Shift (33 page)

Corey, the drummer, sat behind his kit, while Heather and Josh picked up their bass and electric guitars. Logan’s black Fender sat on a rack behind Josh. No one would think anything of it, since lots of guitarists switched out instruments mid-show.

The center of the stage went dark, like a reverse spotlight. The crowd screamed in anticipation, but my own throat trapped every sound. All I could do was stare.

And then, Logan appeared.

He glowed brighter than ever, as if the light inside him understood that this was the last night to burn.

Without taking my eyes off him, I slid my arms around the waists of Megan and Dylan. As we held tight to one another, I understood deep down that this was good-bye.

Onstage, Logan gave no fist pump, no cocky grin, not even a wave. When the crowd quieted, he stepped up to the microphone.

Clear and soft and sweet, he sang, a cappella, the first verse to the first song he’d written with the Keeley Brothers, “The Day I Sailed Away.”

It was like he’d never left the stage. The post-Shifters in the crowd took a collective breath at the end of each line.

As he sang, his eyes searched the front row. With the stage in lights, the crowd in darkness, and his nerves on edge, it had always been hard for him to find me during a concert. Before each Keeley Brothers show, I’d tell him which top I’d be wearing so he could pick me out. No way he could recognize me now, in this ridiculous blond wig and glasses.

On the first chorus, the other band members joined with instruments and voices.

I shifted over next to Siobhan. “This song sounds empty without your fiddle.”

Her eyes shone with tears. “It sounds empty without Logan.”

I gave her another hug. Soon she and the other pre-Shifters would see and hear him one last time. I hoped.

At the end of the song, Logan remained at the microphone until the cheering subsided. He glanced nervously backstage, probably wondering where the hell I was.

“Thank you,” he said. “Especially to you post-Shifters who came out to see a dead guy sing.”

Beside me, Dylan translated for Siobhan in a low voice.

“As for the rest of you, who can’t hear me,” Logan said, “well—stick around.”

With a nod of his head, he led Tabloid Decoys into one of their own songs. He screamed and crooned as the lyrics swung between tortured and seductive. During the interludes, he ran along the front of the stage, giving virtual high fives with his ethereal violet hands.

But the verses and chorus pulled him back to the center, like a dog on a chain too short. I closed my eyes, wanting only to hear him, not see him, trapped in front of a microphone he couldn’t touch.

Megan squeezed my elbow. “I didn’t think it would be so hard to watch him this way.”

“They’re loving it, all the people who never knew him alive. They think it’s cool that he’s a ghost.”

She rubbed soothing circles on my back as the song reached its final chorus.

Logan introduced each of the Tabloid Decoys. As they bowed and waved, he said, “You gotta get their CD in the lobby after the show. They’re freakishly talented.” He grinned at his bandmates, then turned back to the microphone. “This next one’s for my family, and all the children of the Emerald Isle.”

With Corey’s quick count-off, they launched into a Keeley Brothers classic, “Ghost in Green,” bursting with Irish pride. The crowd sang along, and I finally let myself dance.

Afterward, as Logan conferred with Josh and Heather, I nudged Megan. “How close are we?”

“Ten forty-six. Five minutes.”

“I need to get backstage.” I craned my neck to see if I could sneak up the side stairs and behind the curtain. “Shit.”

Two dumpers stood in front of the stairs, impassively looking out at the crowd like Secret Service agents. I checked the other side—same thing.

Panic spiked my pulse. If I wasn’t backstage to help Logan turn solid, he would have to trade places with Mickey for real. After watching his big brother take the spotlight meant for himself, would Logan pass on? Or would he want another chance?

“This one’s for Aura.”

A hot shiver ran down my spine at the sound of my name from the speakers.

“You all know who that is by now. The only girl I’ve ever loved. I wrote her a song, but she’s the only one who’s ever heard it, or ever will.”

The crowd gave off scattered boos.

“Oh, just deal with it,” he said, smirking. “Anyway, this is by a band that used to be our favorite, Snow Patrol.”

Josh strummed a series of soft chords, joined soon by Corey tapping on the drums. Heather played the melody on the bass, which gave it an even more somber tone than the original lead guitar version.

“Run” was a song about grasping for happiness just out of reach, about endless, temporary good-byes. A song only a ghost should sing.

Tears stung my eyes. How could his death hurt as much now as it did the night his heart seized and stopped? The loss was so much more than mine, and yet it felt like I bore the sorrow of the whole world.

As Josh played the swelling, hypnotic guitar solo, Logan swept his gaze over the front row, searching for me. His eyes held a lost, despairing look, magnified by the heartbreaking chords.

I reached up, knowing I was risking everything. With one hand, I pulled off my wig, and with the other, my glasses.

I wouldn’t let fear come between us and our last good-bye.

Logan’s gasp came through the microphone. He shifted as if to rush toward me, but the solo was ending. Time for the final chorus.

From the corner of my eye, I saw everyone looking, but I kept my gaze locked with his. He sang the last two lines strong and smooth, promising that he’d always be with me, even when I could no longer
hear his voice. I whispered the lines with him, sending the promise right back.

The song ended, and I reached out my hand.

Logan gave me an amazed, grateful smile, then shouted into the microphone, “I’m about to do something that’s never been done.” As the crowd hushed, he lowered his voice. “I beg you, don’t freak out, and don’t try to understand. This might not work anyway, but if it does, please don’t let them stop me. I need to play for as long as it lasts.” He turned his gaze back to me. “Because after that, I’m gone forever.”

Siobhan tugged my sleeve. “What’s he saying?” she asked me, since Dylan was staring slack jawed at his brother and had stopped translating.

I kept my focus on the stage. “You’ll see,” I told Siobhan.

“I will? How?”

The members of Tabloid Decoys looked at one another, feigning confusion. They expected Logan to leave the stage and Mickey to walk on. Only Mickey, Megan, and I knew what was about to happen.

If it happened.

Logan stepped away from the microphone and slowly moved toward me. The auditorium silenced as he got down on one knee.

We were really doing this. It would be harder than ever to explain his transformation. But we both needed him to play.

He reached out his violet hand, palm up. “Thank you,” he whispered.

I held my breath, slipped my hand over his, and believed.

The sudden warmth shot straight into my veins. Logan’s hand closed around mine, and his eyes, now blue as sapphires, burned through me.

For a moment, we were all suspended in silence.

Then came the screams.

Dylan and Siobhan surged forward, elbowing me as they reached for Logan. Siobhan’s voice pitched high and incoherent as she started to cry.

Logan hugged them both hard, his eyes squeezed shut. Then he shot offstage to where Mickey stood, disappearing long enough for a brothers’ embrace before bouncing back onstage.

He grabbed the microphone in both hands, his face exploding into a smile at the sensation.

“Hey. Do not. I repeat. Do. Not. Panic. There’s nothing to be scared of. This is just your average everyday fucking miracle.”

Logan bounded over to his shiny black Fender, then knelt before it like an altar. He lifted the strap over his head. The instrument settled in his grasp, a part of his new, preciously temporary body.

Beside me, Siobhan was sobbing in Dylan’s arms. “He looks so beautiful,” she repeated again and again.

Logan conferred with his shell-shocked bandmates, caressing the curves of his guitar in a way that made my own skin tingle. As they reviewed the set list, he buttoned his shirt, open all these months.

Finally he patted Josh the guitarist’s shoulder, then gave high fives to Heather and Corey, who stared at their hands afterward, stunned.

Logan adjusted the strap of his guitar, then hopped on his toes twice—just as he always did before starting a new set. The other band members retreated to their spots, and Logan went to the microphone.

“This song’s for the ghosts.” He raised the head of his guitar for a split second, then crashed into the four opening chords of “Shade.” The band joined in, catching up by the second line.

Then they were off. Logan sawed away at the Fender like he’d never lost a minute of practice. All those weeks of air guitar had paid off.

The song drove forward relentlessly, fluidly, from the first movement to the second, changing tempo and key in a glorious rock opera fashion. Logan’s face glowed like it never had as a ghost’s, and I knew he had finally found, in his afterlife, one moment of perfect happiness.

When “Shade” crescendoed into the third movement, he nodded to Josh, who took over the lead guitar. Logan stripped off his own guitar and set it down, then grabbed the mic to carry with him. Punk rage spilled out of him as he pointed at the crowd and beyond, challenging the world to make sense of him and all the other lost souls.

Fury dissolved into charm as the song transitioned to the bouncy fourth movement. He moved to the other side of the stage and touched the hands of the crowd as he sang, just as he had before in his violet form.

They clutched at his arm and wrist, making him laugh and muff the lyrics. But the band caught up and caught on so he could run the verse again. Phones glowed all over the auditorium, people preserving and uploading the moment forever.

The final movement began with a cascade of noise. Logan picked up his guitar, but as he faced the front of the stage, he scanned the auditorium with alarm. I turned to see dozens of DMP agents swarming the aisles.

As a human or a ghost, he could be detained. They could trap him unless he passed on or turned shade.

His grip on the guitar’s neck tightened, and with a wild wrath, he swung the instrument over his head, then smashed it against the stage.

Dylan clutched his head. “Holy shit, Dad’s gonna freak.”

I smiled. “Logan once told me, he always wanted to do that.” And no one else would ever play that guitar.

Holding nothing but a scrap of fret board, Logan spoke to Josh, who continued the guitar solo, stretching and repeating it.

Then Logan shot across the stage, slid forward on his knees, and held out his hands to me. I shook my head, but he nodded and mouthed,
Now
.

I let him lift me onstage, then pull me to stand with him near the trapdoor, like we’d rehearsed. He bent low to my ear.

“I can’t let them catch me,” he shouted. “I have to pass on now.”

“I thought to pass on, you had to be a ghost.”

“I am a ghost. I may have a body, but I’ll never be alive again.” He pressed the fret board piece into my palm. “So this is it.”

Logan took the microphone from its stand, then toed the trapdoor, testing it. The door dipped an inch and sprang back on its hinge, so I knew Mickey had unlocked it from below. Anyone investigating afterward would think Logan had disappeared through there. A foot in front of the door, the flash pot lay ready to burst into light and smoke, controlled remotely by a switch at Corey’s feet.

I couldn’t let Logan leave without his knowing the whole truth.

“My father was a ghost,” I said, “when he made me. He was with my mom on the equinox, like you and I almost were.”

The music seemed to fade with Logan’s smile as he stared at me with full understanding. I wondered if knowing the truth would change his mind. If knowing the truth would change everything.

For a moment, his eyes grew inexplicably sad. Then his face relaxed back into a smile. “At least now you know.”

“I’ll always love you.”

“I’ll love you, too.” He touched my face. “Forever.”

He kissed me then, but not hard and full of longing as I’d expected. It was soft and sweet and chaste, his lips barely touching mine. Exactly like our first kiss.

Instead of a beginning, it was the end.

He took a step back and lifted the microphone to his full red lips. With our hands linked, he sang the last couplet with only a faint bass line for accompaniment.

Then Heather held the note on her bass as the crowd cheered, uncomprehending but knowing that this was one of the coolest things they’d ever seen.

Logan let go. I stepped back.

The climactic note approached. Corey raised his drumsticks, then slammed them down.

The stage erupted in sound and smoke and golden light. The glare made me shield my eyes, and as they closed, Logan’s outline appeared behind my lids, in a pulsing violet afterimage. The band finished the song’s last ten seconds in a giant, euphoric crescendo.

When I opened my eyes, Logan was gone.

Heather and Josh moved to center stage together and waved away the smoke, like a pair of magicians. Nothing remained. Corey came forward, and the three collapsed into an embrace.

The people in the first few rows clambered onto the stage, dodging security guards to grab pieces of Logan’s shattered guitar.

I pushed my way toward the backstage area, hoping to escape the dumpers, who must have seen me with Logan. Besides, part of me still wondered: At the instant of the golden glow, had Logan gone through the trapdoor, or had he passed on?

Someone grabbed me. I yelped and turned, raising my fist.

Dylan put up a defensive hand. “Hey, it’s just us.” Megan and Siobhan were right behind him. “What the hell happened?” he demanded. “And why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Sorry,” I said. “No one knew who didn’t need to.”