Chapter 13

"Oh, well," Nigel Peters was saying gamely, "they say that a bad dress rehearsal presages a good opening night."

If that was the truth, then the Green Fire concert was going to surpass any performance in history by the Three Tenors, Barbara Streisand, the Boston Pops or Kylie Minogue. Anything balanced between going right and going wrong tilted and fell over into wrong. Lighting filaments popped and went black. Speakers refused to function, or wouldn't turn off when disconnected. People went for unexpected slides on patches of floor that were perfectly dry. Costumes tore, guitar strings sprang, and synthesizer keys were silent one moment and blaring out of tune the next. The front doors to the Superdome arena popped open by themselves and refused to stay locked. A guard had to be called in from his day off to keep the ticket-buying public out in the lobby. Liz knew that half of them blamed her and Boo's presence for the run of bad luck.

"Bloody government," more than one crew member had muttered as they went past her. It was difficult to hide out of sight on a round stage, but she was as self-effacing as she could be. She and Boo stood among the coils of cable behind one of the huge speakers. They weren't in anyone's way, and they still had the best possible view of the action, but she could feel the resentment aimed her way from every direction.

So far it had been a disaster. Green Fire hadn't made it all the way through the first song yet without at least one major blowup, and they'd been rehearsing for an hour. Liz put down part of the problem to sheer exhaustion. She knew she was reeling on her feet.

Last night's late rehearsal had been everything that anyone could have wished for. Boo's shamaness friend's temporary fix had turned the trick. Fionna had come in on a musical high that carried everyone else up into the heavens with her. She had been in her best voice, and knew how good she looked and sounded. All the special effects had gone off on cue, the lights were where they ought to have been, and the musicians played all their numbers without a single hitch. Even the fussy Guitarchangel hadn't been able to find anything to correct. He had just smiled his enigmatic, pre-Raphaelite smile as his long fingers wove music out of his instrument's strings. Liz and Boo had walked the entire perimeter of the Superdome without finding so much as a sniff of malign magic. They had all been in good spirits when they broke up. If they'd filmed that performance and showed it on those gigantic screens that hovered over the stage like doomsday, they'd have been better off than they were now.

In celebration, Fionna promised to buy everyone a drink. The entire company had poured out into the French Quarter, chattering on about how well it had all gone. Buoyed up on the energy of success, Fee led her merry band from bar to bar in the French Quarter, until they simply ran out of places they hadn't been to yet. While out on the road they seldom got a chance to enjoy the city sights.

"Might as well hold concerts out on a desert oasis for all we see of one place or another," Eddie Vincent had complained, with a touch of bitterness. The others had agreed.

"Oi'd do anythin' to have an afternoon's shoppin' here," Fionna had said wistfully, as they passed by dozens of closed stores, "so this'll have to do me." Liz wasn't happy about such an unstructured outing, but she understood the poignant urge. And, as Beauray pointed out, there was nothing she could do to make Fionna go back to the hotel.

"It's best just to tag along and take it easy," Beauray said. "Who's going to attack her with so many people around?"

"Numbers could make an attack easier, not harder," Liz grumbled. But Boo-Boo was right: it was just best to follow along with the crowd. Liz couldn't defend against a negative. Until the mysterious malign force surfaced again, there was nothing she could do. She had kept on glancing into alleys and up onto the omnipresent balconies. Was everyone in New Orleans but her having a good time?

Wherever they had stopped, Nigel Peters had ordered drinks for everyone. Voe Lockney had fallen in love with Sazeracs. The band and crew put a serious dent in the Quarter's supply of good whiskey. They sang along with every song they knew, and applauded the performers with drunken abandon. Robbie Unterburger stared with mooncalf eyes at Lloyd, who ignored her. Patrick Jones did humorous imitations of the people they saw walking in the street. Sooner or later, they wandered into the open-air coffee shop named the Café du Monde and ate square doughnuts frosted a quarter-inch deep in powdered sugar. Liz watched it all, staying awake on adrenaline, sugar, and the odd-tasting coffee Boo told her was flavored with chicory.

Dawn hadn't been far off their heels by the time everyone finally went to bed. By the time the technical run-through had gotten under way, noon had come and gone.

Chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes, Nigel Peters had confided to the two agents that only with luck would they finish in time to take a decent dinner break and a rest before the concert itself. Everyone was on edge, but Fionna was in the worst mood possible. Her temper was beginning to affect everyone else.

"All right then," Michael announced in his clipped voice from the center of the stage. His forehead was creased as though he had a headache. He probably had. "We'll just take it from the top again. And we'll do so until we get it right. If we can get the programme moving, the rest will follow more easily. Understood?"

Mutters and groans met this announcement. Liz wondered if he'd ever been a schoolteacher. Fionna automatically trudged back to the short flight of steps at the rear of the stage. Later on, darkness would cover what was going on around her, but for now Liz could see everything. Laura Manning touched up Fee's wild makeup. Fitz, on his knees, fussed with the hem of the new green silk dress that was pinned to the shoulders of Fionna's black crop-top T-shirt. Because she would have to be sewn into the skin-tight sheath later, Fitz didn't want to have her wear it until then. Judging by the intricacy of the design and the handsome beadwork that outlined the LEDs, Thomas Fitzgibbon must have spent the rest of the night on his creation. He looked reluctant to get more than a few paces away from his creation, lest it burst into flames like the last one. His overprotectiveness was irritating Fionna. He kept getting in the way of her arm movements.

As her cue came, Fitz started to follow her on his knees, holding the hem of the dress up so it wouldn't catch on the floorboards. She swept her hand down and accidentally smacked him on the head. The two of them jumped at the contact. Fionna stopped to give him a glare that would have frozen mercury solid.

"All right, enough!" Fionna snapped out. "Go away. Now."

He halted, and retired to the edge of the stage, hands fretting with the tape measure slung around his neck. Laura Manning gave him a wry look, professional to professional.

"And, mark!" announced Hugh Banks, the stage manager, moving around the perimeter. "First sparklers start at six points around the stage. Six, isn't it, darling?" he asked, putting a hand to the headset he was wearing. He nodded. "And, off." The musicians carried on what they were doing.

Liz and Boo-Boo were on guard with every piece of magical paraphernalia at their disposal. Both of them had been reluctant to let the other know what he or she was carrying, but Liz had pointed out that they'd only get in one another's way if they started popping off spells at random. Not until she opened her own bag of tricks and dumped it out to the seams did he relax and let her examine his arsenal. She was impressed, though she didn't let her emotions show, and hoped he felt the same way. It wouldn't do for the British Empire, however reduced, to be superseded by its former colony in any way. She matched him defensive spell for defensive spell, truth-finders, serum for healing burns (always vital to have on hand when one did a lot of candle work), concealment spells to protect covert movement, and so on.