Evolution

by Sam Kadence

  “He’s pretty, like an angel,” a voice was saying. “Can he sing for me? I heard people say he’s better than me. Make him sing for me, Hane.”

  Multiple heads merged into one. Spiky red hair, wide green eyes, and a young, fresh face leaned over me. Why did he look so familiar?

  “Michael, get off him. You’ll suffocate the kid.”

  The weight didn’t move.

  “No one’s better than me. I want to hear it. Sing, kid. Sing pretty. Show me why Kerstrande likes you more than me.”

  Michael? Red hair, green eyes? The second I put it together, I felt like I’d been hit in the gut for a second time. Michael Shuon, lead singer of Triple Flight, sat on top of me, demanding I sing.

  I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a strangled sound.

  “Is he choking? Should I do CPR? Hane, help!”

  “If you let him up, I think he’ll be just fine.”

  “But he hasn’t sung for me yet.”

  “Hard to sing while lying on the floor with someone sitting on you.”

  “My voice coach does it to me all the time,” Michael grumbled, then glared at me. “You better sing when I let you up.” Finally, he moved. I lay there a bit longer, sore, shocked, and terrified all at once. Michael Shuon and Hane Lewis towered over me, both wearing concerned expressions. I shouldn’t have been starstruck—I was sleeping with their guitarist—yet here was Triple Flight.

  “I think you broke him,” Hane commented. He looked at me curiously with chocolate-brown eyes that matched his spiky brown hair. They both appeared the same as they had in magazine shoots and album covers years ago, like they hadn’t aged at all.

  “Nice to meet you, guys,” Rob said from somewhere to my left. “Don’t mind Gene. He’s a big fan.” He yanked me to my feet. Michael beamed at his words, but my jaw felt bound in wire.

  Hane gestured toward the hall that led to the stage room. “Shall we?”

  I really, truly had to sing for them? My look must have said something to Rob, but he dragged me along, muttering, “You know you’ve dreamt of this.”

  Inside the room, Hane took his place behind the keyboard, Rob took the guitar, and Michael stepped up to the mic, motioning me forward.

  “Let’s do ‘Red Rose’,” Rob said. “You two can sing together.

  Sure, sing with Michael Shuon. If my heart beat any faster it would jump free of my chest and fly across the stage, leaving a bloody, splattered mess everywhere. Hane poured into the rhythm followed by Rob, who knew the song well enough to cover for Kerstrande’s absence. Michael started right on cue. I watched him turn into a total rock god before me. Not until the chorus did I realize I was singing along. I took the second stanza, making it mine, then when the chorus came back in I took the harmony, blending my deep voice to a strong bass against his tenor melody. By the time we finished, stars were glistening in Michael’s eyes as he worked to keep up with me.

  The music stopped, and silence reigned. Finally, Hane clapped. “Amazing work. I believe you’ve been outsung, Michael.”

  Michael didn’t look angry, more entranced, like the girls had the last time I’d sung that song. “He sings pretty.”

  Hane grabbed Michael’s arm. “That he does. Balanced against you like a real pro. Kerstrande does have an ear for talent.”

  Rob patted me on the back. “Gene’s an amazing singer. Thanks for playing with us. Great experience. We should get back to practice now. We have to record.” Hane nodded his head to us. I followed Rob back to the Green room, more than a little dizzy.

  “That was cool.”

  “Michael was using you. You led him around like the pied piper. He kept getting mixed up by your harmony, which made him sound great when he was actually singing the melody. Bet that guy has never had to compete like that before in his life.”

  “‘Red Rose’ is his song, though. Maybe he was mad ’cause I was changing it.”

  “He just sang it first. Kerstrande wrote that song. He wrote everything for Triple Flight.”

  Kerstrande wrote articles for many magazines and newspapers now. All freelance, none about music. Joel had been making a point to cut them out for me. I suppose it wasn’t a stretch that he wrote music too. Maybe that’s why he hated my songs so much.

  Rob folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s pump some more rock into this crap they gave us. Have something good ready for when Joel gets back.”

  “Okay. Maybe Hane can play for us until Joel is better.”

  “No way. That guy gives me the creeps.”

  “Kerstrande gives you the creeps too,” I pointed out.

  Rob smacked me in the neck, right on top of the bruise.

  I yowled.

  “Goes to show you how good a judge of character I am.”

  “That hurt, you jerk.”

  “I hope so. What the hell is he doing? Is he a vampire? He’s not registered as one. And feeding on someone without written consent is illegal. Don’t let him fuck with your head.” Rob began strumming his guitar.

  I blinked at his words, a bunch of things all clicking together at once. Now was not the time for theories. Work now, daydream later. Sure, I could do that. I moved toward the mic.

  Chapter 13

  I STOPPED at Joel’s and slid a note under the door when he didn’t answer. When I’d brought up his absence to Mr. Tokie, the man had paled and put me off. But Tokie telling me flippantly not to worry made me worry all the more that something wasn’t right. When Joel didn’t pick up his phone any of the ten times I called, I’d really began to panic.

  “He’s just sick,” Rob assured me. “Probably too much drinking. You know he’s worse than a fish. He’ll be back in a few days.”

  I nodded like I agreed but made the effort to stop by his place again after I left the studio. No one came to the door, and everything was eerily quiet, so maybe Joel was sleeping. Hopefully he’d feel better soon.

  Rob’s words stuck with me most of the day, and I thought about them the whole cab ride home. Was Kerstrande a vampire? The newspaper had some scary story every day, either about vampires killing people or people killing vampires. If I were a normal guy and a vampire, I’d probably hide what I was too.

  Did the shadows make them vampires? Did that mean Devon was one too? And why had Kerstrande gone crazy on Friday? Wasn’t he feeding enough? He couldn’t drink from me all the time if I passed out for days. That wouldn’t be good for my career—or life in general.

  The condo was dark when I arrived. Mikka still hadn’t appeared, but I did set out her food bowl and litter box. I called for Kerstrande, knowing he wasn’t home. Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer.

  I peeled off my shoes, flicked on the living room light, sunk into the cushy sofa, and clicked on the TV. As comfy as the place felt, something was off. Hairs rose on the back of my neck, and the chill in the air was unwelcoming. Almost like someone watched me.

  The phone dinged with a new text: Cris asking for the address, then another asking again if I was okay. I keyed back absently the location of the new place and that I’d been fired from Down Low. He’d helped me get that job. Maybe he could find me another. His short note back read only “Okay.”

  A shiver coursed through me. Maybe I could borrow a blanket from the bed. It was crazy cold in here. So far I hadn’t seen any nonliving types, so maybe Kerstrande just had a window open somewhere. I paused in the doorway to the bedroom and flicked on the light, but nothing happened. The brightness from the living room reflected into the bedroom, making the spread look light blue in its place at the end of the bed. I stepped in the room to grab it.

  The dark writhing shadow beside the bed made me stop midstep. Crap. That wasn’t something I’d ever seen before. “Hello?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper. “KC?” No way was it him. Why did my voice shake? I saw freaky shit all the time.

  A breeze poured in from the far window, which stood wide open, the curtain missing from the rod above the sill. The shadow spread across the ro
om, hidden by part of the bed. People didn’t look like that. Not even ghosts became writhing masses of dark ooze when they lingered. They had shape—sometimes a yucky one—but they still had a form. Maybe the light made it look off somehow. It could be a bird. Yeah, probably an injured bird, I tried to convince myself.

  It didn’t sound like a bird as I moved toward it. More like a wounded dog, breathing hard, with long nails scraping the wood floor. Oh God, what would I see?

  “Hello?”

  When I stepped around the bed, a dark, cold mass smashed into me, piercing my skin and drawing blood just as the world dripped to black. My head hit the floor before I even recognized the sense of falling. White pain slammed across my brow. My lungs stopped, air freezing within them. Was this what it was like to die? A sense of pain and falling into nothing? Why could I still think and feel if I were dead?

  Something screamed, loud and shrill, so loud it hurt my ears. My eyes wouldn’t open. I heard a terrible hiss, like an angry cat, followed by the sound of feet pattering past me to the window. A scuffle of scratching and banging. Then silence blanketed the room.

  A prickly tongue licked my face. Sight came back to my eyes, everything else still hurt, yet almost felt detached. The dark mass was gone. Mikka crouched between me and the window, glancing back a few times as if to make sure whatever had been here was gone. I wanted to hug her and thank her.

  Keys jingled in the door somewhere close. I knew the weight of Kerstrande’s step when he slid inside the apartment, slipped off his shoes, and hung his coat. So organized. I was the chaos in his life. Unnoted music yet to be set to a page, still so insanely connected to him, I might as well have been Van Gogh sending an ear to a lover. Mad.

  “Genesis?” he called. I loved how he said my name. A soft touch, good pronunciation, gentle ending. “I bought groceries. Have you eaten?” His voice came from the kitchen. He paused near the doorway to the bedroom. “Genesis?”

  His jeans hugged his hips. A fitted red sweater wrapped his broad shoulders, flushing out the highlights in his hair, which fell haphazardly around his pretty eyes. He was so beautiful. Tonight he stood shadowless, normal, and so utterly perfect I felt inadequate. Maybe it was right to die here on the floor. He had to be an angel, and I, the devil sent to spin his world into destruction.

  Finally, his eyes dropped downward, he frowned and moved all at once, while I tried to remember ever seeing him smile. Maybe I didn’t have that kind of power over him. How awful did that make me?

  He dropped to his knees beside me. “Genesis?” He paused, listening for a minute, then his eyes widened. “Shit, breathe!” He bent over me, tilted my head back and parted my lips, not for a kiss, but to force air into my aching lungs. Twice, three times, then he pressed on my chest in rapid succession. “Breathe, damn you!” He forced air back into me, and some of the pain eased, allowing me to suck in a breath.

  He lifted me in his arms, encouraging me to keep breathing while he carried me to the living room and set me on the floor. Kerstrande’s expression became an odd mix of colors, light, and rainbows dancing, then finally starlight when unconsciousness took me again.

  The world swung me back fast. He held me close, deep voice talking to someone. No—on the phone. It was unlike him to touch me like this. Where was my snarky lover? His lips pressed to my forehead, feeling hot enough to burn. “Stay awake for me, Genesis, please. Something’s wrong with you, but the ambulance is on the way.”

  “Hai,” I mumbled absently.

  His eyes became a kaleidoscope of color when I dragged my eyes open again. So pretty, like a dream of magic might be. Every time I tried to let sleep take me back, he shook me awake again. I was talking, but couldn’t remember what I said.

  “You’re speaking in another language. I don’t understand what you’re saying, but stay with me until the ambulance comes, okay?”

  “Gomen,” I mumbled. So tired. “Sorry.”

  “Gomen means sorry? Okay. I’ve got that one. Teach me more.”

  The pounding of the door made him jump. He hesitated leaving me to answer. The sweetness of that moment wasn’t lost on me. I just didn’t have enough energy to enjoy it. Mercifully, when his arms let me go, so did the rest of the world.

  Chapter 14

  Kerstrande

  THE clock over the nursing station ticked into the new day. I’d been sitting here forever. From the moment I’d found him lying on the bedroom floor, not breathing, heart not beating, everything had become a slow descent into madness.

  His blond hair, so unnaturally stunning with those slanted violet eyes, haunted me with memories of running my fingers through it. He fought for his life behind some forbidden door, and all I could think about was how his hair felt. How I’d gone from simple uncomplicated guy to a crazy stalker, I didn’t know, but it must be the normal path for being with him. He made me want to lock him up a cage forever, just to protect him from the world. No one had that kind of innocence anymore, except he did.

  I rose from the plastic seat and stretched, muscles straining and aching despite a feeding and some healing time. The last confrontation with my sire had not been a good one. He’d beaten me senseless for taking Genesis by force. At least he’d let me go in time to get back, before Gene awoke from the unnatural sleep that had taken him.

  Selfish bastards, my sire and I.

  The windowed area of intensive care kept germs from visitors, and kept me out. I didn’t fit the profile of family, even claiming to be his lover. All I could do was stare at him from a distance, hoping the repetitive blip-blip of the heart monitor would keep flickering in that monotonous pattern. A steady pattern was good, or so the nurse had been kind enough to point out when she passed. I’d watched that line of peaks fall flat twice. Doctors raced to revive him with machines and technology I’d never seen. The beat returned each time.

  I watched them reinflate his lungs twice. His white blood cell count dropped more than two-thirds below healthy levels. Everyone from the orderlies to the doctors speculated as to what might have happened to him. His temperature had peaked at 103 degrees. Veins had burst, and one lung had nearly detached from his ribcage.

  A minor concussion kept him almost completely unconscious. Yet he was healing faster than others. Body reknitting itself like the stuff of sci-fi novels. The doctors whispered things about antibodies, and cellular repair that made no sense to me. Science had never been my strong point. If his blood levels hadn’t already been low they would have sent off countless samples to their labs for testing.

  Genesis looked frail, pale, and nearly lifeless. Certainly not the exuberant young man I’d come to crave over the past few weeks. My heart beat in tandem to his, slowing when his did, speeding up each time the doctors restarted it.

  I was too attached.

  Hadn’t planned it that way. In fact, nothing had gone as planned since the day I met him. He didn’t forget when I told him to, didn’t do what I commanded, even his wounds wouldn’t heal. Not like the rest. Each time I’d taken from him, he’d slept. Over the weekend I’d hacked into his medical files to search for a history of anemia or some less common illness. Nothing.

  This was all my fault.

  My feeding from him did this. He would be safe without me. Not on my sire’s radar. Not lying in some hospital bed fighting for life. All my fault.

  This last time I couldn’t remember. Not the taste, the smell, or hardly any of the evening until I held him unconscious in my arms. Vague flashes of women cycled through my head. They’d been an attempt to satiate a hunger that only craved one thing now. Clarity hadn’t arrived until I had fed from him.

  I truly was a monster.

  The safety glass shattered, and a dull throb from my right hand snapped me out of the daze. The ICU window crumbled around my fist. Blood spurted from the broken veins, glass jutted from the flesh, mixing with the white of bared bone. This was the monster I truly was. Couldn’t he see it?

  People moved around me, creating voices and
pulsing hearts, bodies filled with blood. I yanked myself away, running for the door. Several tried to stop me. None succeeded. After all, the monsters always got away. Heading off into the night, with only the barest of pain in my body, most of it in my chest, all I felt was guilt.

  Chapter 15

  Genesis

  SOMEONE stroked the back of my hand. Then a bright light shone into one eye, blinding me and forcing tears to squeeze out. Again to the other eye. I blinked away spots until the familiar brown hair, red highlights, blue eyes, and bright smile focused above me. Rob.

  A man in a white coat moved away from us toward the door. “Don’t push him. He needs rest.”

  Rob pulled up a chair beside me and leaned on the edge of the bed. “They took out most of the IVs and stuff earlier. You’ve been in and out for a couple of days, and you keep asking the same questions, so I don’t think you remember any of it.”

  I’d lost more days? Where was Kerstrande?

  Rob gripped my hand, massaging my palm. “That Cris guy is down in the cafeteria. Your mom left to get some rest about an hour ago.” He gave me a forced smile. “You should have said you weren’t feeling well at the studio. I’d have taken you home in a flash.”

  My throat felt like burnt cotton. I glanced around the room. A mass of flowers bloomed from one wall some with balloons attached. Even with all the crazy bright colors, they didn’t make the room cheery.

  “Mr. Tokie sent the orchids. They’re in planters, so you’ll have to take them home. Mr. Lewis sent the tulips, and Mr. Shuon sent the four dozen roses.” Rob rolled his eyes. “A little extreme, that one. None from me. Figured I’d take you to the next Yankees game and buy you all the chili-cheese dogs and nachos you can eat. Deal?”