Strum Again? Book Three of the Songkiller Saga Read Free Page A

me, but you look old. What have you been doing with yourself
while all of your little friends have been tootling away in
exile?"
    "Part of the time I've been in exile too,"
Gussie said. "But you knew that. You know everything that's been
going on, don't you? I've had reports of you followin' me
around."
    "Don't flatter yourself, lovey. If you could
see my schedule, you'd know how ridiculous that sounds. And what I
have to do these days—and do straight most of the time, mind you—is
just too sordid for words. Besides, a lot of it's boring. Spiking
the punch at AA picnics, hooking business people on prescription
drugs, convincing housepersons of the joys of clandestine tippling
and visiting neighbor housepersons of the opposite gender."
    "Serves you right," Gussie said. "But I'm
afraid I wouldn't worry about bein' bored for too long, if I was
you. People are a lot like cats—lock 'em out of one place where
they can make trouble, and they'll wriggle into another."
    "Well, sure, and they already have.
All that humanitarian nonsense left over from the lefties who
dominated the sixties—and everybody knows, thanks to my colleagues,
that all of that sort were
very immoral and did a lot of drugs—all their ideas are out the
window in favor of the old-fashioned American values. Equally
deadly, of course, and every bit as destructive in their own way,
but the problem is that they're not my way. I can't even persuade a
lot of these uptight asses to relax a little, let up the tension.
Guilt, shame, and psychological pressure twisted tighter than
thumbscrews—that's what's driving people bonkers now. Absolutely
nothing in it for me."
    "Don't you worry, honey. These things come
in cycles. People can only take so much tension, and then they find
some kinda outlet again."
    "Do you really think so? That's what I'm
hoping, of course. Why do you think I've come to meet you? I'm very
glad to see those friends of yours returning here, if you want the
truth. The boss is smug about the progress he's made with his
programs here and in the Middle East, Russia, and the People's
Republic of China. Backed off on the British Isles, of course,
though he doesn't put it that way. Still too many amateurs doing
the music there."
    "We know," Gussie smiled.
    "And he thought it would be so easy in
Canada, but there's an unforeseen complication that crept in while
his attention was elsewhere." She sounded rather pleased as she
cleared her throat and said, "Some of my former subjects, it seems,
migrated up there after my downfall and somehow or other have
bonded with the native bogies and sprites and whatnot. And of
course, my people have always been very involved with the sort of
thing your people
do—"
    "Music, Torchy," Gussie Turner said, not
unkindly, using the name by which she had known the Debauchery
Devil in Britain. "Folk music. Can't you even say it anymore?"
    "I suppose I could," Torchy said. "But I was
trying to give you a break and not call attention to this little
conversation. If I were to start tossing such terms about, someone
might turn out to be listening, you know."
    "You were saying about Canada?"
    "Well, anyway, with my former subjects so
lively in the cities and countryside, all sorts of people are still
actively singing and playing you-know-what. Even though there are a
lot of paid performers and festivals and such happening, the power
is still coming from a wide population base, and the boss hasn't
been able to do more than seal the borders so the—er—perpetrators
can't cross from one border to the other."
    "I knew that," Gussie said. "So would your
boss if he weren't such an illiterate sonofabitch. What's happened
to music and the Faerie in Canada is in all of Caitlin Midhir's
books. A couple of Lettie's musicians, Charles De Lint and Eileen
McGann, turned us on to them."
    "They're out of print in this country," the Debauchery Devil
sighed. "Chairdevil used the Accounting Department to see to that.
So Canada will have a bit of a