Every Which Way But Dead

It chirped happily at me as I unlocked it and dropped my bags in the unusable backseat. I folded myself into the front, setting Jenks carefully on my lap, where he might stay a little warmer. The heat went on full-bore as soon as I got the engine started. I tunked it into gear and was ready to pull out when a long white car slid up alongside in a slow hush of sound.

Affronted, I glared as it double-parked to block me in. “Hey!” I exclaimed when the driver got out in the middle of the freaking road to open the door for his employer. Ticked, I jammed it into neutral, got out of my car and jerked my bag farther up my shoulder. “Hey! I’m trying to leave here!” I shouted, wanting to bang on the roof of the car.

But my protests choked to nothing when the side door opened and an older man wearing scads of gold necklaces stuck his head out. His frizzed blond hair went out in all directions. Blue eyes glinting in suppressed excitement, he beckoned to me. “Ms. Morgan,” he exclaimed softly. “Can I talk to you?”

I took my sunglasses off, staring. “Takata?” I stammered.

The older rocker winced, his face sliding into faint wrinkles as he glanced over the few pedestrians. They had noticed the limo, and with my outburst, the jig, as they say, was up. Eyes pinched in exasperation, Takata stretched out a long skinny hand, jerking me off my feet and into the limo. I gasped, holding my bag so I didn’t squish Jenks as I fell into the plush seat across from him. “Go!” the musician cried, and the driver shut the door and jogged to the front.

“My car!” I protested. My door was open and my keys were in the ignition.

“Anon?” Takata said, gesturing to a man in a black T-shirt tucked into a corner of the expansive vehicle. He slipped past me in a tang of blood that pegged him as a vamp. There was a flush of cold air as he got out, quickly thumping the door shut behind him. I watched through the tinted window as he slipped into my leather seats to look predatory with his shaved head and dark shades. I only hoped I looked half that good. The muffled sound of my engine revved twice, then we jerked into motion as the first of the groupies started patting the windows.

Heart pounding, I spun to look out the back window while we pulled away. My car was edging carefully past the people standing in the road shouting at us to come back. It worked its way into the clear, quickly catching up and running a red light to stay with us.

Stunned at how fast it had been, I turned.

The aging pop star was wearing outlandish orange slacks. He had a matching vest over a soothing earth-toned shirt. Everything was silk, which I thought was his only saving grace. God help him, even his shoes were orange. And socks. I winced. It kind of went with the gold chains and blond hair, which had been teased out until it was so big it could frighten small children. His complexion was whiter than mine, and I dearly wanted to pull out the wood-framed glasses that I had spelled to see through earth charms to know if he had hidden freckles.

“Uh, hi?” I stammered, and the man grinned, showing his impulsive, wickedly intelligent demeanor, and his tendency to find the fun in everything even if the world was falling apart around him. Actually, the innovated artist had done just that, his garage band making the jump to stardom during the Turn, capitalizing on the opportunity to be the first openly Inderland band. He was a Cincy hometown boy who had made good, and he returned the favor by donating the proceeds of his winter solstice concerts to the city’s charities. It was particularly important this year, as a series of arson fires had decimated many of the homeless shelters and orphanages.

“Ms. Morgan,” the man said, touching the side of his big nose. His attention went over my shoulder and out the back window. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

His voice was deep and carefully schooled. Beautiful. I was a sucker for beautiful voices. “Um, no.” Setting my shades aside, I unwound my scarf. “How are you doing? Your hair looks … great.”

He laughed, easing my nervousness. We had met five years ago and had coffee over a conversation centering on the trials of curly hair. That he not only remembered me but also wanted to talk was flattering. “It looks like hell,” he said, touching the long frizz that had been in dreadlocks when we last met. “But my p.r. woman says it ups my sales by two percent.” He stretched his long legs out to take up almost the entirety of one side of the limo.

I smiled. “You need another charm to tame it?” I said, reaching for my bag.

My breath caught in alarm. “Jenks!” I exclaimed, jerking the bag open.

Jenks came boiling out. “About time you remembered me!” he snarled. “What the Turn is going on? I nearly snapped my wing falling onto your phone. You got M&M’s all over your purse, and I’ll be dammed before I pick them up. Where in Tink’s garden are we?”

I smiled weakly at Takata. “Ah, Takata,” I started, “this is—”

Jenks caught sight of him. A burst of pixy dust exploded, lighting the car for an instant and making me jump. “Holy crap!” the pixy exclaimed. “You’re Takata! I thought Rachel was pissing on my daisies about knowing you. Sweet mother of Tink! Wait until I tell Matalina! It’s really you. Damn, it’s really you!”

Takata reached over and adjusted a knob on an elaborate console, and heat poured out of the vents. “Yeah, it’s really me. Do you want an autograph?”

“Hell, yes!” the pixy said. “No one will believe me.”

I smiled, settling myself farther into the seat, my fluster vanishing at Jenks’s star fawning. Takata tugged a picture of him and his band standing before the Great Wall of China from a dog-eared folder. “Who do I make it out to?” he said, and Jenks froze.

“Uh …” he stammered, his hovering wings going still. I shot my hand out to catch him, and his featherlight weight hit my palm. “Um …” he stuttered, panicking.

“Make it out to Jenks,” I said, and Jenks made a tiny sound of relief.

“Yeah, Jenks,” the pixy said, finding the presence of mind to flit over to stand on the photo as Takata signed it with an illegible signature. “My name is Jenks.”

Takata handed me the picture to carry home for him. “Pleasure to meet you, Jenks.”

“Yeah,” Jenks squeaked. “Nice to meet you, too.” Making another impossibly high noise to get my eyelids aching, he darted from me to Takata like an insane firefly.

“Park it, Jenks,” I breathed, knowing the pixy could hear me even if Takata couldn’t.

“My name is Jenks,” he said as he lit atop my shoulder, quivering when I carefully put the photo in my bag. His wings couldn’t stay still, and the come-and-go draft felt good in the stifling air of the limo.

I returned my gaze to Takata, taken aback at the empty look on his face. “What?” I asked, thinking something was wrong.

Immediately he straightened. “Nothing,” he said. “I heard you quit the I.S. to go out on your own.” He blew his air out in a long exhalation. “That took guts.”

“It was stupid,” I admitted, thinking of the death threat my past employer had set on me in retaliation. “Though I wouldn’t change a thing.”

He smiled, looking satisfied. “You like being on your own?”

“It’s hard without a corporation backing you,” I said, “but I’ve got people to catch me if I fall. I trust them over the I.S. any day.”

Takata’s head bobbed to make his long hair shift. “I’m with you on that.” His feet were spread wide against the car’s motion, and I was starting to wonder why I was sitting in Takata’s limo. Not that I was complaining. We were on the expressway, looping about the city, my convertible trailing three car lengths behind.

“As long as you’re here,” he said suddenly, “I want your opinion on something.”

“Sure,” I said, thinking his mind jumped from topic to topic worse than Nick’s. I loosened the tie on my coat. It was starting to get warm in there.

“Capital,” he said, flipping open the guitar case beside him and pulling a beautiful instrument from the crushed green velvet. My eyes widened. “I’m going to release a new track at the solstice concert.” He hesitated. “You did know I was playing at the Coliseum?”

“I’ve got tickets,” I said, my flash of excitement growing. Nick had bought them. I had been worried he was going to cancel on me and I’d end up going to Fountain Square for the solstice as I usually did, putting my name in the lottery to close the ceremonial circle there. The large, inlaid circle had a “permit only” use status except for the solstices and Halloween. But now I had a feeling we would be spending our solstice together.

“Great!” Takata said. “I was hoping you would. Well, I have this piece about a vampire pining after someone he can’t have, and I don’t know which chorus works the best. Ripley likes the darker one, but Arron says the other fits better.”

He sighed, showing an unusual bother. Ripley was his Were drummer, the only band member to have been with Takata for most of his career. It was said she was the reason everyone else only lasted a year or two before striking out on their own.

“I had planned on singing it live the first time on the solstice,” Takata said. “But I want to release it to WVMP tonight to give Cincinnati a chance to hear it first.” He grinned, to look years younger. “It’s more of a high when they sing along.”

He glanced at the guitar in his lap and strummed a chord. The vibration filled the car. My shoulders slumped, and Jenks made a choking gurgle. Takata looked up, his eyes wide in question. “You’ll tell me which one you like better?” he asked, and I nodded. My own personal concert? Yeah, I could go for that. Jenks made that choking gurgle again.

“Okay. It’s called ‘Red Ribbons.’” Taking a breath, Takata slumped. Eyes vacant, he modified the chord he had been playing. His thin fingers shifted elegantly, and with his head bent over his music, he sang.

“Hear you sing through the curtain, see you smile through the glass. Wipe your tears in my thoughts, no amends for the past. Didn’t know it would consume me, no one said the hurt would last.” His voice dropped and took on the tortured sound that had made him famous. “No one told me. No one told me,” he finished, almost whispering.

“Ooooh, nice,” I said, wondering if he really thought I was capable of making a judgment.

He flashed me a smile, throwing off his stage presence that quickly. “Okay,” he said, hunching over his guitar again. “This is the other one.” He played a darker chord, sounding almost wrong. A shudder rippled its way up my spine, and I stifled it. Takata’s posture shifted, becoming fraught with pain. The vibrating strings seemed to echo through me, and I sank back into the leather seats, the humming of the engine carrying the music right to my core.

“You’re mine,” he almost breathed, “in some small fashion. You’re mine, though you know it not. You’re mine, bond born of passion. You’re mine, yet wholly you. By way of your will, by way of your will, by way of your will.”

His eyes were closed, and I didn’t think he remembered I was sitting across from him. “Um …” I stammered, and his blue eyes flashed open, looking almost panicked. “I think the first one?” I offered as he regained his composure. The man was more flighty than a drawer full of geckos. “I like the second better, but the first fits with the vampire watching what she can’t have.” I blinked. “What he can’t have,” I amended, flushing.

God help me, I must look like a fool. He probably knew I roomed with a vampire. That she and I weren’t sharing blood probably hadn’t made it into his report. The scar on my neck wasn’t from her but from Big Al, and I tugged my scarf up to hide it.