“I know the drill. You just look after yourself, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up and returned to the group. The fairies, the regal woman and her two underlings, were gone. The others were looking back at me with bemused expressions to match my own.
“Where’d they go?” I said.
“They just left,” Ben said. “None of us really saw them go, but there you are.”
And no matter how fast I ran after them, I wouldn’t find them. Which didn’t mean they also still weren’t lurking, spying. I grumbled, “I can’t keep looking over my shoulder like this.”
“This evening’s been much more exciting than Luis promised,” Esperanza said.
“What can I say? I know how to have a good time,” I said. “What are we going to do with a fairy favor?” My hands itched to touch that scarf, still lying in Cormac’s hand. Would it feel like cloth or something else? The hunter unceremoniously wadded it up and shoved it in his jacket pocket.
“Best not to use that word. It annoys them,” Cormac said. “As for what to do with it—we’ll find out when we need it. This gives us a chance to plan. Maybe mitigate the unintended consequences.”
He was right, this was the smart thing to do. I still wondered.
“You had a wish right on the tip of your tongue, didn’t you?” Ben said.
“Yeah, I did.” I reached for him, and he gathered me into his arms. “And is it me or did that woman look kind of like Stevie Nicks? Is Fleetwood Mac a fairy rock band?”
He pulled away just enough to be able to look down his nose at me. “It’s you, and I don’t think so.”
Chapter 12
MATT AND Ozzie set up time at a recording studio near the convention, making it easier for me to haul in delegates for interviews. I’d record as many interviews as I could through the afternoon and into the evening, assuming I could convince any vampires to show up, which I hadn’t been able to do yet. Ned and Emma said no, I didn’t know how to get in touch with Marid, Mercedes was out of the question, and the few others I saw hanging around seemed to be spying on me. I’d have asked them for interviews, but they always vanished before I could get close enough. I thought of using the fairy wish to ask for an interview, but I also had an idea of how that would go—not the way I wanted it to.
Matt was with me online. He and the local engineer had arranged a whole techy solution, allowing us to record the show, upload it, and deliver it to Matt, who could get it immediately and be able to edit the show for Friday night.
“Greetings, listeners, you’ve tuned in to The Midnight Hour. I’m your super-vigilant host, and this week’s episode has been prerecorded in London, England. Let me explain: I’m here attending the First International Conference on Paranatural Studies, which has brought together hundreds of scientists, academics, and pundits like me to discuss where we stand on the topic of the supernatural in society, and recognition of the same. I’ve been having a great time, learning lots, and I’m going to report to you on what I’ve been up to the last few days. I have a whole crowd of fascinating people for you to meet. I’ll be talking with a were-jaguar who is an environmental activist in Brazil. We’ll meet an attorney from Tanzania working to prosecute those accused of murdering albinos in the name of witchcraft. I’ve met a music critic who’s been tracking down rumors of fairy music in the modern rock scene, a werewolf with a seat in the House of Commons, and we’ll be visiting with an old friend of the show, Jules Simpson from TV’s Paradox PI and member of the Society for Psychical Research.
“As many of you have figured out by now, I really like talking. Sometimes I even like listening. I’ve been enjoying myself immensely because this week has been full of both. Some stats: the conference has around eighteen hundred attendees from twenty-three countries—not bad for the first time out. The six days of the conference include forty presentations on topics ranging from the supernatural’s impact on the legal system and the depiction of vampires in popular culture. You’ll forgive me for avoiding that one, I’m sure. I’ve always advocated shining lights into dark corners and dragging the unknown into the open, and we’ve spent the week doing just that.
“Right now I have a couple of previous guests with me: Sergeant Joseph Tyler, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who also happens to be a werewolf, and Dr. Elizabeth Shumacher. I was delighted to discover that they’re both here at the conference to discuss what happens when the military utilizes soldiers with nonhuman abilities…”
With me egging them on, Tyler and Shumacher talked for an hour. Matt could edit it into a sharp half-hour segment we could all be proud of. Next up was Esperanza, who was happy to discuss her experiences tracking illegal logging in the Amazon basin, and how her lycanthropy—the result of an attack—has helped her rather than limited her. She was articulate and enthusiastic, I hardly had to prompt her at all. The best kind of guest. Nell Riddy, the conference director, needed a little more nursing along, but we still managed to produce a good conversation about how a childhood encounter with fairies put her on the path to studying cryptozoology, and from there to paranormal research.
I might actually pull off entertaining and informative with this episode. I was feeling awfully pleased with myself. Of course, I couldn’t entirely avoid the bizarre. It wouldn’t be an episode of The Midnight Hour without it.
“Martin Pearce runs a popular blog, Enchantment Underground, discussing music and the supernatural. Martin, thanks for joining me,” I said.
“Thanks for inviting me.” He was young and jittery, bouncing a foot and tapping a hand on his knee. A DJ—anybody in the music business—ought to know better than to make noise like that during a recording. The sound didn’t carry, fortunately. Dressed modern hipster, he wore a T-shirt for what must have been a band, though one I’d never heard of, a jacket, and fashionably distressed jeans. He had a regional British accent, northern and industrial if I had my broad strokes right. I’d tracked him down via his blog and invited him on the show.
“You have some interesting ideas about how modern music and tales of the supernatural intersect,” I said. “You want to give me the rundown?”
“Yes, right. Do you know anything about, well, the Folk?”
Oh, that he should ask me that now … “Fairies, right?”
He squirmed in his chair. “We don’t like to use that word, but yes, just so. But you’ve heard of them.”
I debated telling him about last night’s adventure, but merely smiled encouragingly. “Yes, a bit.”
“In the old stories, the Folk love music. Playing it, listening to it, dancing to it. People still play traditional jigs and tunes rumored to come from the Folk. Some stories say they’d use music to entrance people, lure them Underhill, or set them dancing until they collapse with exhaustion. What if that still happens, but on a much larger scale?”
“All we have to do is figure out which bands are torture to listen to,” I said.
“Yeah! Well, no, not like that exactly. Today, with as much music as we have, and as many ways to play and distribute it, they must be involved somehow. They’d hardly be able to stay away. Which brings me to the Beatles.”
My eyes widened. This hadn’t been on his blog; he’d saved it for the show. Awesome. “The Beatles were fairies?”
“Please, don’t say that word. Maybe not like that. Not specifically them, maybe. But all those screaming insane crowds? The reactions they got? No one had ever seen anything like it. They must have had some kind of crazy magic. What if it was a case of elven magic intersecting with modern rock and roll?”
Or maybe they were just really talented songwriters and musicians … “Hmm. It would certainly give a whole new meaning to ‘I Am the Walrus.’”
“Yeah. Or no—wait a minute. I’m not talking about the lyrics so much as the effect.”
“The screaming hordes of teenage girls we’ve all seen in the concert footage.”
“The Beatles started an epidemic of that sort of thing,” Martin said wi
th obvious awe. “Almost had to be supernatural, don’t you think?”
I rather thought it may have had something to do with the widespread availability of television ushering in an era of hyped-up pop culture and mass consumerism. But I was willing to humor him.
“You may very well be onto something. Let me ask you a question: should there be an effect with recorded music, or is it only live?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? It would seem to only have an effect on live audiences, but they’ve sold millions of records. In fact, I’m developing a study that would examine this exact question. If only I can find the funding for it. I’ve applied for several grants. No luck yet, I’m afraid.” He slouched a little.
“I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone steps forward to help out.” Coming on my show certainly wouldn’t hurt. I wondered if I’d opened a can of worms.
“That’s just it—this isn’t frivolous research. It’s an investment.”
“Oh?”
“Oh yes! If I can figure out what the magical thing is, package it somehow, then sell it—can you imagine?”
“Didn’t they do that already with the Backstreet Boys? And the Spice Girls?”
He frowned. “Oh … oh, someone’s already done it is what you’re saying?”
Many times over, I thought. “Fairy magic really is the only explanation for some of that music, isn’t it?”
“I’m going to have to think about this.” He was staring at the microphone, wide-eyed, contemplating whole new vistas of potential, undoubtedly.
“And I think we’ll wrap it up there,” I said. “Thank you very much for coming to talk with me, Martin.”
“Oh—yes. Thank you!”
A familiar, back-of-the-neck chill crawled along my spine. I’ve created a monster …
My toughest guest came right in the middle of the session, for good or ill. I let the studio staff deal with her, figuring she’d be more at ease. I wanted this woman to talk. One of the techs ushered her in and guided her to the guest seat at the other end of the table.
She was human, average, in nice jeans, a blouse and blazer, a thin gold necklace and stud earrings. Her hair was short, dyed dark blond with highlights. In her forties, of average height and build, she looked utterly normal and nondescript. I never would have picked her out of the crowd on any street in any town in Middle America.
I thought about approaching her, to try to get her to shake my hand—or to make her refuse to shake. But I could tell by her frown and the hard edge in her stare how that was likely to go. I let the tech deal with her, fitting headphones and showing her the mike, while I sat back and smiled.
As soon as she was settled, the sound guy gave me a cue, and I launched in.
“I’m feeling a tiny sense of victory in even convincing my next guest to come on the show. But she’s here, and I’m very much looking forward to our chat. Tracy Anderson chairs an organization calling themselves Truth Against the Godless, members of which have been out in force picketing the conference. They’ve gone on record denouncing government recognition and public acceptance of people with supernatural identities. Ms. Anderson, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.”
She and her group had chartered a plane to bring them and their protest banners to London. They’d been planning and organizing to come here for a year. The level of commitment was almost admirable.
Calmly, hands folded on her lap, she said, “I want to make clear that I’m only here because you offer a chance to speak to the audience that most needs to hear our message.” She sat as far away from me as she could and still reach the microphone. I had thought she would avoid looking at me at all. But she stared at me, lines of tension around her mouth. I couldn’t help but stare back.
“Well, I know I’m taking you away from your busy protest schedule, and I appreciate it,” I said.
“My work calls for many sacrifices.”
“So does mine, oddly enough. My first question. You’re one of the founders of Truth Against the Godless. What prompted you to start this group in the first place?”
“Frankly, we started the group because we were appalled. I find it reprehensible that evil has been given such a free rein in today’s world. To speak, to act, to corrupt our youth—”
“Evil. I understand you mean something pretty specific by that, and it’s not people who set fire to kittens.”
She scowled at me. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“My listeners may not, so if you’ll just spell it out so we’re on the same page.”
“People like you. Werewolves and vampires. Monsters. Satanists. Threats to God-fearing people everywhere.”
“I always feel the need in conversations like this to point out how often God-fearing people themselves have been threats to God-fearing people, and everyone else.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about—you think having a platform gives you a right to twist my words. Someone has to stand up to people like you. To denounce you.”
“Well, good luck with that. I do need to say, though I always seem to make the mistake that it’s blazingly obvious, that part of the whole point of this conference is identifying the underlying causes—and biological implications—of vampirism and lycanthropy. These things have a mechanism. God and Satan have nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, but they do! These aren’t diseases, they’re the marks of Lucifer. It’s the same story—science is leading you astray.”
“I’m going to ask you the same question I ask all of you who express these beliefs—if I was an embodiment of Satan, don’t you think I’d know it? Wouldn’t I have some sense of it? Wouldn’t I actually, you know, go around trying to do horrible things to people? To be a minion of Satan don’t you have to decide to be a minion of Satan? I guarantee you I didn’t make that choice.”
She huffed with apparent exasperation. “You must have done something. You may not have consciously chosen to become a werewolf, but something set you on that path and put you in Satan’s way and here you are, spreading your lies and propaganda.”
That actually stopped me for a moment, my jaw opening at the start of a word, only I couldn’t decide which one. I didn’t think much of her God, if that was the world she lived in.
“You’re saying I was attacked and left in the woods to die as punishment? Really? What could I have possibly done to deserve that?” My question held a tone of bafflement.
I didn’t think she’d actually have an answer for me. I should have known better. “I know this is a personal question and you’re probably hoping to keep this secret—but at some point in your life you had an abortion, didn’t you?”
If she’d been on the phone I’d have hung up on her by now. The perils of the in-person interview. I needed a moment to shuffle through any number of inappropriate responses, and there were oh so many of them.
I finally leaned back in my chair and regarded her, my expression stony. “So that’s what it takes to become a minion of Satan, is it? Good to know. For future reference. So what do men have to do?”
Her lips pressed even tighter. “Mock me all you want, but I’m right. We’re all right, and you and all your ungodly scientist friends will burn in hell.”
“We have to believe in hell first.”
“You may not believe in Satan and hell, but they certainly believe in you,” she announced, giving a decisive nod.
I had to think about that for a minute before answering, “I don’t think that’s how that saying usually goes.”
“It’s still true.”
“Actually, I think it’s irrelevant. I’m a werewolf. I’m not a bad person. A lot of the werewolves I know aren’t. Even a big chunk of the vampires I know aren’t bad people. And yet you’d condemn us all?”
“That’s right.” She beamed like she’d scored a point.
Time to get out while the getting was good. “All righty then. Anything else you’d like to tell my listeners before I kick you o
ut?”
“No. And I’ll show myself out.” She did just that, yanking off the headset and practically launching herself from her seat to march to the door. She turned the wrong way into the hall and had to march back across the doorway in the other direction. I’d have laughed if I hadn’t been gritting my teeth.
“And that’s a special kind of crazy for you,” I said into the mike. “Once again, that was Tracy Anderson of Truth Against the Godless, which has been protesting the conference all week because they think Satan is in charge, or something. I dunno. Let’s take a break, and when we come back I’ll have another guest on for you.”
The recording light went out, and I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my hair.
Matt talked at me from the Skype call on the laptop. “Kitty, why do you love baiting these people so much? You know what they’re going to say, and you’re not going to change their minds.”
“Know thine enemy,” I said tiredly. “People have to know the crazies are out there.”
“Well, you sure know how to find them.”
“I keep thinking if I give them enough rope they’ll hang themselves right on the air and I can save my breath.”
“If a whole crowd of people like that are protesting out there, you must be having a hell of a time.”
He didn’t know the half of it, all the crap I wasn’t talking about on the air or anywhere else. “It’s been … interesting. But good. I have to think the good guys are winning.”
“Who’s defining good?”
Yeah, that was the problem, wasn’t it? In her own mind, Tracy Anderson thought she was freaking Joan of Arc. I thought she was a petty little woman with fears so gigantic she had to lash out at something to feel safe. Werewolves and vampires were pretty easy targets, all things considered. I almost understood it.
Didn’t make it right.
Chapter 13
I FINISHED MY interviews well after dark, and was cranky and in desperate need of some dinner. Another day gone, and the conference was already half over. Despite all my on-air proclamations to the contrary, I felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything. But I had to keep up a good front. We were supposed to be saving the world, weren’t we? Maybe I ought to set the bar a little lower. The conference was half over, and we hadn’t had any riots yet. There, that was something to be proud of.