by Mike Allan
“Now.” The woman puts her aim back on Nilos. “Tell me where Phillips is.”
“I don’t know.”
She leans in heavier. The ax cuts into my skin. “I swear I don’t know!” I kick frantically, knocking over Nilos’ high-hat. She jams the pistol under my chin, like the ax at my neck isn’t enough.
“Bullshit. We know he’s got the tabs. We know you’re in his band. Where are they? Where did he take them?”
“I’m telling you I don’t know.”
Her lips purse. She draws back, easing some of the pressure. The cold muzzle leaves my jaw and finds Nilos again.
“Fine. I believe you. Now, you two are going to come with me.”
“That’s not going to be necessary.”
She whirls. Phillips slowly takes his hand out of his pocket. His left arm hangs in a sling. “Easy.”
“Knew you’d show up if I threatened your little two-piece.”
“Actually, I came to see the show. Sorry I’m late, gentlemen.” He reaches up and scratches his chin. “As usual, Liz, you shot your bolt. If only you’d waited awhile longer, you could’ve grabbed me quiet. But instead you went for the theatrical. I always liked that about you.”
“Get off the stage,” Liz snarls at Nilos. “Get over by him where I can see you.” Nilos obeys, keeping his hands out. The pistol muzzle bounces between the two of them.
“Tell me where they are.” Her fingers tense around the ax's mic stand handle. “Tell me or I’ll cut his throat.” She looks down and for an instant our eyes meet. I don’t see any anger in them. Just fear and sorrow. But the way she grips it, the tone in her voice, I know she means it. She’ll kill me, but she’ll be sorry about it, at least.
“You’re wrong, you know.”
“Eh?”
“This operation’s not a two-piece.”
She’s already turning and letting go of the ax to take a two-handed grip when Sjaak comes through the door, rifle tight against his shoulder. It booms like a cannon in the small space. Bullets leave hot little parting kisses on my skin as they snap by. One thuds into the Liz's arm, spraying us both with blood.
Sjaak’s head snaps back with a neat little hole just over his brow. Bloody hunks and bone splinters splatter the wall behind him. He hits with a wet slap like water slopped out of a bucket.
She’s distracted, off balance. I buck my hips, throwing the woman forward. She catches herself with the shot arm and screams. Her hips clamp down over my ribs. The gun doesn’t leave her hand. “Sorry,” she growls. This close the gun looks like it’s about 45 million caliber.
Nilos opens his mouth and shouts.
A palpable bolt of sound slams into her, ripping her off me. She crashes through the drum kit, tearing skins and cracking shells, then slams into the brick. The mixer tears loose from the wall. Acoustic foam on the ceiling disintegrates into thick, swirling dust. I scramble through whirling grit. I don’t even think to grab the pistol. I just want to get away. From her, from the stage, from all of this.
“See to Nilos,” Phillips says, going the other way. On his knees, Nilos spits up bright blood. A tooth tumbles out and skitters underneath the bar.
“Jesus.” He tries to wave me off and stand, then his knees buckle. I catch him, slip my shoulders under one of his arms.
“She’s gone.” Phillips rips a power cord, then another. “Burrowed back through the side fill.” He yanks every bit of juice on the stage. His shirt comes untucked and sweat beads on his brow.
Sirens wail, growing closer.
“Phillips?” He doesn’t move. I say it again, louder. It snaps him back to now. He grabs Sjaak’s rifle and a couple of clips from his coat pockets. We blast through the back door and pile into the van.
12
Phillips drives, busted arm be damned, while I gut the van’s speakers. We’re not sure if she needs something big like a monitor or if she can pop out of earbuds. Or your phone. I pop the batteries out of all of ours.
Nilos lolls in the back. He’s awake, but from the way he’s grimacing the pain’s a bitch. The bleeding’s stopped at least. There’s not white noise leaking from between his teeth anymore. I keep asking if he’s okay but he waves me off.
For maybe an hour we just sit and drive. Then Phillips clears his throat. “I suppose you have some questions.”
“You think?”
“Where should I start?”
“Wherever you feel like, Howie. Wherever you feel is most pertinent to our current clusterfuck.”
He draws in deep breath, unreels it slow. “Remember when I said you can stop rock and roll? That was one of the people who try.”
“Huh? You mean like the PMRC? Tipper Gore?”
“Worse. Liz. My former paramour.”
“Huh?” Just a wealth of incisive questions today.
“My ex, Eddie. One of the best sonomancers I've ever met. We used to research rites together. Somewhere along the line she got it into her head human beings shouldn’t meddle with the Soundscape. We ought to be satisfied with the scraps of bastard sound trickling down to us. So now she hunts sonomancers down to convince them of the error of their ways.”
“By shooting them.”
“That’s her favored method of persuasion.”
“But she was. . .that popping out of speakers trick, that’s sonomancy, right?”
“She's hardly the first inquisitor to use the Devil’s tactics. She always theorized about teleportation being possible, but there were always complications with putting it into practice. I never thought she’d work it out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
His hand tightens around the steering wheel. “You’d never have agreed to work with me if you knew there was a danger of getting shot by my crazed ex.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn’t have. In fact, pull over.”
"Eddie--”
“Pull over.”
Sighing, he obeys. The van crunches onto the gravel shoulder. “This isn’t worth it. I helped you find those tabs and I saved your ass back there. Consider us even.”
Phillips grabs a fistful of my t-shirt. “Eddie, wait.”
“I think we can consider Hag on indefinite hiatus, Nilos. It was a fucking bomb while it lasted, though, man.”
"Listen to me!" Phillips doesn't raise his voice much. I wouldn't even call it a yell, but for a guy who hovers just a few notches above a whisper at all times it's shocking. "You’re in this now. You can’t leave. You were at the scene of a crime. What are you going to tell the police?”
“Maybe I’ll try the truth. They won’t expect that. Not like they’ll believe me anyways.”
His eyes frost over. His voice dips again. “You promised to help me.”
“Screw you. You didn’t fully disclose the depths of bad shit going on. Bad fucking faith.”
Nilos reaches out and grabs my bicep. "Please.” A thick white cloud billows out. His lips crack and bleed. “Please stay.”
“Don’t talk!” Phillips and I call out in an almost chorus.
His jagged writing leaps above and below the lines on his notepad like the needle in an earthquake. “Need your help. She knows what I am. She’ll try to kill me.”
“What are you?”
“Mom = human. Dad = titan. To her, abomination.”
I should’ve realized it, after he nearly blew the brick off the Hour’s walls. Half-titan. No, half-sound. He wasn’t mute. His voice was a titan’s, and even at half-strength it was too much for his body.
“Please.” He signs it at me. It’s one of the few he's taught me that's stuck. A misguided attempt to give me some manners, when I can’t even be polite in my native language. “Please.”
I slam the door shut. Phillips lets go of my shirt and drops the van back into gear.
“I hate both of you.”
“Use that,” Phillips says. “You’re going to need it to play what I’m working on.”
"What's that?"
"An alternate
arrangement to an oldie." A grim smile creases his face. "I found it, Eddie. I found Alhazred's tabs."
“Well, you got the machine, hang up or leave a message.”
I stab the call to death and then resurrect it. After driving straight on till morning, Phillips thinks we’re safe for now, so I’m risking using the cellphone and its tiny speaker.
“I got you right here,” the cashier says, waving me over.
“Well, you got the machine, hang--”
I can’t imagine why Purd doesn't want to talk to me. This time I leave a message. I tell her to be careful. I tell her to get out of town for a few days or weeks or months or years. Maybe she should go visit her mother. She hasn’t seen her in years, why not go catch up? I mean they loathe each other, so they’ve got that in common.
The cashier's a real pro. He doesn’t blink at my outburst of noir. I set my haul onto the counter: sack of mini frosted donuts, two bags of chicharrons, a six pack of soda. Then medicinals: plastic bottles of overpriced rubbing alcohol and peroxide, Band-Aids anointed with golden antibiotic droplets and, finally, the ultimate panacea, a thirty rack of shitty two-three beer.
“Can I get a couple packs of Marlboro Reds?”
“Uh, Reds’re all gone, man. I’ve got--”
“Just give me whatever tastes the worst and has the most tar.”
It’s some brand I’ve never heard of. It could only be more generic if the pack was blank white and labeled “SMOKES”.
“Here we go.” I hand Nilos the bottle of peroxide. He punches through the safety plastic and holds a swig in his mouth while I pass him the bottle of water. He swishes both and spits out a glob of pink onto the parking lot. At least no teeth come out. Progress.
“Let’s see.” Phillips peers over my shoulder as Nilos bares his teeth. Slowly weeping sores crater Nilos' gums. It looks like a bad case of meth mouth, except what teeth he still has are in pretty good shape. I can tell how good of shape they’re in because most of roots are visible.
“Not bad,” Phillips says. “A couple of days and you’ll be okay.” Putting his phone to his ear, Phillips walks away. I sit on the sliding door’s bottom rail. Nilos motions for one of the sodas. I doubt it’s going to help his healing, but I tear one off anyways, grab a beer for myself while I’m at it. We watch Phillips pacing a ditch into the tall grass encroaching on the parking lot.
“Does it hurt?”
Nilos gives me a look.
“Sorry.” What kind of stupid question is that? “I mean, does it hurt bad? When you speak?”
He nods.
“Sorry. And, thanks. You doing that saved my ass.”
He shrugs.
“No, really. You saved my life back there. She would’ve shot me.”
He shrugs again.
“Did you know anything about all this before you joined up with Howie?”
He traps his soda bottle between his thighs while he writes. “Knew they existed. Didn’t know they were after him.” Then, after a moment. “Wish he told me earlier.”
“Yeah, me too.” I sip my beer, savoring that sweet, sweet bubbly corn water. It’s not Cyclopean, but sometimes it’s nice to get back to basics. “Makes me wonder what else he’s not telling us.”
“Not what I mean. Would’ve worked harder if I knew.” He pauses, pen frozen on the paper. “Want to help him kill her.
“Want to kill all of them.”
His face twists up, his nostrils flare out. Tears brim along his eyelids. “Hey. . .”
He starts writing, up close to his face, sharp strokes. He doesn’t stop for a long time. When he’s done he hands me the pad. The letters are all sharp and angular. I flip back to where the serial killer font begins.
His father is a titan. Immortal. Well mostly immortal, unless you do like we did the crossroads titan and cut their connection to the Scape. His mother was human though. Just a soft bag of fluids around a rickety skeleton. Just as vulnerable as anybody to bullets and knives. But to a fanatic like Liz, a woman who screwed a titan was an abomination. The only thing they detested more was the offspring the pairing made.
“Never got one who got mom.
“Get this one tho, almost as good.
“Almost as good.”
“Almost.”
Nilos’ eyes focus on something a thousand yards or a thousand years away. He doesn’t notice as I set the notebook onto the seat beside him. Doesn’t react at all as Phillips ambles up. “I called in a favor. We’ve got a place to lay low until things calm down. Come on, let’s get back on the road.”
“And then what’re we going to do?” I say.
“Rehearse!” He sounds giddy. Nilos even smiles a little at that. It scares the hell out of me.
13
We don’t stop driving for three days. In case Liz or one of her coven’s skimming the Scape, we hardly speak. We’re all Nilos now, signing and scribbling on notes. Crumpled paper piles up on the van’s floor. With the speakers ripped out, no tunes, just the hum of the tires and wind buzzing at the windows. Worst road trip ever.
On the afternoon of the third day Phillips pulls into a train station. Without a word he gets out and heads for the looming concourse. It looks almost like an airport, the roof draped with white metal. Like an architect and a steppe nomad on a peyote trip collaborated. I’m not sure what state we’re in, and when I ask Nilos he doesn’t know either. The licenses plates on the cars parked around us are too much of a mix to tell.
Phillips comes back quick. He tosses a duffel onto the front passenger seat. The engine coughs to life and he eases us back onto the highway.
“Eddie.” The sound of his voice startles me. “Open it.”
I lean forward and grab the duffel. It’s too heavy for its size, too heavy even for the thick book I pull out of it. It’s bound in leather so dark it’s gone almost black. The pages are hymnal thin, almost transparent when peeled up.
“I thought it’d be in Arabic or something?”
“It’s a translation,” he says. “Latin from the Arabic, which was itself translated from an earlier Greek text, which in turn was translated from a language no human has ever spoken. This one’s only a few hundred years old. It's a copy of the original Latin translation set down by a Knight Templar who discovered the Arabic text somewhere in Jerusalem.”
I flip through more pages. They’re mismatched, some bigger, some smaller. A few have scorch marks at the edges. On some the letters seem to blur and shift. Maybe it’s just my imagination.
“Forget the words. The ravings of a madman. But look where the bookmark is.”
There’s a ribbon glued to the top of the spine, like on a Bible or a fat library dictionary. I find the frayed, forked end peeking out the bottom and flip to the page.
A long string of red characters fills the top third of the page. If it’s a title, it’s longer than a Nile song’s. Below the red lettering there’s a stack of six parallel lines running from left to right across the page. Below that is another stack of six, all the way down the page. Shorter lines chop up the parallels into sections. Peppered over the parallels are numbers.
It’s a guitar tab. Over a thousand years old. If I remember my music history right, which I don’t, writing down tabs didn’t even start until hundreds of years after the Mad Arab is supposed to have put this down.
“Study it,” Phillips says. “Soon we’ll be at a place where you can rehearse safely, but for now just study it.”
I flip through several more pages, leafing through at first, then pinching off big chunks. From the marked page to the back cover, it’s all tablature. “Is this just one song?”
He nods.
“Jesus Christ, it’s longer than Dopesmoker.”
“Than what?”
I shake my head, pass the tome back to Nilos. “You really have no appreciation for the classics. I never asked, what kind of music do you like, anyways? What’ll you play once you get it all back?”
I see him smile in the ghostly reflection o
n the windshield. “You’ll hear it yourself soon enough.”
The place is about ten light-years off the grid, a three room cabin crouching beneath a mountain that’s probably snowcapped year round. There’s a propane tank painted up like a WWII U-boat in the back for heat and the stove. No wires coming in, no wires going out, and, most importantly, not a single speaker in the place.
Nearest human contact, which can only be called a town if you’re feeling extra charitable, is three miles down a bumpy dirt road. After inspecting the wards carved into the cabin’s walls, Phillips makes a supply run. Nilos retreats into his room and starts beating on the drums. I can’t bring myself to play the acoustic set up in my room, so I give the tabs a look again.
They really are incredible. Alhazred didn't just scribble down the strings and fingerings. He was kind enough to include all the flavor and spice: hammer ons and pull offs, little saw tooth patterns for tremolo, swooping bends and slashing slides. Not exactly the notation you’ll find online but clear enough. Beyond that, he squeezed manic notes into the space between the meters. Post-It notes from Phillips translate these annotations and explain Alhazred's delightful turns of phrase. “Invoke the howling beast[overdrive]” and “take hold of the demon’s neck and throttle[dip the whammy bar]”. Shame the guy didn’t live post-electricity, he could’ve written some crazy lyrics.
A horn honking in the short driveway announces King Howie’s return. I help him pack in the groceries. When it’s done, he says goodbye.
“You’re leaving?”
“I need to run interference, throw up smokescreens. The wards should protect you from being located through sonomancy, but they can’t protect you from old fashioned detective work. I’ll put out some false breadcrumbs to put her on the wrong trail.”
“What if she finds us?”
“She won’t. I’ll be back in a couple of months to check up on you.” He pauses with the door half closed. “And be careful with the book. It’s the last one.”
“What if she finds us?”
The door shuts.