by Tash, Red
“No offense kid, but you look like shit,” said the second. “There’s a shower back there—water’s hot and everything. I’ll go get you a new shirt to put on, how about that?”
“You’re not going to stay and watch, are you?”
They laughed again, and made mocking faces at one another, in imitation of my shock. I was too tired to be angry.
“I just want to lie down,” I said. I glanced at the girl on the floor. I could see her breathing, but she hadn’t moved.
“That’s what she said!” the first man hooted. These two were cracking each other up, the creepy sons of bitches.
“Look, we’re just giving you a hard time.” The second man leaned down and patted the girl on the floor. “Angie. Angie! Get up, bitch. Get up and help this girl here. She’s a friend of Moe’s.”
The girl rolled onto her back, right into a puddle of liquid that I hoped for her sake wasn’t urine. She had on way too much eyeliner, and her hair was the blondest I’d ever seen—practically white, but with no hint of silver to it. Despite the unsanitary bathroom and her heavy makeup, she looked clean. Why did everything seem too clean tonight? I was expecting Courtney Love, not a CoverGirl spokesmodel.
“You two get outta here,” she croaked. “I’ll help Tinkerbell into the shower and get her some clean clothes.”
“Tinkerbell!” The two guys guffawed as they left the bathroom.
In a flash the girl was off the floor and had turned a deadbolt on the door. She moved quickly, graceful as a cat. I hadn’t been expecting that, considering she’d just been passed out.
“You do want some clean clothes, don’t you?” she asked. “Does it matter if they’re a little tight? All we have left are extra small.”
She moved to a closet built into the wall behind the bathroom door, and pulled it open. A moment later she handed me a pair of stretchy black polyester bell bottoms and a bright green tee advertising the Rustic Frog.
“I’m going to look like a waitress in these,” I said.
“They’re left over from the restaurant—before it was the Fog, when it was the Frog. Previous owner left all this stuff.” She eyed my clothes. “Good thing, too, from the looks of it.”
She walked me to the back corner of the bathroom, where a flimsy shower curtain was attached to the ceiling on rusted hooks.
“It’s clean. Sorta clean.” She swiped her hand in the air, quickly, and suddenly the shower area sparkled and gleamed. “Probably better to keep your shoes on while you’re in there, but, you know—chance it if you want.”
She hung a stiff white towel on a nail in the wall next to the shower, and left me alone. I didn’t see any soap, but I didn’t really care.
Just get some warm water on me, wash it all off, wash it all away … The showerhead might have been old, but the pressure was high and the water was hot. I don’t know how long I was in it before I finally let my shoulders drop from my ears.
I was stretching out my neck when I felt a draft. I opened my eyes, and stared right into the black eyes, black face, black hair, and black teeth of the drummer.
“Very nice,” he said, in an accent. Irish? I was too dazed to place it. “I think you’ll do quite nicely, Roller Deb.”
Chapter 10.5
The Legend of Biggie Smalls
Harlow
Biggie Smalls isn’t his real name. Honestly, I don’t even know if thunderbirds have names in the sense that the English or the fae do. Best I can tell, thunderbirds tend to communicate telepathically (with the exception of an occasional squawk or death song), and when a creature’s talking straight into your head like that, you don’t really pause for introductions. I never felt right calling him “Big Bird,” which is the closest approximation to how he introduced himself.
Anyway, Biggie and I go way back. My parents and I were camping, out West. The Grand Canyon, maybe. This is one of those memories that’s not totally clear—either because I was too young to remember, or some damned enchantment. I don’t know.
What I do remember was Biggie was separated from his family, only there’s no way I could have understood that at the time. I’d never seen a Thunderbird before, and I didn’t know he was a baby. I was a baby, myself. We played, and he was squawking. When he flapped his wings, lightning shot out in waves. I’ve seen a lot of magic since then, but that was the most beautiful and frightening thing I’d ever seen at that point in my life, and I’ll never forget it.
He lit on my shoulder, and I was carrying him parrot-style to show my mom and dad. I remember my father looked so concerned—and he opened his mouth, probably to warn me—but just then MamaBird swooped in and reclaimed her child, and I was caught in her talons.
She flew us straight up into the sky, leaving a contrail behind the likes of which I’ve never seen again. Like a rocket launch. Boom.
The Thunderbirds roost in huge flocks in the sky. I think I’m one of the few non-birds to have seen a T-bird roost up close like that. It’s not a story I’ve heard others tell, anyway.
Well, MamaBird had one thing on her mind—feeding her babies. Biggie had two fellow hatchlings, and I nestled in between the three of them, confused and awed by what I was seeing. Below me, through the vapor, the yawning, snaking maw of the canyon cracked the surface of the desert. I was enraptured.
And I was about to become lunch. MamaBird picked me up and tossed me into the air with her massive beak. Before she could catch me and chew me up, though, Biggie was flapping his wings and squawking, sending thunder and lightning in waves all around us. I landed on top of him—he was surprisingly strong. We tumbled off the edge of the cloud nest, and free fell.
The wind whipped like crazy in my ears. Trolldrenaline coursed through me, and I knew I would fall, heavy and hard, into that canyon floor, to my death. I was never more frightened in my young life.
When my parents were murdered, I think I was in too much shock to feel fear. There are holes in my memory from that day, and I don’t think that can totally be blamed on spells. Humans aren’t the only ones who block out trauma.
But then the flock arrived. They must have been responding to some instinct to protect their young, because they buzzed in like a squadron of WWII fighter jets, shifting through the sky in tight formation, forming and reforming beneath us tighter than a flock of starlings. Lightning and thunder balled all around us, and I deafened to my own screams. Rain showers buffeted us from every direction, and Biggie’s tiny talons dug deep into my shoulder as he so sweetly flapped his wings and tried to pull me upward.
MamaBird caught me on her back. The flock swooped in, and there were wings and rain and flashes of lightning everywhere. In a moment, I was on the ground, in the wet sand, my parents staring open-mouthed from a distance as birds the size of camping trailers circled their only son. Lightning shot upward, into the sky.
Yeah, I guess that was kind of a big deal. Biggie and I have been like brothers ever since. Honestly, I can’t understand what he means most of the time, but he seems to understand me, so I guess that’s enough. Thunderbirds are psychic. They’ve got to be.
When he found me on the side of the road, I grasped hold of his wing at the shoulder-joint, and he rocketed into the sky, straight toward the starlight.
“I gotta catch up with a girl, Biggie,” I said.
He seemed to laugh, a few sparks crushing on the edge of his beak.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “I think we’re connected—there’s some connection—”
He was laughing for sure, then.
“Aw, fudge it, Biggie! I just have to save her, and you gotta help me.”
He dove hard, and I wrapped my legs around his torso as we tumbled through the night. I could see sunlight on the edge of the horizon.
“Sunlight?” I asked. “It’s the middle of the night, how’s that even possible?”
Biggie squawked.
Inhale. I felt the direction in my mind. Telepathy? I may never know, as Biggie’s still not talking. But I followed
my impulse, and breathed in, deeply.
A thousand dawns broke inside me. I looked down at my hands, grasping Biggie hard around the neck. My skin glowed as if the sun were bursting to come through my pores. A stray dreadlock whipped across my forehead, and it glowed, too, imbued with light. I laughed, and a little cloud of light vapor rolled out my mouth and washed across my face. It felt warm, tickly, and I felt happy.
“Oh, Biggie, what have you done?” I said. I was overjoyed, and terrified.
To battle darkness, you must bring the light.
“Yeah, thanks, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” I said. He was laughing again, sparks and sunshine of his own bursting out all over. Thunder boomed in our wake.
And then he was landing in a harvested cornfield, across the Wabash from a foggy old place that smelled of leather and motor oil. A biker bar. I knew it well.
I climbed off his back and jumped up and down, the power of that inner light filling me with so much energy, I thought I might go nuclear if I didn’t get it out. I spun in a circle, and a dust devil twirled around me before it took off on its own, headed west.
“She’s coming, isn’t she, Biggie?”
I turned, expecting him to squawk a reply, but he was gone. Typical Biggie.
I ran across the river and into the Fog.
“Harlow, my boy.” The voice sent a chill up my spine, despite the sunshine spell the Thunderbird had filled me with.
I turned to face him. “Uncle Jag,” I said.
Jag reached out, and I did my best not to flinch as he patted my cheek in a false gesture of love. Smiling, his dark and broken teeth loomed closer as he leaned in to whisper something. “Get your ass up on that stage and sing for your supper, you piece of trash.”
I’m sure he thought he was degrading me, but it suited me fine. I was full of spunk and the tiny stage was the perfect position to watch who came and went.
When Deb came crashing through the door an hour later on the arm of some ignorant son of a bitch named Moe, I’d already worked out my plan. I was taking a hell of a gamble on this girl, and I sure hoped she was who I thought she was.
Otherwise, I’d never hear the end of it from Biggie.
Chapter Eleven
Steal My Sunshine
Deb
His acrid breath, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes, hit as hard as his words. I clutched at the shower curtain, desperate to cover myself. He laughed.
“Get your clothes on,” he said. “Come watch the show, and then we’ll talk.”
I had no intention of going along with him, but also no idea how to get out of this creepy-ass bar. Who was this decrepit old guy, and how did he know me? He called me “Roller Deb.” Did he know the Coach? And what sort of purpose did he have in mind for me, that I would “do quite nicely”?
I shuddered, and he left the bathroom, laughing.
Angie was back. “Don’t be scared of Jag,” she said. “He’s weird, but he’s okay, and he’ll look out for you.”
Her eyes were bloodshot, and there were stitches along the hairline of her stringy blonde hair. My eyes flicked quickly to the crook of her arm—sure, enough, needle tracks. They flickered and shone like dollar-store rhinestones before disappearing. Same thing with her hair, her eyes, the stitches. Dirty beautiful.
“I’m not so sure I want to be taken care of by the likes of … Jag, was it?”
“McJagger,” she said.
“Mick Jagger? Same as the guy from the Rolling Stones?”
She laughed. “Sorta. Spelled different, but, yeah. We say it the same.”
I was finished dressing, and sloshing around in my soaked tennis shoes. My backpack was still in the corner. I knew I would make a quicker getaway without toting the skates along, but there was no way I was leaving them behind.
“Tell the truth, Angie. What’s he want with me?”
She shrugged. “Hard to say for sure, but he probably wants you to skate. Rumor has it you’re pretty good, and with your blood, I’m sure you’ll be able to keep up with the full fae, with a little training. Don’t get your hopes up or anything,” she said, pushing the bathroom door open and leading me by the shirttail to an open seat closer to the stage.
Her words were mumbo-jumbo. Made no sense at all.
“My blood? The full what?”
She gestured at an empty table, the only one in the bar, right beside the stage. I was mere feet away from McJagger, his black aura snaking toward me through the air. It smelled sour, like mold on an orange peel.
The singer gestured and suddenly the band was blaring again. It took me a few seconds to recognize the tune—Rob Zombie’s “Dragula.” It should have been creepy, but for some reason, the singer made it seem perfectly safe. While “Jag” and the rest of the band seemed to be completely engrossed in their own personal darkness, the singer actually sort of glowed, for lack of a better word.
He leaned my way during the bridge, slinging the microphone far away from his body in a typical “rock star” move, and we made eye contact for one brief second. I couldn’t help but gasp. He smelled like yellow daffodils, sunbeams, clean fresh linens—I choked, and saw Jag smirk.
There was only going to be one way out of the Fog for me—don’t ask me how I knew it, but in that breath of fresh air between the third verse and the chorus, I knew I would follow Mr. Sunshine through hell or high water—and definitely out of this place, if he would help me.
The song wound down, and he made a quick jerk of his head toward a door at the side of the stage. The band got up and the piped-in opening stanza of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” boomed from the corner jukebox. I leapt from my chair—this was it, I was sure. We were going to make a break for it.
A hot hand closed down on my shoulder, pushing me back into my seat.
Moe’s scraggly beard brushed my cheek. “Not so fast, Harlow,” he said in a whisper. I pulled away from him, and followed his gaze. He may have been holding me down, but he was staring straight at the dreadlocked singer.
“Harlow?” I said.
“Don’t say his name!” McJagger yelled. He jumped across the stage equipment, knocking a rickety front-row table over, spilling drinks across the laps of the blondes that sat at his feet. Both his tiny black arms reached for me.
Seriously, the man was head-to-toe in leather. At that age?
“Harlow?!” I yelled again.
The golden singer smiled at me, his eyes goading me on. Say it again, I could practically hear him thinking.
Moe’s hand closed over my mouth, smelling of beer and motor oil. I tried to scream through it, but my muffled cries were worthless.
McJagger shouted “Gag her! Damn it, anyway!”
Angie lazily produced a dirty bandana, which Jag took from her with a scowl. Her eyes were apologetic, but she said nothing to me. Just a pout.
“Put the damned thing on her, Moe,” he said. “And you’re going to get it for telling her his name.”
Moe’s hands seemed to drop in slow motion. With every ounce of will, I screamed, “Harlow, Harlow, Harlow, Harlow!”
A great whoosh of wind and sunlight, and the singer and I were traveling sideways through the patio exit. We were swept away by some invisible force—magic, I guess. We flew, I think, across a crowded patio, overturning plastic baskets of fried frog legs, knocking over beer bottles, tumbling over the edge of a dry-rotted wooden rail, busting it as we went. It all happened so fast.
And then we were falling. This time, I wasn’t dreaming.
Chapter 11.5
Gimme Three Steps
Harlow
I guess she wasn’t as dumb as she looked, because she picked up on my vibe right away. It didn’t hurt that whatever mojo Biggie had laid on me above the clouds seemed to enhance whatever was already between us. It was my turn to owe him one, for sure, no matter how this gamble played out.
Deb held tight to my arm, and although her fingers were tiny, I could feel her strength, like a band of gold melted and poured around my forearm. T
he girl wasn’t going to let go, and that was a good thing, because we were taking a chance, defying Jag in front of his toadies, those trouble-hungry bikers, and the drug-addled wenches of theirs.
There hadn’t been any formidable fairies in sight, thank the gods. Trolls might be mean, but fairies are just unpredictable, and any fairies working for Jag were not fairies I wanted to know.
I know I don’t get out much, but I have to admit, singing on that stage was fun. Singing was something I did once in a great while, on the sly. I’d sneak into Bloomington and lead a chorus of panhandlers in serenading co-eds every now and then. The street people needed the money and I let them keep it. One time I magicked a car into busting open a parking meter, and you’d think those hobos had won the lottery. But that’s a different story.
Rarely did I have the opportunity to sing with an actual three-piece band. Not since I was a kid, anyway. Oh, well. Someday I’d find the old gang and we’d jam again. We weren’t over, just on a very long hiatus.
But back to my story. Deb clung to me, her little fingers like solid bands of gold. I jumped, and we fell through the air into the shallow Wabash. I fumbled for my mojo sack with my free hand, and when we landed with a splash, I was ready with my knife.
She wasn’t going to like it, but I had no choice. She’d get over it, eventually.
I just hoped whatever curse had begun lifting since she’d spoken my name hadn’t been cast by someone who was still alive, because I didn’t want it settling back onto me. Now that the memories were coming back, I knew I had to follow through with saving this girl—or else.
In just a moment, she was going to be my wife.
Chapter Twelve
Baptism
Deb
It seemed like we fell forever, his enormous hand wrapped around my tiny arm, my only connection in the cold fog of the night air. My legs flailed around me, my backpack pulling me down like an anchor. I was going to break my leg, I knew it. What then?