Rule of the Shieldmaiden

by Jaime Loughran

  “What’s wrong with that?” Elaina frowned.

  “Oh, come on. How are you supposed to get to know each other when you won’t even be able to carry on a conversation? I don’t know how the clubs are back in Dairyville, Wisconsin, or where ever you’re from, but in LA, they’re loud and packed with people. If the band is anyone of consequence, good luck finding enough room to breathe in there, much less have any hope of getting to know your date.”

  Elaina fidgeted with the corner of the folder on her desk. “I didn’t think about that.” She wasn’t going to tell Gary that she didn’t mind not being able to get to know her date because of the concert. She liked the idea of having the concert as a buffer. She could see how he was without the concern of the conversation getting too personal.

  Gary wasn’t buying it. “Yes, you did. I may have only known you for a month, but I know you’re as sharp as a tack. I think you agreed to this date because you could say you went on a date without actually having to go on a date.”

  She couldn’t argue, so she didn’t bother. “If this guy shows any kind of potential, we’ll go out on a dinner type date or something your generation considers a ‘proper date’. By the way? Would I need to take a club in case dinosaurs turn up during this ‘proper date’?” She smirked.

  Gary waved off her jab with a laugh. “You can joke all you want, but you can’t get close to someone if you don’t take the time to talk with them. There’s more to life than being a cop, you know.”

  “Yes, I know…” She let her words trail off, hoping the conversation would end there. The faint echoes of a similar conversation she had with her mother years ago wafted through her mind.

  “Well, I hope you kids have fun.” Gary pushed his chair back, rose, and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair in a single fluid motion. “I have a date with the missus tonight. She’s making her famous roasted rack of lamb, and I’m taking her out dancing afterward.”

  Elaina laughed as Gary danced the Tango out the door. For a larger man, he sure could move with a graceful ease.

  She glanced at her watch. She had just enough time to go home, shower, and get dressed before she had to meet Jack at the club. She switched off her desk lamp and headed out the door.

  Elaina stepped out into the cooling evening air and rubbed her arms as she crossed the parking lot to her Camry. The day had been warmer than usual for November, but Mother Nature seemed to be over correcting with what promised to be a chilly evening.

  Thirty minutes later, wrapped in a towel and standing before her closet, Elaina couldn’t decide on what to wear. She didn’t want to give Jack the wrong impression by wearing a low cut dress. Nor did she want to seem too uptight—and that was most likely exactly how she’d come across anyway. As she flicked hangers without any real idea of what she wanted to wear, she wondered why she even signed up for the dating website. Dating never went well for her. If she was interested in the man, she was too nervous, which came out as her being too talkative. Or worse—not talkative at all. If she went on the date because a well-meaning friend had arranged it and she had little interest in the man, she found it hard to engage in the conversation. In the five years since she lost her high school sweetheart to cancer, she’d been called stuck up, self-absorbed, aloof, or accused of talking too much without having much worth hearing. Boring. That was the one that hurt the most.

  Then she’d met her husband through a friend of a friend. Their whirlwind romance resulted in the two of them marrying after just six weeks of dating. Elaina shook her head. If only she knew then what she knew now.

  She’d almost talked herself out of going when she flicked a hanger holding a garishly ugly Christmas sweater out of the way and saw her favorite shirt.

  The red silky fabric called to her, begging her to pair it with her favorite pair of black fitted jeans and suede boots. She smiled as the idea of the outfit boosted her confidence. If nothing else went right with the date, at least she’d feel great in her choice of attire.

  Chapter 2

  Elaina stood outside her car and glanced around the dimly lit parking lot uneasily. Her law enforcement experience and training screamed at her for parking in such a sketchy area, but she refused to walk three blocks in these heels. She wiggled her foot, and the ease at which her ankle rolled because of the heel reminded her why she always chose flats. She loved her boots, but they were more for show than comfort. She squared her shoulders, shaking off her concern over her choice of parking spaces. The pepper spray on her key chain should be sufficient in the event of an attack, but if it wasn’t, she was well versed in self-defense moves that could incapacitate an attacker in less than a minute.

  She glanced around once more as she checked to make sure she locked her car door. Club Now didn’t look like much on the outside, from what she could see of the side of the building. Hopefully, the inside needed less in the way of repairs than the outside. The stucco finish was in need of patching about twenty years ago, judging from the large cracks and chunks that were missing. She smoothed her form fitting jeans and looked down at the number of buttons she had undone on her silk shirt. Two seemed more than enough, though she wore a black tank top underneath and could undo one more if she chose. Not that she had much to show off, if she wanted to. She had an athletic build that came from a combination of coming from a long line of thin women and her workout routine that kept her in shape for her job. While she sometimes wished she had bigger breasts, the idea of having to wear a tight bra in order to avoid black eyes from bouncing boobs while chasing suspects didn’t appeal to her.

  As she walked toward the sidewalk that led to the front of the club from the parking lot, she saw Jack standing at the corner of the building, waiting for her. He hadn’t seen her yet, so she slowed her steps to watch him for a bit longer. What did she know about him? Not much. They met on a dating website, emailed back and forth for a few days before agreeing to talk on the phone. During their phone conversation, he asked her out and she agreed. Other than the basic information most people give out to acquaintances, she knew very little. She had been tempted to do a background check on him, but decided that would be crossing a line. Besides, Gary teased her over her inability to get to know someone often enough that she was developing a complex about it—even if her caution was well warranted. So, when Jack asked her out to this concert, she agreed without reservation. Okay, so maybe she had reservations, but whatever. Here she could spend time with him and see how he carried himself, which would allow her to decide if she’d want to see him again on a more one on one type date. Gary may not understand it, but this allowed her the opportunity to learn more about Jack without the pressure of having to maintain the conversation. To her, small talk was much like dying a death of a thousand paper cuts. She preferred deeper conversations that flowed easily, and she didn’t know if Jack would be good for that. After all, their one phone conversation was mostly small talk.

  Jack wore loose fitting jeans and a worn UCLA hoodie. His hair was a bit shaggier than his online profile, but his boyish face was unmistakable. She wondered how he’d look in his police uniform. As she got closer, she noticed his eyes skim over just about every woman that walked by him. Maybe he’s looking for her. She called out and waved when he turned toward her. His face lit up, making him look much younger than his thirty years. Butterflies swirled in her belly at the sight. He was definitely an attractive man with a smile that could light up a room.

  She quickened her steps as he closed the distance between them.

  “Hi, Jack. Sorry I’m a bit late.” She wasn’t late at all, but he appeared to have been waiting and she didn’t like making people wait for her.

  “Oh, no, you’re fine,” he brushed a peck on her cheek. He smelled strongly of one of those obnoxious body sprays some men liked to wear. Elaina didn’t care for the overpowering scent that he wore too much of, but said nothing. “I like to get to clubs early to see the band arrive.”

  Elaina scanned the area around
the run down looking club for signs of a band. Across the busy street sat what looked like a tour bus. A small crowd gathered around the jet-black bus with tinted windows, and judging from how the women milling around were dressed, that had to be the band’s bus. Her eyes flickered over two women in particular who seemed to be a mother daughter pair. The older woman, dressed in a skin tight mini skirt that left little doubt of her being female and a tube top with a push up bra that lifted her ample breasts damn near to her chin, nudged the younger woman, who was dressed similarly, toward the door. The younger woman hesitated, a doubtful expression on her heavily painted face. Elaina shook her head. Groupies.

  She turned back to Jack. “So, who are we seeing tonight?” She couldn’t remember what he’d told her on the phone if she had a gun to her head.

  “Black Castle. They’re a big metal band who started out in clubs like this. Lately, they mostly tour on the arena and festival circuit, but whenever they’re in the LA area, they try to play at the clubs where they got their start. It’s their way of thanking their fans.”

  Jack spoke with such enthusiasm that his blue gray eyes sparkled under the flickering streetlight. Elaina caught his infectious grin, and a bubble of excitement expanded in her chest. She had no idea who Black Castle was, but she enjoyed hard rock and some metal, so maybe she’d recognize some of their songs from her favorite satellite station. Either way, Jack’s excitement and the energy of the crowd that gathered nearby the front of the dingy white building plastered with posters of various bands seeped into her, making her anxious for the concert to begin so she could see what all the fuss was about.

  When the front doors of Club Now opened, the gathered crowd surged forward, dragging her and Jack along with it. Jack smiled and grabbed her hand.

  “Here we go!” He called over the din of the crowd. Elaina could only nod her head as she tried to keep her feet under her. She hated being in the middle of crowds, especially when they were moving.

  After what felt like hours, she and Jack made their way through the ticket takers and wound through the people standing around waiting for the show to begin until they stood at the base of the stage.

  “This is the perfect spot!” Jack proclaimed with a whoop of excitement. “We’ll see everything!”

  The “stage”, such as it was, was less than two feet high, and maybe twenty by thirty feet. With the five foot by five-foot riser the drum kit sat on, the stack of guitar amps, stage monitors, and speaker stacks on either side of the stage, there wasn’t much room for the band members to move around. How much of a show was this going to be? Granted, her previous concert experiences included such acts as Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie, and both involved stage shows that took up a decent amount of room. Maybe Black Castle was more stationary and less stage show.

  “Do you want something to drink? I’m going to grab a beer.” Jack was already walking away.

  Elaina nodded. “I’ll have whatever you’re having. Thanks!” She called over the growing sea of bodies pressing closer to the stage. She craned her neck to see how far the bar was, wondering if Jack would be able to make it back through the crowd. The dark wooden bar stretched along the side of the club, and while the interior of the club wasn’t all that large—it was about the size of a large movie theater—she’d be amazed if he could make it back without having the drinks spilled.

  The sound of metal clanging behind her turned her attention back to the stage. A wisp of a man bent over to pick up the microphone stand he knocked over.

  “I hate when I do that,” he laughed nervously.

  Elaina’s laugh matched his. “Happens a lot, does it?” She glanced around to see if anyone else noticed the stagehand. Everyone standing around paid more attention to the conversations they had with their friends than what was going on onstage.

  He shook his head. “No, luckily. I’d be out of a job real quick if I dropped things frequently. The band is easy going, but not when things get broken out of negligence.” He righted the fallen stand and dashed off through the black curtain separating the backstage area that she hadn’t noticed before.

  Left alone once again, she took in the atmosphere of the club. The rectangle shaped room had a raised sitting area toward the back—or was it the front of the building?—and it looked packed with people waiting for the concert to begin. The room was dimly lit by LED rope lights strung up around the edges and recessed lights scattered around the ceiling. Different colored lights hung from the black ceiling; some pointed toward the stage and some pointed at the disco ball hanging from the center of the room. None of those were on at the moment, but it was a safe bet they’d factor into the show. Her eyes roamed over the array of speakers hung from above on either side of the stage before reexamining the mountain of speakers on the stage itself. The sound support in this room was bound to be deafening. Maybe she should have brought some earplugs. She loved loud music as much as the next hard rocker, but she kind of liked her hearing the way it was.

  Jack returned and handed her a plastic cup filled with beer. She took it with a smile of gratitude and sipped the light amber liquid, suppressing a shudder. She wasn’t a fan of beer to begin with, and it didn’t help this one was particularly bitter.

  “Yeah, this place isn’t known for its beer,” Jack laughed, catching her reaction.

  Elaina’s cheeks heated. “I wouldn’t be a good judge anyway. I don’t really drink alcohol, but when I do, it’s usually not beer.”

  Jack smiled, and then nodded toward the stage. “What do you think?”

  Elaina scanned the stage once more. “I think it’s going to be loud.”

  A wide grin spread across his face. “Black Castle is loud, whether in a small club like this or an outdoor festival, like Ozzfest.”

  Yep. She should have brought earplugs.

  “Have they been around long?” She took another sip of her beer. It didn’t taste any better the second time the acrid liquid slid over her tongue.

  “Since the late nineties, so over nineteen years now.”

  “I feel stupid for asking this, but what kind of music do they play? I’ve never heard of them before.”

  Jack chuckled. “It’s kind of like an industrial metal thing.” At her baffled expression, he added, “Have you heard of Nine Inch Nails?”

  “Yes.” Not a huge fan of that band, but she couldn’t discount Trent Reznor’s contribution to music.

  “How about White Zombie or Rob Zombie?”

  She perked up and smiled wide. “I love Rob Zombie!”

  “Well, they’re kind of like them, but harder. On some songs anyway.”

  Her interest piqued, she glanced at her watch. “When will they start?”

  “Shouldn’t be long now.”

  An awkward silence yawned between them. If only the concert would start so she didn’t have to worry about making small talk. She sipped her beer, wishing she could figure out a way to dispose of it without having to leave her spot at the stage. Or punishing her taste buds any further.

  “So, how do you like California?” Jack asked as he sipped his beer.

  Elaina smiled. “It’s a lot different than Wisconsin, that’s for sure. But I like it. What about you? How is it working for the LAPD?” Lately, she’d steered so many conversations away from herself that it became second nature. People enjoyed talking about themselves, so it was a simple matter of asking questions to get them talking.

  Jack ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a trip. I never thought I would be a cop, to be honest, much less one with the LAPD. When I got out of the academy last year, I didn’t think I’d end up in LA.”

  She tilted her head. “Last year? Wouldn’t that make you a bit old for a cadet?”

  Jack laughed. “Yeah, a little. What can I say? It was a delayed decision. When I graduated from UCLA, I only knew I wanted to do something with the criminal justice system, but I had no idea what. Then a buddy of mine had been involved in a hit and run—almost killed him—and the cop who caught the ca
se really went above and beyond to find the person responsible. I gained a whole new appreciation for the police and their jobs after that, so I figured, why not be a cop?”

  She smiled. “That’s as good a reason as any. For me, it was expected. I’m from a family of law enforcement.”

  Jack inclined his head with a smile. “Oh, I see. Continuing the family business?”

  “You could say that,” she chuckled.

  The lights went down, and a spotlight lit the left side of the stage.

  “Here we go!” Jack turned to face the stage. The crowd fell to a hushed silence as the anticipation built.

  The curtain was pulled back and the four members of the band stepped out onto the stage. The drummer ran to his set and immediately began counting off with his sticks. The crowd came to life with a simultaneous cheer.

  Within seconds, the three other members were at their mics, all holding their guitars, poised to begin the first number. In a unison that comes from countless hours of playing together, the four of them started with the first notes of the song. A wall of sound crashed into Elaina with a force that could have knocked her off her feet. Had it not been for the people packed in tightly behind her when the crowd surged forward at the start of the song, she was sure she would have flown backwards like Marty McFly did in the beginning of Back to the Future. It took her a minute to sort out the different sounds as the guitar riffs screamed along with the bass and drums’ fevered pace.

  The bassist waved his long, scraggly hair around in a circle as his fingers played the notes to keep pace with the pounding drums. On the other end of the stage, the guitarist was a flurry of blonde hair as his head kept time. In front of her, the singer stepped up to the mic, as he played rhythm on his flat black Gibson Flying V guitar. To her trained eye, he was average in height and build—around six feet tall and weighed about two hundred pounds—dressed in black, baggy cargo shorts and a solid black t-shirt. He dressed like any number of regular people she’d encounter in a day. Heavy, black “guy-liner” ringed his brown eyes and a thin line of facial hair framed his square jaw, meeting at his chin in a long, bushy goatee that reached halfway down his chest. His jet-black hair stood straight up in a gravity defying style that set him apart. By the looks of him, Elaina didn’t expect much from him that she hadn’t heard before. Just another good-looking front man.