Dark Muse (9 page)

“Um,” Muddy said, still anxious. “Where’s
Brian?”

“You expected
him
to show up?” The
towering bean pole nearly tripped over the PA. “Seriously? He got
suspended yesterday for hacking into the school’s computer system
and putting a screensaver of Principal McIlveen in a bikini on the
school’s homepage.”

They laughed, but time was tight. Muddy
wondered if this guy could pull it off.

“All set to knock out some “‘Sweet
Emotion?’”

“Sure thing,” the gawky teen replied, hooking
up his bass straight through the PA system, using only an EQ box to
tweak his sound.

Muddy hoped Leo remembered the original. They
loved the guy, often jammed with him when he was bored, but never
considered him family. Loners will do that to a group. Still, he
was likeable—and dependable.

As they entered the stage, the pompous leader
of Silver Shadow
had
to toss in his two cents, of which
Muddy was sure he thought was worth much more. “Good luck,
Puddles.”

Inside, the teen’s blood seethed, but Muddy
kept cool, mostly from fear of retribution if he decided to give
the guy dental work via a Les Paul. “It’s Waters, Chevy.
Waters.”

He sneered as only a constipated-looking,
anal-retentive snob could. “Waters. Dirty Waters,” he said with a
chuckle. “Is that like a retarded version of James Bond?”

“Hey, you,” Corey said, “yeah, you—the
proctologist’s dream. Feel like chewing on a size fourteen boot
today?” Corey served as all of their bodyguards, even though he’d
considered himself a mouse in a snake pit back in his old
neighborhood called Iron.

“Oh, hey, Chambers,” Bentley said, trying to
remain calm, but his eyes sunk just a bit. “You still hangin’ with
these dorks? You should try out for a real band.”

Corey moved to within a few inches of
Bentley, giving him a hard stare. “I’ve got myself a real band, not
like that soulless thing you put up on stage. And…you screw with my
friends, you screw with me. Got it?”

The pale boy backed up, saluting him. “Got
it, sir. Sad to see your talent go to waste though.”

“I’ll give you one last chance. You mess with
them, you mess with me.” From the look in his eyes, one last ember
of living in Carter Hill’s hood still burned. Muddy, for one,
didn’t want to stoke that fire. It would be almost as fiery as his.
Or Vinnie’s.

Bentley grabbed his guitar and walked off the
other side of the stage. The battle was over for now, but they knew
the war would still rage—at least until graduation, or until
something from the “other side” ended his life. The way things
happened in Muddy’s life, either fate had a good chance of
happening.

Poe laid her hand on his shoulder and the
stress of the whole world went away. “Concentrate, Muddy. Remember,
Chelsea will be out there watching.”

Why did she have to say that? To set him off?
To derail his anxiety? Did she even have an inkling that he wanted
her
? He might never have her. Why did so many people think
he preferred Chelsea, a high maintenance socialite who would never
stoop to dating one of “his” kind? He’d need a miracle bigger than
the crossroads to help him in that area.

They hit the stage and blasted through their
three song audition: “Sweet Emotion,” “Travelin’ Band,” and
“Walkin’ The Plank.”

Not surprisingly, he ambled through the set
with his mind in another world, literally. When Otis crashed down
on the cymbals to end their original song, the guitarist barely
noticed.

“And that was ‘The Accidental Muses,’” one of
the judges said.

People rarely mentioned the band’s name and
they hardly ever used the second word. It had two meanings; one was
musical and one was demeaning, in a self-deprecating way. The first
meaning was obvious. The second came from music theory, where a
note out of a given key was added, usually a flat or sharp. It
added character.

“You guys truly
are
accidents up
there,” Bentley said. He made sure to connect visually with Muddy.
“If I’d spawned one of you, I’d probably keel over and die,
too.”

Son of a…

Muddy finally understood what “seeing red”
meant at that moment. “I’ll kill you, you stuck up—”

“Ooh,” blubbered the smarmy prepster, waving
his finger. “A threat. They might lock you up for that,
Puddles.”

Corey had to hold Muddy back. Everybody knew
he wouldn’t stop until blood covered the floor, even if it was his
own. Then Leo grabbed Corey, as they all knew that if he took a
swing, the golden boy’s father would have the big boy from the bad
side of town expelled on some false charges.

“Edgar!” Poe’s voice cut through the throng
of people and noise. That was all she had to say. The anger raged
through him, but the magic in that voice bathed him in peaceful
waves. “Edgar!” she repeated. “Don’t. We’ll be kicked out of the
battle.”

“Right,” he grumbled. “Let me go, Corey.”

When Bentley realized Muddy wasn’t going to
race to his demise, his armored pythons uncoiled and Bentley
slipped free, just like airplay from those reality show one-hit
wonders butchering someone else’s one-hit wonder.

Rage nearly punched through the barrier of
restraint. Muddy could tell Corey was about to blow as well. Both
nearly bolted for the idiot, but instead, he ripped free of Corey’s
grasp. Rather, Corey likely let him go, sensing his friend wouldn’t
do anything so stupid. Not to someone else, at least. Nearly
tripping over the tangles of cords and cases, the guitarist must
have kicked a dozen random items. Back in the recesses of his head,
Muddy knew he would regret most of the afternoon, but still would
want to take a swing at that rich momma’s boy.

Kicking open the gym door, he tore into a
sprint and didn’t stop running until he hit that same street which
changed his life the previous night. The boy stood breathless,
wishing he had the slightest athletic ability. Despite that fact,
he’d managed to run about two miles without a hitch. The tears in
his eyes almost blinded him from seeing where his subconscious
landed him.

Muddy stood in front of Silver Eye Watkins’
red house. The old man would be waiting inside. Something within
him assured him that the blues man knew his new protégé would be
coming, and knew much more about the days to come than Muddy ever
would.

* * * *

“Took you long enough.”

“It’s called school,” Muddy said, pushing the
door wide, nearly tripping over a gray cat. “They kinda get annoyed
if you don’t go. Wasn’t this fur ball a
dog
last time I came
here?”

Silver Eye waved the boy off. “Dog, cat—who
cares? They come and go, just like my women, my friends and my
family. At least when I put out food, I know
they’ll
be
back.” He snapped his fingers at the ball of charcoal-colored fur
and it sauntered over to him, but not before hissing in Muddy’s
general direction. A far cry from Marshall, his Maine Coon, who
would snuggle up to a serial killer.

“Whatever.” Half of him still was choking
back the tears of embarrassment and frustration of that afternoon,
while the other half just was happy to be in a place far away from
that soulless place named high school.

“What kinda critter skittered up your butt
and died today?” Silver Eye asked with a crooked grin and a
snicker.

Muddy’s fist cracked against the door frame,
causing more pain to shoot up his arm than paint chips to fly.
“Don’t mess with me, old man. Please. Not today.”

“Well, don’t go asking me for a hug or
anything. I ain’t no grandfather-type guy.”

“Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t think of
it.”

The silence between the guitarist’s words and
the ones that he said next stretched into a long and tortuous
moment. He just thought about the trip—and the guitar pick. Of
course, Muddy had to be the one to break the silence.

“What happened last night? Is he still alive?
When are we going back there to get him?” His pulse ran into hyper
drive, anxiety bursting into millions of tiny spiders that
scampered up and down his veins. His lungs sucked air in and out so
fast he must have sound like a psychotic, confused vacuum cleaner
to the cat who’d escaped the living room in a cloud of dust.

Finally, Silver Eye relented. Raising his
hands in defense, he spoke. “Okay, I give. Just
relax
.”

Muddy attempted to speak in a normal voice,
but instead, a Disney creature spoke from within his belly. “My
brother might be dead in that weird place and you tell me to
relax?”

Silver Eye waved down the teen as if an
out-of-control jet came barreling straight at him. “Hold on,” he
said gently. “I was gonna tell you everything, anyway. Ain’t you
ever seen Star Wars?”

“Which one?”

He shot Muddy an odd, quizzical look. “The
one with the force and those light sword thingys?”

“Yeah, I saw that one. There’s six of them
now, you know,” Muddy said. “Guess you haven’t seen them all.”

“What was your point?” Silver Eye kicked at
the upright chair next to him and gestured to him to park his butt
in it. “This might take a while. You know how us old dogs like to
reminisce about the good ‘ol days.”

Muddy parked it and within minutes, totally
forgot his crappy day, but felt his blood run as cold as a math
teacher’s…foot.

“Anyway, back to that ‘Star Wars’ movie. You
remember that whole ‘force’ thing they talked about?”

The teen nodded, wondering where this lecture
was going. Darth Vader with the blues?

“The guy who thought that up knew there
really
is
a force, or something like it. Has nothing to do
with light sabers or Wookies or little furry creatures, either.
Most of it has to do with music—and its power.”

“So…the Death Star could’ve been a blues
club?” Muddy couldn’t resist. Humor was the best stress reliever he
knew.

That one eye pierced Muddy like a
switchblade. “Don’t mess with me, kid. This is serious. Especially
when we’re talking about lives. Not just your brother’s—yours,
too.”

Muddy’s icy blood froze over. “What’re you
talking about?”

“Promise to sit there and just listen
now?”

“Gotcha.” Muddy gripped the arms of the chair
and felt his circulation already begin to slow.

The old man grasped a beat up coffee mug that
the teen doubted held only coffee and brought it to his lips. “How
do you write a song?”

“Huh?”

“How do you know when you’re in that ‘zone’
when nothing you play is wrong? When all the notes are sweeter than
honey?”

Muddy’s mind swirled. “I don’t know. I just
do it.”

Silver Eye stared again. Even his one eye
seemed to bore into the teen. “You
do
know. You just don’t
realize it.”

“What
? Do you want to try English
now?”

“You just do it. The ideas come from
somewhere else, correct?

Yeah, Muddy thought. When the guitarist
simply played, ideas seemed to fall out of the sky. When he tried
to compose something, he might as well have been yanking a brick
through concrete with a strand of thread. But when he
didn’t
think, when he just let it flow, that thread became a thick chain
that pulled him into the song. Of course, dexterity, speed and
chord knowledge took endless hours of work, but when he was able to
truly let go, bits of song rained down as he slid through a greased
tunnel toward that….River? Is that what Silver Eye called it?

“Yeah, man, the River.” Silver Eye nodded as
if he’d read the boy’s thoughts.

“It’s pure magic, but that’s like card tricks
compared to what you began to see last night.” He rubbed his hands
together in excitement like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Harry Potter magic,” Muddy offered, knowing
it would draw a stomp, but his mind was riddled with awe and
tumbling thoughts.

“No!” Silver Eye downed the rest of his
so-called coffee. “This is real.” He slammed the cup down. “You
need to hear this, need to understand this if you want to save your
brother, if he’s not already lost to—”

“To what?” Muddy really didn’t want to hear
the bad news, but had to know. “Lost to whom?”

The man twirled a harmonica in his left hand.
“In the River, in that world we went to last night, lives a figure
that would send old Darth Vader, Freddy, Jason and even Hitler back
to their mamas needing a change of pants. You sink too low in that
river and that’s where his power awaits.

“We call him the ‘Dark Muse.’ “

“Who’s we?” Muddy wondered aloud. His band?
His family? His…whatever?

“All of us,” he whispered. “Everyone who ever
swam in those waters, tasted the music or other arts that
mattered.”

“What does this
muse
do? Inspire bad
songs? That would explain what plays for music on today’s
radio.”

Again, that one eye bored through him. “It.
He. She. Who knows what. All I know is it fuels what is wrong with
that place, almost as much as the River does. Almost. You don’t
want to meet this person. All I know is that everyone who’s been in
the River too long, who looked him in the eye wherever he resides,
is buried. Along with their secrets.”

“What do you mean, everyone?”

He huffed, staring at the walls, the myriad
photos staring back at him.

“Son, this River’s been flowing long before I
came along. Long before man. I don’t know who started it, or
if
anyone started it. Maybe it always was.

“But I do know
where
it began. And I
do know
how
people like Plato, Mozart, Robert Johnson,
Zeppelin, even that caveman on those stupid commercials brought
music into this world.”

“The other side?” Muddy guessed. “Where we
went? But this is New Jersey. None of those guys were even
near
here.”

Silver Eye stood and wandered around the room
as though he’d just told the teen a dirty secret that would change
everything. “Yeah, I know. Jersey. No way Mozart or Johnson would
ever soil their feet here, but you know the other names.
Springsteen. Sinatra. Bon Jovi. Etc. Etc. Etc.”