Lumbering toward the edge of the stage, a thick-necked man in a business suit rips a dollar bill out of his wallet and dangles it cloyingly over the tip jar. He never spills a drop of the whiskey clutched in his other hand—not cheap whisky either, I can smell—as he tries to tease us as if feeding seals at the zoo. It doesn’t take a werewolf to see that he is showing off for his friends, all of whom are watching him. This is clearly a power trip, and I actually don’t think he even cares if there is any live music at all or not. In spite of the wide smile plastered across his red face, he smells angry and frustrated. “Can you play any Jimmy Buffett?” he slurs, still holding the dollar as if it were a dog biscuit, expecting us to sit up and beg. The longer it takes the band to confer on this, the more he pantomimes offering and then withdrawing the paltry bill over and over.
I can no longer contain myself. “Sure. Just have the bartender bring over a big enough hoop for us to jump through!”
Like a petulant two-year-old outraged at not getting his way, he snatches away his precious dollar and stomps off into the audience, muttering something under his breath that sounds like “bunch of amateurs.”
I grin at the band, but Sand is furious. “Good going, doggie. Now the clients are furious, and you’ve made us look bad!”
“Sand, do we even play any Buffett?” I growl at her under my breath. “This is an R n’ B/ funk/New Orleans blues lineup. Are we jukeboxes? That guy was an asshole!”
Before Sand can spit back a response, Naj smoothly calls out the next song. I am simultaneously relieved at the subject changer and unnerved to see Gabriel walk in, wave at Naj, and choose his favorite spot next to the stage as close to me as possible. His eyes never leave me and he claps with the enthusiasm of one who has never heard live music before. Stalkers are the worst kind of vampire ever. He makes a big display of throwing a twenty-dollar bill in the tip jar and Naj blows him a kiss. Luckily he leaves before we finish, sparing me his usual request for us to get together and jam.
It’s been a strange day overall. After the gig, I tell the group, “Next week, I’ll bring cookies!”
Sand smirks. “How about if you use that time to practice your bass instead?!”
Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.
I look to Naj for support, but she shrugs it off. “Ignore Sidewinder and chat with me for a bit. What’s wrong? Do you need to talk?”
Sidewinder? Is that Sand’s surname, a nickname, or something even heavier?
Her eyes are sweet and sympathetic. I haven’t confided in another woman in a while, since Sylvia is still out of phone range. For all of her troubling addictions, Naj might understand. She certainly has no qualms about displaying feelings. She is a compelling performer and a lovely woman—when she’s sober—but would she know what it’s like to fear being upstaged by someone else? Especially when a musician of surreal beauty and virtuosity is working intimately, every day, with one’s unattainable true love?
She hands me a drink. “Just let it all out. There’s a reason that we all have to unload our venom every now and again.”
Relief that she is back to her old self tonight rolls over me in waves. I know the signs of drug use, and wonder if there is anything I can do to help her. Perhaps a little self-disclosure on my part will invite her to do the same.
And so I find an unlikely comradeship in this serpentine woman. I tell her that I am desperately in love with someone that I can never have. Like a floodgate opening, the confessions come pouring out: that there is another woman who clearly wants him, and that I loathe myself for my jealousy. That physical beauty has never been an attribute of mine, and that my bass playing is all I’ve got. The shots keep appearing on the table in front of us, and I keep sipping without thinking. Still, I am careful to name no names. Since I play roughly two hundred gigs a year with all sorts of bands, these subjects could be anyone. I’m not even letting on that these other people could even be musicians.
“Sweetheart … why are you so tough on yourself? You tear yourself down as if expecting someone to pick you back up.” Or before anyone else can beat me to it—like I did to my innocence, I think to myself.
“It’s nice to be raised up, but the effect isn’t permanent unless you can do it for yourself,” she continues, sniffing avidly. She raises her glass in salute and I take another nervous sip. The room lurches a bit—I have to drink more slowly. “I’m probably thinking too much about an old boyfriend.” I elucidate. “He used to remind me that I’m not exactly glamour girl material, let’s just put it that way. But I think he’s in Vancouver now.”
“Vancouver? Are you sure? How long ago did you hear this? If he’s that far away, then what are you afraid of?”
I wonder if she even knows about this mysterious threat to shifter existence. If drugs are dulling her senses, she could be in even greater danger than those of us trying to remain vigilant. “I’m afraid of a lot of things, Naj! Aren’t you?” This question is loaded; I want to see if she brings up the topic, but stress and frustration get the better of me, and I begin to feel choked up.
I turn my face away and she takes my hand. “You have to build yourself up, Buzz. Those hurtful events aren’t happening anymore. It’s hard to just let go, but you can imagine it in your rear-view mirror. Try visualizing a gossamer bridge from the old to the new. You can cross it if you really want to heal.” I manage a smile, weak but genuine, and her sweet face blossoms into warmth. “You’re such a great musician. You are a true asset to this band. And you have a following because you’re not only talented, but you’re attractive. If I could have a girl crush, it would be on you.”
Attractive? Me? This is getting strange, even in my intoxicated state.
A slight ripple in the lycan energy—a tiny warning breeze before a storm—sends a tremor down my spine. I glance at my pack phone, but there are no missed calls. Naj raises her brows but says nothing. My lips feel numb, so there’s no way I can drive in this condition. It’s tempting to text Raúl or Teddy asking them to give me a lift home, but I don’t want to raise their concerns. So I message them that all is well, but that I will need a lift to my car in the morning.
By the time I stagger out of La Balcone, I am both lonely and disgusted with myself for allowing myself to get this wasted. Naj ends up driving me to my apartment, seeing me safely inside.
After guzzling a pint of water I lift my eye to the peephole and jump at the sight of Naj still standing in my driveway, examining my house. A ward flares from my energy field, and her brow furrows. She turns, glides back to her car, and her vehicle makes a slow retreat into the night.
CHAPTER
6
BACKWARD MASKING
Journal entry, June 14th: I have become too wrapped up in productivity to notice how beautiful the moon is. I have become too strangled by sorrow to swallow the nectar of the gods. I have become too laden with earthly things to see heaven at the bottom of my coffee cup. If I’m not careful, I’ll become one with humanity at last.
As Max said, “Let the wild rumpus start …”
Teddy is trying to quit swearing. He believes that purifying his words will help to improve his energies. I don’t know if this is possible. All I know is that it’s the funniest thing I have borne witness to in ages, and in the haven of his apartment I am more than happy to have something to take my mind off of my misery. As he catches his toe against the bookcase, he hops up and down, trying to make his expletives as nonsensical as Yosemite Sam: “Gragg fragga nagga nargle krikey narpets!!”
I am just about to ask him what “narpets” are, when he scowls at my amusement and hands me a couple of gilded tickets to some event I have never heard of: The Crescent City Shifters’ Ball. “Rowan wants us to be there. I have to do a lot of social networking for Howlapalooza, and this will be one hell of an education for you as well.”
I know this is going to open a discussion, but first Teddy hobbles into the kitchen for his favorite remedy: a beer. The stereo kicks on with the live Shaki tra
ck “Joy,” and we sit in awe of the musicianship of John McLaughlin and company. After about ten minutes of listening spellbound, we both feel like hurting ourselves and never touching our instruments again.
I’m not certain that the idea of a public event appeals to me, so I study the tickets for a long time before asking, “Shifters’ Ball? How many different kinds of shifters are there?”
Teddy shrugs. “I don’t think anyone will ever truly know. It really depends on what is defined by shifting. Some believe that it must be fully corporeal. Others, such as shamans, believe that it isn’t something innate, but rather something a person ‘puts on,’ just as the wearing of wolf skins or bearskins in traditions ranging from First Nations to Asatrú. Whether a person transmogrifies literally or on some astral plane, it is widely accepted that both kinds of change are genuine.”
“But a ball? Isn’t that a really risky event? Especially with all these attacks on our kind?”
He tilts his head, weighing my question. “No more risky than any gathering for people who were persecuted over the ages,” he finally assures me. “Look here’s the main reason we need to go: I need to show my face to some bigwigs, and there are some people you really need to meet. We have to form alliances at any cost. Plus, it is officially a masquerade ball. Anything anyone sees may or may not be real. Werewolves are the most celebrated among shifters. Part of the reason that we are so successful is our ability to harness the power of sound. We have made our presence known to the outside world and have still managed to survive. Granted, it was due to the foolishness of some of our kind, and most of us would have preferred to remain a mystery. But what’s done is done, and we have ended up with the reputation of being the most fearless. In short, we are the rock stars of the shifters’ world. We have not only survived, but also flaunted it. We are the only ones who can transmit our powers through bite. And some shifters are envious of us because the ultimate success is survival, not just in our lineage, but also in our legacy: the books, movies, gaming, anime, and so on. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right in print, you know. Any records that you cut are slices of that immortality.
“What makes lycans such excellent survivors is that we are a blend of two gregarious, tribal-based species. It’s harder to find a balance between natures in blended beings if a person is of solitary nature but his animal counterpart is social, or vice versa. Even lycans can sometimes be tortured souls if both parts are not honored, as you can read in Herman Hesse’s allegorical Steppenwolf, specifically The Treatise on the Steppenwolf: the two natures are at war with each other. Remaining unsocialized is bad for the spirit, and mingling with other shifters helps us to remain sane in a world that is even more protean than ourselves. Besides, any outsider who tries to report a spectacle like this would only have his sanity questioned. Fiction and horror movies are the best things that have ever happened to us.”
More hiding in plain sight. A little light bulb goes on. “If hints of our various and sundry kind are ‘exposed’ from time to time, people get accustomed to the idea, and it gets passed off as a costume party …”
He flashes his teeth. “Bingo. So it’s going to be held at the extra space behind Arnaud’s in the Quarter next week. How about if I pick you up earlier that day and you can change here, then crash on my couch afterward? That way you won’t have to worry about parking, or even crossing Bourbon. And yes, my couch has been all but sterilized since the Maestro slept on it!”
I chortle in remembrance, but something else is bothering me. “Isn’t whoever out to get us going to try to get into this thing? What if these tickets fall into the wrong hands?”
Again the shrug. “I don’t think these tickets are for anything but show. Just anyone can’t get in there, ticket or not. The security is very surreptitious but thorough, and there are covert operations to keep an eye on everything. SIN agents are supposed to be attending this thing, and even some of the NOPD are rumored to be working for SIN—the shifter cops, anyway. This also might be a way to bait our enemy. But guess what? There will be free food, free music, and free beer!”
Sylvia doesn’t return from Guatemala for another three days, so there’s no way I can ask what she thinks about this. “Wouldn’t you rather ask some glamour girl to escort you?” I half-tease Teddy, stalling for more time. I’ve never sensed any sexual tension from him, but as long as I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him with a girlfriend. As the words escape my mouth, I realize that now I’m slightly curious as to why.
“Alas, my heart’s desire is unattainable,” he half-teases back. “Marilyn Monroe only consorted with the rich and famous.”
“Eeee-yewww, she’s dead, you sicko!” I pretend to cringe, cuffing him on the shoulder. If he doesn’t want to tell the truth, then it’s really none of my business.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. So …” My packmate looks me in the eye, flashing his signature infectious grin. “Do you want to check this out? I think it’s important for your training.”
Part of me wants to just curl up and shut the rest of the world out, but the wild part of me cannot resist. “All right, I’ll go.”
Thumping me affectionately on the back, he makes a quick dash to his fridge. He hands me a can of NOLA Blonde, cracks one open for himself, and we listen to some old recordings of The Who while sipping, gossiping, and analyzing John Enwistle’s bass playing. Before I leave we each try to say “Boris the spider” through a single belch. Teddy manages effortlessly but I am laughing too hard to produce more than a gurgle, snarfing the bubbles instead.
Sometimes I truly enjoy being one of the guys.
Where is my pack? What am I doing out here on the steppes all alone? I don’t even have a body, so I have no way of knowing if I am in human form or lupine form. If I am being this analytical, perhaps I am human. But some wild undercurrent is telling me to run, and I don’t even choose a direction, for it doesn’t even matter. There’s just an energy current that I join. No awareness of ground beneath me; all I sense is speed of the most exhilarating sort.
If only my pack could be experiencing this with me. Nonetheless an ineffable sense of profound oneness overtakes me. There is no separation: not from my pack and not from any other souls I know. Not even from the stag I spy grazing twenty paces away.
It doesn’t seem unusual in my mind’s eye to watch a fourteen-point bull elk glittering like jewels, and smelling like fine wine and deep craving. This creature is made of money, power, food, sex, and music. And it’s been expecting me. It lifts its head placidly, gazing into my eyes with a preternatural intelligence before bolting across the steppes so swiftly I barely have time to register its direction.
There is no way that I can not give chase. There is no fear of failure, no desperation. There is only motion and desire. It’s such a glorious expansion that I wish would never end. I have no legs, but I am the rhythm of padded footfalls. I have no breath, but I am the melody of the wind over the earth and the howl. I have no ears, but there is a bell-like ringing, the chorus of angels and animals–or perhaps they are one and the same—calling to be fed. Shapeshifting angel-beasts, echoing every genius riff ever played and long forgotten, lost chord patterns and lyrics, and torn shreds of songs that every musician hears in dreams thinks that he or she will have no trouble remembering upon waking. My world shrinks to a pinpoint focus on the stag. I am he and he is me, but I am gradually gaining. I must catch this thing. All of those riches could be mine.
Just as I spring for that shimmering throat, my fangs slash empty air. My body jolts hard in my bed upon waking as if I have fallen from my leap into consciousness from a physical height.
Some say that dreams don’t lie. Some say that they are your brain sorting out all of the garbage it doesn’t need and filing away all the important information into storage. Some say that they are divine messages, or at the very least the subconscious trying to tell you something important. I would like to think that whatever this i
s, it’s due to last night’s spring rolls before bedtime. But the mysticism and symbolism gnaw at the back of my mind all day as I try in vain to figure out what my dream means.
I thought I was familiar with the banquet room of Arnaud’s until entering just now. Like Where the Wild Things Are, the ballroom has completely transformed into a forest. I recognize a little bit of familiar architecture now and then: brick walls and elegantly arched doorways. But the ivy creeping up walls and grape vines wound around beams lead me to believe that this is some alternate dimension untouched by the business of the mundane. The trees and painted sky give the illusion of limitless space in this building. Somehow even the stars are twinkling. The security guards wearing cheap rubber horse masks at the front door had obviously intended for the revelers to let our guard down and be dazzled upon entering this enhanced reality.
I don’t know which conceals my identity more: the elaborate jaguar mask that Teddy has helped me choose or the sexy low-cut gown I had to wear once for a wedding. With my face concealed and my hair flowing freely, I feel almost beautiful. I hadn’t realized until tonight that I don’t even own a proper handbag, since it’s been years since I’ve been on a real date. At the last minute I finally had emptied a microphone bag, hoping that if no one sees HEIL SOUND on it, the accessory might pass for a clutch purse.
Teddy, good-natured as always about his appearance, sports a half mask of a long-beaked water bird that accentuates his prominent chin and wears a New Orleans Pelicans basketball jersey over his tuxedo to heighten the comedic effect. Some people will be attending half-changed in their natural forms, and some like us will keep the rest of the event guessing. This is a bluffing game in which the stakes are high, but no one can resist playing.
The Wild Harmonic Page 17
