Rock On (11 page)

“Like tonight?”

“Yeah, but that’s not typical. I almost never get lost, even in unfamiliar terrain. I have an intuitive sense of direction, but that night I’d been injured.” I raised my robe enough for her to see the scars on my thigh. “I was on foot, night falling fast, then along came an old Jeep full of Afghans, all impeccably dressed, going to a wedding.”

“A wedding party in the middle of Afghanistan?”

“Not the middle. The boarder area near Pakistan. And they weren’t the wedding party, just the musicians. They offered to take me to the village, get someone to patch me up, send word to my people.”

“The military?”

“No. My people weren’t the military.”

“Journalists?”

“Listen, here’s the part you need to know. I was bleeding and dirty, but they made room and drove me to the village where the locals found me a bed for the night.” I stared at the wall, reliving it now, seeing it all as if it were happening again. “It was a small bed, made for a child. I couldn’t lie flat, and I was sitting up, listening to the wedding music playing across the way. The sound lessened my pain, put me at ease. That’s the thing about music, it changes us, alters our perceptions. At least, it’s always been that way with me. So I was sitting there, no longer hurting . . . and then suddenly everything exploded. It was a drone attack . . . direct hit on the celebration.” I paused, swallowed. “Score one for the insurgents.”

“The insurgents had drones?”

“No. The American forces had drones, but insurgents had information. They provided the coordinates, claimed the place was a Taliban safe house. That’s the way they like to do it. They get others to settle their differences. Keeps them from having to take out their own kind.”

I had a pretty well stocked first-aid kit, and after she’d soaked for a while I used it to patch her up. Then I went downstairs and cleaned her blood from the door. When I got back she was lying on my couch, staring at the ceiling. “Got any beer, Lorcan?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I need to talk, Lorcan. Trust me. Drinking will make it easier.”

I got us each a bottle, then sat beside her as she described the Quicksilver she had seen, a creature only vaguely human. “He uses the music as a shield. Somehow, in the lights, performing for the right people, he hides what he really is.”

“The
right
people.”

“Yeah. People like you. Like you said, music alters moods, changes perspective—”

“Changes a monster to a man?”

“I know. Sounds crazy. But it explains why he started singing before stepping into the lights, and why he left the stage so quickly when the music stopped.”

“I really don’t think—”

“You were there, Lorcan. You saw—”

“A charismatic performer—”

“But that’s not what I saw, and that’s why Quicksilver came for me, would have killed me if I hadn’t gotten away.”

There was no denying her wounds, but I needed more proof. “You took pictures, right? There’s no music on a still image. We should look—”

“We can’t.” She sat up, wincing the way she had when sitting in the tub. “Quicksilver took my jacket, pulled it off me when I tried getting away. My camera and wallet were in the pockets.”

“We should call the police.”

“And tell them what?”

I had been sitting on the floor beside the couch. Now I got up and paced, thinking.

“My wallet, Lorcan! You know what that means? It knows who I am, where I live!”

“Maybe not. You said it pulled the jacket off you. Are you sure it kept it, took those things from your pockets?”

“No, but—”

“Will you be okay on your own for a while?”

“You leaving me?”

“I need to check on some things.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you. Hang on.”

I went into my bedroom. My guitar case leaned against the cabinet, right where I had put it after returning home. It was the same Stratocaster I’d been playing since high school, the same one I’d come back to off-and-on ever since, trying to become the musician I knew I really didn’t have the chance of being. I had a decent ear, but my marketable skills lay elsewhere.

I picked up the case, tossed it onto the bed, then opened the closet and got out my field clothes, vest, knife, pistol—tools of my other trade.

She called from down the hall, voice weak and frightened. “What’re you doing?”

I dressed and hurried back to her, the weapons secured under the vest. “You remember where Quicksilver ambushed you? The street name, any landmarks?”

“No.”

“Was it far from the warehouse?”

“It was close. Within a couple blocks.”

“A couple meaning two?”

She paused, thinking. “Maybe three.”

“You were riding, right? Did Quicksilver step in front of you? Force you to stop?”

“Yes.”

“Did you brake hard? Leave a skid?”

“Yes. I lost control, crashed to the pavement.”

I picked up the apartment’s landline, dialed my cell phone number, and hung up. “Hit redial if you need me,” I said. “I’m going to go look for your jacket. Then I’ll drop by the warehouse, see if there’s anyone there who’ll talk to me.”

“Why?”

“They might be able to help. I’m thinking that might have been all they were trying to do when you ran away. If Quicksilver’s hiding behind their music, there’s a good chance they’re no more complicit than I am.”

“But what if they are?”

“Then maybe they’ll give that away when I talk to them, and that’ll be all right too. It’ll tell us a little more about where we stand, what we’re dealing with.” I started toward the door, paused, looked back at her. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Ariana. It’s just . . . I need to do this.”

She stared at me. “All right.” Her voice was thin and full of pain, but something in her eyes told me she approved. We couldn’t just huddle together in my apartment. We had to take action, even if it was only revisiting the scene, gathering information, assessing our losses.

The rain that had been threatening earlier in the evening had come and gone, leaving behind a heavy fog that muted the streetlights, stilled the air. I felt alone, uncommonly afraid, and more willing than ever to believe Ariana’s crazy stories. Yet one thing gnawed at me. If Quicksilver was a monster, what was the agenda? What harm could Quicksilver possibly do by helping musicians find one another, celebrate their talents, and bring joy to an increasingly joyless world? It seemed more like the work of an angel than a demon.

I drove east on Smallman until I reached the now-familiar side street. From there I headed back to the dark, boarded-up warehouse. The cars and people were gone, only the graffiti announcing Quicksilver’s performance remained. I did a U-turn and drove the route again, making two circuits before noticing a streak of burned rubber on the pavement two blocks from the warehouse. I parked and got out, studied the concrete and found some shards of broken taillight. Nearby, an alley ran deep and shadowed between close-set walls. About fifty feet back, something lay sprawled beside a sewer grate. I walked to it, picked it up, studied it in the glare of my flashlight. It was a jacket, or had been. It was now a mass of shredded leather and ripped lining. Only one of the pockets remained. Nothing in it. I knelt beside the sewer, shined my light through the grate . . .

Something moved beside me. I swung the beam to my left.

There it was, twenty feet away, looking at first like a large dog. But then it stood, raising its arms in a gesture that recalled Quicksilver’s appearance on the warehouse stage. This time it didn’t sing. It just stared with eyes the color of mucus set in skin so pale it revealed the tendons and veins of its tapered face.

I drew my pistol, braced it on my flashlight hand, took aim.

“Easy now.” Its voice was low and rough, like the growl of an animal. No music in it now. “I’m not threatening you. Just watching.” It lowered its arms. They were muscular and long, extending nearly to its knees. “I saw you shining that light, figured you were looking for something. Did she send you?”

I kept the light centered on the creature, drawing down on its chest. Hideous as it was, its basic physiology seemed human. No doubt it had a heart. If necessary, I was prepared to find out.

“I want her things.”

“Things?” Its long mouth seemed to chew the word. “Is this one of them?” It opened a hand, revealing Ariana’s driver’s license, her face smiling through the glare on the plastic.

“Where’s the rest of it?” I said.

“Don’t have it on me.”

“Let’s go get it then.”

“No. I can’t take you there. Not yet. But look. I have this too.” It opened its other hand, revealing my business card, the edges slightly bent. “See? I know both of you—who you are, where you live.”

“Put them on the ground and back away.”

“I don’t think so.” It balled its fists, hiding the cards again. “How about I bring them to you . . . not now, though. At your place, sometime late, maybe when you’re sleeping. I could sing for you.”

“I want them now.”

“Was nice meeting you, Lorcan.”

“On the ground! Now!”

It stood there a second longer, staring at me. Then it vanished, but not into thin air. It was too corporeal for that. Instead it leaped backward, moving so quickly that an unskilled observer might have claimed it disappeared. But I heard the slap of its taloned feet scrabbling away in the darkness. I panned my light, caught the streak of its second leap, and then it was gone.

I stayed up all night, standing watch in my living room while Ariana slept on the couch. She got up late the next morning, alert but looking worse: the side of her face clearly infected. I changed the dressing, then crashed on the couch while she monitored the Quicksilver forum for word of a second weekend event.

I wasn’t sure I could sleep, but I did, falling into dreams that swirled with images of ordinary people dancing and singing, forgetting the bad luck and wrong turns that had stifled their lives. But the people in my dreams were not Silverheads. At first they were the disenfranchised youth at Golden Gate Park in 1966, drawn together by The Grateful Dead and a desire to end the war in Viet Nam. They were the people of Czechoslovakia in 1989, defying Soviet oppression by attending Prague’s first appearance by The Rolling Stones. They were Hindu kids in 2008, rocking to the power chords of a Pakistani band that defied decades of blood-feuding politics to play live in Kashmir. I knew of these events. I was a student of music and politics, of rock and war. My life may have gravitated toward the latter, but I had not forgotten my roots . . . nor my disillusioned hope that rock ’n’ roll might one day save the world from the politics of hate and division. I had believed that once. But I was older now, too disillusioned not to wonder what might happen when the music stopped and the thing called Quicksilver revealed its true agenda.

“Lorcan!”

I woke. Afternoon light spilled through my windows, illuminating a hovering silhouette. A bandaged hand grabbed my shoulder, shook me hard.

“Lorcan. It’s in central West Virginia!”

I sat up.

Ariana turned, her face catching the light. She looked tired, but there was no pain in her eyes. “I mapped it, Lorcan. It’s a hundred fifty miles south, show goes live in two hours.”

“Too far,” I said. “Not enough time. We’ll have to wait for the next—”

“No! If we leave now—”

“We’ll have to speed the whole way, do eighty . . . eighty-five through those mountains.”

“Right. Like I said. We
can
do it!”

I packed my gear.

The site was a derelict foundry, dead smokestacks and yard houses standing dark behind chain-links, razor wire, and no-trespassing signs. The Silverheads had cut the fence. Inside, the mill’s yard had filled with cars.

I parked on an access road outside the lot, then got out and started toward the crowd as it made its way toward a cavern of concrete and iron beams.

Ariana waited in the car. This was a one-man mission.

I didn’t enter the building with the Silverheads, but made my way to a rusted ladder that led to a catwalk one hundred feet back from the band’s stage. Here I unpacked my rifle, assembled the pieces, plugged my ears, and watched the crowd converge.

There was no sign of Quicksilver.
But he’s here!
I felt his presence in the air, in the pulse of the people, the shadows they cast in the spotlight as they took the stage.

Electricity came from a line running in through a broken window. It connected to a box on a wooden pole. The setup looked improvised, a patchwork of spliced wires. I could only imagine what the other end looked like, the side that connected to a power company box somewhere beyond the derelict site. But from what I could see the work looked functional—the improvisations of skilled tradesmen who had learned to make do with what they had. It made me wonder again, as I had while dreaming on the couch, at the things such people could accomplish when they set their sights on bigger goals, when music shifted to political action. But such concerns weren’t my reason for being here. My motivations were personal. I couldn’t spend my life waiting for the thing that called itself Bobbie Quicksilver to come for me. I needed to be preemptive, stop the monster before it stopped me. If my actions served a larger good, so be it—all the better to justify the deed.

Tonight the stage featured an even more eclectic mix of instruments than it had the night before. Here, amid the drum kit, keyboards, turntables, bass, and guitars were a fiddle, dulcimer, Dobro, and a washtub bass—all affixed with pickups and jacked in to the main system. The musicians were mostly men, but it was a dreadlocked woman at the turntables who addressed the crowd through an ear-clip microphone. “How we feeling tonight?”

The crowd answered: cheers, clapping, a whistle from somewhere in the back. I heard it all clearly through my earplugs. The little foam cones were designed to suppress high-powered ballistics. They did not block sound. The woman’s voice came through clear but muted.

“You ready to bring out Bobbie?”

More cheers.

“All right, then! Let’s do it with this.” The LED lamp on her headband cut a streak in the air as she looked around. Then she dropped a needle onto a rhythm track, a slice of vintage rock ’n’ roll with a driving backbeat. One bar, and the band joined in, laying the foundation for Quicksilver’s arrival.