Skyglass: Chapter 12

PHOENIX

Devin’s robes were magnificent and fae–long and floor-dragging in the back, cropped at the front, detailed with soul-paint in organic scrollwork and tail-eating serpents that wrapped around his diminutive form. He wore giant, pale boots made for high-fashion moonwalks–needle-thin spikes adorned their flat soles, and their gleaming fabric licked up his legs, terminating in a jagged, crystal underbust corset. Beneath it all, his jump-ink was wild and writhing and rainbow, pulsing through the pearlescent fabric.

“Into the coffin you go!” I said cheerfully, bopping him on the head.

He hugged me tight around the waist, then crawled inside, drawing the mass of gorgeous cloth in after him. The inner door of the backstage air lock sealed itself, separating us.

I turned to the rest of Skyglass. They were still lounging about on couches, so I raised an eyebrow. “You going out there, or what?”

“Is there anything…special we’re gonna have to do for your Blowup?” Moss asked.

“Nope!” I replied, a feral light surely in my eyes. “Just play your mother-rotting hardest and you’ll be sweet as starshine.”

Zinn grinned at me, harder and happier than I’d ever seen him. “We will,” he said, and jacked up the volume on his bass. The amps on the stage bellowed. “Let’s go,” he yelled, leading Skyglass into a vortex of razor spotlights.

I strode over to the air lock and gave Devin a wink, which he returned wholeheartedly. When I heard Moss jam his sticks against his cymbals in a furious metallic onslaught, I jabbed the air lock’s release button. The astro-coffin floated out into the void. Ice spun in its absence.

On my freshly embedded p-com, I synced up the story I’d finished writing just hours before. I breathed in. I breathed out.

This was it–the convergence. Climax. Zinn’s search for my father had failed, but I knew he was here. I was ready to destroy him. I spared no thought for what might come after.

“Let’s blow things up,” I muttered, teeth rattling with the music, and hit play.

Continued in Chapter 13.

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