by Gary Jonas
“Enter,” he said.
Michael gave him a nod and entered.
“Nice chatting with you,” I said, patting him on the broad shoulder.
He didn’t react, so I just went inside, and he closed the door behind us.
Inside the studio, Helen stood before a microphone with a breath screen between her and the mike.
“Welcome to the party,” she said. She shook Michael’s hand. “Nice to see you again.”
“The pleasure is all mine.”
She turned to me. “Brett, sit down at the back, and be quiet. Apollo will talk to you in a moment. I’m finished.”
She slipped past me and left through the door. When she opened it, I saw the Mako Clansman still standing guard outside.
“Welcome to the show.” Apollo’s voice came through the speakers in the walls. He was in the control room and he stepped over to the window so we could see him. “You’re Michael?”
“I am,” Michael said.
“You play the bass?”
“I do.”
“Demonstrate.”
Michael opened his case, lifted out his bass guitar, and sat on a stool. He got set up and launched right into the bassline from Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
“Not bad,” Apollo said.
Michael went through several more, including “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King, “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, and “Come Together” by the Beatles.
“All cover tunes. Give me something original. What are you waiting for, Michael?”
Michael grinned at him and went right into “Money” by Pink Floyd.
“Ah, you want to know about payment. What did Brett tell you?”
“He said you’re a god who might be able to cure vampirism.”
“I’ve heard tell of a few cures over the millennia.”
“Can you make me into a normal man again?”
“Normal is relative. Wouldn’t you prefer cold hard cash?”
“I have money,” Michael said. “I want an end to the curse.”
“Drinking blood would get old, I suppose. I’ll be honest here, Michael. I’ve never tried to cure a vampire. I can give you the ability to walk in the daylight without getting burned, though. That’s easy.”
“I want a cure.”
“I’ll try. I have friends in high places. If you can be cured, I’ll do everything in my power to achieve said cure, but until then, I’ll grant you the power to walk in daylight without fear.”
“You can do that?”
“I am the Sun God.”
Michael glanced at me. “Do you believe him?”
I shrugged. “He’s a god. Since when have any gods ever told the truth to mortals or semi-mortals?”
“You know I can hear you, right?” Apollo asked.
“Your call, Michael,” I said.
He nodded. “Something of my own creation,” he said, and went into a bass solo that would make Geddy Lee and John Paul Jones jealous.
“You’ve shown versatility, though I’m recording a pop song. Let me play you the parts we’ve recorded. It’s called ‘Believe in Me, I’ll Believe in You.’ This is everything except the bass and the lead guitar. Thomas?”
After a short delay, a song started playing. It was heavy on the keyboard synths.
“Very Bruno Mars,” I said.
Standard four chord progression in D major using the D, A, B minor, and G chords. The lyrics sounded like a love song, but I knew the subtext was about worshipping Apollo. It was an up-tempo catchy tune, and I suspected that even without his magical help, it had the makings of a radio hit.
Michael nodded. “Give me some headphones, and send the song to me there so I can work something out. Put it on a loop. I’ll need fifteen minutes.”
“Do it, Thomas. Quincy, take the man some headphones. Give a pair to Brett, too.”
The Mako Clansman entered the studio a minute later and handed headphones to me and to Michael.
Michael stared at me. “Give me a minute to work out my line, then you come in and see if you can find a few things to do around it. Cool? And keep it simple. Don’t try to show off. It’s a four-chord pop tune, not hard rock.”
“Yeah, I saw that Axis of Awesome video, too.” I got my guitar ready, and my magic pick instilled with the blood of many famous guitarists was poised to deliver genius.
“All right, let’s give this a shot,” he said.
The music started. Michael played around a bit with a few different takes, then fell into a nice groove.
“That works,” I said. “I like that.”
He shrugged, kept riffing on it, and it felt like it belonged in the song.
I nodded in time, then worked in a few guitar bits. The solo practically played itself. It was like Stevie Ray Vaughan performing on David Bowie’s “China Girl.” It just worked.
The music stopped and Apollo spoke to us. “All right, Brett, I think that’s fine. Excellent work, Michael.”
Michael nodded. From the look in his eyes, he knew he’d nailed it.
“We’ll record you separately. Michael, you’ll go first, so Brett, step out into the hall with Quincy.”
I did as I was told.
Quincy frowned at me.
“Something wrong?”
He nodded. “Your solo sucks. It feels derivative and it has no heart.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” I said.
“You asked.”
“No. I asked if something was wrong. I did not ask for your opinion. Let me ask you something, douchebag. Have you ever done anything creative or do you just bitch about what others do?”
He laughed.
“What’s so funny about that?” I asked.
“Word on the street is that you’re using a magic pick, and that without the talent of others poured into that piece of plastic, you couldn’t play diddly or squat.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah.”
I didn’t have a comeback because he was right. Without the pick, I wouldn’t be in the studio about to record a song destined to shoot up the charts.
I sulked until it was my turn to go into the studio.
Fortunately for me, the pick didn’t need my confidence to work. I played the guitar brilliantly and delivered an awesome solo. And if some shark dude thought it was derivative, he could take my guitar and shove it right up his fish tail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Apollo let everyone crowd into the control room as Thomas finished the rough mix. By everyone, I mean me, Michael, and Quincy the shark dude. Helen had bailed on us already, and I never met the drummer or keyboard player, so odds were good that Apollo played both roles himself. After all, he could be like Paul McCartney and Prince by playing all the instruments himself if he so desired.
Thomas was dressed like a Mormon missionary in black pants, white shirt, and black tie. If he’d had a pencil protector, he’d have been an old, but gruff computer nerd. As it stood, I saw him as Military Mormon meets ancient hipster. But he was a talented engineer, and when he played the song back to us, it was surprisingly good and catchy.
Michael nodded. “I’m not normally a pop guy, but that’s a damn good tune.”
“My muse worked overtime,” Apollo said.
If he’d meant it as a slap at me, I didn’t take it that way. Instead, I just nodded. “I like it,” I said.
“You can dance to it,” Quincy said. “But the guitar work sucks.”
“Clean it up a bit, and you can go home, Thomas,” Apollo said. “I’m heading home now, but before I go, allow me to fulfill my guaranteed payment.”
He stepped up to Michael, put a finger to his throat. Apollo’s finger glowed. Michael choked and grabbed his neck. He dropped to his knees.
“Michael!” I said, rushing to him.
“He’s fine,” Apollo said. “The pain will fade in three, two, one.”
Michael took a deep breath and looked up at Apollo. “What did you do to me?”
> “You can now walk in sunlight, Michael. Enjoy the daytime hours.”
“He could be lying,” I whispered to Michael.
“I heard that,” Apollo said. “Brett, walk with me.”
I helped Michael to his feet, and Quincy grabbed my arm. “It wasn’t a request.”
He practically threw me into the hall.
Apollo walked ahead of me, and I hurried to catch up. “What did I do now?” I asked.
Apollo grinned. “You’re currently back in my good graces. Your soul belongs to me, you’re going to go on a world tour and while no one will know your name, you’ll get to sleep with a variety of women over the next fifty years. You don’t strike me as the adventurous type so I doubt you’ll sample the men as well.”
“I’m definitely straight,” I said.
“And there are plenty of amazing women on the road. Just one thing. You need to get rid of your demon pet before we embark on our tour.”
“I’ve been trying to do that.”
“Succeed.”
“How?”
“Banish it.”
“No kidding. Dude, I’ve tried. I don’t know how to do it.”
“I don’t like demons. They’re filthy little creatures.”
“Well, we have that in common,” I said.
“Yes, you’re a filthy creature too.”
“Walked right into that one,” I said.
He led me outside, and stopped on the sidewalk while Quincy moved past. “I’ll bring the car around, sir,” Quincy said.
Apollo nodded.
When Quincy was out of earshot, Apollo put a hand on my shoulder. “You have a great deal of magic flowing through your veins, Brett. I suspect your potential is right up there with your father.”
“You know my father?”
“Never had the pleasure.”
“Misfortune, you mean.”
“Fathers aren’t there to win popularity contests, Brett. No matter how bad you think yours was, mine was worse.”
“Your dad was Zeus.”
“And he was an asshole.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’ll tell you after the noise.”
“What noise?” I asked. It was a quiet night, and we couldn’t even hear cars on Seawall Boulevard from here. In the distance, I saw Quincy get into Apollo’s limousine under a street lamp.
“Three, two, one,” Apollo said.
The limousine exploded. The orange ball of fire lit up the night, and a wave of heat rolled over us even a hundred yards away.
“Holy shit!” I said.
The trunk of the limo blew fifty feet into the air, and crashed down on the street. The remains of the car burned brightly.
Apollo took out his phone and placed a call while he watched the car burn. “Denton, I’m ready. Yes, I was right. Pick me up on the side street.”
He disconnected.
“You knew someone was going to try to kill you?”
“That blast wouldn’t kill me. It would mess up my hair, though.”
“But Quincy is dead.”
He nodded. “Yes, well, Quincy wasn’t very good at his job.”
“And you knew it was going to happen.”
“I merely suspected. It’s a warning shot across the bow, so to speak.”
“Some warning shot.”
“I just need to figure out which of them did it. Now, back to my point about fathers. They tend to be tough on us, of course. That’s part of the job description. The trick is to get out of your father’s shadow. Be your own person. I managed it, and I had to get out from under a god.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“Fire department is on the way. Probably the police as well. You might want to go back inside and pretend you didn’t hear or see anything. Save you from all the bothersome questions.”
I looked at the door. Michael and Thomas hadn’t come outside. “They didn’t hear that?”
“Soundproofing.”
A limo pulled up on the side street. Apollo gave his driver a thumbs-up, then turned to look at me.
“Time for me to go now. You should go back inside and record a song for the B-side.”
“Wait. How did you get out from under Zeus?”
He grinned. “I took his name away from him. The Romans called him Jupiter. What’s even better is that he never knew that was my work. In fact, when the Romans adopted us, I was the only god to keep his name.”
“Not sure how that helps,” I said.
“Desire.”
“Right. To me that’s a U2 song, or something I feel when I look at hot chicks.”
He walked across the grass toward the waiting limo. “Think about it. Meanwhile, demon gone in two days.”
I was about to go back inside when Kevin trotted up. “I didn’t know we were having a light show,” he said, pointing at the burning car.
I opened the door. “Inside, Kevin.”
“What’s going on?”
“I have no idea,” I said. We went inside, and as soon as we stepped into the control room, we could no longer hear the sirens.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nobody from the fire department checked the studio. No cops came inside either. Granted, I’d locked the door, and turned off all the lights except those inside the control room and studio, but I still thought we’d have to answer questions about the explosion.
It never came up.
But that’s not the important thing.
I entered the control room where Thomas and Michael sat talking about music. They looked up at me. Kevin was invisible, so while he stretched out on a table behind the control board, I grabbed a seat next to Michael and leaned back.
“Apollo wants us to record a B-side,” I said.
“But this is a digital release,” Michael said. “There won’t be a B-side.”
“Apollo wants a pressing on vinyl, too,” Thomas said. “He wants to hang it in his office. I was going to just remove the vocal track and put an instrumental version on the B-side, but it doesn’t matter what goes there, and I don’t mind staying for a while if you want to record another song.”
“So what are we supposed to record?” Michael asked.
“Whatever you want,” Thomas said. “It doesn’t matter. If it sucks, no one will ever hear it.”
“And if it’s good?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Then we have options. We can have Apollo sing and lay that in. We can have an actual drummer come in to record the drum track. For now, I’ll just lay in a track that fits whether it’s seventy-five beats per minute or more. Did you want to do a fast song? A ballad? I have a variety of beats we can loop.”
“Maybe we can do a song called ‘Demon in My Pants,’” I said.
“Is that an unrequited love song about yours truly?” Kevin asked, propping himself up on one elbow.
I ignored him.
Michael shook his head. “Get real, Brett.”
“Why? No one will ever hear it.”
“Unless it’s good. Did you not just hear there would be options?”
“Yeah, I heard that, but we’re starting with nothing unless you want to do a cover tune.”
“A lot of hits were written in no time,” Michael said. “Greg Kihn wrote ‘The Breakup Song’ in fifteen minutes.”
“I like that song,” I said. “It’s catchy.”
“Adele wrote ‘Skyfall’ in less time than that, and she won a Grammy and an Oscar. Black Sabbath wrote ‘Paranoid’ in no time. David Bowie wrote ‘Life on Mars?’ on a lazy afternoon. Led Zeppelin wrote ‘Rock ’N’ Roll’ in fifteen minutes. Jani Lane wrote the Warrant hit ‘Cherry Pie’ in fifteen minutes. I could go on.”
“To be fair, I understand that Jani Lane hated ‘Cherry Pie’ and that song haunted him for the rest of his career.”
“If we hate our song, we’ll put it on the vinyl and that’s it. But if we like it…”
“We can win a Grammy and an Oscar like Adele?”
“
I wouldn’t go that far. Adele has more talent in her little finger than our entire band will ever have.”
“You think she’s a siren?” I asked.
Michael laughed. “I think sirens aspire to be her.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s kick around some ideas. We have all night.”
“Sure,” Michael said. “What’s your favorite thing to do?”
“Nap,” I said.
Michael laughed. “Okay, Mister Lazypants. Let’s write a song about napping. What do you have?”
I’d never considered writing a song about napping. But it wasn’t really a joke. I loved taking naps.
Michael went to the studio, grabbed an acoustic guitar, and brought it into the control room. He handed it to me. “Let’s get started,” he said.
And fifteen minutes later, we had a lovely ballad about the joys of taking naps. I called it “Napping My Life Away.”
We recorded it in two takes. Thomas added a drum track, and then we listened to the song once he looped it together.
“This is really good,” Michael said.
“Apollo has his B-side,” I said.
“It’s fine for that,” Thomas said. “We’ll certainly do that.”
“Why do I sense a but coming?” I asked.
“Because I think this is too good to dump as a B-side for a single that’s just for Apollo’s vanity because he wants something to hang on his wall. Let’s take some time to record some video. Just do the lip synch thing. We’ll keep you around the table occasionally flipping over pages and jotting lyrics on a pad of paper. Then we’ll film you in the studio playing and singing. I’ll cut it all together and put it on YouTube. Then I’ll upload the song to iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and all the rest. Who knows? You might make enough money to each buy a cup of coffee.”
“It would be kinda cool to have a song available for download,” Michael said.
And we spent the next few hours recording us pretending to write and play the song.
Thomas looked uneasy toward the end.
“Something wrong?”
“I shouldn’t say anything.”
“And I sense another but coming.”
He nodded, and looked around, as if checking to see if the coast was clear. If Apollo had surveillance equipment, whether it was technological or magical, a glance around the room wasn’t going to reveal it, but I didn’t say anything. I just waited.