The Gift (25 page)

The ground shuddered underneath them as Geoff stared in wonder at his own hands.

"Come on, buddy." Doren smacked Geoff's shoulder soundly. "Let's get the hell out of here before we're arrested."

The two men surprised him when they rushed through the door, laughing like a couple of truant kids running from the principal, their faces lit was amusement, flush with excitement. Geoff practically ploughed right into him and Dawson huffed, grabbed the kid off the ground, using his massive black arms to pick Geoff up and drop him flat on the bed.

"Oof!" was Geoff's only reply and he lay prone for a minute. When he gathered breath back into his lungs, Geoff propped himself up on his elbows and glared. "What'd you do that for, you big oaf?"

"You ran into me and I showed my disapproval," Dawson replied, calmly settling back in front of his keyboard. "Show some caution, you little runt."

He tried to keep the annoyance off his face as he cast a glance back at the collection of men. The day was wasting and if they intended to learn the new song by Thursday's performance, they had best get started. Too much time had been lost already. Dawson could feel it slipping past them, as if something kept tempting them away from it—trying to tease them into play when there was so much work to be done. "Are we going to get started then, or what?"

Doren offered Dawson a patient smile. "Don't worry, Daws, we've been working. Trust me, we've
all
been working."

Dawson snorted his disapproval but kept further thought to himself. He was not the leader of this group. "Listen, Doren, I've been reading your lyrics and I don't know if you have an idea for a back chord yet but I worked this up. What do you think?" He pressed the keys and let the music tease memory back into forefront. "They're nice lyrics, warm and calm, so this kind of came to me."

The notes from the keyboard filled the room with a soft, haunting sound. He watched Doren's face carefully for feedback. And the light didn't leave Doren's eyes. That had to be a good sign. He stopped playing and waited to hear what Doren had to say.

"Daws! It's exactly what I wanted," Doren said reverently. "It's
exactly
what I had in mind. Great work!"

Dawson nodded, carefully hiding his smile. He didn't want to come across as desperate. But he'd really liked the vocals that Doren had laid to paper. And he relished the thought of bringing it to life. "Well, it sounds a little hymnal with just the keyboard but once you throw in the rest of the instruments we can bring it back up to rock standard."

"Don't be self-demeaning," Doren frowned. "It's awesome. Now, let's see what we can work out together." Doren sang the first verse, then they had Dawson play the riff a few more times, each one adding a touch of their own, molding and remolding the song bit by bit like a clay figure. Until Doren looked up, halting Dawson with a hand. "Curt, bud, you're not playing?"

Curtis lifted both hands in confusion. "Uh, Doren? There are no drums in the room?"

Doren laughed. "Don't give me that, Curt. You don't need the drums in front of you to hear the sound inside you. You're a drummer: find a beat, use your sticks, and pound yourself out some sound. At least your mind will hear what it needs to. Trust me."

Dawson was the one to act on the challenge. He grabbed a pillow and shoved it in front of Curtis' skeptical face. Then the phone book. Finally, he emptied an ashtray and set it with the rest. "Here you go," Dawson smiled smugly. "A whole damn set of them."

"This is stupid," Curtis said, pushing the ashtray away from him. "I'll feel like an idiot."

"Aw, come on, Curtis," Dawson huffed. He reached up and cupped one hand at the back of Curtis' head, ignoring the satisfied smile on Doren's face. "You can do this. Think of it as a game and stop being so damn high and mighty."

When he released Curtis there was only one more grimace of exasperation before Curtis started thumping out a familiar beat against the pillow and the book, flipping the ashtray bottom-up to get the higher sound of a cymbal.

"It's too soft," Curtis grumped, pointing at the pillow. "I need something harder."

Dawson stood and grabbed a cushion from the miniscule loveseat, almost toppling Doren at the same time. He thrust it in front of Curtis. "There. Try that."

Curtis tried again and smiled. "Better. I can work with that."

They sat back to give Curtis a few minutes to work out the intricacies of drumming without drums and Doren drifted over to perch on the bed beside Dawson. "Nice work. You're pretty good at problem-solving, aren't you?"

Dawson merely sniffed at the question. Sure, he'd been pretty good as a kid. Math had been a strong suit of his, especially when it came to figuring out those word problems. He never understood why people couldn't see around things; "looking around corners" was what he'd grown up hearing it called. Him and his people, his mother would say, they were good at looking around corners. The way Dawson had it figured, most of the time when someone was presented with an issue, that issue was all they could see. When what they really should have been looking at was the answer, and then finding their way back to the question.

"That's a handy trait, Daws. Being able to see past trouble to the spot where there's a solution. There's real leadership in that, you know."

Dawson shook his head. "I'm no leader."

"I think you're wrong about that, Daws." Doren patted Dawson's shoulder before standing and walking to the mirror, eyeing his own reflection. It was a gesture that gave Dawson the creeps. Like Doren was using the mirror to assess the lot of them and not really looking at himself at all. There was something going on with that guy, Dawson was convinced of it. Doren had a problem. And Dawson thought that maybe, just maybe, Doren was looking for someone to help him solve his way out of it. Maybe that's what all the talking was about. Because gods knew, they were doing a heck of lot more talking then they were playing.

He took a long, hard look at Doren's reflected self, lifting his fingers off the keyboard. I wonder, Dawson thought, if there’s a corner Doren needs someone to peek around. Their eyes caught—his shining black ones, Doren's lively blue ones—and the flashes came immediately.

Around a corner Dawson's mind flew and there was Anton and some woman Dawson had never met before. He caught the evil in her eyes before he shifted—another corner—and saw the concert. Floodlights filled his vision, the crowd screamed below him. A corner, spinning, and his mind's eye was on the crowd below, but no ordinary people these … they rolled and pulsed like angry demons.

Dawson's mind tried to dash the image away but Doren's eyes did not release contact.

There again, a corner, and Dawson almost toppled he spun around it so quickly. A darkness that he didn't understand, didn't know. He tried to find his way around it but before he was able to he was shoved around another corner and saw a light—radiance, brilliance—and it was August. He didn't know why the light was August, only that it was. Then he was thrown around still yet another and there … a vision he did not want to see. An image of Doren on his knees. With Anton above him. And a knife in hand, slick with blood.

Dawson realized the rush of the scream had been only in his mind when he tore his gaze away from Doren's. He stared down at his shaking hands and stilled his breath. He had to get control of himself before everyone around him decided that he was losing his mind. He'd never taken a journey that dramatic before—had never flipped around the corners of reality in such a dizzy, sickening way. And what was that final vision? Was Doren destined to fall at Anton's hands? Is that what they were hiding from?

He looked up and found Doren staring again, worry furrowing Doren's flawless brow. Was that the problem he needed a solution for? And if so, was the man insane? That was nothing Dawson could pull off. He was just a simple man from a simple Southern town. He was no hero.

"You underestimate yourself, Daws." Doren's eyes had left the mirror and now burned straight into his own. "Always underestimating."

Doren turned to the rest of the guys, nodding, pushing the concern out of his face and trying to replace it with a smile. "So, are we ready to try this out now or what?"

"I don't understand," August said, grasping for Doren's meaning. "What do you mean, 'everyone has something?'"

Doren shrugged and continued to play with August's hair, winding the ends of August's curls around his fingers. As childish as it was, August loved the way it felt. Doren could make the simplest acts seem more erotic than an entire monitor of Corbin Fischer teasers. "I mean every one of them, the band. You know, like you and me. The first time I spoke with Curtis I got this overwhelming sense of protection, this fierceness. He's like a father lion pacing around his cubs. And Geoff has this unbelievable physical strength, I couldn't explain it if tried. You'd have to see it to believe me."

He tugged a strand of August's hair until he pulled a growl from August and grinned at it. "And it may surprise you that our simple little Cooper is an extremely powerful reader."

August grabbed Doren's fingers, frowning far more at what he was hearing than what Doren was doing.

"I know, I know! It's hard to believe. But Auggie, honestly? I think he could even put Anton to shame. He hears everything. That's why he does what he does, the rock music and weed, to drown it all out. He's never learned how to filter it or tune it."

Doren's hands went right back to August's hair, spinning, spinning, spinning, twisting tight curls from loose ones as he thought. "Daws is a little harder to explain. I'm not even sure I understand it myself. He's some kind of a problem solver. When I listened to him, the idea that floated through his music was that he could 'see around corners.' And he did, Aug. He saw all the way to the end. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't a song I would sing to you, that's for damn sure."

His fingers wandered over August's scalp, tightening, twisting, rolling, and all the while August couldn't stop thinking how an entire group—a gathering of six souls with unimaginable, unheard of abilities—had found themselves brought together. That was no simple act of happenstance.

"Doren," August asked, a sudden thought grabbing him, "who hired the musicians?"

Doren frowned. "Diana, of course. The same lady who called you in."

August recalled his dream, the undertones of the phone conversation when he'd been hired and the night of the gala … Diana knew more than she was saying.

*~*~*

He'd slept too long earlier in the day. And even though he and Doren had spent over an hour on the floor, long after everyone else had drifted off, stealing from each other every bit of sensation they could find, August still couldn't find sleep.

Doren, on the other hand, slept like an infant; swaddled in the thin blanket, his hair over his forehead, he was the very image of peace. Too nervous to stare lest he wake Doren by presence alone, August pulled away and got up to pace. That in itself proved daunting in the limited space. Besides, it was a total waste of time. August knew what was nagging at him and until he finally got the nerve to do it, sleep wasn't going to come.

Well, Diana, August thought acquiring his cell phone and slipping out the door to the patio. You said to call any time I needed to. I now have great need. A whole fuck-ton, in fact.

He dragged the plastic deckchair away from the open door and dialed Diana's number. It rang the requisite six rings before switching over to voicemail, but August wasn't about to let that stop him. He dialed again. It only took a four count for a sleepy voice to pick up on the other end.

"Diana." August firmed his voice. "It's August. I'm sorry to wake you."

"Yes," Diana said smoothly. "Hello, August. Is there something wrong?"

"Only everything," August snapped. He thought to pull the anger out of his voice and then thought again. If Diana had answers then he was going to get them. And if that meant playing hardball, then it was time to put on his glove and take his stance. "And you're going to need to help me understand what's going on here. You need to help us get out of it." The line was as silent as the night around him. "Come on, Diana. Don't play with me. I know you know something. And I'm damn sick of getting left blind here."

"August, go back to bed." Diana's voice was calm and soothing. "Go to the show. Everything will be fine."

"Enough!" August's voice came out louder than he expected and he cast a quick glance at the door. Quieter, he began again. "Enough of the crap. You expect me to believe that you just happened to come across him? That you just happened to follow him through school? That you just happened to help get him hired at the studio? Don't play me for a fool, Diana. You didn't hire me because I was stupid."

"No," Diana agreed. "I did not."

"And the boys in the band, I know about them too. I know what they're capable of. And I know about Doren and what I can do and what we can do together. So stop playing goddamn games and tell me what we're up against here."

For the first time since August had known her, August heard Diana's voice get heavy. "I really don't know, August. I swear. If I had the answer I'd give it to you."

August gritted his teeth. No way was she getting off that easy. "Then tell me what you do know. Because there's no way you would have made sure that Doren had his own personal army unless you knew he was heading into a battle."

He heard the rustle of sheets and the sounds of movement as Diana pulled herself from bed. They were getting somewhere. Finally.

"All right, August. I'll do my best." There was a click of something mechanical, the sound of flame, and the draw of air through a cigarette. "You say you know what Doren can do, that you believe he has a great power. You would be correct on that. He can manipulate the power of sound. And through him, he can transform and send back that power to everyone around him. The problem is that power can be manipulated as well. It was one of the first things I noticed when I realized he had the gift in him because it was especially apparent when he was a child. If he was having a good day, with love and light and joy, the power was also full of light. But if it was a bad day, if he was being pressured with emotion from the dark side, then he too could respond with darkness. So you can imagine, August, now that his power has grown, now that he has recognized it and is learning how to use it, you can imagine how wonderful a gift like that could be to our world? What a beautiful beacon it would be to send out light and love and wash those around him in it, yes?"