Skyglass: Chapter 2
In fewer words, of course I was going to the show. I wouldn’t have missed it for all the galaxy, not even if the triple-cocked bastard of Bacchanalia Nine had offered me a sumptuous night of sex and chocolate-dipped firebird hearts. But I wasn’t actually attending to provide moral support. I had intensely selfish and vengeful reasons: the Elektrodagger was exactly the kind of place my contemptible father might frequent.
Before heading out, I painted my eyes in metallic hues–bright golds and reds and yellows–so that the edges of my eyelids looked like the feathers of my namesake. If I got caught in the stage light, all anyone would see was a plumage-streaked gaze flashing out from the shadow of my hood. After applying my war colors, I took one end of an infinity bandage, pale and silver as starlight, and looped it once around my breasts before fusing its end to its beginning. Then I lay in the bathtub–as an afterthought for Moss’s pathetically fragile state of mind–and poured on a bottle of liquid pants. Once they’d done their clingy magic, I stood and grinned down at the voluptuous pair of drippy, leg-shaped mirrors I now wore.
The Elektrodagger was a couple of turns from the shop that had fried my com. I peeked in the doorway, but saw nothing more than a long hallway that terminated in darkness. Its ceiling dripped with what looked and smelled like blood. I held out a hand, caught some in my palm and licked it just to be sure–and maybe because I was the tiniest bit thirsty, too.
Warm, salty, meaty–it was definitely blood. The fistman at the door offered me an umbrella, but I just laughed merrily and stepped into the bloody rain. When I reached the end of the corridor, I paused inside the miniscule room beyond the threshold, gore already drying on my skin.
Twenty paces straight-ahead from my current location was the stage; to my left, a grubby bar. I stepped over the threshold and ordered a fructo-fuzz tongue-tickler from the even grubbier drink-maker. Once I had my alcohol in hand, I leaned with my back against the bar and observed.
Moss’s band–Skyglass, according to the plastered posters blinking on the venue’s soul-paint–had already set up. A guitar made of hard bioplast resin hung midair, shimmering with anti-gravity. Propped beside it in a simple stand was a wooden bass–real wood, if my eyes were being true. Behind the strings lay a massive, wraparound drum set, its black wood sucking up the dim stage lights.
Real wood again, I guessed. If my suspicions were true, Skyglass was a band of fanatical purists, those overly sensitive souls who valued one-dimensional artistic authenticity over all else. The drum’s cymbals and other arcane shapes of hammered metal glinted red in the dark.
In the shadows near the drums, I thought I glimpsed a form: Moss, probably, standing guard over the one thing he seemed to give a piss about. In the darkness below the stage was another form–Marko (I could tell by his coppery, unbound mane). The obsessive way he watched the shrimpy guy behind the drums licked my fancy. Too bad they weren’t sexing each other–Moss needed something sparkful in his life.
I sucked down the pulpy, synthetic dregs of my drink, then turned back to the drink-maker, asked for another fructo-fuzz. “You ever get any fire-hungry weirdos in here?” I asked as I watched him mash up the copycat fruit. Fake peach pulp was my favorite.
“What do you mean?” he asked. A glop of pink slithered out of the glass when he poured in too much fizz water. I snatched up the chunk and popped it in my mouth.
“I’m looking for a guy. He’s got a face that looks like white clay, just baked. Hair’s all slicked back, yellow eyes, and he’s got an orange tongue. Probably orders a rum-chili smoothie when he comes up to the bar. He’s got burn marks all over his body, all swirly and artful, ’cause he’s a creep and loves fire more than anything, so much that he–” I stopped myself before I said too much. “So?” I pressed.
“Got no idea.” The drink-maker placed my second tongue-tickler before me. I sighed and raised it to my mouth.
On stage, the lights dimmed. I looked around. Besides me and Marko, no one else had come to watch the show, except for a group huddled in a distant corner kissing each other with spiky tongues, paying no attention to the music. So much for the Elektrodagger’s treacherous infamy. I almost felt sorry for Skyglass–at least violence brought a crowd–but what did I care?
Three of the four members of Skyglass crowded onto the stage. Devin was nowhere to be seen. I slouched back against the bar’s counter as I took note of the skinny bassist.
He looked familiar. Not in the sense of oh sweetling, remember me? Yeah, we sexed last night, it wasn’t great. No–he just looked like purists I’d known: calm, collected, but probably with all sorts of nasty thoughts behind the mask. He looked burnable and tasty, but his snooty nose was stuck too high in the air for my tastes–he’d never get it to drop down to the levels I preferred.
At his side was the guitarist. I only needed one word to describe her: dangerous, the good kind that made me feel a little gooey inside. Even from way back, I could see her gleam with murderous intelligence.
Moss started abusing his drums just then, so I watched him next, mildly curious. His drumming wasn’t exactly captivating, but maybe that was because I was no purist and never would be. Still, I could tell he was good. He couldn’t feed himself, but at least he could bang on things in a mildly pleasing manner.
A moment of harsh, gutting strings and implosive drums, and then Devin bounded on stage like some kind of energetic snow creature. Pretty, I thought. He’d captured an outrageous, lovely creepiness. His boots were made to look like a goat’s toenails, only his were ice instead of tawny-black. He wore all white and gray, except his lips, which were painted red to match the berries twined through the bone-white prongs fixed mysteriously to his head.
Their music was a red, beating muscle. A sparkle-veined heart that leaked blood like black sugar with every pulse. I didn’t understand it, not at all, but I thought I could grow to like its taste, if I wasn’t so busy with revenge. But I listened anyway, tipping into the first song’s frantic pulse, snared by Devin’s glint and mayhem as he commanded the stage’s heart, his small force nothing less than glamour and power and grace.
That first piece ended suddenly, punching into my belly, then settled around me nice and slow with a rumbly note held out by the bassist. As the note waned, he picked up a bow and drew it long and mournful across all his strings–making a sonic specter that the rest of the band soon gave fat and flesh and a spine as they launched into some sort of tormented epic.
My eyes locked on Moss as he started thumping away on the deep, giant drum on his right. I couldn’t see his face under his hood, his nose so close to the drum he could’ve licked it. He wasn’t hidden in shadow–he was sunk in intensity. He didn’t seem so weak anymore; he didn’t even seem human. He was a creature, a force of nature, and the thought of that nearly made me happy–he’d become something I could almost understand.
But for a popup artist such as myself, used to the four-dimensional overload of a hot and crackling Blowup, it was all a little too singular for me. I got restless. As Skyglass flurried toward the end of their set, I slipped into the darker half of the Elektrodagger, where the music was muffled and only a dim crimson light bled from the low ceiling.
I poked my head into a couple of doorless rooms, found a pair of the spiky-tongues fucking, even came across a corpse so peaceful I nearly thought it was sleeping–but no father. I grumbled to myself and made my way back to the stage, disgruntled but not surprised. Father number two liked dry heat and light. The Elektrodagger was murky, and the only heat it had on tap was wet and bloody.
Everyone had mostly packed up and gone by the time I got back: just Moss and Marko remained, plus the bassist, who perched on the edge of the stage and noodled around on his instrument. I paused and watched him play, half-amused by his serene intensity. It seemed wrong: intensity was supposed to be all scalding and canines.
The bassist reached out with a hand as I stood there, the fingers of the other still creating a ceaseless sound. We shook hands.
“Your name fits you,” he said after I’d introduced myself. “I like its synchrony.” Then he frowned a little and added, “I’m Zinn, which doesn’t mean much, and doesn’t really fit me, anyway.”
He was lanky like a young tree, and his palms felt like bark. Calluses. I wondered what they were from–too widespread to just be the result of string-flicking. His hair was the cold green of a canopy. I thought maybe it didn’t matter that we weren’t compatible.
I bared my teeth at the bassist, then approached Moss; he and Marko were still dealing with his monster of an instrument. When I got close, Moss gave me a dull look. He had a pair of splintered sticks dangling from one hand, tape in the other.
“Won’t that rot up your playing? And the sound?” Marko asked.
“Yeah.” Moss’s voice sounded deader than the creaky jaw of an ancient skull. Too dead. It almost sounded like he was trying to hide how pissed he was–pissed at me, probably. “But sticks cost money,” he said.
I plinked my crimson nails against the pretty sheen of a cymbal. “I’m paying your rent, remember? Shouldn’t that free up a credit or two?”
Marko gave me a nauseated, befuddled glance and backed off a little.
“Maybe,” Moss muttered. “Whatever.” He shoved the still-broken sticks into a bag.
“Anyway, sweetling,” I began, “I didn’t come to apologize for my blasphemous breach of your trust, but to congratulate you on your performance. You were almost tasty to watch. You didn’t reach the fructo-high of a Blowup, but you came close. So. Well done.”
Moss grunted at me.
Marko gave me a shaky look, then said in a rush, “Y’know, I hate to agree with the lady who’s invaded your space, but you guys really raged tonight. And definitely better than a rotsucking Blowup.” He heaved Moss’s kick drum up onto a shoulder and made a quick retreat, obviously squeamish after letting loose such a fervent gush of creepily adoring words. I almost felt sorry for Moss, having to deal with the guy’s nonstop fawning.
“What did you think, O Basher of Stretched Animal Flesh?” I asked, dancing closer to Moss. I wanted to see if Marko’s words had reddened the frog-belly pallor of his cheeks.
Moss surprised me with an immediate answer. “It was okay. No people. Not much different than practice. Almost tolerable.” He shrugged and kept packing up.
I reached into his hood and patted him soundly on the cheek. “You’re almost tolerable. And surprisingly, subtly, astonishing at times.” I was still pleased that he had given me such a prompt answer. Or, to be true, an answer at all!
“Well, I’m off,” I said, taking note of Zinn’s lithe, edible shadow as he left the venue. “Don’t do anything deplorable with Marko.”
Moss gave me a grimace of genuine shock and disgust; I grinned in delighted reply, spun around, and left.
Zinn didn’t take the vus, so I trailed him at a distance, up dozens and dozens of slimy staircases. He could have ridden the lift–a rusty, precarious thing that still looked like it might have worked. Stubborn, I thought, and couldn’t decide whether I liked that about him or thought it was stupid.
Not that it mattered. I just wanted him for sex.
I made my move just before we surfaced from the Abyss. I sauntered up beside him from the dark and slid a hand to the middle of his spine.
No shock crossed his face–just a smile. “Yeah?” he asked. He leaned his bass case easily against the toe of his boot.
“Sex,” I said. I didn’t want to mislead him and risk not getting what I wanted.
Again, he didn’t look surprised, but neither did he look willing. I growled at him wordlessly, and wondered how many seconds of my hands in his pants it would take to bring the tasty bassist around.
I decided against that train of desire, though; flash-fire eagerness made everything so much sweeter. Back when I’d been a whip of flame-heat in the sun, I’d sizzled in the forceful–but willing–give-and-take of the orgies I’d shared with my sisters. That was the only kind of fucking I wanted.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “How’d you like to join me for tea?”
I stopped and blinked. Tea? How…boring, and yet, how sweetly unexpected! His offer bewildered me, but after a moment’s thought, and against what little better judgment I had, I accepted.
***
Once we’d taken our seats inside a large nest that hung from the highest reaches of Raith’s canopy, Zinn finally spoke to me again.
“You should take off your hood.”
I glanced around the thickly woven branches, then to the open door. We were alone in the nest. I was bored, and my hunt wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. Anyway, Zinn was clearly a musical purist–proven by his blissed-out playing of that wooden bass earlier–which meant I didn’t need to worry about him recognizing me from my popup stardom.
“We’ll wait for the tea,” I replied, “then close the door, and I’ll do just as you’ve sweetly requested. I’m rather secretive when it comes to my face, but for good reason: its delicate balance of sunlight and brooding star-death will stun you quite possibly to death, and believe it or not, I try to avoid death whenever possible.” Well, the last bit was a lie. But at least I’d been true about everything else.
Once our server arrived, bearing mugs, tongs, infusers full of crumbling herbs, and a giant pot of steaming water, Zinn rose and did as I commanded. Delicious. When he’d reseated himself on the cushioned floor, I tossed back my hood. “I far exceed your expectations, I’m sure.”
Zinn nodded and smiled to himself. He began readying a mug of tea.
I wrinkled my nose at him, then stuffed a tea infuser full of chilies, plopped it in my mug, and added scalding water. I didn’t wait for it to cool–I just brought it to my mouth and drank it down. I pondered for a moment, then decided to take a risk.
“Why is Moss so…” I started to ask, but fumbled. I struggled for a word, a problem that unnerved me because of its rarity. Finally, I settled on “fractured?”
Zinn quietly took a drink of tea, then said, “I think you need to ask Moss if you want an answer to that.”
I exhaled hard. The basket of steeped chilies caught my eye. I opened my mouth and tossed one in. Why were humans so rotting difficult?
“You were never a child, were you?” Zinn asked suddenly. His staring eyes were green as a jeweled pickle.
I was sure he meant something else–he couldn’t know how hard he’d hit on the truth–but the question scared me just the same. I looked away from him, wanting to hug myself.
He’s dangerous, I thought, but I liked the fear that was warming up inside me, because really, danger entranced me. And I liked that my belly boiled every time I looked at him.
***
The next morning, after Moss had dragged himself off to work, I stood in the middle of the apartment. Our place was really quite nasty, little more than a dank hole. I decided it needed two things: redecoration, and a party.
I went out into the city and stopped by a drinkup to use their communal com, and to get something hot and spicy to sip on. After a few exuberant minutes chatting on the com-com with Devin, I’d ensured that all of Skyglass, plus its outliers, would come by that night for edibles and drunken orgies. He sounded rather zealous about the last activity, so I hoped we wouldn’t disappoint.
Next, I headed for Raith’s more exorbitant boutiques–hood on, of course. Once there, I chose what I needed and called up a barge to levitate everything back to the apartment, plus a few guys to haul it all in and arrange it as I saw fit.
They painted the walls with the most responsive of soul-paint, installed the latest and shiniest of VR systems, and added a giant exear–which was probably the only thing my unappreciative roommate would approve of. I had them knock a hole over the kitchen sink and stick in a window, then put new doors in all the kitchen cabinets–doors made of real glass, tinted blue and pale violet. The workers stuck a gauzy window in the bathroom with a moodily lit, black-tiled shower, then installed heated floors throughout the apartment (because my little cat toes sometimes got cold).
My new room held an extended closet and a giant bed surrounded on all sides by mattress-level troughs, filled with shards of obsidian and red-hot, gleaming coals. My headboard was a wall of real flame. The one thing I left the same was Moss’s room–mostly because I didn’t want him up and dying on me from decorative overload. I didn’t feel like cleaning up a body; I was tired after bossing people around all day.
When I heard the molasses trudge of Moss’s boots in the hallway, I flung open the door and flourished grandly at his fabulously evolved apartment. I let him reel for a few quick moments, then dragged him inside.
“Look how beautiful it is!” I gushed. “No longer must you come home to an icky, festering domicile. Instead, you have a house of glory and gloss! Also, I want you to go shower and brush your teeth–the party starts in thirty minutes.”
A green pallor gloomed Moss’s face. “Party?” he choked out. His grip on the doorframe tightened, turning his anemic fingers even whiter. A terrible strangling noise unstuck itself from his throat.
Then he bolted.
Continued in Chapter 3.
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