Picking the Ballad's Bones by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

were not just
ineffective, but nonexistent. The Debauchery Devil didn't think
that was much fun. She much preferred her ranting and raving
religious television stars, who were, like musicians, among her
best people. Just one of them, she firmly contended, did more to
drive the general populace away from the Opposition than a whole
academy full of scientists or a whole computer full of
statistics.
    She supposed she was rather an
old-fashioned girl in her own way. She much preferred the good old
days when she alone, not some silly movie star, could so enchant a
mortal that the poor sod would wander around forever pixilated
after experiencing, and then being denied, her intoxicating world.
After a bit of what she had had to offer, mortals were simply too
depressed to face their simple little lives again.
    The problem was, her present position
didn't allow for such magical opportunities and that got her a bit
down. It simply wasn't very personal, when those you led down the
garden path had to be led through the mouth of a bottle or the end
of a needle. Not at all like seeing one's own razzle-dazzle
reflected in the eyes of one's victims. She missed their society,
their attempts to woo her with milk and bread, poetry and
yes—music. She missed having people she had never summoned dream of
her, pine for her, yearn for a glimpse of her, half fearing, but
willing to give up lives and sanity not for some silly potion
brewed in a sterile laboratory but for the unearthly glitter of her
own eyes, to be caught in the web of her hair and enthralled by the
cadence of her voice.
    But she was lucky, she supposed, (and
who better to be lucky? one of her names was Lady Luck—her gamblers
called her that) to still have a job of any sort. She who had once
been queen of the underworld, spirit of the forest, guardian of the
rivers, was now the empress of street corners and casinos. But she
still had followers, and it kept a girl going.
    The underworld was a total bust now,
of course, drilled by mines and such. These spriggy new forests,
while rather touching, were hardly tall enough or thick enough to
hide even one pair of lovers six miles into the woods without
passersby being able to see bare flesh through the trees. And that
ambitious upstart of a demon, sponsored by the Expediency Devil,
the one called PW (Pollution and Waste, which sounded grandiose to
her for such a grubby kid) had hold of her waters.
    So here she was, with this crummy
assignment, doing in her own disciples. It wasn't even much of a
challenge. Music was an addiction all by itself and once she
separated the musicians from the music, they'd be easy enough prey.
Even Willie, who seemed as if he should have been quite easy to
overcome because of his drinking, still kept from sinking into the
pit that was Torchy's particular corner of her particular hell
because of the music. Without it, in he'd go so deep he'd never hit
bottom.
    Torchy had absolutely no idea what was
keeping Julianne together now that the music had been stripped from
her. If only the silly thing could hear herself try to sing now
that she could no longer hear, that would probably do her in! Of
course, with all of her mystic tendencies, she'd undoubtedly end up
on the streets as one more crazy baglady. You couldn't get most
people to believe that the supernatural things the girl saw were
real, even though they were.
    Gussie was one of Torchy's very
special minions, a bartender, and she was older than dirt and
probably wouldn't last long enough to worry about
anyway.
    Brose might survive the loss of music
as long as there were animals and nasty little juvenile delinquents
for him to help, but the other devils could no doubt take care of
parting him from those outlets as well.
    Once Gunn's mind was safely wiped of
the music, she could safely be tucked into a prison for her radical
organizational tendencies—either that or taxes. You could always
count on the Accounting Devil to come up with something in