The Devil's Metal (11 page)

“Are you thinking about running away?” Sage
asked, seeming to read my mind, his voice louder now.

I took another swig of Jameson, something I
knew was quite unwise, and straightened up, making myself as tall
as God made me.

“I don’t run away from anything,” I told
him. “Sorry, you can’t get rid of the hack that easily.”

I thought I saw a glimmer of appreciation in
his gaze but that was quickly lost when Jacob interrupted us.

“For Christ’s sake, Robbie!” Jacob boomed
from across the room. Sage and I turned around to see the
commotion. Before I looked away, I saw Robbie, fully naked and
sprawled out on the couch, getting head by the also fully-naked
chick. Everyone else was watching, even laughing, as if it was some
sort of game or part of their nightly entertainment. Maybe it
was.

All I knew is my hand was covering my eyes
and I was peeking through my fingers trying to find the door out.
My favorite band managed to go from onstage musical heroes to
backstage-perverted-idiots in the space of an hour. To be honest, I
was disappointed, like to the point where it hurt.

And a little sketched out. Couldn’t ignore
that feeling.

I made it to the door just as Chip asked,
“Where is Rusty going?” and Jacob chided Robbie over acting like a
monkey in front of the journalist. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t
staying. Me and the bottle made it out into the clean (and
seemingly pure in comparison) waiting area where the journalists
and minglers were still hanging about.

I wasn’t about to deal with them either. I
felt alone, scared, and scarred. I went for the bathrooms and once
inside the women’s one, all mirrors and bright orange walls, I made
sure the stalls were empty and plunked myself down on the can.

I don’t know how long I sat in there, just
taking small swigs from the bottle, staring at the floor and the
tips of my boots that carried marks and scars from my barrel
racing. It could have been ten minutes, it could have been an hour.
Maybe everyone was looking for me, maybe no one was at all. Maybe
I’d be forgotten and left behind, a castaway in the Red Rocks
Amphitheatre. My only consolation was that I had just enough money
on me to get a flight home—that was one of the stipulations from my
dad. It was our savings, everything we had, and I hated to think
I’d spend it on a flight from Denver to Seattle. That was one of
the many reasons why I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. We may have
gotten off to a weird and rocky start, but I was touring with
Hybrid and that was the end of the story.

The door to the bathroom creaked open,
snapping me out of my drunken daydream. A girl came in, sniffing
hard and obviously crying. I watched as her feet came into view
under the stall door. Tall black platforms with feathers on them.
Noelle’s après show shoes.

I waited for a few awkward moments, trying
to debate whether I should make my presence known or not. But I was
sure that Noelle knew she wasn’t alone in the bathroom, and I might
as well let her know it was me before she started shooting up
heroin or eating babies or whatever fucking crazy things this band
normally got up to. I still couldn’t get the picture of Robbie
getting his dick sucked out of my mind, and was a bit disgusted
that my brain kept fixating on it.

I opened the door and peeked out, catching
Noelle’s sad reflection in the mirror. She wasn’t doing anything
scandalous, just trying to apply mascara to her eyes that were
already shedding the stuff down her cheeks in black rivers.

“Are you okay?” I asked quietly, carefully,
like she was a young filly I was about to break.

“Why don’t you mind your own business,” she
snarled, but her attempt at looking mean failed and she shut her
eyes to two big, fat teardrops, her mouth curling in an ugly
grimace.

I paused, unsure of how to deal with her.
Mel was my closest female friend and normally so unemotional and
brave (aside from that morning, of course). My mother had been
depressed my whole life, either crying herself silly or stoned off
of prescription drugs. I had nothing in the middle. No
stereotypical female teacher or mentor to go by.

I had a feeling Noelle was a lot like me
though. She looked hard on the outside but the shell was frail and
easy to crack.

I went back in the stall and pulled out a
few rounds of toilet paper, wadded it up, and placed it in her
hand.

“Here, this is softer,” I told her. “The
paper towels will just make your face red.”

She nodded painfully and brought the tissues
up to her face, wiping away the black tears. I stood beside her,
leaning back along the counter, not in any hurry to get her
talking. The last thing I wanted was to be seen as a nosy
journalist. I just wanted to
be
, and to be distracted by
someone else’s feelings other than my own.

After a few more sniffles and when her
breathing calmed down and she wasn’t shuddering, she opened up.

“The guys said you were in the dressing
room,” she said, folding the wet, blackened tissue over in her
hand.

“That I was.”

She shot me a shy look. “You know it’s not
like this every night.”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t know what to
expect. I have zero expectations now.”

“I’m not trying to make excuses,” she said,
clearly about to make an excuse. “But it’s always kind of wild the
first night of the tour. You don’t understand, we were all really
nervous about this show. We all thought it was a lame idea to begin
with, but Sage thought it would be good for us. Whatever.”

A wave of defensiveness rolled off her and
she turned to face the mirror again, examining her tired, sad,
make-up smeared face. She was so pretty, even when she had been put
through the ringer.

“Hey, you’re Hybrid,” I explained. “You’re
one of the next big things, if not the big thing right now. You’re,
like, the heaviest band out there and you seem to be groupie
central. It’s okay if things get wild. I mean, look at
Zeppelin.”

“Yeah,” she said with an edgy laugh. “But
there are no pretenses in Zeppelin. We got to open for them once. I
saw how they operated. It’s all on the table, you know? No one is
pretending anything. Page doesn’t try to be someone he’s not. No
one tries to get their girlfriend out of the dressing room, no one
pretends that they aren’t fucking random sluts when they clearly
are.”

She spat out the last words like they were
rotting in her mouth.

“Does…did Mickey and a groupie hook up?” I
asked, not knowing the delicate way to put it.

She laughed again, the black eyeliner
sinking into her crow’s feet. “You’re going to have a hell of a
time with us, you know that don’t you? Bet you didn’t think your
article on Hybrid would turn into a juicy expose.”

She was right about that. Me with my
small-town, idealistic views of rock and roll. I knew debauchery
existed but not in a world that I could ever be a part of. Now
Noelle had brought up a great point. I wanted to write this article
to bring Hybrid to the world, to earn respect for myself and the
band. If what I saw tonight was an indication of anything, the
article was going to come across as a tabloid, celebrity scandal
fodder.

Now we both found ourselves sighing and
looking at our reflections in the mirror. I was startled by my own
appearance—I looked older and just as tired. My red hair was
frizzed out to the sides, and my beige, suede, fringed top was
speckled with spilled whiskey. My high-waisted jeans were covered
with potato chip residue where I had wiped off my hands. My face
didn’t look as rock and roll as Noelle’s, but the mascara I put on
earlier had smudged underneath my eyes and my lipstick was long
gone. So much for trying to look pretty.

“Ugh,” she said, giving herself one final
look. “I’m going to the bus. I think we’re leaving in the next half
hour, so I’d book it soon if I were you. That’s if you still want
to join us. I won’t blame you if you leave. I would.”

I gave her a questioning look. “Are you in
cahoots with Sage now? As I told him, I’m not running away.”

She opened the door to the washroom and shot
me a wry look over her skinny shoulder. “We’ll see.”

She left, the door swinging in her place. I
sighed again and ran the tap and splashed a bit more water on my
face, trying to fix myself up before bed. Speaking of bed, I had
absolutely no clue where I’d be sleeping. On the bus? Where? Was
there room? Were we staying in a hotel? Or driving all night? There
were so many questions, and at the moment, any answers were beyond
my capability.

I eyed the half drunk bottle of Jameson,
wondering if they’d get mad if I left it behind, and proceeded to
slurp water out of my cupped hands. I heard the door swing open
again and looked up, expecting to see Noelle.

My heart seemed to stop pumping.

It wasn’t Noelle, but the tall, thin and
deathly pale girl from the crowd. The one that looked familiar. The
one with the long sheet of white hair.

She was standing in front of me, dressed in
a pure white dress that hugged her every curve. Up close I could
see her hair was the palest shade of blonde and as straight as a
ruler. Her face and skin was an enviable, creamy sort of pale, like
full-fat milk. Her nose was long, her lips plump and perfectly
formed. Her eye color itself was lavender—a full-on, opaque mix of
purple and pink—and her eye shadow was an iridescent gold that
seemed to move and shimmer on its own, like it was a living,
breathing thing.

She was eons from the face I had imagined in
the crowd. And yet, there was something not right about her.
Something about her gave me the absolute chills. Perhaps it was the
way she didn’t seem to blink.

She smiled, normal, straight teeth, and
pointed at my face.

“Your nose is bleeding,” she said in a voice
that sounded metallic bouncing off the tangerine bathroom
walls.

I quickly put my hand to my nose and lifted
it away. Ripe blood shone from the side of my finger.

I’d never had a nosebleed in my life.

I gave the girl a quick smile.

“Thanks,” I told her, reaching for the paper
towel.

The girl reached out with her own hand and
grabbed me around the wrist. Her hand burned, like it had been
forged in fire. She smiled again, and in my shock, I did nothing as
she took a step closer, her pale purple eyes focusing on mine. What
kind of drugs had she done to get her eyes like that?

“You only get one warning,” she said. Her
grip on my wrist tightened. I stared at her, dumbfounded. “Get out
now, while you still can. We can still give you a few more
years.”

Somewhere I found my tongue. It was almost
lodged in my throat.

“What are you talking about?” I eked out.
What the hell was with people tonight?

“I shouldn’t even be warning you. But let’s
just say I’m a fan too.”

I blinked. “Obviously. I saw you in the
crowd. You’re backstage.”

“This is about
Sage
.” Her grip wasn’t
getting looser.

“I still don’t know what you mean,” I told
her, gathering up some strength. “And I’d like it if you let go of
my arm.”

She did, with great reluctance.

“As you wish,” she said, smiling like
nothing weird at all had just happened. I could feel the blood
still trickling out of my nose. I quickly snatched the paper towel
and put it to my face.

She brushed past me, nicking my shoulder in
the process. My skin burned from the contact. She stopped in front
of the mirror and cocked her head at her reflection. I watched her
carefully. I could have sworn that for one split second, her
reflection didn’t match up, like her face in the mirror was more to
the left than it should have been, and her eyes were looking at me
when they should have been looking at herself. She still hadn’t
blinked.

Shit. This was the last time I was ever
drinking Irish Whiskey.

“I’m going to go now,” I found myself
saying. I started backing away toward the door.

“Do as you like,” she said, not looking at
me. “And you can tell Sage that he can’t run anymore. We will
always find him. Always.”

Whatever, you crazy stalker
, I
thought and quickly disappeared out into the hallway. I could hear
music from near the dressing rooms, and as I shuffled down the
brightly lit corridor, I noticed the Hybrid door was still closed.
The journalists were all gone as were the random tag-alongs. I
didn’t want to spend an extra second in that place, so I booked it
out the main door and headed straight for the bus. The air was
cooling rapidly at this high elevation and the night was filled
with the sound of Hap Starts and Pretty Mary at the stage. Roadies,
crew, and security were still milling about, but I focused on the
bus and shut them out. I just wanted to sleep and let this night be
done.

The door to the bus was open and a faint
light was coming from inside. I climbed up the stairs and saw
Noelle standing in the aisle, brushing her teeth. Her makeup was
washed off and she was dressed in a thin nightshirt. She looked
young and vulnerable.

“Hey,” I said, still feeling wary around
her.

“Hey,” she replied. She spit the toothpaste
into the kitchen sink and rinsed off her toothbrush.

“So,” I said, making my way toward her,
looking down at the couch. “Should I just crash here or?”

“Do you want to sleep tonight?”

“Ideally.”

She beckoned me with her finger. I came
toward her and she pointed at the top bunk across from the kitchen.
“I’m sleeping below, you can sleep up top. I don’t feel like
shacking with Mickey tonight, and you don’t want to sleep any place
that someone could either puke on you or pass out on you. Trust me.
It happens.”

I gave her a grateful smile and snatched up
my duffel bag. I went into the tiny bathroom, the last time I would
see it remotely clean, and got ready for bed in boxer shorts and a
small Black Sabbath t-shirt. By the time I climbed up into the top
bunk and got settled beneath a cheap sleeping bag, I was out like a
light.