War For The Oaks Part 9

"So's coffee," said Carla.

"Not," the phouka said disdainfully, "where I come from."

Eddi looked at the phouka's brown skin and giggled. He raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm gonna go make some now," she said, and headed for the kitchen.

The growl of the grinder blotted out the music for a minute; when she turned it off, Rue Nouveau's "I Was a Witness" was playing. Carla liked it for the artsy drum part. Eddi plugged in the coffeemaker and went back to the living room.

Carla sat hunched forward on the sofa, her index fingers following Rue Nouveau's drummer on the edge of the trunk. The phouka was stretched out on the rug on his stomach. He poked his thumb toward the speakers as the lead vocalist began the second verse. "She's very good."

"That's nice. Why don't you draft her, and I'll stay home?"

The phouka shook his head and looked uncomfortable.

Eddi sat down on her heels in front of him. "I've asked this before, and you never answer it. Why me?"

His index finger burrowed a path through the rug, and he seemed to be watching it intently.

"Was there some particular reason? Or did you just stumble on me, and now that you've decided, you can't throw me back?"

He looked up at her through his lashes. Ridiculously long and thick, they rimmed his large almond eyes like eyeliner. "Don't ask me, please," he said, barely loud enough for her to hear over the stereo, "If you ask me again, I shall tell you, and that would be the wrong thing to do."

Eddi heard the appeal in his voice and shrugged angrily. Yet she didn't repeat the question. "Will you ever be able to tell me? I'd feel better knowing I wasn't in danger out of sheer dumb luck."

"After May Eve-after the battle," the phouka replied. "If still you want to know, ask me then."

The coffeemaker gave the death rattle that meant it had done its job. "Better than a timer," said Carla.

"I'll get it," the phouka said, and went to the kitchen.

Carla murmured, "Careful. He may be trying to make up for those first impressions."

Eddi plowed her fingers through her hair. "I feel like a Russian dissident under house arrest. And no matter how nice a guy the jailer is, it's still a jail."

"Comforting to hear you say so."

Eddi grinned. "What, you thought I was on the rebound from Stuart?"

"Maybe. All I know is, this kid's cuter than Prince, when he wants to be."

"n.o.body's cuter than Prince."

The phouka came out of the kitchen with three mugs of coffee. He could be a fairly decent-well, human being, for lack of any other description-when it suited him. But he was mercurial, he loved to playact. Were his kindnesses artificial, and all his infuriating ways his true nature?

"So," Carla began, having sent the phouka back to the kitchen for cream and sugar, "what kind of a band is this gonna be?"

Eddi grinned up at her. "It should be a rich and famous band."

Carla nodded. "And?"

"And it should have a recording contract."

"That's part of being rich and famous."

"Oh, come on, Carla. I'm joking, for G.o.dsake."

"I'm not. Okay, maybe you can't set out to have a rich and famous band. But I do think you can put a band together that no way in h.e.l.l can ever be rich and famous, no matter how good it is."

"You mean, like InKline Plain?"

Carla wrinkled her nose. "Yeah. So if you say you want to be rich and famous, this automatically means no Top 40 c.r.a.p, and no country rock bars."

Eddi blinked. "Promise?"

"I get the feeling you're not going to be a lot of help," Carla sighed.

"This is something I have to get used to. By 'no Top 40 c.r.a.p,' do you mean no Top 40, or no c.r.a.p off the Top 40?"

"Hmm. I mean, nothing we have to play just because people heard it on their car radios."

The phouka came back with the cream and sugar, shaking his head at Carla. "Criminal," he said solemnly. "Cream is for cats." He sat down next to Eddi on the rug.

"Nah. Cream is for chocolate mousse." Carla doctored her coffee.

"Chocolate mousse?"

Carla nodded. "Yep. Trust me. It's better than s.e.x." To Eddi's surprise, the phouka looked quickly away.

"Anyway, quit changing the subject. We're creating a band here."

"Eddi should sing practically everything," the phouka said.

"Who asked you?" grumbled Eddi.

"Of course she should," Carla nodded firmly. "In fact, she should be able to put down her guitar sometimes. This sort of calls for five pieces."

"Composed of what?" asked the phouka.

"Does anyone care what I think?" Eddi said piteously.

The phouka turned an inquiring look her way. "You don't agree?"

"Well... yeah-"

"Good," said Carla. "Let's see, someone on sticks-that's me-and a primo ba.s.s player. A good, versatile guitar player with plenty of rock 'n' roll savvy. A keyboard player with great hands and electronic imag- ination. Most, if not all, of these people should be able to do backup vocals. Am I missing anything?"

"Yes," said Eddi. "Everything between your ears."

"Oh, come on. What do you want, a horn section?"

"No, that's a great shopping list. Where are you going to find these people?"

Carla looked smug. "Only need two of 'em. I already know the keyboard player."

"Who?"

"Danny Roch.e.l.le."

"Jeez almighty," Eddi said. She'd heard Dan Roch.e.l.le. "But he's still with Human Rights. Isn't he?"

"Nope. LeeAnn and whatsisname moved to Louisiana, and Danny's out of a job."

"D'you think he'd go for this?"

Carla looked, if possible, even more smug. "We'll just have to ask him, won't we?"

"So," said the phouka, "that leaves... what, a guitarist and a ba.s.s player, yes? How does one go about finding them?"

"Ads, word of mouth. Then you audition people."

Eddi sat up straight. "Audition? My G.o.d, where? We don't have any practice s.p.a.ce!"

Carla shrugged. "Now that you've put your mind to it, you'll think of something."

Rain began to pat against the windows. "Oops. Looks like Rover was right," said Carla. "I'm gonna get wet."

"I'd offer you the couch," Eddi said, "but it's on long-term lease." She scowled at the phouka.

"Nah, I'll run for it." Carla gave her a hug, and turned to point a finger at the phouka. "Watch your step," she said.

The phouka looked busily at both feet.

When she'd gone, Eddi drifted into the kitchen with the cups. She heard the phouka in the doorway behind her.

"She would take care of you, if she could," he said.

"Anything wrong with that?"

"No. But she cannot deal with what the Unseelie Court will send."

Eddi unplugged the coffeemaker and turned to face him. "Why are you saying this?"

"Because I want to make certain you know it." His pose was casual, one shoulder propped against the frame of the doorway. The way he met her eyes was not casual at all.

"So now I know it."

"She'll want to help you get away from us."

Eddi laughed; she couldn't help it. "Good guess."

He closed his eyes and nodded. Then he went into the living room. After a moment, Eddi followed him.

He turned off the lamp, and stood looking out the rain-streaked window. "I wish..." He fell silent, tapping his fingernails on the window gla.s.s in irritation, or restlessness, or indecision. At last he said, "I wish she could."

"Could what?"

"Get you away. But the Unseelie Court would be baying at your heels before you could go half far enough."

"Why?" Eddi cried. "Why should they stop me from running away from you? Aren't they better off if I'm gone?"

"Ah, my primrose, you don't know them. They know now that you are our choice." His voice cracked a little on the last word.

"Yeah, it comes back to that. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in danger at all."

"I know that!" He whirled and spat his words out through his teeth. "I know it all too well, and it does neither of us any good to repeat it. I have led mankind's nightmares to your door."

"Then leave me alone," Eddi said desperately, "and they'll go away!"

"They will not. Yes, we could declare our minds to be changed, withdraw our protection, and leave you be. And the Dark Court, suspecting us of treachery, or hungry for a grisly joke, would murder you. Now that they see we have found you fair, they would like nothing better than to march into battle against us with your head as a standard." He turned away and began to toy with the cord that worked the blinds.

Eddi sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, and felt her anger and fear plunge to her stomach and coil there.

"But we need you," he said at last, softly. "There is power in a mortal soul that all of Faerie cannot muster, power that comes from mortality itself. We can use that against the Unseelie Court."

"Why should I side with you? Why should I care if you win?"

The phouka raked his fingers through his hair. "You have seen one of them, one of their forms. That is what seeks dominion over every natural thing in this place. We of the Seelie Court are capricious, and not always well disposed toward humankind. But would you hand this city over to the likes of what you saw tonight? That is the Unseelie Court. If we fall, every park, every boulevard tree, every gra.s.sy lawn would be their dwelling place."

Eddi sighed. "It's not just for you, it's for the entire seven-county metro area. Couldn't we just let them have St. Paul?"

The phouka made a disgusted noise.

"All right. What if they did take over? Would we all be eaten in our beds?"

He shook his head. "There are places," he began slowly, "that belong to them. Have you ever pa.s.sed through some small town, surrounded by fertile country and fed by commerce, that seemed to be rotting away even as you watched? Where the houses and the people were faded, and all the storefronts stood empty?" Eddi remembered a few. "Or a city whose new buildings looked tawdry, whose old ones were ramshackle, where the streets were grimy and the wind was never fresh, where money pa.s.sed from hand to hand to hand yet benefited no one?"

His words were quicker now. "This city is alive with the best magic of mortal folk. The very light off the skysc.r.a.pers and the lakes vibrates with it. If the Unseelie Court takes up residence here, this will be a place where people fear their neighbors, where life drains the living until art and wit are luxuries, where any pleasant thing must be imported and soon loses its savor." He felt silent, as if embarra.s.sed by his own eloquence.

Eddi rubbed her hands over her face, trying to rub away her confusion, her anger, her fear. Finally she asked the only question she had left. "Can't you get somebody else?"

The phouka began to laugh weakly. "Oh, go to bed, Eddi Mc-Candry. You could befuddle a stone. Go to bed, and sleep soundly, and tempt me not into some foolish and fatal flap of the tongue."

She stood up and stalked off to the bedroom, wondering if she'd been insulted. She turned on the light, and looked back over her shoulder.

The phouka smiled crookedly, and winked. "Good night," he said.

But she did not sleep soundly. Half an hour later, she left off peering through the dark at her bedroom ceiling, and read the clock instead. Midnight. Too much coffee, she told herself. Or the thunder. But it wasn't the thunder she lay awake listening for, or the rush of the rain on her window. She strained to hear any small noises from outside, and wasn't rea.s.sured by their absence. She kept imagining faces in the irregular plaster of the walls. All the faces had an uncountable number of teeth.

At last she flung the covers back, pulled on her robe, and opened the bedroom door a crack. The living room was dark. Something moved near the windows, and she felt her muscles lock up with fear.