tall young man in mime makeup and terrorist fatigues, juggling bright plastic hand grenades.

*

“Two Low-brows an' a Coke,” Alec announced three hours later, as he squeezed between David and Liz. He whisked his cloak aside to reveal a cola and a pair of draft beers—which would've raised eyebrows back home, not the least because all three of the partakers were underage. Still, even well-brought-up mountain kids could access fake IDs—especially when two of them studio-sat for a well-known graphic artist, and the other was a world-class hacker.

Like Liz, the fourth member of their tribe was not partaking; first because he didn't drink in public, and second, because he was dancing like a fool. David watched him from where they were scrunched up at a table beside the dance floor. Mighty Hunter Fudd's feet had gone manic one beat back, and were now well-nigh invisible, as the band segued into something that allowed him to jig. Actually, one could jig to lots of stuff, David knew. And buckdance too. Too bad the Madonna wannabe who partnered him kept stopping to adjust her cones.

As if playing to Aikin alone, the Woggles were giving it
their
best shot as well. Red-haired Manfred “Professor” Jones was screaming like a happy banshee; Tim “Timmy Tom-Tom” Terelli pounded the drums like a shaman at a puberty rite; while Martin “Zorko” Brooks and Patrick “Buzz Bomb” O'Connor swapped riffs on guitar and bass. The piece was called “Mad Dog 22.” Though “Mad Man” might have been more appropriate, if one took their cues from Aik.

The music grew louder and faster yet. Feeling reckless, David chugged his beer and dragged Liz onto the floor. Alec downed his too, and joined them.

Five more songs, another brew apiece—and a very sweaty David Sullivan had to admit he was both bushed and buzzed.

“Where's Fuddsy?” he gasped, as he flopped against the wall beside Liz, who, having stood this one out because she didn't like the song, was comparing costume notes with one of the girls on her hall. A very
pretty
girl, David couldn't help but notice, in well-done Prince Valiant drag that showed a shocking amount of ample bosom. She regarded him frankly, if a tad glass-eyed; her gaze sagging from his face, past his chest, to his belly, and lower—where it lingered. “Nice…feather,” she giggled.

David grinned.

The girl leered back.

Liz glowered. “I'll lend you the pattern,” she snapped, and turned to David. “What?” she demanded, brows lifted pointedly.

“I said, ‘where's Aikin?' More to the point, where's Alec? Aik can take care of himself. Mr. Sandman's had a few.”

“So've you.”

David managed a crooked smile. “It happens.”

“McLean's walkin' his lizard,” someone offered helpfully from David's left. A glance that way put him eye
to beak with Scrooge McDuck, though Goofy would've been a better choice, as the guy was over six feet tall. David squinted at him, trying to place the voice behind the fake-fur and plastic. “Gil?” he ventured.

“Possibly,” McDuck quacked cryptically, and waddled away. David stood on tiptoes (cursing yet again that he was only five-seven—Aikin alone of his buds was shorter), and surveyed the thick-packed crowd.

The Woggles had proclaimed a break, and canned music was the order of the night (the obligatory REM), which meant it was time to refill drinks, attend to bodily functions, reconnect with strayed companions, and toss one's cookies at need.

Aikin, however, seemed disinclined to pursue any of those options. In fact, with or without sword and magic helmet, he was nowhere in sight.

“Prob'ly sneaked off,” David allowed eventually.

“Be just like him,” Liz agreed, easing her arm around him so that her hand rested on his hip, her fingers inside the waistband.

“He's a big boy, though. He's not been drinkin' and he's got his own wheels.”

“Acting funny, though.”

David scowled at her, wishing he was not so buzzed. “How so?”

A shrug. “I dunno. Just funny. Wired—distracted. Something like that.”

David shrugged in turn and returned his attention to the dance floor. The band had picked up their instruments again, after a very short break indeed, and was laying down a fine opening riff for what promised to be an
amazingly
fast number. He peered down at his half-finished Lowenbrau. “Think I'll sit this 'un out,” he said. And surveyed the dancers again.

And well-nigh dropped his cup.

“Shit!” he hissed.

No one heard—apparently. But he also hoped no one saw the tall, dark-haired woman who had just melted from the mob on the opposite side of the darkened room. If she was wearing an actual
costume,
it didn't register; though he got an impression of layers of gray, green, and black. And if that costume represented anyone from cartoons or comics, it mattered even less.

What he
did
notice was her face: white as a moon among stars, but in a way that suggested natural pallor; features as elegantly chiseled as a celebrity model's; and waist-length black hair that flowed like spun night around her. Her brows were dark and arching, her eyes scarcely paler, and slanted exotically.

His
eyes were burning like fire, and not from smoke or tears. For, incredible as it seemed, the woman was one of the Sidhe!

“Three's the charm,” he muttered so softly no one heard. “Deer, enfield, and this. Something's
gotta
be goin' on.”

But what? Well, Faerie was evidently slopping out all over, for one thing; and traditional day for such occurrences notwithstanding, it seemed
very
unlikely that he'd hear not a peep from there for two years, then encounter the denizens of that place thrice in less than a week. In fact, this lady was a day early, if she wanted to observe true Samhain.

So what was she doing here? More to the point, was she doing
anything
besides enjoying herself? And was there anything more than coincidence to the fact that three of the dozen or so mortals in the country who could recognize what she was happened to be in this same room?

Or—troubling thought—were there more than a dozen? Did other mortals likewise know of Faerie? Like that John Devlin guy, maybe? He'd certainly seemed to know
something
! Unfortunately, Nuada, who was his principal contact among the Sidhe, had refused to tell, and he hadn't thought to ask Fionchadd until the Faery youth was out of the loop and back home with his mom's Powersmith kin across an impassable sea. But if something was stirring up traffic between the Worlds, how widespread was it? He knew of three recent incursions himself, but that didn't mean there weren't others. But was Faerie
really
leaking, or was that mere paranoia?

And what did he do about it?

If anything.

He didn't
need
this, dammit! Juggling school and money and friendships and
relationships
and work-study and career plans was complex enough without Faerie muddying the waters. Never mind his simmering little vendetta against the Morrigu, that so far had amounted to no more than unfocused anger, but on which he was determined to make good.

Still, if he had a
serious
death wish, he supposed he could con a pocketknife off somebody (AWOL Aikin surely had one), and hold the lady at bay with cold iron until she gave him the straight scoop—assuming she still wore the substance of Faerie, which wasn't necessarily the case; nor wise, given the amount of ferrous metal about.

But even he wasn't fool enough to snatch someone off the dance floor in the middle of a crowded club. After this song… Well, he'd watch her carefully,
then
decide.

Besides,
if he didn't stop staring at her, his eyes were gonna burn right through his skull.

—At which point the woman spun around. And with the distraction of that too-beautiful face removed, he dragged his gaze away, feigning nonchalance with a sip of beer.

“Liz—” he began. But she was at the bar having her cup refilled. Alec was—apparently—still peeing.

And Aikin…?

He rose on tiptoes again. Still no Mighty Hunter. But as his gaze swept the crowd, he got a second jolt.
Another one!

Another Faery woman had just squeezed through the entrance. She wasn't as flash as the first one, granted, was clad in jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt, in fact, and could almost have been an attractive Indian, Hawaiian, or Oriental. But there was no mistaking the burning in his eyes. The effect was not as strong as with the other woman, however: possibly a function of differing degrees of glamour, he supposed. Or—

“Shit!” he gasped; for someone had jostled the new arrival into one of the steel I beams that braced a wall. He held his breath, expecting a pained reaction—but there was none. Well, that settled one thing, then: the newcomer was
definitely
wearing the substance of the Mortal World; no way she could have endured that contact otherwise. Which perhaps explained why his eyes weren't tingling as much—and also meant she would be less likely to do anything untoward, since changing to human clay reduced one's capacity for magic.

But again, what did he do?

Watch, for the moment. Watch…and wait.

Fortunately, the second woman seemed as bent on dancing as the first. Not bothering to select a partner, she pranced straight onto the floor. And had not gone five paces—her slender body was already swaying with the beat—when she froze. Her head whipped around in David's direction; her eyes narrowed dramatically. He first thought she'd spotted him, and tried to merge with the wall. But by following her line of sight, he realized that she was staring at her more exotically clad countrywoman. For almost five seconds she stood there, then puffed her cheeks, scowled like an irate spinster, spun on her heel—and marched straight back the way she had come. Before David could react, she had vanished through the outside door.

“Too bad,” a male voice sighed beside him. David started, having completely forgotten he was in a room full of people, many of whom were friends, and more at least vague acquaintances. After puzzling his way past a film of blue greasepaint, he recognized the jumpsuit-clad speaker as a guy named Mark, who'd lived next door in Milledge Hall the year before, and with whom he'd since shared a couple of anthropology classes. He was a security guard at the main library.

“Huh?” David mumbled, to cover.

“That girl who just left. Guess she didn't like the crowd.”

“Or undercover smurfs,” David countered, trying to be witty and casual, though his heart clearly wasn't in it.

A shrug. “Prob'ly not her style anyway.”

“You know her?”

Another shrug. “Seen her around the library some; mostly late at night, which is slightly odd for a woman. Had to run her out once.”