One of Wolfgang’s women called out from the floor, “Bring us back some food.”
Slamming the front door, he cut off any other mortal requests. He’d never had to track a woman before. No one had ever been this important. Misty’s presence was lost in the dingy hallway. The hunger enveloped him, but didn’t give a direction to pursue.
He punched the button for the elevator and the cables rattled in the shaft. Too damn slow. And too ordinary. She may be a human, but he didn’t have to find her as one. Throwing the door to the stairwell open, he sped up the short flight to the roof access. The door was locked. He curled his hand into a fist of stone, then sent it into the handle, shattering the metal and swinging the door wide.
Night surrounded him. The polluting light of the city blocked too many stars for navigation. Millions of humans lived in the miles around him. They may not know it, but their nature sought balance. On one side was the animal. Trevor and his kind fed that wildness and freedom. The Philosophers wanted humans to deny that aspect of themselves completely, living purely in thought and contemplation. That meant killing demons and their temptation, then trying to draw humans’ minds from their bodies.
The struggle had been going on for thousands of years. And tonight, finally, something new emerged. The Muse. But where was she? Misty’s presence should burn bright, a red beacon fire. Instead there was just darkness or the confusion of artificial lamps.
He hurried to the edge of the roof, blocked by a chest-high wall. She’d found him at the club. She would escape in her car from there. Without hesitation, he hauled himself over the wall and fell from the building.
Some of mankind’s earliest revelries pounded primitive music on the beaches that sustained them. The crashing waves had coated the dancers in salt spray. Trevor took on the lightness of that mist. His body glided down, first skimming above trees, then power lines and finally rooftops. Regaining blood and muscle, he landed on top of a building near the club and ran to the highest point.
The Rascal Room was dark. Even the staff had finished cleaning. The nearest parking lot contained only a few automobiles. None of these cars could be hers; they were all coated in dirt and the leaves of the trees above.
Misty was gone. He shouted in frustration. Sleeping birds scattered. Gathering his strength, he ran and jumped to another rooftop. From there, he leaped clear across a wide street, landing on the edge of a row of shops. The city seemed to go on forever. But he would search every corner to find her. Even if it killed him. Let the hunger end it all, as long as his last breath told her not to be afraid.
* * *
It was invisible, but it could kill her. The menace from whatever approached her was greasy and choking like diesel exhaust. Amazement at the impossible gave way to cold terror. Misty turned to run. The air shifted around her. The evil was now in front of her, cutting off any retreat.
Jaw tight with fear and anger, she prepared for the worst. Curled fists might not hurt an invisible beast that could crush her car, but she had to fight. “Fuck you, you son of a bitch...”
The breath rushed from her lungs as the thing gathered for an attack. She kept her hands high, by her face, elbows in, the way a PE coach had taught. High school women’s self-defense didn’t cover situations like this, though.
Unseen feet scraped quickly on the asphalt, heading toward her. She braced for the impact. Would it hurt? Would it be over quick?
Before she could find out, a man rushed into the street.
Trevor.
He intercepted her attacker, body jolting with the impact. Flickers of long black fabric appeared around him. Baring his teeth, he drove a hard fist into the invisible beast. With each blow, more of the fabric unfurled. The beast howled. The two of them spun through the street past her.
Her poor car rattled with the impact of their bodies, shattering the remaining glass. Trevor punched again, shaking the beast, her car and the air all around her. Misty finally saw that the black fabric formed long draping robes around the attacker. A knee from Trevor into its gut finally made the whole creature visible. Not that it was any more real. It stood seven feet tall. The sickly yellow skin of its hands and hollow face should only exist in fevered nightmares.
She ran. Faster than she’d ever tried. As if she could leave all she’d seen this night behind. The screeching of the robed beast behind her cut the air like rusty knives. It didn’t seem like there would be any escape from this world she’d stumbled into.
The fight continued half a block behind her. Metal crunched. Trevor grunted. The beast continued to howl as bones were broken.
Don’t look.
Just get the hell out of here
.
Silence descended with horrifying uncertainty. The fight was over. Who won? And where was the next threat coming from? Rushing pulse pounded in her ears. Her breath echoed through her head.
She stumbled to a stop thirty yards away and slowly turned back. The robed monster lay awkwardly twisted backward over her car. One of Trevor’s hands was on its throat, the other gripping the beast’s wrist. Its taloned hand drooped limply. Trevor dragged the beast off the car and let it collapse, lifeless, on the ground.
When he turned to her, the intensity in his eyes almost sent her running again.
“Wait.” He put a hand up to halt her. “It’s not safe.”
“No shit.” She tried not to be impressed by the way his body moved as he walked toward her. Not that long ago, he had horns and hooves. “What the fuck was that?”
“Shroud.” He paused a few feet from her. “Are you okay?”
She ignored his question. “What the hell are you?”
“Everything I told you is true. I’m a...demon. You’re my Muse. And there’s more to know.” He glanced about the dark trees and unlit houses around them. “But we can’t stay here. Where there’s one of those bastards, a horde is coming.”
“And no matter how many questions I ask, you’re not going to tell me what they are or what the hell is going on?”
He held his hand out to her. “I’ll tell you everything. When you’re safe.”
Behind him, the Shroud melted into the ground and dissolved into yellow vapor. Trevor was a demon, but at least he came to help her.
She barely whispered, “This is real?”
“It is. More real than the world you thought you knew.”
Something rustled the leaves of a tree up the street. Was it the breeze, or something worse?
It was all unknown. Could she flee alone? Would she survive? Trevor was as mysterious as the invisible threats. But he was her only compass. Her protector. Misty took his hand and the two of them sped in the opposite direction.
The thrill remained in his touch. She’d seen him transformed and yet her body couldn’t forget the electricity they’d shared. At least some things hadn’t changed. She’d nearly been crushed by invisible Shrouds, then saved by a demon rock star. She still remembered with a blush why her panties were wadded in her back pocket.
“We need more people. Shrouds won’t attack in public.” He directed them toward the glow of a larger street.
She bumped against him in the run; his body felt denser, stronger than before. “How did you find me?”
“Been looking for someone like you for thousands of years, you think I’d let one dirty city keep me away?”
Running challenged her lungs, but he couldn’t call all the shots. “You have to stop saying things like that until I know what’s going on.”
“I was on rooftops, searching, until I got the scent of the Shroud. Thought it must be tracking you, so I had to find it before it...” His voice trailed off. The brighter lights of a wide boulevard revealed deep darkness in his eyes.
Late night didn’t slow the Sunset Strip. Traffic cruised the street. Some clubs still sucked people in and spit them out. Sushi restaurants and tattoo parlors glowed.
Trevor walked Misty over to a recessed storefront, sheltered from the hectic street.
“Me and my kind,” he said, low and urgent, “we’re demons, borne from human festivals. Elemental, created from pieces of the earth. Man and beast. We danced through early celebratory fires and found that the revelers sustained us with the power of their abandon. With each song, every skin of wine, we grew stronger, until we were able to walk among men. When we play music, the energy from the audience keeps us alive.”
The world on the street seemed like a projection on a flimsy screen. “For thousands of years?”
He nodded. “Culture evolved and we did too. Opera, the waltz, jazz and rock and roll. We’ve been there. I’ve changed my face hundreds of times, adapting to whatever’s next.”
“Like dying and coming back as someone else.”
“Why do you think so many rock stars die mysteriously or in plane crashes?”
Every rockumentary she’d watched instantly changed. The reality of all this continued to solidify, helped by the absolute honesty in Trevor’s eyes. “Maybe you’re lying. I was drugged in your hotel room.”
“No drugs. It’s all true.” He took her hand. “Only a handful of mortals know what you do.”
“If I’m a mortal, does that mean you’re immortal? Gods are immortal. You’re a goddamn god?”
He curled his fingers around her hand. His flesh hardened, dried out. Trevor stood so his body blocked any eyes from the street. Everything else had happened so fast, there was no time to examine the details. She watched as his skin continued to transform. It darkened and took on deep troughs. Every detail was there for her to touch. Her hand was surrounded by the familiar rasp of tree bark. The aroma of a forest even rose to her.
“Oak,” he explained. Her imagination was filled with the sound of wind whispering through pine needles. His skin changed to a different grain of bark. “Pine. Like the trees they make retsina from in Greece.” Chill stone stole her heat. His hand grew too heavy to hold. The now rocky surface slipped from her grip. “Granite. Found in central Benin.”
The eyes could be fooled. Hell, she paid her rent working on visual effects for the movies. The tips of her fingers knew what she felt, though. The nuance of the dry scent from the stone or the spice of the pine couldn’t be faked. He’d transformed from flesh to wood to stone.
Just as incredible as all those transformations was the steady intensity on Trevor’s face.
He continued. “Trees can die if they’re not fed. Rocks crumble. I’m not a god. Not immortal. But close.” His body returned to the look of a normal human.
He gave her the smile she knew. The wicked rock star who knew just what he was doing to the ladies in the audience when he sang:
Drip your kiss
To my dying lips
I taste your life
I take your life
And make it my own
“The lyrics are real,” she said, hardly believing, “to ‘Pine Box.’”
“The best art is true.” He turned to check over the street. An energy to move built in him. “But I can’t feed from the audience anymore.” A long breath didn’t settle him down. “For my kind, there’s always been this legend of the Muse. A woman whose energy can feed a demon forever. And he can share his power with her. The catch is, only this woman will give him life. No audience, even if it’s the world’s biggest concert, can sustain him.”
It was as if she was buried under tons of stone and dirt. Holding her down. Squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she growled.
“Neither did I.” There was a note of sadness in his voice. “You... You’re not the same. We’ve changed each other. I don’t think you’re mortal anymore.”
Flashes of cold electricity shot through her body. She’d thought it was just adrenaline from the car wreck and invisible threat. “What am I?”
“I don’t know if you can feel it yet, or if you can control it, but the same elements that make me are in you now. It started when we made love, when we shared the power.” He took her hand, stared at it, then at her face. “You’re becoming what I am.”
Demon? Beast? “Can we turn it off?”
“None of us even believed the legend of the Muse was true. Let alone how it worked. But with the demons things aren’t as simple as on and off. We go by the way of nature, the ebb and flow.”
“There was nothing natural about that thing that tried to kill me.”
Another glance over the street. “A Shroud, sent by the Philosophers.”
The known world had doubled in size, most of it a blank map. “Who are they?”
The energy that buzzed through him urged her to move too. “We still aren’t safe.” He tried to leave, but she tugged him back.
“Just tell me why they want me dead.”
“It’s
me
they want. The Philosophers always want to erase my kind. They found their opportunity tonight and sent the Shrouds.”
“At me.” The invisible menace of the beast still shook her.
“You’re my Muse. If you die, then I die.”
The suffocating danger tightened around her. Each shadow hid evil. Even the lurid neon of Sunset hissed with malice. Trevor’s hand was still careful with hers as dark sadness shrouded him.
“We have to keep running,” he pressed.
“I... But I don’t know why I...”
“I know.” His eyes narrowed, a light blazing deep in them. “Fuck fate. You don’t owe me anything.” He took a long breath, releasing it through flared nostrils. “I’ll protect you. I’ll die, knowing I kept you alive.”
She was stunned, frozen. There had been so many incredible things, unexplainable phenomena, tonight. But there was no questioning his resolve. It showed on his serious face. He was so focused that when he moved, she broke out of her shock and followed. They left the quiet of their secluded spot. No more peace or safety. They were back into the chaos of the Sunset Strip.
Chapter Six
“Saw a ghost once,” Misty said. “While we were hiking at the Blue River Parkway outside KC. No one else spotted him. But I swear he was there.” She and Trevor snaked through a crowd of people milling in front of a small rock venue. Her hand remained in his. “He had a ratty flannel shirt on like some kind of mule team driver, and a broad hat shading his eyes. About thirty feet away in a pile of dead branches.”
“You’re tuned,” Trevor said. “The world was open to you, even before tonight.” They stopped at a crosswalk. “There’s so much more.” He scanned the rooftops. “The old lady at the hotel, she’s an Innkeeper. They live a lot like us, but they feed on the sexual energy of their guests.”
If the invisible threat of whatever the hell a Shroud was didn’t still lurk in the night, Misty’s body would be content to lie completely motionless after the staggering sex with Trevor. “She’ll live another thousand years after what she got tonight.”
Trevor laughed, breaking some of the tension. “Never got a chance to ask—do you like my music?”
It had all started with the music. “I drove to LA, my car packed with everything I had and heading to a town where I knew no one. Can’t tell you how many times on that trip I listened to your record
Oil and Water
.”
The crosswalk changed. They paused as one last asshole had to blow through in a Mercedes, then they stepped into the street.
“That album started on a ship bound for Syracuse a couple hundred years before the calendars changed,” he said. “We wrecked in a storm. The whole crew and a thousand urns of olive oil from Crete were shattered. I was the only one to survive.” They reached the other side of the street and paused before heading into the next throng of people. “It’s an album for travelers.”
“I didn’t wreck until I got to LA.” It didn’t seem like too much had changed in those few years since she arrived. A job and a new used car, but everything was an uphill battle in a system that either wanted to use her up or just throw her away. “But your music was always with me.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Then I was good for something.”
“And Green Eyes, who is she? You never say in any of your interviews.” She’d always buried the twinge of jealousy when she’d heard him focus his songs on that mysterious woman.
“Fantasy. Figment. Fevered dream. Never knew who she was. She wasn’t real.” He hit her with his intense gaze again. “Until I met you. You’re her.”
The strength of his music in her life started to make sense. If any of this could be believed. “I almost said ‘impossible.’”
His voice dropped low. “But you know better now.”
He kept talking about feeding and energy. A raw hunger gripped her. More than just her body needed sustenance. The ache stretched deeper, like when she yearned to create with her video camera, with her editing. This was so much more profound. There was so much she didn’t understand. She might never know how this happened. But she did know that she was part of it now. The hunger was real, and it demanded more than the human world could provide.
Ancient myths and invisible threats and bad LA drivers and the throb of the city seemed distant now. Blurred with haze. For a moment she was alone with Trevor. A kiss would test all he’d explained.
She couldn’t go back to the time when she knew nothing. But she’d started this night ready to break new ground. Look what she’d learned, and she was still standing. She didn’t ask for it, but it was her new world now. It was just a matter of taking what she wanted. She drew closer to him and felt the first pulses of energy off his body. A light flickered, red, with edges of gold. Was this really her sustenance? She had to feed to find out...
A husky voice separated from the crowd ahead of them. “Motherfucking Trevor Sand.”
The haze quickly burned away, bringing the world back to sharp contrast. A drunk guy swayed in front of a club, pointed at them, mouth hanging open. He shouldered into his friends or anyone else nearby.
“Holy shit, dude. You’re a fucking monster.”
Misty answered, “You have no idea.”
Trevor motioned her toward the club. “I know the owner. We need to get in for a bit.”
The people out front just stared. The drunk guy continued as they passed. “I’m trying to learn your licks, Trevor.” He stumbled his way through some air guitar. “But how the fuck do you go from a pentatonic—”
Trevor patted him on the shoulder. “Keep practicing for another thousand years, bro.”
The rest of the crowd parted, not because he was a demon who could transform his body to wood or stone. They parted because he was a rock star. The glow of fame reached her too. Men and women tried to pry out who she was with curious eyes. A couple of people judged her, upturned noses above ugly sneers. Fuck them. Misty met these gazes head-on, staring them down until the people glanced away.
“Have fun, Mr. Sand.” The doorman snapped the latch on the velvet rope and swung the door open. Trevor pulled a couple of hundred-dollar bills from his front pocket and handed them to the doorman with an easy handshake.
Heavy bass like cannons firing thumped in her chest. She and Trevor stepped inside, surrounding themselves with the house music pumping from the speakers. “Are there mystic Doormen too?”
Trevor shook his head, looking over the crowd of people on the dance floor. “Just hardworking mortal guys who don’t make enough money for dealing with the worst of it.”
The DJ, a young Latina with long black hair, worked her equipment, grooving back and forth across a platform ten feet higher than the dancers. Colored lights swirled. Two large staircases curved up from the dance floor, leading to the DJ, then smaller dance floors, then what looked like private rooms. Evidence of real life collected in the shadows at the base of the stairs and under the cocktail tables on the perimeter of the room. Wadded napkins. An upturned glass slowly bleeding out melting ice. A broken heel from a woman’s shoe.
Misty checked her watch, but she wasn’t wearing one. And her phone was lost in her wrecked car. The last time she used it was to talk to Kim. How could she put to words what had happened this night?
Trevor waved to a man who stood at the highest level behind the DJ. He had olive skin, slick hair, and wore a dark suit. Rings flashed on his fingers as he gave Trevor a subtle salute. Then he disappeared into a private room.
“He has to be supernatural,” Misty guessed.
“No—Armenian.”
A group of women dancing came dangerously close to spilling their drinks on Trevor and Misty. She held them off with a forearm and moved away, into the tall cocktail tables at the fringe of the light.
“Don’t these people have jobs?” she asked.
“Professional partiers. Weekends are for tourists and desperation.”
“I prefer a steady paycheck.”
“Isn’t that what you were escaping tonight, when you came to my show?”
“Got way more than I bargained for. A deal with the devil.”
“Demon,” Trevor corrected her with a glint in his eye. “The devil doesn’t party like us.” He headed for the stairs and she followed. “What do you do for a living?”
“Visual effects for movies. Post-production.”
He glanced back, examining her face. “It doesn’t make you happy.”
“It’s someone else’s work. Not my own.”
“We’ll have to change that, get you doing your thing out in the world.”
She let him take a few steps, admiring his confident ease. And his ass. “If it was that easy. This town’s a mess of barbed wire and salads and fake smiles.”
He stopped and waited for her. “But you’re strong. Blow it all up. Fuck them.”
“Sounds simpler than surviving tonight.”
Colored lights flashed across his serious face. “You will.” He took the last few steps to the landing with the DJ station. Like a Caesar, he swept his hand over the dance floor. “And these people will help you.”
She put a hand on his arm, halting his progress toward the DJ. “You’re going to tell them?”
“The truth? Hell, no.” He drew close. “The fight’s not over. More Shrouds will be coming. I need to feed for strength.”
She dropped her voice, in case anyone could hear what must sound like insanity. “You said you could only feed from me.”
“There’s one way I can take the energy from an audience now.” He put his hand out. “If you’re with me.”
The
Trevor Sand asked her onto the stage with him. But it was nothing like any fantasy she could’ve conjured. Death and supernatural power mixed with the rock and sex.
She could only stare at his hand, then his face. “You’re a damn demon.” But he was the only one helping her. And what was she?
“I’m sorry they’re coming to hurt you.” The edge of anger crossed his face, then disappeared as he looked into her eyes. “I’m not sorry I met you.”
At the beginning of the night, he was a rock star. Then he was a man, and they crashed together in sex that still thrummed through her. Now he wasn’t a man at all, but some kind of elemental satyr. And she had transformed too, taking more risks in a few hours than she had in years. She didn’t know where it was all headed, but the door to her past had already slammed behind her.
Misty took his hand. They approached the DJ, who immediately recognized Trevor.
“Sand.” The DJ put her fist out and Trevor bumped it with his. “Heard you killed it at the Rascal tonight.”
“Hell of a show,” he agreed. “This is Misty. She saw it all.”
Misty added, “I’ll never forget that show for as long as I live.”
Trevor finished the introductions. “DJ Prickly Pear”
The DJ gave her a nod. “Alicia.”
Misty nodded back. “Thanks for letting us on the bridge.”
“Anything for the Sandman.” She adjusted her equipment. The first beats of “Three Days Until” started low, seamlessly blending with the song already pounding out of the speakers. “He whips the people up, the blogs blow up and my rates go up.” She handed him a mic.
It was almost as incredible as watching him transform to wood or stone. Misty witnessed Trevor turn into a rock star. He swaggered to the front of the DJ station and set his feet. Some of the crowd spotted him and stopped to stare. He grinned, wild, and pointed down to them. His presence moved through the people in waves. It didn’t take long for them all to line up, facing the stage. Some pumped their fists, hopping to the music. Trevor put out his arms, like a conductor urging more from his orchestra.
Pure charisma. The power had nothing to do with the supernatural. He had the whole group below cheering. “Three Days Until” completely replaced the previous song and the crowd cheered louder. Trevor nodded with them, strutting along what space he had on the platform.
He brought the mic to his lips, filling the room with his voice. “You’re the last stand. Our last defense against the jobs that steal our souls, the laws with too many morals, the roads with too much traffic, the mail with too many bills, the ex with too many lovers, the bastards with too many guns, the drinks with too much ice.”
The people cheered louder.
“You’re my weeknight partiers,” he continued. “The calendar crushers. Let’s hold the line together.”
Trevor sang along with the hard pounding song. Misty and Alicia and the audience added their voices:
The clock is ticking
The hands are blades
Our time is now
The sunlight fades
He ain’t gonna see us
He’ll never know
Tear off your clothes
Put on a show
They moved into the chorus. Misty couldn’t sing any more. Her breath was stolen. A new presence emerged in the room. It swirled up from the audience, thick like colored fog. If anyone else were able to see it, they would’ve run for the doors. She almost bolted, but Trevor turned back to her. His smile may have been demonic, but it was all part of the act. He held her gaze and gave a wink.
Trust. Who better to lead her through this world than him?
She remained on the platform, watching the swirling energy curl through the air. The spray from the sea. Smoke from a campfire. Dry stone and damp tree bark. More than just the aromas, the essences of all these things spun before her. She felt them in her senses and deep within herself, as if her whole consciousness could soak it in.
The energy continued to grow, fed by Trevor singing and whipping the crowd to new heights. The colored fog stopped whirling and rushed like water from a broken dam. It slammed into Trevor’s body. He absorbed the energy. But all of it didn’t enter him. Waves crashed past him and into her.
Power. Raw, like nothing she’d ever known. Caffeine was just an artificial boost. What she felt now was pure. The rush of falling. The first gasp after surfacing from underwater. The electric surge of sex just before the orgasm.
How the hell did Trevor keep moving? She was rooted to the spot as wave after wave of the energy soaked into her. This was what he meant when he told her she was changing. A human body wouldn’t be able to take this. The elements of the power were also in her. She’d transformed and now could absorb the energy. What was she? What could she do with all this power? It was too much. There had to be a limit. Then her body would be torn apart.
Trevor sang the final chorus with the audience:
Three days until your husband’s home
Three days
,
don’t answer the phone
Three days we’re all alone
Applause and cheers drover the energy harder. It buffeted her and Trevor. He motioned the crowd for more and they obliged. The power stretched into every point of her consciousness. She could count each cell in her blood and every filament in the thousands of lights in the club.
Trevor turned from the audience and handed the mic back to Alicia. “They’re all yours.”
The DJ immediately transitioned into the next song, driving the beat faster for the dancers. She managed a nod to Trevor as she worked her equipment.
He was quick to Misty’s side, whispering as he put his arm around her waist, “I think you’ve had your fill.”