Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga (17 page)

"I wasn't bothering him, was I, luv?" Torchy
asked Barry, who wisely kept quiet and pretended to be thinking of
something else entirely. Molly patted the floor beside her again,
and with a deep put-upon sigh the Debauchery Devil sank to sit
cross-legged on the indicated spot. Then, as if nothing had
happened, she continued to Willie in particular and the others at
large, "Naturally I expect to compensate you for your
assistance."

"Lady, we already got our hands full as it
is without becoming soldiers in your rebellion," Willie said.

"I knew you'd say that, but you see, it's
the same rebellion, actually. So that's all right, isn't it? I need
you to do what you want to do anyway if I'm to have a chance at
being—well, if not queen of anything, at least an independent agent
again. Magic doesn't work awfully well where it's overcrowded and
so awfully—I don't know, industrial I suppose you could say. I used
to think it was the iron, but I've grown quite used to that. I
suppose it's because no matter what clever little trick you do to
keep people thinking about you, there's always some bloody rational
explanation. For instance, in the old days, on the isolated farms
and in small villages in Britain, people used to set out milk and
bread for us. Nobody'd touch it because they knew it was for us,
you see. In the morning, still cold and a bit foggy from the sea
and all that peat smoke, here's your farmer or his wife pulling
pants or skirt on over nightdress, sliding into clogs or boots,
opening the door, and out of the corner of the eye seeing that the
full cup of milk and the bit of bread they'd laid out just the
night before had vanished, leaving only crumbs and a nasty
clabbering ring.

"It never occurred to them to say, 'Oh, the
dogs did it,' or to think that some homeless person helped himself,
though those things might easily have happened. But they didn't
want to think so because we were their luck, and if we accepted the
offer it probably meant we'd agreed to stay friendly, and if not,
well, they were in big trouble, even if it only meant that the milk
had gone bad."

"Kinda like a protection racket then?" Brose
asked.

"Not really. More like an alliance. If
they thought we were on their side, then they felt a little safer.
The world may have been emptier back then, dearies, but was just as
full of danger, if not more so. Having supernatural friends was
about all you
could
do before
some killjoy dreamed up public assistance. Actually, we were
prob'Iy as reliable."

"More so, I'd say," said Molly, who worked
for the State Department of Health and Social Services.

"And, well, of course, today people
don't believe in anything except that Dobermans go mad because
their brains grow too large for their skulls, fast-food restaurants
snatch up the odd rat when the price of poultry is too high, and
using a certain brand of dish soap leads to longer and happier
marriages
and
nice hands. Not
to mention clean dishes, I suppose."

"
I
thought you said you had to become a devil because you didn't
pay your own protection money to hell," Brose said. "How's anything
we do going to change that? Are they just going to let you
go?"

"No, but I know the ropes now. I don't know
why I was such a fool as to think I needed to keep my bargain with
them when they never keep their bargains with anyone else. They're
trying to co-opt even the limited bit of power I have left into
other branches now—pestilence has been edging over my way so that
boozing and doping are now known as the quite respectable-sounding
'substance abuse' and are supposed to be diseases. I can't manage
to suffuse them with glamor and daring anymore—no more than I can
smoking. I've tried. I've really tried, but it's no good. Besides,
the others now think that they can crack people just as effectively
from the pressures of daily life combined with a simple, frail
human nervous system. They even made me sober up, and I suppose
that's why I've thought of this plan."

"We don't have any reason to trust you,"
Anna Mae pointed out.

"No, but you can bet your braids, ducky,
that you won't get very far without my help, and with it you might
stand a chance of surviving, even if you don't set the world afire
with songs."

"Oh, you have some help to offer?" Willie
asked a little sarcastically. "You didn't mention that."

"Really, sweetie, I'm way past
expecting anyone to do anything for me from the goodness of their
own hearts. Now, as I see it, one of your biggest problems is that
other than that thing"—she indicated Lazarus, which was for once
not playing anything but was strangely silent, as if it were
listening too—"you've no protection at all. You have long distances
to go on roads or in airplanes all within the jurisdiction of my
employers. I needn't remind you of the little traffic jam you got
into before you left this country, nor the
unfortunate
string of air crashes that not only
killed your friends but cost millions in lawsuits and layoffs and
put large companies out of business. If they wish, my employers
could make sure that as soon as you set tires onto the next highway
exit, you'll be in limbo forever, especially if the banjo isn't
with you. Now it is true that knowing the songs gives you a certain
amount of protection, but you can't always be singing them.
Meanwhile, our people are tracking you—not always in the same sort
of concentrated way they did before, but more casually. So I think
that I have something that just might help here."

She pulled out a Ziploc bag full of
something sparkling and clear and tried to hand it to Willie, who
eyed it suspiciously.

"What is it?"

"Something I had the lab make up from
an old family formula especially for you. Go
on
. It's not illegal or anything, not just yet,
but you must understand that I have to exercise the power I do have
along the lines of my occupational specialty. I still have the labs
at my disposal, so I had them make this up. You've heard of angel
dust and devil dust? This is fairy dust. And you don't need to
smoke it, ingest it, or shoot it up. You just sprinkle it
on."

"Watch it, Willie. She's setting us up,"
Anna Mae said.

"I am
not
," Torchy said, wounded. "It's very nice
really. It helps you be aware of us without our people—except for
me, of course, since it's my formula—being aware of you. It also
imparts just a soupçon of glamor, which ought to be helpful with
the public, as inundated with charisma as they are these days. If
you use a bit daily after bathing and before bedtime, you ought to
be able to flit about the country by normal means without the
Company tracking you. Then, of course, all you have to do is
convince a large portion of the population that they should stop
doing all of the other things they have to do and sing folk songs
instead. I wish you the very best of British luck on that one, and
I'm not being facetious, because unless they do, I don't see how
we'll ever get them to believe in me again either."

"I think," Juli said gently, "that you'll
find that you first have to believe in yourself before others can
believe in you."

The Debauchery Devil gave her a quick
and brittle smile. "Thank you for that bit of trite conventional
wisdom, sweetie. And do keep in mind that your best audience may
not always be college-educated liberal Democrats. I might be able
to come up with a few lists of names that Fear and Loathing and
some of the others have in their grip who are very solidly
conservative, simply because they're scared to death to be
otherwise. Of course, we don't want to lose
ground
with those who are already inclined to
believe in us, but on the other hand, if they were enough, we
wouldn't be in this fix, now would we?"

"I think we've been infiltrated," Anna Mae
said.

"She did arrange for the money," Gussie
said. "I was wondering why she did that."

"The cowboy poets were my idea too," Torchy
said.

"The who?" Brose asked.

"The cowboy poets. You know. Back at the
ranch. I arranged it all as a sort of tribute to you, Willie dear.
Your poor old boss missed you so much he was getting terribly
depressed after the little heart attack the Plague and Pestilence
Department zapped him with. No booze or cigarettes, tsk tsk. But in
my own inimitable divine way I figured that what he really was most
addicted to about his way of life was the bullshit, which was in
short supply without you, Willie. So I—er—dusted up on my muse
skills and seduced the foreman into poetry. Quite easy, actually,
with that Mexican romance-language folk heritage pumping through
his hot little veins. At that point the Chairdevil hadn't actually
come out against poetry anyway."

"Found a loophole, did you?" Barry
asked.

"Well, yes, and a good thing I did
too. Since the Company has withdrawn its backing from alcohol,
nicotine, and other drugs, I have never seen such disgustingly
clean-cut cowboys in all my born days. The rodeos encourage them to
think of themselves as athletes these days, so what was left for
them to get high on but poetry? Now, I admit I
did
send a young fellow in to provide a big dose
of academic despair to all that naive enthusiasm, but who knows who
will convert whom? So see, that leaves you a bit of a
toehold."

Willie cocked a sardonic eyebrow at her.

"Oh, come
on
," she said. "I've gone to all this trouble
for you, really stuck my neck out. I'll tell you what. I'll throw
in a little luck spell so that your songs fall on the right ears,
how's that? But you can't go galloping around in a great big bloody
herd forever. You need to cover as much area as
possible."

"Divide and conquer, huh?" Anna Mae
asked.

Torchy ignored her. "Now, ideally each
of you should go back to your home ground to vector this music,
where you're most in touch with the culture and where the songs you
sing will have the most meaning for the people's lives. Except that
you," she pointed to Anna Mae, "have such a nasty personality you
should probably
not
go back
where you're known and instead go back to the reservations or
something and let Willie, who can charm anyone, take care of the
east. After all, Brose is from Texas too."

"Wait just a damn minute," Gussie said. "We
haven't agreed to anything just yet, so you can stop telling these
people their business."

"Some people are sure touchy! I'm only
trying to help," Torchy said in a wounded tone, her scarlet
fingertips fluttering to her throbbing overripe breast.

"What I'd like to know," Willie said
quietly, stopping in mid-pace to stand stone still, which had the
same effect as if all of a sudden the traffic on the highway
outside had come to a complete and silent halt. "What I'd really
like to know, darlin', not to sound ungrateful or nothin', but
what, exactly, do you get out of this deal besides the joy in your
heart of knowin' you have done the right thing?"

"Oh, well, power, of course, and adoration.
But I can wait for the end results. If you're still alive by the
time I come into my rightful throne again, you'll naturally have
first pick of the best flunky positions, since by accepting my
terms you will, in some ways, be swearing fealty to me now."

"Well, damn," Brose said sarcastically, "do
dat be all yo' want from yo' po' slaves, missy?"

"That and one other little insignificant
thing. I'll need the banjo, of course, properly handed over to me
so that I can show my bosses what a good girl I've been and throw
them off the track."

"Aha!" the rest of the people in the room
crowed in chorus and in eleven-part harmony.

"You bitch," Anna Mae said from between
clenched teeth.

"We can't give you Lazarus," Julianne said.
"It's our protection."

"Oh,
really
," Torchy said. "Haven't you been
listening? I'm offering you other protections. Besides, that thing
does you as much harm as good. Wherever it is, it focuses my
Company on the lot of you and starts them thinking up ways to
destroy you. If I have it, they'll feel that you're powerless and,
if they don't sense your presence, will forget all about you. Short
attention span, y'know. Goes with the territory, when you're a
devil. Besides, if you keep it,
which
of you will keep it? You
will
all have to travel around like
a football team trying to shelter under one umbrella, and how much
song spreading do you think you'll get done that way? As it is, you
know, even
with
the banjo
and
with
all of my
protections, the moment you start singing, you've blown your cover
and signaled my people that you're there again. You will have to
move along almost instantly."

"Oh, great," Juli said. "A life of one-night
stands."

"Don't be such a baby," the Debauchery
Devil said. "Do you think it's been a picnic going from being a
magical queen of sylvan glades to hanging out in bars and opium
dens for the last four hundred years? I'm only doing this because
while I was hanging out in b-bars, p-p-people like W-Willie were
the only ones who reminded m-me of what I used to
buh-buh-buh-
bee
!" And she
burst into unexpected and greatly suspect tears, each one dropping
to the worn linoleum of the Curtises' floor, where it bounced and
clattered and lay shining, reflecting rainbows of color.