“Daan, you’re brilliant.” He might have hugged the little Shepherd, if it had an actual body. Instead, he offered a smile, then dashed over to the booth to retrieve the cap and jacket.
Uneasiness crept over him as they started toward the arena. It would still be a struggle to reach the stage, even with people letting him through. And time was very short. But as they walked along the high wooden fence that led to the main gates, a solution presented itself in the form of a red-painted door, bearing words that lodged a flicker of hope in him.
SECURITY ACCESS CORRIDOR
Hardly daring to breathe, Jaeryth reached for the handle and pressed the latch. It clicked down and the door swung open onto a long, deserted dirt path that led clear to the back of the area—and presumably the stage.
He stepped through with Daan at his heels. And when the door closed behind him, he broke into a run.
* * * * *
Logan stood behind the biggest stage she’d ever seen this close, at the foot of the stairs she would take to reach it. Scaffolding towered above her, mounted with myriad floodlights and speakers and electronic effects at the apex. The crisp, clean scent of the river just a few yards to the right filled the air, mingling with the excited buzz of the massive crowd and occasionally punctuated with bursts of noise from the techs onstage, running a soundcheck.
What a place to crash and burn.
She was determined to go through with her plan and ruin the show. She’d told no one, and hidden her frazzled nerves beneath a veneer of enthusiasm that was wearing thin. Ten more minutes until the end of her world.
It broke her heart to know she’d be letting her friends down. But it was the only chance that Jaeryth wouldn’t end up in Hell. Their pain, and hers, would fade in time. Jaeryth’s would last forever. And besides, they could go on without her. It happened all the time in the music world—lead singers self-destructed, or their egos got in the way. They were replaced, and the band played on. Ruined Soul had already done it once. They could do it again.
She was only throwing away her own shot at her dreams.
“So. You ready for this?”
Logan blinked and focused on Blue, who was standing in front of her. “Um,” she said. “Define ready.”
Blue laughed. “I can’t believe this is really happening. Isn’t it amazing?”
“Oh, yeah.” She smiled, hoping the expression looked more genuine than it felt. “I just hope I don’t run out of breath before we finish.”
“You’ll kick ass.” Blue clapped her shoulder. “It’s nice not having to do setup ourselves. I feel like a total celebrity.”
Logan nodded and tried to think of a suitable response. Before she could come up with anything, half the overhead lights snapped on and an electronically amplified male voice boomed out from the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Philadelphia’s Festival Pier!”
“It’s too early,” Logan shouted over the answering roar of the crowd.
Blue shrugged. “I think that’s just a recording.”
“Please note the emergency exits to your left and right, near the front and back of the arena. The bathrooms are located…”
“Yep, a recording,” Blue said as the voice droned on. “We’re still good for a few minutes.”
Logan caught sight of Tex and Reid hustling toward them. “Or not,” she said.
“All right, ladies. It’s showtime.” Reid’s drawl sounded confident as ever. If the size of the crowd affected him, he didn’t show it in the least. “Let’s get it on.”
Tex sidled over and hugged her. “This is it,” he said, soft enough so that only she could hear him. “You ready to change the world?”
She forced a smile. “I guess we’ll see.”
The answer must have satisfied him, because the next thing she knew, she was heading up the stairs with the rest of them. Through the metal grating, she caught glimpses the crowd—a sea of upturned faces washed in the waning dusk. So many people, all expecting the legend she’d somehow become. Could she really let them down?
More than ever, she wished Jaeryth was here.
Tex halted them when they reached the top, as the automated voice played out the last of its message. “…and thank you for attending this event at Philadelphia’s Festival Pier.” The lights flickered off and Tex turned to face the group. “Our cue’s coming in a minute. Frost, you’re out last. Anybody need to pee? Because if you do, too bad.”
Logan laughed with the rest of them. But her stomach felt greasy and slick, and a slight tremor had settled in her hands. She shoved them into her pockets to hide it. Whatever resolve she had was drowning in a whirlwind of confusion. She’d go out there and…what? Drop the ball, damn her friends and disappoint thousands of people—or sing her heart out, touch millions of lives and condemn the one that mattered to her more than all of them?
A loud and thrumming pulse infused the air, vibrating the floor beneath her. Colored lights blinked into existence overhead, one by one, and played across the stage like slow-motion fireflies. A single floodlight beamed a white wedge over everything. Tex gestured, smiled and turned to trot onto the stage.
The crowd blasted its approval.
Logan swallowed hard and watched as first Blue, and then Reid moved into the light. Her turn now. For a terrifying instant her feet refused to move. She forced a single step, and another. Finally, she was headed for the microphone against the deafening screams of the audience.
She reached the stand and grabbed the mic. The shakes were more pronounced now, and her breath came in short, rapid pants. The blazing lights prevented her from seeing much of the crowd—but she could hear them, transcending the pulse that still hammered from the speakers. Uncertainty ripped at her, to the point where she feared this would be a nightmarish rerun of her first time at Blue’s. The band would play. And the singer would choke.
All at once, the world stopped.
At first she thought she’d fainted. But after a moment of deafening silence, a low murmur of voices filled in the spaces, rising steadily. She finally realized that the sound effect no longer played, and all the lights were dark. The power had gone out.
And the crowd was not happy.
A man in jeans and a dark shirt, wearing a headset, rushed out onto the stage waving his arms in the air. “Hold your places, please,” he said to the band. “Just a glitch. We’ll have it fixed soon.” He turned toward the audience and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Everything’s fine, folks,” he shouted. “Hang tight. We’ll be up and running in just a couple of minutes.”
A few angry shouts transcended the murmur of discontent. One exceptionally loud voice called, “You suck, techie!”
Shuddering, Logan slid the mic back onto the stand. She could feel the anger from the crowd, a black and malevolent force thrusting tendrils into the atmosphere and sucking the life out of everything. It shouldn’t have escalated this fast. Those people were just about demanding blood.
She moved slowly toward the edge of the stage. Without the blinding floodlights, there was just enough daylight to get a clear picture of the audience. They were restless, jostling one another, their faces drawn into snarls and grimaces.
And among them were the Tempters. Hundreds of them, their black eyes glittering with evil hunger as they urged the mob toward frenzy.
Logan froze, unable to look away. She couldn’t even open her mouth to get Tex’s attention. The shouts and taunts kept piling on, building to furious peaks. Someone booed—and the call spread through the crowd like wildfire. The sound lodged in the pit of her stomach, turning her blood to ice.
Unusual movement flickered at the corner of her vision. She managed to turn her head toward it. At the left-hand end of the stage in the cordoned area reserved for security, there was a churning black mass almost the size of a city bus. It took her mind a moment to realize what it was—Tempters, crawling over one another like a nest of spiders, clicking and chattering so fast that if the sounds contai
ned words, she’d never make them out.
And still, she couldn’t move a muscle. She could only watch the destruction, with the sinking certainty that this time they’d finish what had begun the moment Jaeryth entered her life, or maybe even before then.
This time, she would die.
* * * * *
Jaeryth had almost reached the end of the path when a booming voice started welcoming everyone to Festival Pier, and he let out a violent curse. He’d been sure he still had a few more minutes. Any second now, Logan would be on the stage—and quite possibly beyond his reach.
He kept moving, and the voice droned on about emergency exits and restrooms. Perhaps this would take a while. He hoped.
Daan kept pace alongside him, though the Shepherd’s feet didn’t touch the ground. Jaeryth envied him the ability. His human legs ached with effort, and his lungs burned in his chest. But he kept going.
And then, at the end of the path, three Tempters materialized amid gusting swirls of smoke.
He faltered, but soon regained his pace. They are incorporeal, he reminded himself. I’ll pass right through them. It would only feel unpleasant for a moment.
Daan, however, failed to subscribe to the same logic.
“I’ll distract them!” Before the shout registered in Jaeryth’s ears, a flash of pale, shimmering blue darted ahead of him, straight at the grinning Tempters.
Jaeryth skidded to a halt. “Daan, no!”
Too late. The little Shepherd barreled at the center demon, tumbling across the ground with him to phase through the barricade along the side of the path. The two remaining Tempters dove through after them.
Shuddering, Jaeryth forced himself to move again. The voice from the stage had stopped, and a dark, rhythmic strain filled the air as the crowd began to cheer.
The show was starting. He’d have to hope that Daan could handle this fight alone.
By the time he reached the back of the stage, the thunder of the crowd had tripled in volume. Somehow he knew this was for Logan. There was an ecstatic quality to the sound, a joyous fever that spilled over everything like the rays of the morning sun.
He could be too late, but he would not stop now.
The entire stage was constructed of metal beams mounted at cross angles, forming a three-dimensional grid. There were stairs leading up to the stage—but they were at the far end, and he would lose minutes running to them. He approached the grid, grabbed the furthest beam he could reach and started climbing.
He’d gained only a few feet when sudden silence descended.
Through the jumbled underpinnings of the stage, he could see the very front of the ground area. The space directly in front of the structure held not fans, but security guards—the professional variety, with batons and guns holstered at their waists. As the crowd’s volume increased once again, this time in anger instead of anticipation, black shadows surged forth from the gathering and poured into the security area.
Tempters. Piling onto one of the guards, chanting darkness, urging him to draw and fire. To kill Logan.
Jaeryth attacked the scaffolding. He pulled himself up, beam by beam, as the muscles in his arms and shoulders burned. By the time he reached the top, the crowd had started booing.
It took longer than he wanted to gain his footing. An enormous screen lined the back of the stage, but there was space between the screen and the nearest support column to slip through. He rounded the corner and immediately sought Logan. At first he saw only the other band members, who’d gathered in a loose group around a man wearing a headset. There was something off about the man, but Jaeryth couldn’t quite pinpoint it.
There. She stood alone at the edge of the stage with her back to him, looking off to the side at the place where the Tempters swarmed. With no time to wonder why she wasn’t moving and the others weren’t paying attention, he sprinted toward her on legs that felt made of rubber.
He had to slow himself just before he reached her, or he risked pushing her over the edge. Gasping through the fire in his lungs, he grabbed her around the waist, spun and half-shoved, half-tossed her toward the back of the stage, where she couldn’t be targeted.
Just as she gave a startled cry, the sharp crack of a gunshot splintered the air. Tremendous pressure slammed Jaeryth’s back, as though he’d been struck with a sledgehammer—and searing agony followed.
He fell to the floor, and relief nearly eclipsed the pain. She was safe. He’d kept his promise.
It was all right to die now.
Chapter 25
The sound of the gunshot still echoed through Logan’s head.
She hadn’t seen the man who’d saved her life. By the time she realized what was happening, he was already down. Now she stood on trembling legs and approached the figure in the security coat and cap, lying facedown and motionless in the center of the stage. The closer she got, the faster her pulse pounded in her throat.
The man groaned softly, and the fingers of one hand flexed. Wild hope zinged through her. Maybe the guard had been wearing a bulletproof vest or something. She didn’t think she could bear the idea of a stranger dying for her. Rushing the rest of the way, she knelt beside him and gently removed the cap.
He wasn’t a stranger.
“Jaeryth!” His name emerged a strangled sob. “Oh God, no…”
His eyes fluttered open, but they didn’t focus on anything. “Logan,” he whispered. “Safe.”
“Yes. Yes, I’m safe.” She barely noticed the tears streaming from her eyes or the gradually diminishing rumble from the crowd. Beneath the last traces of daylight, she could see a small, ragged hole just inside his shoulder blade, and only a trickle of blood. It looked so insignificant. He could still be all right.
But her heart screamed that he wasn’t.
Someone must have called 911 by now. She had to get him turned over, see how bad it was. If he was bleeding, she could hold a compress on him or something until an ambulance got here. She crawled to his side and slid a hand under his shoulder. His body stiffened at the touch. “Okay,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m going to try and help you. Can you move at all?”
“Don’t know.” His lips barely parted for the words.
Steeling herself, she reached across him and gripped his arm. It would be easier to roll him toward her instead of shoving him away. “Here goes,” she murmured, and pulled.
He let out a garbled cry that wrenched her heart, but he shifted along with her efforts, until he was on his back with his head in her lap. He was pale and shaking, with his eyes closed tight and his teeth bared in a grimace.
A thick pool of blood glistened darkly on the stage floor where he’d lain—and the front of his shirt was drenched with the stuff.
He was not okay.
“Jaeryth…” She stroked his damp hair as coldness stole through her. He shouldn’t have been here. He was going to stay away from her—but she’d asked him to come. Kobol must have delivered her message.
She might as well have shot him herself.
His eyes opened, his gaze fixed on her. A ghost of his crooked smile surfaced. “Dying.”
“No!” Her breath hitched hard. “Help is on the way,” she said in a breaking voice. “Police. Paramedics. They’ll save you.”
“Can’t… Too late.”
He lifted a trembling hand and she slipped hers into it, sobbing. “I love you,” she whispered. “Always.”
His body relaxed on a sigh. His lips parted, and he said something she couldn’t make out.
She gave his hand a desperate squeeze. “Jaeryth! Don’t leave me. I didn’t hear you…”
He shuddered all over, and his eyes fluttered closed. “Sing…for me.”
“Sing,” she repeated dully. Her throat clenched, and panic flooded her. She was choking. She wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted—and he was slipping away fast.
The final blush of light vanished from the sky, cradling the world in darkness. Logan drew a single, shivering breath. And she began
to sing.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me…”
Though tears tracked endlessly down her face, her voice emerged steady and strong. The old hymn was completely inappropriate for this crowd, and they’d never want to hear her again after this. But she didn’t care. This was the right song, the only song she could give him that meant something.
After the first few lines, it dawned on her that her voice was louder than should have been possible without a mic. But she didn’t have one, and the power was still out.
She finally realized that the audience had fallen utterly silent.
For one crazy instant, she thought they’d all left. She couldn’t see a thing out there. The night and the blackout combined everything into solid, ink-black emptiness.
Then a tiny pinpoint of light flickered into existence. More followed in rapid succession—ten, a hundred, a thousand and more, orange and blue and white and green, bathing the rapt faces of the crowd in a pale glow.
They were holding up lighters. Cell phones. Key chain flashlights. Anything and everything that gave light.
Logan sang. For the crowd, for herself, but most of all for Jaeryth, who lay dying in her arms. Who’d gone against everything he’d ever known, and sacrificed more than any human being ever could, to save her—to save them all. If this was all she could give him in return, she’d damned well make sure it was the best song ever performed.
She felt something forming deep inside her, a ball of pure warmth that calmed her racing nerves. As the music flowed, it drifted up through her body, infusing her heart with its heat. The pulsating sensation entered her throat. Whatever it was, it felt so real and solid that part of her expected to choke on it. But it flowed smoothly upward, and left her lips as visible rays of golden light that rained on Jaeryth’s still form and soaked into his chest.
The light kept coming with every word she sang. As the last notes vibrated through the stillness and the final scrap of brilliance entered Jaeryth’s body, he jerked and went rigid as stone.
Then he drew a great, gasping breath. And opened his eyes.
Demon's Song Page 23