Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga Read Free

meantime Ms. Gussie, who had become
a hell of a storyteller by virtue of bein' possessed—though mind
you in a very respectable and respectful way—by the ghost of Sir
Walter, came back here to do a little low-profile advance
publicity.
    "Now there was one of these devils, a
redheaded user of many aliases, who was a little more complicated
than the rest of them and tougher to figure out. She was the chief
devil in charge of debauchery. Among other things the musicians
learned in Scotland, one was that she used to be the Queen of
Fairyland and had come down in the world since then. So she was the
one who both helped them and hindered them when the musicians
wanted to go into the ballad world to reclaim the old songs that
would help them release the rest of 'em. Of course, as a devil she
was bound to uphold what the rest of the devils wanted, which was
to try to keep the musicians from living through the songs, making
them their own, and bringing them back to this country to revive
all the other songs with the powerful magic contained in the oldest
and strongest ballads.
    "However—as she told the other devils—as the
official Debauchery Devil she was in charge of wine, your less
enlightened and self-respecting kind of women, and song. Musicians
were some of her best people, and she was always a little
ambivalent about the whole devilish operation to kill them off
along with the music. Also, she was always a little wild, as if she
was high on some of her own stuff. It seemed to Gussie that the
redheaded devil's unpredictableness made her the worst devil of
them all—she was like the old mule who'd be nice to you for two
weeks just to get a chance to kick you.
    "So Gussie was wary when this carrot-topped
character plucked her off a nice reliable bus to give her a wild
ride in a fast red sports car."
     
    * * *
     
    At least there was nothin' dull about this
new life of hers, Gussie Turner thought as she held onto the
dashboard for dear life. Beside her the redheaded woman held a
quart-size Sipeez cup full of alcoholic beverage and gunned the red
sports car down the mountain.
    The redheaded woman—who wasn't a real woman
at all, as Gussie knew, but the Debauchery Devil herself, formerly
Her Majesty the Queen of Faerie—turned red eyes and sharp teeth in
Gussie's direction and grinned. "So. Long time no see, ducks. It
took a bit of doing to catch up with you. Whatever have you been up
to?"
    "Oh, a little of this and a little of that,"
Gussie said. "I might ask you the same thing. Last time I saw you,
it looked like you were going to have some explaining to do to all
your buddies in the Department of Bad Works. Then you tell me
you've been rehabilitated, and I'm afraid I don't quite understand
what that means. Habilitated back into what? A better devil, a
fairy queen or—dare I hope—maybe a relatively reasonable human
being?"
    "There's no need to get lewd , dear. Actually, I suppose you
could say I've been pursuing both the first and the last of those
choices—in a way. Once one is in the Company, you know, one is well
and truly in, and there's nowhere to go but down. Naturally they
weren't very pleased with me for letting your lot out of my spell,
but as I told them, you cheated fair and square and I had no choice
in the matter at all. I did hold out hope that you'd been the
teeniest little bit corrupted, however. So now I'm on probation,
more or less, under the direction of the Shame and Guilt Department
and am also answerable to the Corruption and Repression people. I'm
still pretty much in the same line of work, I just feel deliciously
naughty about it now."
    "Serious drugs are a little more than
naughty," Gussie said.
    "Spare me. You sound just like my
supervisor. Of course they are, but I'm not allowed to use them
nearly as much now. The boss has withdrawn support for them in
favor of something a bit less gauche, he says. But I shouldn't talk
about such things with a civilian. Look at you! You look—well,
excuse