A Host of Furious Fancies Page 5

  Eric was no longer surprised that Greystone knew so much about him. A telepathic gargoyle would be an entire intelligence network all by himself.

  “Because I have a couple of things to prove to myself,” Eric told him, as he sat on the floor beside the DVD player and ejected the disk. He cocked his head to one side as he watched to see Greystone’s reaction.

  “One of them is the laying of old ghosts. Another is that I have to prove to myself that I have the discipline to make it through to a degree; that I have the patience to put up with teachers who are going to put me through the wringer just because they can. I have to know that I can do something alone, without help from anyone else. And there are things I can learn in classes that I’ll never learn on my own. The piece of paper I’ll get doesn’t mean a damn insofar as my passing auditions; it’s what it will mean to me that matters.”

  He hadn’t explained any of this to Beth or Kory; Kory wouldn’t have understood, and probably Beth wouldn’t have, either. Kory would point out that he could study with the finest of Underhill Bards if what he wanted was to learn about music and discipline—hadn’t he survived Dharinel’s teaching? Beth, who never had graduated from college, had the contempt for the sheepskin that many who drop out or never make it through often have. In Beth’s case, Eric was fairly certain it was because she had seen so many overeducated idiots pass through the television studios she worked at. She had a point, but every time Eric had tried to argue the counter-point, he’d had to give it up before he lost his temper with her. Or she with him—Beth had a tongue that could strip wallpaper at 600 yards, and the temper that went with it. And her not even a redhead. . . .

  “In a way, you need to prove you’re a man, eh?” the gargoyle observed shrewdly, and Eric had to laugh. Going back to Juilliard was a far cry from John Wayne heroics.

  “Yeah, you could say that. This is kind of my manhood ordeal.” He made a face. “And part of it is going to be an ordeal, all right. I’m going to have to keep slapping myself down to keep from using magic to deal with some of those bastards in there that call themselves teachers. Why is it that the teaching profession attracts so many insecure sadists? But I won’t do it. That would be cheating—and hundreds of people who don’t have magic manage, after all. I just have to remember that my way won’t count in there, figure out what they want, and give it to them.”

  “I don’t know. Sounds like knuckling under to me.” Greystone examined his talons carefully, not looking at Eric.

  “Sometimes you have to knuckle under,” Eric replied without heat, though such an implied slur would have had him in a rage as recently as a couple of years ago. “That’s life in the mortal world; it’s a food chain, and you can’t always be top predator.” And, a part of him acknowledged, he wouldn’t want to be top predator. You gave up as much as you got if you became King of the Hill—Above or Below—and there were some things Eric wouldn’t give up, no matter what price he was offered for them.

  “I suppose.” The gargoyle sighed. “Makes me glad I have a simple job, one with no compromises involved.”

  “And there are plenty who’d envy you,” Eric told him honestly, and yawned. “Well, I’m for bed. Knock yourself out: watch or listen to whatever you like, just shut the window behind you when you leave, okay?” He got up, and offered his hand to Greystone, saying in his best Humphrey Bogart voice, “Louis, I have the feeling this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  Greystone shook his hand and, to Eric’s delight, then saluted with his bottle of water and responded (in a better imitation), “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

  Eric went off to his bed and fell easily and quickly asleep, with the reassuring sounds of British comedy and the gargoyle’s low chuckle murmuring through the apartment to keep him company.

  In the morning, it all could have been a dream. The disks Greystone had used had been put neatly away, and the gargoyle was back in place, looking like an ordinary stone gargoyle. But as Eric entered the living room, the gargoyle moved just enough to look over his shoulder and wink.

  Eric laughed, and waved back. Greystone returned his gaze to the street below.

  With that reassurance, Eric sauntered into his warm, pleasant kitchen, and sat down at his own tiny kitchen table. Memories of other kitchens, other wakings, filled his thoughts. I never used to get up this early, he thought, noting that the time was only nine a.m. But then again, I used to drink or smoke myself into oblivion most every night, too. That tends to make for late risings.

  He poured and devoured a bowl of cereal absentmindedly, and considered what he was going to do for the day. It was Sunday, his last day of complete freedom. Tomorrow he’d begin classes and all the rest. While he didn’t expect to have a great deal of trouble with actual playing, there would be things like music theory and composition, orchestration, and other technical subjects where his natural gifts wouldn’t carry him. Homework! My god, I’m going to have to deal with homework again!

  At least this time around the drudgery of homework would be lessened by the computer set up on the desk in the living room. Pointing and clicking, and even typing, were all things he could manage on his own, and there were classes at Juilliard in using the same composition software and MIDI interfaces he’d had installed on his box. Then again, the tech he’d hired to install his rig had sworn to him that the MIDI software wasn’t all that hard to learn, so maybe he could play around with it himself. That would take up a bit of his time.

  And then there was the not-unattractive possibility that he might find some female company somewhere along the way, which would also take up some more of his time. . . .

  I guess I’ve gotten over Beth pretty painlessly, he realized with a pang of surprise.

  Then again, he’d have to be careful about letting new people into his life. There were holes in his carefully-patched-together cover story that would be pretty hard to maintain against someone who was getting close to him.

  Complications, complications. Oh, well. I guess the first thing I’d better do is go down and ’fess up to the building manager that I’ve penetrated her little disguise.

  Though if he was going to do that, he’d better fix himself up to look more like a responsible, respectably cautious mage and less like a Gen-X slacker who couldn’t be bothered to shave.

  An hour later, shaved, chestnut hair thoroughly brushed and pulled back with an elastic tie ornamented with a silver plaque inscribed with Celtic knotwork, and wearing a perfectly proper outfit of jeans, a good collarless shirt, and a moleskin vest, Eric Banyon presented himself at Apartment 1-A on the first floor. There was a small hand-lettered label that said ‘Hernandez-Manager’ over the bell. After a brief interval, she answered his ring.

  Ms. Hernandez didn’t look like a mage. She was a Latina woman with skin the color of buckwheat honey; an older woman who wore a harried lifestyle and a score of responsibilities like an invisible cloak. She was dressed in jeans and a pink Henley, and her blue-black hair was pulled back in a tail.

  Her eyes showed a flash of annoyance—quickly hidden—when she saw who was at her door, and Eric knew what was going through her mind. She probably figured that he was going to complain about one of the many features of the apartment that she couldn’t do anything about, because you simply had to accept a few problems when you lived in a building that was this old.

  He held up his hand in the universal gesture of peace. “I’m not here to hassle you about anything, Ms. Hernandez,” he said quickly. “I just wanted you to know that I’ve met my neighbor, Mr. Greystone. He was kind enough to spend some time watching movies with me last night, and he told me that you sometimes loan him books. He told me to say hello to you.”

  For a moment she stared at him without comprehension, as if his words had taken her by such complete surprise that her mind had gone blank. Then her eyes widened, and she opened the door further. “Please, Mr. Banyon, come in,” she said formally, gesturing to him to move past her. “I’d like to talk to
you about that, and see how you’re settling in here.”

  He took the invitation, and she shut the door behind him. Her hallway was the mirror image of his, and so was the living room, though the apartment looked as if it had a dining room as well, and probably three bedrooms instead of one. By New York City standards, it was palatial, and any place else it would cost a fortune to get this much space. Most of the people Eric had known from student days here lived in about two hundred square feet of room, and considered themselves lucky if they didn’t have to share it with a roommate. Her living room was pleasantly furnished in the usual mishmash of furniture that most people who didn’t buy “suites” out of department stores owned. Her color scheme was a mix of golden yellows and browns, and she had a couple of bright rugs on the polished wooden floors. He wondered soberly just what Ms. Hernandez did to earn this place. If the House rewards these Guardians commensurately with risk—yikes! Guarding a city the size of New York? He wasn’t certain he’d have what it took. I wouldn’t want to get her mad at me!

  “The kids’re out at a movie, so we’ll have some privacy. I’ll put on the kettle and make us up a nice pot of peppermint tea. I don’t do coffee in the morning any more. Makes me jittery. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not a bit,” Eric said, following her into the apartment with a smile. He’d met Toni’s two boys—Raoul and Paquito—briefly when he’d signed the lease. They were eight and ten, and seemed—from Eric’s limited experience with that age group—to be perfectly normal kids, if a bit more polite than the average run.

  She gestured, and Eric seated himself at the table tucked into one corner of the kitchen. Evidence of Toni’s boys was everywhere, from the action-figures tucked onto the shelves along with the dishes, to the promotional glasses for the latest Star Wars movie in the drainer.

  “Please, sit down, Mr. Banyon,” Toni Hernandez told him, moving over to the sink to fill the teakettle.

  “Call me Eric; I’d rather,” he replied. “Mr. Banyon is still my father to me, and I don’t think I’ve turned into him yet.”

  “Fair enough. And I’m Toni. Well then, Eric,” Toni Hernandez said, looking into his eyes intently. “Either you have managed to get hold of a name and a fact and put them together with extraordinary skill, or you must have been a bit startled last night. Which is it?”

  “Startled,” Eric smiled. “It isn’t every day that a gargoyle comes to call—but it was my fault, if fault there be. I did invite anyone who might be a friend to come over and say hello.”

  “Interesting—so that was you, playing?” She smiled. “I don’t think we need to play word games, then, or beat around the bush. You’re obviously a mage, and a better one than most of the people in the House who dabble in the Art. You got Greystone to reveal his nature to you by cooperation rather than coercion, so he may know more about you than he’s told me. I heard you playing, recognized what you were doing, and admired the careful crafting—and if I hadn’t been busy at the time, I would probably have followed the invitation. I knew that it couldn’t be a trap or a trick, but it didn’t occur to me that it might be the new tenant who was setting the spell.”

  Eric spread his hands, grinning despite himself at her praise of his magic. “Consider the invitation still open—on weekends, anyway. During the week I have to be a conscientious student.”

  She made a face. “I wish you could talk my kids into that attitude. All right then—I knew the House wanted you the moment you came in, but it wants a lot of people that aren’t the kind to get visits from Greystone. So what are you, besides a music student at Juilliard? You aren’t Wiccan, I know that much.”

  Eric considered his words carefully. “Are you aware of the powers once attributed to Bards?”

  “Like that Welsh guy, Taliesen?” she asked. “Magic through music? That what you do? How the heck did you find someone to teach you that? Not at Juilliard, I’ll bet.”

  He smiled crookedly, answering her questions with others—a habit he’d picked up from the elves. “Wouldn’t True Bards confine themselves to a single student at a time? And wouldn’t any of the old True Bards tell you that no bard can ever afford to stop learning?”

  “Touché. Perhaps I ought to be asking, then, why a True Bard is incarcerating himself in Gotham.” She raised an eyebrow. “Except that the answer is obvious; Juilliard is here. So I’ll try a different angle—is that the only reason you’re here? Is there something going on I should know about?”

  Eric recalled what Greystone had told him about the four Guardians “fixing” things that needed to be fixed around the city. She was probably thinking that Bard Eric represented someone with a problem that could easily get out of hand, given what some of the ancient legends said about bardic mischievousness.

  “Juilliard is the only reason I’m here,” he promised. “Or at least, it’s the only reason I know about. I am not aware that there’s about to be a War of the Trees played out in Central Park, or that the Fair Folk are about to start Wild Hunts through the East Village, if that will set your mind at rest.”

  She heaved a sigh of relief. “In that case, the interrogation is over, Eric. Here in the House we respect people’s pasts, so whatever you choose to tell me you can do so socially. And in return for your forthrightness, I’ll tell you that the fallout shelter in the basement is proof against magical fallout as well; if Greystone sounds a warning, you aren’t certain of your own protections, and you haven’t time to get out of the free-fire zone, head for the basement. Punch three, six, and nine all at the same time on the elevator and it becomes an express to the basement.”

  She held up a warning finger, and he noticed that there was no polish on the well-kept nail. “Be careful not to try it outside of an emergency, though, and keep your knees flexed. It’s a jury-rigged override on a very old system, and although it does work, the stop is abrupt enough to drop you to the floor. Fred rigged it—he’s the fellow who had the building manager’s job before me, and he’s the one who installed the regular security system. I know the override works, I’ve used it and the shelter.”

  Which means that she lived here before she was a Guardian. Interesting. I wonder if her kids know what she is? I’d think she’d have to tell them, but maybe somehow she’s managing to keep it secret from them.

  Then again—these were kids. Even if she thought she was running a double life, she probably wasn’t.

  The kettle was boiling now, and Toni poured the tea into the pot, bringing it over to the table to steep. She took down two hand-thrown stoneware mugs from the cabinet above the sink and brought them over as well.

  “Adam made me these. He’s one of the artists who lives in the building—a potter. He’s got a lot of stuff at Mad Monk, down on Sixth and Nineteenth. If you need any dishes or anything like that, he’s got a special rate for tenants.”

  “Thanks,” Eric said. From the look of the mugs, he already had a few of Adam’s creations in his own cupboards. Beth had insisted on the hand-thrown pottery, saying that fine china was too soulless—and too easy to break.

  When the tea had steeped, Toni poured both mugs full and added a liberal dollop of wild honey to her own. Eric picked up his cup and inhaled the fragrance. Fresh mint, no matter what the box said. I wonder if it grows wild anywhere around here? There’s a lot of wild herbs and plants growing in empty lots here, if you know what you’re looking for.

  “Do you ever worry about your kids, I mean, living here in the city?” Eric found himself asking. Gods, where did THAT come from?

  Toni checked in the middle of raising her own cup. “All the time, mi hermano. I worry about them following in my footsteps—and I worry about them not. Drugs, gangs, stray meteors—life is just one big anxiety-filled minefield when you’re a parent,” she said, with a rueful note of amusement in her voice. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I only wish their father had lived to see them grow up. I think he’d be proud of them.”

  Eric nodded, his thoughts turning to the othe
r things he’d come to ask her about. “I’m wondering—Greystone said there were three more of you in the building? Would it be a good idea if I threw a little private housewarming for the four of you? And anyone you want to bring along, of course. That might be the best way for all of us to get a look at each other.” And for everybody to get the chance to interrogate me at once.

  She pondered that for a moment. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” she said slowly. “Maybe it should be just the five of us and Greystone. Believe me, I know these apartments like the back of my hand, and six people will more than fill up your living room. How’s next Saturday night for you?”

  It sounded good to Eric—he’d need a break after the brutal first week of classes.

  “Sure. I’ll get the usual party stuff—ah, except for one thing.” He flushed, a little embarrassed, but not too embarrassed to insist on it. “No alcohol. I don’t do it anymore, and I don’t like having it around me.”

  “No problem. As it happens, none of us drink, other than the old honey-and-whiskey thing for a sore throat.” Toni looked oddly relieved, and explained why in the next sentence. “The House doesn’t like druggies and drunks, and it seriously doesn’t like addicts of any kind. The House doesn’t make mistakes, but people change, especially here. I’ve had the unpleasant duty of finding reasons to evict some of the tenants in the past who thought that artists had to debauch themselves in order to be artists.”

  Eric winced, since he had come rather too close to that line himself a time or two. Looking back on it now, he’d been on a collision course with oblivion before he’d stumbled into Kory. All the freedom in the world, and no place to go but down. “Right then, I’ll see you all Saturday night?” He swigged down the last of his now-cool tea and stood.

  Toni Hernandez smiled, and held out her hand and shook his. Her grip was warm and quite firm. “Once you meet them, I think you’re going to find that you fit in here quite well, Eric. Even if you actually turn out to be an elf or something.”