Skyglass: Chapter 8

MOSS

I huddled on the living-room couch, cold with evaporating sweat from hours of drumming, and stared at the screen of my p-com.

Just moments after getting home, Devin had bombarded me with a hoard of multimedia messages. Apparently, Mister Quist of the Star-Dusted Ventriloquist not only approved Skyglass, but had already begun publicizing the show we’d soon be playing at his venue–by streaming an unapproved recording of last night’s performance nonstop across the solar system. Even though the whole point of the stream had been to avoid a recording. But he’d done it anyway, and now there was an immortal, lifeless ghost of our music lumbering across the galaxy, with a legion of hungry poppers stumbling in its wake. Devin’s messages proved that.

The first file was a vid that started normally enough–just Devin filming himself eating a bowl of buttered rainbow spaghetti at a slurp-stall. Then a voice–

“Devin? Devin from Skyglass?”

The bowl of pasta disappeared as the little singer spun around in his seat and came nose to nose with a popper–some girl in a baggy-crotched, see-through bodyzip.

“Huh? Um, hi,” Devin said, eloquent as always.

The girl wiggled in a disturbing way. “Oh, I so so so loved your Blowup. I’m a big fan of everything Mister Quist posts, but that live Blowup he put out was just the tastiest thing, absolutely ever.”

“You gonna join us up in space, then?”

“Um, YES. I’m quite addicted–I’ll be at the Ventriloquist, certain as sweetness.”

“Well, good,” Devin told her. “If you bring me cotton candy, I’ll invite you to our band sleepover–”

 

I cut off the vid, certain I’d seen enough to get the point, and then–against my better judgment–began the second file.

It was a terrifying montage someone had put together: a blur of Blowups all inspired by our music; clips of our show bleeding across the soul-painted walls of a hundred drinkups across the solar system; a growing herd of poppers trailing after Devin as he trotted around the black market seeking Peeps.

I stopped it halfway through and rose to turn off the apartment lights. Despair was a shark-sized fishing weight in my gut as I peeked out the window.

I spotted exactly what I’d feared: a knot of poppers, probably slavering for a glimpse of what one of the Blowups had dubbed “the enigmatic noisemaker with a tent on his head.” The poppers were all hiding from the rain under their umbrellas, but the fact that their umbrellas were actually real, live, glow-in-the-dark jellyfish revealed their true nature easily enough.

I slunk away from the window and resumed my huddle on the couch, relieved that I’d reached the apartment before they had, but wondering how I was going to get around from now on. The city had become a death trap, and my favorite way of hiding was now my most recognizable feature.

Phoenix burst through the door, wrapped in an old blanket, smeared in cinders. For a moment, all I could do was gape. Then I worked up enough saliva and courage, and asked, “Did you see the poppers? Did you hear about Mister Quist? How did you get–”

“So many pissrotting questions, Moss. Yes. Yes. Subterranean passages,” she said shortly.

“Oh.” I’d have to look into those. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but she spoke before I could.

“I found my father.”

More gaping from me. “So…he’s dead now?”

She slammed the apartment door shut. “No.”

“I thought–”

“He was wearing a pissrotting gun-repellant suit, my fire’s dead as it’s ever been, and my dearest, sweetest father still has a talent for cowardice. He ran before I could bite his throat out.”

I wasn’t sure how to reply.

Phoenix dropped the blanket, revealing her face and charred, naked body, and then I really didn’t know what to say.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, sorry. Father burned his shed down when he ran and my outfit got caught in the cross fire.”

“No, it’s–it’s not that,” I managed to choke out, because now that I thought about it, it wasn’t her nakedness or abrupt entry that was getting to me. “You’re crying.”

And she was–tears gleamed down her cheeks, like steaming rose water or bloodstained tea.

Phoenix rubbed her face and sank to the floor. “Right. That. Actually,” she said, grabbing my face and bringing our foreheads together, “you might understand my misery.”

“Me?” I asked cautiously. My knee-jerk desire was to squirm away, but for once, I resisted.

“The whole ‘never getting to see your family ever ever again’ thing. You know about that.”

“I…do.”

“I told him to change me back, put me back–whatever, to just make things normal–and he said no. He said, I can’t.” She wiped her nose and gripped the carpet. “And,” she gritted out, “I’ve always kind of suspected the bitter truth, but to hear it, especially from that slime-cocked bastard–it’s rotting worse than anything. I can’t die, I can’t go home. Can’t can’t can’t.”

Gently, I pried myself away from her forehead, giving myself a little distance. “Do you have to be fire to go home?”

“Yes,” she spat. “When I was first changed and cold as winter’s slit, I tried to get back. Lots. Drove spaceships at my mother, flung myself naked into her flames–but her heat pushed me back every time.”

“Maybe he was lying?” I suggested. Speaking to her felt like trying to swallow a moth’s wing without getting it wet.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. His answer felt true.”

“So…what now?”

She sniffed, then rolled her eyes. “Hunt him down and kill him. Obviously. That’s not changing.”

No, of course it’s not, I thought. I gave her a halfhearted smirk.

“What about you?” she asked.

I looked at her warily and said nothing, which got me another eye roll.

“What now?” she pressed. “Didn’t Marko recently vomit out his heart and hand it over to you, all mucusy and sweet? And yet, you two obviously haven’t been talking. I’ve been checking your com, Moss, so don’t hide. Not a single message from Marko. That’s not normal.”

“I…” I began. “I was…trying to understand and be nice, and then I screwed up. I said some things I shouldn’t have and–why are we even talking about me? You’re–you…”

“Stop your diversionary tactics, Moss. They’re pitiful and weak. Also, being nice to him? Not necessary.”

“It is,” I said. I swallowed hard, hating that she was making me think about these things. “He’s been there for me no matter what, and all I’ve been is cold.”

“His choice. You owe him nothing.” She rubbed her face as she spoke, looking more exhausted and beaten than I’d ever seen her.

“But I want to give him something,” I insisted weakly. “I like him, Phoenix. I like his warmth and…and his presence. I don’t love him–I just like that he’s always there.” Now I rubbed my own face, ready for bed and darkness. “Which is why I tried apologizing, only I messed up. I want to thank him. I want to fix things, but I don’t know how.”

“Sex?” Phoenix suggested. She rested her head on her fist and stared up and out of the dark kitchen window.

I snorted. “He might love me, but he definitely doesn’t want to fuck me,” I said, looking down at myself in disgust.

Phoenix groaned. “Just–shut up, Moss. You may be a shrimp, but you’re a sexy shrimp. Really. You’re sweet to look at, and I know Marko thinks the same. He’s stupid, but have no doubt–he wants to be inside you.”

I looked away, uncomfortable. I didn’t like talking about my body, ever, and now was an especially bad time.

“Moss,” Phoenix said, creeping up beside me. “Do you want him inside you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly frustrated. My throat felt rough and my face too warm.

Phoenix sat back, and for a moment, I thought I’d won. She turned away from me and muttered into Zinn’s p-com, probably muttering to Zinn himself–if the gross looks they’d been trading lately were anything to go by–but then she looked up. “Done,” she said. “Check your com.”

Dread flushed my system as I looked at my messages.

“Rot you,” I wheezed when I found what she’d sent me: a reservation for two, tomorrow night, at Edge–the most expensive restaurant in Raith. “I’m not…I’m not taking him to dinner.”

“I just paid for it, so yes, you are,” she said, quite seriously. “And you’re gonna do it right–with flowers and expensive alcohol and really nice clothes.” She stared at me, her face dead, her eyes squirming with fire. “If you don’t do this, I’ll kill you, too.”

“Rot you,” I croaked again.

Proceed to Chapter 8, page 3–>