The Devil's Metal: A Rockstar Romance (The Devils Duet Book 1)

by Karina Halle

  But the more I looked at her, the more she wasn’t Sonja. She was almost a ghostly apparition, partly transparent, and leaking black fluid out of her mouth as she smiled.

  I looked back at Noelle. Her expression hadn’t changed. She was stuck, a portrait of mind-numbing terror. A silent scream that never ended.

  My eyes volleyed back to the woman in white.

  She was no longer across the road.

  She was standing on the curb that bordered the parking lot. The parking lot that sloped toward the pool. Just feet away.

  Her eyes were bleeding black pools that promised a wealth of revulsion.

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

  Then I heard Noelle, her voice bursting through like a siren.

  She started screaming and thrashing on the lawn chair, her voice rising high into the air, a scream that personified all that everyone feared.

  I put my hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her down and prevent her from hurting herself, and threw another glance over my shoulder, expecting to have to fight off Sonja as well.

  But she wasn’t there. The road was empty. The darkness was all consuming.

  Within seconds, the clerk came running out of the motel and the doors to various rooms opened. Suddenly everyone from Jacob to Mickey to random motel guests were gathered around, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Mickey flew to Noelle and tried to get in her face to calm her down but Noelle screamed like she had never seen him before in her life. Sage went to her side and tried to steady her but she thrashed violently against them both.

  “What happened?” Mickey screamed at me.

  Everyone looked at me but I couldn’t even speak.

  Jacob put his meaty hand on my shoulder and gripped it hard, the rings digging into my bone.

  “What happened, Dawn?” he asked with a glint in his eye.

  I shook my head, my tongue thick and stupid. Next the tiny motel clerk with the hairy ears was at my side asking the same thing.

  I was finally able to say, “I don’t know. She was sitting here alone and then she just started screaming.”

  I could tell Jacob knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth but he let it go. I went on, “I was in my room earlier and someone had broken in.”

  “What?” someone in the crowd cried out over Noelle’s wails.

  Frenzied whispers erupted among the motel patrons.

  “It’s true,” I said to the hotel manager. “I fell asleep, and when I woke up, the lights in my room were all out and someone was in my bathroom. The light was on. I heard them in there. Then they turned off the light and I ran out of the room. I ran all the way here and saw Noelle and then she just started screaming.”

  The clerk looked extremely puzzled, shaking his head in disbelief. I didn’t know how else to describe it. They both seemed like two unrelated incidents but I saw Sonja just as Noelle had. Could it have been her in my room?

  My eyes made their way back to Noelle. Mickey was trying to calm her but wasn’t having much luck. Sage had a hand on her arm, holding her down, but he was looking at me. His expression was entirely unreadable.

  The manager sighed. “I better go call the police and get an ambulance here too.”

  He ran off into the office.

  “Aw, Christ,” Jacob swore. “This is all we need.”

  I couldn’t help but glare at him. “I thought you liked bad press.”

  His eyes narrowed into venomous yellow slits. They seemed to go from avian to reptilian in a single blink.

  “I think you’re going to need to tell me the truth soon,” he whispered into my ear.

  I moved my head out of the way. “I am telling the truth. Take it or leave it.”

  He chewed on his lip for a moment, searching my face. “I’ll take it. For now.”

  He left my side and went to go help Sage and Mickey.

  I felt Robbie sidle up to me.

  “Was there really someone in your room?” he asked. His shoulders were hunched and it looked like he couldn’t take any more punches from life.

  I nodded, my eyes automatically darting over to the door. If it really had been a person in my room, they were probably gone now thanks to Noelle’s distraction. But I was starting to think it was just as likely that it had been Sonja, or one of the other GTFOs. Someone who wanted to fuck with me.

  “I think…” Robbie trailed off.

  “What?”

  He started laughing to himself, like he remembered a funny joke. I watched and waited until the maniacal laughter stopped and he composed himself. He was still a lesser version of the rock god I used to know.

  “Do you feel it?” he asked quietly, his eyes darting around.

  I leaned into him. “Feel what?”

  “It,” he said. “Something. Like something has a hold on us. Like….”

  “Like?”

  He shook his head and gave me a twisted smile. “I bet you never expected any of this.”

  I frowned at his change of subject. “Did you?”

  “Yes,” he answered plainly and didn’t elaborate. I didn’t feel like pressing him. I didn’t think it would do me any good.

  We watched Noelle for a few minutes until the police and ambulance arrived. The police immediately came to me and barraged me with questions. I could tell Jacob was hoping they wouldn’t bring up Emeritta’s death, but the Atlanta cops weren’t stupid and they’d already heard all about it. Naturally they believed that Noelle was on drugs until the paramedics seemed to dismiss it.

  Maybe it was because I was a female and a journalist, but the cops were easier on me than they were with Robbie and Mickey, and I wasn’t brought in for further questioning.

  They went to the motel room to investigate my side of the story, and though they found the bulb in the bedroom had burned out naturally, there was a razor in the sink that hadn’t belonged to me or anyone else. There was no sign of a break-in, so whoever had been there had come in when I wasn’t aware. That freaked me out more than anything, knowing that someone had been in my room and I was lying there asleep and totally helpless.

  Noelle still wasn’t responding to anyone, so she was strapped down into a stretcher and shoved in the ambulance. Mickey and Jacob went in the ambulance with her, leaving me, Sage, Robbie, Bob, Graham, and a load of frightened guests.

  “So,” Robbie said, looking at us. “Who’s up for sleeping on the bus?”

  No one argued, not even Graham, and we gladly locked ourselves in the vehicle and attempted once again to get a good night’s sleep.

  Once again, a good night’s sleep never came.

  The next morning Atlanta was under a deluge of rain as the remnants of an early tropical storm came in from the Gulf Coast. It was hot and sticky inside the bus, the windows all closed to keep out the incoming water that flowed down the planes of the bus like miniature waterfalls. No one had slept and with two nights of sleep deprivation, emotions were running high. We munched sugary confectionaries and strong coffee that Bob had snapped up from a local café, happy just to have our mouths occupied.

  I explained what had happened as many times as I could and the guys kept asking me the same questions as if I’d say something new next time. I left out the part about Sonja being across the road knowing that would be dismissed as a trick of the eye, but I mentioned the monsters.

  I tried to not make it obvious that I was watching Graham as I told them all. His expression didn’t change at all, not even when I brought up Noelle saying “We’re owed to them.”

  “What does that mean?” Robbie asked.

  I shrugged and looked at Sage. He was sitting on the couch, staring at some blank spot on the wall. He hadn’t said a word all morning and I had to wonder what on earth was going on in that head of his. I hoped he wouldn’t shut down too. The band needed him more now than ever. I needed him.

  “It means Noelle is nuts,” Graham said, rapping a drumstick against his leg.


  I shot him a disgusted look. “How can you say that?”

  “How can you not say that?” he countered. “Go and listen to what you’re saying and tell us those are not the ramblings of a crazy loon. Fuck, we all know Noelle’s a weak chick. She always was. Even, I don’t know, five years ago. We all thought she’d grow out of it and get some balls or something but she never did. And Mickey just let her do whatever she wanted. Drugs, other men,” his eyes shot to Sage in a brief exchange, “booze, whatever the fuck.”

  I wasn’t stupid. I made the connection and it immediately made sense. Sage and Noelle had slept together at some point. That would explain their somewhat strained relationship and the way she seemed to look at him at times with puppy dog eyes.

  Or the way she used to. Now there was no knowing what was going on with her. And there was no way in knowing what was going on with me. That last thought chilled me to the bone. I had to wonder how long Noelle had thought she had monsters coming after her. Had it started out for her the same way it started out for me? Was that the path I was going down? I was already hiding things from everyone: what Graham had said to me, the demon faces, seeing Sonja in the darkness. I kept it to myself because I couldn’t bring myself to believe it and I knew no one else would. But maybe Noelle had been doing the exact same thing.

  If she had pulled me aside a week earlier and told me what she’d seen, would I have believed her?

  No. Of course not.

  A few hours later, Jacob returned to the bus. We all jumped in our seats at his knock and Bob reluctantly opened the door, expecting monsters to follow him up the stairs.

  “Christ it’s raining as fuck out there,’” Jacob said, shaking his jacket off, water flying onto the floor. He threw it onto the bench in a wet sop and looked down at us like a teacher inspecting his pupils. We sat there, watching him, waiting.

  He let out a despondent sigh and rubbed his face. “Okay, folks. Here’s the new development….”

  With grim lines across his face, he proceeded to tell us that Noelle wasn’t coming back anytime soon. The doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong with her. There had been no sign of drugs in her system, at least nothing more than residual amounts. She didn’t even test positive for alcohol so the doctors could only say it was most likely a combination of stress and lack of sleep that led to a nervous breakdown. Given that Emeritta had just died, there was a very strong chance that Noelle had been in a state of shock and this was how her body was dealing with it. They were hopeful she would eventually snap out of it, but they were going to keep her under observation for a few days, and after that, she’d probably be sent back to Sacramento to be with her parents. He said that he’d already spoken to them and they were flying out to Atlanta as soon as possible.

  Jacob went on to say that Mickey offered to take care of Noelle, but seeing as they didn’t live together in Sacramento and her parents pretty much thought Mickey was the world’s worst influence, they weren’t having any of that. Which led to the next part.

  “Unfortunately,” Jacob said, looking at Robbie and Graham with unease. “We’re going to have to cancel the show tonight.”

  “Obviously,” I said.

  He looked at me sharply. “Obviously, yes. Thank you, Rusty.”

  “Just tonight?” Graham asked.

  “Well…I don’t know. I’m afraid it’s time for another band meeting.”

  Everyone looked at me. I raised my brow.

  “Is that my cue to leave?” I asked.

  Jacob nodded at Bob. “Both you and Bob should probably go and stretch your legs.”

  I looked at the downpour outside and exchanged a look with the stoic bus driver. Seriously?

  “Hey, she can stay,” Sage said.

  “Why, you’re not done sucking up to your little buddy yet?” Graham spat out, smashing the drumstick against the seat.

  Sage glared at him. “She can stay. She’s pretty much one of us now.”

  I felt vaguely flattered.

  Graham laughed viciously. “She will never be one of us. She wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place.”

  “Yes, yes,” Jacob chided him, “you wanted the guy from Rolling Stone. We heard it a million times before. Well, it’s Creem magazine, baby. What better place to record the shitshow of the century.”

  I pursed my lips, thinking that over. Shitshow of the century. A tour that went down in history.

  I was suddenly aware that everyone except Sage was looking at me expectantly.

  “Come on, Rusty,” Bob said, getting to his feet and slipping on a jacket. He pulled out a golf umbrella from underneath the couch then opened his arms for me, gesturing to the door.

  I let out an angry breath of air and went to join him, not even bothering to give the band one last look before we opened the bus doors and walked out into the rain like a pair of rejects.

  We were still in the motel parking lot, so Bob and I walked through the mounting puddles and up a block until we got to the café. Despite the coverage, we looked like a pair of drowned rats and we plunked ourselves down on the pink vinyl booths.

  “Don’t take it personally,” Bob said in his ragged voice, smoothing back his white hair. “If I never fit in with another band, I’ll be one happy fucker. They can ruin you, ya know?”

  “I can see that,” I told him, smiling tiredly at the telepathic waitress who plunked two mugs and a pot of coffee on the table.

  He took a sip of his coffee and smiled. “Oooh, damn that’s good.” He then placed the mug down and folded his hands in front of him. “You know, I’ve been on a lot of tours. Hell, I’ve been doing this for most of my life. I couldn’t even begin to tell you about half the shit I’ve seen. Not only because I’ve been sworn to secrecy, because I have…The King had some strict waivers. But because I’ve blocked it out. Or I’ve just refused to believe it. But this band…this band, Rusty…something is not right.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. I knew it wasn’t just the wet clothes.

  “You feel it, too?”

  He leaned back and thoughtfully spun his mug around.

  “I don’t know what I feel, exactly. But whatever it is, I’ve felt it from the start. I’m not into supernatural, hippie-dippie mumbo-jumbo shit. I’m not the god-fearing man I used to be. But there’s something with us…almost like it’s on the bus with us…that hasn’t let us go. I know that doesn’t make any sense but the reason I’m telling you is because I know you can feel it too. These things…these aren’t coincidences. I’ve been around enough to know when to call a spade a spade. It’s almost like the band is cursed…and it’s only going to get worse from here on out.”

  Cursed. That almost made perfect sense. Or it would have, had the idea of a curse not been so ridiculous. I was as much into the hippie-dippie mumbo-jumbo as Bob was and my journalistic mind was constantly trying to find reason and logic.

  “Curses don’t exist,” I said reluctantly.

  “But what if they do? It would explain some things. This feels like more than a string of bad luck. First that girl dies, rest in peace. Then Noelle has a mental breakdown. Could one thing be the result of the other? Sure. But I don’t buy it.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “But if it’s a curse, someone had to have cursed us. Who would do that?”

  He raised his brows. “I couldn’t tell you, Rusty. But I can tell you I’ve heard some pretty weird shit at night on the bus when everyone is asleep.”

  I tried to ignore the goosebumps on my arms. “What shit?”

  “Graham,” he said soberly. “He rarely sleeps. He only sleeps when the sun comes up and then it’s only for a few hours. I’ve never seen anyone get by on such little sleep before and so consistently.”

  “What does he do? Just lie there?”

  He nodded. “Oh, he lies there. On his back. Staring up at the ceiling. And he chants things. Very weird things. You can barely hear him, but sometimes I really try and listen. He’s not chanting in English, you ca
n bet your mother on that. It sounds like Latin to me, but then I’m a pretty ignorant soul.”

  I leaned in across the table and lowered my voice. “Have you ever seen him do any of that Satanic shit that he’s always talking about?”

  Bob smoothed back his hair again and seemed to think. “I can’t really say. Maybe chanting in Latin counts. I’ve seen him always talking to this equally freaky girl.”

  I straightened up. “Was she blonde?”

  “No,” he said. “And I know who you’re talking about, the GTFOs. No, I haven’t seen the blondes around. They aren’t allowed on the bus at any rate, strict orders from Jacob. This girl is a bit on the chunky side, really short, nasty haircut.”

  “That’s Sparky, she’s one of them.”

  “Interesting,” he mused. “Well, anyhow, I’ve only seen her a few times. She kind of stands off in the distance, and like Graham has some stereo receiver in his head, he gets up and goes off the bus and meets her. They disappear for, oh I don’t know, maybe ten minutes, and then he comes back alone. He doesn’t seem any different. I always assumed he was getting himself serviced.”

  I grimaced at the thought. “When does this usually happen?”

  “In the middle of the night.”

  “What?” I shrieked. People in the café turned to look at me. I gave them a sheepish look and lowered my voice. “What? In the middle of the night? How?”

  “I stop at a gas station to fill up or a truck stop for food and she’s usually there.”

  “Well, don’t you find that fucking weird!?”

  “Look, Rusty, of course I find it weird. But these are rock stars. They all have their weird quirks. And having scary chicks show up at gas stations you stop at isn’t that unheard of. Especially when they’re following the bus.”

  Alarm bells rang in my head. “They follow the bus?”

  “Sometimes. Fans, groupies, they’re all obsessed. It doesn’t matter what band.”

  I sat back in the booth, feeling floored and disturbed at the same time. All this time I assumed that if I didn’t see the GTFOs, they weren’t around. But they were and it was something as simple as following the tour bus. Now I knew for sure that I had seen Sonja the night before. And she’d done something to Noelle, something horrible, to get her to freak out like that.