by Sienna Skyy
Bruce couldn’t believe the incendiary performance. Though his mind never wandered more than a step away from Gloria, he still marveled at Forte’s scorching guitar riffs.
“Did I really just hear that solo?” Jamie cried over the euphoric crowd.
Bruce applauded and put his fingers to his mouth, giving a loud whistle. The solo was nearly unimaginable. Forte was back at the microphone now. He wasn’t nearly as accomplished a singer as he was a guitarist, but he had powerful pipes. At once lilting like Colin Meloy and growling like Eddie Vedder.
He nodded at Jamie. “He’ll be headlining at the Garden; it’s just a matter of time.”
The song ended with an expertly orchestrated shuffle—the band was tight all the way around—and Forte drank in the audience’s appreciation. Bruce clapped along, but a tingle of frustration worked its way into his heart. He hadn’t divined anything from the show that might have been a sign. Forte did some Hendrix early on, and later tunes by Mitch Ryder and Marvin Gaye. The rest of the show was original material. No Zeppelin. No “Stairway to Heaven.”
Jamie read his expression and her smile slipped. “Yeah, I’m not sure why we’re here, either. It’s hard to believe the Auxilia just wanted us to enjoy a good show.”
Bruce pursed his lips. Forte kicked into another song, announcing that it would be the last of the evening. “Let’s see if we can talk to him when he comes off.”
They hung around. They waited. Bruce ordered a soda, worried that anything stronger might dull his senses. The crowd pressed in and Bruce kept his radar up, but nothing seemed relevant to what they were looking for.
Finally, Jamie spotted Forte.
Bruce threaded his way to the other side of the bar where Forte stood looking as if he were trying to get the bartender’s attention.
Bruce stuck out his hand. “Great set tonight. Can I buy you a drink?”
Forte shook Bruce’s hand. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll take a Rolling Rock.”
“One Rolling Rock for the rock-and-roller.”
Bruce placed the order and introduced himself and Jamie. The three of them chatted about music. Jamie did most of the talking, thank God. All Bruce wanted to do was grab Forte by the jacket and shake out a sign. Demand he explain his place in all of this, what those diner lyrics meant. That probably wouldn’t have been the best approach.
Jamie made conversation, gently probing. Bruce shifted his weight from one side to the other. He glowered at the beer bottle in Forte’s hand and his eyes rested on the number thirty-three. If Gloria were here, he’d be telling her . . .
If Gloria were here, she’d be safe and he’d have taken her to this show just for the sake of going to hear a red-hot musician. In fact, they probably wouldn’t have even come across Forte because they never would have been in Maine, and they wouldn’t have seen his show until some distant day when the guy made it to the Garden.
Bruce sighed. No, if Gloria were here he’d be telling tell her about that number thirty-three on the label of Rolling Rock. How during the Great Depression, the company had come up with a thirty-three-word slogan that they wanted printed on the label. That the printer mistook their meaning and printed the number thirty-three instead of the thirty-three-word slogan.
He’d tell her that they filled those bottles with beer and sent them out into the world, screwed up labels and all, because they never wasted anything during the Depression.
A true fact, not a fake fact.
It was another one of Bruce’s stupid useless facts—facts that had stopped being useless when he met Gloria, because they made her smile and even laugh.
The thought of Gloria’s smile made it impossible for him to remain patient.
“So, Forte,” he said, interrupting Jamie mid-sentence. “How come you didn’t do ‘Stairway to Heaven’ tonight?”
Forte’s black rough-cut hair spiked around his face. His forehead still glistened from being onstage. He cocked an eye at Bruce. “Why would I do that overplayed crap?”
Bruce felt confused by this response—and surprisingly angry.
Jamie picked up on the look in Bruce’s eye and stepped in front of him. “What my friend here means is, well, we heard something of yours.”
She began to sing:
If you should find your love is true love,
Then do you know,
That you must wander toward the whispering winds.
Forte’s eyes narrowed as Jamie sang more of the revamped lyrics. Bruce saw it in his face. This guy had written them all right.
But Forte struggled for an air of nonchalance. “Where’d you come up with that?”
Jamie tilted her head. “We heard it on the jukebox. At a diner not far from here, and your name was listed as the artist. That’s what led us to find you tonight.”
Forte shook his head with a laugh. His expression seemed to flicker, a click of recognition before slipping away under a posturing smirk.
Bruce got angrier.
Forte shrugged and turned to Bruce. “Weird, man. You know what she’s talking about?”
“Yeah, I know exactly what she’s talking about. I was there. And you know what else? I think you know exactly what she’s talking about, too.”
Forte shifted. He held on to the smirk a moment longer and then couldn’t seem to keep it up anymore. He grew serious. “This is too weird, man,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I don’t get it.”
He rubbed his hair back and forth.
Jamie laid a hand on his arm. “Just tell us what you know about those lyrics.”
Forte shrugged. “Nothing, really. I wrote’m down a long time ago, must have been about a year. I was bored, just screwin’ around, you know? I sure as hell never recorded it. I don’t have a clue how you could have seen my name on the jukebox. That ain’t right.”
Bruce took a step closer. “Well it is weird, and it is right. A lot of weird things have been happening lately. But that’s exactly the way we heard it. And for us, it means something way more important than you can imagine.”
Forte did that hair-rubbing thing again. “Look. I can’t tell you how strange this is. Bruce and Jamie, right? Where are you folks from?”
Jamie smiled at Bruce, a soothing smile. A shut-up-and-let-me-handle-this smile. She turned that smile back to Forte.
“We’re from New York, both of us. Bruce and I are real good friends. There’s this, this . . . we’re trying to find . . .”
Bruce cut in. “I’m having a little trouble with my fiancée. Got me pretty worried.”
Jamie’s blue eyes looked at Bruce as if she wasn’t sure whether he might fly into a fury or spill all of the insane, truthful details. She needn’t have worried. Bruce wasn’t quite that far gone yet.
Forte was clearly intrigued by even these vague hints. Where he’d been the picture of the aloof rocker minutes ago, now he seemed focused. He put a hand to each of their shoulders.
“Tell you what. Bruce? Jamie? I think you guys need to drive me to my next gig.”
13
NEW YORK
GLORIA TRIED THE DOOR. Amazingly, it opened. She’d expected it to be locked, but no; it opened into the most amazing penthouse living area she could imagine.
And she was alone.
Completely, utterly, alone. No Aaron Vance, not even that gentle mouthless one, Sileny. Gloria ran to the main vestibule and groped for a door.
None existed.
No external door in the entire penthouse flat.
All right. At least she was out of that bedroom. Still more freedom than she’d thought she had.
She stepped into the kitchen and checked the cabinets. Inside them was every appliance she could imagine. And the cookware! Single cast. Not assembled, anodized, or plated. Single cast bonded metals for perfect convection. Her mind ran through the inventory of what she’d find in her own cabinets. Cheap materials that transferred a haphazard distribution of heat from the stove.
She could cook here if she wanted to. It seemed wron
g to have shared a meal with Aaron Vance last night and she didn’t want to do that again. Better to prepare her own meals. She checked the refrigerator. Foie gras. Octopus? She even found black truffles the size of golf balls. Whole black truffles! Casually stored in plastic for ripening in the crisper tray.
She could make anything. Anything.
If she were going to be kidnapped and imprisoned, she could think of worse facilities in which to be held hostage.
Her heart fluttered. A sickle of unease sliced at her. What was the point of appreciating any of her surroundings? She was being held against her will, period. It could never be acceptable, no matter how luxurious.
And yet her body insisted that she eat. She wouldn’t make anything extravagant. Let it be dry toast and cold cuts. She would eat only the simplest food, wear the plainest clothes, and utilize only that which was necessary. She would let her actions and attitude speak of her protest, if not through outright words. Yes, that’s what she would do.
But for right now, she was famished.
MAINE
“You want to tell us where we’re going?” Bruce said, drumming his fingers on the van’s dashboard. They’d picked the musician up at first light. Though the guy had rocked the house the night before, he seemed impervious to the lack of sleep, and that suited Bruce just fine. Sleep got him nowhere closer to getting Gloria back. If he could, he’d skip sleeping altogether until she was safe.
Forte patted him on the shoulder. “Relax, buddy! We got time. It’s a full day’s drive.”
“What!”
“That’s fine,” Jamie said quickly, her hand gripping the steering wheel. “We were looking for a new direction.” She glanced over at Bruce and then back to Forte. “How long have you been playing guitar?”
Forte shrugged. “Started playing when I was three. Got my first gig when I was ten. Pretty much been on the road ever since.”
“Has anyone offered you a record deal yet?” Bruce asked him.
Forte shook his head quickly. “Contract offers come along every now and then. One’s half decent, another one’s not. When I know it’s right, I’ll sign. Right now the road is what’s right.”
“Sounds like you’re waiting for the skies to open up,” Bruce said.
“I’m not really waiting for anything, to tell you the truth. My girlfriend says I should just go for it. I don’t know, though. I could put out my stuff now, but it’s not ready yet. You know, right? You heard it last night.”
Jamie glanced over her shoulder. “I thought it was pretty hot.”
“Thank you. But I can do better. I feel like I’m just outside of where I need to be. Just barely outside. When I do the record contract, I want to make sure I got something that’s gonna hold the fire a hundred years from now. It’d be stupid to go through the motions just to get paid when I’m so close. Anything I put out, my name’s on it. Forever.”
“That’s actually very commendable,” Jamie said.
Forte lifted his shoulders. “Whatever. You want to know the truth? It ain’t time. I don’t know why, but it just ain’t time yet.”
Jamie’s eyes found Forte in the rearview mirror and Bruce swiveled to look at him.
“You know, don’t you?” Jamie said.
Forte returned a blank expression, and for a moment Bruce thought he was going to plead ignorance. Then his lips parted and he fixed his gaze on the window.
Finally, he spoke. “The extra ‘Stairway’ lyrics came one night. Right around Cinco de Mayo last year. My buddy was into all this silly shit. He called it ‘automatic writing.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay. Whatever.’ He gave me the pen and told me what to do. I let it fly. I’m thinkin’, ‘Okay, you know. This is where the road takes me.’ I write down some shit and it’s weird, I mean, I wasn’t expecting to feel so slapped around by it. But it was like I’d been run over by a train after.”
He nodded at Jamie in the driver’s seat. “And now here we are a year later with you singing back to me the stuff I wrote that night.”
He laughed, an easy, inviting laugh, and his eyes traveled with the mile-markers moving past on the road beyond.
Bruce sat on edge. Jamie was right—Forte’s gig was probably exactly where they were supposed to be going. Bruce hoped. He looked out the window, watching the rows of crops that sped past in strobe. This is taking me somewhere, he thought. At least I pray it is.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out, ever since last night,” Forte said. “I just don’t get it. I figured I’d talk to you guys this morning on the road cuz everything always comes clear on the road. Figured I’d get it. But I still don’t get it. And for some reason I get the feeling it’s okay, I got all I need to know for right now, and it’s cool I’m just sitting here shooting the shit with you guys. Something’s going down here. Something serious. And I don’t believe it’s just girlfriend trouble.”
Bruce looked at Jamie. Her eyes showed hope, but he could see she wanted him to keep quiet. Last night she’d privately told him they should wait until they got to know Forte before telling him anything about their plans. Bruce no longer agreed.
“Here’s the thing,” Bruce said.
He took a breath and then told Forte everything that had happened. He left nothing out. Not even the stuff about Enervata that he barely comprehended himself. He knew by the way she white-knuckled the steering wheel that Jamie was worried. She probably figured he was sounding a little too strange for the peripatetic rocker—that Forte would make a mad dash at the next rest stop. Bruce didn’t care. If Forte thought they were crazy, then fine. They need not waste any more time with the guy.
But when Bruce finished the story, the musician only shook his head. “So, we’re on a quest, huh?” Forte crossed his arms and nodded, a slow, rocker-wise kind of nod. His eyes flickered across the front seat of the van. “I should get some really good tunes out of this.”
NEW YORK
“Got a bit of a situation, haven’t we, master?” Glueg tapped his fingers along his pint jar.
Enervata turned. “What is it?”
Rafe held his breath, certain that the brothers had discovered their secret and were about to expose it.
Hedon piped in. “We’ve a small opportunity ’ere. An unexpected development, isn’t it? Overseas, yes, there’s a prince and a duchess who’ve gone made eyes at each other. No one notorious, not in the dailies. But it’s a pair-normale any way you look at it.”
Rafe let out his breath in a slow, inaudible stream. He noted the slightest relaxation in Isolde’s posture as well.
Glueg continued where Hedon left off. “So this pair-normale, with the right kind of encouragement, could cause a minor international incident, you understand? Maybe even a war. Somethin’ to think about, yes? She were to play a part in it, our Sileny would be right fat as a toad now, wouldn’t she? I know you said our primary focus should be the bond-recherché, but under the circumstances . . .”
Shadows danced over Enervata’s bronze face. He turned and smiled at Hedon and Glueg.
The other Pravus took a step backward.
“A small war,” Enervata said with a twitch in his tail. “How delightful. How satisfying. How utterly . . . distracting.”
Hedon and Glueg began to roll in their seats, muttering affirmations into their jars of honey wine.
Enervata curled his lip, narrowing his eyes at the brothers. The pint jars flashed suddenly and then shattered in their hands. They sat back in surprise. Enervata grabbed Glueg by the throat and yanked him out of his seat, speaking his words slowly, deliberately, as Glueg gulped for air.
“Now hear this. All of you. No more distractions. No errors. The sluggish pace is trying my patience.”
His face hovered inches from Glueg’s. “As for you two, I warned you that I wasn’t to hear another word on any matter unrelated to the bond-recherché. I said you are to watch my enemies. Focus on Kolt.”
They nodded with vigor.
“You sots can never seem to devote your att
ention until blood is shed.”
He released Glueg, who then fell to his knees, coughing, eyes bulging. Glueg spread his hands and apologized profusely.
Enervata glowered at Sileny and the brothers.
“Rafe and Isolde seem to be the only ones who can carry out their instructions. At least the quest is stymied and we need not concern ourselves with interference from the young man Bruce. As for you, Glueg, on your feet.”
Glueg’s eyes grew wide. “Master? On my word, I’ll not trouble you again.”
“No, you will not. I shall see to that. On your feet.”
Glueg began to weep. He pointed at Hedon. “Please! It’s his fault. Me brother don’t know when to let it go, he don’t! I told him you wouldn’t approve! Have mercy on me, master! Take me brother instead!”
Hedon gaped, his blood-crusted piggish nostrils flaring, and his face grew deathly pale. He uttered not a word.
Enervata growled. “I said, on your feet!”
Glueg lurched to his feet as if grasped by an invisible force. He wailed and thrashed. And then he rose higher, feet dangling just above the floor. He clawed at his own neck. A snaking trail of steam escaped from his clothing and he began to shriek.
Glueg smoldered and burned. Not in the morphing indigo flame that had transformed Rafe and Isolde, but in the manner of a witch at the stake. He burned rapidly, wholly incinerated in a matter of moments until all that remained of him was the lingering stench of charred hair.
Hedon’s gaze rested somewhere else, the slightest tremor to his right hand.
Rafe’s throat clenched. His eyes flicked to Isolde, who showed no expression.
They would survive at least another day.
14
MICHIGAN
“HELLO ALL YOU CATS AND KITTENS. Shannon Power here. Are you ready to shake it up and rock it out?”
Bruce and Jamie grinned at Forte, then returned their attention to the stage where the sparkling choppy-haired brunette was making the introductions. They’d been listening to this Shannon Power, the local DJ, on the way up and finally Forte confessed she’d been his girlfriend for the past year. Bruce could tell by the way Forte was watching the stage that he was inside out, head over heels for her.
