The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1)

by Maureen O'Leary

  “Even poor people need music and art,” Komo said. “Are you saying we should forget how to be human just because times are hard?”

  Fynn’s head buzzed. The Nine tablet she had taken that morning was wearing off. If only Mary Daniels could see how stupid she looked. If only she could see how stupid her entire life was. Fynn felt cruel. She stretched out on a cushioned lounge Komo kept for her. No one else held permission to sit on it but Fynn because she was his queen. She thought about pinching the Daniels woman’s head off. She put two fingers together and peered at her through them with one eye. Pinch. That’s all it would take.

  The journalist patted the back of her neck. A thin veil of perspiration beaded on her forehead. Komo permeated her defenses in the warm room and they were melting away like everyone’s always did. Even Mary Daniels, the world famous journalist known for her hard driving questions to the most famous of celebrities and heads of state was not immune to Komo.

  The air conditioning seemed to stop working. Incense spiced the air. Fresh fruit filled platters on the craft tables and the party girls poured red wine into glasses and plied them to the men in the crew.

  “I don’t care about the money,” Komo said, his voice on the dangerous edge of boredom. Only Fynn recognized the flash of hunger in his eyes. The truth was a fan had paid 1.6 million dollars for the pair of tickets for his one-night appearance. The Vine only seated one thousand. Getting to see Komo in such an intimate venue would be worth that price and more for a lot of people.

  Fynn stretched to try to relieve an impending backache. Someone in the room had to have some Nine. She needed it if she was going to have to listen to any more of Komo’s media bullshit. She hated that he had to make himself seem humble. Ms. Daniels and the rest of the world would be very interested in finding out that Komo did in fact care about the money. He loved the money and so what? He deserved it for how he made people feel. More than that he loved knowing that he had fans who adored him so much they would pay over a million dollars just to be close to him for a few short hours.

  He dropped the grapes. “Are you going to the show, Mary?” he asked. “Do you like my music?” He closed the space between them and put his hands on her knees.

  She crossed her legs. Her lips quivered as though she were struggling not to smile.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, Mr. Komo,” she said. “I’m asking the questions here.” This wasn’t the first time a powerful man tried to shift the power in an interview with the mighty Mary Daniels. Fynn and Cate had watched online clips together to figure out her tactics. Mary never lost an inch of control in an interview. She reduced dictators, presidents and sheiks to mere schoolboys. This was the first time Fynn ever heard her voice quake. The crew guys glanced at each other from behind their equipment. Ms. Daniels was not asking Komo to remove his hands from her knees, moving up her thighs. He moved closer and chucked her gently under the chin with his knuckle.

  The woman’s crew and assistants gasped. But Komo acted as if he and the reporter were the only two people in the room. Fynn’s jealousy was a demented child’s toy folded on a spring, always ready to pop up. With her fingers to her eye again she pinched Mary Daniels’ head flat.

  Theater, Fynn said to herself. Remember, it’s all part of the theater.

  Komo lifted the woman’s chin with a finger, as though maybe he would kiss her. The years fell from her face. Fynn saw her as she must have been at seventeen, young, and fresh.

  Ms. Daniels began to laugh.

  Her face flushed. Her eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth, but still she laughed. Her shoulders shook with violent peals of laughter. Komo reclined against the pillows on his chair.

  Tears ran down the woman’s face, smearing her makeup. Cate stood up.

  “This interview is over,” she said briskly. “Let’s leave the artist alone to gather his strength before the show.”

  The camera crew and assistants half lifted Mary Daniels out, her laughter shrieking like birds let loose in a closed room.

  “Thanks, Boss,” Komo said as Cate took away wine glasses and plates. Her heels clicked on the concrete floor. Fynn hesitated. Every part of her wanted to stay in the room with Komo, but she did not want to defy Cate if she decided that he should be alone. Komo’s masseuse came in. Komo unfolded himself from the velvet chair to lie on a massage table in the corner by the mirrors. Komo liked rubdowns before the show.

  Sound checks vibrated in the walls. It was almost time to perform.

  “Everybody out, but Fynn,” Cate ordered. The masseuse’s shoulders slumped like she was about to cry. Cate waved her away. It seemed everyone was afraid of Cate, though no one would be able to say why. Fynn thanked her breathlessly as she closed the door, leaving the two of them alone.

  In the muted quiet, Fynn took the masseuse’s place. She kneaded Komo’s shoulders. Her hands looked impossibly small against the broad expanse of Komo’s back. They had to get a table custom made to hold his height.

  With every stroke she prayed silently. Please let my hands be enough. Let my love be enough forever and ever.

  The buzz and crash from upstairs rang through the walls. The Ritual Madness guys were warming up, their girlfriends waiting in the wings. Soon Fynn would take her place among them like any another groupie girl, yet she and Komo knew she was so much more. Every show, she surveyed the crowd for the glowing eyes of demon stalkers. They stayed away. Word must have spread after she obliterated the Mayhem demon in the woods outside the lab. Somewhere out there a coward demon and his handless brother must have told the other freaks of Hell to stay away or be turned to a pile of stinking ash.

  Komo was safe. That was the important thing. As long as Komo could take the stage every night, her purpose in life was fulfilled.

  The guitars spit electronic fuzz. Fynn thrilled at the sound of it. Feedback noise preceded something wonderful. Fynn would never get tired of the road. Every show with Komo was a magic carpet ride.

  Fynn worked a knot between Komo’s shoulder blades. He reached to caress her leg. Faded posters from rock shows long past papered the dressing room. They were posters for Legion, The Cameramen, and other bands from back in the early days. Komo loved the older venues, buildings and stadiums in the seedier parts of town that were on the verge of being condemned. He had a vision of renovating dozens after opening at the Vine when they got back to California. He liked places that left the posters on the walls, their edges curling around rusty staples. A few of them were of his father, Dionysus, the aging rocker who left a very young Komo behind in the Keep. Komo kept the musical legacy of his father alive and wove something even greater. Komo would not burn out like his father. Fynn and Komo spent sleepless nights on the bus and in hotel rooms smoking and getting high on Nine, making their plans before falling into a haze of kissing. He would make music for years. He would lift the crowds from their seats in ecstasy and madness for generations.

  But for now, Fynn wished they could stay in that dusty room for just a few more hours. It seemed that Komo always had a rehearsal or a show time. She missed the tower room in the house by the sea. Komo needed rest. If she were honest, Fynn would have to admit that so did she.

  Huge incandescent bulbs circled the dressing room mirrors. She caught a glimpse of herself and had to double take. She didn’t recognize her own reflection.

  Her eyes shone through purple hollows over jutting cheekbones. In the mirror the image of Mother Brigid coalesced as though she were in the room standing behind her. Fynn refused to look around. She would not be unnerved by her mother’s bully tactics. Brigid beckoned as though she meant to pull Fynn through the glass.

  “Right there.” Komo moaned, his face burrowed into the cushion of the table. Just the sound of his pleasure made Fynn feel her own heat rising. “Keep doing that,” he said.

  Her mother vanished.

  Fynn bore into Komo’s upper back with the heel of her hand. The oil she used on his skin smelled like warm cloves. He moaned again. A charge bloo
med in her belly, spreading down. Her palms heated on his aching muscles. Komo moved to his side. He gathered her in his long arms and pulled her to his chest.

  “The show,” she said into his lips before he kissed her. His kisses pulled her away from the chanting crowd, the speaker feedback, her mother in the mirror, even herself. His famous lips were for her only, no matter how many fan letters he got or how many groupies tried to sneak into his dressing room. He tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled it gently, teasing her. She climbed on top of him, still kissing him, never able to get enough of his mouth.

  “Forget the show,” he whispered. He fumbled in his jeans pocket for the tiny silver box he kept there. His fingers ripped the seam and he caught the box before it fell. Fynn took it. She flipped it open to find two neat hearts resting side by side. She lifted one with her lips and offered it to him in a kiss. He licked her bottom lip, swallowed the Nine and smiled.

  Fynn stuck out her tongue with her own tablet stuck to the tip.

  “Take your vitamin like a good girl,” he said, squeezing her hips. She swallowed the pill dry. It scraped the inside of her throat. She let the little box fall onto the floor. It didn’t matter where she left it. The magical silver box always ended up filled and back in someone’s pocket or purse when they needed it. As the Nine hit her stomach, her worries and encroaching anxieties fell away. They slid down the edges of her psyche like gnats before a toxic cloud. There was nothing that either of them should ever fear.

  His music belonged to the crowd outside and to the millions of fans around the world. But there were some things he only shared with Fynn. He only took Nine with her before the show. He never got high with anyone else. And he only did this with her, she thought, as she ran her hands down the sides of his ribcage and unfastened his jeans. His hands moved under her skirt and shifted her hips the way he liked them, the way he knew she liked them.

  His jaw loosened in the ecstasy of entering her. In that moment he was powerless to her love and desire.

  The music was for everyone.

  This was only for her.

  ***

  Backstage crowds. Hotel rooms. Long night bus rides. Nine. Komo’s music was like satin ribbons tightening their hold around her wrists, her ankles, and her waist. She was his prisoner and his keeper. He made love to stadium crowds during the show, to her all night. They danced down hotel hallways spilling champagne and trailing fragrant smoke. Magazines spread Komo’s picture across their covers. Komo is back and better than ever. There were more interviewers, more photo shoots, more offers of money to sell things that neither of them cared about. Komo said yes to all of it and later laughed with Fynn at the business executives, who, in their self-importance, thought any of it mattered. The two of them knew the only important things were the music and the love.

  Komo and Fynn smoked Cate’s hand-rolled cigarettes. Girls with Nine pressed against them both with tablets wedged in the pockets of their skinny jeans. They clinked wine glasses in toasts before smashing them against walls and crunching them underfoot while they danced. She scoured the audiences for blue orbs reflecting the light, but saw only human girls and boys out of their heads with the music. This was the true church. This was purity in worship.

  Nothing mattered but the music and the love and Komo’s performances brought everyone to their knees.

  Where are we tonight?

  I don’t know. Kiss me.

  She lost the days to nights that sucked in time and swallowed it dry.

  ***

  Fynn stumbled alone through a hotel lobby. The men and women in their black and white uniforms behind counters smiled. She moved past them. She could not trust them. Their smiles meant nothing. Their smiles made them more suspect, not less.

  She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know what day it was. The sun itself was confusing. She hadn’t seen it in a long time.

  A bad dream had shaken her out of bed, sent her running down the halls. Komo was at a sound check. Or a rehearsal. Cate had given her his itinerary, but she couldn’t remember it. She should have been with him. Cate had said she should sleep and Fynn had agreed. She was tired and it seemed like sensible advice.

  Fynn had a bad dream. Nothing was sensible anymore until she could see and touch Komo and know for a stone cold fact that he was safe. The glass doors hissed open and she lurched onto the street on a riptide of dread. The sun shone warm. She looked down at herself. She wore one of Komo’s flannel shirts. Nothing else.

  “Do you need help, miss?” The doorman was at her side. Fynn ran away. People pretended to be nice, but she couldn’t know who was a true friend and who was an enemy. There were true enemies around. The dream had told her that. She couldn’t breathe.

  In the dream she had been asleep in Komo’s bed in the tower room with eight sides. She held him close in the white sheets. They were safe, warm.

  The blankets started rustling.

  She flipped the sheet. A nest of scorpions quivered on the mattress. They were nearly colorless, pale and shiny with bulbous stingers dripping and poised to strike. Their legs scratched her skin as they scuttled across her belly. They were poisonous and they were everywhere and she could not escape them.

  The doorman called after her, but still she ran. The sidewalk scraped her bare feet. The sun reflected off the sidewalk, blinding her.

  A classic Dionysus track floated out of a shop selling surfboards, wetsuits, rope bracelets, and Mexican hemp sweatshirts. She was by the sea, maybe. East coast, West coast. She didn’t know. The show at the Vine in San Francisco was days ahead. Or maybe that night. She clutched her head to try to force the world to stop spinning. The nightmare terror was increasing. There were scorpions in their bed and so neither of them was safe. The feeling was too strong to be anything but the truth. Even strung out on Nine, she knew a true premonition when she had one.

  She couldn’t breathe. Her heart pounded, demanding more oxygen than she could give it. Her vision wavered like oil.

  “Are you okay?” A lady holding the hand of a little girl patted her shoulder. Fynn realized she was cowering in the entrance of the surf shop. She had to get to Komo. She had to make sure he was okay. The scorpions nested somewhere among Komo’s handlers and crew. Someone there was a traitor. She ran past the woman and child, down the sidewalk through the crowd. At a crosswalk she danced from one foot to the other. The hot pavement stung the soles of her feet. She wasn’t wearing shoes. She wasn’t even wearing any underwear. The sun seared her scalp along the part of her hair. She held her hand to her brow like a visor. The signal flashed to cross the street. She stopped, one foot in the gutter, no idea if this was the right way to go.

  A silver BMW screeched up to the curb on the one-way street. Cate peered out the window.

  “Fynn, what are you doing out here?”

  “I have to find Komo,” Fynn said. “I have to get to him right now.”

  “Get in,” Cate said.

  “Right now!” Fynn backed away. She didn’t care who stared. Cate got out and pushed Fynn into the back seat.

  “I have to warn him,” Fynn pressed her forehead against the window. “I have to protect him.”

  Cate drove in silence and turned onto the freeway. Fynn felt the points of the scorpion’s legs crawling across her body. She brushed them off. She kept brushing them off and brushing them off, tears streaming down her face, her voice escaping from her throat in keening sobs.

  They were everywhere. Just when she thought she was safe.

  They were everywhere and they were going to kill her.

  ***

  Fynn didn’t know she had fallen asleep. She awoke when the car stopped in front of Komo’s house. Her sluggish heart skipped a beat in hope.

  “Komo isn’t here,” Cate said. “You have been saying his name in your sleep for the past fifty miles.”

  “I need to see Komo,” Fynn said. Her tongue was thick in her mouth. She hated the whine of her own voice. She hadn’t had any Nine in over
a day. There wasn’t any in the silver box at the beginning of the show the night before. If she could just have one tab, she could clear her head and think of what to do. Her family would know what to do, but they would be sick if they knew what she had become. Her father. Her sister. Fynn’s heart ached thinking of them. She missed them with a horrific, grieving longing.

  Cate opened the door and waited for her to get out. Cool ocean air kissed her legs and bare feet. She had the uneasy feeling that Cate was angry. She wanted to make her happy but the rising panic wouldn’t let her think of anything else.

  “We need to get you a hot bath and a couple of days of rest,” Cate said. She put her arm around Fynn and guided her into the house and up the stairs like she was an invalid. The bed in the tower room was turned down with fresh sheets. The bedside lamp was on and there was a tray table laden with soup, crackers and a glass of milk. In the bathroom a hot bubble bath steamed in the whirlpool tub.

  Cate slipped the oversized shirt off Fynn’s shoulders. She sucked in breath at the sight of Fynn’s naked body.

  “You are so thin,” she whispered. She helped Fynn into the bath. “I shouldn’t have told the housekeeper she could go home,” Cate said. “You shouldn’t be left alone.”

  “When is Komo coming home?” Fynn asked. The hot water bit her skin.

  “He’s on his way,” Cate said. “I’m going to go get him. You both need a long rest.”

  “I guess...” Fynn started. “I guess I have a fever. Maybe it’s the flu.” Her lies felt slimy in her mouth.

  “Maybe it’s the Nine,” Cate said.

  At the mention of Nine, Fynn seethed. Every cell in her body ached for the chalky tablet.

  “You’re shivering in hot water,” Cate said.

  “I’m okay,” Fynn said.

  “No you’re not. You’re exhausted...and underfed. How the hell did this happen?”

  “Can you maybe call Komo for me? I don’t know where my phone is. I think I left it in the hotel.”