Compact with the Devil: A Novel

by Bethany Maines

  Trista made a helpless whimpering noise, her fingers clenching and unclenching in fists at her sides, but she was apparently frozen otherwise.

  “Hey!” yelled Nikki to the technician. Donut Eater was talking on the phone as he poked underneath a panel. “The platform’s tilting; get it down now!”

  “Tilting,” he repeated, sitting up and looking at her seriously. “That’s not a funny joke.” He surveyed his array and shook his head. “No, that would cause an alarm on my board. See, no alarm.”

  Nikki spun the monitor around and shoved it at him.

  “Tilting!” she yelled, and the technician went white, beads of sweat suddenly standing out on his forehead. Nikki looked down to the floor, then picked up a coiled piece of cord and jammed it into the empty slot on the board. The board lit up in a blinking cascade of red.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” yelped Donut Eater, and began thumbing controls in a rapid-fire sequence.

  “Get it down!” yelled Nikki. “There are people up there.”

  “Jonesy, Jonesy, kill the goddamn pyros!” he yelled into his headset. Crewmen were running upstairs toward the stage. “Jesus, Jesus.” Donut Eater prayed some more. He stood and was yanked back into his seat by his headset. “It won’t come down!” Donut Eater shouted in terror at Nikki as he fought the headset.

  “Why not?”

  The technician scanned the octopus of black wires and air compressors.

  “It’s jammed!” he yelled, and Trista moaned in horror, still frozen in place, covering her hands with her mouth. Nikki followed his pointing finger, tracing cords up the riser where a wrench, locked around one of the air tubes, had literally been stuck into the works. At a certain height the wrench had pinched the hose, cutting off power to the piston that pushed the telescoping arms of the stage mechanism into the air.

  Nikki sighed in exasperation. This was not her night. Taking a deep breath, she ran toward the scaffolding, climbing hand over hand until she reached the level of the wrench. Extending her arm, she found the wrench just out of her reach. She took a long look at the grease-covered arm and then jumped. Grabbing the wrench, she slid down until her feet connected with the next section of the piston. She felt her shirt pull up and winced in disgust as she felt grease cover her skin. The floor was less than six feet away, so she jumped, landing in a low crouch and covered in a black film of grease. She stayed there a minute, panting, as the ragged edge of adrenaline started to take its toll.

  Donut Eater was already pushing buttons as she landed, and, with a sucking noise from the compressors, the platform righted itself and began to descend. Nikki watched anxiously as the platform sank down into resting position. The bodyguard had made it through the flames mostly unharmed—his mustache looked a little singed. He had one beefy arm hooked around Kit and the other holding the guitarist by the belt. The bassist and the keyboard player had their arms wrapped around the firmly anchored keyboard and Burg, the drummer, had a white-knuckled grip on his snare drum. As the stage touched down, no one moved for a long second.

  “Bloody hell,” muttered the bassist, standing swiftly and walking shakily to the edge of the stage. Nikki reached up a hand to help her down, but she shook her head.

  “Help Hammond,” she said, gesturing to the keyboard player. “He’s afraid of heights.”

  “Holly, Holly,” whispered Hammond, “don’t leave me.”

  “Here,” said Nikki, extending a hand. He crawled to her as if not wanting to remove more than one limb from the ground at a time. The bodyguard lifted Kit and the guitarist to their feet and then began to stalk toward the stage technician.

  “What the hell did you do?” bellowed Duncan. Behind him, Kit and the guitarist clung together.

  “Duncan,” squealed Trista, but whether in protest or fear Nikki couldn’t tell.

  “Oi! It wasn’t me!” shouted the technician. “Some cowboy’s been messing with the machinery!”

  The keyboardist was still on all fours and the bassist was patting him on the back, murmuring encouraging things. The drummer finally lurched off the stage and stumbled toward the pair. Kit grabbed him as he went by, looking him over as if for damage.

  “Hey now,” said a smooth voice. “What’s going on?”

  “Brandt Dettling,” roared Duncan, “what the hell kind of show are you running?”

  They all turned to look at the new arrival, and Nikki recognized him as the man she had seen talking to the groupie. Nikki eyeballed the suit and estimated a designer label and a designer price tag. At the moment Brandt’s square face and hazel eyes were set in an expression of determined patience, but there was a strong suggestion of clenched teeth in the muscles along his jawline. Behind Brandt, a white-faced Angela clutched her clipboard to her chest as though it were armor.

  “You tell me!” Brandt yelled back. “What the hell is all this? What’s everyone doing down here? We’ve got a show to do!”

  “To hell with the show!” said Kit, shaking himself loose from the group hug the band had melded into. “I’m not going back out there!”

  “The stage malfunctioned,” explained the bassist, still comforting the keyboardist. “We all could have fallen to our deaths.”

  Brandt surveyed the scared faces as if assessing how far he could push them.

  “Look, I know it was scary. We’ll fire the stage guy. You”—he pointed at the technician—“you’re fired. Now, we’ll send the instruments back up and you all can go up through the stairs,” said Brandt soothingly.

  “Like hell we will!” yelled Kit.

  “Kit, you have to do over half the scheduled show time or we have to pay a default to the venue.”

  Next to her, Trista gulped audibly. Nikki glanced over and saw that the older woman looked genuinely scared, but whether it was of Brandt or of the idea of defaulting on a venue, Nikki couldn’t tell.

  “Screw the venue!” said Kit savagely. “I’m not going back out there, and neither is anyone else!” Kit glanced around, gathering the band to him with a look.

  “Kit, you can’t do this,” said Brandt desperately. “Just do one more song, say good night, and then we’ll go.”

  “No, Brandt. No.”

  “Yes, Kit,” answered Brandt. Kit gazed into Brandt’s eyes and this time he didn’t flinch.

  “He did an extra song,” said Nikki into the silence, tossing her words like stones. “Before the break. He did an extra song. That ought to put him over the halfway mark.”

  “Right,” said Kit, looking at Nikki in surprise. “I sang my extra song and we’re going.”

  “The bus is this way,” growled Duncan. Kit fell into step after Duncan, gathering the band to him with a look. They closed in around Kit like a human wall and they walked without talking, as if getting to the bus were more important than whatever anyone had to say. Angela trailed after them protesting in sputtering half sentences, but after a few feet she gave up, stymied by the wall, unable to gain access. Nikki looked back over her shoulder and saw the controlled and regimented woman stomp her foot in childish anger.

  The group proceeded forward, crossing the gray concrete floor, hurrying as they felt the first chill sting of outside air.

  The groupie was there waiting for them by the backstage door, her blond hair swinging in the breeze. Her miniskirt if anything looked shorter than the first time Nikki had seen it. Nikki squinted in dislike; she’d thought Brandt had escorted her out, but apparently she’d come back in.

  “Hello,” she called out to Kit with only the faintest trace of a German accent.

  Kit stopped. He was still shirtless, draped in the red feather boa, tattoos exposed, still reeking of adrenaline and fear. A few floating feathers had glued themselves to his skin; his eyeliner was sweat smudged and his leather pants seemed molded to his legs. Energy crackled off him like electricity. He was as hot as she was cool.

  They stared at each other until the air between them sizzled like water on a hot burner.

  “Hi,” he answered. H
e took off the feathered boa and tossed it around her neck, catching the ends and drawing her close. And just like that the deal was closed. As if the girl’s voice had been a trumpet call, the wall fell apart. Stances altered, eyes lost their single-minded focus. The drummer gave an all-over body twitch. They had gone from being a single entity to a cluster of individuals. The groupie didn’t appear to notice the change in atmosphere; she was running her hands over Kit’s chest. Nikki blinked. Talk about turbo-slut.

  “Say good night, everyone,” said Kit, looking around with a faint smirk. “Elvis has left the building.”

  GERMANY IV

  Honest, I Swear

  “You’d better come with us,” said Trista as the band disembarked from the tour bus.

  “You’re going to need some new clothes,” said the bass player, following Trista and Nikki.

  “Yeah,” said Nikki, looking around, wishing Astriz would magically appear with her luggage. The grease from the stage was starting to permeate her pores. She felt like an oil slick. “I don’t think I have any.”

  “We’ll dig you up some,” said the bass player. “I’m Holly, by the way. Thanks for saving our lives.”

  “Sure, no problem,” said Nikki awkwardly, uncomfortable with being thanked.

  “Sorry about Brandt and all the shouting,” said Holly as Trista unlocked a hotel room.

  “Brandt?” said Nikki, and Holly grimaced.

  “Man in the suit. The one who pulls all our strings,” said Holly bitterly.

  “What do you need in the way of clothes?” asked Trista, interrupting.

  “Whatever I can get?” said Nikki, looking in dismay at her grease-covered clothing.

  “I’m sure Holly can lend you something,” said Trista. She looked hopefully at Holly, who snorted in derision.

  “Not likely. She’d be swimming in all of my kit. What are you, a size zero?”

  “Do I look like a fourteen-year-old? I usually run a two or a four.”

  “Same difference from where I’m standing,” said Holly. “I’ll check with the backup dancers and see what they’ve got.”

  “Is there anything else you need?” asked Trista as Holly left the room.

  “Just some privacy,” said Nikki, holding up Trista’s phone. “Sorry,” she added.

  She really needed to get a replacement phone ASAP. “As soon as I get in touch with the German agent, we’ll make a plan,” said Nikki reassuringly, flipping open the phone.

  Trista nodded, looking as if she wanted to stay but knowing that she shouldn’t. “I’ll just go check on Holly,” she said with enforced cheerfulness, bustling from the room.

  Nikki found the recently dialed numbers and redialed Astriz as she looked around.

  Trista was organized and tidy, as befitted a former Carrie Mae lady. Baggage kept to a minimum, equipment laid out within easy reach. A hair had even been placed across the latch on Trista’s bag; should anyone search it, the hair would be disturbed and reveal the intrusion. Nikki pondered the implications of this as the phone rang. Either being a Carrie Mae agent had left Trista with an ingrained mistrust of all other human beings or she had reason to suspect that someone might search her bag.

  The phone went to voice mail and dejectedly, Nikki left another message. Chances were good that Astriz had no intention of returning her calls or in fact returning for her at all.

  There was a knock on the door, and then it popped open to reveal Holly.

  “I cadged some stuff off the backup girls.”

  “Thanks,” said Nikki.

  “Got tights and tunic.” Holly held up a pair of black, footless tights and a blue smock-type shirt with a green geometric pattern.

  “No jeans?” said Nikki weakly.

  “Sorry,” said Holly sympathetically. “They all wander around in shite like this and Ugg boots. It’s what they had. Your shoes were pretty trashed too, so I got you some replacements.”

  “Not Ugg boots?” said Nikki, fearing the worst.

  Holly laughed. “No, I doubt I could pry an Ugg boot out of their skinny little fingers if I tried. Reject shoes, I’m afraid.” She pulled out a pair of what to Nikki looked like wrestling boots—flat soled and reaching midcalf, they were lace-up and electric green.

  “Oh God,” said Nikki, horrified. “I’m going to look like Madonna circa 1984.”

  “Don’t you know?” asked Holly. “The eighties are back. It’s, uh … very Kanye.”

  “But I don’t even like Kanye West,” muttered Nikki woefully, and reached for the clothes with a sigh. Beggars could not be choosers. The smock at least had long sleeves and might be slightly warmer than her tank-top-and-cardigan combo had been. But the shoes … they were kind of embarrassing.

  Once dressed, she washed her face and used some of Trista’s makeup to make herself presentable. Stepping back to look in the mirror, she had to admit that the outfit wasn’t as bad as she had feared, but it still was a little too boho chic for her comfort level.

  She tried Astriz again, and it went straight to voice mail. Trista still hadn’t returned, and Holly was puttering around her side of the room, plucking at piles and humming.

  “The guy running the raised platform,” said Nikki, giving in to her own curiosity.

  “Ewart?” answered Holly, looking puzzled.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Brandt fired him. Why?”

  “I want to talk to him about the accident.”

  Holly sat down on the bed, looking serious. “You’re going to ask about the accidents? I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  Concentrating on her mascara, Nikki raised her head like a bloodhound scenting an escaped prisoner. “Accidents?” she repeated, emphasizing the plural. “There have been others?”

  “Uh…” Holly stalled, looking worried.

  “This could have killed all of you, Holly,” said Nikki, putting the mascara wand firmly back in the tube and turning to watch Holly more closely.

  “It couldn’t have been Ewart,” said Holly, avoiding eye contact. “Not for the others anyway. Besides, they’re just accidents. These things happen.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Nikki said. “You’re worried about these accidents. How many have there been?” Nikki could tell this was the point where Holly decided whether or not to trust her; she tried to look sympathetic and harmless. Holly took a deep breath and held it, then let it out in one long gust.

  “I don’t know. One of the bus tires blew. They said it was just one of those things, but my brother used to slash tires, as a prank,” she added hastily, aware of Nikki’s raised eyebrow. “I know what slashed tires look like. Louis said that if we’d been in an older bus it might have flipped over. Fortunately, brakes work really well these days.”

  “What else?”

  “The helicopter,” said Holly. “Kit, Duncan, and Brandt were in a helicopter; it almost ran out of gas. They set down in some farmer’s field all right, but it could have been bad. It’s why Kit’s so firmly attached to the buses now. And then there was the crewman who broke his leg. Slipped down some stairs just ahead of Kit. I saw those stairs later; one of them looked clean. Like maybe something was on it and had been wiped off.”

  “These don’t sound like just accidents,” said Nikki.

  “I know, but we can’t talk about it,” said Holly, her eyes pleading. “The tour’s been really stressful. Kit’s just barely got his fingernails dug into sobriety and then there’s his writer’s block. And these accidents are getting … well, they’re making things worse. People are starting to say the tour is cursed. Plus, Brandt’s really pushing Kit—trying to get him on the international level. Which I think Kit wants too, but man, it’s a lot of pressure. Sometimes he talks about giving it all up to become a shoe repairman.”

  “A shoe repairman?” asked Nikki in disbelief, and Holly shrugged.

  “Or an accountant—it’s what he always says when the stress gets to be too much. If he thought someone on the tour was actua
lly trying to hurt him … I think it might break him. Something like this could push him right back to the bottle.”

  “We need to talk to Ewart then,” Nikki said again, and Holly shook her head.

  “Ewart’s an idiot, but it can’t have been him.”

  “I don’t think it was Ewart either,” Nikki said soothingly. “He broke out in a flop sweat the second I pointed out the problem, but not before. You can’t fake that kind of reaction. Do you think we could find him?”

  “Probably,” said Holly, looking worried, “but I don’t know … Brandt sacked him. And once Brandt sacks someone, it’s bad to be seen with him. Brandt takes that shit personally.”

  “Who’s Brandt again?” asked Nikki. “And why do we care?”

  Holly’s eyes widened in shock. Brandt was apparently one of the deities of this world.

  “He’s Kit’s manager. And they’re best friends. They were in @last together.”

  “Trista mentioned that. What’s At Last?”

  “@last?” Holly looked more shocked, if that was possible. “They were a boy band in the nineties. You know, ‘at’ symbol, ‘last.’ It was really novel at the time. They kind of imploded I guess, but Kit and Brandt formed Faustus Records. Nobody thought Kit was worth much, but he and Brandt showed them all wrong. Kit’s going to be the biggest thing in Europe.”

  “So Brandt used to sing and now he runs a record label and is Kit’s manager?” asked Nikki, trying to get the progression straight. Holly nodded. “And apparently he’s kind of a prick if he won’t let you talk to people who’ve been fired.”

  “Well…” Holly hesitated, then nodded. “He is a bit of a bastard.” The relief in Holly’s voice spilled out with the words. “It’s just that things are so tense right now. I don’t want to upset the apple cart.”