“God. Control freak much?” Cass muttered. “Why don’t you piss on her leg?”
When I looked back at her, she looked genuinely angry.
Not wanting to go there, with her or with him, I looked back at Jaden, who was staring at Cass, too. His expression was mostly neutral as he looked her over in the red dress, but I saw a colder look forming in his eyes, the hint of a frown on his lips.
I knew he didn’t like Cass much.
He didn’t like Jon much, either, for that matter. He rarely said anything to me outright, not anymore, but he wasn’t very good at hiding his dislike, even in front of them.
Wanting to dispel whatever tension I saw brewing behind his eyes, I kissed him.
He kissed me back at first, but after a few seconds, he extricated himself, glancing back at the group of musicians and others who stood by the stage before his eyes scanned the rest of the room, his expression taut.
“Okay, that’s enough, Taylor,” he said jokingly. That time, his aimed his colder stare at me. “You guys really did get an early start, huh?”
I moved back, sliding my arms from around his neck.
“Not that early,” I said. “We’ve been here for a few hours. Waiting. You said to be here before six, remember?”
Biting my lip, I fought the impulse to follow his eyes to the group of musicians by the stage. I distinctly got the impression he hadn’t wanted someone to see us kissing. Who, exactly? Jaden and I had been together for five years. Every member of his band had seen us kiss before. It wasn’t like I’d been grinding on him; in fact, he’d been the one to get handsy.
Was it some band image thing? Did he need to seem like single guy now?
Trying to shrug it off, I took another half-step back.
Jaden hesitated when I did, frowning at me.
Before I could think of anything to say, Corey walked up from behind him, grinning and holding a beer as he clapped him on the back.
“Did Jay tell you about the shoot?” he said, smiling at me. I saw his eyes flicker down my body before they jerked back up to mine. “It was awesome! We took all these pictures in the park. At that Alice in Wonderland statue, you know? Then they took us to the zoo, and we took pictures in front of some of the animals. I got to hold a lion cub––”
“We were over there,” Cass broke in. “What time?”
As the two of them chatted, comparing notes on where we’d been, I glanced at Jaden.
His blue eyes had turned inward. I could see a faint annoyance there, and around the set of his mouth. I recognized the look, but I didn’t know what it meant exactly.
I’d been seeing it on his face a lot the past few weeks.
I glanced over at where Drake, the bass player, was talking to some girl I’d never seen before. She was wearing in a Eye of Morris band T-shirt that she’d cut off to show her midriff and a micro-mini with knee-high boots. Drake’s eyes were pretty firmly fixed on her breasts as she spoke.
I glanced back at Jaden.
His face was wooden now, like he’d been thinking, or maybe was thinking still. Whatever conclusions he’d drawn, he didn’t seem too happy about any of them.
“Jaden––” I began, my voice low.
“What, Allie?” he said, focusing on me directly. “What is it?”
I fell silent, looking at him. Seeing the fight in his eyes, I backed down.
“Nothing. I was just going to say… we had kind of a stressful day, too. Don’t take Cass personally right now. She didn’t mean anything by it.”
“You had a stressful day?” he said. “Really? Playing tourist? Well, I’m sure that was really emotionally draining for you.”
Looking at his watch, which I’d actually given him, to go with his whole retro look onstage, he scowled.
“Whatever horrors your day in the sun wrought, can it wait? At least until you’re sober?” He dropped his wrist back to his side. “We have to get ready. I need to get back there. Drake wants to make some changes to our set order, and––”
I held up a hand. “Okay, yeah. I got it.”
I stared at him, though, thrown by the coldness of his voice.
“Great,” he said, that fight still in his words. “Then you can just save it all up and bitch at me later, okay?”
“Bitch at you?” I said, bewildered. “Jaden, seriously. What did I do?”
“I asked if it could wait, Allie,” he said, his voice openly angry. “Can you for once just not pretend you know what’s going on in my head? I had a bad day. I’m stressed about the show. There’s nothing for you to fix, okay? I told you everything.” His frown deepened. “I can’t just sit here and get fucked up with you and your little pals, not unless I want to tank the show. This is something I actually care about. Remember?”
Corey and Cass were staring at Jaden now, too.
Corey seemed to take the weather and wander off, back towards the stage.
“…I’m glad you had fun with your friends,” Jaden added. “It must be nice, just hanging around all day, not having anything to do.”
“Seriously?” I said, staring. “What the hell, Jaden? Was I supposed to be at the photo shoot? Because I thought you told me not to go to that. Are you mad I was gone all day? Or are you mad that I’m in New York at all?”
He shook his head, eyes cold. “For the last time, I’m not mad. I’m just stressed. And I’ve got shit to do. Whatever it is you think I’m doing wrong, we’ll talk about it later.”
I watched, bewildered, as he walked away, back towards the stage.
I couldn't help but notice he was wearing the same jeans, T-shirt and motorcycle boots he wore onstage for a lot of Eye of Morris gigs. So the changing clothes excuse was probably an exaggeration, if not an outright lie.
Was he really mad I’d been gone all day? Why?
I’d told him about our plans before we left SF. He’d openly encouraged me not to hang around, telling me we’d just be bored.
In fact, he’d encouraged me so much, I’d almost been offended.
I knew this was a big show for him, so maybe he really was nervous. Maybe from his perspective I wasn't being supportive enough––either by being hammered, or by leaving him alone while he was doing the networking thing.
Was he mad I took off that morning without saying anything to him?
As I watched Jaden go, the feeling I got was different, though.
It felt like he was just running away. It felt like he wanted any excuse to get away from me, that he’d pushed the conversation into a fight on purpose. I wondered if he’d been doing that a lot lately, and I just hadn’t noticed.
Or maybe I had noticed and just didn’t want to.
When I looked at Cass, she raised an eyebrow.
“What did you do?” she said sarcastically.
From her tone, I could tell she didn’t think it was me who had done something.
I answered her anyway.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said, watching Jaden leave.
14
THE ONE TRUE GOD
THE FOOD DIDN’T help. A few hours later, I really was drunk.
I told myself it was fine. I needed the break from thinking.
Cass didn’t exactly discourage me from going that route. She talked me into doing a few more shots with her after I ate a bunch of nachos and picked at part of a basket of french fries with Jon and the two female friends of the sound guy, Jolee and Erika.
Given my mood, I let her––talk me into the shots, I mean.
Now she was jumping up and down in kind of a weird dancing pogo stick thing along with about thirty other people near the front of the stage.
She laughed and grabbed my arm when I handed her a beer, trying to get me to join her in the mass of sweating bodies and flailing arms. Her black hair was stuck to her forehead, giving her almost a China doll look with the deep black eye-makeup and bright red lipstick she wore. She’d already dragged me out on the dance floor with her twice, and I wasn’t ready for round th
ree yet.
I also didn’t want to lose my seat at the bar with Jon while the place was starting to fill up for real.
At the thought, I glanced towards the door.
The line was growing out there. I knew a lot of people would be coming to see Eye of Morris, not just the headliners, especially given all the radio play they’d gotten over the past month. I probably only had about thirty minutes before Jaden would be in the thick of it and completely surrounded by other people.
The band onstage now was decent for an opening act. Under normal circumstances, I probably would be out there with Cass.
“I’ll be back!” I promised her, extricating my arm. “Hold my seat for me?”
“Promise?” she shouted. “Promise you’ll be back?”
I grinned, shouting over the sound of the throbbing bass speaker.
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”
Cass shook her head, snorting a little after she studied my face.
“Don’t let him off too easy!” she shouted. “I mean it, Al.”
I rolled my eyes. But I found myself turning her words over in my mind anyway as I walked away. I knew from her perspective I should be pissed off, but I just wasn't feeling it for some reason. Even being fairly hammered, I wasn’t feeling it.
I’d always been a strangely logical drunk.
I don’t know why I was so calm about the Jaden thing, though.
I couldn’t decide if it meant I was being too much of a pushover, like Cass and Jon kept saying, if I was in a zen space in general, mentally wiped from the day we’d just had, or if I was simply too drunk to really get what was going on. Either way, I didn’t want to leave things on a bad note before he went on stage.
I wanted him to know I was rooting for them to kick ass, at least.
Whether it was partly jealousy or not, I’d gotten dressed up for him.
I’d worn the skin tight pants and the lace top for him, the boots I knew he liked, the teardrop jade earrings, the make up, which was a few layers more than I normally wore. I’d spent time on my hair, getting it to hang down in waves and artful curls past my shoulders.
I’d been trying to do the girlfriend thing.
I could be lazy about that, truthfully. I’d known for awhile that Jaden cared more about image-type stuff than I did, especially when it came to his band. I also knew he didn’t like to come off as a prick, so he rarely said anything about it.
Since it was one of the few nights in recent history I’d been getting almost as many looks as Cass, I felt like I’d succeeded, at least more than usual.
Even so, given his moodiness lately, I gave myself a fifty-fifty chance of being able to turn Jaden around in the time I had left before his gig. There was maybe a twenty percent chance I could make it worse, especially if something else had gone wrong with the band. I estimated a thirty percent chance he wouldn’t talk to me at all; but if that was the case, I could at least wish him luck, and I wouldn’t make anything worse.
More to the point, there was maybe a seventy percent chance Jaden was stoned by now, thanks to his band manager, Randy. If he was, there was a very good chance he’d be in a significantly more mellow mood, and probably affectionate and apologetic and happy I went back there to wish him luck.
Truthfully, that had me more hopeful than anything.
Pushing through the crush of bodies to reach the aisle between the bar and the dance floor, I fought to keep my mind calm as I aimed my feet for the door to the backstage area.
I’d nearly gotten there, when a thick body stepped directly into my path, forcing me to come to a complete stop.
It wasn’t Jaden. Or anyone in his band.
It wasn’t even one of the bouncers.
Looking up, I stared at the blocky, malformed face, and my mind stuttered to a stop.
Meeting my gaze, the man with the blond ponytail smiled his too-white smile. Before I could recover, he put his hands together in prayer position and bowed, more deeply than he had the other times I’d seen him do it. Something about it reminded me of my encounter with Jewel earlier that day, only the bow and tilted head were a lot less charming on this guy.
They were also a lot less natural-seeming.
He half-shouted to be heard over the band, but I heard that tinge of Southern drawl in his words.
“Miss Taylor,” he said. “It is such a pleasure to see you again.”
I stared up at him, still stunned silent.
The alcohol couldn’t be helping my reaction time, but I think I was in shock. I couldn’t take my eyes off his squarish face, or the smooth, blonde hair that hung down his back, slick with product. He looked more or less exactly as I’d drawn him, apart from the fact that he’d changed his clothes. Even with the more casual cut of his jacket and shirt, he still looked oddly out of place, like a rich parent trying to blend at a club frequented by their twenty-something kid.
Looking at those watery blue eyes, I remembered the indifferent look on his face while the Russian was kicking the downed, half-naked seer. That sick feeling I’d mostly managed to squelch in the past hour or so came roaring back.
I’m not sure what the emotion there was.
It probably should’ve been fear.
Alarm, at least, that he’d somehow tracked me to the club.
More than anything, though, I felt disbelief––a part of me just couldn’t believe it.
Somewhere in those few seconds of looking at him, however, my brain switched tracks.
I went from disbelief to a harder, more calculated assessment. I found myself sizing him up––physically, demeanor-wise, possible weapons, the fact that he likely wasn’t alone––even as my mind stripped itself of the effects of the alcohol.
I noticed details my first once-over missed.
He wore a thick, dark jacket with a greenish sheen. Something about the texture and that green hue made me think the material might be enhanced, even armored, or infused with nanites that served some other purpose. I’d seen programs on the black feeds about clothing that could project images, block GPS, terminate headset signals or hack them, neutralize SCARB surveillance, even confuse government-issued implants.
His synth-material boots looked expensive but also highly-functional, almost military. His dark gray shirt appeared designer, but I saw it push out slightly on one side under the coat, which made me think he was probably carrying.
I stared at the chain necklace around his neck. On the end of it hung a symbol in silver.
It was the same three interwoven spirals with a small triangle in the center.
When I finished my assessment, meeting his gaze, he smiled.
He must have been following my eyes. He fingered the necklace while I watched, touching it reverently with a ring-clad hand. From his expression, I knew something else: he’d wanted me to see it. His eyes bored into mine, clearly looking for a reaction.
I took a step back, instinctively looking for Jon.
The crowd had closed the space around me. I couldn’t see the bar at all, apart from the lit area above the bartenders.
Remembering the weirdness of the man’s jacket, I activated my headset.
“Jon?” I continued to stare up at the man’s face as I opened a second channel. “Jon? Cass? Anyone listening?”
Nothing.
I refocused on the man with the ponytail.
I admit, at that point, my nerves screeched into overdrive.
“Who are you?” My eyes flickered around the dark and crowded corridor, looking for his friends. “Do you intend to arrest me? If so, I request a reading of the charges.” Returning my eyes to his, I added, “Earlier today, I informed private counsel I’m apparently a person of interest in an investigation being conducted by SCARB. They advised me––”
The man laughed, cutting me off.
“Very good,” he said, smiling. “Very, very good, Miss Taylor. And very clever. But no. You have not informed counsel––private or otherwise. Nor did you call your criminal lawyer
uncle in Arizona to ask him about your options. We would have known.”
My jaw hardened as I stared at him.
I didn’t miss the “we” he’d thrown in there.
The man held up a hand, as if to reassure me.
“Relax, Miss Taylor, please. I’m not here to arrest you. We do not represent who you apparently think.”
My mind was churning, trying to make sense of the necklace, the note that morning, the note on the plane, the bombing, the arrested seer.
“Who are you?” I said. “Third Myth?”
He gave me a wry smile. “No.”
My frown deepened. I didn’t believe him.
At the same time, I didn’t see much point in arguing with him about it.
“Then what?” I said, speaking loud, over the band. “Are you with the Sweeps? Home-Sec? Police? IPF? Who the fuck are you? And what do you want with me?”
The man also raised his voice over the crowd.
“There is no reason to be alarmed, Miss Taylor.” He smiled, shaking his head. “We are not with any of the branches of SCARB. We are not police or Homeland Security, either.”
“So who are you?” I said. “If you’re some kind of terrorist––”
“Are you aware of the One True God, Miss Taylor?”
I blinked, staring at him. “Excuse me?”
“Do you know of Dragon? The God of Beginnings?”
I glanced around where I stood, once more looking for familiar faces, friendly or not. At that point, I would have been happy to see pouty lips among the crowd milling around that end of the stage. Instead I saw people ignoring us, walking around us like we were pebbles in a fast-moving stream.
A few men stared briefly at my clothes and bare skin, but that was it.
I turned back to the blond with the ponytail.
“Look, I don’t know what your game is, but I’m not familiar with the Myther religion,” I said, still loud above the band. “I’m also 100% not interested. If you’re looking to recruit me in some way, or think I’m in any way sympathetic to your cause––”
“I told you. We are not with the watered-down group you think of as ‘Third Myth.’”
He continued to smile, hands folded in front of his thick torso.
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