hand away from Orlando’s head, which also hurt like crazy.
That was it. Orlando’s BS detector overwhelmed his survival instinct. “You know why that is, don’t you?”
“Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me?”
“Because while you were out with Carlo testing the biochemical limits of the human body, I was sitting on my ass in the chair composing music. Because your contributions were always the grace notes, the frosting on the cake. Don’t get me wrong, it was great frosting. You helped make those records what they are. But the reason the credit reads Frank-slash-Lockhart is that I am and always will be an artist.” He switched to a tone that was low but cut through the room nonetheless. “And at your best, and you’re well past your best now, the most you ever were was an editor.”
Tom threw his chest and his arms out like a frenzied alpha gibbon, bellowing out an inarticulate yowl of fury. “That’s it! That’s exactly it!”
Orlando had already begun to feel bad. It was a mean thing to say. But then, the guy was trying to destroy humanity.
Tom threw the mic stand against the room; it clattered against one of the benches. He seized Orlando by the shirt, giggling chirpily. “You want to know my secret, Orl? How I found a way to perform the working even though the exact optimal conjunction of the stars is now three years gone? Because, with Maxim’s help, I found an alternate version. One that is hardly ever performed, because of the difficulty of acquiring the material components. Because what you need to complete it is a human sacrifice. Big deal, you say, so do they all. But this one, you have to sacrifice a very special human. One who drives the lead ritualist into spasms of wild ambivalence. It has to be someone the caster loves like a brother and hates like his worst enemy. And how many of those does any one of us have?” Tom lurched at Orlando, arms outstretched, head cocked to one side. He clamped hands on both of Orlando’s cheeks and pulled his face forward. With lips tightly pressed together in a way that said Do Not Mistake This For A Homoerotic Gesture, he gave Orlando a prolonged, bruising kiss. Finally he came up for air. “Orlando, guess who’s going to be checking out a few minutes earlier than everyone else?”
Two bull-necked security types cut him loose from the folding chair and hustle-walked him down a hallway. They unlocked a steel door and tossed him into a room, a smaller version of the one he’d just been in. Flickering fluorescents provided grudging illumination. Kacie and Carlo were in there, sitting on the benches. Kacie leapt up; Carlo stayed put.
“You okay?” Kacie asked. She examined his busted lip and various other facial contusions.
“Nothing that serious in the grand scheme of things.”
“I’d bandage you up, or at least get a tissue to wipe the blood off, but my purse is back in the van. Any idea where we are?”
“My best guess is Brussels.” Orlando leaned up against the door, grabbed his left foot, and pulled it up against his butt, stretching out the kinks from being restrained for so long. He told Kacie and Carlo what he’d learned, and what he’d surmised. He did his other leg and then started testing the door’s lock.
“You’re welcome to try,” Kacie told him, “but it seems solid. Also no person-sized air ducts, no ceiling tiles to climb up through.”
“Distract a guard maybe?”
“They’re pros. Always come in pairs, contact minimal.”
Orlando glanced over at pale and sweaty Carlo. To Kacie, he asked, “Have they...”, meaning, have they kept Carlo shot up? Kacie shook her head no. Carlo began to rock violently, pitching forward and back: “They’re not real, they’re not real, they’re not real.” When Orlando went over to calm him, he wrapped his arms around Orlando’s pant legs. “Tell me I’m not going to see those things again, Orlando. Tell me!”
In what he hoped worked as manly reassurance, Orlando clamped a hand on his former bandmate’s shoulder. “Chill, Carlo, okay, so we can figure something out. We will figure something out.” Carlo rocked less vigorously, muttering to himself. Orlando bit his lip and took Kacie aside, as much as this was possible in such a small room.
“I keep feeling my sense of awareness going in and out of focus,” Kacie said. “I think I have big chunks of missing time.”
“It’s a hex Zhakharenko has on us, to make us complaisant as he shuttles us from place to place.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a spell or something to get us out of here?”
Orlando shook his head. “You know I can’t work any of that sorcery nonsense. It’s really hard, you know...”
“You don’t remember anything your mom used to—”
“She tried to teach me, but I just never got to first base with it.” Maybe I should have applied myself more, Orlando thought. “And it’s way dangerous to just blurt out excerpts of half-remembered incantations.”
Kacie paused for a moment, then asked, “You think Tom will come by again?”
Orlando shrugged. “I’m not kidding myself I have the first clue about the guy anymore, but somehow I think what I just got was the pregame in its entirety.”
“If he did come by, maybe I could break through to him. Remind him of that thing we had.”
Orlando pivoted towards her. “You and Tom had a thing?”
She shrugged. “Just briefly; maybe it’s enough to—”
“When briefly?”
“The first half of the Cannons and Nothingness tour. Why? What’s it matter?”
“And I never noticed.”
“I guess not. I thought he told you. Anyway, it was no big deal.”
Okay, okay, Orlando told himself, concentrate on the main issue here. “Well if he comes by, by all means, do whatever you can to find the dude we used to know. But I don’t think we can count on that.”
“You think we’ll be zoned out under this hex spell when he starts up the ritual?”
“It would be the smart thing for them to do, so I wouldn’t rule it out. But judging from the peevish, grudge-crazed lunatic I just had the pleasure of chatting with, he’s going to want us—me, anyway—fully aware when he sticks the knife in.”
“If he’s expecting me to play drums,” Carlo chipped in, “he’s crazy. No way am I playing under these conditions.”
“He’ll have us up there on stage basically as props,” Orlando said. “For the TV cameras. You can bet there’ll be other musicians either onstage or in the wings doing the actual playing.” He turned back to Kacie. “Okay, let’s do our best to plan, given what we know. Here’s what to do if the homunculi come out onstage...”
Tom had them standing on hydraulic platforms below the stage; when the cue came, they’d rise and it would look like the band was coming up through the floor. Their bindings were not magical in nature: chains connected shackles on their ankles to U-hooks, which were in turn welded to the platform’s plate metal covering. The concert in progress thundered up above; preceding them on the bill was a big rap-metal band Orlando regarded as really phony.
“Band huddle!” Tom crowed. Orlando fumed. He was profaning the little ritual they used to do before each gig, back when they all loved each other. He was still playing with that microphone stand. Orlando could tell it was the exact one from before because it had a pronounced ding in it where Tom had chucked it against the wall.
Tom continued: “Might as well kick it off with the big hit, right? So as soon as the platforms are level, we’re going to go into ‘You’re My Vigil.’ It doesn’t matter if you play or not, but, you know, if it were me having to die tonight, I’d want to go out doing what I was put on this earth to do.” He sauntered over to Orlando, dragging the stand along the flooring so it produced a shudder-making grinding noise. “Of course, you, Orlando, will just have to sing. Can’t have you wielding a guitar, can we? Swung overhead, a Gibson makes too good a weapon.” Tom looked up as the final chords and drum crescendo of the metal-rappers’ current radio hit resounded through the stage. “That’s our cue,” he grinned.
The hydraulics kicked in and Orlando felt his platform rise.
Moved to a futile gesture of irksomeness, he reached out and grabbed hold of Tom’s precious mic stand. The risers moved quickly, frustrating Tom’s upward jumps to grab at it. Tom shook his fist, then ran for his own platform, which the roadies had been holding for him. He’d have to find some other mic stand onstage as soon as he hit it. It would ruin his entrance and make him look stupid. If I’m going to die tonight, Orlando thought, at least I’ll go out doing what I was put on this earth to do.
Lights blazed in his eyes as the stage appeared around him, and the crashing first notes of his own best song assaulted his ears. Might as well lull him with some cooperation, Orlando reckoned. He threw his head back to sing. He made eye contact with fans at the front of the stage. At first, they looked thrilled and surprised to see The Dogs together again. Then he saw confusion in their faces, probably because he couldn’t move around and wasn’t playing lead. A group of them, young girls mostly, began to beckon him forward. He was famous for surfing into the crowd at the front of the stage. Come on, come on, they seemed to scream, but Orlando was stuck on the spot.
He expected the ritual to kick in during the song, but the tune barreled towards its conclusion with nothing untoward in sight. Orlando tried to hear the subliminal chanting on the backing track, but couldn’t. He’d been banged around so much, his ears were already ringing. Whatever fine-tuned sense had allowed