by S. K Munt
‘There’s got to be a way in…’ he muttered, pulling her around the other dejected fans who were lining the thick concrete walls of the hotel. ‘Something no one else has thought of…’
Hunter was onstage right then- the highest walls couldn’t keep his soulful, rock timbre contained, and Leigh began to hum along to ‘Walk Into My World’ as it ricocheted off the low dark sky. She squeezed Ryan’s hand as they rounded the corner- and ended up staring down the sidewalk at another long, and monstrously high concrete perimeter. People were clustered everywhere, looking up at the lights bouncing off the sky with wistful reverence, and Leigh was okay with being one of them.
‘From what I heard, he’s only doing the one set anyway, hon,’ she said as they bypassed the guarded entrance to the underground car park. ‘By the time we get in there, it’ll probably be over.’ She bounced her hip against his and pressed her nose to her glass flower, pretending to smell it like a coy, seventeenth century noblewoman being courted. ‘And for the record, I don’t doubt your ability to get us in there.’
Ryan grinned at her. ‘Would you say that you’re forgiving, by nature?’
Leigh stared at him, confused. ‘Um… depends on the nature of the offense.’
‘Okay, then I’ll guess we’ll see.’ Right then, Ryan tugged his hand from hers and swerved towards the car park entrance, looking annoyed. ‘Don’t give me any fucking shit about all of your damned responsibilities!’ he snapped, shooting her a venomous look that stole her breath. ‘Do you know how many replacement room-keys I’ve had to shell out for since the start of this fucking honeymoon from hell? You cost me more than the wedding in fines, woman!’
Leigh’s mouth fell open. ‘Ryan what the-’
‘Excuse me sir!’ The security guard shot across to block Ryan’s path, giving Leigh a nervous look over Ryan’s shoulder. ‘We can’t allow anybody to come down here on foot-’
‘Well surprise fucking surprise! The guard at the door tells me I can’t get to my fucking room via the lobby doors, because you know, this is the hotel from hell! And now I go where he tells me and apparently, I’m not allowed in here either!’ Ryan swerved back to Leigh. ‘See where you and your handbag get us? As soon as we get back to the room, we’re dumping the cursed thing upside-down and shaking seven room keys out!’ He turned back to the guard and pointed to his radio. ‘If you’re not going to let me get to my fucking car until this ponce has cleared the building, you better pull that out and radio the manager, because I have a list of complaints I’m gonna jam up his-’
‘Just go down sir!’ The security guard, a guy about their age, had turned ashen beneath the brim of his official hat. He stepped to the side and waved them room, giving Leigh a: ‘You can keep that shit for yourself’ look that almost made her laugh out loud.
‘Gee, thanks buddy!’ Ryan sounded so sarcastic he could have been Garfield. ‘Come on love- let’s go find somewhere to park and get my money’s worth in the backseat of our car.’ Ryan patted the guy’s shoulder as he waltzed past, and clicked his fingers in the air, as a gesture for Leigh to follow like a damned Corgi. She bent her head and hastened after him, making a big deal of waving her hands and teetering on her heels, once again playing the role as Vegas wife and bimbette perfectly.
‘Thank you!’ she whispered to the guard as she followed back, pouting. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine Miss uh… enjoy your stay,’ the man said, turning away from her like merely making eye contact would get him rolled by her aggravated husband.
The car park was shadowy and the clicking of her heels as she stumbled down the concrete incline was just loud enough to be heard over the boom of Hunter Marks’ voice from above. By the time the ground flattened out, she was panting from the impromptu cardio, and therefore, her gasp of surprise when Ryan reached out from behind a pillar and snatched her up into his embrace was barely audible.
‘Am I forgiven?’ he whispered, panting a trail down her neck, moving his moist lips against her in heated patterns that she felt in her tummy. She nodded, groaning as her lust for him immediately eclipsed her residual shock and amusement. ‘How was that?’
‘I almost widdled on the floor,’ she whispered, and Ryan threw his head back and laughed again. ‘That was way better than me and the fake Canadian receptionist thing. That poor guard’s going to be looking over his shoulder for you all night!’
The underground car park was cavernous and deadly silent, probably because anybody lucky enough to have a room at the hotel had opted to stay in and enjoy the celebrity in their midst, so when a crack of thunder sounded, Leigh almost jumped clear out of her skin, but Ryan held her tight against his pounding heart, and she didn’t care if it was her he was comforting, or a memory of someone else- because all that mattered was that she was in his arms.
It was dark, save for a pool of light shining a few hundred feet down from above, where the car park opened to the sky, and Ryan turned and led her from the darkness towards that light- extending his hand to it when the light became silvery and tactile. ‘It’s starting to rain,’ he whispered, and Leigh nodded, her heart skipping a beat when the music drifted from the last song, into the unmistakable opening bars of ‘Melody’ and she wondered if the gods truly were testing them.
‘Ryan...’ she whispered, fear for him and for her poor, vulnerable heart making her pull him back toward her and away from the ballad. ‘We can go. We can save this fantasy for when you are the one on the stage, and I’ll be just as happy.’
But Ryan did not budge. He pivoted back to face her, walking right into the rain, and beckoning to her with one finger. His smile was nervous, but his lips moved anyway, and his voice filled her heart.
‘...Come to me… I live and breathe… our chemistry…’
Leigh held her breath and his hand, allowing him to pull her into the rain. She gasped when it hit her skin, and she was so flushed from lust and the downhill jog and the rush of being so close to a superstar, that she could have sworn that her skin sizzled where every drop fell.
‘… You never dream…’ Ryan pulled her against his already sodden chest, and began to sway her. ‘You spend your sleeping hours, haunting me.’
Leigh swooned- actually swooned, and Ryan’s arms wrapped tightly around her. The rain fell, and his lips brushed against hers as he spoke the bridge: ‘You’ll never know your hold on me, Honey. Never.’ And then he was kissing her, spinning her in slow circles beneath the weeping desert sky, and Leigh felt a sob rumble through her chest in time with the thunder above.
‘I love you,’ she whispered into his kiss, cupping his face and wondering if rain on a wedding day really was an incredibly good omen. She sure felt lucky in that moment, and Ryan wet was a glorious sight to behold. All her misgivings melted away and then she was just melting and Ryan was scooping her off her feet and swinging her to the slow ballad. It was just them in the world- her and her soul mate.
‘Mum this isn’t fair!’ A piteous voice exclaimed suddenly, so shrill in the car park that it killed Leigh’s ears and severed the intimacy of the moment like a wire through a cloud. ‘You KNOW this is my favorite song! I’m not the Wicked Witch Of the West, you know- a little rain, isn’t going to melt me!’
‘No, but a little rain near a bunch of speaker wires can do an awful lot of damage, even if you’re convinced that you’re indestructible!’ a more gentle voice responded, rich with amusement. ‘Besides, you’ve heard Hunter do this what, twelve times live since we got married? I’m sure you’ll survive missing this one performance.’
‘Easy for you to say, being centuries old and all! I’ll die if I don’t hear this all the way to the end, every time!’ The little girl, completely oblivious to Leigh and Ryan, ran out into the centre of the open space, and the mother’s derisive snort could be heard from where Leigh stood, wet and trembling.
‘Death by song… now that’s a familiar tune…’
The little girl, who had dark hair and was wearing a pretty pink dress w
ith blue sequins, opened her arms to the sky, ignoring her mother. ‘This is almost my favorite part!’
‘Centuries old?’ Leigh whispered to Ryan, giggling. ‘Gee can’t wait until I have a darling daughter say that to me.’ She glanced toward the left, where the woman had rested against a stretch Hummer, and was wringing out her long dark hair and watching her daughter from a safe, dry distance. ‘Hang on…. Did she just say since she married Hunter?’
‘I think she did,’ Ryan whispered, sounding as awed as her. ‘You think that’s…?’
‘Melody Marks,’ Leigh whispered, pressing her hand to his chest. ‘Hunter married his new agent a month ago, and it made a huge splash because her name is Melody, like in the song! Oh my god…do you think that’s her?’
But the little girl began to sing before Ryan could answer. ‘A guitar without strings is an angel without wings…’ she twirled, her arms open as though to embrace the rain, and her voice was so strong and so melodic that shivers raced up Leigh’s spine. ‘And without you I will always be…. a sad and broken love song… with no Melody!’ She giggled, turning to her mother and pointing. ‘Melody…he he he!’
‘Very funny...’ the woman drawled, stepping out into the light and glancing their way. ‘But can you behave with a little decorum, darling? We have company.’ The woman hugged herself and called out: ‘Sorry guys… do you need her to move so you can get your car out?’
Beside her, Ryan sucked in a breath. ‘Holy shit…’
It is her! Oh My God!
‘N-no… she’s fine w-were…’ Leigh was so star-struck she could barely think. The woman was in the light now and it was clear from her slick leather jeans, ample curves and absolutely glorious face, that she was the woman who’d been splashed over the covers of hundreds of magazines a few months before when she’d married Hunter Marks, despite her best efforts to avoid the paparazzi at all costs. Maybe she wasn’t a celebrity in the way her husband was- but if she’d made a quick retreat to the car park, did that mean that Hunter would soon follow? Leigh gripped Ryan more tightly, but he stepped away from Leigh, approaching the woman slowly.
Ohkayyy….
‘I know you,’ he said, his voice low, but Leigh was tuned into most of his chords by then, and recognized this one as auspicious. She gaped at her new husband, wondering if he was cracked for walking up to a minor celebrity in a car park with her child in close proximity. Bodyguards were probably going to descend from the rafters on wires and take him out if he got too close! She wanted to snatch him back, but the little girl was singing again and Leigh’s eyes swept over to her, her head feeling fuzzy.
Her voice is wonderful… she’ll be a star too, just like her new step-father...
‘You do?’ the woman sounded nervous, but Leigh couldn’t look at her to confirm if she was hitting a silent panic button. ‘Oh… from where?’
‘… If you choose him I will… cease to breathe…’ the little girl sang, but as she finished a slow rotation and saw the man approaching her mother, her arms fell to her sides limply, breaking whatever thrall Leigh had been under.
‘From…’ Ryan’s voice faltered and Leigh spun seeing the woman step forward with a hand pressed to her heart.
‘Oh my god…’ the woman’s hand swept up to her mouth and the other folded over it as though she couldn’t keep her shock inside. ‘Oh my god… no… no!’ Her hands slid up the sides of her face, pulling on her long, sodden hair. ‘Ryan?!’
A high-pitched humming noise spiked between Leigh’s ears and she clapped her own hands against them, cringing as her body went into shock of discovery- a discovery that her mind and her heart had not yet processed. The glass rose felt like an icy scepter in her fist, and the tears forming in her eyes were as equally frigid, and just as sharp as shards of glass.
‘Mummy? Mummy what’s the matter?!’ The little girl began to hurry over. ‘Who is that?’
But the woman’s eyes did not leave Ryan and she rushed forward, hugging herself as though she would fall apart if she let go. ‘You were dead!’ she gasped. ‘Oh my darling! I’ve prayed for this! I’ve-’
And then Ryan fell to his knees in front of another woman and let out a bellow, wrapping his hands around his head and bowing as though under the pressure of the rain. But it wasn’t the rain that had her sweet, happy, playful husband falling apart- it was the woman in front of him; the woman who Leigh could now see had big, brown eyes that were shining with undiluted love.
His Brown-Eyed-Girl…
Agony ripped through Leigh’s insides and she clutched at her stomach with one hand and her heart with the other, wanting to rip them out of her so they wouldn’t burn so hotly. Sobbing, the woman collapsed around Ryan and pressed her lips to his head, kissing him madly. ‘You’re alive! I don’t know how but you’re alive!’ They were a tangle of wet silk and black leather and Leigh glanced down at her frilly, romantic dress and her sparkling shoes and understood that she’d definitely hijacked the wrong love story.
‘Melody…’ Ryan sobbed to the ground. ‘I should have known! And… and the voice of an angel-’ he twisted and the little girl froze on the spot. Leigh watched her worst fears come true while heart-broken tears slipped silently down her cheeks. ‘I remember!’ He wrenched his gaze back to Melody. ‘My soul-mate…’ he croaked, reaching up and touching her hair. ‘My destiny.’
The words knocked the life out of Leigh, but Melody Marks were the lethal ones. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and then turned to the little girl. ‘And this is your daughter.’
Rya froze and in the light, Leigh saw that eyes as blue as diamonds swirled like the lightning was trapped within them. She pressed her own tiny hands to her chest and approached Leigh’s world with tentative steps. ‘Daddy?’ she whispered. ‘Really?’
The little family hugged one another and began to cry, and Leigh knew that lightning could break through the opening above them and they wouldn’t notice- just as they wouldn’t notice her leave. Pressing her hand to her mouth to keep the tears inside, Honey turned and ran out of the car park, like a broken heart was something that could be out-run, dropping the rose as she ran, which shattered like so many broken promises.
Ryan
The memories came back to Ryan hard and fast filling every cell inside him with the recollection of century-old emotions and experiences, gains and losses- melodies and turned pages, but it was the shattering of glass that penetrated through and no sooner had he realised that his name truly was his name, then he remembered that he’d given it to someone else, and she wasn’t holding his hand when he needed to cling to her more than he’d ever needed to hold tightly to anyone. He spun and cried out when he saw her silver shoes sparkling in the muted light- she was leaving! Not just leaving, but running! And she’d left his heart shattered on the ground behind her. Fear closed around his now hollow chest with icy talons.
‘Oh my god, Honey NO!’ Ryan pushed Calliope’s grasping arms off his wet sleeves and though she also cried out, demanding to know what was wrong and who was that, but he had no time to explain that his reason for living was running away from him. And of course she was running! Rya had called him daddy! And he’d referred to Callie as…
My soul-mate! My destiny! I called another woman such things in front of my new wife! Oh my god!
The urge to vomit, something Ryan rarely encountered, made his stomach roll as he flew over the broken rose and towards the street. He saw Leigh reach the top and he put on a burst of speed.
‘Honey! Honey, wait baby!’ He ascended onto the street level, pushing the security guard out of his way when he tried to intercept.
‘Sir, if your wife needs a minute-’
‘Get out of my way!’ Ryan grunted and almost lost his footing on the sidewalk. ‘Honey!’
Leigh was only ten feet away from him, and when she whirled to his voice, she looked so broken that Ryan could have died on the spot. ‘You don’t have to-’ her voice broke off as it was threaded apart by the wind. She shook h
er head and turned away. ‘Just let me go, Ryan…’ she hugged herself and backed away from him. ‘You have a family. I-’ she dropped her face into her hands and shook it, her little shoulders wrenching from the strength of her sobs. He ran toward her and got close enough just in time to hear: ‘I knew it was too good to be true…’ before she spun around, stepped onto the street- and right into the path of an oncoming car.
Ryan screamed, but he didn’t even know if he made a sound. Leigh was lit up like an angel by headlights as she stumbled in her dainty heels, from behind him someone else screamed- but just as he reached out for her, everything went black.
And then there was nothingness.
SIXTEEN
Mount Helicon
He came to in what had always been Calliope’s version of Helicon- clear blue skies, fluffy clouds, emerald grass and a stream not deep enough to warrant its opalescent hue, and Ryan was so annoyed to be reminded of how tightly linked her and his ‘soul mate’ were that he ripped out a handful of grass and threw it, letting out a frustrated moan of aggravation.
This place was NEVER mine!
It was all coming back too fast- too clearly. Thousands of years worth of data being wedged into his very being, but while his very being was already chocked full of panic at the memory of seeing his sweetheart being run down by a car. He staggered to his feet and towards the lake, knowing that he needed to get back to Honey, but as he stepped into the lukewarm and silken water, he realised that he didn’t have the faintest clue as to how. As Calliope’s non-corporeal other half, he’d spent most of time existing there, without ever truly existing. Walking on grass he couldn’t feel, and lying beneath a sun that had never penetrated his skin…. He’d been trapped, and only when he’d begged to be made a mortal, had he been able to leave.
But he didn’t remember how. One moment, he’d been begging Memoria, as Ardos, to send him back and the next, he was in a shed during a cyclone in a body he didn’t know as Ardos, but inhabiting the mind of someone who did know the body of Ryan Weaver. He’d come into that world as an infant demi-god… so how the hell was he supposed to go back, as an adult mortal? He’d seen the muses come and go by dozens of means- stepping into the water and vanishing from sight, vaulting off the edge of the sharp, cloud framed precipice surrounding the sacred land, and sometimes, they merely disintegrated into the air around them!
