Evolution

by Sam Kadence

  “What exactly do you want?”

  “Kerstrande.” Love, really. “The music. People to like me for being me, whatever that may be.” I straightened the pages of the song Kerstrande had polished for me. This too, I wanted. My music to be what I sang.

  “Kerstrande comes before your career, your friends? You barely know him.”

  I bowed lower, from the waist, eyes closed, holding back a tide of oncoming rejection that would be a knife to my heart. “I’m sorry, Rob.” How could I explain to him what I didn’t understand myself?

  Rob grunted and hugged me, forcing me to stand and return the hug. “You’re the weirdest guy I know.” Finally he let go. “I get that this is a big deal for you, but if he ever hurts you I’m going to skin him alive.”

  I laughed. At least his reaction was normal today. “This is important. I want to play my music. Can we practice this?” I handed him the song. “I’d like to see if we can retake control of this thing called Evolution.”

  His eyes grew wide when he began to read. “You wrote this? Petterson wrote this with you?”

  “I started on it a while ago. He polished it, added the score.”

  “Petterson hasn’t written a new song in years, and he just decided to rewrite one of yours? In fact, he wrote this to maximize your voice. It’s in your range, not Shuon’s.” Rob flipped from page to page, eyes growing wider with each turn. “All right, all right. Let’s work on it. Just you and me.” He shook his head. “We so need Joel back on the board.”

  I’d already called Joel that morning but got no answer, so we’d have to get through it on our own. After an hour of practice, I’d nailed the melody and began playing with the style, even upping the range beyond what Kerstrande had written for my voice. The vocal trainer the label provided had been a big help of late. And so long as Kerstrande didn’t complain, I’d continue to sing scales when I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night.

  The door to the Green room opened just before 8:00 p.m., and both Rob and I glanced up. Hane waved us to continue. Thankfully he was alone. Something about Shuon the other day gave me the creeps. When we finished the song, Hane clapped.

  “Amazing. Like it was written for your voice, your personality. The writers here are good, but not that good. Where’d it come from?”

  “Gene wrote it,” Rob said with all the pride of a lone rooster in a barnyard of chicks.

  “Kerstrande rewrote the music and changed a few words,” I told Hane.

  His eyes widened. “Really?” His smile was polite, but his words sounded a little bitter. “He once vowed to never write for anyone other than Michael Shuon. May I see?”

  I handed him the music, somewhat apprehensive of letting it go. At least Rob had a copy too, so if Hane swiped it, I’d still have one.

  “Definitely your range. You wrote the lyrics?”

  “And the main melody.”

  “Why aren’t all your songs original, then?”

  My cheeks felt hot at the comment. “Mr. Tokie didn’t like my stuff.”

  “This is better than what we had been playing. More emotion. Not so pop-ish. More angst. This hits you in the heart and drags you through the fire as it plays. That’s music.” Rob held his fist over his heart.

  Hane set the music on the keyboard stand and flicked it on. “Let’s put it together.”

  Rob and I shared a look, shrugged, and took our places. What could it hurt?

  The song came together in my head. Keyboard poured notes like a cold, falling rain. Guitar sang a lonely tune followed only by my voice in deep baritone filled with emotion. Not even Michael Shuon walking through the door could stop me from giving all I had to the song.

  The air tightened with his presence. Maybe I was still starstruck, I dunno, but he kept moving closer, until he was practically latched to my side. An unexpected bear hug stopped my singing altogether, and the instruments died behind me.

  “Michael, leave him alone,” Hane commanded.

  Michael’s expression said a lot of things I was sure not to like. He looked hungry. The only other time I’d seen that sort of perverted expression on someone’s face was the time an old man had offered to pay me for sex. I’d never ridden that train again.

  “He sings pretty.”

  “That he does. Let him go.”

  “Can I have him?”

  “Michael….” The warning in Hane’s voice was unmistakable. It came out more of an animalistic growl. Michael stroked my hair like I was some sort of pet. The darkness that covered him reminded me of what Devon had looked like the last time I’d seen him, a black-shrouded skeleton.

  Rob’s eyes were wide, but probably not as wide as my own. Blood rushed through me, pounding in my ears, and I began to feel like I’d hyperventilate. “Please let me go,” I managed to whisper. Shadows swelled around him like noncorporal rats scurrying up his body. The cold began to seep through my clothes, leaching the strength and warmth from me. Even at his worst, Kerstrande never got this bad.

  “Everything’s okay,” Hane soothed. Rob’s expression grew calmer, but I couldn’t feel anything other than panic. Michael’s grip bruised my arm. His lips hovered at my throat, making me want to throw my hands up to protect it.

  “He smells different,” Michael mumbled, then licked me.

  Yuck!

  “Yeah, he smells like Kerstrande. Let him go, Michael.” This time there was so much force to Hane’s words my heart paused. Michael let go. I sagged into the music stand, vowing to stay the hell away from Michael Shuon.

  Hane left the keyboard, grabbed Michael by the back of his shirt, and dragged him from the room, closing the door behind them. Rob stood quietly staring at his guitar, his expression peaceful.

  “Rob?”

  He looked up. “Huh?”

  I shook my head. “Remind me to stay away from Michael Shuon.”

  “Michael was here?”

  How could he forget? I gripped the sheet music, stolen back from the keyboard Hane had left it on. Maybe Hane had some kind of power to make people forget. Too bad it didn’t work on me. “Never mind.”

  Was it time to go home yet? I wanted to cuddle up with KC, even if he was in a mood, just to erase the last ten minutes of my life. Thankfully, Tokie released us shortly afterward, and I made my way home.

  The soft flow of an acoustic guitar playing from inside the apartment made me pause just outside the door, key in the lock. Kerstrande had never played in the short time I knew him. I had never even seen a guitar among his things. Would he stop if I entered? The melody sounded familiar. One of his old songs, maybe?

  Finally, I let curiosity get the better of me and opened the door as quietly as possible. Kerstrande sat on the floor of the living room, guitar in hand, strumming. His eyes didn’t open, nor did he look up, but he said, “Come here, Genesis.”

  When I didn’t move from the doorway, he finally looked at me, raised the guitar from his lap, and gestured me to sit between him and the guitar. I sucked in a deep breath, both wanting and fearing the intimacy, while I made myself comfortable in his lap. My back pressed to his chest, butt snug against his groin. I could play casual too. No need to get all excited. Maybe.

  He put the guitar back, arms around me somewhat awkwardly until we both settled into a relaxed embrace. Kerstrande positioned my fingers over the strings and pressed them into the hard metal. “That’s middle C.” He strummed once, then changed positions. “C chord.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sing.”

  “Sing what?”

  “Hum for all I care. Just match the notes as I play them. Remember the feel of the strings and the sound they make.”

  I sang scales, following his lead. He kept his fingers pressed to mine. I messed up a few notes, but he didn’t seem deterred since he continued. An ache began at the tips of my fingers, warning of oncoming blisters, and in my groin, telling me that having KC this close made me horny despite trying to pretend otherwise.

  By the time he�
��d begun to remix the scales on the guitar, I could follow the changes of his fingers with my voice in time to sing the note. His hands moved like magic, taking me into a new tune faster than I ever thought possible. When he gave me a sheet of words to sing with him, I barely realized I was the one playing and singing until a pause in the middle of the song tripped me up.

  He quieted the strings with his palm. “You smell like Michael Shuon.”

  What the hell? I sniffed my clothes but couldn’t smell anything. “He came into the studio while we were practicing. Got a little weird. He was dark like Devon.”

  “Stay away from Saxon. Whatever these things are that you see, I’m sure you see them in Devon. Go with your instinct and stay away from that man.” Kerstrande closed up the orange notebook, shoved it to the side, and put his guitar on the couch. One arm still wrapped around me kept me locked against him. “I heard you sang ‘Red Rose’. That song wasn’t meant for you.”

  The words stung. Did he think I fucked up his song? “I’m sorry.” I tried to get up and make my way out of the room to save myself the humiliation of showing him tears, but he wouldn’t let me go. “Please let me go.”

  “Sing ‘Midnight Rain’.”

  “Why?” Why wouldn’t he let me go so I could hide how he’d hurt me?

  “You’re hurt, angry. Fine. Put it into the song.”

  He wanted it—whatever. I relaxed into his arms, closed my eyes, and poured my frustration into the song. Didn’t he get how much I wanted, needed, to be accepted by him? Even if it was for something as simple as a song? Tears snuck free while I sang, but I wouldn’t look at him. He clung to me, face buried in my hair, arms like vises around my waist. I should have been happy to have him so close, listening to my voice, but I felt tired and heartbroken, lost.

  The song faded, and he let me go, rising to disappear into the kitchen. “Eat something,” he commanded.

  Chapter 17

  Kerstrande

  GENESIS slept curled up in a fetal position on his side of the bed. His chest rose and fell in peaceful monotony that should have lulled me to sleep. The deep baritone of his voice haunted me with the echo of pain even though he’d stopped singing hours ago.

  I’d messed up again, hurt him without intending to. Always with him the emotions; he threw into his music, his life, what others couldn’t replicate with skill. Like a child, he felt everything, saw everything, gave himself to everything without hesitation. I didn’t know how he had survived so long without being tainted by the brutal real world, but it just made me want him more.

  Our pre-bedtime confrontation, if it could be called that, pushed my patience near the breaking point. He stared at me with those large violet eyes, teary and wanting. I could easily have soothed away my hurtful words with soft caresses and endless kisses. But it wouldn’t have stopped with sex.

  Sitting close to him forced my hunger to rise. My resolve to keep him at a distance was for his safety as much as my own sanity. It’d been over a week since I fed. Damn him for giving me that kind of strength, and damn me for wanting more of it. I craved him constantly, not true hunger, but that nudging voice in the back of my head that said Just a taste, only a little won’t hurt anything. If I were smart, I’d find food elsewhere before the desire took over.

  I’d gone out in the sunlight that day, braving the irritating drumming and heat on my skin to find him shoes. Dodging the brightest of the sun’s rays, I’d slogged through four stores. I hated to shop, but it’d taken that long to find a pair like the ones he wore in bright blue, and then when the sales clerk brought them out in three colors, it took nearly an hour to decide I was just going to buy them all. But when Genesis had stared at his toes that morning and picked lightly at the hole in the right shoe, frowning, it was all I could think of all day. And the rainbows—well, I had no idea how to fix that. Hopefully he could take care of that himself.

  My watch ticked past 2:00 a.m. Had I been watching him so long already?

  I slid the window open and peered into the darkness, breeze cooling and energizing on my face. A wash of moonlight decorated the room, making his skin look pale, perfect, and beautiful. Boys shouldn’t look beautiful, but he did. The almond eyes, long black lashes, and thick lips were the stuff women dreamed of. His blond hair made him look exotic rather than Asian. He reacted violently whenever someone brought up his heritage. His flinch gave me an itch to pulverize someone since he’d obviously been hurt before.

  I was far too attached.

  A flutter of a bird outside the window yanked my attention away from him and slammed me into the here and now. A crow glared into the room from the ledge outside. Normally, animals avoided my kind. Even the scavengers wouldn’t pick our flesh. They probably tasted the monster inside, smelled it from miles away.

  The bird cawed at me. Gene twitched on the bed but didn’t wake. The bird took off, wings stretching a large span as it flew toward the distant trees, where a dark figure stepped free of the shadows.

  It all made sense now: the cold. Genesis’s fear, and his illness. The window had been open that night. I’d simply attributed that to Gene, but the moonlight pooling into the room highlighted the scratches on the floor. Claw marks. Probably from a bird much like the one that had just flown to its master.

  The minions of demons didn’t need an invite. Especially this one. I should have realized sooner what he wanted. The gentle sound of the breathing I had paced my own to reminded me of what could be stolen. Not this time, damn it.

  Across the street, just at the edge of the trees, he raised a hand in salute, calling me out. It was all right. I’d wanted this since I smelled him earlier this evening. Of course if he wanted a fight, I’d be happy to oblige.

  I shrugged into my duster, lit a cigarette, and headed down to meet my rival. This piper had a hell of an IOU for him too.

  Genesis

  THE sound of voices called me out of the blooming graveyard and back to reality. KC’s warmth missing from the bed was the first thing I noticed. My eyes popped open when cold air brought goose bumps on my skin. Crap. At least these shadows were people-shaped. They all stood near the window, moonlight flowing right through them like some low-budget B movie.

  I rolled to the edge of the bed and glared at the several visitors. “I don’t know if you guys get it, but you’re all dead. You should move on to wherever you need to go.”

  They all moved as one, turning their heads from staring out the window to look at me. I blinked at them, but they didn’t move at all. They were obviously very dead, looking a lot like something had gnawed on them for a while. One girl moved her lips, and then a moment later I heard, “You see?”

  “Yes. I think we’ve established that already. I see you. I’d like not to. So go away, please.”

  “Like me.”

  Did I like it? “Uh, sure. You’re great. Can you go now?”

  “Help you.”

  “With what?” Two could play this two-word game.

  “Kill him,” they all said at once in a painfully harsh whisper that could have given nails on chalkboards a run for worst sound.

  “Who? Kerstrande? No way. Touch him and I’ll send you to whatever nasty ever-after has yet to take you.” They moved toward me in a rush, the stuff of horror movies. I shut my eyes and waited for their contact, but it never came. They vanished. Instead, the apartment door opened and then slammed shut. At first I thought Kerstrande had heard me and gotten angry, but he didn’t seem to notice I was there.

  A few seconds later, he entered the bathroom and flicked on the light. The bright vanity bulbs stung my eyes, but I followed him anyway, afraid to ask where he’d gone. When I caught the door and shoved my way inside, only to see his back covered in bloody scratches; every normal, kind thought in my head vanished. I wanted to kill someone and bathe in their blood for hurting him.

  “What the hell happened?”

  He collapsed to his knees on the thick rug. Blood matted his tattered shirt and pants. The duster he us
ually wore had four long gashes that shredded it beyond repair. Blood dripped strongly enough to hit the floor with a “plink” that made it hard for me to breathe. I fell beside him, towel in hand, trying to stop the flow.

  “Should I call an ambulance? There’s so much blood.” He hadn’t looked this bad the night I hit him with my car. My heart raced while my eyes could only see the candy-apple-red of his life leaking from him.

  A glance at his face stopped my fingers just a penny’s width from his skin. The dark mist of shadowy things crawled around his features in that beautiful array of colored madness. He looked hollow, starved, and terrifying. Yet his eyes were locked on my shoulder, where the oversized T-shirt I wore to bed had bared my neck to him.

  Those colorful critters warned me each time. I’d slept for days, got sicker and sicker. The last time we’d had sex he’d been like this, without the shadows, but distant and hungry. I’d never felt as torn as I did right then. My body reacted with desire of the memory begging for his touch, but my brain flashed in neon signs that something had gone wrong last time and was about to go wrong again. Fuzziness rolled over me like a semitruck plowing down the freeway.

  He shoved me against the washbasin and kissed me hard. The metallic taste of blood flavored his lips. The warm slickness of his blood made it hard to hold onto him, but I clung for dear life. Then he yanked himself away. The growl that passed his lips, not even remotely human, sounded like, “Go to bed.”

  “But you’re hurt.”

  “Do as I say for once, damn you. Be normal.”

  I backed away, heart thudding hard enough to hurt. Maybe I was having a heart attack instead of the constant heartbreak. Finally, I reached the doorway and had the choice of facing a room filled with ghosts or the shadows on his face. I would have given anything to stay with him.

  “Close the door.”

  “Please talk to me, KC. Please….” I knelt there, just outside the doorway, wanting to touch him, anything but to be pushed away again.