Robert & Jody Lynn Nye: License Invoked

But he'd miscalculated how much Robbie's system could hold. Her body lay limp on the ground, but her hands were frantically picking at the grass.

"No no no no no no..." she murmured.

"Hey, baby." Ken turned her over. She drew her knees up to her chest and screwed her eyes shut.

Ken heard activity nearby, the sound of hurrying footsteps, and looked up to see the agent dressed like a bum heading his way. He shook Robbie by the shoulder.

"Robbie, you've got to finish off the concert hall right now !"

"No no no no no no!" She started kicking and lashing out with her arms. Agent Boudreau was getting closer. He mustn't get Robbie. Ken tried to gather her up, intending to carry her away from the Moon Walk.

She smacked him in the face with a wild swing.

All right, so Ken had created a monster—but she was his monster! He couldn't let the agent take her away. Ken wasn't a natural practitioner. His superiors had equipped him with a few easy spells in case of emergency. The disappearance charms were all used up. No way to vanish handily into the crowd. Instead, he had to rely on offense.

He sprang to his feet and assumed a martial arts stance.

Boo-Boo saw him assume a bent-knee crouch with his hands out at right angles. He'd been waiting for something like that. Ken had little magical ability of his own, or he wouldn't have needed Ms. Robbie in the first place. In a moment the agent had taken his opponent's measure. Ken Lewis had wrestled, most likely in high school, and had maybe a little storefront karate. He was no match for Boo-Boo in any way that the American agent could think of.

From his pocket Ken whipped out a white envelope and flung it down on the ground between them. It burst with a puff of white smoke.

"Spirits dark, hear me call you, hold my foe still like a statue!"

Boo-Boo almost scoffed out loud. Standard immobilization spell, only you were supposed to hit the one you wanted to freeze with the powder to make it work. Ken had wasted it on maybe an ant hill or a passing caterpillar. Boo-Boo wasn't impressed. The guy was so jumpy he was making stupid mistakes.

But Ken was a dirty fighter. Under the cover of the white cloud, he rushed to close with Boo-Boo, pounding him over the kidneys with his fists. Luckily for Boo-Boo, his old friend of an army jacket, padded with years' accumulation of odds and ends, absorbed most of the force. Boo-Boo twisted out of his hold just in time to keep his ear from being bitten in half. Ken Lewis must have gone out of his mind. Boo-Boo grabbed his wrist and flipped it up behind the other man's back.

"Now, you just hold still," he said. He turned his head to look for Ms. Robbie.

The poor young woman was lying on the ground, mumbling and writhing, her hands waving in the air. Her eyes were fixed on the fireworks, the effect of which she must still be transmitting to the Superdome. Drugged or bespelled, it was hard to say which.

"What did you give her?" Boo-Boo demanded, shaking Ken's wrist. The other gasped but didn't speak. "What have you done to her?"

An urgent beeping sounded nearby.

"Beauray," Liz's voice, much muffled, came from the depths of his pocket, "what is happening out there?"

Ken took advantage of Boo-Boo's momentary distraction to kick out viciously. Boo-Boo took a healthy blow to the shin, but let his weight drop forward. He ended up sitting on Ken.

"Now, what you're doin' is wrong. Y'all want to make it stop before anyone gets killed." Boo looked down at Ken, who was gnashing his teeth. "Or is that just exactly what you want?" He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his hip pocket and snapped them on Ken's wrists.

The everchanging crowd had by now noticed that a fight had been going on in its midst. A few men jumped forward to pull Boo-Boo off his quarry, no doubt thinking he was an insane vagrant. With regret, he stood up over his prisoner and produced his billfold with his Department credentials. The men stood back, surprised.

"Folks, this fellah's in possession of an illegal shipment of pixie dust," Boo-Boo said amiably but with fire in his eyes that showed he meant business. "Y'all want to move along now. Everythin's under control." To back up his statement, he made a few quick mystic passes of the "These aren't the droids you're looking for" variety. Distracted, the crowd went back about its business. Boo-Boo was relieved.

He had let his guard down too soon.

In the darkness he missed the foot sweeping out from underneath that caught him across the shins. Boo-Boo went flying onto the grass. The cuffs were now around his wrists. Pretty slick, he thought.

Ken sprang up. Pausing only to kick Boo-Boo once in the ribs, he fled into the crowd.

Boo gasped, catching his breath around the pain in his midsection. Lewis was gone, but he was not the real problem. Boo-Boo crawled over to Robbie, who was lying on her back with her hands and knees in the air, kicking like a dying fly. Her hair was tangled into a rat's nest, and her clothes were stained and torn. She looked as though she'd been assaulted, but it was all from flinging herself around on the ground.

"Ms. Robbie, can you hear me?"

" Beauray! " his pocket screamed.

Uh-oh. Couldn't let Liz get hot under the collar. The lives of thousands depended on it. Awkwardly with his pinioned hands, he fumbled for the cell phone.

"I'm here," he said. "I've got Ms. Robbie. She's freakin' out somethin' awful."

"And Lewis?" Liz's voice was already calmed down again. The lady was a real pro.

"He's gone."

"Things are still going on here, Beauray," Liz said. "Whatever he has done is running on its own now."

"You still getting the full fireworks treatment?" he asked. He whispered one of the Words of Unbinding, and the cuffs leaped free. His shoes untied and his pants button popped open at the same time, but that was pretty much normal for the course. He refastened them.

"And laser monsters," Liz said, enumerating a list for him. "And fireballs with attitude. And carnivorous rainbows. One of them just bit Mr. Lockney on the arm. But what is troubling me the most is that the Jumbotron is moving. It looks as though it could come down at any moment. You must persuade her to stop before she tears it off its moorings."

Boo-Boo looked at Robbie. She didn't see him. That girl was one powerful channel, but she wasn't in control at all. He had to try and guide her back to reality.

Robbie reeked of liquor. Boo-Boo crouched down beside her and sniffed her breath speculatively. Tequila. Yes, here was the bottle beside her on the grass. But that wasn't enough to cause her to twitch like that. Lewis had to have been feeding her drugs. In spite of those mental obstructions, Boo-Boo had to get through to her. He didn't have much time.

"Ms. Robbie?" he asked. "D'you know me? Beauray. You know me. We got along real well back at the Superdome. Can y'all hear me?"

The girl looked at him without seeing him and rolled over, her legs spasming. He picked her up under the arms. Her hands flailed out and hit him in the face.

"Hey, there," Boo-Boo said, trying to catch her arms.

Some well-meaning citizens in the milling crowd on the pavement saw him do that.

"Hey, you!" a large black man said, jumping up the three concrete steps to the grass. "Get your hands off that girl!"

He attracted the attention of other people who must have decided that Boo-Boo didn't have any business trying to talk to Robbie. He'd better scare 'em off quickly.

"Any of y'all know CPR?" he asked, putting a healthy measure of panic into his voice. "'Course she's foamin' at the mouth. Dunno if she's got somethin' catchin' or not. Anyone want to help?"

That did it. The ones that hadn't melted away when he mentioned CPR vanished like genies when he suggested Robbie might be diseased. Even the first man to speak was suddenly nowhere in sight. The Good Samaritan wasn't dead these days, but he was worried about incurable illnesses. In a moment Boo had the area near the gazebo all to himself.