A Harmony for Steve

Chapter 2

The bonfire felt hot against their young faces. The fire cast eerie light and shadows against their crimson robes. It amused Frankie D that the church had funded their purchase as “choir robes” prior to last year’s Christmas cantata. They considered themselves warlocks whom Lucifer had granted special supernatural powers. The youth group consisted of six acolytes, all young men like Charles, with Francis acting as the priest. Francis had once studied under a Satanic high priest known only as Railroad in their home state of California, and he had also been to one meeting in Rome. He knew all the rituals.

Charles also knew about the coven of witches in the area, but the priesthood of warlocks would only worship with them once a year, and Charles had only joined eight months earlier. Still, they greeted each other when they passed in the hallways at school or saw each other out in town. To all appearances, the witches—girls about his own age—looked exactly as normal as Charles looked give or take a piercing or henna tattoo.

They began to chant as the moon rose. When the moon finally achieved first quarter, they all stood and disrobed. Performing the remainder of the ritual in the nude demonstrated fearlessness. It also made it much easier to clean up any otherwise hard to explain arterial spray that might inadvertently stain their garments, red or not.

Francis had brought the goat, as usual, but tonight Charles had the honor of both slaying the beast and making the sacrifice. The other five acolytes spread-eagled the goat, laughing at the animal’s terror. They stood at the five points of the pentagram with the terrified goat in the center. Francis prayed over the dagger, cleansed it in the flames of the bonfire, then handed the hot blade over to Charles.

“Do you bring a sacrifice?” Francis recited.

“I bring suitable sacrifices for my master,” Charles answered.

“What sacrifices do you bring?”

Charles turned the dagger in his palm and recited, “I bring the sacrifice of blood.”

Francis raised his arms high so that his naked body looked spread-eagled in the firelight. “Deprecamur, ut sanguis!” We bring you blood.

With that, Charles struck, stabbing the dagger into the goat’s outstretched neck before quickly sawing it out through the throat. The animal shuddered and brayed in gurgling agony, and its hot blood blanketed the naked congregation.

As the animal died, Charles carefully cleaned the dagger using the ritual cloth, then poured olive oil over the steel before allowing the flames of the bonfire to once more lick the blade. Francis intoned, “What else do you bring?”

Now the moment of truth had arrived. Charles swallowed, then answered, “I bring the sacrifice of flesh.”

Francis rolled his eyes up into his head and muttered, “Deprecamur, ut in carne.” We bring you flesh.

After only the smallest of hesitations, Charles used the dagger to slice the very tip of his own left pinkie finger off. In time the wound would heal and barely even leave a mark, and the cut didn’t hurt as badly as he had imagined. He had done it. He had made himself into a human sacrifice at the altar of the dark one.

He lifted the flap of severed skin to his lips and touched it to his tongue, symbolically eating the sacrificed flesh, before passing it to Francis. Francis accepted the offering with great ceremony, then touched it to his tongue and passed it around the circle. Charles had now been elevated to the status of Journeyman Acolyte.

When everyone had tasted his flesh, he used the ritual cloth to bandage his skin and stop the bleeding. Francis then intoned, “What else do you bring?”

Charles smiled and answered, “I bring an enemy for the flames.” With that, he lifted the Harmony Harper CD from the ground and offered it to Francis.

Francis grinned and stripped the cellophane from it, then removed the CD disk itself from the case. He allowed the case to fall to the ground. It would be an excellent place for Charles to hide a bootleg copy of Steven Slayer or some other true believer’s work.

Francis held the CD high and announced, “Nos vobis inimicus!” We bring you your enemy. He then tossed the CD into the flames. Harmony Harper’s smiling face on the front of the CD melted as the flames engulfed it.

Steve jerked awake when he felt the toe of a boot nudge him. It took a moment to get his bearings. The pink sun peeked over the rooftops of the row of houses crowding the shore, bracing itself to race into the sky of a newborn day. The early morning light turned the white beach sand shades of pink and crimson and gave the seafoam a golden halo as it blew in with the surf.

He lay face down in the sand. As he pushed himself up to his knees, he realized that he didn’t have on a shirt and ocean water had soaked his jeans. His head pounded and his stomach rolled. The cool morning air and the remnants of the chemicals he had put in his bloodstream made him shiver.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Though his manager, Cain Proctor, spoke in a normal tone of voice, it sounded like a gong going off inside Steve’s head.

Steve pushed himself to a sitting position and drew his legs up. The sand scraping against his bare feet made him wonder where he’d left his shoes. As he moved, he winced at a sudden pain near his hip. Squinting his eyes against the harsh light of the morning sun, he inspected the nasty gash, gingerly prodding it with the tip of a finger. He had no recollection of what had happened.

He tried to swallow, but the taste of salt water and the grit of sand on his tongue and lips made him gag. So thirsty. Steve needed a drink. He took a few deep breaths. The morning air felt cool in his lungs. Deciding he could maybe stand without falling, he rose to his feet. Wobbling slightly, he pushed both hands through his tangled mane of hair. He needed a shower to wash the salt water, blood, and sand from his skin.

Steve patted his damp pockets but came up empty. Without a word exchanged between them, Cain handed him a cigarette and a lighter. As soon as Steve lit the cigarette, Cain held out a little blue pill and a bottle of spring water.

“What’s that?”

“It’s called you have a concert tonight, and you need to function.”

He didn’t want the pill. He never wanted the pills. Just like he didn’t want the party the night before. He knew he would swallow the pill despite the fact that he didn’t want it. He had a concert tonight. He did indeed need something to help him function. With a sigh, he popped the pill in his mouth and washed it down with the entire bottle of water. He felt a little better washing the salt water and sand out of his mouth.

He turned and looked at the row of houses behind him, getting his bearings and finding his own blue bungalow. He hadn’t wandered too far away this time.

“They’re all gone,” Cain confirmed.

For the first time, Steve looked at him. Cain took the term Hipster to an all new level. He wore a navy suit with all the edges trimmed in white, making him look like a cartoon drawing. He also wore a red and white checkered shirt buttoned to the neck, horn-rimmed glasses, and black gauges in his ears the size of nickels. Steve wondered when he’d grown the soul patch and thought it looked like Hitler’s mustache had moved a few inches south.

“Who are all gone?” The water he’d consumed started to make him feel better, or maybe the little blue pill, and his brain began to lose some of the haze of the hangover.

“The people who were there last night.”

“The groupies you invited?” He started walking, knowing that Cain would follow. “I told you I didn’t want a party.”

“It’s the Fourth of July, and you’re Steven Slayer, lead singer and lead guitarist of Abaddon. You throw parties. Wild parties.”

He wanted to rail and scream, but the pounding in his head prevented him from doing anything more than quietly saying, “I don’t want any more parties for a while. I need a break.”

He felt out of breath walking through the shifting sand. His side ached terribly. He thought he might need to get it looked at. Even as these thoughts flitted through his tired mind, the pill started working its magic. By the time he walked up the steps to his patio, past the fire pit that still smoldered, and entered his house, he forgot about the pain in his side.

A team of cleaners worked on the final touches from cleaning up after the party. There was no telling how early they had arrived to have the house in this perfected condition at dawn. His floor shone. The big white circular couch gleamed. The glass dining room table sparkled. He couldn’t even tell he’d had a mass of groupies there the night before, and at this point, he didn’t care anymore. Framed gold and platinum records lined the walls in place of any personal photographs. He walked barefoot across the tile floor and headed straight for the large stainless-steel refrigerator in the kitchen. Someone had already restocked his supply, and he pulled out a cold green bottle of his favorite beer. He drank most of it before he made it to his bedroom.

Black sheets covered his circular bed that sat on the platform. On the wall above the bed sat a giant framed painting of him playing his guitar done all in reds and blacks. For some reason, a suitcase sat open on the bed. He frowned at it then remembered he had a show tonight. Obviously, Cain had left him a message that he needed to pack. He belched at the suitcase, then laughed at the hilariousness of the action as he sauntered into his bathroom.

There, he stripped his damp jeans off. While he loaded his toothbrush with toothpaste, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. His normally green eyes stared back at him, red-rimmed and pale gray. His dirty blond hair hung in a tangled mass to his shoulders, and several days’ growth of a beard gave him a barbaric look.

He hated himself. He knew it, but occasionally the thought surprised him. As the beer and the pill brought on a mild buzz, he shot his reflection the middle finger before stepping into the steaming shower. He tossed his empty beer bottle in the general direction of the small trash can and jammed the toothbrush into his mouth.

“Dude, where are we going?” Chaz Acker, Abaddon’s drummer, threw himself into the white leather seat next to Steve on the record label’s private jet. The rest of the band filled the other seats and the long couch that covered half of the cabin. Faux mahogany paneled walls with brass accents made the cabin feel luxurious and inviting. A uniformed flight attendant closed the double doors to the cockpit, bringing the two halves of the record label’s logo together. After securing the door, she went to the bar and began preparing the band members’ drinks of preference. The first class sized seating faced both front and rear, lending the small cabin an illusion of space.

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Steve opened his eyes and looked at Cain, who sat in a chair facing him. “What’s this gig on the Fourth of July, man? I’d rather spend my day on the beach and wait for the fireworks.”

“It’s a benefit concert.” Cain looked up from the book in his hands. “They sold out the Giants’ stadium. That place holds over eighty thousand seats. This is a big deal.”

Steve’s heart fell into his stomach. “San Francisco Giants?”

“The very same.”

“Benefit for what?” asked Eli Malcom, the Jamaican keyboard player. He lifted a perfectly rolled m*******a joint to his lips and licked the paper to seal it. His dreadlocks stood up at crazy angles all around his head.

“No smoking on this plane. You know that. No excuses. And, does it matter? Eighty thousand seats.” Cain picked his book back up and added, “Something for sick kids. Not positive. Whatever.”

Steve’s pulse rate felt very skittish, and his vision started to tunnel. As cold sweat broke out over his whole body, he thought, a children’s benefit concert in San Francisco? What kind of cruel joke is this? Maybe the god everyone was always babbling about really did exist after all. If so, it looked like that deity had set him up for a serious, ironic butt kicking, revenge for all of his wrongdoings, maybe.

Eli lifted the joint to his lips and held the flame of his lighter up to the end of it, smirking in Cain’s direction. As soon as it started burning, Steve reached out and snatched it from him. He took a long drag on it before passing it back to Eli, then leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, holding the drug-infused smoke in his lungs as long as he could before slowly exhaling.

As his limbs started to tingle, his heartbeat slowed, and sweat cooled his body. He must have dozed because he woke up as the plane’s tires hit the ground with a loud chirp. For a moment, he felt complete disorientation, then he remembered.

San Fran. Concert.

“What time do we take the stage?” asked Anton Ramirez, the band’s rhythm guitarist. He had short black hair that he kept shaved close to his head and a black pencil thin mustache on the edge of his lip. He wore his standard black leather pants, black turtleneck, and black boots. On a silver chain around his neck hung his Baphomet amulet of a snake eating its tail forming a circle that went around a pentagram containing the image of a ram’s head.

Cain stuffed his book into his bag. “Curtain up at eight-thirty.”

The band’s bassist, Adolf Judge, ran his hands through his long blond hair and scrubbed at his full beard. With his beard and Scandinavian features, he looked like a crazy Viking. He had changed his name from Adam to Adolf on his eighteenth birthday. “Dude, I’m starving.”

“We’ll have dinner at the stadium.” Cain turned his phone on as the plane taxied. “Caterers should have a nice spread laid out by the time we get there.”

Steve sat up and unbuckled his seat belt. “I have an errand to run.”

Cain stared at him for several seconds before checking the time. “You’re scheduled to be on the stage in four hours.”

As soon as the flight attendant had the door open, Steve pushed himself to his feet. “See you at the stadium.”

“Where….”

Chaz, Steve’s best friend since fifth grade, put a hand on Cain’s arm. “I’m going with him. We’ll see you at the stadium.”

Annoyed that Chaz had intervened and simultaneously relieved that he would not have to go alone, Steve gave his best friend a short nod. Chaz knew, and Chaz had his back.

“Don’t be late,” Cain said. “You have one hour. One. Hour.”

Steve stole a glimpse of Chaz’s profile as they walked across the tarmac. “You don’t need to babysit me, man.”

Chaz spun a drumstick in his hand like a baton. He stood shorter than Steve’s six feet, with red hair and a red goatee. His green eyes looked at his best friend with a sober expression. “I kind of do, bro.”

Steve stopped walking and patted his pockets. “I don’t have any….”

“It’s all good, bro.” Chaz slapped his hip. “I got some cash. We’ll catch a cab.”

Twenty minutes later, the two men stood in the cemetery and stared at the polished marble headstone. Steve fell to his knees in front of it. As shaky as he felt, his hand was steady as he traced his fingers over the words.

GRACE SLATER

BELOVED DAUGHTER

The wail came out of Steve’s soul, and he found himself face down in the grass with the tombstone at his head.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he whispered, over and over again. The drugs mixed with the grief and made his body feel like the earth spun faster and faster around him, until he gripped the grass with both hands, afraid that the force of the spinning world would throw him off the face of the planet.