Lust for Life
Page 27
He takes my hand and we keep walking. After another hundred feet, we come to the grassy park, which is a lot smaller than I imagined—maybe two hundred yards across. It slopes uphill, and a trail leads back through the trees. I’m glad it’s cold out, so that we’re the only ones here.
Shane leads me to a bench at the center of the park.
“Whoa,” I whisper when I see what people have done to it.
More than a park bench, it’s a shrine. Covered in graffiti, it expresses the love and grief of a thousand fans, and another thousand, faded and shrouded, beneath those marks. I have the strangest urge to kneel before it.
Instead I sit beside Shane. He’s shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt and sits hunched, his brow knitted in thought or memory, I’m not sure which. His eyes are open, so I assume he’s not praying.
“Damn it,” he whispers. “I meant to bring music.”
I pull out my phone and bring up the MP3 player. “Which song do you want? I can have it downloaded in one minute.”
He chuckles. “I love the present more and more each day.”
I open the MP3 player’s online store. “Which song?”
Shane takes a long breath in and out. “It’s weird, but I kinda want ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night,’ even though it’s a Lead Belly cover, not one of their originals.”
“It was the last song Kurt played live before he died, right?”
“The last one recorded, yeah, at the Unplugged concert.”
I don’t mention that it’s at the end of the first CD we ever listened to together, or that I already have it on my phone, or that while he was at boot camp I played it every morning before going to sleep. Shane knows all that. This place isn’t about me or about us.
I find the song, place the phone on the bench between us, then hit Play.
The guitar comes crisp and clear from the tiny speaker. As if indulging us, the wind stops and the trees ease their rustle just as Kurt begins to sing.
I stare out at Lake Washington and farther, all the way to the Cascade Mountains. They’re the same blue-green as everything in this city: the lake, the Seahawks’ uniforms, even the seats on the bus. The color of comfort.
All that blue-green couldn’t comfort Kurt Cobain. For some reason that Shane understands but I don’t, Kurt slipped into that darkness and couldn’t climb out or find a way through. People who loved him dragged him out time after time, the way Regina did for Shane sixteen years ago, but he kept sliding back.
Will Shane fall again, now that he’s human? The blood tests showed his pancreas was normal, but what about his brain chemicals?
Without looking down, I place my thumb against my wedding band, which already feels like a part of me. If the darkness comes again for Shane, I’ll be there to help him fight it. And if it ever comes for me, he’ll be there to guide me through, like a shaman in the shadowy underworld.
When Cobain starts to scream, I close my eyes and let the magic of his pain flow through me and out, just like Kashmir’s vampire nature. But this magic leaves no burns, only tears.
Kurt takes that last breath before the final two words, and I hear Shane beside me pull in the same breath.
I open my eyes into the blinding sunlight as the voice pours forth. It fades with an ache so raw and deep, I feel like I’ll never breathe again. Then the guitars, drum, and cello come in, sending us out with strength, then applause and a final “Thank You.”
Did the people in that audience know how lucky they were? Did they know they were witnessing a farewell? Did Kurt’s bandmates know? Did he know?
Shane hands me two tissues. I take one and give the other back. He blows his nose, then coughs, as if he wasn’t crying, he just has allergies or a bit of a cold. Men.
Then I hand him a black marker so he can write a message on the bench. He takes it with a nod of thanks.
While he’s writing, I check out some of the other notes. Most are simple: snatches of Nirvana lyrics or Bible verses, or just “RIP” or “I Love You.” Some are from those at peace, others from those with still-sharp grief. One person spelled out KURT with bright-colored Fisher-Price alphabet letters glued to the bench. A bouquet of sunflowers is stuffed between two of the bench slats, and a black garter belt is tied to the end of one of the boards.
I look at the house, its brown roof peeking over the edge of the trees that shroud it. Kurt’s voice still rings in my head, even as the wind starts up again and rustles the spruces.
Shane reaches into his pocket. “I wanted to leave something that meant a lot to me. Something I’d miss, that would be like leaving a part of me behind.”
He pulls out a string of dark-blue Mardi Gras beads, the one he used as a rosary when he was a vampire, since he couldn’t use a strand with a crucifix. Pieces of tape are stuck to the beads at certain intervals to indicate where the Our Fathers are substituted for the Hail Marys.
“Are you sure?”
Shane doesn’t answer, just ties the beads around the end of the bench and lets the end length dangle. He taps it to set it swinging, then straightens up.
“Ready to go?”
• • •
Shane and I arrive in Hawaii early in the evening on New Year’s Eve, with plenty of time to drive to our resort. We greet the brand-new decade at a luau with a few hundred strangers turned friends.
But as the night turns to dawn, we leave them all behind and walk down the beach, far enough that the only light is the one in the eastern sky stretching over the sea. Despite the cool ocean breeze, we take off our shoes to feel the powder-soft sand between our toes.
Our gait is unsteady due to the shifting sand and the multiple mai tais. So, hands linked tight, we wobble like children, waving our arms for balance. Something only humans have to do.
Without a word, Shane tugs me to a stop. The horizon is glowing now, every color from red to green and back again. A pair of small offshore islands flanks the spot where the sun will come up. Perfect.
We sit together on the sand, pressing our sides together, knees to our chest to keep out the breeze. I loop my arm over Shane’s knee and rest my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around my back, pulling me closer.
There’s no music here, and for once, I don’t need any. All I want to hear are the waves of the ocean and the breath of my husband.
My husband. That’s so unreal. Almost as unreal as the rays of sunlight streaking up ahead of the orb. Any minute now it’ll be here.
Shane clears his throat. “I’m going to ruin this with words, okay?”
I squeeze his leg in response.
“Soon I’ll be spending lots of time in the dark,” he says. “Guiding people out, I guess.”
“Are you worried you’ll get stuck there yourself, like that other agent?”
“No. That’s what I’m trying to say.” He lifts my hand to his lips and gives it a soft kiss. “Because of you, there’s no darkness I can’t escape.”
I don’t respond, thinking that’s an easy thing to say when one is sitting on a Hawaiian beach, waiting for the sun to come up.
“I’ll tell you that every day if I have to”—Shane shrugs—“and you can believe me or not. You can believe whatever you want, or nothing at all. That’s where your power comes from, and even if it didn’t, I’d never take that away from you.”
With that, I release my last worry about the two of us. I let it streak across the sky and dive, flaming, into the red-orange sun emerging from the ocean. Then I lift my chin to meet Shane’s kiss.
My belief and faith in the rest of the world—in all the worlds—will probably always waver. I’ll always question, always examine, always argue. It’s what I do.
But Shane accepts and loves all that I am and all that I’ll become. Young and strong, old and weak, and every state in between. In the chill of the dark and the warmth of the sun, he’ll be there.
Of that, I have no doubt.
Acknowledgments
Wow—how do I thank all the
people who’ve traveled with me on this seven-year journey, from May 2005, when I first had the nutty idea of vampire DJs, to this moment in summer 2012, putting the final touches on the final book?
Thanks first to all the readers. Your passion for music, for vampires, for Ciara and Shane and all the gang has been an inspiration. Special thanks to the 250+ members of the WVMP Street Team—you rock!
Second, to the fine folks at Pocket Books, especially my ever-patient editor, Ed Schlesinger, who should win an Awesomesauce Award (though I don’t know what that would be shaped like), and to Jennifer Heddle for her brilliant guidance of the series through the first three books. Also to editor Megan McKeever, Louise Burke, Don Sipley, Renee Huff, Jean Anne Rose, Nancy Tonik, and Rory Panagotopulos.
Third, to my beta readers/critique partners who helped me eviscerate, shape, and eventually rebuild the manuscript until it became the bionic book you see here today: Rob Staeger, Karen Alderman, and Stephanie Kuehnert, and to Cecilia Ready, who knew the story before anyone else. Also, thanks to the reviewers, bloggers, and book discussion groups who speculated on how the series would end. One of you was right.
Thanks to my agent, Ginger Clark, for understanding how much this series has meant to me.
Lastly, to my family, who are still waiting to get their Jeri back from Deadline Valley. To my husband, for his love and patience, and for learning how to cook ten times better than I can. And to my dog, Meadow, who was always at my side. Long may you run.
© SZEMERE PHOTOGRAPHY
JERI SMITH-READY is the award-winning author of the WVMP vampire series—Wicked Game, Bad to the Bone, Bring On the Night, and Lust for Life—from Pocket Books as well as a teen paranormal series—Shade, Shift, and Shine—from Simon Pulse. She lives in Maryland with her husband, two cats, and the world’s goofiest greyhound. Visit her website at www.jerismithready.com.
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WVMP Radio novels
Wicked Game
Bad to the Bone
Bring On the Night
“Let It Bleed” (self-published novella)
Lust for Life
Aspect of Crow novels
Eyes of Crow
Voice of Crow
The Reawakened
Shade novels (teen fiction)
Shade
Shift
Shine
Stand-alone novel
Requiem for the Devil
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Jeri Smith-Ready
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First Pocket Books paperback edition December 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4391-6350-4
ISBN 978-1-4391-6351-1 (ebook)