by Cecy Robson
Sparky lights up, the glow vibrant and showing that it’s not a wall I collided against. It’s more like I mountain of steroid injected muscle. I look up, past the curly chest hair and nips pierced with silver bars to meet the bass guitarist looming over me in the face.
The hair of his long mohawk skims across my forehead as he curls forward. “You don’t belong back here,” he tells me, his dull irises laced with menace. “You need to leave our Johnny alone.”
I lift my right arm. I don’t know this guy. I don’t even know Johnny. What I do know is Johnny is doing something to Destiny and he’s not getting away with it.
“Get out of my way,” I tell him, my arm flaring in awesome swirls of blue and white flames. “Now.”
Unfortunately, my buddy here isn’t as impressed by my pretty fire as I am. He grabs Sparky, his beefy hand crunching through my power and extinguishing the flames. The sheer might he uses forces me down, my knees slamming hard against the floor and making me scream.
Pain and anger trigger my magic, resurging the dwindling embers encasing my skin and combusting it into a raging and burning limb. The guitarist holds tight, not even blinking as my fire burns through his flesh and bone. His arm crumbles off in a kaleidoscope of colors, and still he just stands there.
Behind me, another man screams and Shayna’s sword flings away, her vicious strikes cutting the air and creating a high-pitched torrent of sound. I don’t dare turn away, my full attention on the guitarist and the creature he becomes. He shakes his head from side to side, his features contorting and morphing into a wolf while the rest of him stands as man.
I wrench away. “What the hell?” I gasp.
Wolves, real werewolves, can’t change their individual body parts. Only Celia can. Whatever this thing is, is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As quickly as I speak he snags my arm, once more piercing through my magic and puttering out my fire. He hoists me high in the air, his hot breath fanning across my face when he snarls.
I’m thrown toward the front of the stage, the weight of my body smacking against the dense fabric, sliding me along the length and beneath. The barrier it provides keeps me from a direct collision course into the audience, and likely spares my life. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like a mother when I crash against the stage floor.
I land on my right arm, the way it curls around me protecting my head. I’m not sure if it was my instinct to do so, or if it was my arm’s. Right now, I don’t care. I force myself up, grunting as pins and needles radiate down my leg and spine. I stumble forward, my thoughts a scrambled mess as I try to make sense of what’s happening. The guitarist isn’t human. Neither is Johnny, his unparalleled virtue transmitting across the air like deadly vapor.
My hip throbs as I limp forward. Something rubbery hits me in the head. I turn around only to see what looks like a hamburger patty lying just a few feet away. Something else belts me in the arm.
“What the hell?”
The audience is pelting me with food. Food. Ever have a hotdog flung full force against your bare skin? That shit hurts.
I hurry to the side, swearing when slices of pizza, churros, and full cups of beer follow more hotdogs. Johnny’s fans are completely coming undone. Yet it’s the collection of growls erupting backstage that propel me faster.
What might be a drumstick nails me in the shoulder before I finish squeezing through the small opening. “Christ,” I mutter, racing forward only to grind to a halt when I see what’s become of Johnny’s band.
The guitarist stands idly in front of me, watching the pack of werewolves circling Shayna, even as his body crumples in pieces, disintegrating like a paper mache rainbow.
“You’re not biting me,” Shayna tells them, her stare intent. “Uh-uh. You only think you are, wolfies.”
I lurch forward, my hands out and trembling from the raw energy singeing through my veins. But then something snakes around my ankles, tripping me and wrapping around my form as I fall.
It’s not until a long forked tongue flicks my chin that I realize it’s an actual snake.
His head shifts from side to side, the markings along his scales appearing painted on. He doesn’t bother looking at me, fascinated it seems by the altercation across from of us.
Tattered pieces of clothing lie in piles along the floor, pushed aside by massive paws the size of my head. The wolves narrow the perimeter they formed around Shayna, their movements awkward and stiff, not fluid like real wolves. These aren’t normal supernatural beasts. This is whatever Johnny’s band was.
I attempt to roll, but the snake constricts, warning me I should stay in place and tightening further when I try to call forth my flame in a rush.
I don’t dare move, not yet, not when this snake can squeeze the life out of me. Instead I slowly build a spark deep within me, nourishing it within my core to detonate when the moment is right.
As far as I can tell, there are four wolves, and several other creatures lurking nearby. I can feel them, just as much as I feel this snake coiled around me. But it’s Johnny I feel the most, the divination he creates surrounding us and invigorating those determined to protect him.
“Don’t move, T,” Shayna calls to me. “It won’t hurt you unless you threaten it.”
“What about you?” I ask, hoping she’s right.
“I’ve already did something threatening.”
Which means she’s in more danger than me. I take a few breaths, building upon the torch expanding inside me, not enough for the snake to notice, I hope, just enough to expand my power.
Shayna’s penetrating blue eyes remain on her targets. “These aren’t normal weres,” she says. “And Johnny is worse than we thought. The moment you’re free, find him. All the help I need is on his way.”
I know who she means. Koda’s howl blasts as loud as a rumbling storm, gathering momentum and speed as he closes in. He’s not far, nor alone, my bond with Gemini alerting me he’s also near and really pissed.
The hilt of Shayna’s sword elongates and thins out, forming another deadly blade. She spins, twirling her wrists, slicing the snout of one wolf and stabbing the one who lunges in the eye. Her sinfully quick reflexes force the others who try to advance back, just as Johnny’s magic starts to pull away.
He’s abandoned his hiding spot and moving fast.
Shayna feels his abrupt retreat. “You have to go, T,” she says, whirling her sword as she pivots away, creating more space between her and her attackers. “Can’t lose the bad guy now.”
She’s right, and like a flick of a lighter, I release my fire.
I expect the snake to jerk in agony. But he just looks at his crackling skin, watching it break away in colorful chunks when he tries to constrict.
A man cries out in pain behind the stage. I think it’s Johnny. I just can’t understand why he’s hurting.
The moment I’m free, I roll, away from the lingering flame and to my feet. My right arm extends out, shooting a long ray of lightning into a leaping wolf. He hits the giant flat screen as I swirl around and finish off the guitarist gunning for me.
Another wolf attacks Shayna, materializing from the deep shadows along the dark stage. I don’t know how many there are, I just know we have to keep fighting. These creatures are deadly, yet nothing close to mortal.
Instead of burning in my fire, or bleeding from Shayna’s strikes, the wolves simply stop being. They fall in shuddering, helpless heaps, breaking apart in colorful ash that floats into the air and drifts idly away. As much as they seem to hurt, none howl or bleat in agony, unlike those terrible cries resonating in the distant.
I lash out, the wolf who charges zipping out of the way so I only manage to torch his paw. His snarls cease and he stops moving, watching with curiosity as my fire eats away at his leg.
These aren’t real beings. They’re not real anythings.
The shimmer of their fur gives them a slight, animated look, if it weren’t for the force the guitarist used against me,
and the way the snake coiled around my body, I could have easily mistaken them for visions.
“Shayna,” I say, edging closer when I sense more creatures lurking in the shadows. There are too many. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Uh-uh,” she says, fear and determination warring in her features. “You need to get out and find Johnny.”
The wolves growl at the mention of Johnny’s name. “I mean it, T, this guy is bad news.”
The urgency in her tone scares me. She’s afraid of what Johnny is and what he can do. Shit. So am I.
Another menacing howl, this one closer and more familiar, calls near the entrance to the arena. Koda is almost here. This is my chance to find Johnny.
I back away, in the direction I felt him vanish. But as inhuman as his protectors are, they’re not blind or stupid.
The wolf targeting Shayna abandons her to trail me closely, his fangs peeling back and exposing a row of razor sharp teeth.
“Easy boy,” I tell him, keeping my firing arm out. As much as I’m willing to defend myself, something about them makes it hard to attack. There’s a misery that surrounds them, as gut-wrenching as the lyrics in Johnny’s song. Yet while I pity them to some extent, that pity isn’t mutual.
Without warning they attack, the wolf shadowing me thrusting his large body forward and clamping down on my arm.
My screams are inaudible over the deafening sound of cracking bone. The wolf who has me digs his fangs deep, the needle-length tips puncturing through the muscle and into the marrow.
I retaliate with a vengeance, and so does my arm, using our collective rage to fuel my fire. Blue and white flame reflect along the wolf’s dark eyes. There’s no fear, no soul, simply a mindless determination to stop me at all costs.
My fire intensifies, the pain I’m feeling receding as the flames eat through the wolf’s snout, breaking his face apart in a spray of bright color. Sweat cascades down my spine like rainfall from the singeing cocoon of energy my small frame has become, it consumes him, tearing him apart. And still there he stands. No pain. No regret. Nothing that constitutes thoughts beyond the need to protect.
The impact of his demise is like an atom bomb of paint, casting multi-colored rays of light across the battleground the stage has become. A wolf speeds toward Shayna. She spins out of the way, moving with a dancer’s grace and burying her sword into his neck.
A hard grunt escapes her mouth from the strength she uses. I expect the usual, a head rolling away, a heavy body slumping. But that’s not what comes.
She digs her heel in and yanks hard, trying to free her sword when it doesn’t finish breaking through. I rush toward her when another wolf closes in, only to be intercepted by another round of beasts.
Two boars with large tusks snort in challenge while the rhino behind them pushes his way between them.
My heart all but bursts when Shayna’s needles fly through the air and our wolves appear.
Koda’s large red body collides into the two boars now littered with needles, thrusting them away from us as they turn on him. She crawls away, scanning the demolished area for a new weapon to transform.
Gemini’s twin wolf leaps across the stage, his midnight color fur making him almost invisible in the bleakness. I barely catch sight of him, his speed and heavy build ramming the rhino charging toward me.
Strong arms wrench me out of the way, the familiar hold keeping me from reacting. Gemini pins me to the far back wall, using his body like armor to encase me. “What happened to you?” he says. “Jesus, you’re covered with bruises.”
“Johnny Fate is some kind of mystic. He hurt Destiny—”
“She’s safe.” He drags me down the stage and further away from the fight. “Bren and Tye have her and Emme.”
He whips around when the rhino tosses his twin across the floor, racing away from me and tackling the large beast.
“Taran, you have to go,” Shayna urges, sharpening a symbol from the drum set and transforming it into a medieval axe. “We’ve got this, get Johnny.”
I stagger backward, the increasing screams from the arena helping me gather my resolve. I shoot back stage and down the steps, shoving past a group of scantily-clad women scrambling to escape. I manage to find an exit door when I hear something behind me.
One of the boars, covered with needles and trembling wobbles toward me. He shouldn’t be dying, not like this. But here he is, his body disintegrating into a pool of vivid colors.
“Son of bitch,” I mutter, throwing open the door and taking off in a sprint.
My heels beat against the cement steps leading up to the rear of the arena. I made it outside, but I don’t know where I’m going, and can’t predict what may attack next.
People are running everywhere, some wearing headsets, appearing to be part of the crew, others members of the audience, searching for somewhere to hide or flee. I can’t imagine what they’ve seen. Personally, I’ve seen enough. That doesn’t stop me from racing forward, my body alert and seeking that pull from Johnny’s magic.
I reach a gated parking lot, my gaze immediately latching onto Johnny’s tour bus. A larger than life image of him sprawled across a bed is painted on the side. A crumpled white sheet is the only thing covering his waist and he’s making one of those pouty faces that’s supposed to be sexy. It doesn’t seem right, neither does the image, too sensual for someone who could easily pass for a teen.
The bus’s engine is running, the driver’s head jerking in every direction as he barks into his radio. I don’t bother to raid it or speak to the driver. If Johnny was inside, he’d already be gone.
I walk toward the other cars parked along the lot, trying to get a hit on Johnny’s mojo. It’s not until I pass a black Lincoln Town car that the tiny hairs along my arm tingle and I get a taste of Johnny’s pull.
It’s not a lot, just enough. I look toward my left where it’s fading, down a beaten path leading to a section of woods.
Damn it. I hate the woods. Nothing good besides Bambi has ever come out of that shit.
I crack my knuckles and lift my hands slightly away from my sides, stalking forward and preparing for anything that could attack. The tension consuming every nerve cell along my body surges with every step I take, adding an extra layer of pain to my throbbing injuries.
The woods, thankfully, aren’t very thick, nor are they too far from the highway. I can hear the honking horns and thrumming engines just ahead and to my right. It only takes a few yards for the trees to break and the path to open into a field of dry grass and the spindly weeds thriving beneath scattered rows of discarded plastic cups and crushed beer cans.
Cigarette buds are also a dime a dozen, littering the ground in front of me, and I have to step over what resembles a broken crack pipe just as the ramp leading into the arena comes into view. Awesome, if Johnny doesn’t kill me some amped up addict just might try.
My focus sharpens as Johnny’s magic sends my instincts on high alert.
I hear him, long before I see him, hunkering by a large stone and speaking fast.
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice shaking. “Just get me out of here . . . they took out my band— What? . . . These girls, Drake—No, not groupies—women. Super women or some shit. They took out my band. They’re dead. They’re Goddamn dead.”
His skin is bleached white and dripping with sweat, his tenor voice shrill. “Please, Drake. I know what I said. I’ll keep going . . . I swear, I will— Yes, another two years, whatever you want just get me out of here.”
Being positively stealth in these shoes, I crunch an old beer can partially buried in the soil.
He whips around, almost dropping his phone when he sees me. “You,” he rasps.
I don’t know what I expected to see in Johnny. Some defiance, yes. It’s what I’m used to. Anger too, it comes with the territory. I don’t expect fear, loads of it. But that’s exactly what Johnny Fate hits me with.
Like I said, he looks young. But fear makes you either
age before your time or leeches your strength, reducing you to a delicate shell close to cracking.
I’ll give him this, Johnny does fragile well, his trembling form reminiscent of a lost, wounded bunny who can’t find his way home.
I hold out my hands, ready to defend myself or lash out if he strikes. Except all he does is stand there, paralyzed with fear, his body quivering out of control.
“I need you to come with me,” I tell him gently.
He takes off like a rocket, a great deal faster than I can run.
“Johnny, wait,” I yell.
“Eat shit,” the wounded bunny answers.
All right, can’t exactly fault him for that one.
I chase him across the field of withering grass, garbage, and varying degrees of drug paraphernalia. With the amount of concerts the arena has hosted, the field has seen better days and more crackheads than a hundred city blocks. I don’t want to step on a syringe, in fact, I’m terrified of it. But I’m more scared of what Johnny will do if I allow him to escape.
My legs propel me forward, the muscles of my thighs, burning with how hard I’m running. With the exception of Emme, anyone else on Team Taran would have caught him by now and shred him to confetti. As it is, I’m barely keeping him in my sight.
“Johnny, I’m not going to hurt you!”
It’s an absurd thing to say, and I mean every damn word. Johnny isn’t a predator. He neither hunts nor stalks, outwardly fleeing and absolutely terrified.
He peels off his leather vest, exposing blotches of reddened skin lining his back. I’m not sure what they are or what he’s doing until another creature leaps from his back, enlarging in size and falling with a crash directly in front of me.
I stop dead. The way this thing materialized is almost identical to the way Gemini’s twin wolf separates from his human half. Except where Gemini’s ability is more of a smooth, liquid motion, Johnny’s is abrupt, a missile fired in retaliation and aimed right at me.
I don’t move, more dumbfounded than afraid as I take in this massive new threat. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen, his build at least seven feet in height and his musculature reminiscent of comic book hero, supersized and overly done.