The Scream (23 page)

All five of them.

His second most prominent features were his oddly bulging eyes. They were pale blue and watery, and they gave him a look somewhere between Peter Lorre and an ill-tempered mackerel. One could not help but be drawn, albeit reluctantly, to those eyes.

Until one noticed his missing left hand.

Tonight, he was wearing the prosthetic claw; it was, to beg the pun, the
handiest
of the twenty-odd appliances he'd designed to adorn his otherwise-useless stump. It was stronger than the real thing, with a grip that rivaled a pit bull's jaws in pounds of pressure per square inch.

It could crush a man's skull.

It had done so before. It would do so again.

With any luck at all.

He was proud of it, proud to have made it reality. He was proud, most of all, to Serve: to have his talents, at long last, put to their proper use.

And Tuesday night would be the piece de resistance. Tuesday night, the world would learn just exactly how brilliant he actually was.

And there would be no more pissing on that bum John Hook.

Not ever again.

A lone figure moved through the ramp rat cotillion, emerged on the near side, and strolled up to the barricades. He had on a nominal Screamer uniform-black leather pants, black canvas duster, black cycle gloves, and shiny Mylar Band-Its-but his T-shirt brightly proclaimed
I ♥ TOXIC WASTE
. He was a little taller than Hook, maybe 5'9", and his blond good looks were more than vaguely familiar. One thing was for certain: he was not your basic ramp rat. He carried a leather shoulder bag that marked him as either press-which were practically crawling out of the woodwork on account of the big gig assembling just across the boulevard-or a freelancer trying to weasel in for some behind-the-scenes dope on the band.

Which was strictly. Strictly.

Forbidden.

Who is this guy?
Hook heard himself wonder.
Where do I know him from?

And what does he think he's doing?

The guy walked over to Lloyd, the asshole Spectrum security guard. To Hook's surprise, they shook hands with annoying enthusiasm. Evidently they were buddies; Lloyd had not seemed to be a friendly type. But there they were, talking. Hook couldn't hear the words, but it had the tenor of a long-time-no-see rap.

A bad feeling swept over Hook. A very bad feeling. It came as a knot of coarse terror in his belly and a searing phantom twinge in his absent left hand that predicted trouble like a bunion foretold the weather.

Oh, shit
, he thought, clutching his prosthetic limb instinctively, as if he could massage away the pain.
Lloyd's gonna let him in
, his mind said, and his mind was just telling the truth.

He started moving toward them, just as the guy swatted Lloyd on the back and started moving down the ramp.

Hook muttered "Damn" and shifted to intercept course, cursing his knees, cursing the fact that they made him move so goddamn slow. There was no way that he could keep pace; there was no way that he could even achieve it. The guy was ahead of him already, and gaining ground.

"Hey!" he yelled.

The guy ignored him.

"Asshole!"

The guy looked back.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

"Inside!" the guy yelled back. "What does it look like?"

"You just hold it right there!"

"Oh, Jesus," the guy muttered, but he stayed where he was. It gave Hook a couple of seconds to catch up, which he did, despite the fact that it made his knees ache like crazy.

"You can't go back there," he asserted, standing now face-to-face.

"You're with the road crew?"

"That's right."

"Hi." He smiled and extended his hand. He looked half-fried. "I'm Pete Stewart. I play lead guitar with the Jacob Hamer Band, and-"

Hook ignored the hand, stared straight into Stewart's black shades. "I don't care who you are. You're not going back there."

"Why not?"

"It's closed."

"Hey"-Stewart looked perplexed-"I'm not John Q. Public, okay? I'm not after autographs. I just want to cut through to the press box."

"So go through the front."

"I don't like crowds."

"That's not my problem."

Stewart laughed. "It's not my problem, either, Jack, cuz I'm going through the back here. Why don't you just relax a little?"

"You don't understand." Hook could feel, aside from his burgeoning anger, the phantom pain in his prosthesis. "Nobody goes backstage."

"What, you afraid I'm gonna steal your trade secrets or something? We don't even do a show like yours. I'm just going to the press-"

Hook grabbed him by the shoulder with his claw-hand, exerting just enough pressure to hurt. "You ain't going anywhere-"

"HEY!" Stewart hollered, yanking free and stepping back rapidly. His breath came out in voluminous huffs, and he pointed a wrathful finger. "You are a rude motherfucker, you know that? I
know
people here! I play this place at least once a year! I don't have to answer to pissants like you!"

"Like hell you don't!" Hook took a giant step forward.

"BACK OFF!" Stewart yelled, and jogged back out of claw-hold range. "Just try and stop me, asshole! In fact, you'd better move, cuz I might just have your job by the time you hit backstage!"

"HEY!" Hook hollered, but it was too late; Stewart was already striding rapidly downward and away. The knot in his stomach was growing by leaps and bounds, but he was too slow, and the interloper would no longer listen.

"Oh, God," he muttered as he staggered behind, but that was not what he meant. He was asking for guidance and mercy and strength.

But not from God.

Not exactly.

* * *

Pete was hissing steam by the time he hit the hallway that led backstage. The fresh air had mown through his intoxication; the fury had taken care of the rest. If there were any more douchebags like that last guy in the Scream entourage, they had best beware; he was liable to gnaw his way through them.

The craziness with Jesse wasn't bad enough, it seemed. No, evidently the fun was just beginning.
Who knows?
he silently fumed.
Maybe we could drive a threshing machine through the crowd, just to round things out
. His anger kept him from noticing his surroundings until he was nearly halfway down the hall.

Then he stopped.

And stared.

Astounded.

The backstage corridor was long and high and wide, but The Scream had it very nearly packed with Anvil cases of every conceivable size and description. Pete had heard about The Scream's stage setup-fourteen tractor trailers' worth, requiring over two hundred thousand watts to power, and costing over three quarters of a cool million to build and run. Reputedly, it was the most elaborate and expensive road show in rock 'n roll history. Staring at its luggage, he could well believe it.

We take up a third of this space
, he mused.
Packed loose. You couldn't fit a greased weasel through the holes in these stacks
. It was outrageous. He whistled appreciatively as he wormed around them.

Two roadies approached from the opposite direction, carrying something large and heavy. The guy whose back wasn't to him thought to say something, then merely grunted.
Good
, Pete hissed internally.
I'm not feelin that cheerful
.

And then he reached the end of the corridor, and it was clear that there was one hell of a lot of business going down onstage, so he automatically veered to the right. A quick jaunt past the humming generator room, the closed doors to The Scream's dressing rooms, and then cut through the hospitality room to the stairs leading up to the press box mezzanine, and-

"Hold it right there, scumbag," said a cold voice to his right. He froze, just long enough for the voice's owner to appear beside him and latch hold of his arm.

"Get your fucking paws OFF me!" Pete shouted. He whipped violently free and spun to meet his aggressor, right hand pulling back as if balling up for a blow.

The chance never came. Too swiftly, the palm of the tall man's hand slammed into his solar plexus. He felt all the air in his lungs
whoof
out of him, pulling his attention away from the buckling of his knees and the pull of gravity until his ass landed hard on the concrete floor. The back of his head followed in short order. Then came the dancing neon stars.

The world was still spinning when he opened his eyes a split second later. The man who had hit him was saying something vicious and incomprehensible. Pete shook his head, got only pain for his efforts. Clarity availed him not.

Then there were several people around him, and they were all saying something, but the only one he understood was saying,
Leave him alone, what's the matter with you?
Perhaps he understood it because he identified with the sentiment, perhaps because he recognized the voice, perhaps because the lips were right next to his ear. Someone was hoisting him up.

"Frank?" Pete wheezed. It was the best he could do. His consciousness was coming back, but so were the drugs and alcohol. The scrappling sound of flailing limbs and shoe-soles on concrete were supernaturally loud as he awkwardly regained his footing.

"Yeah," said the man who'd helped him out: a wiry little black security guard with salt-and-pepper hair. "Look, Mr. Walker. You're out of line here."

"This man has no business backstage." Mr. Walker's manner was incalculably cold.

"Maybe so, but he's not gonna hurt anything!" Frank said, exasperated. "I know him. He's with the Jacob Hamer Band, for Chrissakes!"

"Yeah, what is it with you people, anyway?" Pete said with some effort. "I just came to see your damn show, man! It's not like I came to assassinate the president or something!"

Walker was about to say something else when a door behind him opened. Pete thought he noticed a flicker of apprehension on the man's icy face. Then he, too, turned to look.

As Tara Payne stepped into the hallway.

Suddenly, his eyes were focusing perfectly. It was still not enough to fully appreciate the sight.

Rock music had always had its share of breathtaking women; be it Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Sheena Easton, Whitney Houston, Pat Benatar, Madonna, or a host of others, unique and exotic females were well within the rock V roll tradition. Pete had met a great many of them in his time and was continually awed by the strength of their allure.

But there had never been a woman quite like Tara Payne.

She moved, and the air around her shuddered as if she had just thrown the switch on some carnal Van de Graaff generator. She moved again, closer, and Pete felt the tiny hairs on his skin sway in her direction. There wasn't a man in the corridor who didn't appear similarly affected.

But she wasn't looking at every man in the corridor.

She was looking at Pete.

And he found himself lost in the dark depths of those almond eyes, lost in the abandon they so insistently imposed. He felt the rearing of
kundalini
's spinal serpent of fire, felt his heart palpitate wildly in his chest.

She looked at him, and he was hers.

It was as simple as that.

She moved closer. She moved closer. She moved right to Walker's side. Pete found himself staring at her lips, which were soft and full and painted a ripe berry-red. They stopped an inch from Walker's ear and parted, revealing perfect white teeth and a small glistening tongue.

"Leave him be," she said very softly. The words resonated in Pete's ear as if she were leaning into
him
. His ear flamed as if sunburned. He stared at Walker.

And Walker
shuddered
. There was no getting around the fact. There was an element of pain in the way the ice floes of his face gave way that was perfectly understandable. It was evident that he suffered her proximity quite a bit; given the way Pete felt, it was only human for his discomfort to be nigh unto unbearable. She whispered something else that Pete
couldn't
hear; a trickle of sweat ran down the back of his neck. She whispered something else. Walker nodded and grimaced and produced a bright yellow backstage pass. He handed it to her. She took it, whispered something else.

And all the while, she was staring at Pete: a trained and searching gaze that made his every nerve ending feel scrutinized and aflame.
Omigod
, a voice in his head informed him.
Omigod
.

Tara smiled then, as if she knew precisely what effect she was having.

She left Walker's side.

Moving. Toward him.

And he could feel the crackling tension mount as the space between them diminished. It made all the short hairs on his body want to leap straight out of their follicles; it was as if she were a Tesla coil, an electromagnet supreme, with the most perfect body on this or any other planet. He tried to swallow; it was like trying to turn over an engine that had been out of oil for years.

He tried to think of Jesse.

His mind said,
Jesse who?

And then she was upon him, an inch from his face. He was vaguely aware of Frank's moving back-of all of them, in general, retreating. He was vaguely aware of his own pounding heart. Her smell was what overpowered him now; he could almost see the pheromones, sweet and musky heart-shaped molecules that touched his soul with satin lips.

"I want to see your eyes," she said.

"You do," he barely managed.

"Yes." She smiled. "I want to see them now."

His hands hung, helplessly trembling, at his sides. He did not seem to have the strength to lift them. A warm paralysis, snake-venom intense, had gripped both his body and his conscious will.

But something else was there: a serpent's guile, a reptilian charm from the oldest and most powerful part of his brain. It was enough to force his mouth to work, force his lungs to give voice.

"Help yourself," he croaked.

Her hands were small and long-nailed and articulately-boned and absolutely perfect. She brought them up to either side of his head, gently pulled the sunglasses away from his ears and his face.