So, with that in mind, I tried my best to put on a positive face—for Sage. I accompanied him to soundcheck and, as I let the music wash over me and really watched this man, this panther of the stage, give it his all, even in practice, I started writing my article. If anything were to happen to me—and let’s be honest, there was no doubt about it—I wanted something to leave behind that covered not the journey I’d been on but the journey that Sage had been on. How he picked up the pieces following the tragedy of Hybrid and proved to the world, or at least to Europe, that he was a talent and a force to be reckoned with.
After I was done writing, unsurprised by the tears that had come to my eyes given the fact that after today there was a chance I’d never hear his beautiful music again, I went back to the hotel with Max and Jacob and got ready for the show. I decided to go all out. I slipped on the only dress I had brought, a long dark red one with a braided rope belt. I put my hair up into a messy bun and put on a ton of makeup. It still didn’t hide the tiredness that crept up around my heavily mascaraed eyes and bright blue eyeshadow, but it helped.
“You’re looking good,” Max said from behind me as I put on my final touches of rosy pink lipstick. Jacob was sitting in the corner of the room, trying to read an English-language newspaper and periodically checking his pocket watch. It’s funny how used to being around them I was. We really were the ginger trifecta. Would have made an awesome band name.
I turned around from the mirror and smiled. “Thank you. I figured I might as well go out with a bang.”
Max frowned uneasily. “While I reckon its fine and dandy for you to be putting on a happy face, don’t dismiss this threat as final. We don’t know what’s going to happen today. But we do know it’s something, and this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
Jacob snorted caustically, crossing his legs so I could see bright green ankle socks peeking through. Without looking up from the paper, he said, “Come off it, Mr. Sunshine. We all know it’s bad. No matter what happens to Dawn, it’s going to be bad.” He shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, love. No point sugarcoating it. No point even thinking about it. Max and I will do what we can to help you, but as you know, we have no idea what to expect. As Mr. Churchill said, we just have to keep calm and carry on.”
The funny thing was, it wasn’t hard to do. I’d already felt like I was sleepwalking through the whole thing. I finished getting ready and together the three of us went to the show. It was tough for Jacob because he had to be in the bowels of the venue, working with the promoters, talking to the box office, dealing with the band, so I just stuck by his side as if I was a manager myself.
I didn’t see Sage for quite a while—I guessed he was in his dressing room doing some heavy thinking or drinking—but when he finally came out, his jaw dropped in surprise when he saw me. Appreciative surprise.
“Dawn,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around me while Max and Jacob and a promoter looked on. “You look absolutely fucking stunning.”
And so did he. For once he wasn’t wearing all black. His pants were still black, but his shirt was a vibrant green that brought out the color in his eyes. In his usual fashion, he made it more rock and roll by unbuttoning it halfway, the more to show off his pecs and the large cross he wore around his neck.
“God, I wish I had you alone for a minute,” he murmured with his mouth to my ear. I could feel him hard against my thigh and suddenly that’s all I wanted, too. I wanted a place for just him and me, where we could talk, really talk, and make love one last time. The last few days, we hadn’t had a moment to ourselves, and without realizing it, it had worn on me terribly. I wanted to feel his body in my hands—those strong, rounded shoulders, the smooth length of his back, his muscular ass. I wanted more than just his lips on mine. I wanted him inside me, the real him; I wanted him to erase the damage that had been done.
I heard Jacob clear his throat, and we broke apart from our embrace. I could have held onto him and stayed in his arms forever. There was no forever.
“I think it’s time you get ready,” Jacob said to him, looking at least a little sorry for breaking up our moment. There was no opening band for this show, just Sage, and it had still sold out. I could hear the crowd in the audience, the excitement building for them. He turned to me. “Dawn, this time we’re mixing it up. I know you can’t really get the full experience from the side stage, so we’ll be sitting up at the front of the balcony.”
Sage growled, “I don’t think that’s wise.”
Jacob shrugged. “She is still writing the story, isn’t she?” That was beside the point, though. I knew Jacob was afraid of something happening to me during the show and if it happened on the side stage, the chances of Sage getting involved were high. We really wanted the show to go on as much as it could.
I reached up and touched his cheek, smoothed his black eyebrows, ran my finger down the bridge of his broad nose. “You go play me a good show.”
He stared into my eyes until I could feel him in my soul. Then he kissed me with determination. “I will.”
He disappeared down the side of the stage, going to get his bandmates for their pre-show huddle. I watched him go, committing him to memory. I didn’t want to move, to let go. But Jacob pulled gently at my arm.
“We better go now before the house lights go off.”
I nodded absently and let him and Max take me off the stage and down into the crowd. We had an usher escort us to the balcony. Our seats were at the front and gave an outstanding view of the theater. Like most of Prague, the building was old but opulent, with maroon velvet seats and gold walls with intricate moldings. A large chandelier hung high above. Below us was the orchestra pit, filled with writhing teens, and the empty stage, just waiting for its players.
We took our seats. It seemed the demure side of the crowd, mainly young women, were all up here, where they could watch the rock without being trampled on. Seconds later the lights went off and everyone cheered. A voice came on the loudspeakers, rattling off a bunch of Czech and then pronouncing “Sage Knightly” with a forced American accent.
The lights popped back on with the swagger that only Sage’s guitar and Tricky’s bass could produce. I felt like I was seeing him for the first time all over again, not just as a lover but as a fan. As his biggest fan. The growl of his voice, his fingers as they slid effortlessly over the guitar, his commanding presence that showed the utter ease he was in his role as a damn fine rock star. He took my breath away and yet breathed life into me. Music, his music, always music, always my lifeblood, always the thing that gave me strength.
We were midway through the second song when a heavyset teenage girl to the side of Jacob cried out. At first I thought she was just really getting into it, having something like a Beatles’ fangirl moment. Then I realized she was screaming, screaming bloody murder. I craned my neck around Jacob to see the girl getting out of her seat and yelling something over and over again as she climbed onto the edge of the railing, holding her head.
Holy shit, she was going to jump.
Jacob sprang up and grabbed the girl’s arm just as she jumped. She went over, nearly pulling him down with her. “They’re in her head,” Max mumbled as he pushed me aside and went to help Jacob, trying to grab on to the girl’s other arm. The band had stopped playing, and I could see Sage staring up at me, pick dangling from his fingers. His eyes widened in horror.
One second was all it took for Max and Jacob to be preoccupied. One second was all it took for me to be alone and exposed.
“Remember us?” I heard a throaty, cold voice say from behind me. Fiery hands reached for both my arms. On one side of me was Alva; on the other was Sonja, another GTFO. White hair, empty black eyes, mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. They had come for me, to collect me, and now they had me.
I couldn’t scream or call attention to myself if I had wanted to. I felt helpless, compelled, just like the girl that Jacob and Max were now hauling to safety. I watched Sage as I was being lead away, mouthing the words “I love you” to him.
I hoped he knew how much I meant it.
Sage
It all happened so fucking fast. The chunky chick on the balcony was screaming and jumping over the edge, and if it weren’t for Jacob’s quick thinking, she would have plummeted onto the panicking crowd below. Max then went to lend a hand.
And I saw Dawn, standing there like an angel in red, all alone and unprotected.
The skinny, shimmering shapes of Alva and Sonja came gliding down the aisle like insect-like ghosts. I watched as they grabbed on to Dawn with each hand and said something to her.
Dawn stared right at me in frozen horror and told me she loved me.
And then she gave up. She let them lead her away.
But I wasn’t going to give up. No way in hell.
I yelled, “No! Stop them!” hoping someone would see what I was referencing. Then I tossed aside my guitar, took a running start, and leapt right off the stage and into the crowd in the ultimate stage dive.
I plowed right into the fans, most of whom were quick enough to catch me without injuring themselves. They set me down without much fuss, and I ran through them as quickly as I could, sprinting up the stairs to the balcony level.
People up there were crying out in confusion, and everyone was in a mass panic. Ushers had already reached the girl who had tried to jump, who was holding her head like something was trying to come out of it, thrashing in a seat with Max trying to hold her down. Jacob was nowhere in sight.
I ran over. “They have her!”
Max nodded and in his eyes I saw that same look that was in Jacob’s when he told me the story about Yvette and how he had failed her. Max had failed Dawn. We’d all failed her once again.
When another usher and what looked to be a medic of sorts had reached the girl, Max let go, confident that they would be able to restrain her. I looked around me frantically, my heart breaking piece by piece at the utter helplessness I felt. “Where did they take her? Where’s Jacob?”
He looked at me blankly, overcome by his failure. Like fuck I’d let him feel sorry for himself now. I reached over and punched him hard in the chest. That woke him up. He took a step back and knitted his brows together. Finally he said, “I think I know.”
He ran out of the crowd, and I followed hot on his heels. We escaped into the stormy night. Signposts were swining in the wind and people were huddled under dark coats. Max didn’t slow down once; he just kept running down the slippery stone streets, dodging cars and people until we turned off onto a narrow, curving lane.
“Where are we going?” I called out after him, surprised I wasn’t out of breath yet.
“I’m not sure,” he said over his shoulder.
“That’s fucking great.”
“I can feel where Dawn is,” he said. “She’s been bonded to me.”
Well, that was fucking great, too.
I
should have been bonded to her. I should have been the one to “feel” her. I had to shake those thoughts out of my head, though, because this was not the time to get jealous. This was the time to get her back. To save her as she once saved me.
We kept going until the adrenaline was wearing off and I was finally feeling the strain in my muscles and lungs. “How much farther?” I asked.
“We’re here,”
He stopped so suddenly that I nearly ran into his back.
It looked like we’d run to the outskirts of town, where the buildings tapered off into bombed-out remains of buildings and overgrown weeds. The river snaked nearby, the water roughed up from the wind. There was a small graveyard in front of us with toppled-over tombstones. Behind it were three white walls standing up and a door half off the hinges. It was the skeleton of a church before it had been blasted from above, probably from World War II.
“Did you purposely pick the creepiest place in all of Prague?” I asked uneasily.
He turned to face me, his face half-covered by shadows. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Come on and be quiet.”
We walked slowly, carefully through the nest of weeds, picking our way toward the front door. “How are they inside?”
“They’re not,” Max said as he was about to step into the church. “They’re underground. In the crypt.”
Shit.
Inside the crumbling walls of the old church, nature had started to take the building back. There was nothing left, save for a few pews that were covered in layers of grime and mold, which shone dully in the glow of the lights by the river. Max examined the remaining standing walls, peering up at them then at the floor, which was both stone and earth. Having a flashlight would have made things a lot easier.
“Here,” Max whispered. He was standing where the altar would be. Behind him there was no wall, just a straight shot view to the dark and gleaming river. The breeze funneled off the water and messed up his hair.
I walked over and tried to see what he was looking at. There was a square of wood in the earth, part of it moved to the side so you could see a black slit. If I concentrated really hard, I could almost see a light flickering somewhere.
Max knelt down and carefully picked up the wooden slab. He put it to the side, and we both stared down into a black pit. A rotten stench billowed up from it and I was right, I could see a very faint light wavering from deep below.
“We’re going down there?” I grimaced, trying not to breathe in the smell.
“It’s where Dawn is,” he said. “And most likely Jacob.”
I took in a deep breath. Max slowly lowered himself into the pit, finding the rungs of a ladder, and I followed right after him. The ladder was moist and cold to touch, old rotted wood that I hoped would carry our weight.
I heard Max drop to the ground, the sound echoing around us. I let go after my feet left the last rung and looked around. It was black around us, and I could feel the walls were close. I stuck my hand out and hit something rounded and smooth.
Max walked toward the light and the closer we got, the more I could see we were in a tunnel of sorts. The light was coming from what looked like hundreds of lit candles in an open cavern dead ahead. And with that illumination, I could see the walls more clearly. I had touched bones earlier. The whole tunnel was made out of bones, bodies after bodies of grinning skulls and pelvises and hands and femurs and ribs, sometimes skulls inside of rib cages, and it was all around us.
I stopped, taking it all in, trying to breathe, but Max touched my shoulder and nodded forward to the entrance to the cavern. He put his hand to his ear, motioning for me to listen.
I could hear voices. Whispers at first but growing louder. Finally a laugh, a high-pitched squeal. There was nothing funny about it.
Max and I crept forward until we were at the entrance then dropped to the ground, my head right beside a macabre-looking skull with jewels below its jaw, buried here with a necklace that was probably worth a fortune. I wondered how long this crypt had been here and if anyone else knew about it. You’d think that grave robbers would have already cleaned out the place. Perhaps it didn’t even exist on the map…or in the world.
Jacob’s voice came loud and clear. “You know this is against the rules. That this not how the world is run.”
“She agreed to the deal,” said Alva. The sound of her made my brain feel like it was getting peeled away, layer by layer. “She made the deal. This is only fair.”
“It’s not fair,” Jacob boomed. “This goes against everything that the laws were built on.”
I inhaled long and deep, readying myself, then peered around the corner.
Jacob, Alva, Sonja, and Dawn were standing in the middle of a large, cavernous space made of human skeletons. There were hundreds of candles lit, some on shelves made of skulls, others large figures on the ground, pooling with wax. The shadows danced in the bones, making the skeletons look alive. Perhaps they were alive. Perhaps they were all watching me.
In the middle of the room was an altar made of shedding, bleeding deer antlers. Dawn and Alva were on one side, the side furthest from me, with Alva holding on to her. Dawn stared at the ground right in front of her as if in a daze. I hoped for her sake she was completely out of it.
On the other side of the bleeding altar was Jacob, Sonja’s claws in his arm. I didn’t know how she was able to keep Jacob at bay, but whatever she was doing, it was working.
“Look,” Jacob went on, determination in his brow, the kind he got when he was arguing with a promoter who had stiffed us our pay, “regardless if Dawn made the bloody deal, if she doesn’t remember it, it doesn’t stand. Someone has to consciously be in their right mind. They have to be aware of what they are doing. From the way you describe it and from the way Dawn tells it, she can’t be held responsible. She must have been in a frenzy of sorts, perhaps even sleepwalking. But you can’t act on it. You’ve done enough already.”
“And yet it’s not enough,” came the raspy, almost mechanical voice of pure Evil. I heard it—felt it—all the way into my marrow, sinking through like maggots in a ripe fruit. A tall, dark figure came out of the shadows. In fact, he might have always been the shadows themselves. It was hard to see him properly from where I was on the ground, with just my eyes peeping around the corner, but he looked to have a cloak, something similar to the Grim Reaper’s, but made from squirming black centipedes. And like the Reaper, his face was nothing but a bare skull—except for the tiny yellow gumballs he had for eyes, sitting like feverish suns in his empty sockets.
The candles nearest him went out. The whole room hushed. Even Alva and Sonja seemed quiet and submissive in his presence.
And why not? I knew it in my heart of hearts who this was. Lucifer. The Prince of Darkness. El Diablo.
And he had his putrid little eyes set on Dawn.
“What do you even want with her?” Jacob asked quietly. His face was sweating, shiny in the wavering glow. I wondered if he was becoming physically ill just standing there. I wondered when I could do something. When I had to rush in and save her and what the hell I could actually
do
. But I had to do something—anything.
As if sensing what I was thinking, Max reached out and grabbed my arm, warning me with his eyes. We looked back.
The man was closer to Dawn now, right behind her. Dawn was still standing, staring at the same spot with vacant eyes, though now she was starting to sway slightly.
“I want what is owed,” he rasped. “I want her soul. She may not remember what she’s done, but we do. We decided to…humor her. All she wanted, all she
begged
me for was for her retarded brother to get better, her lazy father to stop drinking, her whore mother to come back. She also, if you did not already know, wanted the world to remember her name. She wanted respect. And she wanted true love.” He cackled to himself, a sound that reminded me of cracking bones. “True love was something I wasn’t even going to consider. I thought I’d take her up on some of the deal since it wasn’t completely fair. But the true love came anyway. What an added bonus for me.”
My heart warmed at that. It felt odd in my chest, which had grown so black and cold.
Jacob licked his lips. “If you admit it’s not fair, then just let it go.”
The Devil’s head snapped up, spiders crawling out of the dark slashes in his nose and disappearing into the cloak of centipedes. “I can’t let it go after everything we’ve done for her.”
“Then just let it go. Let her go. Take it all away then, but just spare her life.” Jacob was practically begging now.
If the Devil had a proper face, I would have sworn he was frowning, actually considering it. The weight in my chest dissipated for just that second. Then he growled, “No. This can be a lesson then, for everyone in this rotten little world, that you have to be careful what you wish for. Dawn can go down in history as the example. Besides, I feel like we were a tad screwed over with the Sage contract.” Suddenly the Devil’s attention was on me. His jaw opened like he was smiling. Alva, Sonja, and Jacob all followed his gaze, and I heard Max sigh beside me. They’d all spotted us. There was no use in hiding, but we stayed put, anyway.
He went on, those sickly yellow spheres locked on me. I could feel him in my head. I could feel the fear of billions of souls, all dying over and over again for eternity. This was his way of telling me where Dawn was going. This was his way of showing me true fear. “It feels quite satisfying to finally take the last thing that Sage Knightly loved.”
He walked over to the wall behind Dawn and ran his fingers along a gruesome display of opened ribcages. “Two birds,” he said. He pulled a rib bone out of the wall. “One bone.”
Suddenly the room reverberated with a low rumble. Bones began to come loose from the walls, falling onto the ground and splintering in half. Dust began to rise, obscuring my view, and the clatter of breaking bones filled the space.
And Dawn, Dawn stood in the middle of it. For one beautiful but terrifying moment she looked up, snapping out of her daze. She saw me. She tried to run but only got a step forward before the bones above her head broke loose and tumbled onto her, bringing her to the ground.
I screamed, trying to get up and run, but Max had me by the throat and was pulling me back, pulling me away from Dawn.
“Let go!” I screamed, trying to fight him off, kicking him in the knees, elbowing him in the stomach, but he was strong here and now. He was so much stronger, and I was wasting my breath and my time.
The last thing I saw before the cavern collapsed entirely was Jacob, looking at me through the dust.
“I won’t fail this time. I’ll take her of her,” he said, raising his hand in sad salutation. “You take care of yourself. I loved ya, boy.”
Then he looked up and the ceiling of skeletons collapsed on him.
I could barely move, think, breathe, but Max could. He hauled me up the ladder just as the walls of the passageway started to give in, too. His feet slipped on the rungs a few times, but somehow we made it out into the church. He pulled me out onto the ground, and my lungs filled themselves with the fresh night air.
Max dragged me out of the church and the ruined graveyard to a grassy patch by the street. We watched in horror as the ground around the church began to jostle and shake and the remainder of the building finally fell, the ground swallowing it whole. The whole area above the crypt sunk in as well, the tombstones sinking further into the earth.