I should have fled, but I didn’t really have anywhere to go. And that, my friends, is when it really all started to go downhill.
Long story short, I was drunk. I was not in control of my mental faculties. My mental faculties had drowned in the third (fourth?) whisky as it burned down my throat. So when the bartender (Ted, and he was cute but gay) leaned over the bar and asked if I were going to sing, I opened my mouth to say “Oh, hell no,” but what came out was “Oh, fuck it, why not?”
I staggered up to wait my turn, which gave me time to peruse the song list. There are a lot of breakup songs; you know that?
Then I was on stage, no more than a carpeted plywood frame a step up from the floor, and my stomach plummeted and somersaulted and protested the third (no, it was at least the fourth) whiskey, and I stared out at the bar patrons in abject and utter terror.
Don’t sing.
I can’t sing.
My hand shook. I desperately needed to put down the microphone, get off the stage, run. The few people who were paying attention were watching me expectantly, and then the music started and my choices were throw up or make noise.
I don’t know how I did it. The first few words peeped out of my throat, the sound of a hungry kitten, but nobody cringed or covered their ears or threw beer bottles at me—which may have spoken to their own levels of inebriation, but it gave my booze-sodden self a shred more confidence.
It probably also helped that I’d chosen J. Geils Band’s “Love Stinks.”
I soldiered on, keeping my eyes firmly on the little black screen to read the amber lyrics as they scrolled by. When I got to the chorus, I sang the title words.
At the appropriate moment in the song, the entire bar shouted the words back at me.
I actually dropped the fucking microphone.
I scrabbled and picked it up and went on with the song. Now the patrons were singing along with me, and the only reason I could sing above them was that I had the microphone, and I was drunk, and the combination had emboldened me in a way that stripped away two decades of my parents telling me for the love of all that’s holy, don’t sing.
By the time I was finished, a row of beers and shots were lined up on the low stage in front of me, and they wouldn’t let me leave. They yelled for more.
So I gave them “You Oughta Know” (that Alanis Morissette, she knows how to write pain) and Cee Lo’s “Fuck You.” I howled my way through “Since U Been Gone” and it was probably the booze talking but I wailed it better than Kelly Clarkson herself. I honest to shit rolled around on the stage during “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” while everyone sang Taylor Swift’s words with me.
They were insane. More people kept coming in, and everyone was on their feet, crushed together as close to the stage as they could get. You couldn’t fit another person in that bar even if you had a truckload of lube.
Even my cute-but-gay bartender was one of the people standing on the bar.
This must be what it’s like for Ophelia, only on a smaller scale. I was too drunk to process it all. I went for my trump card: “I Will Survive.”
Best. Breakup Song. Ever. Am I right?
We were all dancing (insofar as anyone had room to dance) and I had my eyes closed and my arm in the air and—
—suddenly it was just me singing, no music, nothing.
I stopped so abruptly, I staggered and nearly tripped over my own feet.
The stage (if you could call it that) wasn’t high, but it was enough for me to see over the crowd, to the guy in a dark suit at the far door. The audience’s noise went from annoyed murmurs (at my lack of singing) to what sounded like angry shouts, the people closest to suit guy turning to direct their comments at him.
I didn’t know if he was a cop come to bust us for overcrowding or for criminal overuse of Axe body spray—I just knew it would behoove me to be elsewhere.
Happily, the back door was right behind me. I chose to make like a prom dress and take off.
The fire door dumped me in the alley behind the bar. I stopped to take a deep breath, trading spilled booze and BO for dumpster aroma and car exhaust.
Then I cut over to the next street and staggered (who knew that when you sang karaoke and people liked it, they bought you drinks?) towards home. I’d bought new boots for our date, knee-high brown ones with buckles at the ankles, and I had a blister the size of Montana on my left heel.
The euphoria of singing, of being adored for it, faded almost as fast as it had come over me. Now I was grumpy, limping, and boyfriendless, and all I wanted was a big bottle of water, a shower (I was a sweaty mess), and sweet, sweet slumber, in approximately that order.
Unfortunately, Randy was still at the apartment.
I went up the concrete outside stairs, hauling myself up using the cool metal railing. But before I could get the key in the lock, the door opened, and there was the cheating bastard.
“Have you seen my phone?” he asked.
I stepped past him into the apartment. There were boxes everywhere, and emptiness where he’d already packed up things and hauled them away. Half the CDs were gone, gaps between the remaining ones like broken teeth in a redneck’s grin. So was the Bose iPod dock and the framed print of the Santa Monica Pier at night, the Ferris wheel all lit up in a whirl of colors.
We’d moved into this apartment before my career had taken off, and we could afford better now, but just hadn’t bothered yet. First thing tomorrow, I was finding a condo and moving.
“Annalee,” Randy said. “Have you seen my phone?”
That’s when I snapped. I saw those naked pictures in my head, those dirty texts, and for a moment, I hated him.
I don’t know why, don’t know what came over me, but instead of yelling at him to get his sorry ass out of my apartment, I opened my mouth and what came out was…“I Will Survive.” Right at the beginning of the chorus.
Randy frowned. “Are you drunk? What is wrong with you—”
His face contorted as if he were in pain, and he put a hand on his temple.
Maybe my singing was that bad, and all the bar patrons had been too drunk to notice. But I didn’t stop…
…at least, not until I saw the blood trickling from his nose.
I trailed off, my anger trailing off with the song. He touched his fingers to his upper lip, stared at the blood, stared at me.
I was still drunk. And now I was scared. Had I done that?
That was impossible, right?
Right. Of course it was. I was drunk, after all.
Right?
That might have been the end of it, except someone chose that moment to walk out of the bathroom asking “What was that awful noise?” It was the sexting harlot.
The fury rose within me, and burst out of my mouth again as music. “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood, even though he’d already cheated, and with her.
Randy staggered, crashing into our Ikea Expedit shelves, knocking CD cases to the floor. Over the sound of my voice I heard the unnamed new girlfriend moan, her eyes wide with shock and pain.
I felt hot and cold at the same time, but more importantly, I felt powerful. I may have been the type of person who takes spiders outside and stops for pedestrians even when they’re jaywalking, but the wrath that was probably setting my own hair on fire was unstoppable.
I heard the railing twang as someone pounded up the steps outside.
“Annalee.”
I didn’t turn.
“Annalee.”
The voice was a little louder, but more urgent rather than shouting. I faltered, glanced behind me. A man I didn’t know entered the apartment, came up next to me. I got a brief impression of a black suit, dark hair, intense blue eyes.
“Annalee, stop it. You’re hurting them. Stop. Singing.”
Oh, that made me furious. “Nobody,” I hissed, “tells me not to sing anymore.”
“It’s your choice. I don’t think you really want to hurt them, do you?”
It almo
st felt like his words were inside my head, scratching around a little, as if trying to sink in somewhere and take hold. I frowned, shook my head. The world blurred, my vision doubling. Thanks, booze.
But he was right. This wasn’t me. Something was wrong with me.
The rage drained out of me so fast, I stumbled. The man steadied me, a hand on my elbow as he said to Randy and the sexting harlot, “I suggest you leave now. There’s a car outside waiting for you.”
The two didn’t look at me as they made their way out the door. Randy’s Lakers shirt was smeared with blood, and she was crying softly.
“Who are you?” I asked, finally getting a good look at him. Dark hair cut in a businesslike style, although a few strands fell across his forehead. A five o’clock shadow around a slightly lopsided mouth, which took him from unapproachably handsome to just plain hot and sexy. His black suit looked tailor-made.
“My name is Davis Monroe. We need to talk.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Did Ophelia put you up to this?”
We’d never been close, Ophelia and me. We couldn’t be farther apart, really. Once I left home, that was it. Still, if Ophelia had gotten wind of tonight’s drunken escapade, maybe Davis was one of her bodyguards sent to whisk me away before I embarrassed her too much. Whatever it was, it would be all about her.
Davis blinked, looking confused by my words. His eyes were like the ocean.
Dammit. Now I was really thirsty.
“Ophelia…the singer?”
“She’s my half-sister.” I didn’t normally tell people that just after I’d met them. I generally preferred they didn’t know. Between the alcohol and the giddy feeling of my musical accomplishments, I’d apparently lost some filters.
Now his eyes widened. “She’s—oh, hell. Do you…do you know what you were doing in that bar, and in here?”
“Singing,” I said. “For the first time in my life, I might add. And nobody threw tomatoes, so I don’t suck nearly as much as my parents convinced me I did. So there.” I stuck my tongue out.
“Oh,” he said. “Hold on.” He let go of my arm and added, “Don’t go anywhere.”
Where would I go? I was in my own goddamned apartment.
I did make my way, carefully and vertiginously, over to the open kitchen and fetched a bottle of water from the fridge. Then I came back, perched on the edge of the sofa, and removed my boots. Ow.
Davis was talking into a cell phone, his voice pitched too low for me to hear. He ended the call, turned back to me. “Okay,” he said. “This may be a strange question, but, do you know what you are?”
“Um…an interior designer?”
He sighed. “We really need to talk.”
“Look, I’m…glad you showed up when you did, but…” I squinted, making sure I got the water bottle to my mouth before I tilted it back. “I’m not comfortable with a strange man in my apartment—”
“Annalee,” he said, “we need to talk.”
The next thing I knew, I was settled back on the sofa, half the bottle of water was gone, and the guy—right, Davis—was setting out a bowl of crunchy Cheetos. They’re a failing of mine, those sodium-filled, neon-orange bits of heaven.
“I’m going to tell you something, and you’ve got to work with me here, because it’s going to sound pretty strange.”
“Um, okay.” Not sure what else to say to that.
“You’re not human. You’re a Siren. That’s why all those people in the bar reacted to you the way they did.”
Riiiiight. “And here I though it was my amazing voice.” A voice that currently dripped with as much sarcasm as I could muster.
“It was your amazing voice,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re a Siren. You have the power to do things with your voice when you sing. You have the power to influence people.”
He was right that it sounded strange. I was pretty sure he was bat-shit crazy. But I seemed to be kinda stuck with him here, unless I called 911, and he didn’t seem all that threatening.
I pulled out my phone, closed one eye to banish the double vision, and made a show of checking the time. Oof, after midnight already. Now I had the phone if I did want to call 911, or hit Davis over the head with it. That works, right? Maybe the stupid rotating Lakers lamp, then, which Randy had forgotten to pack. Serve him right if I broke that lamp.
I made the mistake of looking at the lamp, and my stomach did some sort of loop-de-loop like my favorite coaster at Magic Mountain. I grabbed for my water.
“Are you going to throw up?” Davis asked.
“Maybe,” I mumbled.
He sighed. “You’re clearly in no shape for this. Do you believe anything I’ve told you?”
I clutched a throw pillow against my chest and slowly leaned over until my head was on the armrest. “Oh, no, nothing you said sounded bat-shit crazy at all.”
If there was more, I don't remember it.
***
When my phone rang the next morning, I’d sort of forgotten the night before. As in, I was just starting to stir, the muscles in the back of my neck stabbing the base of my skull and my mouth tasting like I’d licked the inside of my running shoes.
I’d fallen asleep on the sofa, fully dressed. Classy.
As I fumbled for the phone, images were flashing back at me: dropping the phone in the iced tea, the bar, the crowd of people cheering for my singing as if I were my sister, Randy’s bloody nose….
I shuddered, which made pain lance through my head. What had that been all about?
I didn’t recognize the number, except that it was local. “Hello?”
My voice came out in a thick croak. I cleared my throat.
“Annalee? This is Davis Monroe. We met last night.”
A thousand questions. Starting with, how had he gotten my number? Then I remembered he’d been at the bar, then found me at my apartment. He was probably government. Government people have access to things. I hadn’t given him my last name, but he knew Ophelia was my sister, and after that it had probably been easy.
“I remember you,” I said, closing my eyes again because sunlight was evil.
“I think we need to talk,” he said.
I thought about what had happened, about the blood, and I clutched the pillow to my stomach. “I think you’re right. I need to shower and eat something.” And drink eighteen cups of coffee. “Where do you want me to meet you?” Please, somewhere with coffee.
“Actually, I’m parked right outside your apartment.”
Of course he was. “You still have to wait until I’ve showered.”
“That’s fine.”
We were both silent for a moment. Then I asked, “Is Randy okay?”
“He’ll be fine. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
More Ibuprofen and a hot shower with the shower head turned to the “pound the kinks out” setting did wonders. I never wanted to leave the shower, but my mind kept circling like a wild bird trapped in a small room, confused and panicked and fluttering. Randy was okay. I’d made Randy’s nose bleed and possibly hurt the sexting harlot. Davis knew Randy was okay. Government conspiracies. I was some sort of mythological creature.
I slicked my curls back into a ponytail just as he knocked on the door.
He held out a Starbucks to-go cup.
“I love you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Ready for this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
That crooked smile again, which I took to mean not really, but I’ll humor you. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “You were in no shape to deal with this last night, so I delayed until today, but the bottom line is, you’re dangerous because you’re untrained. You don’t know what you can do. I'm authorized to use any means to bring you in.”
“In where?” I decided he was just trying to scare me. It was working, though. Then again, a lot of things were scaring me all of a sudden.
“You ever watch Torchwood?” he asked. “‘Outside the go
vernment, beyond the police…’ We’re kind of like that.”
I held my coffee so tight, I felt the hot cardboard start to buckle.
“So you’re going to lock me up?”
He shook his head. I suspected his smile was supposed to look encouraging, but sexy as he was with one side of his mouth quirked higher than the other, I didn’t feel reassured. “No, no. We want to help you. Without training, you could hurt people very badly. More importantly, you have the ability to manipulate them on a large scale. That’s what you were doing in the bar. You were calling them in, drawing them to you. You could’ve caused a riot, or much worse.”
I sat back down on the sofa, and so help me, I eyed the Cheetos.
Maybe after the coffee.
In the harsh light of day (not a cliché—it really was pissing me off with its evil brightness) it all sounded so unreal. Okay, let’s be honest: It sounded completely cray-cray.
What I did believe was that he—or whomever he worked with—had connections, had power, and it would be in my best interests to at least hear him out.
“All right,” I said, projecting as much confidence in my voice as I could, “here’s the deal. I’m asking questions, you’re answering them.”
His mouth twitched as if he were fighting back a smile. “All right.”
“How did this happen to me?”
“It’s hereditary, although the power doesn’t manifest in every generation. Both of your natural parents were Sirens, but in men it’s recessive—they never get more than a small level of power.”
“Like you,” I said.
That surprised him; his eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“You apparently got the bar patrons to calm down, and you made me listen to you last night.”
He smiled again, not at me, but kind of self-satisfied, and that kinda scared me again. “Smart.”
“Is that why you aren’t affected by me?”
He turned his head and tapped his ear, at which point I noticed the flesh-toned plug tucked inside.
Of course. High-tech equipment. If we were going for government conspiracy, let’s go all the way. I sipped my coffee, and it was goood.
Fiction River: Hex in the City Page 13
