The Devil's Metal (18 page)

“Everyone noticed,” she wailed. “It’s the
most important part of the song!”

That wasn’t really true, but I could tell
Noelle didn’t want to hear any sort of reason. So I just said,
“Yeah it sucks, I’m sorry,” and she continued to whimper into her
drink that was only lime and water.

I sighed and brought out my small notebook
from my purse. I thought about asking Noelle if she saw her but I
thought it might bring on another whine, so I kept my mouth shut
and started flipping through the pages.

“Too dark to see, isn’t it?” Sage asked,
delicately popping some cashews in his mouth. I tried not to stare
at him chewing, at his strong jaw as it went to work. It was
ridiculous how he made me feel when he was so close and I had a few
drinks in me. He was only eating for crying out loud.

I quickly averted my eyes to the stack of
bottles on display behind the bar.

“I can see in the dark,” I told him.

“Really?” he asked, munching away. He
paused. “What else can you do in the dark?”

Okay. What?

I looked at him with wide eyes. “Sorry?”

He laughed, and once again his dimples
transformed his rugged, strong face into something almost
beautiful. I watched him, mesmerized, before he said, “I’m just
joking, Dawn.”

Damn.

“I didn’t know you could joke,” I said,
pointing at him with the straw of my drink.

“I try and mix it up. It never lasts very
long.”

“The tall, dark…” I almost said handsome,
“silent type gets boring does it?”

A wash of sadness came over his eyes,
turning them dark in the low light.

“A little laughter every now and then makes
you feel alive.”

Boy, was he ever Broody McGee.

“Has anyone ever compared you to Mr.
Rochester?” I asked innocently.

“Will you guys shut up and stop flirting?”
Noelle slurred from my left.

I didn’t dare look at Sage, though I knew
his face was still downturned and contemplating the Mr. Rochester
comment.
Thanks for the awkward moment
, I thought to myself,
silently cursing Noelle.

“I don’t feel well,” she said and started to
lean too far off the stool.

“Noelle,” I said in alarm, reaching for
her.

Sage was quicker, and he was out of his seat
and holding her up before I even got off my stool.

“She going to be okay?” asked the
bartender.

Sage nodded, putting one of her skinny arms
around his wide shoulders.

“She’s just had a rough night. Ring us a
cab, will you?”

The bartender nodded and we found ourselves
outside the bar in the quiet and balmy Michigan night. Normally the
idea of being somewhere different again would have given me a
special, satisfied feeling but I had to admit I was a bit worried
about Noelle.

Seeing as walking was a chore for her, I
helped Sage bring her to the curb and we sat her down together.

“Not exactly how you thought you’d spend
tonight,” I said to him over her head.

“No, I pretty much knew this was coming,” he
said with a hint of a smile. His eyes glowed in the wash of a
streetlamp. “Noe doesn’t take hardcomings easily.”

“She just screwed up,” I said, aware that we
were talking about her as if she wasn’t slumped over between us.
“No big deal.”

“Everything’s a big deal to Noelle,” he
admitted. “I’m sure she gave you a different side of her during the
interview, but this is the real her. Drunk and ashamed.”

I was quiet for a few moments before I spoke
up. “That’s kind of sad.”

“She’s just people. We all are. Just because
you’re in a band doesn’t mean you stop having human problems. Fame,
money…that doesn’t fix those things. Those things will always find
you.”

“And who are you?” I asked softly, knowing
I’d seen the drunk side of him.

He slowly brought his eyes around to look at
me. They narrowed in thought. “I guess you’ll find out when we
talk.”

“We’re talking now,” I said.

“This isn’t the interview.”

“Why not? Are you so different when you’re
being held accountable?”

“Accountable,” he said with a short laugh.
“That’s quite the big word for Creem Magazine. You sure they know
what it means?”

Now it was my time to get prickly. “I don’t
get you.”

“No one said you had to,” he said casually.
“I’m not some puzzle to be solved.”

But you are
, I thought. I didn’t have
any good rebuttal to that, so I just looked away and hoped the cab
would come down the street.

“Besides,” Sage continued in a lighter
voice, “you don’t interview the guitarist of a heavy metal band
when the bassist is passed out on him. That’s so cliché.”

I rolled my eyes.

“So let’s talk about you instead,” he
said.

“Me?”

“Yes. You. The redhead with the beautiful
brown eyes.”

Butterflies swirled in my stomach at
that.

“Come on, tell me about Dawn Emerson. Where
were you born?”

“Ellensburg, Washington. Home of the
rodeo.”

He smirked. “And were you ever part of the
rodeo?”

I cleared my throat and said defiantly,
“Yes, actually. Every year. And I win every year.”

I shot him a sideways glance and saw he was
staring at me, mouth agape.

“Well, go on,” he said, wide-eyed.

“I do barrel racing with my horse. Moonglow.
This was supposed to be our last year. We’ve came first or in the
top three in the last seven years I’ve been doing this.”

I was totally prepared for him to laugh. He
looked stunned. Then impressed. “Why is this supposed to be your
last year?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m getting old
or something.”

“You’re, what, twenty-one?”

“Yeah, so?”

“That’s not old.”

“Then I’m over it. People grow out of
things.”

I knew I was sounding defensive. The truth
was, the fact that I was getting over the whole rodeo and racing
circuit scared me. I liked to hold onto the way things were, even
the shitty things. And I knew it made my dad proud. It always had,
even in the toughest times.

“That’s true. People do. They change. So
what will fill the void?”

I laughed quietly. “You know what? I have no
freaking idea, man.”

“Not music journalism?”

The funny thing was I always thought it
would. But now that I was on the road and living it, I wasn’t
feeling fulfilled. I was feeling confused.

“I don’t know…maybe. I hope so.”

“Do you love music?”

I looked at him askance. “Of course I love
music.”

“Maybe that’s enough then,” he said. “Just
to love it.”

I chewed on my lip and thought about that,
my eyes drifting over to Noelle’s hunched over back and the black
lace of her scratchy shirt.

“Can you play music?” he asked, his voice
getting lower, like he was afraid of disturbing me. “Like an
instrument? Can you sing?”

“I can play guitar,” I admitted. “I can sing
a little too, but I’m not very good.”

“Will you play for me one day?” he asked
huskily. He leaned more toward me. “Will you sing for me?”

My cheeks heated up at the prospect.

“I don’t know…”

“And something original. I’d like to hear
something from your heart.”

I smiled in amusement. “That’s borderline
corny, Sage Knightly.”

“Perhaps I’m secretly borderline corny then.
This is off the record, of course.”

“Oh, of course.”

“You do that for me, and we’ll be even.”

I raised my brows. “I wasn’t aware we had a
score to settle.”

That look of melancholy blazed in his eyes
again and he let out a puff of air. “I know you weren’t.”

“Why…” I began but couldn’t finish.

He smiled shyly. “I’m vague again.
Sorry.”

“I just never know what you’re talking
about. I get that you didn’t want a journalist here on tour but
come on. It’s not that bad. It’s not even historic like Jacob
said.”

His gaze snapped to mine. “Jacob said
what?”

I was a bit put off by his sudden change in
demeanor. He went from corny to intense in two seconds flat.

“He said, well, he
told
Barry Kramer
at Creem that someone needed to cover this tour because it was
going to be historic or go down in history or something like that,
and that I should be the poor sap to document it all.”

Sage frowned and looked away. The silence
around us was heavy, punctuated only by the occasional cry from
inside the bar and the hum of jazz music.

He cleared his throat. I expected him to
elaborate on why he seemed so shocked about what Jacob said, but
instead he started to get to his feet. “Can you watch Noe for a
second? I’m going to see if they can call us another cab. The bus
will leave without us.”

I doubted the bus would leave without the
bassist and lead guitarist, but I did what he said and brought
Noelle up next to me while he disappeared into the bar, his
flip-flops echoing in the night.

While I waited, Noelle stirred and began to
mumble out sentences.

“The demon,” she said, her head swinging
between her knees.

I leaned in close. “What was that,
Noelle?”

“It’s that demon in white, always in white.”
Her voice became higher and clearer.

I looked back at the bar and wished Sage
would hurry it up. If I knew any better, he was probably inside
having a few shots. Noelle was really losing it and scaring me at
the same time.

“She wants me. She wants me,” she repeated.
It sent chills up my arms.

I rubbed her back and whispered, “Who wants
you? Who is the demon in white?”

She began to whimper and rocked back and
forth with more force. “I saw her. Every night I see her. She gets
in my thoughts. It gets in my head. She keeps coming.”

Suddenly her head sprang up and I thought my
heart was going to bound out of my chest. She looked straight at
me, totally sober, a pure fear sparkling in her blue eyes.

“Sage did this. He did this,” she alleged in
a raw, throaty voice. “He brought this on us. On me!”

My breath became ragged, the goosebumps
marching along my arms.

“What did he bring?” I choked out.

She collapsed against me, and I caught the
words, “monsters, monsters, all of them” coming from her lips.

Just then bright lights appeared on the
street and I let out a huge breath of relief when I saw the cabbie
sign on the roof.

The door to the bar swung open and Sage ran
out. Before I had a chance to digest what Noelle had told me, he
was at our side and lifting Noelle to her feet like a ragdoll. He
waved at the car and shot a look at me.

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

I stared at him, dumbfounded and kind of
scared. What the fuck was Noelle just talking about? Sage brought
this? Brought what?

“Dawn, are you all right?”

I finally found the strength to ease myself
off the curb and I gave him a quick smile. “I’m fine. Let’s
go.”

The cabbie didn’t look too pleased at having
to give a ride to a drunken invalid and initially refused, but Sage
stuck an extra wad of bills into his hand and that seemed to turn
him around.

Once in the cab, Sage and I were engulfed in
an awkward silence. At least it felt awkward to me. He smelled like
whiskey so I was right about him going back in the bar and
drinking, and he seemed to be lost in his own little world.
Meanwhile, I went over what Noelle had been saying. Most of it was
just the drunken rantings of an upset rock star, but some of it
made sense. For one, she mentioned the woman in white and it was
too much of a coincidence for her not to mean Sonja. But calling
her a demon? Unless she meant that figuratively and I wouldn’t put
it past Noelle to call every woman out there the spawn of
Satan.

Plus, whatever Sage brought upon all of them
was pretty much everything. He was the boss, the genius, the real
voice. He made the band what they were. He brought everything to
Hybrid and without him there would be no band.

As for the monsters…well, that could have
been figurative too. Monsters of the music industry. Groupies.
Journalists. The band. Everyone was suspect, not just actual
monsters. There were no such things as monsters.

But I couldn’t deny the icy fingers that
clamped around my chest the moment she uttered those words. I
couldn’t help but think of the noises that came from underneath the
bunk that night I was on drugs, the sick, insect-like shadow I saw
on the walls before I passed out. Of course, that was the answer: I
was on drugs. That was the easy explanation. But it didn’t explain
this uneasiness and fear that never seemed to go away.

I looked up at Sage, his face half in
shadows, half lit up in the amber glow of a passing light. It was
odd to still want him after the weirdness of tonight. Maybe it was
the prickles at the back of my neck or the fact that he was still a
very mysterious, sensual man who was crammed up beside me in the
dark. Maybe it was that I had listened to his music while lying on
the floor of my bedroom for hours on end. Maybe because at heart I
really was just a lowly little journalist, a college student who
had no real reason to be there. Maybe it was all of those things.
It didn’t really matter.

Carefully, like I had the power to ruin
everything with one touch, I rested my head on his meaty shoulder.
It twitched, briefly, as I caught him by surprise. Then he relaxed
back in his seat and I knew this was okay, if just for the ride
home.

I closed my eyes.

CHAPTER TWELVE

One thing about staying on a tour bus is the
lack of hygiene. Not that anyone was beginning to stink, except for
Graham, but that’s because he kept rubbing weird oils all over
himself. But I found it frustrating that the hot water was almost
always gone, so I was left with giving myself a sponge and water
bath in a room the size of a closet. Thank goodness for dry
shampoo, best invention of the 1970s.