Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (3 page)

Everything about her was dark, except for her eyes. They glinted.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll protect you at any cost. If I let you have your way, we’d probably all end up dead. Blown up, or something.”

The Free Refills finished their song in an explosion of music and fire. The curtain dropped over the front of the stage. The band would exit opposite us, so I couldn’t meet them.

“Richie, I’m just trying to protect you. Why can’t you understand that?”

I shook my head. “Rock stars meet their fans and hang out with other rock stars all the time. Marti Walker posts on Facebook fifty times a day. She
tweets
.”

The Free Refills began to exit the stage opposite us. Lights went on all over the stage and around us. I could finally see Mom’s face. She didn’t frown. Didn’t scowl. Just stared with those concerned eyes, eyebrows raised near the center. Behind her, crew members flooded the stage to swap out equipment. Out past the curtain, the crowd roared.

“Richie, strange things have been going on. Rock stars have... gone missing. Been changed.” She looked around as if expecting a ninja to pop out of the shadows.

I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound like whining.

She continued. “I’m not joking. Rock stars have disappeared. It’s too dangerous. It’s risky to let you perform tonight—even despite all the precautions we’ve taken.”

Her concern always weakened my will. I could already feel myself about to give in, again.

But she was already breaking one rule by letting me hold the concert. What harm would it do to meet the CMI?

As I’d previously planned, I looked past her, out onto the stage, pretended to notice someone, and nodded.

Mom turned and looked. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she rotated her body back to me.

“Who are you looking at?”

“No one.”

But I kept staring past her, and nodded again. She looked backward again, then frowned at me.

“Richie, you’d better not be doing anything stupid.”

“Right. Because I have so many chances to do stupid things.”

I gave another quick nod at nothing, and this time she almost started to walk away. When I turned to go to my dressing room in about two seconds, she would be torn between investigating where I’d been looking, and following me to my dressing room. Hopefully she figured I couldn’t get into trouble there. After all, according to her plan, the Safe Zone was, well, safe. I couldn’t fathom how the CMI would get around that, but apparently he—or she—felt it wasn’t a problem.

This was the moment of truth. It would bust the plan, or seal it with success.

I turned and started to walk away, ignoring the general weariness in my body, willing Mom to go the other way.

“Where are you going?”

“My dressing room.”

“What for?”

“To plot world domination—I don’t know. Just to be alone for a minute.”

“You’re on in five.”

I barely heard it over the crowd that had started to chant my name. She waffled between following me, and looking out onto the stage, at my pretended accomplice.

I held my breath as I walked away and looked back at her.

She hesitated only a moment longer.

Then came after me.

My heart almost failed me.

She walked by my side through the narrow, empty hallways. Blood rushed through me at a million miles an hour. Every step seemed to drain my hope and resolve. How to ditch her?

Nothing came to me, and we didn’t speak until almost to the dressing room. I could only think about meeting the CMI. Three years. Three years I’d waited to meet a fellow entertainer. Would the CMI greet me as an equal? As a friend? Would I be able to articulate anything, or would my language skills go out the door in fan-boyish blubbering? Would I even get in without Mom messing things up?

As we approached the door, she spoke.

“Richie, it’s for your own good. You have no idea.”

I almost gave a retort, but at the last moment I decided on a new tactic. Acting like I was giving in, and that it made me sad. Very, very sad. It might be my only chance.

As I sighed and shook my head, we reached the door. I made sure to get there first, and grabbed the handle. I stood with my back to her, and let my shoulders slump. I sighed again.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why can’t you just give me more information?”

She rubbed my back reassuringly. “Richie, please just trust me for a few more years.”

If I hadn’t been acting defeated, I would have gone ballistic at that. A few more years?
A few more years?
She might as well have said
forever
.

“Can I just be alone for a minute?” I said. “I’m pretty nervous. I just want to think. Alone.”

My heart thundered. This was it. Again.

She patted my back. “Richie—”

“Please, Mom. Just five minutes alone. So I can gather my thoughts.”

She sighed and shook her head. “How can I leave you alone after the conversation we’ve just had?”

I half-turned and gave her a desperate look. “Please, Mom. This is the biggest night of my life. Can’t I just be alone for five minutes before it starts? I’m not going to meet any fans. I promise. I was just messing with you.”

She looked deep into my eyes, searching for lies. “No fans? You promise?”

I turned the rest of the way and looked her in the eye. “I promise.”

She caved. Her face softened with compassion. She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say.

I held my breath.

“Okay. Fine. Five minutes.”

“Thanks, Mom.” My gratitude wasn’t even feigned.

I started to pull the door open, but she stopped me. “Wait. Let me check in there.”

My heart nearly stopped as she shouldered me aside, opened the door, and looked in the room. I stood there, eyes wide, blood frozen, waiting for her to spontaneously combust as she saw the CMI.

But nodding, she backed out, holding the door open, motioning for me to go inside.

“Five minutes,” she said.

Disappointment filled me. The CMI hadn’t made it through Mom’s security.

“Thank you,” I said, almost not hearing myself.

I went inside, shut and locked the door behind me. The place was empty. Just a couch with its back to me, a TV with an Xbox, a dresser, and a few chairs.

No CMI.

Numb, I stood there, back toward the door, breathing hard. Mom had foiled the plot—whether through her security procedures or some other way. Maybe she knew everything and had cut it off it without my even knowing.

I leaned my back against the door, closed my eyes, and let out a sigh.

“Well, Richie, glad to see you managed it.”

My eyes shot open. There was the CMI.

And he was way cooler than Marti Walker.

Chapter 4: The coolest guy I’d ever met

I always thought Richie was cooler than his parents. I mean, besides being a way better musician, he was also willing to take chances. Insane ones.

-Nick Savage

Nick Savage stood on the opposite side of the couch.

The
Nick Savage, who’s sold more than sixty million albums and done something much harder—had chart-topping albums through the 80s, 90s, and fifteen years into the new millennium. Last year, he published his thirty-sixth album,
Death Slayers of Symbolic Dementia (and the Classical Music that Torments Us)
. I listened to it constantly while doing homework.

Nick Savage.

Of course,
Savage
wasn’t his real name. It was his stage name. I couldn’t remember his real name.

He stood between the couch and the 70-inch TV, grinning.

“We did it!” he said. Yes, Nick Savage spoke to me.
Directly
to me.

Only a moment before the place had been empty. Mom had verified it. But here he was. I tried to ask him how he’d gotten in the dressing room, but only gibberish came out of my mouth. The shock had simply taken control of my brain and started to squeeze. Really, really hard.

“I’ve waited a long time to meet you,” he said.

So had I. For weeks Nick Savage had worked with my friends to arrange this secret meeting. He wanted to meet with me. He had something to give me.

Holy. Freaking. Cow.

Plus—and this caught me completely by surprise—he spoke with a Southern accent that didn’t match the black leather he wore from head to toe. His voice contrasted with the chains wrapped around his chest and waist, and the brushed metal rivets decorating the cuffs and collar of his jacket.

And his accent certainly didn’t go with his hair, which stood at least nine inches in every direction off his head, purple in some places, green in others, and orange in yet others. At the front, a red spike stood out like a rhino’s horn. In one of his music videos he’d pierced the armor of a medieval knight with his hair. Awesome video.

He smiled and stepped around the couch toward me, past the dresser and mirror. Again, gibberish spewed from my mouth.

Nick Savage—
Nick Savage
—was in my dressing room!

He looked me up and down with a critical eye. “You’re shorter than I thought, son.”

Of course. The cancer had stunted my growth—my body had focused on saving me rather than growing me, and so I’d stopped extending skyward for a time. I’d grown since, but despite my hopes it seemed I would stop at five foot six. I guess living at five foot six is better than dying.

“But,” he said, “your hair is perfect for a concert.”

Rather than color it, I’d left it blond. It hung down both sides of my head, past my chin, relatively combed—but not too combed. Just enough to look unkempt in a carefully manicured way. And I hadn’t sculpted it into spikes or gathered it into a ponytail because I needed it loose, so that when I pounded my head up and down during one of my favorite songs—
Take This, Cancer
—my hair flew appropriately.

I tried again to ask him how he’d gotten inside, but not even I understood the babbling that came out of my mouth.

He moved to my dresser and picked up a black box about the size of a game controller. He went to the couch and motioned for me to join him. I did, and my body thanked me. Its weariness must have grown stronger than I’d thought.

“I wanted to meet you face to face,” he said. He tapped the box. “I wanted to give you something to take out on stage.”

“Okay” was all the coherence I could manage. Really, I was proud of such progress. How had he gotten in here? Had he been hiding under the couch? Had he magically appeared?

A knock came at the door. The show manager’s voice came through, muffled.

“Richie, you’re on.”

“Okay!”

But I wasn’t about to cut short my time with Nick. Not even for ninety thousand people. Although, admittedly—despite my nervousness—I did want to get to the concert. I’d waited years for it. I wanted to revel in the roar of the crowd, to feel its energy roll over me as the people sang along with me. I wanted to watch their hands waving in the air, and their thousands and thousands of cell phones lifted in reverent homage to a power ballad. I wanted to see Kurt and Sandra there in the front row.

“I’ll be fast,” Nick said. He picked up the smooth black box, and tapped the top again. “You need to use this. It’s amazing.”

He tilted the lid of the black box up. The hinge creaked. I leaned in close to get a better look.

Chapter 5: I didn’t learn this in science class

It took way more work than you would have thought to get into that dressing room. Bribes, sneaking, note-writing, spell casting. I’m pretty sure it would have been easier to meet with the president of the universe.

-Nick Savage

From the box, Nick withdrew a device about the size of a phone.

A thrill of danger ran up my spine and into my shoulders—summoned, no doubt, by Mom’s warnings and my open rebellion. I did the natural thing. I ignored the feeling. I also paid no heed to the knocking at my door.

“What the devil is that?” I asked, staring at the object.

Smiling, he held it up and admired it as if it were pure gold, even though it looked like a real piece of junk. On one end, it had a bulbous piece of glass, no larger than a quarter inch across, like the end of an old thermometer. It attached to a black bar about the size of my little finger, which had a bunch of LED lights along one side. A clear tube curved from the base of the bar to a cylinder of dark wood connected to the backside of the black bar.

“This,” Nick said, “has been known by many names through the ages. Flask. QXT. Tap. Nowadays, we call it a Cask.”

“It looks like a little kid built it,” I said.

He turned it over in his hands, smiling. “This is one of the most ancient, powerful of devices known to man.”

I looked from the Cask to him, then back at the Cask. Maybe his mental guitar strings needed tuning.

“What does it do? Create world peace?”

“It harvests and stores raw emotional power.”

The sense of danger came again, like a red flag popping up in my head. Maybe Nick Savage was insane. It would make sense. All the really good artists lost their minds at some point.

“Raw emotional power?”

“Richie! Get out here!” That was Mom’s voice, at the door with the show manager.

“Holy crap, Mom!” I said. “Just a minute!”

Nick nodded, his eyes wide and just a little crazed. “What you don’t know, son, is that the emotion you create in your audience when you perform is a mighty source of energy.”

“Like electricity?”

He shrugged. “Kind of. Only better. You don’t believe me?”

“I never learned about this in any science class.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He motioned at the TV and Xbox. “It’s like those guitar games. They measure the excitement of the virtual crowd at each venue. When you play well in the game, the crowd responds with enthusiasm.” He tapped the Cask. “Well, here in the real world, that enthusiasm creates an invisible, powerful energy, and this Cask harvests that energy.”