by Kat Turner
“Yes. I wish I could have told you more to warn you, but I didn’t realize the extent of the Left Hand’s fickleness and greed, how it operates even in the shadow realm of hexes. Your complete and total ineptitude with the Left Hand path wreaked havoc. In all of my days, I have never seen a witch more incompetent with the ways of the Left. But fortunately for you, though the elemental sister in question is quick to unleash her wrath, her impulsivity makes her weak and beatable with the proper tools. But we must never speak of this ever again. This talk ends here and now. Do I make myself clear?”
Complete and total ineptitude. Ouch, but fair enough. “Yes.”
“That’s ‘yes, Mother Spirit’ to you. While the elements are all of our cosmic sisters, those of us who master them are the coven mothers. We act as mentors to the next generation. To our daughters.”
Helen stood up straighter, an invisible rope on the crown of her head pulling her confidence and self-esteem skyward. For the first time ever, the word mother sounded loving and right, like a big hug. “Yes, Mother Spirit.”
“Good luck, child.”
“I’ll need luck?”
“All witches need luck. It’s a force deserving of our reverence as much as any other. Twice as much for us spirit born.”
“Gotcha. Gotcha Mother Spirit, I mean.” Reunited with her full set of stones, Helen expedited her plan the second she landed on Nerissa’s front stoop and the lock clicked behind her.
Clutching one of the clear crystals, she put herself into the trance state and pictured Brian’s home, the bed where they’d made love. “Hold on tight, just for a little longer. I’m on my way, Brian.”
The ride service car pulled up on the Los Angeles curb and idled behind a chain of vehicles depositing concert-goers in front of the venue. Sure she could have teleported from Brian’s mansion to the arena, but Helen bet an Uber would work out better than floating through the astral plane in search of the precise location and optimal entrance of a massive downtown LA performance center. Drivers had GPS, and traffic had been bearable.
Hey, sometimes luck and technology worked like magic.
“Thanks.” Helen jumped out.
Throngs of people milled about, taking selfies and gathering into a line lengthening from an origin point at the doors. Cigarette smoke and perfume layered in with food and exhaust smells thickened balmy night breezes.
Guitar-heavy, recorded Fyre music blasted from a tent, mixing with ambient chatter from a crowd of fans. Electric blue lighting poured from the stadium interior, casting moving bodies in an upbeat glow apropos to the anticipatory pump of a sold-out event.
Pixelated images of the four band members standing below the band name, the day’s date, and energy drink ads cycled across the front of a gigantic screen near the building’s roof.
She held her hand to her forehead like a visor and scanned for her contact.
No ticket, no problem. Provided a certain rocker chick showed up at the rendezvous point. Yes, Helen could have called Brian, but she lacked the valuable commodity of time, and time would have been crucial to explain and apologize and otherwise have a meaningful phone conversation.
A young woman in a cheetah-print tube dress as tight as paint slipped through the crowd, turning heads as she sashayed in Helen’s direction. The liquid nymph wore thigh-high black boots fit for a dominatrix, and purple streaks highlighted platinum hair sailing over bare shoulders.
Awesome. Stacy delivered on her promise. She said a silent prayer of thanks that Stacy’s issues with Thom hadn’t ruined the super fan’s hobby of following Fyre around the country.
Helen stuck a hand in the air and waved, not caring how silly she looked. Go time.
Stacy broke into a trot and joined Helen on the sidewalk, narrowing eyes lined with a copious amount of kohl. “Okay, what is up with you? How did you get here so fast? Lisa texted that you stopped by the studio to pick up some stuff in the afternoon, and not even a direct flight to LAX is this efficient.”
“It’s a new airline. I’ll explain later. How do we get backstage?”
Stacy laughed. “Someone’s ready and raring to see Brian.” She drew out her pronunciation of his name in a teasing, girly sing-song.
“You could say that.”
Stacy grabbed Helen’s hand and led her around the side of a building, stopping at a yawning entrance to an underground parking garage. A trio of bored-looking people in Fyre T-shirts and laminate passes stood around smoking.
“What up, Stace?” A man with tattoos on his face offered a friendly nod.
“Hey, Steve. This is my friend Helen. Who’s working security tonight?”
Steve scratched his shaved head. “Uh, Ken, Misty, and Skeeter.”
“Awesome. Catch you guys at the party later.” Stacy pulled a fist down like a lever and guided Helen into the bowels of the concrete pit.
A limo, a semi trailer, and a black bus similar to the one Brian had exited from at the fair occupied parking spaces. A heavyset man unloaded the big rig, carrying a guitar the color of mint.
“Hey, Ken,” Stacy called. “Can you hook up my friend and I?”
Without a word, Ken rummaged in a fanny pack and produced two stickers with the band name, date, and words “all access special guest” printed on them. He handed them over.
Helen followed Stacy’s lead and stuck her pass on the front of her shirt. “Dang, girl, you have superpowers.”
Stacy shrugged, her heels clattering like gunfire as the pair followed Ken through a door and into a cinderblock-walled corridor with dirty linoleum flooring. Pass-bearing staffers sprinted about, hauling equipment and pushing carts.
“I’ve got mad groupie skills at least.”
Walking beside Stacy down the hall, Helen cringed before she could stop herself. Ugh. She needed to play it cool. Stacy was assisting her, big time.
Stacy slid Helen a sly look. “I mean, I know everyone on the tour and can get where I need to go with ease, perv. And besides, you’d be proud of me.”
The women zigged and zagged, soon advancing upon a wide doorway. Beyond the entrance, a spotlight flickered across a punch bowl of stadium seating. Red chairs filled up with chattering people. Recorded music streamed over speakers. Helen’s internal butterflies got more agitated with each step closer to the floor. Showtime, the moment of truth in more ways than one, awaited.
“I’m proud of your yoga practice, but I have a feeling that’s not what you mean.” At least talking to someone she knew provided welcome distraction and saved her from feeling alone and overwhelmed.
“Nah, I mean I’m taking a break from hookups with bands and roadies on their tours. I’m sick of being a freaking human sacrifice, offering my heart and body to the horny men of the music scene who couldn’t give a wet fart about me or my feelings. So no more sex. From here on out, I’m only going to shows to hang with my girls, rock out, and have a good time.”
Ooof. Human sacrifice. If only Stacy knew the gory extent.
Leaning against a wall, a buxom blonde in a red leather miniskirt chatted with a small group of scantily clad young women. She stuck a hand in the air. “Stacy.”
Helen caught Stacy’s fingers before she drifted off to join her people. “I am proud of you. For everything. I’ll see you back at Light and Enlightened, okay? I’ll talk with you about possible teacher training if I…as soon as I get home. I’m glad we’ve gotten to know each other over these few weeks.”
Stacy squinted. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Helen blinked back tears. “Wish me luck.”
Stacy pounced on Helen and squashed her in a massive hug fragrant with various products. “You’ve got this. Brian adores you, and he’s a great guy. Really great. You wanna know a secret?”
“Sure.”
Stacy broke away and backed up a few inches. Body glitter on her chest caught the light, giving her the aura of a coquettish fairy.
“About six months ago, a bunch of us were partying in a hotel suite. Thom di
tched me to hang with these two new girls from Chicago, fake-ass groupies who weren’t even fans of the music but wanted to star fuck their way to hotter Instagram followers. Whatever. Anyway. I was mad, so I went after Brian to get back at Thom. Brian was playing poker, and I sat on his lap and murmured all sexy in his ear that I’d suck his dick if he won the game. For incentive. You want to know what he did in return?”
“I suppose?”
“He had a roadie pull up a chair, and then he dealt me in. I sat next to him like an equal. Then we just talked, you know? And he asked me questions about myself and everything, got to know me. So I’m sitting there next to Brian Shepherd, the big kahuna himself, just stunned. Because he didn’t want to use me for a blowjob. He didn’t want the free sex. Didn’t even talk down to me or make fun of me or mess with my head. He’s one of the good ones. And we still talk now and then. He sent me an email with a link to an accounting school, cause he said it seemed like I was good with numbers. I never made a move on him after that, because I knew he deserved someone really great and special, a chick who could challenge him, who he could admire.”
Stacy took Helen’s hands. “He deserves you.”
The final bit of assurance gave Helen the incentive to see the mission to the finish and reunite with her man. “Thank you, Stacy. Have an awesome night.”
“I never told you the secret.”
“Oh. Lay it on me.”
Stacy leaned in and whispered, “This brainless groupie whore trounced all of those fuckers in Texas Hold ’Em. I walked away with over five thousand bucks.”
She turned on her spike of a heel and strutted to her friends, leaving a cloud of candy-scented perfume in her wake.
In a sudden, monumental shift of atmosphere, background noise exploded into cheers.
The lights of the stage area fell to blackness, dark pierced only by a show of multicolor lasers as they flicked across whooping fan faces.
Screams tore through the air as the frenetic drum opening to a beloved Fyre hit from a few years ago blew down the hall like sonorous thunder across the ocean.
Helen ran to the action. She still wasn’t quite sure she was doing, but she sure as hell wouldn’t quit.
Twenty-Two
Pandemonium, insanity. Helen was in college the last time she’d been to an arena concert and had forgotten about the sensory overload. From her front-row post on the floor, amplified guitars pumped through her blood.
Thom’s bass beats trembled low in her belly as he swaggered back and forth across the stage, hair hanging over his eyes and cowboy hat topping his head. Fans pressed into her back, angling to get closer. Warm beer splashed her ankle, the space’s palate a swirl of petroleum-tinged electronic smoke and all manner of human smells.
Alertness was key. A high-tech lighting grid hung from the ceiling. Jonas’s wild hair swung, the drummer and his kit elevated on a riser while he thrashed out beats.
Fyre’s legendary set prop, a gothic black carriage pulled by two maniacal carousel horses as large as elephants, hung suspended over the performers by webs of fat clear cables. The piece was massive. A death trap.
The longer she looked at it, the worse her willies got.
One horse, an orange stallion with a gaping mouth and a mane the color of flames, pulled the carriage toward hell.
The other, silvery and white, flew on seraphic Pegasus wings and tugged the operation to heaven.
She jerked her head around, aware in an acute sense of how packed and crowded the arena was. It wouldn’t be hard to get people panicked and scurrying.
Her thoughts ping-ponged back to the horse and carriage. Were they made of fiberglass? Steel? Haunted by maddening intuition, dread without a referent, Helen squeezed her clear crystal from its pouch and stuck the charm in her pocket. Perhaps the sentient travelling mineral would offer direction in crunch time.
Music stopped. Fans went berserk. Lights blinked off, and darkness swallowed all.
Dread emerged from the far corners of her consciousness. Evil was coming for her. All she could do now was look for signs and trust her abilities.
A new light show, a color wheel of pastels hued pink and cerulean and sea foam, danced through the space in streaks as enchanting as the aurora borealis.
Darkness dropped again. Music ceased. People shouted and cheered, stomped feet, the pitch rising and rising. Helen went at her nails as her underarms sweated.
A spotlight blinked on, highlighting Brian. Wearing his stage uniform and the red guitar, he looked right at her, into her eyes, facing a crowd but seeing nobody but her.
Man, on any other occasion she would have mainlined that shit like heroin, the whole cliché of the rock star crush singling you out. But something was wrong, and it would not serve the mission to surrender to swooning.
“It’s been a long and wild ride, and I want to thank each and every one of you for your unfailing support and loyalty on this tour. The fans are our lifeblood, our backbone, and none of this would have ever been possible without you,” Brian boomed into a microphone mounted on a stand.
The crowd erupted.
A lace bra flew on stage and landed at Brian’s feet. Two more followed. Fans whistled.
Brian read off the sizes and brand names on the tags and tossed the undergarments back once he’d identified their owners. “You might miss having these.”
She swooned a tad at the sight of his consideration. So humble, so appreciative, light years more evolved than the stereotype of the blasé, egotistical rock star regarding his admirers with disdain as he granted them the privilege of bearing witness to his talent.
Nope, he appreciated his fans and cared about them. Right down to women like Stacy, who were used to being treated like trash. On high alert, Helen combed for suspicious people, shady activity.
Brian leaned into his mic. Noise lulled, and obedient silence fell. “Sometimes when you meet someone, you see into their soul. Their body symbolizes their spirit in a certain auspicious synecdoche—part to whole, whole to part. And when you see into that soul, you see expanse. Infinity. The essence of the universe distilled but not diluted.”
He tuned his guitar and played opening notes, an aching melody that echoed off of stadium seats in sensual, enchanting beats. Some low notes, some high, made up long dreamy riffs. The tune had a coaxing feel, circular and drifting. Very much the core Fyre sound.
People hoisted phones, their flashlight apps turning the arena into a planetarium dome of electronic starlight.
“This one’s for you, Helen Britney, my constellation of stars. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“Aww,” the crowd cooed.
“Forgive him, Helen Britney,” a man several rows behind her yelled.
Helen mangled a hangnail until it bled. She’d never felt so helpless, so small, yet at the same time so cherished. Brian was the man for her. Every single cell in her body absorbed this absolute, unflappable truth.
To the tune of his instrument, Brian launched into lyrics, “Star in the night, webwork of heaven, your love it seduces the sky. Goddess incarnate, the way where you see me, your magic it takes me. Bewitched and beguiled, I turn to a child, no choice now but to comply.” He sang a few versus, played a solo, and sang more.
“Now repeat,” Brian told the crowd.
Everyone swayed in a back and forth rhythm, singing the chorus in their vocal hodgepodge.
He finished the song to a standing ovation, gaze trained on Helen. She laid a hand on her heart, vowing to fix their nightmare. She was close. She had to be.
Jonnie transitioned away from the ballad with an upbeat, gritty riff. They moved through a set of hits and radio anthems. High-energy vibes returned, clapping and cheers filled the seats.
Rock music rollicked, the guys giving it their all as they strutted one-by-one down a column extending into the crowd.
After two hours of music, Fyre played their biggest hit. A big-time song signaled the onset of the denouement, Helen’s nerves frying in time. Her pu
lse became a war drum. Her senses sharpened, cataloguing as much as possible. A pink Harley Davidson shirt. Reporters aiming black cameras as big as old-fashioned boom boxes, recording the action. Asymmetrical golden zippers slashing the legs of Jonnie’s tight leather pants.
A flash of movement offstage. Golden head. But when she blinked and looked again, the figure was gone.
Guitars and drums reached a frenetic pitch, grinding as the musical number raced to a crazed climax. A spray of pyrotechnic jets as blue as the flames on a gas stove erupted near the front of the stage, warming Helen’s face. Fellow front row spectators squealed and jumped back.
Brian attacked his red instrument, shredding away. He toggled the whammy bar, drawing out the notes. His pinky, sheathed in a brass tube, slid over the strings. Blues-y, quavering tunes dominated.
Near the back of the stage, the flames of six tangerine geysers burst. While the band played, more went off, forming a ring surrounding the performers. Sweat slipped down Helen’s back.
“Fyre! Fyre! Fyre!” The chant filled the crowded arena, pagan and crazed, like something from Wicker Man. Helen’s perception trembled, loopy from the surreal madness.
She floated out of her body, split, a buzz of flies assailing her ears. The clear crystal was hard in her pocket, pressing a pointed corner into the top of her thigh.
Amidst the pyrotechnic frenzy and bowled over by a sharp awareness as dour as it was stark, she locked eyes with the orange carousel horse and dropped into her trance state.
It’s happening. She couldn’t quite say yet what “it” was, but she needed to work with what she had. So, Icarus seeking the sun, she became a guided missile and propelled herself toward a crimson burn. She entered the flames, her lashes singeing. She focused every ounce of her energy on the feeling she wanted to bring to Brian. Safe. Protected.
But then she gasped, struggling for air in sucking breaths as she rejoined with her body as fast as she’d left it.