Dark Muse (26 page)

“If I’m not going home in one piece, you’re
going to meet my good friend here, you ugly spud.” He inhaled and
the sax came alive in his mouth, becoming part of him. He felt like
when he’d rehearsed with the band for the first time, the first
time they played in front of an audience and another’s solo became
his own. But instead of burning notes into an inferno to annihilate
the beast, he took the deepest of breaths and channeled the
soloists who’d colored “Born To Run,” “Dark Side of the Moon,”
“Kind of Blue” and those bootlegs of early Clemons when the song
took a back seat to pure soul. He exhaled the notes. Each tone
filled the cavern and embraced the beast. The sweet pitches
developed and birthed new harmonics in slow vibrato.

At first, the millipede thing thrashed in
anger, or terror. It needed its meal. The sounds disrupted its
entire system and caused the legs to fail in their grasps at him.
The eye stalks drooped in fatigue and the bulbs at each end glazed
over. If they’d ever had sight, it was now fading. Still, animal
instinct ruled his attacker.

Corey’s blood coursed in jet streams as he
felt fear and joy meld. Slow, he begged his lungs. Slow down if you
want to live. He allowed more of the melody to fall out of him,
echoing off the walls, deadening the living tapestries and
confusing the head of the monster.

Play, he told himself. Kill the ugly thing,
even though he knew he only had to escape.

He played, easing out the sweetest of
overtones in a D minor melodic scale, rising one step each
phrase.

Then it happened. As suddenly as it rose, the
head turned and sunk back down into the path, the path that it was
once again. Eyes and legs still swirled, but in a throe that might
have signaled death. All those years living in Iron came back to
Corey in an instant and he launched himself, vaulting over the legs
then stepping right
onto
the head. He was careful to avoid
the gaping maw. He’d expected it to open wide and suck him inside
like Jonah into the whale.

But it didn’t.

Instead, once he passed the head he nearly
cried at the sight of an opening just wide enough for him, or the
creature, to wriggle through. The thing had been hiding it, hoping
to have its prey eventually give in to broken hope. He tumbled past
and crawled through the narrow tunnel on the other side of the
monster. As he wriggled through the hole, a pair of hands grabbed
him and pulled him through.

He passed out when he saw who’d met him
there.

Chapter Twenty-One

Otis and Luke landed in a pile of limbs as
the slide ended in a dead end.

“Ouch,” Otis cried, even as the bigger teen
took the brunt of the landing. “The last time I hit something like
that, I was in intensive care for two months.”

Luke brushed himself off. “I think this is
what your people call the eye of the storm,” he said.

Both boys looked across the flat, oval room
and saw that the exit tunnel appeared to be more like the eye of a
needle from across the cavern. Otis wondered if it existed a
hundred or thousand feet away. The further from them, the bigger
the hole would be; the nearer, the smaller their chances of
squeezing through it.

“Oh, no.” Otis picked up his drum. “I knew I
should’ve skipped that side of beef this morning.”

Luke either missed the sarcasm or simply
found the idea of impending death more compelling than a joke
without meaning. He merely scanned the setting and looked worried
when he found nothing to threaten them from reaching that tiny
exit.

“At least it’s an easy walk to a slow death.
Maybe we can drum through it?”

Then the rain began and their world turned to
fire. Both teens hit the ground and covered their heads.

“Guess we’ll be hot rockin’ tonight,” Otis
said.

Luke stared, mouth gaping, but finally found
his voice. “Better to burn out, don’t they say?”

“Man, you don’t know how right that sounds,
but how bad I think it’ll feel.”

As they watched the ceiling open up its lava
tubes and shoot out balls of burning, flaming molten rock, Otis did
something he hadn’t done in over a year. He prayed as a tear met
his eye.

To get this far only to fail the others, he
thought. They’d lived for each other. Even though he was the only
one with a tight family and everything a kid could want, his
friends were what had sustained him through the tough times. They
knew his pain and accepted him as he was, for however long he would
be on the earth. Death would likely come soon enough for him. He
just hoped it wasn’t before they’d saved Muddy’s brother and
actually accomplished something.

“Isn’t that a person?” Luke pointed to a tall
figure against the near wall, out of reach of the firestorm.

The little man found his tears dripping onto
his lips, causing an ear-to-ear grin to form. “Man,” he cried, “I
guess Tony Iommi came to this place once before. That’s how we get
across and hopefully live.”

Luke didn’t get it,
yet
. “But isn’t
that just a man-suit? A model of a warrior? It has no weapons and
it looks old.”

“Exactly.”

“What is that thing made of, anyway? Could it
fight the fire?”

Again, Otis grinned. “Of course it can. It’s
solid iron, man.”

“What do we do with it, wear it?”

Otis had already found a latch on the side of
the being and was working its spring. “If this can actually fit us
and help us walk, we might be able to get to the other side.”

“Like the chicken?”

“So, you’ve heard that joke?” Otis felt like
ribbing Luke, but even he had his limits. “Many times, even the
chicken met a truck before he found his home.”

They both felt for the many latches and found
that they existed only on the outside. But there was another, a
smaller one, behind it. “Maybe we can both wear them?”

“Buddy,” the smaller teen said, “unless this
thing is made of aluminum foil, I doubt I’d be able to take more
than a couple of steps in it before dropping.” He tried lifting it
and couldn’t. His muscles couldn’t handle the job. Drums gave him
power in this world, but not complete strength. It didn’t take much
to humble him anymore.

Luke recoiled. “But, then you’d be burned
alive!”

“Not if you walked with your arms protecting
me. Some things aren’t that hard to figure. Those fireballs are
hitting the cavern at a certain angle, but not every angle. If you
walk to the exit in one direction, off center as it may be, we’ll
get there unscathed. Well, at least I will.”

“You’d do that? Take that chance?”

Otis sat down as he opened the boots of the
iron suit, the one for Luke. “Buddy, you haven’t heard much about
my plight. Sure, I’ve got the women. Sure, I’ve got the friends and
the music. But, there are a few things that I don’t have and one of
them is time.”

Luke stepped into the leg as several balls
bounced off the floor and careened into the far wall, bursting into
red flames. One of them could easily ricochet into them if a stray
rock diverted it. Otis wondered briefly how quickly one of them
would die if just one fireball struck. There wasn’t any water to
put out the fire and even with his healing powers in this River-led
world, he doubted anyone could survive a direct impact.

“What do you mean?”

Otis found that fighting back the tears
became easier each time he told the tale, but now that he had a
purpose, a legacy to fight for, another creased his eye.

“I was born with a death sentence. Mom didn’t
expect me to last a year. The doctors said five. When we went to
the genetic experts, they told us that if I graduated grade school,
it would be a miracle.”

“But, how?” Luke stood still as the other
teen locked him up latch by latch. Now he had both legs and his
lower torso snapped into place.

“Is it comfortable?” Otis had to keep Luke on
his heels if this was going to work.

The boy grimaced. “It feels like wearing a
metal coffin, but if it means I don’t become a human bonfire, I
guess I have no choice.”

“Then shut your yap and let me do this.” He
wanted, no, he
needed
to help save his friends. “I’ve had my
nose broken by a pen tossed at my face. My arm fractured when I
slipped out of a desk. A leg snapped by trying to run to first
base.”

“What’s first base?”

As Otis snapped Luke into the upper torso, he
smiled. “Something you deal with on a first date. Maybe I’ll hook
you up with a friend one day and you’ll find out.”

Otis wondered if he’d ever get to kiss a
girl, one who liked him for himself, not because he was a novelty.
He would never tell anyone that in the band, even Poe. She’d
understand, but he couldn’t do it without breaking down.

“Then, what’s second? How many are
there?”

“Too many for my taste.”

“But you seem so strong here.” The bigger boy
wriggled into place as Otis lifted the helmet for a sizing.

“It’s the drum. Maybe the River’s effect on
us. But, take me back home and my bones are like tissue paper.
Every day is a crap shoot.”

Luke’s eyes regarded him with confusion.
“Then stay here. Live like there’s a million tomorrows.” The boy
beamed. “We have girls here, too. The others, the musicians, they
seem to think our girls are okay.”

A big grin stretched Otis’ face to the point
of near pain. “You’re tempting a poor boy who is about to live one
of the greatest lyrics in history. Tempting. But it’s not real and
it’s not me.”

“What’s real? Is it where you were born or
where you find yourself? Somehow, I think your mother and father
would want what’s best for you.”

Otis slammed the iron face shut on Luke. “Ow!
I can’t see right.” The drummer turned the mask until the boy
claimed his vision was clear.

“It’s not about what they want. It’s my
life.”

“Will you think about it?” The voice sounded
tinny and much farther away. The boy in the iron suit took a
cautionary step, then another. Both seemed balanced, but unnatural.
“Will you at least consider staying? We need someone who lives the
music like you do.”

Otis just shook his head. It was too much to
consider when you already had your death date carved in your head
and couldn’t foresee life past your own senior prom.

“Let’s make Ozzy proud.”

And they began the journey through the
fire.

Both watched the rain of fireballs streak
across the cavern, shot from tubes by some active magma strain deep
within the mountain.

Otis thought,
if this thing ever
blew…

One softball-sized blaze buzzed his head,
searing a curl of hair. Even though it passed in a blur, the heat
caused his skin to tighten in pain. “First time I’ve ever had a
cave burn,” he shouted to the boy in the iron mask. The smell of
burnt hair turned his nose, reminding him of a barbeque gone
wrong.

Luke began to walk, one heavy step after
another. Otis hurried in front of him, judging the trajectory of
the deadly balls with his own steps. The clang of the metal joints
reminded Otis of the Renaissance Faire in New York, where knights
jousted and swordplay occurred daily. He wished he was there now,
walking through the shady, cool paths with his family, sucking down
an Italian ice, surrounded by ladies clad in medieval attire.

Instead, he felt sweat run off him in streams
that did nothing to lower the temperature. “You okay in there?”

Another clang as Luke fought to keep his
footing. Otis knew that if the boy fell, there would be no rising.
Otis didn’t have the strength to help and with the weight of the
suit and barrage of lava balls, he would be a sitting duck. A
cooked one, too.

“No sweat,” the other replied, but his
breathing already sounded labored.

A basketball-sized flame struck him dead
center in the chest. He staggered, but held his ground. “Get.
Under. Me. Now.” Pain sounded in his voice.

Otis looked around for protection. None
showed itself. Across the cavern, no shelter was present. As open
as a football field with opponents that put the hardest hitting
Giants and Jets to shame, the area stood barren and deadly.

He recalled the film he saw in history class
about World War I and trench warfare. Soldiers on both sides waited
in deep ditches that ran miles in either direction. They shook in
fear, awaiting the whistle or siren that screamed at them to leave
the relative safety of the trench and venture into the open
graveyard where protection existed only in hopes and prayers. When
they left their safe haven the young soldiers found countless
bullet-riddled bodies where the only barriers existed in the form
of razor wire.

He and Luke had even less to block incoming
death. Should he stand behind or under Luke? Did it even matter?
Logic told him Luke was probably right; the greatest safety from a
mass of molten rock obliterating him would be under the armored
suit, but he didn’t wish to be a coward. He wanted to be in the
suit, to be the hero for once.

Not happening this time
, he thought as
he looked up at the suit that likely inspired the song. Never could
he have fit in there and walk. As long as Luke moved steadily, they
should be fine. The teen held his arms up, forming a protective
barrier as Otis huddled beneath.

Another fireball slammed the iron with a
metallic clash. This time, it bounced off the teen’s head. A glob
of rock stuck to the helmet and sizzled.

Otis looked around for a stick to strike it
off, but the cavern floor was barren save for more rocks. He
grabbed one and yelled at his comrade.

“Lean down!”

No reply.

“Bend down!” he screamed, noticing that the
rock still burned at the helmet. It stuck like crazy glue to the
surface. It likely wouldn’t burn through, but the temperature must
be near seven hundred degrees.