Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels (82 page)

“It's good,” Erin said. “I like it.”

“Really?” Jason blushed. “I kind of did work out something on the guitar for it...”

“Fine, you guys lead, I'll follow, whatever,” Mitch said. “Let's just give this crowd something before they riot.”

“Let's go,” Dred said, jogging up the steps to the darkened stage. She looked eager to play more.

When they were on the stage, Erin took his hand.

“I want you close when I sing this,” Erin whispered. “You'll do some of the vocals.”

“I'm not any good at singing,” he said.

“Maybe that's what you thought before,” she said. The spotlights lit up again so the big crowd could see them, and the Sculpture Garden filled with cheers and screams. “But look. You're a rock star now.”

Jason looked out at the mass of ecstatic people, and he couldn't help smiling.

“Do you guys want a little more?” Erin asked into the microphone. They roared back their assent. “How about a new song nobody's ever heard?” They cheered again. “This one is called 'Angel Sky.' It was written by our guitarist, Jason Becker.”

Erin took Jason's hand and raised it high, and the crowd went wild.

“Hey, let's hear it for our drummer, Dred Zweig, too!” Erin said, and Dred tapped out a quick rhythm, to more applause. “And the guy who put this band together, our keyboardist, Mitch Schneidowski!”

“
Mick
,” Mitch said into his mic, but his voice was drowned under the tidal wave of screams and cheers. He looked out on the crowd, blushed crimson, and then waved. “Forget it.”

“Jason, get us going,” Erin said.

Jason started to play the guitar part he'd practiced for her song. It came out smoothly on the fairy guitar, not hesitant or choppy at all. He repeated the opening a few times, letting Erin and the others hear it and get used to it.

Instead of singing, Erin spoke into the microphone again.

“You know how the sky looks when a storm is over?” she asked. “Those golden beams of light ripping up the dark clouds? My grandmother told me that was the angels coming back to chase away the darkness. She called it an angel sky.” She turned from the audience to look at Jason, but she kept her mouth by the microphone. “I told Jason about it before rehearsal one day, when a storm had just ended. I showed it to him. I guess he was listening.”

Jason gave her a smile.

He played the opening again, and Erin sang:

After the storm,

You bring the light

I saw the angel sky

In your green eyes...

Jason's guitar knew just how to play the song. This time, the guitar wasn't overpowering him—he was putting himself into the instrument.

The rest of the band joined in softly. Jason sang the chorus parts along with her.

By the end of the song, half the audience was in tears, and half of them were kissing each other.

“Thank you, Minneapolis,” Erin whispered again into the mic. She was crying, too. “Good-bye.”

They left the stage to softer, gentler applause.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Ze coordinator is horrified about ze pyrotechnics,” Franco said in the hospitality tent. Everyone was relaxing, having pops or Yoo-hoos. Grizlemor had hidden himself somewhere. He'd spent the show eating every morsel of food on the table. “But I tell her: no, zis was not planned...but yes, no one was harmed, and ze audience is going home happy.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jason said. “We should have, uh, mentioned it was going to happen.”

Franco looked at the stripped-bare refreshment table. “Do you require any additional hors d'oeuvres?”

“Anyone?” Mitch asked.

“I think we're good,” Erin said. “Thanks.”

“I should tell you, your music...” Franco began to weep. “Your music!” Franco bawled and threw his arms around Mitch, who stood near him. He cried into Mitch's shoulder.

“Uh, glad you like it,” Mitch said, patting his arm and giving Jason a puzzled look.

“I am such a fraud!” Franco said. “In truth, I am from Joliet, Illinois. I am not European. But I have faked zis accent for zo long I cannot make it ztop!”

“Sorry to hear that, guy.” Mitch tried to pull away, but Franco hugged him close, crying harder.

“I can no longer live a lie!” Franco said.

“It's okay, dude, seriously.” Mitch pulled away.

Franco wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve of his turtleneck.

“I apologize for ze strong reaction your music made in me,” Franco said. “Zimply notify me when you are ready to depart for ze night, if you wish ze stagehands to assist. Thank you for such...ah! Magical music.”

Grizlemor appeared in a puff between Jason and Erin's chairs. His green stomach was swollen to three times its usual size, bulging out between his shirt and his trousers.

“Why didn't you ask for more food?” the goblin demanded.

“Why didn't you leave some for other people?” Jason asked.

The goblin belched. “You eat what you can, when you can. That's my philosophy.”

They hurried to pack up their instruments, feeling both exhausted and giddy.

They slipped across the street toward the alley where they'd parked, while the crowd was still stomping and demanding yet another Assorted Zebras encore. Grizlemor again carried a precariously tall stack of black instrument cases.

“Can you believe that crowd?” Mitch asked. “We're going to have every big music label knocking down our doors after that.”

“This whole thing is out of control,” Dred replied.

“In a good way,” Jason said, but Dred just frowned.

As they approached her van, both of the back doors opened from the inside, but the van's interior lights remained dark. The five of them stopped in the middle of the alley, staring.

“Uh, Dred?” Erin asked. “Who's in your van?”

A small man, about three feet high, stepped out onto the van's back bumper. He had gray and black beard stubble, and he chewed what looked like a piece of stiff pink straw. He wore a battered old gardening hat and a long horsehair coat over mud-stained leather boots. The coat was open, and Jason could see part of a belt with several drawstring pouches and a sheathed knife.

“Who are you?” Dred asked, putting her drum case down.

“I am Hokealussiplatytorpinquarnartnuppy Melaerasmussanatolinkarrutorpicus Darnathiopockettlenocbiliotroporiqqua Bellefrost.” The little man hopped down to the asphalt, eyeballing the five of them like an old gunfighter.

“An elf!” Grizlemor whispered.

“I come on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Mab, Empress of Faerie, Conqueror of the Elflands,” the elf said. “Not to mention some awfully sad-looking musicians. Buttercake here says you have the four instruments of high magic stolen from the realm of Faerie, which violates the Supreme Law and all of that.”

“Our instruments are not stolen!” Dred said.

“They are kind of stolen,” Jason whispered.

“What?” Mitch said. “You never told us that.”

“I thought it was kind of obvious,” Jason said.

“You will return the four instruments to me,” the elf said. “Or Buttercake and I will be forced to take them from you.”

Behind him, the smallest horse Jason had ever seen, even smaller than a miniature pony, jumped out of the van. It floated gently to the ground beside the tiny man. It had golden fur, a pink mane, and a pink horn the color of rock candy jutting from the center of its forehead. Its eyes were huge, the color of chocolate.

“He's got a unicorn!” Grizlemor squealed. He disappeared in a green puff, and the stack of equipment he'd been carrying crashed to the asphalt.

“Are you giving them up, or am I fighting you for 'em?” the elf asked.

“We'll return them when we're done,” Jason said.

“When do you figure that might be?” the elf asked.

“Whenever we're done being rock stars,” Mitch said.

“Which we haven't really started yet,” Dred added.

“A day or two?” the elf asked.

“Maybe a few years?” Erin suggested. “Not forever.”

“Years!” The elf spat on the ground. “You've got ten seconds.”

“Maybe we should give them back,” Jason suggested, but the other three told him to shut up.

“Three, two, and one,” the elf said. “Last chance.”

“We need these instruments,” Mitch said.

“Guess you made your choice,” the elf said. “Buttercake...go get 'em, girl.”

The little unicorn pawed at the ground like a bull and lowered its head. It pointed its horn at each of them in turn.

“Okay,” Erin said, “That is the cutest thing I've ever seen. I'm taking a picture.” She took out her phone.

The unicorn charged. She grew larger with every step, turning into a full-size horse, and then a giant horse the size of a rhinoceros. Her pink horn grew into a long spike, and sharp barbs of horn curled out all over its surface.

A double row of pink spikes grew out through her mane and continued all the way down her back. Pink armor plates formed over her ribs and joints.

The huge, beastly unicorn opened its mouth and blew out a wide plume of fire. Its horn pointed right at Mitch as it charged.

“Not so cute!” Erin screamed.

Everyone backed away except Dred, who dropped to her knees by her drum case and flipped it open. She set the snare drum on the ground and pounded it with both fists.

The ground beneath them quaked, and shock waves rippled toward the unicorn, shattering asphalt and concrete like glass. Dred's van bounced up and down, and the elf was knocked flat on his back. He fought to regain his balance, but each time he tried to stand, another shock wave toppled him again.

The massive, armored unicorn kept charging forward against the shock waves, but she began to stumble and stagger back. She let out an annoyed snort, and then two huge flaps of skin peeled away from her sides. They formed into pink, leathery bat wings. She leaped into the air and climbed high above them in the alley, beating her wings and blowing another jet of fire.

Dred stopped playing. “Are you guys going to help?” she asked. “Mitch, make a little storm or something!”

“Uh, okay...” Mitch took the fairy keyboard from its case and knelt in front of it. The device took no electricity at all—it ran on some kind of magic. Mitch stretched his fingers above the keys, but then he hesitated.

Above them, the unicorn twisted in tight circles just above the alley. It was growing even larger, its body longer and snakelike, the pink armor plates sprouting everywhere. Its cloven hooves cracked, split and unfolded into thick pink talons.

It turned again, and they saw the unicorn's face had become thick, wide and reptilian. Two golden horns had grown out on either side of the spiky pink one. It let out a deep, earthy roar that shook the streetlights. The unicorn had become a pink and gold dragon.

“Hurry!” Dred shouted to Mitch.

“I can't think of what to play!” Mitch said.

“Something about rain, maybe?” Erin suggested. She blew on her harmonica, and a breeze swept through the alley.

Mitch played the melody for the Eurythmics' “Here Comes the Rain Again.” A huge, dense blue cloud filled the upper reaches of the alley, blocking their view of the dragon. A heavy downpour began immediately.

Jason knelt in the street, trying to pry open his guitar case. One of the latches was stuck. He must have closed it carelessly in the rush to pack up their things. He kept looking up at the sky through the rain, wondering where the dragon would reappear.

“Mitch, a storm!” Dred shouted. “Not just a little rain! Not even purple rain!”

Mitch switched over to a classical song. “Tchaikovsky,” he said. “Number Five.”

“Whatever!” Dred said.

The clouds filling the alley swelled and turned black. Balls of lightning bounced and crackled between the buildings, and the rain turned to hard, pelting hail.

The pink dragon came barreling down through the clouds, its jaws aimed right at Erin's head, as if it was following the sound of her harmonica.

Erin looked up and saw the pink reptilian face rushing down at her through the blinding rain and hail. She didn't see the big claw coming up behind her, the talon extended to hook through her as if the dragon planned to pick her up by her rib cage.

“Erin!” Jason yelled. He dove behind her, blocking the dragon's foot. One huge claw ripped diagonally across his back, slashing him open. He tumbled to the pavement with Erin in his arms. Her harmonica skittered away through the falling ice. Erin pulled free of him and crawled after it.

The dragon's claw turned Jason over on his back. Its maw breathed smoldering hot air in his face, and it glared at him with dark, angry eyes.

For some reason, all he could say was, “You're a unicorn.”

The dragon's head curled back and its jaw widened, and it looked ready to bite his head off.

Erin blew a long, deep note on her harmonica, blowing a stiff wind up into one of the dragon's wings. The dragon tilted over to one side, and Erin threw herself across Jason so she could blow wind into both its wings at the same time.

The dragon's wings acted like sails, lifting the dragon high into the air. The tip of one claw cut Jason's ear and scratched along his head as the dragon soared out of reach.

The black clouds lashed the dragon with hail and lightning as it twisted and roared above them, jetting out a stream of fire. It started fighting its way down against the wind.

Jason crawled to his case and pulled at the jammed latch again. Then he turned the case on its side and bashed it against the street, breaking the latch altogether. The case fell open, and he caught his guitar by the neck as it tumbled toward the pavement.

Jason stood up, squinting against the rain as he found the bright shape of the dragon wriggling in and out of the swirling black clouds. He began to play. His guitar still felt hot, still charged up from the concert.

The rain turned to steam around him, and he played faster and harder as the dragon clawed its way down towards them.

He felt again the heat building all around him. He wanted to hit the dragon with all the power the guitar had. He kept playing, switching to the guitar riff from “Light My Fire” as if to really drive the point home. The guitar wasn't doing the work for him now. Jason had to make this happen himself.