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

by Karina Halle

  I took it and puffed back, shaking my head. “I’ve had too much to deal with.”

  “Dude, grass makes your problems easier to handle.”

  “Not my problems.”

  She sighed and took the joint back. “Okay, well let me tell you about how things are back in Ellensburg.”

  She told me about her new man and how good he was in the sack. She said she thought she was in love and wanted to have his babies one day. She said she was debating about going back into nursing for another year, but decided to stick it through. She told me that her brother crashed the Gremlin one night and it’s totaled. He’s okay though and he said he’s going to get a sexy muscle car next but Mel’s not allowed to borrow it. It felt good to listen.

  “What about Eric and my dad?”

  “Eric’s okay. He looks happier. He told me this chick he likes that turned him down before has been calling him and wanting to do homework together when school starts. So who knows what that’s about. But he’s happy. And your dad is great. Really. Eric said he stopped drinking cold turkey.”

  “What?” I cried out, nearly choking.

  “Totally legit. I saw him a few times. Sober as a nail. He threw out all the booze and your house looks clean for once. I mean, really clean. Grass is mowed.”

  “He never told me any of that,” I said absently.

  “Well, you know how it is for alcoholics. He probably thinks you wouldn’t believe him. But so far, he’s doing good. I like it. I bet he’ll be like that when you get home. Oh, and Moonglow is fine. Eric’s actually been riding her. Just in the field though.”

  The news felt so good that the feeling was surprising. Like I had forgotten that things had the ability to get better. Maybe not for me, but for my family. I nearly started crying again but the pot was at work in my system and helping me distance myself from the situation.

  “So, you wanna tell me what’s going on with you? I mean, you said some stuff on the phone and it sounds all heavy but…what’s really happening, Dawn?”

  I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.

  “Okay,” she drew out. “Let me rephrase that. Did you sleep with Sage yet?”

  I blushed furiously.

  She smacked my leg and exclaimed, “I knew it! I could smell it on you.”

  “You can smell it on me?”

  She grinned. “When I was hugging you, yeah. Your chest smelled like cologne and man tongue.”

  “Oh come on.”

  “Truth. Anyway, tell me how he was!”

  “Mel, I don’t even know…”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “No! He was…it just happened. I haven’t even had a chance to process it yet.”

  “Did you come?”

  “Did I ever.” I couldn’t help but smile at that admission. She joined me and soon we were both giggling like schoolchildren.

  When we calmed down she asked, “What’s he look like naked? Tattoos everywhere?”

  “No, just on his arms and shoulders and down his back a bit. I couldn’t really see because he had me flipped around.”

  “Oh man, I wish I had popcorn. Big dick?”

  I grinned and didn’t say anything.

  She nodded, smiling slowly. “Right on, child, right on.” Pause. “So do you love him?”

  The question caught me off-guard. “What?”

  “Hey, I’m just asking. You do or you don’t.”

  “I…I don’t think I do. Do I?”

  “Beats the fuck outta me. Does he love you?”

  I shook my head adamantly. “No. I don’t think so. I don’t really think he can love anyone. Or he doesn’t want to.”

  “What if he does love you? Would you marry a rock star?”

  I gave her a dry look.

  “What?” she protested. “I want to plan a rock star wedding, what is so wrong with that? Oh my god, it would be so brilliant! You could accidently invite Ryan and that creep who works at Big Ears with you and—”

  “Mel, let’s drop it.”

  “Okay, but I’m just saying it would be cool. Of course you don’t have to get married if you don’t want to. You’re a fine, independent young woman. Look at you, child, you’re living the dream.”

  “I’m living the nightmare.”

  “Oh come on. It can’t be all that bad.”

  I took in a deep breath, steadying my nerves. I leaned over and pulled her sunglasses off her eyes so I could look into them. “Mel, I’m going to tell you something and I want you to listen and listen good.”

  Mel’s face fell. She snatched the glasses from my hand and put them on the top of her head. “Dawn…you’re kind of scaring me.”

  “You’re about to get a lot more scared,” I warned her with as much sincerity as I could express. “I need you to just listen to me. You’re not going to believe me and that’s alright, I don’t expect anyone else to. I just need to talk. I need someone to know the real story—someone who’s not part of it.”

  And I chose that point to take my tape recorder out of my bag. Mel’s brows shot up.

  “I’m going to record this just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “You’ll know by the end.”

  So, for the third time in as many days, I rehashed the entire Hybrid tour. As with Jacob and Sage, I didn’t leave out anything. Mel wouldn’t believe me, but she was my best friend and she deserved the whole truth.

  When I finished, I sat back and waited for her reaction. I wasn’t nervous. I was planning on her telling me I was bat-shit crazy.

  It took a while for her to speak. It surprised me that she looked a bit frightened. The whites of her wide eyes positively glowed against her skin.

  “Dawn,” she said slowly. “You’re not part of a cult, are you? Hybrid’s not secretly the new Manson family or something?”

  “No and no. Well…Graham might as well be.”

  “And you haven’t been meditating in weird barns or drinking weird punches or doing drugs, have you?”

  “None of the above.”

  “Your name is still Dawn Emerson?”

  “That’s what the press pass says.”

  “Huh,” she said. She fell silent for a beat and dug another joint out of her purse.

  “Mel?”

  “I’m thinking.” She lit it up, crackling burning papers, and took in a deep breath of smoke before rubbing the joint out on the ground.

  “Oh, just tell me I’m nuts, Mel.”

  “Bitch, you ain’t nuts. I believe you.”

  My brows rose to the heavens. I had to shield the overbearing sun with my hand to get a better look at her. “What, are you serious?”

  She nodded quickly. “I do. Dawn, you’ve never lied to me. Except when you told me that you hadn’t been kissed before Ryan came along because I know Doug Campbell got you in a closet at Sheena Meister’s party. And when you lied and said you weren’t in love with Sage just now. Those were the only two times. I know you aren’t lying about this.”

  I paused. “So you believe me in the sense that you believe that I believe what’s going on.”

  “I don’t even think you believe what’s going on.”

  “Sometimes I don’t,” I said with a sigh. “So what do you think?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Except that you have to stay with me and my cousin for a few days and you need to get off this tour. Like, now. If I didn’t think it would break your heart to leave Sage without saying goodbye, I’d suggest we leave right now and forget about them. Never look back.”

  “But you believe me? You believe that Sage Knightly made a deal with the devil? And now they are coming back to collect before his twenty-eighth birthday and I may or may not be included in those terms and conditions?”

  “Yup.” And I could see on her face that Mel was serious. And why wouldn’t she be? When we became friends back in Ellensburg, we both took a lot of flak for it. At first her mother didn’t trust her hanging around a white girl, always suspicious
that I was going to turn on her daughter. She came around, of course. As for me, I was personally called a bunch of negative words that made my skin crawl (though nothing like Mel gets), all because I was a white girl with a black friend. But through it all, we stuck together. And she was still here, all these years later, sticking with me when I needed her most.

  “Dude, I love you,” I cried out, tears threatening my eyes again.

  “Dude, I love you, too. But I’m serious about getting you out of here. I’m sure my flight out won’t be packed. We’ll get you a ticket in the morning and this will all be over.”

  “But it won’t be.”

  She leaned over. “But it’s not your problem. Think about yourself. And your dad. And Eric. And your horse. And me, of course, Melanie Jones.”

  I nodded, knowing she was right.

  She patted my knee. “Okay, writer girl, how about you introduce me to your rock star sex god?”

  I always thought my best friend was one of the coolest chicks on the planet. And when I say cool, I mean cool as a cucumber.

  She was not cool when she met Hybrid. Not in the slightest.

  But that was to the benefit of the band. They were smiling and cracking jokes like it was day one of the tour all over again.

  First, Mel practically fainted when she saw Robbie, and when she recovered, she started jumping up and down and hugging the poor bastard. I’ll always remember seeing her wrap her dark legs around his waist and him raising his injured wrist high in the air, trying to keep it out of her way.

  With Sage though, she was totally the opposite. She giggled demurely and coyly and Mel doesn’t do demure.

  At one point on the bus, while she was in the midst of reveling among rock gods, she whispered into my ear, “I’ve been watching closely. Sage has gotten at least one boner just from looking at you.”

  I decided after that I wouldn’t talk to her until her perverted mind was under control and she stopped staring at Sage’s crotch. It was probably my fault he kept staring though, since I had slipped on that blue dress of hers that she had originally given to me to wear on tour. It was one hot number and a nice change from my jeans and vests.

  But the way Mel acted around me, I had to wonder if she really did believe in the deal Sage made. To her it was just fun and games. But I had to remind myself that when someone throws something absurd at you and then plunks you in a room full of famous rock stars whose music you love (because that makes a huge difference), you’re going to giggle at those rock stars. It was like if someone came up to me and was like, “Hey, my friend Mick Jagger is actually a woman and the gender-confused leader of a Satanic cult,” and then in the next frame they were like, “Oh and here’s Mick Jagger,” I’d probably forget all about that first sentence and start drooling on Mick’s shoes.

  Mel didn’t lose her enthusiasm during the show either. Hybrid had never played San Antonio before and they weren’t sure how western Texas was going to take them, but they actually pulled it off. There was a definite drop in numbers compared to the other shows on the Molten Universe tour, but it was a lot better than New Orleans and that’s all the band needed for them to play with a little more verve.

  Being with Mel and seeing the show through her eyes gave me a new appreciation for the music all over again. With everything going on, it was hard to see Hybrid the way everyone else saw them. Just an awesome metal band who made awesome music. I needed that step away from being Dawn Emerson. I needed to know what the band was capable of doing to other people, and looking at Mel as she stood beside me on the side stage, moving her ass to the music and grinning like a fool, I remembered that Hybrid still knew how to rock.

  Then the fact that this was going to be their last tour, their last album, hit me like a ton of bricks. There was nothing as heartbreaking like one of your favorite bands breaking up. It’s like they are breaking up with you. Those bands, you plan your life around them. You plan vacations around concert dates. You save babysitting money for records. You live for those days when Creem magazine arrives in your dusty mailbox and you frantically flip through it for any information on your favorites. The bands, the musicians that you love, they love you back. And when they quit, when they fall apart, when they die—they ruin that future you thought they’d always be a part of.

  My eyes were filling with tears again near the end of the show. Understanding, or at least anticipating, Mel put her arm around me and hugged me. Even Jacob shot me a sad smile which made my heart break even more. He was no longer putting on a brave face. This was really going to happen. This band was really over.

  When the show was over and everyone was relocating to the lounge, I pulled Jacob aside and told Mel to go on through and drink all the band’s booze.

  “You know we’re having some budget cutbacks, Rusty,” Jacob remarked as he watched Mel sashay backstage. “Booze ain’t cheap.”

  “Look, Jacob. I think I’m going to leave with Mel on her flight out of here.”

  He didn’t show any expression nor did he say anything for a few beats, he just blinked. “Dawn…”

  “You know I’d do anything for this band. Tonight, I mean, I know it. I love them. Warts and all. I love them, all of them, almost. But…I have a dad at home. He’s been having a rough time, well, forever, and he’s finally getting better. I have a brother with Tourette’s Syndrome that I look after. They need me. They need me to be alive. My mother killed herself when I was young and I’ve been the mom ever since.”

  Jacob nodded and stroked his chin, letting me continue.

  “I even have a horse. I have Mel, too. I have a future. I have things I don’t want to lose and people who don’t want to lose me. I know you said it’s too late but I just can’t accept that. As much as it fucking stabs me in the gut to leave the tour, I have to. I won’t write the article in the end. It’s not worth it.”

  He was silent, golden eyes searching the ceiling of the venue, lost in thought. Finally he lowered his head and smiled weakly. “I’m sorry, Dawn. You can’t leave.”

  “But why not?” I stamped my foot like a child. “What could happen if I did? Who is going to stop me, you?”

  “No, not me,” he said calmly. “I would love to see you leave, Rusty. Like I said before, I like you. But that’s not how this works. This is out of human hands now. Your fate has been decided.”

  “So tell me. Give me one good example of what’s going to happen to me.”

  “If you fly out with Mel tomorrow, your whole plane will go down.”

  I was startled. “But…then I’d be dead. Who would write the story?”

  “They have ways of working that out.”

  “But if they do—”

  “They are demons, Rusty. Demons. They want you dead and dragged to Hell above all else. They want all of us dead but they can only do what they can do. The contract will be fulfilled.”

  “So why don’t they kill me now? Get it over with and get some other writer.”

  He let out a dry, sad laugh. “Because what is the fun in that? They are like cats with a mouse, batting it around. Just because you don’t see them right now, doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. They know what they’re doing.”

  “But the code…”

  “Yes, the code. But we are still at their mercy. Why do you think I’m here, for Christ’s sake? I make things fair. If I wasn’t around, I don’t think there would even be a Hybrid anymore.”

  I grabbed onto Jacob’s arm. “So help me. Help me escape.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t. Look, I’m sorry, I really am. All I can say is the longer you stick around me, the longer I will do my best to keep you and everyone else in this band alive. But the minute you walk away, I can’t help you. My duties are to Sage first, then to you. He has to come first. This is his contract. Yours will come later.”

  I gave him a funny look. “What do you mean mine will come later?”

&nb
sp; He smiled and twirled around his gold rings. “Dawn Emerson. Stay with me. Stay with Sage. Why do you think I went out of my way to choose you?”

  “You said because it should have been a fan to write the story.”

  “I chose you partly because I thought maybe a girl like you would give Sage something to live for when everything is taken from him. You’re hope. So, write about the band and live your destiny. I promise we will do everything to protect you. But the minute you leave, I can’t help. And you invite the danger of destroying everyone you love and know. I’m sorry, love. But you’re stuck with us.”

  My heart thumped loudly in my chest, like it was just remembering to beat.

  I swallowed hard. “But what do I tell Mel? She won’t leave without me. And she can’t stay here.”

  “I’m sure you’ll know the right things to say.” He patted me on the shoulder and disappeared into the darkness.

  After Jacob left, I spent a few minutes on the stage staring out at the empty venue, ignoring the roadies who were packing up behind me. I wondered what they’d do after Hybrid was no more. I wondered if they’d get other jobs in the industry. I wondered if they’d care if the band ceased to exist.

  I wondered exactly how the band would end. Would there be a massive fight? Would Sage pick it with Robbie, destroying his relationship with him for the sake of destiny? Or would it end in something worse than that? Would the next stage collapse consume us all? Would it end in flames? That last thought struck a familiar chord in me and I remembered seeing that man back in Ellensburg, Ted with the beige Bug and his arm in a sling. He told me I wouldn’t be able to save Sage and that it would all end in flames. I remembered seeing a white-haired girl in the backseat and I wondered how long the chess pieces had been set in motion and where my spot on the board was. Where was Dawn going to be moved next?

  I sighed, hating myself for what I had to do next. Just like Sage might have to do with Robbie, I was going to have to sacrifice my relationship with Mel in order to save her.

  I took in the view from the stage one last time and headed back into the backstage area. I had left Mel with Sage, knowing she’d be safe, but when I walked into the dressing room where everyone was hanging out and drinking like they hadn’t a care in the world, The Guess Who’s “No Time” aptly playing from the speakers, he was nowhere to be seen.