The Devil's Metal (7 page)

The cab was only able to get so far before
we were met with the barricade that cut off the road from the
backstage area. We climbed out of the car, armed to the neck with
alcohol, and made our way toward the guard at the gate.

Jacob was talking to him, motioning his head
in my direction.

“The other redhead is with us.”

“Where’s her pass?” asked the unsmiling
guard. He was built like Andre the Giant, only Andre smiled a lot
more.

Jacob sighed. “I don’t have it on me. It’s
inside. I’ll come show you later, okay, mate?”

“She can’t come in without a pass.
Rules.”

Noelle rolled her eyes at the hold-up and
quickly flashed her badge from out of her purse. She pushed past
the guard and disappeared into the darkening area behind the
stage.

Jacob looked back at me and seemed to be
thinking.

A cool breeze came rolling down the
cliffsides and mussed up my hair. I felt disheveled and stupid
standing there with my arms wrapped around two cases of beer, being
told I couldn’t come inside like I wasn’t good enough.

Jacob came over, set the flat down on the
dusty ground, and pulled his laminated pass over his head. He
placed it around my own neck, giving me a look. “I’d go and get it
but I’m afraid you’ll take off with everyone’s beer. And if Mickey
doesn’t get his Carlsberg, he’s gonna be right pissed. Try to
follow Noelle. The band should be in their dressing room, if not
the bus. And tell someone to come get me, please.”

He gave me a little shove toward the guard.
Shoving seemed to be his thing.

Suddenly I was full of panic. I couldn’t go
in alone! I was already getting flack and I wasn’t even inside the
venue yet.

“Who do I ask? Where do I go?”

“Are you deaf, woman? Get someone.
Preferably from the band. You do remember what the band looks like,
right?”

I nodded dumbly and found myself walking
past the guard with Jacob’s pass around my neck. I shot Jacob a
look through the chain link fence. He gave me a “bye bye” wave,
before plucking a beer out of the flat and opening it with a
satisfying crack.

I turned around and tried to get my
bearings. I was behind the stage and it wasn’t at all like I
pictured. The road continued off to the side, where two large buses
sat. Along the rock faces, multiple doors disappeared into it, all
guarded by different men, checking passes for everyone. At the
stage area, a few lucky souls were lined up along the side, while
sound technicians fiddled with the board and roadies ran about with
instruments.

I looked down at the pass that was resting
on top of the case of Carlsberg. It said ALL ACCESS across it. If I
wasn’t so lost and nervous, I would have felt like doing a little
kick of joy. All my passes before were either photo or media
passes—I’d never had the coveted All Access Backstage Pass for
anything before.

“Hey, those beers for me?”

I looked to my left to see a cute, smiling
guy in a Sabbath t-shirt approaching me.

I smiled uneasily at him. “No, they’re for
Hybrid, and apparently Mickey will be pissed if he doesn’t get his
share soon.”

I hoped I sounded cool.

“Good point,” he said. He stood beside me
and peered down at my pass. “Ooh, All Access. Aren’t you
fancy?”

I took a quick glance at his pass and found
it to be hanging off the side of his jeans. I guess that was the
cool way to wear it.

“You’re apparently fancy, too.”

He grinned. He reminded me a bit of Robert
Redford, if Redford had a slight beer belly, tattoos, shaggy black
hair, and a mustache. He held out his hands.

“Well, here let me help you. I promise not
to drink any.”

I let him take the Corona but kept the
Carlsberg close to my chest.

“I’m Chip, by the way.”

“Dawn.”

“And so, Dawn,” he said, “might I ask why
you have Mickey Brown and Sage Knightly’s beer?”

So the Corona was for Sage. Interesting. I
think that was the most I knew about him.

And here went the spiel I’d have to repeat
for the month of August.

“I’m a music journalist for Creem Magazine.
I’m going on the road with the band for this tour, and hopefully if
I write a good enough story, I can get the band on the cover.”

He raised his brow. “And are you a fan of
the band?”

I grinned. “One of the biggest.”

He returned the smile. “Well aren’t they
lucky. For once, they get a journalist who’s a fan
and
she
ends up being a hot chick on top of it.”

That thing where I rarely blushed? It was
happening again.

“I’m just hoping they won’t toss me out of
the bus in the middle of Kansas,” I said, thinking of moody
Noelle.

“No way. Anything goes with Hybrid, so as
long as you keep the alcohol flowing and the coke powdered.”

Now it was my time to raise my brows.

He stroked his mustache and looked
chagrined. “Ah, fuck. I guess I shouldn’t be telling you these
things, should I? Hell, you’re going to be on the road with us,
you’d find out sooner or later.”

“Us?” I repeated.

He nodded. “I’m the sound tech. I like to
think I’m the best, but I’m really just the most loyal. Come on,
let’s get those boys some beers.”

I looked back at Jacob on the other side of
the fence. He was drinking his beer and talking to a few
people.

“Jacob needs a pass too,” I told him. “He
gave me his.”

Chip raised his hand in the air in dismissal
and started walking toward the buses. “Jacob’s The Cob, man. He can
take care of himself.”

I shot Jacob one last glance and then
hurried after Chip, the bottles in the box rattling against each
other.

He stopped in front of one of the buses, an
aging forty foot behemoth of scuffed chrome and peeling green
paint. The windows were tinted, but from the faint afternoon light
coming in the other side, I could see movement inside and
silhouettes. The vague drone of a stereo emanated from the closed
doors.

“This is it. The Green Machine,” he said,
looking up at the bus with pride. “She’s a piece of shit but we’ve
decided to love her anyway.”

He gave me a coy glance over his
shoulder.

“You ready to meet the band and your home
for the next few weeks?”

My mouth went all dry and I couldn’t speak.
I nodded slowly, my body caught in a net of apprehension. My
fingers gripped the box of beer until it hurt, and I had the
greatest urge to just run far, far away.

He let out a laugh, clearly amused by my
attack of nerves, and pounded his fist on the bus door.

“Let me in, you fuckers!” he demanded.

The bus swayed back and forth slightly. The
door proceeded to shudder and then eased open with a hiss of
hydraulics.

He went up the first few steps, passing the
beer to someone inside who I couldn’t see properly, and paused.

“Are you guys ready to meet Rusty?” he
yelled into the bus.

Rusty? I was Rusty now?

“Who the fuck is Rusty?” someone hollered
back.

“It’s that groupie chick,” I heard Noelle
say from inside.

I nearly dropped the entire case of beer on
my foot. My fingers clung on strong with anger instead of
nerves.

“Well, I don’t think she’s a groupie, per
se…” Chip trailed off. He looked over at me. “Well, get on over
here and say hello.”

I took in a deep breath and willed my legs
to move. Somehow my sneakers carried me to the bus door and I
climbed up the stairs until I was at the top of them beside
Chip.

I gave him an anxious smile then turned to
face everyone in the smoke-filled bus.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget
it
,
that feeling of having a band that you loved, the faces you gazed
at in magazines, the ones who created life-changing music, staring
back at you, and only you. It was almost too much to take in at
once, but my brain did a commendable job of taking a snapshot of it
as Bad Company’s “Rock Steady” provided the soundtrack.

Behind the empty bus driver’s seat was a
table with two benches on either side of it. Noelle and Mickey sat
on one side facing me, Noelle in his lap. Her arms were draped all
over her boyfriend, the quiet rhythm guitarist. He was of medium
height, dressed in khaki green suede that was too big for him. I’d
seen pictures of him with his shirt off and he was pretty thin and
ripped with fine muscle. His eyes were dark and wary, his hair
long, his beard and mustache adequately bushy.

Across from him and turning around in his
seat to see me was Robbie Oliver.
The
Robbie Oliver. The
Metal Monkey. The Spazz of the Stage. The Singing Seducer. And he
looked just like I imagined he would. He wasn’t the tallest guy,
maybe my height, but he had a gymnast’s body that he usually showed
off in the tightest pants and undershirts. He had moves, he was
flexible, and on stage he was a maniac. Off stage he had a
reputation for being a lady-killer. From what I understood, he had
a fiancé in California, but that didn’t stop the rumors from
flying.

And how could they not? Robbie had three
things going for him: one, his charm—he was a gregarious man, full
of snappy one-liners and quick wit. He was never rude to the press
or to fans, even when they got too nosy or extreme. Two, his looks.
Robbie was twenty-eight like most of the band and had that
wonderful boy meets man appeal. His hair was a shiny and thick
chestnut, the kind you’d see in shampoo commercials. It fell blunt
across his forehead and longer in the back and nicely framed his
sparkling blue eyes and dimples. He was somehow cute and sexy at
the same time, and the sexiness came from three—the fact that he
could sing the panties off of anyone. Any woman, anyway, and I was
sure any man. Robbie Oliver was the man Mel waxed on about when we
were going through the rock stars we’d like to shag list (I should
not have to point out that the list was her idea and my only
contribution was to nod and listen to her). She didn’t like
Hybrid’s downtuned guitars, but she did love Robbie’s soaring
voice.

And here he was, shirtless except for an
open sky blue vest that matched his eyes. And he was looking at me.
Smiling.

It took all my energy to look away, and when
I did, my eyes rested on Graham Freed. He was sitting at the front
of a long couch, closest to me. Graham was an amazing drummer and
one of the key aspects to Hybrid’s success (in my opinion, anyway)
but he certainly wasn’t the most charismatic. Oh, he wasn’t bad
looking by a long shot—none of the guys in the band were anyone
you’d find fault with. He had shoulder-length black hair and a thin
beard and was covered in tattoos and strange piercings that made
him look like a tribesman. He loved to admit his fascination with
the occult, never really refuted the fact that he had ties to a
Satanic church, and was just a general oddball. Of course, everyone
knew the whole thing was bunk and it was just for show, but his
opinions made him annoying. To me, Graham was always the
disgruntled drummer of the band constantly vying for attention.

Except in this case, Graham looked like he
didn’t want any attention from me. In fact, I could have sworn he
shuddered at my presence and his brows were knit in confusion.

I kept my eyes moving and settled on the
last person on the bus. The person sitting at the end of the long
couch.

Sage Knightly.

He was leaning against the wall with a book
in hand, his long, black-jean clad legs sprawled in front of him.
On his feet were his trademark flip-flops, his wide upper body in a
wide-collared black shirt that was unbuttoned halfway, a peek of
his scruffy firm chest popping through. Tattoos drifted out of the
sleeves and onto his forearms. He was looking at me with all the
intensity in the world, and in my numb state I couldn’t read any
expression on his face. His gray-green eyes were clear and
piercing, framed dramatically by his low, strong brows. Black curly
hair fell softly on his forehead and onto the sides. His dimpled
chin was strong, his bottom lip was full with an upper lip that
curved sweetly. His skin was bronzed and looked more exotic in
person, alluding to his rumored Hispanic ancestry.

He was the man on my wall.

My musical hero.

My musical crush.

And he was on the bus, sitting there, right
in front of me.

No, wait…he was leaving.

With a slight narrowing of the eyes, he
finally stopped staring, and after giving everyone what seemed to
be a disgusted look, got up and marched down the aisle toward me.
He was so tall he almost had to duck down as went by. I leaned
against Chip to get out of his way—Sage was built like a brick
house and probably would have clipped my shoulder.

“We have your beer!” Chip yelled after him
as Sage pushed past me and stomped off the bus. He didn’t even
throw us a backward glance.

I looked back at Chip, my heart racing, the
urge to vomit teasing me. What the hell just happened there? Did I
piss him off somehow? Already?

Also: Holy smokes, Sage Knightly just
touched me.

Chip grinned. “Welcome to the band,
Rusty!”

“You’re not the guy from Rolling Stone,”
Graham said to me, sounding accusatory.

I looked at him, surprised. “Rolling Stone?
No, Creem.”

“I thought I asked for someone from Rolling
Stone,” he mumbled angrily. Wait, the drummer arranged for
this?

“Who cares, she’s hot,” Chip said, putting
his arm around me. “Come on, put down the beers, let’s get the
introductions over with.”

I put the beers on the table, right in front
of Robbie. Our eyes met and I immediately tore mine away, too many
weird emotions going through me at once. I was bewildered, shook
up, confused, and in disbelief.

“Nice to meet you, Rusty,” Robbie said in
his smooth voice. “I’m Robbie.”