Free License Invoked by Robert Asprin Page B

feeling its cobbles under her feet. The crowds were thick, but no one bumped into her. Fee found herself walking to the beat of the music pouring out of doorways, down from balconies, unexpectedly around corners from impromptu groups who had sat down wherever the muse had struck them, never paying attention to the people passing by. She might have been alone in this mob of people who were simply enjoying themselves.
    She almost wished she was.
    “Wait up,” panted Robbie-cursed-Unterburger, striding to catch up with Fee and Lloyd on her short little legs. They'd almost lost her in the last crowd clustered around the entrance to a blues bar. They hadn't, more's the pity.
    All of them were toddling along back there, her band, Green Fire, and her chief techies, but Fee resented Robbie most of all. She was so wet. The girl wanted to get close to Lloyd, and it killed her that she couldn't. You could see the pain and frustration in her eyes. Too bad. Lloyd belonged to Fee. Such a hunk, and so good when it counted. Like later on, if the music continued to turned her on as it was doing right now.
    The blare of horns and pounding of drums and pianos pouring out of storefronts interrupted the eternal argument going on between the members of the band. They were always getting into it. You would never know that they were the best of friends, the way they sniped. It was as though Fee had three little brothers, though every one of the men was older than she. She was their leader, literally, figuratively and spiritually. She liked to think of herself as guiding them—although this was where she and Eddie disagreed the most. He could be so . . . Christian sometimes, positively pushing all the guilt buttons from her Church of England upbringing.
    She let the sounds of New Orleans carry her along. This was so primevally strong, almost cavemanlike, smooth and rough at the same time, like the best whisky. The music filled her head. She scarcely felt the pavement under her feet. She breathed it in like the air, letting it take her where it willed.
    “Let's go in somewhere,” Fitzgibbon protested.
    “No, Fitzy,” Fee said, holding up her hand like an Indian scout. “Not until I find the right place.”
    “I want a drink,” Voe said.
    “You always want a drink,” Eddie complained. He was such a Puritan, worse than Lizzie Mayfield. How very strange to have her appear out of nowhere. It was like old times having her around. How things had changed. Back then, they were earnest young women trying to earn degrees, and pretty good friends, really. Now Fee was rich and famous, and Liz was—what, a spy? But they still had something in common: magic. Fee pouted. Not that Liz truly believed in the connection. Not yet. But she would.
    “Come on, my feet hurt,” Pat Jones, the publicist, complained, falling a few feet behind on the narrow pavement. Some of the others joined in the grumbling.
    “Enough!” Michael ordered them, spinning around quick as a snake striking. “You know there's no hurrying her.”
    A long way off, a plaintive note rang in the hot, moist air. Fionna raised her head, like a hunting dog hearing the horn. She smiled at the faint sound. “That way,” she said.
    * * *
    It may have been due to the sugar rush from the pralines, or just that she was starting to relax a bit in this new, strange environment, but soon after merging onto the street again, Elizabeth found herself seeing the Quarter in a whole new light. To be accurate, she found herself feeling it differently.
    There was an energy here, a pulse of life that blended with the beat of the ever-present music, at the same time exciting and relaxing. Attuned to Earth Magic as she was, Elizabeth was startled to find herself involuntarily drawing power from the streets . . . something that she rarely if ever could do in a city. She had been prepared for New Orleans to be different, even frightening. This new aspect, however, took her completely by surprise.
    “My