Gossamer Axe (33 page)

They signed the contract two days later. The terms were generous, much more so than Bill or the band could have expected. Adria Records intended to keep the Axe happy.

“What puzzles me,” said Harry Veltmann as he offered a fountain pen to Christa, “is that no one even mentioned the idea of… uh… recreational substances in the contract.” He did not see Melinda flinch. “That’s a first for me. We’ve had other bands—”

“We don’t do drugs,” said Devi abruptly. “It’s out.”

“You…”

“Well,” said Lisa, “maybe aspirin.” She took Melinda’s hand protectively, grinned at Christa. “Usually we just stay high on life. It’s like, uh… magic.”

Christa smiled thinly as she inspected the nib and signed her name. Unknown to Bill and Jessica and Harry, Gossamer Axe had pulled together to face a task much harder than cutting a record or touring. The business of rock and roll stardom was as nothing compared to the battle that would be waged beside a still lake in Colorado. Still, she felt almost lighthearted. The band was solid. Only the Sidh remained, and she was confident.

“I look at it this way,” said Lisa that afternoon. They were back in the limousine, traveling from studio to studio, looking for one in which they would record their first album. “If we can beat the Sidh, we can sure as hell beat Budokan. Or Red Rocks.”

Devi sipped at a can of pop and glanced at the glass that separated the passenger section from the driver. He could hear nothing unless they flipped the intercom switch.

Her jeans squeaked on the leather seat. “What can we expect from Orfide, Chris?”

“Physical death is the least worry,” Christa relied. “He might try to kill me, but most likely the worst you will face is madness… and the knowledge of failure.”

“So we could all be crazy,” said Lisa. “So what’s the big deal? Rockers are nuts anyway.”

Christa heard the apprehension beneath her words. “We have a few weeks ahead of us,” she said. “In that time, think about yourselves, try to confront your fears. Try to heal any old wounds you’ve suffered. Orfide will strike there first.”

Devi looked darkly at the passing buildings. “If he has time.”

“Don’t dismiss his abilities, Devi. He is powerful.”

Devi finished her soda and crunched the aluminum can one-handed. “So is a fifteen-thousand-watt PA.”

Kevin had buried his brother in the spring, and, standing at graveside, placing his boutonniere on the polished lid of the casket, he had known that he was also burying his own past. Surrounded by Danny’s friends—singles and couples who leaned upon one another for reassurance, their eyes damp and red—he felt no connection save with the body that was lowered into the earth; and even that link evaporated as the weeks lengthened and he took up his guitar and his school once more.

Now, he had Christa’s past, and her people, and her Gods; and after she put his harp into his hands, he found his memories dissolving, his childhood swept away. He dreamed of Corca Duibne, and if he had a beginning, it was in Eriu, at the edge of the sea. His parents, his schooling, his guilts—all were fading like old pictures left too long in the sun.

Frankie alone remained vivid. In the swirling images of dream, the old black man seemed as much a part of the Gaeidil as white-haired Sruitmor, and the contradiction of race and locale disturbed Kevin not at all. The old slide guitar responded gladly to him now, and its power was as strong as stone, as fragrant as fertile earth—a living invocation of the bluesman’s part.

Dave Thomas, Kevin’s fellow teacher, heard the difference in his playing. Frequently, he poked his head into Kevin’s office and listened to him milk his unamplified Stratocaster for all the emotion it could give, exploiting the smallest nuance of tone and timbre.

“You sound hot, man.”

“I have a good teacher.”

Dave blinked. “You planning on playing out one of these centuries?”

The Gaeidil pursed his lips. “Thinking about it. Haven’t found the right people, haven’t found the right gig.”

“Do it, man. Look what happened to Christa. She’s in L.A., having a ball, and they’re showering money on her.”

“I know.” Kevin smiled, propped his feet up, flashed through a series of licks.

“You were her teacher, Kevin.”

Kevin’s smile grew broader, and he laughed. “Nope. Never.” He swiveled his chair around to face Dave. “Take a look at this,” he said. “You take the phrygian mode—which is a woman’s sound, because it generates life—and you mix it up with the plagal form of the locrian. You just hold it there.” He reeled off a scale and turned it into arpeggios while he talked. “Doesn’t that make you feel dizzy?”

Dave was clutching at the doorframe. “What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s life and death balanced together. It’s magic.”

“You’re outta your ever-loving mind.” And Dave retreated to his office at the other end of the school.

Kevin sighed. He was beginning to understand the magic, but he had no direction for it. In Christa’s hands, the same scale would have a purpose; in his, it was merely a parlor trick that made Dave dizzy. Once again, he was courting stagnation. What could he do with himself?

A band? Maybe. But he thought that perhaps it was Christa’s job to lead a band, to be a star, to take her healing and her love and spread it throughout the world. His own life beckoned him down another path, though he could not yet make out what might lie at its end.

“I’m gonna do something,” he said to himself, turning back to the window from which, months before, he had watched a red-haired girl walk down the street with a harp. “I just don’t know what it is yet. Maybe at Midsummer…”

True to her words, Monica asked questions, but Christa found them anything but foolish. The dark vocalist wanted to know about Christa’s childhood, about her life in Eriu, and, strangely enough, about her religion, the worship of the old Gods.

Christa was puzzled by Monica’s interest, but she explained as best she could. Eyes shining, Monica listened, her chin cupped in her hands and a faint smile playing about her mouth. To Christa’s eyes she looked at times impossibly and unnervingly like Aoine, the priestess.

“Why are you asking, Monica?” she said during the flight back to Denver. The contract had been signed, the studio chosen, the checks distributed. Much as the 737 hung midway between heaven and earth, Gossamer Axe was suspended between two phases of its career: no longer a local Denver band, it was about to step into another, much larger world.

“ ’Cause I like it,” Monica relied. “people have been giving me gas all my life. You’re telling me about this place where everyone fit in, and someone like me was treated decent. If I’d lived in Eriu, if I hadn’t been told all my life that I had to have a man, I wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with someone like Ron. And even if I did, I would’ve been strong enough to tell him where to get off all by myself. And I wouldn’t still be so scared of him.” She sighed, reclined her seat, settled back with her eyes on the ceiling as though she saw there a vision of a green land. “Sounds nice. Especially the part about the Goddess.” She smiled. “I always liked the Virgin Mary. Jesus and God were okay, but Mary was it for me. Except that she always seemed a little wimpy. Now, the Goddess makes sense. Kinda like the Virgin Mary with balls.”

Back in Denver once more, Bill arranged for a rehearsal studio. The facilities would be better than Christa’s basement could offer, he explained to the band, and there would be recording equipment available. They could polish their music and prepare for the studio in Los Angeles.

It was a fine idea, but cutting a record occupied only a small part of their thoughts. If they rehearsed night after night, working well into the small hours of the morning, refining technique and—now that Christa admitted it openly—magic, they did so for the benefit of an immortal audience.

And, as they rehearsed, they could not but talk about their goal. Christa described her lover and her ways, and Judith slowly became an absent member of the band, one who was missed even by those who had never known her, one for whom Gossamer Axe would passionately battle.

“Will she be able to handle 1987?” said Monica one night as she rode home with Christa. “I mean, there’s a big difference between Eriu and America.”

“I’ve thought about it greatly,” said Christa. “Judith is strong. Stronger than I, I sometimes think, since she gave up a part of herself to stay with me at the school— something I don’t think I could have done. It will not be easy, but I believe that, with the help of all of you, it won’t be impossible.”

Monica regarded her in silence for a while. “You…” Her voice was full of wonder. “You must really love her, Chris. I don’t know anyone else who’d do what you’re doing.”

“She’s everything to me.”

“Yeah…” Streetlights passed, signals changed from red to green, stop signs glowed out of the darkness. When the Eagle bumped up into the driveway, Monica had not spoken for a long time.

Christa turned to her, puzzled: Monica looked sad, and the soft smile on her face only intensified the sadness.

“Monica?”

“I guess I’m jealous, Chris.”

“Of me?”

“Of Judith. You love her. I…” Monica looked away, her lower lip quivering. “I wish you felt the same about me.” With a nervous laugh, she passed her hands over her face. “Listen to me, will you? I thought I was straight.”

Christa reached out, touched her gently on the arm. “I…” Living together as they did, they had grown close. Closer than family. Closer than sisters. “I thought you were, too.”

Monica bit at her lip, took Christa’s hand in her own, and, trembling, placed it upon her breast.

The skies over Denver were dropping rain and hail as Gossamer Axe prepared for a Memorial Day weekend gig at Lavish, a club in the northern part of the metro area. The record contract was already bringing sizable changes to the band, for a crew of three roadies now set up most of the equipment, and Bill Sarah had hired permanent technicians to handle a larger PA and a computerized light system that complimented the new backdrop and lightweight drum risers.

Other changes, though, were also manifesting, and as the wind rattled the windows of the dressing room that Friday night, Christa donned her stage clothes and makeup with a feeling that something was wrong. As she finished her hair and bent over to pull on her boots, she caught Devi looking at her.

“You feel it too?” said the keyboardist.

“I do. What’s happening? Do you know?”

Devi shrugged and began lacing up her skin-tight blouse. “I was out in front having a beer when the people started coming in. Did you know we’re deserters?”

Lisa caught the word. “Deserters?”

“Yeah. We signed on with Adria, got lots of money, and now we’re running out on Denver. At least that’s what they’re saying. Don’t expect the crowd to be real luvvy-duvvy.”

“Oh, great…” Lisa clipped suspenders to her spandex pants. “Just what we need.”

“It happens. Small-town mentality.”

Methodically, Christa finished donning her boots and looped several lengths of chain about them. Her brow was furrowed.

Monica put her arms around her. “Hey, Chris. Take it easy. We’re still doing real good. I saw Ron get hit with a two-liter bottle of Coke in a bar out in Commerce City. Knocked him flat. At least we don’t have to worry about anything like that.”

Her perfume and her presence made Christa smile. Theirs was no headlong, passionate affair that left them trembling at one another’s touch. Rather it was the fitting culmination of a slow growth of esteem and affection, the embrace of friends who found in the sharing of their bodies the fulfillment of a simple love that desired merely to touch, to be held, to give.

With a wicked grin, Monica kissed her on the cheek. “No,” she said as Christa, laughing, moved to wipe off the lipstick. “No. Leave it. Let ’em wonder.”

The club manager knocked on the door. “Five minutes, girls.”

“Okay,” Lisa shouted. But she muttered to herself after he went away. “Girls. Shit.”

Monica was fixing her lipstick. “They didn’t call us that in Eriu, did they, Chris?”

“You were a girl only until you were brought into the circle of women and resented to the Goddess,” said Christa. “From then on, you were a woman.”

Lisa was nodding. “I can dig it.”

Monica’s face said that she wanted to know more. Christa had grown to recognize the quiet smile, the bright eyes. The singer might have been hearing about a beloved home and family that she had left when very young. “When did that happen?”

“When you had your first period.”

“Is it… was it hard?”

Christa picked up Ceis and strummed a chord to check the tuning—a needless gesture, since Ceis took care of its own adjustments. “There are men’s mysteries, and there are women’s mysteries,” she said. “I can’t say which is harder.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Monica had turned suddenly shy. “I want to know if… well… like you could still do that.”

“Monica?”

“For me. I mean… can you adopt me or something?” Monica’s brown eyes were earnest.

“You… wish to become a woman of the Gaeidil?”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

Her family. Her kindred. It was assembling itself out of various races and backgrounds, called by bonds of friendship and love. “ ’Tis not unheard of,” said Christa, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat. “In the old days, the whole clan would have to accept you, and the
Sabaid
, the council, would have to approve.” She shrugged. “But I’m all that’s left of the old days. And so I’ll have to take on the role of
Sab
, and…”

She smiled, folded Monica in her arms.

“… and approve you with all my heart. Come Midsummer, with Judith among us, we’ll call you Gaeidil and woman. And then, counting Kevin, there will be four of us in the world.”

Monica hugged her. “Thanks, Chris. Y’know, I feel like I’m finally getting to where I should’ve been all along.” She grinned, indicated the other women with a flick of her eyes. “Give ’em time,” she whispered. “There’ll be more.”

Devi’s appraisal of the crowd was quite accurate. At previous gigs, the audience and the dancers had emanated a sense of playful acceptance, a willingness to participate in the creation of a good time. Tonight, the listeners separated themselves from the stage with a wall of aloof disdain.

Melinda felt it, and she began to grow a little afraid. While she relished the sense of well-being that was hers while she made music, the first set would end in a few minutes, and she would have to put down her instrument. She had no idea how she would deal with a hostile audience when all her defenses had so effectively been smashed to bits.

No, she admitted, the bits had been there already. Christa had merely cleaned them out. It was as though, after a long vacation, she had returned to her apartment to find the carpets shampooed, the walls painted, the broken-down furniture repaired and reupholstered. Christa had moved her into a clear mind, but Melinda had not lived in it long enough to call it home.

The set ended. No applause, no cheers. Melinda put her bass aside and plunked down the stairs from the stage, the hot passion of the music running out of her as though through a bullet hole. She saw Christa open her mouth to call to her, but she turned away.

She was no longer certain exactly who she was, could not remember her own mannerisms, was not overly sure whether a given memory should yield a sense of joy or of pain. She had lost all sense of the little comforts with which she had once provided herself—favorite foods, cold beer, a good-natured, flirty dance with a young buck—and, in fact, had only a tenuous grasp on pleasure.

She bummed a cigarette off the girl at the front desk, vaguely remembering that she had once, years before, smoked. But the first drag told her that here was another habit that was gone, that the instinctive revulsion she now felt for drugs of any sort included nicotine. She tossed it into an ashtray.

“Hey, Melinda.”

She had to sort through memories that seemed not quite her own until she matched the man’s face with a name. Tom Delany. “Hey,” she said dully.

“I heard about your contract. Jeez, that’s pretty hot.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

Tom still talked too fast. “You must be running around with a pretty fast crowd out in California. Bet they’ve got bucks.”

She shrugged. “I guess some of them do. I wouldn’t know.”

He glanced over his shoulder, edged around until he stood between Melinda and the rest of the lobby. “Listen, Mel. I’ve got this band, and we’re really hot. The demo sounds terrific, and I know for sure that one listen is going to send the labels sky-high. I just need you to push it for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t play stupid, Mel. You’re in. You’re signed. You need to play my demo for Adria. Hey…” He grinned. “… they’ll probably cut you in on our contract. You know, finder’s fee or something.”

Melinda shook her head tiredly. “I’m sorry, Tom,” she said softly. “I just want to be left alone.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Get yourself a good manager, play music, and enjoy it. If you’re supposed to make it big, you will.” She started to walk away, but he grabbed her jacket.

“Listen, girl, you owe me. You stole my Strat, and your band bumped mine out of a gig at InsideOut after the holidays. You owe me big. If it wasn’t for the fact that you were fucking Carl Taylor, it’d be me that was signed, not you.”

His words battered at her. She shook her head. “Please, Tom. Let me go.”

But her sad voice did not move him. “You damned bitch! You’re just like all the rest, screwing your way to the top.” He shook her in cadence to his words. “What kind of drugs they give you out in L.A.? Good stuff, I bet.”

“Please…” The tears were coming. She was alone. She had only herself to blame. For everything.

“Look here, slut—” But his words were suddenly choked off as a small white hand seized his hair and jerked him away from her. He fell back onto the carpet.

Devi stood over him, her black eyes hot and bright. “Leave her alone.”

He was not listening. He got to his feet and reached for Devi with both hands. The keyboardist’s eyes flickered for a moment as he took hold of her arms, but then she lifted a leg and, with deliberate precision, kneed him in the groin.

Tom doubled over and went down. The bouncer arrived a few seconds later and threw him out.

Devi held Melinda as she sobbed. “It’s okay, love. You’re safe.”

“Is that what I am, Devi? A slut? Did I just sleep around so we could—”

“You’re Melinda,” said Devi. Her voice was warm and reassuring, almost like Christa’s. “You’re our friend. You made some mistakes.” Gently she guided Melinda back toward the stage. “Time to put them behind you. Come on. We’re up again.”

“The audience…”

“Fuck ’em. They don’t know good metal? Too bad.”

The fire of the music was slow to build this time. Still trembling, Melinda played competently, firmly, with all the power that Christa could have wanted; but though she knew that Devi was right, she felt empty, sad, shaken.

The passion still had not returned when, midway through the second set, she looked down at the dance floor and saw Ron, Monica’s old boyfriend. Haggard and unshaven, he stood directly before the stage. He had a gun.

Fighting as she was with the hostile crowd, Christa did not notice Ron until he had raised the revolver. She almost froze, but Ceis kicked her into action, and she ran to protect Monica.

But Ron was already pulling the trigger.

Monica had half turned to flee, but the first slug caught her in the chest and spun her around to face Ron just as the second ripped her cheek open. She crumpled, her legs folding up beneath her. Her head bounced hollowly on the stage.

Ron pivoted and took aim at Christa. She felt an impact as she dropped to her knees beside Monica, but the bullet had embedded itself partway in Ceis, stopped as much by the hard woods as by the intelligence resident within them. A few feet away, Melinda threw off her bass and, with a running leap, piled into Ron, dropping him to the floor only a moment after Ceis, enraged, had smashed him back with a blow as from a fist.

Christa bent over the singer. Monica’s face was a mass of blood and torn flesh, but her eyes were open.

“Chris…”

Someone was calling for the police, someone else for the paramedics, but Christa left the technicalities to others. With a healer’s instinct, she knew that Monica was dying. No power of medicine or magic could heal quickly enough the damage that had been inflicted upon her.

Christa set Ceis aside and gathered Monica into her arms. Monica’s wounds were bleeding freely, but shock had dulled the pain. “He got me, Chris… like I thought…”

“Monica…”

“I’m gone, huh?”

Honesty alone was appropriate. Christa nodded slowly. “I’m here.”

“I… I know you are.” Monica’s eyes glazed, but she seemed to pull herself back. “Where do we go, Chris? When we die? What did you call it? I can’t think.”

“The Summerland. The Land of Youth.
Tir na nOg
.”

“Can I… go there? I don’t want to wind up in heaven or something. I want… to see you again.”

“You can,” said Christa. “You’re one of us now. And you’ll see me again.” Faintly, as though from a distance, she heard sirens growing louder, more urgent.

Monica gripped her hand. “… dark… can’t see…”

“Monica, I love you. Follow the light.”

“… sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet Judith… I’ll wait for you…” Monica’s eyes widened then, and she almost smiled. “…
allí está
…”

And she was gone. Gently, Christa lifted a hand and traced the Ogham of rebirth on Monica’s forehead, then bent and kissed the still, warm lips.