Marc Zicree - Angelfire

It’s quiet here, almost balmy after our sojourn on the Great Plains. And there’s no gusting wind. I lie on the hood of the defunct Fiat, aware that I am stealing this moment. Magritte is curled up next to me. Her aura waxes and wanes as we talk, our eyes on the ring of buildings, watching windows.

Doc sits on the back stoop of Russo’s building, watching the windows we can’t see. Watching us. Given what little I know about his family, this adds a blue tint to my hologram.

The sun has just snuffed itself when lights flicker feebly behind the windows of the building that faces Russo’s across the courtyard. We all tense up, clutching weapons more tightly.

My stolen moment evaporates.

Doc is on his feet, crossbow up and ready. “Perhaps we should take cover.” He gives the building behind him a worried glance. “They have been in there a long time.”

“Only seems like a long time,” I say, pulling myself upright.

The words have barely left my mouth when the metal door behind Doc scrapes open. He’s got the jitters so bad, he leaps off the stoop into the courtyard, pivoting in midair to draw down on the door. Fortunately for Cal, he doesn’t have an itchy trigger finger.

“Come on in,” Cal says. “We found Russo.”

“The horses?” I nod at our snoozing animals.

“Russo says they’ll be fine here. His neighbors, according to him, wouldn’t know how to ride a horse if they wanted to steal one.”

“Uh-huh,” I say. “But I’ll betcha they could probably figure out how to cook one.”

“Good point. Maybe you could do something to protect them?”

I fire off my most awesome ball-o’-fire to date and leave it swaddling the horses with a dangerous-looking veil of light. The poor animals are so exhausted, they barely notice. I notice that I do it with much less effort than before.

I am beyond surprise when we are ushered into a basement room to meet Howard Russo. “Holy cow, Blindman,” I pun, “your manager is a troll.”

Enid gives me a dark look from under his dreadlocks. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

The troll in question turns to look at us. His big milky eyes get even bigger and milkier when he sees Magritte, the vertical pupils squeezing shut against her glow.

“You got angelfire,” he croaks.

Angelfire. That’s one I haven’t heard before. Given the effect Magritte has on my various synapses, it’s appropriate. “Why’d you bring her here?” Russo asks.

“She’s protecting me from you,” says Enid.

“From me?” He blinks myopically.

“Shit-you are no way that stupid, Howard Russo. It’s my damned contract .”

The little grunter’s face goes gray. Oh, all right-it’s already gray; it goes grayer. “Whaddaya mean, your contract?”

“I mean that clause about repercussions. I play my music and weird shit happens. Things get all twisted. People get all twisted.”

Russo’s eyes kind of pinball off Enid’s face. Shifty little fellow. “Feedback … The contract … feeds back.” The words sound chewed on. He shakes a finger at Enid. “You shouldn’t play without… you know, without…”

“Permission?” offers Cal.

“Uh-huh. The contract is… it’s-it’s put together to protect the interests of the, uh, the management.”

“What about my interests?” Enid snarls. He points at Russo’s diminutive nose. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this to me.”

Russo blinks. “You signed. You were okay with it then.” “In the real world, Howard. Not in this damned Twilight Zone we’re living in.”

The grunter picks at a piece of lint on his tweed jacket. “So, don’t play.” He gives Enid a sly look out of his milky bug-eyes.

“Don’t play? That’s like saying ‘don’t breathe.’ Besides, there’s Maggie. I been having to make music to protect her.”

Russo’s eyes sort of snap to Enid’s face. “To what?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but it protects her from the Storm or the Source or whatever you want to call it.”

Russo looks vaguely puzzled. “You mean that big, black thing that, uh, hoovered up all the angelfire? The Dark?”

Enid nods. “Bottom line, Howard, I want out.”

“Out?”

“Of the contract. I came to tell you it ain’t legal no more. You’re gonna tear it up.”

Russo’s little gray face pales and he blinks rapidly several times. I have the loopy idea that he’s holding back tears. “Can’t do it,” he mumbles.

“You want me to tear you up instead?”

The grunter takes a step away from Enid and backs straight into Colleen, who snags the shoulder pads of his overlarge tweeds and holds him still. He cowers a little, but repeats, “Can’t do it. Not won’t do it- can’t .”

Colleen literally growls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cal leans down into Russo’s face. “It’s not as if you have a choice to make, Mr. Russo. This is simple: the contract was voided by the fact that it was altered after Enid signed it.”

Russo giggles-a strange, wheezy sound like a car that doesn’t want to turn over. “You talk like a lawyer.”

“I am a lawyer.”

He sneezes away the giggles and sobers a little. “S’more than business,” he mutters, then pulls away from Colleen and shuffles over to the table, where he picks up the cigar butt and sticks it between his sharp, nasty little teeth.

Such panache.

He’s silent for a moment, chewing on his cigar butt. Then he stops and looks straight at Enid, suddenly seeming utterly human. “Look, Enid, I’m not the one you gotta deal with.”

“What do you mean, you’re not the one?” Enid asks. “Primal.”

“Primal,” Enid repeats.

“Third party to the contract, remember? Primal got a say.” “Shit, Howard, there’s no Primal Records anymore. The Storm put paid to that. There’s just you and me.”

The cigar butt hangs loosely in Russo’s mouth for a moment while his eyes move from Cal to Enid to Magritte. “You protect her, huh?”

And I thought my noodle produced non sequiturs.

“I could,” Enid said, “except for the fact that the damn contract makes my music feed back all over the place. I’m sick, Howard. And I’ve twisted the shit out of I don’t know how many innocent folks.”

Russo is startled. “Sick? How-sick?”

“Sick. As in dying. I play and it sucks the life out of me.

I don’t play and it shrivels up my soul. Rock and a hard place, Howie. And you put me there.”

Russo shakes his head hard enough to make it rattle. “Not me. Not me,” he mumbles. “Primal. There is a Primal. It- It’s Primal you gotta deal with.”

“Do you have the original contract?” Cal asks.

“Me? No. Primal got it. I only got a copy.”

“A copy you can’t get rid of?”

Russo’s eyes bug out even more than they are naturally inclined to do. “What?”

“You do, don’t you?” Enid presses. “You try to destroy it, but you can’t. You try to lose it; it won’t stay lost.”

Russo’s about chewed his cigar in two by now. He looks up at Enid and blinks. “Why d’you think I’m still in Chicago? Far as I can go. Right here .” He yanks the soggy butt out of his mouth and stabs it at the floor. Then he drops it and crushes it into the concrete with a bare foot.

Enid and Cal exchange glances, then Cal says, “And you’ve never tried to void it?”

“How?”

“Well, gee,” I say, “I’ll bet you’d want to go to the Ruby City with us, Mr. Cowardly Lion, sir, and see if we can’t get the Wizard to give you some ba-”

“Goldie…” Cal gives me a sideways glance (not completely devoid of humor) and shakes his head. “It does look as if you could benefit from a visit to Primal Records.”