We Are Toten Herzen (TotenUniverse Book 1)

by Chris Harrison

  Or maybe he had become the stranger. As he returned to the backstage area he considered the possibility that he wasn't cut out for this business anymore. His months with the band had done the job of taking his mind off things, hell it had stripped his mind of everything. His disillusionment with the music industry was already festering when Toten Herzen first arrived in New York. The ever present suspicion that the band were always one step ahead of everyone gnawed at his determination not to ask questions, but the questions were always there, rearing up involuntarily: why work at night, why are they so young, what are they up to now, what's Rob Wallet's agenda, and just don't mention those fucking teeth!

  He saw Susan Bekker leaning against a wall, grabbing a moment to herself. He'd seen that before too. "You ready for this?" He asked.

  She took a moment before answering. "I can't say no, so I must be. It's all got a little complicated, people back here who shouldn't be here."

  "I can get them out if you want."

  "No, they were invited. It wouldn't be fair."

  "I still don't understand why Terence Pearl is here," said Scavinio.

  "He's up to something, so he's better where we can see him."

  "And can you see him. Is anybody watching him?"

  "Rob's onto it. And don't look like that. Rob's brought him in, Pearl believes our side of the story. Nothing's gonna go wrong now."

  "Touch wood." Scavinio tapped Susan on the head.

  "I suppose I should find the others."

  Scavinio watched her go. She was weary, didn't show any of the nervous enthusiasm he was used to seeing. There came a moment where the band just wanted to get onstage, stop all the prowling about and small talk and just get the job started. Susan looked like she wanted to go to bed.

  -

  Raven hadn't moved off the settee where she had been speaking, or was it arguing with Susan. Now she was regretting it. You travel all that way to meet a hero and end up giving them cheek like you were talking back to your history teacher. Talking of which, here was one now. Terence Pearl dropped like a stone onto a nearby chair.

  "No one talking to you either," he said.

  "No." She noticed his security jacket and pass. "Shouldn't you be out there with the crowd?"

  "No. I've been ordered to stay back here out of trouble."

  "Out of trouble? What, you like to start fights or something?"

  "Far from it. Although I have to say I do feel a tad worked up. I've felt like this for weeks. I must have high blood pressure."

  "You should see a doctor. Might be something serious."

  "Don't like to bother doctors." And they generally don't open at night, except for the A&E departments and he couldn't go wandering in there complaining of feeling a bit worked up, or that his eyes glazed over every time he tried shaving himself, or that the birds were deliberately trying to annoy him, or that all his lavenders had died on purpose. "Did you win a competition to meet the band?" he asked nervously.

  "No, I got an invite. And then she clears off."

  "Who's she?"

  "Susan Bekker. Queen Bee. Don't know where she's gone. Went off in a huff." Raven was nibbling the browning remains of an apple.

  "They're not interested in the likes of us. The little people. Look around here; there's a person for every task. Bring me some food, clean my clothes, comb my hair, peel me a grape. And everyone laps it up. They all want to be part of that circle, but don't have the status to be at the centre of it, so they're content to run around like dogs feeding under the table."

  "Christ, so hot it burns. What's bothering you?"

  "Oh, ignore me. Like I said I'm always worked up these days. Everything gets on my wick."

  "Sounds like it. They can't do everything themselves can they?"

  "I suppose not. I just wish people would stir things up a bit now and then. Makes life so much more interesting."

  "I don't think anyone stirs things like this lot though, do they." She waited for a response, but noticed his name badge. 'Terence.' "Can I ask you something?" Pearl looked up. "You're not Terence Pearl are you?"

  "Yes, I am why?"

  "Oh shit." She bit a chunk out of the apple.

  "Who are you?" He lifted his glasses off his nose to look at her pass. "Raven! Oh, please."

  "Yeah. We were having a nice conversation then, weren't we?"

  He turned away from her and took his glasses off to rub his eyes.

  "You still think they're going home in a spaceship?"

  He shook his head. "No, no, no. They're using a coach."

  "Sorry I called you a knobster."

  "Oh, it's all right. I've had worse things said to me." He saw Rob Wallet. "I need to go." He stood up and looked down at the blue haired girl sitting alone. "Be careful tonight, won't you?"

  She nodded.

  -

  "Excuse me a moment," Wallet said as Pearl approached him. He grabbed his elbow. "Where is he?"

  "Who?"

  "Who? What do you mean who? Who do you think?"

  "He disappeared."

  "Disappeared? What do you mean disappeared? Wandered off? Puff of smoke? What?"

  Pearl blustered. "He was stood next to me, we were coming backstage and when I turned round he was gone."

  Wallet groaned. "He came here to be with you. You were his pass to getting backstage. Where the fuck has he gone?"

  "I don't know."

  Wallet could feel his authority draining away. He reset himself and started again. "Okay. He hasn't got a ticket, so he can't get a seat. He must be wandering around the concourse somewhere."

  "What's going on?" Susan had suddenly appeared. "I can hear you two whispering from the other side of Rotterdam. I thought you had all this under control."

  Wallet recognised those angry eyes. He hadn't seen them for a while, but they were back and blazing as furiously as ever.

  "It is under control. Wells has gone missing. Mr Pearl here let him slip away. Does he know we know who he is?"

  Pearl looked a bit confused, then: "No, he doesn't know we're expecting him."

  "You haven't got a fucking clue have you?" said Susan.

  "As a matter of fact," Wallet stepped towards her.

  "Don't get in my face like this?"

  "I'm convincing you that your put downs don't mean shit to me anymore?" he said.

  "Put downs? I could put you down right now if that's what you want. Do you want me to do that because I'd really like to." She was stiffening, almost growing in height in front of him. "This might just be the time to clear out all the deadwood." Her skin was starting to glisten. Pearl backed away. Raven could see the confrontation and was standing nervously. Wallet wasn't going to back down. Whatever happened now he was going to stand and take it. And he knew what was happening. Susan's mouth was hanging open, her spine arching, she breathed in, rolled her head back and stretched her arms out just as Dee appeared.

  The howl made everyone within earshot jump off the floor and drop whatever they were carrying. They scurried for cover, hands clasped to their ears. Glass was shattering everywhere, doors vibrated on their hinges, the walls started to hum. The noise surged away through the backstage area, knocking Dee off her feet as Tom Scavinio knelt in a corner covering his head. Through the concourse, people ducked, others cowered behind the heavy concrete pillars. The hall filled with the enormity of the cry and reflected off the steel roof supports. Feedback blew off headphones and the intensity made the lights flicker. And still the howling continued breathlessly. The audience, stunned, stopped their rummaging and seat searching and for a few seconds wondered how they should respond.

  Susan heard it. She stopped and listened to the sound of seventeen thousand people howling back at her, a colossal roar like every animal in the world had been unleashed. She was still standing face to face with Wallet. His ears were bleeding, his eyes watering, but he was anchored to where he was, unflinching and impressed by the echo coming backstage multiplied a thousand times. He grabbed her hard a
round her jaw and kissed her lips. "Let me get on with my job," he said quietly.

  He picked Pearl off the ground with one hand and carried him like a suitcase away from the backstage area, along the winding corridors and out to the edge of the arena concourse. The place was full. "Get out there and find him," snarled Wallet. Pearl saw a glimpse of his canines, two terrible glistening points. "If you don't come back with him I'll find him and I'll kill you both myself."

  -

  Susan's gaze was blank. Raven waited to see if it was a good moment to step past and go find her seat, but the gorgon noticed her. Before anyone could say anything a security guy with a buzzing walkie talkie rushed in looking for Scavinio. "Something's kicking off," he said.

  Scavinio and Susan went to look. Out in the hall, down on the floor midway back from the stage a fight had started. A flare had been thrown and someone was on fire. The figure was wrestled to the floor and beaten with coats. A pall of grey and red smoke drifted upwards, but the trouble continued as a large group waded into the arena seating up the side of the hall. More flares were thrown, flags were being unfurled and waved around as if to celebrate the melee. Arena security poured through the upper entrances to separate two sides indistinguishable from each other. Firecrackers filled the air with eager bristling laughter as other members of the audience fled in the opposite direction to the fighting. Chair seats started to fly. One of the flags was set alight and TH Utrecht lost its standard as the trouble threatened to escalate.

  Scavinio came away from the hall to find the rest of the band who were gathering backstage. "I had a gut feeling something wasn't right with this crowd," he said.

  "Can security control it?" asked Wallet. Scavinio was shaking his head. "There are factions down there, god knows what's going to happen. Let the police deal with it. They're on their way. Keep everyone back here, there's a security cordon between them and us," Scavinio paused. "You don't look too concerned," he said.

  Susan had seen enough. "Why would we?" she said.

  Scavinio rubbed the back of his head. "I don't like to bring this up, but you were like this in New York on the night three people died."

  "Like what?" said Susan. Raven was behind her.

  "Like you didn't care."

  "We don't," said Elaine. "Did we tell them to start this? Are they going to come up here and start with us? No and no."

  "There's a riot down there and several thousand people getting caught up in it."

  "The arena has contingencies for this," said Susan. "That's what you told us, Tom. When I asked you what happens if there's trouble you said, and I quote, you don't need to worry about trouble the arena management will have a contingency plan for anything that might happen."

  Wallet was the first to hear sirens. But the agreement was to stay backstage, keep the staff close by and be prepared to get into the coach and head back to the hotel. Out in the hall police were pouring in like a black liquid, some in riot gear, but the heavy tactics weren't needed. The main lights stayed on as more people evacuated the area to gather outside. There were whispers that skirmishes had broken out in the car parks and traffic was slowing down as drivers tried to figure out why there were police vans everywhere.

  -

  At ten o'clock, with several hundred dozy stragglers still in their seats, the concert was cancelled. A few thousand still outside the arena surrendered to the inevitable and wandered away. At the back of the tour coach, the band and several staff members waited for Tom Scavinio to finish talking to arena management and watched a monitor feeding the latest news live as it happened. They were already showing camera phone footage of the flare that started it all off, the groups within the crowd coming together, the scattering of fans as the fists flew, the security members and arena stewards virtually powerless to stop the fighting and trying instead to protect anyone close by from being blown up.

  Susan sat with her head in her hands. Dee was incandescent, but so far speechless. Rene was on his back, still holding his drumsticks. Elaine was unmoved. Wallet now had a slight admiration for her inability to be touched by any of this. He was trying to rationalise it all and generate some concern for the others: the sound engineers and lighting crew who were metres away from the trouble; the caterers and hospitality staff backstage who had been deafened one minute and then faced with the possibility of being overwhelmed by rioting thugs. Crowd violence was such an ugly spectacle, unless you were causing it.

  At last, as Scavinio came aboard, the door closed and the coach pulled away. The windows were blackened, so no one could see the ordered pandemonium outside. The police vans, the media trucks and satellite dishes, unrepentant factions still waving their flags of allegiance. But the aroma of gunpowder was still so thick in the air even the humans could smell it.

  "It might still be possible to come back tomorrow night," said Scavinio.

  Wallet was astonished. "What?" He laughed.

  "You must be joking," said Dee.

  "What's so odd about that," said Susan.

  "Because it'll kick off again, won't it?" said Dee angrily. "You'll have another fucking howling fit and another ten rows of seats'll go up in smoke."

  "What, are you blaming me for that?" Susan was outraged.

  "Excuse me, but it was like the gun at the start of the one hundred metres final. What else started it?"

  "That's a big conclusion to jump to," said Rene without looking up.

  "Yeah, yeah. Here we are in Rotterdam. You would say that, wouldn't you?"

  "What does that mean," said Susan.

  "You're forgetting that this band is half Dutch, half British. Why was this concert in Rotterdam?" Dee was on a roll now.

  "What are you talking about?" Susan was on her feet and unconcerned the rest of the coach was listening to every word.

  "I'm talking about the imbalance. We never get a say, do we? It's always you two, Rotterdam this, Rotterdam that. We are not a Dutch band, but that doesn't matter does it."

  "Fuck you."

  "Yeah," yelled Dee, "fuck me. I'm just the singer, so fuck me and get another one. Have a tv show and fuck me off."

  Scavinio was on the verge of stepping in, but he saw Wallet suggesting he should back off. The advise was good.

  Dee stepped up to Susan. "We'd be on stage now if it wasn't for your hysterics."

  "Back off," Susan growled ominously.

  "Or what, you'll stamp your feet and have another howl. Go on then and I'll ram my fucking fist down your throat." She grabbed Susan round the neck and within the blink of an eye Rene was pulling her away, Elaine was pulling Rene away and all four of them were a rampaging, snarling knot of thrashing arms.

  Wallet hesitated, he knew he was the only person on the coach with the strength to intervene. Scavinio beat him too it and tried to prize Dee and Susan apart, but their grip was too tight, their bodies too close. Scavinio was about to grab one of them when Dee locked her jaws onto Susan's throat; he was in the direct line of a plume of blood that travelled several metres down the inside of the coach. Susan had her hand across Dee's face and was digging in as far as the first knuckle on each finger. Scavinio was almost gagging, but tried to get a hold of one of them. Dee lashed out and swiped her fingernails across Scavinio's head tearing him open. Wallet was already trying to force himself between Elaine and Rene and saw Scavinio peel away in shock and pain. Pearl, cowering in his seat and still upset at not finding Wells, wanted to help, but Dee and Susan were on the move, locked together, wrestling violently, stumbling against the seats as each tried to get the finishing hold.

  "Terence," shouted Wallet, "help Tom, leave those two." Pearl was confused. It would be like trying to come between two tigers. Elaine was on the floor of the coach, face up with Rene on top of her face down, together rolling left and right in a gnashing fury of fists and teeth. Wallet was desperately trying to get a knee between them to get some leverage. He was already scratched to ribbons with a gash running down the side of his head, through his shirt as far as his co
llar bone.

  The coach careered left and right as the weight shifted this way and that. Scavinio was as far up the front as he could get along with everybody else. He was being treated by the tour manager nervously looking over his shoulder as Dee and Susan struggled, inching ever closer to them. The inside of the coach was like an abattoir. Pearl wept as he tried to grab a shoulder, an arm, anything he thought might be a limb, but eventually he could only watch as the ferocity of the battle projected the two women at the side of the coach and in an instant they crashed through the windows onto the road outside.

  Oblivious, Elaine and Rene remained locked together. Wallet was crimson from head to foot. He had blood in his eyes, but he could see what had happened. The coach braked hard, more bodies were thrown forward and Wallet found himself wedged between Elaine, panting like a savage and Rene still trying to crawl over him to get at her. He put everything between them and felt Elaine's weight crushing his chest as she locked on to Rene's throat. Then the weight diminished and he saw a clutch of men pulling Elaine and Rene apart. Scavinio, the tour manager and the coach driver were just succeeding as a human barrier, but only because Elaine and Rene had paused for a moment. "Get them off the coach, for fucks sake." He wiped the blood off his face and tried to breath. Several seats were covered in crumbs of broken glass and through the shattered window he could see Susan and Dee back up the road on their hands and knees still eyeing one another as if they were about to start again. Behind them the traffic was backing up out of sight. Then he found Pearl, crouched into a ball between the seats.

  "I think you should stay there, Terence," said Wallet. Then he stepped back a moment. "Didn't you predict something like this would happen?"

  Outside singer and guitarist were sat down and as Wallet drew closer he could see Dee grinning at her colleague. "You taste funny," she said and spat a mouthful of blood onto the tarmac. "You taste of that stupid perfume you're always wearing.