Come Alive

by Madelynne Ellis

  ‘We weren’t expecting you.’

  Her eyes popped open in surprise, and her painted-on perfectly arched brows sallied up towards her hairline. ‘It’s Xane’s birthday. I’m contractually obliged to show my face, just like the rest of you. You don’t mind that I brought a friend.’

  An exceedingly new friend, if Xane was any judge of such things. His attention flicked back to the kid, for kid he definitely was, and probably only a year or two past legal. His skin still possessed that post-pubescent elasticity that gave the impression he hadn’t yet quite settled into his adult guise.

  Kid had dressed the part. Give him another year or two and he might even pull it off. Right now he looked like a wannabe, from the tips of his shiny New Rocks to his natty burgundy waistcoat.

  ‘Malachi,’ he said, sticking out his hand.

  Xane didn’t offer his in return. He didn’t bother to introduce himself either. If the idiot didn’t know who he was talking to, then he had no business being along for the ride. ‘I’m guessing that’s not your real name.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be a brute. Xane isn’t yours either, just as Spook wasn’t christened Spook.’

  ‘I wasn’t christened at all,’ Spook muttered.

  And Xane was his real name, leastways an abbreviation of it.

  ‘Where shall I put my bag?’

  Her bag? Meaning the carry-case the kid was holding? Did she honestly think she was here to stay, that she could be responsible for that mindfuck of an article and then turn up here and play Happy Families: Rock Band Edition with them all? She was out of her friggin’ mind.

  ‘I’m not really sure there’s space,’ Spook remarked, showing an impressive degree of tact.

  Elspeth smiled sweetly at him, or more accurately attempted to. ‘Oh, there must be. I don’t take up much space, and Mal here is easy.’

  Desperate to be down with the cool kids more like. And how! As Xane watched, the guy slipped a half-empty bottle of something green and noxious-looking out of his coat pocket and swallowed a draught.

  ‘Yes, drinkies,’ Elspeth crooned. ‘Give me.’

  She wasn’t just ill, he realised. She was fucking drunk.

  ‘Stay with the boat, guys,’ Spook told the two bodyguards. It was nice to see he wasn’t being cowed into submission by the circumstances. ‘I said you weren’t welcome, and you’re still not.’

  ‘The guy’s an unknown quantity,’ the bigger of the two brutes insisted.

  ‘He’s one kid, and I’m sure you searched him.’

  The kid was the least of their problems. Although points to Elspeth for having the nous to bring him along. Xane wasn’t about to air all his grievances in public, but neither was he going to let her worm her way out of this. He was done with being manipulated by her. Really, well and truly done with it.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Spook asked as they followed Elspeth and her new pal up towards the house.

  ‘That it’s either her or me. I can’t work with her, Spook.’

  His friend nodded. ‘Figures.’

  ‘Are you with me?’

  He received another nod. ‘I’m not belittling the impact of her publicly airing your shit, but if anyone happened to spill mine …’ The shake of his head filled in the resulting agony that words alone couldn’t hope to describe.

  ‘She’s not privy to your shit, Spook. I’ve never told anyone, and I never will.’

  ‘This is another reason why I have your back.’ He clapped him on the back for emphasis. ‘You realise that Paul’s not going to be happy. This might actually finish us off.’

  ‘So be it,’ he replied. If that’s what it took to get Elspeth out of his hair for good, then he’d start preparing the funeral pyre for Black Halo now. Something greater might just rise from the ashes.

  The rest of the gang had assembled on the patio, where the chill factor was sub-arctic, despite Ginny having fired up the outdoor wood-burning stove.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ Ash asked Elspeth. He appeared far more himself after his sprint around the forest. The burst of energy had given him a rosy glow.

  ‘Ashley, so good to see you up and about again, and looking well too.’

  ‘You look fucking grim.’

  Her lips puckered up into a pout. ‘I see they didn’t fix your attitude while they were purging you of shit.’

  ‘I asked who the fuck is he?’ Ash glared at the kid, obviously sharing Xane’s wariness over his presence. Whoever he was, he had no place being here. Not when all hell was about to break loose. They didn’t need witnesses.

  Maybe the kid didn’t realise, but that seemed unlikely. What sort of teen wasn’t internet-savvy enough to be aware of all the hottest gossip? The more Xane thought about it, the more he suspected the guy had been offered a wodge of cash from some unscrupulous type for insider information.

  Seeing as Elspeth still hadn’t made introductions, the kid went for it himself. ‘Hi, I’m Malachi. I’m the singer with Sword of Damocles. You might have heard of us.’

  Nope.

  ‘“Taste the Innocence”?’

  ‘That shit was you?’ Ash blurted. ‘They kept playing it on the sodding hospital radio. It made my ears bleed.’

  The kid was in the business. He had to be a foil. He needed removing from the vicinity fast.

  ‘Joking,’ Ash said, breaking out a calculating smile. ‘You’re rumoured for the top this week, aren’t you?’

  The guy’s eyes lit. ‘Only on the indie download chart. But it’ll still be cool.’

  Oh, to be that young and wet behind the ears again. Still, it was a joy to see the good old Ashley Gore magic in action again. Ash drew Malachi from Sword of Damocles off towards the veranda where the food was still laid out, chatting to him as if they were new bestest buds.

  ‘Let’s go and eat some nibbles too, eh?’ Luthor pushed Dani and Ginny in the same direction.

  His lover was proving to be quite an asset. On top of his superb drumming skills, he read people and situations well. Xane threw him a grateful smile. Later, when this was dealt with, he’d say thank you properly.

  ‘What have you done with Paul?’ Elspeth asked.

  That was a good question. Xane looked around, but the big guy was nowhere in sight. It wasn’t like him to miss a chance to champion Elspeth’s cause.

  ‘Cathartic, was it, spilling your guts to Bang! magazine?’ Xane asked.

  Elspeth moved aside the dildo-making kit Ginny had given him and perched her petite bottom on the very end of the wicker bench.

  ‘What did you do, sob into your drink and have a good old girly chinwag with Ms March about how tough and unfair everything is?’

  ‘I can talk to who I want, Xane. It’s not like any of you are prepared to listen.’

  She looked around again, clearly seeking her knight protector and still failing to find Rock Giant’s familiar face. To compensate, she resorted to another swig from the bottle she had in a death grip.

  ‘So it’s our fault. We don’t listen, so you thought you’d share the intimate details of our private lives with the world.’

  ‘I only talked about Steve.’

  No, she most definitely hadn’t only talked about Steve. His blood pressure sky-rocketed. ‘You outed me,’ he bellowed. ‘You shared things you had no right to make fucking public.’

  ‘Oh, pipe down.’ She shook the bottle at him, and climbed unsteadily back onto her feet. ‘It’s not as if you hide what you are. There are plenty of fanboys out there intimately acquainted with the truth.’

  Nope. Actually there weren’t. He’d bedded countless women, and he owned that, but the number of men he’d slept with he could count on his fingers. He didn’t see the point in stressing that point for her benefit though. ‘You were drunk, weren’t you, when you did that interview? You’re pissed now, and you were pissed then.’ He swiped the bottle from her hand, and sent it skittering across the paving slabs. Green liquid splashed over the nearby windows in an arch.

  Abs
inthe, he realised. No wonder she was deranged.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ Spook wrinkled up his nose.

  ‘If you’re thinking moonshine for pretentious gits, then yeah. It’s the stuff Van Gogh was purportedly knocking back when he decided it’d be a fab idea to lop off his own ear.’

  ‘That’s a myth,’ she scoffed.

  Whether it was a myth or not was irrelevant. She was still wankered on the stuff. ‘Do you even recall what you said?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Xane wasn’t sure if her claim made him feel better or worse. Maybe a bit of him clung to the hope it hadn’t been spite motivating her behaviour. Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. She’d effectively smashed a sledgehammer into his skull last night.

  ‘Darling.’ Elspeth tried to reach out and touch him. She’d always been irritatingly touchy-feely. Xane stepped back rather than risk any sort of contact. Her being close enough that he could smell her perfume pushed him dangerously close to heaving up carroty chunks.

  ‘Back off, Elspeth.’ Spook inserted himself between them.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered out of the side of her mouth, but she resumed her seat. ‘Ava and I bumped into one another at a spa, OK. She asked about Steve. Told me he’d always been her favourite.’

  Yeah, right. That was bollocks for starters. Elspeth must have been pissed, or hadn’t cared enough to see that she was being played. It was a grade-one journalist’s trick to adopt a sympathetic disposition in order to soften up the interviewee. Normally Elspeth was way too savvy to fall for that. Chances were, she’d been savvy enough this time as well. She’d known what she was doing. He was certain of it. This was the woman whose favourite role-models were Elizabeth Báthory, Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine de’ Medici.

  ‘She asked about the wedding, and about the rumours I’d been dating you that had circulated for months before it. She thought it was a double-blind to keep the fans off the scent. I corrected her is all, and explained that the three of us had been together.’

  ‘You did a darned sight more than that.’

  He could imagine how the conversation had gone. Following the revelations that he, she and Steve had been a threesome, Elspeth had likely spilled the rest of the story as one long, sorry tale of woe. Feel sorry for me, Ava. The man I married didn’t love me a hundred and fifty per cent because he was constantly at the beck and call of the guy who was screwing him.

  Elspeth fanned the air and made pooh-poohing noises. ‘You’re making a mountain out of it. People will have forgotten about it in a couple of weeks.’

  They wouldn’t, and he most definitely was not. When he ran over the details of the things she’d exposed, it still made him see red and sickened him to the core. For a minute or so, he struggled with the urge to lash out. ‘You had no right,’ he snarled through gritted teeth.

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. I’m sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut.’ She held out her hand. ‘Wanna slap my wrist?’

  No, he wanted to tear her goddamned head off.

  ‘Kiss and make up?’

  ‘You’re fucking insane!’ She’d hurt him way too deeply to ever forgive her, even supposing he thought she was genuinely sorry. She wasn’t. She just wanted another drink. He could see her gaze constantly sliding sideways to where the bottle had fallen. ‘You’re out of chances, Elspeth. I can’t do this any more. I need you out of my life. I don’t want us to work together. I don’t want us to see one another. I don’t even want to find your details in the back of my address book.’

  ‘We’re in a band together, honey.’

  ‘No. Not any more.’

  ‘Um, yes, we are.’

  ‘You’re fired.’

  ‘What?’ she spluttered, and rocketed up off the bench. ‘I’m not fired. You can’t do that, Xane. We all have a say. We’re not a dictatorship. You have to put it to a vote.’

  ‘Funny, you told Ava March I was a tyrant that kept you malcontents in line by means of sexual coercion. It’s kind of lucky for you that I have zero desire to put my dick anywhere near you. So sure, we can vote. Spook, is Elspeth still in this band?’

  She turned her now somewhat uncertain gaze upon Black Halo’s rhythm guitarist.

  ‘No,’ Spook said quietly, but distinctly. ‘I’m sick of dealing with the constant shit.’

  ‘Ash, Luthor,’ Xane called, and both men hurried outside, convincing him they’d been keeping at least half an ear on the conversation.

  Elspeth immediately waggled a finger in Luthor’s direction. ‘He doesn’t get a say. He’s not even a proper member, just a stand-in.’

  ‘He signed a contract. That gives him a vote.’

  ‘You’re not going to cast me out, are you, Ashley?’ She blinked rapidly at him.

  ‘Just so we’re absolutely clear on this,’ Xane added before any more opinions were voiced. ‘It’s her or me. Our relationship is untenable.’

  ‘Elspeth goes,’ Luthor said, shaking his head at her. ‘I’m sorry, I know we only have five minutes of shared history, but none of it persuades me you’re the best choice for the band.’

  ‘Ash?’ Xane prompted.

  ‘Go. You look as if you need a nice holiday, Elspeth.’

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ she cursed him. ‘Get Paul. Where’s Paul? He’s not going to vote me out.’

  ‘The votes already stack against you,’ Ash pointed out. ‘It’s four against.’

  ‘Where is Rock Giant?’ Xane asked. ‘Regardless of how the vote stands, we should let him have his say.’

  ‘Hold tight and I’ll go find him.’ Spook headed into the house. A moment or two later, he came out of the side door and jogged off in the direction of the Little House.

  ‘You can’t push me out like this,’ Elspeth sniped. ‘I’ll speak to Graham. I’ll speak to Sally.’

  ‘I’ll be phoning them myself right after we’ve finished this conversation,’ Xane replied.

  By the time Spook returned with Rock Giant, the silence on the patio was so deafening his ears throbbed. Rock Giant strode straight up to Elspeth and wrapped her in a bear hug.

  ‘They want you to vote with them to kick me out,’ she muttered into his chest.

  ‘Yeah.’ His voice rang with raw emotion, and his lips puckered. ‘Can we not discuss this civilly, Xane, without all the dramatics?’ He shot Xane a pleading look, but, much as Xane hated forcing the poor guy to pick sides, there was no alternative route out of this.

  ‘We’ve already been over all of the points. I can’t continue to work with someone this petty and vindictive, who is out to hurt me as much as humanly possible.’

  ‘I think that’s overly harsh.’

  Xane rolled his eyes. Here they were about to go again. The same arguments he’d heard a thousand times were about to get rolled out. She wasn’t really a mean person. Malice hadn’t been the motivating factor.

  Bollocks it hadn’t.

  She’d been duped by that woman Ava March.

  It was a cry for attention. They ought to listen and help her, not condemn her.

  And ultimately, the absolute kick in the teeth. Think about what Steve would have wanted.

  Steve would never have defended her over that article. He’d loved Elspeth, but he wasn’t blind to her faults, unlike Paul, who had Elspeth-shaped cataracts.

  ‘Just fucking well say yes or no,’ Ash prompted. ‘That’s all we need. Not another go over of the facts. The rest of us have already voted.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s fair to punish her over Xane being a dick.’

  ‘Sorry, how am I the one to blame for this?’ Xane asked. ‘She’s the one who did the blabbing.’

  ‘And you’re the one who did the fucking.’

  Elspeth sniffled into Rock Giant’s chest some more. ‘I already said I was sorry for saying more than I should, but it’s hard to stop once I start talking about him. I mean he’s gone, and I can’t get him back. I get overwrought and stuff slips out.’ She le
t a few pretty tears roll down her cheeks.

  ‘You evil cow. You fucking lying witch. You sold me out, and you did it deliberately and maliciously. I don’t know what the hell is motivating you. I thought we had enough shit to deal with in this band without the need to create more, but I guess the attention wasn’t on you …’

  ‘I’m not a liar. How am I a liar, Xane? Were you fucking both Steve and me? Yes, you were. Did I have to drag him all the way to Vegas in order for us to get hitched, because I knew you’d go batshit fucking crazy otherwise? Yes, again. Are you currently fucking the new drummer? Oh, lookie, a pattern. That would be a big resounding yes again. Where are the lies, Xane? I didn’t tell any fucking lies. All I did was get drunk and speak out of turn. Ava caught me at a bad moment all right. I know you’ve moved on and are all happy and lovey-dovey with your new minions, but I’m still trying to figure out how to function without him.’

  Rock Giant sucked up her theatrics like a wet sponge.

  She buried her face in his T-shirt and sobbed.

  ‘OK, that’s enough. She is still part of this band, and you bunch of arseholes can stop being so fucking uncompassionate. You can see she’s having a rough time. Come on, Elspeth. Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk.’ He guided her through the array of bodies and headed in the direction of the chicken coop. ‘It’ll be all right.’

  ‘I’m out. I’m going to phone Graham,’ Xane announced. He really couldn’t stomach another round of this.

  ‘Xane, no.’ Ash blocked his path towards the house. ‘I’m sorry, Paul. I know she’s like your kid sister, but not this time. We voted. You can’t overrule that. She’s out.’

  Elspeth’s wail made Xane want to split his head open with an axe.

  Rock Giant hugged her tighter. ‘We’ll fix this,’ he reassured her. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘Just accept the truth, man.’ Luthor said, as they passed.

  Rock Giant decked him.

  Chapter 29

  So much blood poured from Luthor’s nose that Dani was convinced it was broken. Despite the ice-pack she had clamped across the bridge, bruising was already appearing around his pretty eyes. The right eyelid was swollen in the corner, and the whites of both eyes were bright pink. They were in the bathroom, perched on the edge of the bathtub. A large red-brown stain marked the front of Luthor’s sadly not black T-shirt, and she’d fastened his long hair back off his face in a sort of topknot.