Martin Millar - The Good Fairies of New York.html (19 page)

'Brannoc! What happened?'

Brannoc raised himself weakly on his elbows.

'I met the black fairies,' he mumbled.

'Did they hurt you badly?'

'No,' gasped Brannoc. 'We made friends. But they have some terrible potent alcohol.'

He slumped back to the ground, and began to snore.

A slight breeze stirred in the park.

TWENTY-SEVEN

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Dinnie pulled on his ragged leather jacket in his clumsy manner and looked in the mirror with disgust. This jacket, the source of yet another bitter argument between him and Heather, had been picked out specially for him by the fairy at a second-hand clothes shop just opposite the Canal Street post office.

While there, Heather had been interested to see that on the walls of the post office were posters from the FBI giving details of wanted criminals.

'Well, I never,' she mused, studying the hardened faces staring out at her. 'This country is in a serious condition.

What you need is PC MacBain from Cruickshank. He would soon sort them out. He'd give them a guid scone on

the lug.'

'A brilliant solution,' said Dinnie, sarcastically.

Dinnie did not want a leather jacket, but Heather briskly bullied him into it. The fairy's patience was today even thinner than usual as she was still rather hungover from the party with her new Italian friends. She had been sick all morning, although she insisted to Dinnie that this was only because she was not used to pasta. They argued briefly, bought the jacket and returned home.

Tonight Dinnie had his first date with Kerry. It had not been difficult to arrange, although Dinnie went through a nightmare of nerves verging on complete panic when Heather manoeuvred him into it. She had led him to the deli when Kerry was there, then whispered in his ear that either he asked her out this very minute or she was leaving immediately with the fiddle.

'And I can fly to your room quicker than you can climb the stairs.'

To Dinnie's surprise, even after he had stuttered what must have been one of the most graceless and uninviting requests for a date in human history, Kerry happily agreed.

They were to meet that night at ten and go to hear some music in a club. Dinnie was extremely pleased, and very anxious.

Across the road, Morag was also pleased.

'Thank you, Kerry,' she said. 'I regard this as a great favour. Are you sure you don't mind going out with him too much?'

Kerry shook her head.

'It's okay, Morag. There'll be lots of my friends at the club anyway, so I won't be bored.'

'It won't make you very unhappy turning up at some hip place with that big lump trailing after you? I wouldn't want to ruin your credibility.'

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'No, it's fine,' promised Kerry. 'Anyway, he doesn't look too bad these days. He seems to have lost a lot of weight.'

'And grown a nice pony-tail.'

While Kerry was out with Dinnie, Morag was going to pick up her fiddle from Hwui-Yin. Then she intended to

show the Chinese fairies what a Scottish fiddler could do.

Tala the King's palace was made of trees grown together to form rooms and courtyards. Formerly a pleasant and open place, it was now dark and heavily guarded.

Aelric crept silently past the guards. He was coated in a substance which made his aura dim to other fairies and his scent undetectable to guard dogs.

He climbed swiftly up a solid oak to where he knew the bedroom of Marion was and peered through the leaf-

covered window space.

Marion had long black hair covered in light-blue beads. This stretched like a cape down to her thighs. She was busy in her bedroom singing a preserving song to a cut flower. Aelric muttered a brief prayer to the Goddess and hopped inside.

Heather spent the first part of the evening feeling elated because her plan was working so well and she would soon have the MacPherson Fiddle in her hands, and the second part in dejection because she realised that Dinnie would probably ruin everything.

It was all very well getting him a date with Kerry, but after that it was up to him, and he was not a man to inspire confidence. She shuddered to think of the awful things Dinnie might do on a date with Kerry. He might get drunk file:///Users/lisa/Downloads/Martin%20Millar%20-%20The%20Good%20Fairies%20of%20New%20York.html

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and when he got drunk he tended to dribble beer down his chin. This was not a pleasant sight. He might suddenly lose control of his appetite and be overwhelmed by the urge to immediately buy and eat a family-sized bag of

peanut and pistachio cookies. He had done this before, and it was not a pleasant sight either.

He could do worse things. He might insult Kerry's friends. He might swear at a beggar in the street. He might shout abuse at the band, even though Kerry liked them. He might be too mean to share a cab home. Kerry would

not like any of these things.

Worst of all, he might try to grope her, something Heather had expressly forbidden as he went out of the door but still worried about terribly.

'If you grope this young woman on your first date, it's the end of everything,' she said to his departing figure. 'Do not grope her. She'll hate it. Have a nice time.'

Oh well. There was nothing she could do about it now except wait. She flew down to the bar to drink and watch the baseball.

Warmed by a few drams, things did not seem so bad. She knew that Dinnie would not be perfect, but his failings were essential to her plan. She was aware that a perfect Dinnie would be a bore, and this would be almost as bad as an appallingly badly behaved Dinnie. Heather was counting on the recent behavioural changes she had worked in Dinnie making enough of a difference to make him attractive, without the rough edges entirely disappearing.

'Which is a damn subtle plan, when you come to think of it,' she said to herself, meanwhile applauding a fine Yankees grounder that advanced the man on first right round to third. 'And well worthy of success.'

'Yes,' agreed the numerous Chinese fairies who surrounded Morag, plying her with drinks. 'Your friend's plan to win the East 4th Street Community Arts Prize sounds worthy of success. Of course we will try and help. Just bring us a list of the flowers you still need and we'll find them for you. And we will keep a look out for this Magenta woman who thinks she is Xenophon and see if we can retrieve the poppy.'

Attracted by this brilliantly coloured visitor from across the ocean, they were eager to please.

'You are very kind,' said Morag, pouring down a few more Chinese beers. 'Possibly while you're at it you could keep an eye open for a 1958 Gibson Tiger Top with "Johnny Thunders" stencilled on the back.'

'We already are,' said the Chinese. 'When Johnny Thunders' ghost brought you here he asked us to help, and we will. We have been fans of his ever since he recorded "Chinese Rocks", although we know that Dee Dee Ramone claims to have written it.'

Aelric joined his rebel band, now numbering thirty, just in time for the night's raid. Half of them were to stage a phoney attack on a grain barn to distract the mercenary band who were hunting them, while the other half were to carry out the real attack on Magris's new weapon factory, where swords, shields and spears were now being

produced at a frightening rate.

'So,' asked Aelis, buckling on her breastplate, 'how was the King's stepdaughter?'

'Wonderful. I told her I love her.'

'What did she say?'

'She said I was a disgusting rebel who was ruining her beloved father's kingdom and I ought to have my head cut off. Then she pulled a knife and attacked me while simultaneously screaming out for the guards. She is a very resourceful young fairy.'

The two groups prepared to move out.

'So is this the end of the romance?'

Aelric looked pained.

'Of course not. A passionate young fairy like myself does not let a little thing like a knife attack put him off. I shall just have to find some way of winning her heart. Her huge collection of preserved flowers for instance. I could steal them and refuse to give them back until she falls in love with me.'

Aelis shook her head.

'Aelric, that is really dumb. You are a good rebel leader but a terrible romancer. What you should do is melt her heart by appearing with a spectacular addition to her collection.'

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Heather had told Dinnie that to all practical purposes he could presume that Kerry was in love with him when she took him in her arms and kissed him passionately, without being asked. This seemed to her a reasonable yardstick and Dinnie, for want of anything better, agreed.

She heard him clumping up the stairs. Terror welled up in her chest. He had done something dreadful and Kerry never wanted to see him again.

'Well?' she demanded.

'It was fine,' said Dinnie. He was obviously pleased with himself.

'Fine?'

'Yes, fine.'

They had had a pleasant evening drinking with Kerry's friends before going to hear a band at a tiny club in Avenue C. He had pretended to like the band as they were Kerry's friends, and the two of them had got on very well the whole night.

'No arguments?'

'No.'

'No signs of disgust on her part?'

'No.'

'Any hint of possible sexual excitement between you?'

'Yes, I think so. And we've arranged another date.'

Heather clapped him heartily on the shoulder. Dinnie was equally delighted. As he took off his leather jacket he remarked that really it was a fairly good jacket as leather jackets go, and Kerry had complimented his pony-tail.

For the first time ever he thanked Heather, then slumped into bed to dream happily of his next date.

'It was okay,' Kerry told Morag. 'No problem at all really.

Dinnie was all right to be with. I don't think he liked the band much, but he was polite about it. He even made me laugh sometimes. I quite liked him.'

TWENTY-EIGHT

Magenta sat down to rest in Stuyvesant Square. Not for the first time, she wished that she had more archers in her army. These winged demons who flew with the Persians were a dreadful menace.

A large family had gathered on the benches in front of her and were having heated discussions about something or other.

One thin middle-aged man, left out of the discussions, tried to encourage a young nephew to box. He continually pulled at his sleeve to gain his attention, then threw pretend punches and put up a guard, but the nephew was not interested and turned away. The uncle would not be put off and persisted in trying to show the uninterested child how to box. Eventually the child scurried off to his mother. His mother absent-mindedly spat on a handkerchief and scrubbed his face. The uncle looked faintly disgusted and hunted around for someone else to bother.

Magenta had a vague memory of her parents trying to get her to do things she did not want to do, then hunted

about in her shopping trolley. Supplies were low. She had no money to replenish her Fitzroy cocktail and during the last engagement she had lost the precious triple-bloomed flower. This was a source of immense annoyance.

Back in Greece the rare flower would have fetched a great price, thereby enabling her to pay her fellow

mercenaries a decent bonus. Already they were grumbling about not being paid.

Now the army had hardly anything left. All there was in her shopping trolley was the recipe for the cocktail, a supply of old newspapers, the Bhat Gwa mirror and the two pieces of the guitar she had picked up after the riot at the festival in Tomkins Square.

With one week left till judgement day, Cal's production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
was coming along reasonably well. The four lovers wandered the imaginary woods, lost in their confused emotional affairs. Puck file:///Users/lisa/Downloads/Martin%20Millar%20-%20The%20Good%20Fairies%20of%20New%20York.html

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danced this way and that, casting around bewilderment, while Oberon and Titania, the Fairy King and Queen,

quarrelled mightily over the Indian boy.

Cal was particularly pleased with the new actress who was playing Titania. A young woman from Texas, currently serving meals in a diner, she was radiant and charismatic in her costume, and seemed to Cal every inch the Fairy Queen.

'She is rubbish,' thought Heather crossly, watching from the wings. 'More like a plate of porridge than a Fairy Queen.'

Heather regarded this actress, and all the other clumsy humans playing fairy parts, as something of an insult.

The Chinese fairies, well into the swing of their festival — that is to say, drunk — received heartening news from some scouts.

'We have located the old woman Magenta. Or rather, the fairly young muscular woman who looks old because she

is so dirty. We tried to examine her shopping bag but in this we were not entirely successful because so much exposure to fairies has rendered her capable of seeing us.

'However, before she attacked us with rocks, we did see a glint of our precious mirror in her bag. She must have found it at the same time as she found the poppy. What is more, in her bag are two pieces of an old guitar.'

Morag wiped beer from her lips.

'Could this guitar possibly be— '

'Who knows? This woman is obviously a person of great cosmic importance. The way she draws all these vital

artefacts to her is clearly part of some greater plan.'

Morag leapt up and drew her sword.

'Well, let's go and take them.'

The Chinese were a little shocked at this. They pointed out that they were good fairies and could not just go around robbing humans when it suited them. Morag was chastened. She had forgotten this. The pressures of the