by Nico Rosso
“You’re just another hallucination.” She backed up. The car continued to sag as if something very large walked on it. “You can’t hurt me.” But everything felt far too real. Even invisible beasts. Whatever world she’d stepped into couldn’t be escaped, no matter how far she ran.
“Trevor, if that’s you, just stop. Let me leave. Just let me go and I’ll never tell anyone about what happened. Or what I thought happened.” It was insanity to be talking to an invisible monster. “Stop. Stop now.”
The car door twisted and tore from its hinges. Large footprints emerged in the scattered glass. They came right for her.
* * *
Trevor jumped from the bed, transforming his legs away from the hooves. Landing on human feet, he hurried to collect his clothes. Charging after her naked was not the best way to regain Misty’s trust. He heard the front door to the suite slam.
He spat a string of insults in languages alive and dead, cursing himself for showing her the demon in him. Modern mortals didn’t react well to that form.
But the bond had been so clear. Everything had shaken. She was his Muse. Unbelievable but unmistakable. The legend come to life. His Muse. Hadn’t she seen it? Couldn’t she feel how it all changed? The sex was incredible, but it was more than just two pounding bodies to reach those heights.
Shirt, jeans and boots on, he was out the bedroom door and into the suite. He was two steps in when Wolfgang and Lee untangled themselves from their women. Trevor got half way to the door when they blocked his path.
Lee held his woman’s shirt in front of his crotch for some modesty and put his other hand on Trevor’s chest to slow him down. “She ran, let her go.”
Wolfgang, completely naked, kept his voice low. “What the hell did you do?”
Lee glanced over Trevor’s shoulder at the woman he left in the chair, then pushed on Trevor, angling him toward the bathroom. “This ain’t like you. Black magic from the Philosophers?”
The mortal women in the room, no matter how languid with satisfaction they were, couldn’t be allowed to hear what he had to tell Lee and Wolfgang. The urge to chase after Misty still burned in him. And the hunger. But more than just the selfish need to feed, he hated the look of fear on her face as she ran.
He let his friends lead him into the bathroom, and closed the door.
“I scared her. I showed her the demon.”
Wolfgang’s eyes went wide. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
“I know things have been a little dark for you, brother,” Lee said, “but you two were doing fine on the couch. Showing a girl the demon is no way to get her off.”
“And chasing them through hotel corridors is just going to get you arrested,” Wolfgang added.
“You assholes don’t get it.” Trevor was just about ready to turn his fists to stone and break down the walls between him and Misty. “She’s my Muse.”
His bandmates just stared back.
Finally, Wolfgang spoke. “Bullshit.”
Lee, though, was more ready to believe. “It’s real?”
Trevor nodded. “She changes everything.”
“How?” Lee asked, a slight chill of fear in his eyes.
“I don’t know.” The how of it didn’t matter. He was driven only by the woman out there, running away. The hunger increased. She must be moving farther and farther away. His Muse fled. The fable became real just in time to tear his heart out. “But I thought she understood. I mean, the air was lighting up with energy. Completely new. All of it from her. She was part of it, creating it. Not just reflecting the power back like the crowd. I thought she knew. I fucked up and told her what I am. I showed her.”
“Idiot.” Wolfgang shook his head, disappointed.
With his forearm against his chest, Trevor pinned Wolfgang to the wall. “You don’t get it.”
Searing heat blazed out of Wolfgang’s skin. Trevor turned to impervious stone and pushed harder on his drummer. The other demon only grinned and let the fire burn brighter, blistering the paint on the wall.
Before the tussle could escalate into a genuine fight, Lee’s granite-hard body slammed into both of them. All three men separated. The fire receded from Wolfgang’s body, but the challenging smile remained.
Trevor shook his head. “You don’t need to understand. Just don’t try to stop me.”
Lee kept his voice even, but the gravity was understood. “Never seen you chase someone like this. I...I still don’t know it’s real, man. The Muse...” He fixed his gaze on Trevor. “You reach out to hurt her, we will stop you.”
“That’s not why we’re on this earth. I’d never hurt her.” Again. Her terror before fleeing would haunt him as long as he lived. Which might not be long if he couldn’t find her.
“If it’s true...” Lee stared through Trevor, at some distant point.
“It’s real,” Trevor reassured him.
Lee’s eyes barely focused. “But she’s just a mortal.”
She’d started that way. Trevor had felt her change, though. The energy they’d shared couldn’t have come from human flesh and blood. “No one knew what the Muse was supposed to be. It was just a fable. For all we knew she could rise out of a volcano or walk into a show after paying her twelve-dollar cover.”
“Why now?” Wolfgang sneered.
“How the fuck should I know?” The cloud at the edge of his thoughts had started that morning. “There were no divine voices explaining things. What do we know about any of this? We live from one show to the next.”
Lee grabbed his arm. “But a mortal? That means that any of our Muses could be out there now. Or not born yet. Lines of fate just waiting to converge.”
“Fate slammed me tonight. And if I don’t find her, I’ll die.”
Silence as that sank in to Lee and Wolfgang. Lee pulled his hand away from Trevor, who shouldered past the other demons. They were two of only a few beings who understood what it was to live the way he did. And now they couldn’t even share that. He was alone. No. His life was now tied to only one other in the world. Misty.
He stalked out of the bathroom. How far was she? How could he explain the truth without having her run again?
One of Wolfgang’s women called out from the floor, “Bring us back some food.”
Slamming the front door, he cut off any other mortal requests. He’d never had to track a woman before. No one had ever been this important. Misty’s presence was lost in the dingy hallway. The hunger enveloped him, but didn’t give a direction to pursue.
He punched the button for the elevator and the cables rattled in the shaft. Too damn slow. And too ordinary. She may be a human, but he didn’t have to find her as one. Throwing the door to the stairwell open, he sped up the short flight to the roof access. The door was locked. He curled his hand into a fist of stone, then sent it into the handle, shattering the metal and swinging the door wide.
Night surrounded him. The polluting light of the city blocked too many stars for navigation. Millions of humans lived in the miles around him. They may not know it, but their nature sought balance. On one side was the animal. Trevor and his kind fed that wildness and freedom. The Philosophers wanted humans to deny that aspect of themselves completely, living purely in thought and contemplation. That meant killing demons and their temptation, then trying to draw humans’ minds from their bodies.
The struggle had been going on for thousands of years. And tonight, finally, something new emerged. The Muse. But where was she? Misty’s presence should burn bright, a red beacon fire. Instead there was just darkness or the confusion of artificial lamps.
He hurried to the edge of the roof, blocked by a chest-high wall. She’d found him at the club. She would escape in her car from there. Without hesitation, he hauled himself over the wall and fell from the building.
Some of manki
nd’s earliest revelries pounded primitive music on the beaches that sustained them. The crashing waves had coated the dancers in salt spray. Trevor took on the lightness of that mist. His body glided down, first skimming above trees, then power lines and finally rooftops. Regaining blood and muscle, he landed on top of a building near the club and ran to the highest point.
The Rascal Room was dark. Even the staff had finished cleaning. The nearest parking lot contained only a few automobiles. None of these cars could be hers; they were all coated in dirt and the leaves of the trees above.
Misty was gone. He shouted in frustration. Sleeping birds scattered. Gathering his strength, he ran and jumped to another rooftop. From there, he leaped clear across a wide street, landing on the edge of a row of shops. The city seemed to go on forever. But he would search every corner to find her. Even if it killed him. Let the hunger end it all, as long as his last breath told her not to be afraid.
* * *
It was invisible, but it could kill her. The menace from whatever approached her was greasy and choking like diesel exhaust. Amazement at the impossible gave way to cold terror. Misty turned to run. The air shifted around her. The evil was now in front of her, cutting off any retreat.
Jaw tight with fear and anger, she prepared for the worst. Curled fists might not hurt an invisible beast that could crush her car, but she had to fight. “Fuck you, you son of a bitch...”
The breath rushed from her lungs as the thing gathered for an attack. She kept her hands high, by her face, elbows in, the way a PE coach had taught. High school women’s self-defense didn’t cover situations like this, though.
Unseen feet scraped quickly on the asphalt, heading toward her. She braced for the impact. Would it hurt? Would it be over quick?
Before she could find out, a man rushed into the street.
Trevor.
He intercepted her attacker, body jolting with the impact. Flickers of long black fabric appeared around him. Baring his teeth, he drove a hard fist into the invisible beast. With each blow, more of the fabric unfurled. The beast howled. The two of them spun through the street past her.
Her poor car rattled with the impact of their bodies, shattering the remaining glass. Trevor punched again, shaking the beast, her car and the air all around her. Misty finally saw that the black fabric formed long draping robes around the attacker. A knee from Trevor into its gut finally made the whole creature visible. Not that it was any more real. It stood seven feet tall. The sickly yellow skin of its hands and hollow face should only exist in fevered nightmares.
She ran. Faster than she’d ever tried. As if she could leave all she’d seen this night behind. The screeching of the robed beast behind her cut the air like rusty knives. It didn’t seem like there would be any escape from this world she’d stumbled into.
The fight continued half a block behind her. Metal crunched. Trevor grunted. The beast continued to howl as bones were broken. Don’t look. Just get the hell out of here.
Silence descended with horrifying uncertainty. The fight was over. Who won? And where was the next threat coming from? Rushing pulse pounded in her ears. Her breath echoed through her head.
She stumbled to a stop thirty yards away and slowly turned back. The robed monster lay awkwardly twisted backward over her car. One of Trevor’s hands was on its throat, the other gripping the beast’s wrist. Its taloned hand drooped limply. Trevor dragged the beast off the car and let it collapse, lifeless, on the ground.
When he turned to her, the intensity in his eyes almost sent her running again.
“Wait.” He put a hand up to halt her. “It’s not safe.”
“No shit.” She tried not to be impressed by the way his body moved as he walked toward her. Not that long ago, he had horns and hooves. “What the fuck was that?”
“Shroud.” He paused a few feet from her. “Are you okay?”
She ignored his question. “What the hell are you?”
“Everything I told you is true. I’m a...demon. You’re my Muse. And there’s more to know.” He glanced about the dark trees and unlit houses around them. “But we can’t stay here. Where there’s one of those bastards, a horde is coming.”
“And no matter how many questions I ask, you’re not going to tell me what they are or what the hell is going on?”
He held his hand out to her. “I’ll tell you everything. When you’re safe.”
Behind him, the Shroud melted into the ground and dissolved into yellow vapor. Trevor was a demon, but at least he came to help her.
She barely whispered, “This is real?”
“It is. More real than the world you thought you knew.”
Something rustled the leaves of a tree up the street. Was it the breeze, or something worse?
It was all unknown. Could she flee alone? Would she survive? Trevor was as mysterious as the invisible threats. But he was her only compass. Her protector. Misty took his hand and the two of them sped in the opposite direction.
The thrill remained in his touch. She’d seen him transformed and yet her body couldn’t forget the electricity they’d shared. At least some things hadn’t changed. She’d nearly been crushed by invisible Shrouds, then saved by a demon rock star. She still remembered with a blush why her panties were wadded in her back pocket.
“We need more people. Shrouds won’t attack in public.” He directed them toward the glow of a larger street.
She bumped against him in the run; his body felt denser, stronger than before. “How did you find me?”
“Been looking for someone like you for thousands of years, you think I’d let one dirty city keep me away?”
Running challenged her lungs, but he couldn’t call all the shots. “You have to stop saying things like that until I know what’s going on.”
“I was on rooftops, searching, until I got the scent of the Shroud. Thought it must be tracking you, so I had to find it before it...” His voice trailed off. The brighter lights of a wide boulevard revealed deep darkness in his eyes.
Late night didn’t slow the Sunset Strip. Traffic cruised the street. Some clubs still sucked people in and spit them out. Sushi restaurants and tattoo parlors glowed.
Trevor walked Misty over to a recessed storefront, sheltered from the hectic street.
“Me and my kind,” he said, low and urgent, “we’re demons, borne from human festivals. Elemental, created from pieces of the earth. Man and beast. We danced through early celebratory fires and found that the revelers sustained us with the power of their abandon. With each song, every skin of wine, we grew stronger, until we were able to walk among men. When we play music, the energy from the audience keeps us alive.”
The world on the street seemed like a projection on a flimsy screen. “For thousands of years?”
He nodded. “Culture evolved and we did too. Opera, the waltz, jazz and rock and roll. We’ve been there. I’ve changed my face hundreds of times, adapting to whatever’s next.”
“Like dying and coming back as someone else.”
“Why do you think so many rock stars die mysteriously or in plane crashes?”
Every rockumentary she’d watched instantly changed. The reality of all this continued to solidify, helped by the absolute honesty in Trevor’s eyes. “Maybe you’re lying. I was drugged in your hotel room.”
“No drugs. It’s all true.” He took her hand. “Only a handful of mortals know what you do.”
“If I’m a mortal, does that mean you’re immortal? Gods are immortal. You’re a goddamn god?”
He curled his fingers around her hand. His flesh hardened, dried out. Trevor stood so his body blocked any eyes from the street. Everything else had happened so fast, there was no time to examine the details. She watched as his skin continued to transform. It darkened and took on deep troughs. Every detail was there for her to
touch. Her hand was surrounded by the familiar rasp of tree bark. The aroma of a forest even rose to her.
“Oak,” he explained. Her imagination was filled with the sound of wind whispering through pine needles. His skin changed to a different grain of bark. “Pine. Like the trees they make retsina from in Greece.” Chill stone stole her heat. His hand grew too heavy to hold. The now rocky surface slipped from her grip. “Granite. Found in central Benin.”
The eyes could be fooled. Hell, she paid her rent working on visual effects for the movies. The tips of her fingers knew what she felt, though. The nuance of the dry scent from the stone or the spice of the pine couldn’t be faked. He’d transformed from flesh to wood to stone.
Just as incredible as all those transformations was the steady intensity on Trevor’s face.
He continued. “Trees can die if they’re not fed. Rocks crumble. I’m not a god. Not immortal. But close.” His body returned to the look of a normal human.
He gave her the smile she knew. The wicked rock star who knew just what he was doing to the ladies in the audience when he sang:
Drip your kiss
To my dying lips
I taste your life
I take your life
And make it my own
“The lyrics are real,” she said, hardly believing, “to ‘Pine Box.’”
“The best art is true.” He turned to check over the street. An energy to move built in him. “But I can’t feed from the audience anymore.” A long breath didn’t settle him down. “For my kind, there’s always been this legend of the Muse. A woman whose energy can feed a demon forever. And he can share his power with her. The catch is, only this woman will give him life. No audience, even if it’s the world’s biggest concert, can sustain him.”
It was as if she was buried under tons of stone and dirt. Holding her down. Squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe.