Blood To Blood (13 page)

I took a steadying breath as
I listened to his footsteps approach before he opened the door. It wasn't
Sawyer. It was a girl a little bit older than me with a no-nonsense attitude.
And she smelled like chocolate. I used to love chocolate...

Hold your breath when they
start smelling good to you.

The problem was, they all
smelled good to me.

“You must be Angel,” the
older girl said. She gave me head-to-toe eye action before stepping aside for
me to enter. “I'm Jackie. Sawyer's assistant.”

Heist's replacement. As she
disappeared into another room, I couldn't help thinking she had some giant
shoes to fill. I picked up traces of Heist's scent. It was difficult to look at
the soundboard and not remember his playful smile.

Seeing the others with my new
immortal eyes was astounding. I noticed Sawyer's eyes had tiny red and gold
flecks in them. He was thinner and his face was gaunt, as if he hadn't slept or
eaten in days. His eyes caught my gaze and held it. “You seem different,” he
said.

I glanced at the spot where
we had unsuccessfully tried to revive Heist. “I haven’t been the same since
that day.”

His eyebrows drew together in
that familiar frown and his wondrous scent dominated the room. I held my breath
again. “Welcome back,” was all he finally said.

Julietta burst into the
studio. “Angel! I was worried about you. I wanted to come see you, but your Dad
said you were too out of it for visitors. How are you?”

I offered all the perfunctory
assurances of my recovery as LaLa entered, too. She glanced over at the spot
where Heist died before hugging me. “You feel so warm,” she said. “And you look
a little...tired. You sure you're up to this?” I nodded, thinking it would be
more accurate if she'd said “You look a little...immortal.”

“Death, illness, and
starvation,” LaLa continued, emphasizing the word “starvation” with a pointed
glance at Julietta’s smaller frame. “We’ve seen them all this past week, and
they can’t stop us.”

“Got that right,” Julietta
added.

“Let’s do this,” I said as we
launched into working on the tracks.

Writing songs with the girls
was always exciting, but now that I was immortal, it was more intense than I thought
it could ever be. It was like getting an injection of blood directly into my
veins, as if the process of creating songs was like some sort of addictive
drug. Not only could I see every note, I saw the various patterns that emerged
when they came together. When the musical arrangement “worked,” the patterns
vibrated harmoniously. It actually felt like smooth, cool silk on my eyes as I
watched the notes dance and vibrate around me. However, if the arrangement was
off, not only was it as uncomfortable to look at as a scratchy wool sweater
behind my eyelids, I could also see where in the arrangement the problem was.

Sawyer, eyebrows continually
drawn together, listened to the playbacks of our lyrics along with his tracks.
He nodded his head to the beat when something sounded right and remained still
when it didn't quite work. If something was just plain wrong, he shook his head
back and forth as if trying to toss the dysfunctional notes from his ears
before leaning over the keyboard to rework the notes and chords.

One particular track, No. 6,
was really giving the mortals a hard time. My eyes hurt looking into the places
within the patterns where the disagreeable chords and notes were pulsating
angrily.
I
could see exactly where the song wasn't working. But Sawyer
couldn't.

I stepped toward the
keyboard. “May I?” He scooted toward the lower octave end as I summoned my
limited keyboard skills. Remembering the positioning of his fingers on the
keys, I hesitantly pressed the notes that he'd just played. Yep, there it was.
The chord that wasn't working. Ouch. He shook his head back and forth, and my
eyes itched with the wrongness of the notes.

I closed my eyes and pictured
that area working well. Incredibly, I saw the specific notes needed to bring
the area into harmony. The needed notes were gray and floated outside of the
pattern. All I had to do was choose which ones I wanted to use. But I moved too
slowly. Sawyer had already slid his hand back over the keys and played the
exact grayed-out notes I had just seen. Amazed, I watched the notes burst with
color as they took their rightful place inside the pattern. The notes that
weren’t working went poof.

“That's it!” I cried. “That's
what I saw!”

And then Sawyer smiled. I was
floored.

His teeth flashed before my eyes
as brightly as the notes. Somewhere in the back of my throat hunger arose, but
it was diminished by the brilliance of the music. His hands had learned the new
notes and played them automatically while he watched me intently. I couldn't
take my eyes away from him. It felt like a blanket of magic had settled inside
the studio and the two of us were wrapped up in it.

As we all continued working
throughout the afternoon, I was even able to focus on the tasks at hand and
ignore the distracting smells and sounds of being surrounded by mortals. It was
still there tugging at my brain, but I managed to push it down. I sensed Cici's
pride as I strengthened my resolve.

While we worked, Jackie
attended to our every need and request. She wordlessly ran in and out for
Sawyer's errands, as well as our lunch and snacks, and the never-ending
requests for hot tea, lemon, and honey, which, to my surprise, I still wanted
to drink. Every now and then I caught her glancing at me with a questioning
look on her face.

I think she's interested
in Sawyer and wondering what's going on between you guys.

Um, she shouldn't have to
wonder very long, seeing as there's nothing going on between me and Sawyer.
Annoyed, I turned toward LaLa, only to
find she smelled like honey. Drat. Did she always smell that good? I turned my
back to her as my mouth started to water.

Go outside in the fresh
air and break out a thermos.

I excused myself and
concentrated on walking at a mortal's pace to the door. I oh-so-slowly reached
out my hand to turn the lock to the open position before putting my hand on the
knob. It amazed me how quickly I'd gotten used to flashing about here and there
and going through solid objects. Now, the pace I'd moved at for sixteen years
as a mortal was enough to put me to sleep. It helped to find a rhythm between
steps, like a jazz drumbeat. One Mississippi, two Mississippi...

Once I finally made it
outside, I managed to drain one thermos before the door opened behind me. With
a gust of fragrant, mortal air, Sawyer stepped out.

His eyes narrowed as he
looked at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “Just
needed a break.”

He moved closer and my
stomach tightened up. Would this continual craving to suck the blood out of
everybody around me never end? Maybe Mom and Dad were right. Maybe I couldn't
be around mortals anymore. Perhaps I should continue to write and perform in
isolation. Or collaborate through some sort of software and meet up with them
for gigs...

“I need your help,” Sawyer
was saying. I looked up at him. He didn't seem like the asking-for-help type. I
waited for him to continue, and fought against becoming mesmerized by the way
his Adam’s apple slid up and down when he swallowed. “I need to buy a house,”
he continued. I looked at him blankly. “You said my apartment was soulless. (I
didn’t know he heard me tell Jules that!) You were right. And ever since
Heist...I need a change. But I also need an honest opinion. Would you help me
look? If you don't mind.”

Huh? He asked me to go house
shopping with him? “Why me?”

Yeah! I'd like to know,
too.

“You're the only one I know
here in Boston who tells me the whole truth. You don't seem to care whether you
insult me or not.”

“And you like that?”

“Yeah.”

We stared at each other for a
while. His eyelashes cast a shadow over his dilated pupils. The cold winter
wind whipped his hair into his face.

“Sawyer, I know nothing about
buying houses.”

“Me, too.”

“Well, okay, sure.”

He smiled that
self-deprecating half smile. “It's cold,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed, and
remembered I was standing outside in what was probably ten-degree wind chill in
a tee shirt and jeans.

“No goose bumps?” He ran the
ball of his thumb briefly along my forearm. I felt a flash of what felt like
fire race up my arm from where his hand made contact with my skin. The doorbell
rang and I “ran” inside at a very slow, mortal pace to answer it. It was Nina.

She shook off her long wool
coat. “Angel, glad you're back in the saddle. We’ve got only eight days to get
choreography and costumes together for the Garden gig.  Ladies, you more
than likely have a number of loose ends to tie up from today's session, so I've
brought the choreographer and designer to you.”

And as if on cue, the bell
rang again. A small, red-haired guy in tight white jeans floated in with what
couldn't be described as less than a dancer's body. He sashayed about the
studio as if he was about to break out into a routine à la “Fame,” the TV
series.

“Redd will teach you the
moves,” Nina said. “First rehearsal, tomorrow, Cambridge at the Dance Factory
Studios,” She consulted her Blackberry. “Three o’clock okay?”

Julietta was already picking
up some simple steps with Redd. “Works for me,” she said. LaLa and I agreed.

The bell rang again. A
painfully thin girl stood at the door, and she seemed hesitant to come in until
Sawyer invited her. “Risa,” Nina said as an introduction. “She'll take care of
the costumes.”

Risa pulled out a tailor's
measuring tape and started wrapping it around my bust. I self-consciously
glanced in Sawyer's direction, but he was gone. I tuned in to hear him
upstairs, rapidly breathing in and out and grunting. He was doing push-ups.
With one part of my mind, I continued to listen to him and count along.
Somewhere around push-up number seventy-eight, I turned my attention back to
what Risa was doing. She rewarded me with a cutting glance as if she were
insulted by my mental wanderings.

I felt guilty for
eavesdropping on Sawyer and imagined what it would be like looking for a house
with him. What was his taste in houses like? If this apartment/studio was any
indication, we were in for some bland stuff.

Once we wrapped at the
studio, LaLa made a beeline for the door with barely a nod in our direction.
Julietta and I exchanged a sideways glance. Her haste could mean one of two
things. Either she had some lyrics she desperately had to get down on paper in
private, or there was a guy she had to talk to. I hoped it was the latter.

And what about you,
Bighead? When's the last time you've even been out on a date?
If LaLa found most guys unchallenging, I
found them boring. After a few conversations, they always fell into one of
three categories: obsessed with sex, obsessed with videogames, or obsessed with
themselves. Or some boring combination of those. Even the smartest guys at
school couldn't compete with a good song idea, a cup of tea, and a spanking-new
pen to write with.

“What you got going on?”
Julietta asked while picking up her knapsack.

“Doing Sawyer a favor.
Helping him buy a new house.”

“What!” she exclaimed in a
whisper before pulling me to the side. Her eyes darted over to where Sawyer was
now digging into album crates at the opposite end of the studio.

“Someone's got to help him,”
I said. “He asked me.”

She seemed to think this was
the most fascinating news since the death of Michael Jackson. “I want to know
everything,” she demanded in a whisper before heading out.

I turned to see Sawyer
watching me with a small smile on his face. I felt irked. “What's so funny?”

“You look like a deer walking
through a pride of lions,” he teased. “Don’t worry. I won't bite you.”

I swallowed my impulse to
warn him that he was the one in danger of being bitten.

T
o my surprise, Sawyer actually had good
taste in houses.

He'd already identified the
neighborhood he wanted to live in. The Back Bay was one of the most
sought-after neighborhoods and boasted rows of high-priced brownstones
alongside hip cafes, shops, and eateries. Sawyer's work on Swedish Moreno’s
number one smash, as well as a few minor hits for other artists, seemed to
ensure money was no object for him.

We met his realtor, Sally, on
the corner of Mass Ave. and Commonwealth. She was willowy, and despite her
business attire, struck me like she’d be more comfortable in a long, flowered
skirt and Birkenstocks. She pumped my hand. “Nice to meet you Angel. It must be
nice to help your boyfriend look for his first home.”

“No,” I responded quickly.
“I'm just a friend. Here for moral support.”

Ha!