The Last Days

About seven hundred years ago, the disease that finished the Roman Empire returned.

Humanity was already in a bad way. China had just suffered a brutal civil war, Europe had endured a destructive famine, and the Little Ice Age was descending. Across the world, temperatures dropped, crops failed, and whole countries fell into poverty. Wars were sparked by what little wealth remained.

Then a relentless and deadly plague appeared in Asia. In some parts of China, nineteen out of every twenty people perished. The disease was carried to Europe and the Middle East, where it killed a third of the population. The most intense part of the outbreak lasted only five years, but worldwide it left 100 million dead.

Historians once assumed that the Black Death was bubonic plague, a bacterium spread by rats. But that never quite added up: too many people died too quickly. According to some, it might have been a new form of anthrax transmitted from animals to humans. Others believe that an Ebola-like virus suddenly evolved to become airborne, spreading across the world via handshakes and coughs, then disappeared.

But what was the Black Death really, and how did it come and go so quickly?

Keep your ears open, and you’ll find out.

NIGHT MAYOR TAPES:

313–314

18. ANONYMOUS 4 — ZAHLER-

The offices of Red Rat Records were fawesome.

Maybe they weren’t the biggest label in the world—Red Rat was only an independent—but they had an old town house in the East Twenties all to themselves. Astor Michaels took us inside, saying that the richest family in New York City had once lived there. The ground floor was still fitted out like a money-counting room: antique brass bars guarding the receptionist’s desk, the doors solid oak, thick as dictionaries.

There were a bunch of kids waiting in line to deliver CDs and press packets by hand, most of them in full stage dress: black eye-liner and fingernails, ripped clothes and Mohawks. All of them were trying to look fool, but they stared wide-eyed as the five of us were ushered past the brass bars and inside. I got a weird jolt, thinking, We’re rock stars, and they’re not.

I’d always known Pearl would take us places, but I hadn’t thought it would be this fast. I didn’t feel ready for it, especially since I’d only been playing my new instrument a week.

But Pearl was unstoppable. She’d even managed some kind of deal with Minerva’s parents, getting her into Manhattan on a workday. The two of them were supposedly out buying Minerva new clothes, something about her birthday coming up.

We tromped downstairs to the basement, where Astor Michaels’s personal office occupied the steel cube of an old walk-in safe, lit only by the flickering glow of a computer screen. It was as big as a one-car garage, the walls lined with rows of safe-deposit boxes. The foot-thick metal door looked too heavy to move—I hoped it was anyway. If anyone shut it, I would’ve started screaming.

Huge photographs hung from the walls, artsy pictures of garbage-strewn alleys, gushing black water, and rats.

Yes: rats. And that wasn’t the weirdest thing about Astor Michaels.

Our new rep licked his lips a lot, and when he smiled, his teeth never showed. He kept his sunglasses on until we got down into the darkness, and once he took them off, I wished he’d put them back on again. His eyes were way too wide and spent a lot of time lingering on the three girls, especially Minerva.

It was creepy, but I guess when you’re a record company rep, you get to ogle all the girls you want. And anyway, it didn’t matter whether I liked the guy or not. We were signed.

Well, almost. Pearl said her lawyer was still going over the contract. That’s right—she said “my lawyer,” the way she’d say “my gardener” or “my driver” or “my house in Connecticut.” Like a lawyer was something you kept in a drawer along with the double-A batteries and spare apartment keys.

“In a few minutes, we’ll all go upstairs,” Astor Michaels said. “Marketing is dying to meet you. They love the music, of course, but they want to make sure you really have it.”

What’s “it”? I almost asked. But I figured that if you did have it, you probably didn’t need to ask what it was, which meant I didn’t, so I should just shut up.

“Should we have dressed up for this?” Pearl asked, which didn’t make any sense because she looked fexcellent in her tight black dress, a thin choker of diamonds around her neck. The only bad thing was that her glasses were missing, which made her look less smart and in charge.

Still, she looked amazing.

Astor Michaels waved a hand. “Just be yourselves.”

What if myself happens to be a big sweaty ball of nerves today? I wanted to ask, but that also didn’t sound like a very “it” thing to say.

We went upstairs, where a bunch of people with six-hundred-dollar haircuts sat around a conference table shaped like a long, curvy swimming pool. Pearl took charge, of course. She talked about our “influences,” naming a bunch of bands I’d never heard of except for seeing their CDs on Pearl’s bed.

Minerva sat at the head of the table, shimmering, sucking up all the compliments that came her way. She obviously had it—even I could see that now, reflected in the marketing people’s gazes. Ever since Minerva and Moz had secretly hooked up, her junkie vibe was slowly changing into something else—whether less creepy or more, I couldn’t tell.

But the haircuts ate it up.

Moz also seemed to make an impression on them, like he had it too. As if Minerva had given it to him. He was much more intense these days, his eyes radiating confidence and a new kind of hungriness that I couldn’t understand.

That was the weird thing: as Minerva got less junkie-like, she seemed to push Moz in the opposite direction, so we were really only breaking even.

Me and Alana Ray stayed quiet, like a rhythm section should. I was a bass player now, after all, and we don’t say too much.

After a while we headed back down to the safe, leaving the haircuts upstairs to talk about us. Astor Michaels said we’d done a good job, then gave us some fexcellent news.

“We want you to play a showcase. Four Red Rat bands in a little club we’re renting.” He licked his lips. “In two weeks… I hope that’s not too soon.”

“Soon is good,” Pearl said, which was probably the smart thing to say, but a wave of panic was rolling through me. Two more Sunday rehearsals with my new instrument didn’t seem like enough. I practiced hours every day, of course, but that was nothing like playing with the whole band. Those big bass strings still felt clumsy under my fingers, like playing with gloves on.

“There’s one issue, though,” Astor Michaels was saying. “We’re printing the posters tomorrow. Taking out ads as well.”

“Oh, crap.” Pearl cleared her throat. “And we don’t have a name yet.”

“We’ve been meaning to come up with one,” I blurted. “But there hasn’t been time.”

“Can’t agree on anything,” Moz growled.

Pearl shifted uncomfortably next to me on Astor Michaels’s big leather couch. “Can’t we just be ‘Special Guests’ or something?”

He shook his head, lips parting, a little glimpse of teeth slipping into view. “Posters and ads cost money, Pearl. That money’s wasted if your name is missing.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She looked around at us.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Astor Michaels said. “I’ll leave you five to discuss this while I go and have lunch. When I come back in an hour, you give me a name you all agree on. Not a list, not suggestions or ideas: one name. Either it’ll be perfect or it won’t be.”

Pearl swallowed. “So what if it’s not?”

He shrugged. “Then the deal’s off.”

“What?” Pearl said, eyes widening. “No showcase?”

“No nothing.” Astor Michaels stood and headed out. “If you five can’t agree on a name, then how are you supposed to tour together? How are you supposed to make records? How can Red Rat commit to you for five years if you can’t commit to one simple name?” He stood in the doorway, slipping sunglasses over his laughing, too-wide eyes. “So unless you agree on something perfect, the whole deal’s off.”

“But… not really,” Pearl said. “Really?”

“Really. You have an hour.” Astor Michaels looked at his watch. “How’s that for motivation?”

We sat there in silence for a moment, the blown-up photos of rats staring down at us. The room was full of guilt, like we’d all committed some terrible crime together.

“Was that meant ironically?” Alana Ray asked.

“Um… I don’t think so,” Pearl said.

“Crap,” Moz said. “What are we going to do?”

Pearl turned to me and Moz, suddenly angry. “I knew we should have figured this out when it was just us three, in that first rehearsal. Now it’s all complicated!”

“Hey, man,” I said, holding up my hands. “That’s the day I said we should call ourselves the B-Sections. Why don’t we go with that?”

Moz and Pearl just stared at me.

“What?” I said. “Don’t you remember? B-Sections?”

Pearl glanced at Moz, then turned to me. “Yeah, I remember. But I didn’t want to be the one to explain that band names based on musical terms—the F-Sharps, the Overtones, the Tapeloops—are in fact the lamest. Thing. Ever.”

Moz shrugged. “I just thought you were kidding, Zahler. I mean, for one thing, being plural is stupid.”

I frowned. “Being what?”

“Plural. With an s at the end. Makes us sound like some fifties band, like the Rockettes or something.”

Minerva let out a giggle. “The Rockettes are dancers, Moz. They have long, tasty legs.”

Okay, maybe she wasn’t totally normal yet.

“Whatever,” Moz said. “I don’t want to be a plural band. Because if we’re the B-Sections, then what’s one of us? A B-Section? ‘Hello, I am a B-Section. Together, me and my friends are many B-Sections.’”

Minerva giggled again, and I said, “You know, Moz, anything sounds retarded if you say it a bunch of times in a row. So what’s your great idea?”

“I don’t know. A ‘The’ in front is cool, as long as the next word isn’t plural.” He kicked Astor Michaels’s desk in front of him. “Like, the Desk.”

“The Desk?” I groaned. “Now that’s just a genius band name, Moz. That’s much better than the B-Sections. Let’s go upstairs and tell them we want to be the Desk.”

Moz rolled his eyes. “It was just an example, Zahler.”

I sank back into the big leather couch. I could see how this was going to go. It was that old classic, the Moz Veto. Like whenever we’re trying to figure out what movie to see, Moz never suggests anything, so I have to keep coming up with suggestions while he goes, “No,” “Not interested,” “That sucks,” “Seen it,” “Subtitles are lame…”

Pearl leaned forward. “Okay, guys, we don’t have to panic about this.”

“Panic!” I said. “We could be the Panic!”

“I’d rather be the Desk,” Moz said quietly.

“Hang on!” Pearl said. “One idea at a time. A couple of weeks ago, I thought of something.”

Moz swung his veto gaze toward her. “What?”

“How about Crazy Versus Sane?”

“Pearl, darling,” Minerva said. “Don’t you think that’s kind of… pointed?” She looked at Alana Ray, not noticing that everyone else was looking at her.

“It’s not about us,” Pearl said. “It’s about all the weird stuff going on. Like the black water, the sanitation crisis, the crime wave. Like that crazy woman who dropped the Stratocaster on me and Moz… That’s how this band got started.”

“I don’t know,” Moz said. “Crazy Versus Sane. Sounds kind of artsy-fartsy to me.”

Score another one for the Moz Veto.

I tried to think, random words and phrases spilling through my head, but Pearl had been right. Band names only got harder the longer you waited to pick one. The deeper the music got into your brain, the more impossible it became to describe it in two or three words.

The silence was broken by the shriek of some metal band’s demo tape echoing out of another scout’s office. The steel walls of the safe seemed to be closing in, the air growing stale. I imagined Astor Michaels shutting the door, giving us until we ran out of oxygen to come up with a name.

I thought of the growling, thumping rehearsal building on Sixteenth Street and wondered if all the bands in there had names. How many bands were there in the whole world? Thousands? Millions?

Looking up at the ranks of safe-deposit boxes surrounding us, I wondered if we should all just get numbers.

“Why don’t we just pick something simple?” I said. “Like… Eleven?”

“Eleven?” Moz said. “That’s great, Zahler. But it’s no ‘the Desk.’”

Minerva sighed. “That’s the problem with Crazy Versus Sane: it’s false advertising, seeing as how we’re kind of short on sane.”

“What’s not sane is making us choose a name this way,” Pearl said, glaring up at the rat photos.

“Is this sort of ultimatum normal for record companies?” Alana Ray asked.

“No. It’s totally paranormal,” I said.

Pearl’s eyes lit up. “Hey, Zahler, maybe that’s it. We should call ourselves the Paranormals!”

“Plural,” Moz said. “Do you guys not get the plural thing?”

“Whatever,” Pearl said. “Paranormal? The Paranormal, if you want to be all the about everything.”

“Paranormal can mean two things,” Alana Ray said.

We all looked at her. Those rare times Alana Ray actually said something, everybody else listened.

“Para can mean beside,” she continued. “Like paralegals and paramedics, who work beside lawyers and doctors. But it can also mean against. Like a parasol is against the sun and a paradox against the normal way of thinking.”

I blinked. That was just about the most words Alana Ray had said in a row since that first rehearsal. And like everything she said, it was very weird and kind of smart.

Maybe Paranormal was the right name for us.

Pearl frowned. “So what’s a parachute against?”

Alana Ray’s eyebrows twitched. “The chute of gravity.”

“Gravity sucks,” I said softly.

“So if we go with Paranormal,” Alana Ray said, “we should figure out whether we are beside normal or against it. Names are important. That’s why I ask you all to call me by my whole first name.”

“Hey, I just thought Ray was your last name,” Moz said, then frowned. “What is your last name anyway?”

I held my breath. With Alana Ray, asking her last name was practically a personal question. But after a few seconds, she said, “I don’t have a real last name.” She didn’t continue right away, her hands flickering nervously.

“How do you mean?” Pearl asked.

“At my school, they gave us new last names, ones that anyone could spell. That way, when we told our names to people, no one would ever ask us to spell them. It was to save us from embarrassment.”

“You have trouble spelling?” Pearl asked. “Like, dyslexia?”

“Dyslexia,” Alana Ray answered. “D-y-s-l-e-x-i-a. Dyslexia.”

“Dude,” I said. “I couldn’t spell that.”

She smiled at me. “Only some of us had trouble spelling. But they renamed us all.”

“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Minerva said softly, and everyone turned toward her. “As long as the music’s good, people will think the name’s brilliant too. Even if it’s just some random word.”

Moz nodded. “Yeah, the Beatles had a pretty stupid name, if you think about it. Didn’t hurt them much.”

“Dude!” My jaw dropped open. “They did not have a stupid name! It’s a classic!”

“It’s lame,” Minerva said. “Beatles, like the insect, except spelled like beat, because it’s music?”

Pearl cleared her throat. “Had to do with Buddy Holly and the Crickets, actually.”

“Whatever,” Minerva said. “It’s a really pathetic pun. And it’s plural.” She smiled at Moz.

“Whoa… really?” I blinked. But they were right: beetle didn’t have an a in it. They’d spelled it wrong.

Moz and Minerva were laughing at me, and he said, “You never noticed that?”

I shrugged. “I just figured they spelled it that way in England. I mean, I read this English book once, and all kinds of stuff was spelled wrong.”

Now everyone was laughing at me, but I was thinking maybe Minerva was right. Maybe it didn’t matter what we called ourselves: the Paranormals, the F-Sharps, or even the Desk. Maybe the music would grow around the name, whatever it was.

But we kept arguing, of course.

When Astor Michaels came back expecting an answer, Pearl pulled out her phone. “It’s only been forty minutes! You said an hour.”

He snorted. “I’ve got work to do. So what do we call this band?”

We all froze. We’d come up with about ten thousand ideas, but nobody could agree on a single one. Suddenly I couldn’t remember any of them.

“Come on!” Astor Michaels snapped his fingers. “It’s do-or-die time. Are we in business or not?”

Naturally, everyone looked at Pearl.

“Um…” The silence stretched out. “The, uh, Panics?”

“The Panic,” Moz corrected. “Singular.”

Astor Michaels considered this for a moment, then burst out laughing. “You’d be amazed how many people come up with that.”

“With what?” Pearl said.

“Panic. Whenever I give bands the Name Ultimatum, they always wind up calling themselves something like the Panic, the Freakout, or even How the Hell Should We Know?” He laughed again, his teeth flashing in the semi-darkness.

“So… you don’t like it?” Pearl asked softly.

“It’s crap,” he chuckled. “Sound like a bunch of eighties wannabes.”

No one else was asking, so I did: “Does this mean we’re dumped?”

He snorted. “Don’t be silly. Just trying to motivate you and have a little fun. Lighten up, guys.”

Minerva was giggling, but the rest of us were ready to kill him.

Astor Michaels sat down behind his desk, his smile finally showing all his teeth, a row of white razors in the darkness. “Special Guests it is!”

19. THE IMPRESSIONS — ALANA RAY-

When the doorman heard our names, he didn’t bother to check the list or use his headset. He didn’t even meet our eyes, just waved us in.

Pearl and I walked straight past the line of people waiting to have their IDs checked, to be patted down and metal-detected, to pay forty dollars (a thousand dollars for every twenty-five people) to get in. It had all happened just as Astor Michaels had promised. We were underdressed, unpaying, and in Pearl’s case underage, but we were getting in to see Morgan’s Army.

“Our names,” I said. “They worked.”

“Why shouldn’t they?” Pearl grinned as we followed the long, half-lit entry hall toward the lights and noise of the dance floor. “We’re Red Rat talent.”

“Almost Red Rat talent,” I said. The “almost” part was making me twitchy. Pearl’s lawyer was still arguing about details in the recording contract. She said that we would thank her for this diligence in a few years, when we were famous. I knew that details were important in legal documents, but right now the delay made the world tremble, like going out the door without a bottle of pills in my pocket.

“Whatever,” Pearl said. “Our band is nine kinds of real now, Alana Ray—and real musicians don’t pay to see one another play.”

“We were already real,” I said as we crossed the dance floor, the warm-up DJ’s music making my fingers want to drum. “But you’re right. Things do feel different now.”

I looked at one twitching hand in front of me, mottled with the pulsing lights of the dance floor. Flashing lights usually made me feel disassociated from my own body, but tonight everything seemed very solid, very real.

Was it because I’d (almost) signed a record deal? My teachers at school always said that money, recognition, success—all the things normal people had that we didn’t—weren’t so important, that no one should ever use them to make us feel less than real. But it wasn’t exactly true. Getting my own apartment had made me feel more real, and making money did too. The night I’d gotten my first business cards, I’d taken them out of the box one by one, reading my name again and again, even though they were all exactly the same…

And now my name had gotten me to the front of a long line of people with more-expensive clothes and better haircuts, people who hadn’t gone to special-needs schools. People with real last names.

I couldn’t help but feel that was important.

Pearl was beaming in the dance-floor lights, as if she was feeling more real too. It was illegal for her to be here, and I’d expected the doorman to know she was only seventeen, even if Astor Michaels had said it wouldn’t be a problem.

That thought made me nervous for a moment. At my school they’d taught us to obey the law. Our lives would be complicated enough without criminal records, they liked to point out. Of course, saying that people like us couldn’t afford to break the law suggested that other people could. Maybe Pearl and I were more like those other people now.

My fingers started to itch and pulse, but not because of the flashing lights: I wanted to sign that record deal soon. I wanted to grab this realness and put it on paper.

As we waited for the first band to start, I looked around for Astor Michaels. He made me shiver sometimes, even though he seemed to like me, always asking my opinions about music. He also asked about my visions, which didn’t upset him the way they did Minerva. Of course, I never saw Astor Michaels upset by anything. He didn’t care that his smile made people nervous, and he only laughed when I told him that he moved like an insect.

I found him easier to talk to than most people, just not to look at.

“Too bad Moz couldn’t make it,” Pearl said. “What did he say he was doing tonight?”

“He didn’t,” I answered, though I had guesses in my head.

Moz was different now. In the last month he’d started borrowing things from the rest of us—Astor Michaels’s smile, my twitchiness, Minerva’s dark glasses—as if he wanted to start over.

He and Minerva whispered when Pearl wasn’t looking, and the two sent messages to each other while we played. When my visions were strong enough, I could see their connection: luminous filaments reaching up from Minerva’s song to Moz’s fluttering notes, pulling them down toward the seething shapes beneath the floor.

I tried not to watch. Moz still paid me and said he would keep paying until Red Rat Records had actually given us money. He had never broken his promises to me, so I didn’t want to tell my guesses to Pearl.

And I didn’t want to make her sad tonight, because it was nice of her to have asked me along to see her favorite band.

The opening act had just been signed by Astor Michaels—like us, except for our “almost.” But they already had a name. Toxoplasma was stenciled on their amps.

“What does that word mean?” I asked Pearl.

“Don’t know.” She shrugged. “Don’t quite get it.”

Neither did I, but I also didn’t understand why Zahler never used his first name, or why Moz had started saying “Min” instead of “Minerva,” or why no one ever called Astor Michaels anything but “Astor Michaels.” Names could be tricky.

After his little joke, Astor Michaels had said it didn’t matter what we called ourselves, that our real audience would find us by smell, but that sounded unlikely to me. I hoped we would come up with our own name soon. I didn’t want one tacked onto us, like “Jones” had been to me.

“How did Morgan’s Army get their name?” I asked. “Did Astor Michaels give it to them?”

“No.” Pearl shrugged. “They’re named after somebody called Morgan.”

“Their singer?”

She shook her head. “No. Her name’s Abril Johnson. There are a lot of rumors about who Morgan is, but nobody knows for sure.”

I sighed. Maybe Zahler was right, and bands should just have numbers.

Toxoplasma was four brothers covered with tattoos. I liked the singer’s voice—velvet and lazy, smoothing the words out like a hand across a bedspread. But the other three were brutally efficient, like people cooking on TV, chopping things apart in a hurry. They wore dark glasses and scattered the music into little pieces. I wondered how one brother could be so different from the others.

When their first song was done, I felt myself shiver—Astor Michaels was hovering behind us in the crowd. Pearl saw me glance back at him and turned and smiled. He handed her a glass of champagne.

That was illegal, but I didn’t worry. Here in the flashing lights, the law felt less real.

“So what do you think of Toxoplasma?” he asked.

“Too thrashy for me,” Pearl said.

I nodded. “I think three insects is too many for one band.”

Astor Michaels laughed and his hand touched my shoulder. “Or maybe too few.”

I pulled away a little as the second song began; I don’t like people touching me. That makes it hard to go to clubs sometimes, but it’s always important to see what new music people are inventing.

“Just think,” he said. “In a week you’ll be playing in front of a crowd as big as this one. Bigger.”

Pearl’s smile widened, and I could tell she was feeling realer by the minute. I turned to watch the audience. It wasn’t like when I played in Times Square, where people could come and go as they pleased, some watching intently, some throwing money, others just passing by. Everyone here was focused on the band, judging them, waiting to be impressed, demanding to be energized. These weren’t a bunch of tourists already wide-eyed just from being in New York.

Toxoplasma was making an impression. Rivulets of people were streaming forward, pressing toward the stage, dancing with the same chopping fervor as the three insect brothers. They hadn’t looked much different from the rest of the crowd until now, but suddenly they all moved like skinheads, a wiry strength playing over the surface of their bodies.

They were insects too, and my heart started beating faster, my fingers drumming. I’d never seen so many together before.

I already understood that there were different kinds of insects—Astor Michaels was very different from Minerva, after all, and I had seen many other kinds back when I’d played down in the subway—but the ones in front of the stage made me nervous in a new way.

They seemed dangerous, ready to explode.

My vision was starting to shimmer, which almost never happened with music I didn’t like. But the air was rippling around Toxoplasma, like heat rising from a subway grate in winter. In front of the band they’d started moshing, which is why I always stay away from the stage. Shock waves seemed to travel from their slamming bodies outward through the crowd, their twitches spreading like a fever across the club.

“Mmm. Smell that,” Astor Michaels said, tipping back his head with closed eyes. “I should have called these guys the Panic.” He giggled, still amused by his little joke on us.

I shivered, blinked my eyes three times. “I don’t like this band. They’re against normal, not beside it.”

“They won’t last long anyway,” he said. “Maybe a couple of weeks. But they serve their purpose.”

“Which is what?” Pearl asked.

He smiled, wide enough to show the Minerva-like sharpness of his teeth. “They shake things up.”

I could see what he meant. The tremors spreading from the insectoid moshers were changing things inside the club, making everyone edgy. It felt like when news of some strange new attack broke once while I was playing Times Square, and the crowd seemed to turn all at once to read the words crawling by on the giant news tickers. Most of the audience didn’t like Toxoplasma’s music any more than Pearl and I, but it tuned their nervous systems to a higher setting. I could see it in their eyes and in the quick, anxious motions of their heads.

And I realized that Astor Michaels was good at manipulating crowds. Maybe that was what made him feel more real.

“The audience expects something big to happen now,” I said.

“Morgan’s Army,” Astor Michaels answered, letting his teeth slip out again.

It worked: Morgan’s Army shook things up more.

Abril Johnson held an old-fashioned microphone, clutching it in two hands like a lounge singer from long ago. Her silver evening dress glittered in the three spotlights that followed her, covering the walls and ceiling of the club with swirling pinpricks. As the band slid into their first song, she didn’t make a sound. She waited for a solid minute, barely moving, like a praying mantis creeping closer in slow motion before it pounces.

Bass rumbled through us from the big Marshall stacks, setting the floor trembling. Glasses hanging over the bar began to shudder against one another—my vision already shimmering, the sound looked like snow in the air.

Then Abril Johnson started singing, low and slow. The words were barely recognizable; she was stretching and mangling them in her mouth, as if trying to twist them into something inscrutable. I closed my eyes and listened hard, trying to pick out the half-familiar, half-alien words entwined in the song.

After a moment I realized where I’d heard them before: the strange words were shaped from the same nonsense syllables that Minerva always sang. But Abril Johnson had hidden them in her drawl, interweaving them with plain English.

I shook my head. I’d always thought that Minerva’s lyrics were random, made-up, just leftover ravings from her crazy days. But if she shared them with someone else… were they another language?

My eyes opened, and I forced myself to look at the floor. Minerva’s beast was moving underneath us. Its Loch Ness loops rose and fell among the feet of the unseeing crowd—but much, much bigger than in our little practice room, as thick as the giant cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. It had been made huge by the stacks of amps and the focus of the spellbound throng, and I could see details in the creature now. There were segments along its length, like a sinuous earthworm testing the air.

“How’s that for intense?” Pearl murmured, her empty champagne glass clutched tightly in both hands, echoing the singer’s grip on the microphone.

“Very.” Astor Michaels cocked his head. “But not as intense as you’ll be, my dears. Not as authentic.”

I shuddered a little, knowing what he meant. Minerva’s songs were purer, unadulterated by English. Our spell would be stronger.

The beast coiled faster, and the floor of the nightclub rumbled under my feet, as if some droning bass note had found the resonant frequency of the room. I thought of how wineglasses could shatter from just the right pitch and wondered if a whole building might disintegrate when filled by some low and perfectly chosen note.

Pearl suddenly looked up, her eyes wide. “It’s them!”

I followed her gaze and saw a pair of dark figures on the catwalks high above us, climbing gracefully among the rigging of stage lights and exhaust fans.

“Those people.” Astor Michaels shook his head. “New fad: physical hacking, climbing around on roofs and air-shafts and down in the subways. Can’t keep them out of the clubs anymore. They especially like the New Sound.”

“Angels,” Pearl said.

“Assholes,” Astor Michaels corrected. “Takes away from the music.”

The song moved into its B section, and I dropped my gaze back to the floor, catching the last flicker of the worm disappearing. The hallucinations faded as the music grew faster, the air returning to stillness, the lyrics to ordinary English.

“She lost it,” I said.

“Yeah.” Pearl frowned. “Kind of blew the momentum there.”

Astor Michaels nodded. “The Army never gets that transition right, for some reason. It always feels like something is about to break through.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “But it never does.”

“Are you sure you want it to?” I asked. “What if it’s…?”

Dangerous? I thought of saying. Monstrous?

“Not commercial?” Astor Michaels laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a feeling that whatever it is, it’s going to be the Next Big Thing. That’s why I signed you guys.”

Pearl looked annoyed. “Because we sound like Morgan’s Army?”

He shook his head, pulling her empty champagne glass from her hands. “No, you sound like yourselves. But someone has to take the New Sound to the next level. And I’m pretty sure it will be you.”

He turned toward the bar to get her more champagne, and the band slowed into the A section again, as if trying to call back my visions. But they’d lost their grasp on the beast, and Abril Johnson’s lyrics were just normal words now. I saw that she wasn’t an insect at all; she was just imitating them, mimicking the madness she’d seen on the subway and in the streets.

I realized that Minerva was more real than her.

And I wondered: what if one day the beast under the floor turned real?

20. GRIEVOUS ANGELS — MOZ-

The noise in my body never stopped. All night I lay awake, tissues struggling against one another, blood simmering. I could feel the beast fighting against everything I’d been, trying to remake me into something else, trying to replace me. Even my sweat raged, squeezing angrily from my pores, like a bar fight spilling out onto the street.

When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see my face. It wasn’t just that I was thinner, cheekbones twisting at new angles, eyes widening—it was something deeper, pushing up from beneath my skin, remote and contemptuous of me.

As if someone else’s bones were trying to emerge.

The crazy thing was, part of me was dying to know what I was changing into. Sometimes I just wanted to get it over with, to let go and slip across the edge. I’d almost said yes tonight when Pearl had asked me to the Morgan’s Army gig, wondering what hundreds of bodies pressed in close would do to my hunger, already halfway to uncontrollable. I imagined their scents filling the air, the crowd noise mingling with the roar inside me…

But not yet—not without Min. In her arms, I still felt like myself. Besides, I had plenty more to learn down here, playing for quarters underground.

A woman was watching me, listening carefully, clutching her purse with both hands. She wasn’t sure yet whether to open it and reach in, risking that extra tendril of connection with the strange boy playing guitar in the subway. But she couldn’t pull herself away.

Union Square Station was almost empty at this hour, my music echoing around us. The red velvet of my guitar case was spattered with silver, and more coins lay on the concrete floor. All night, people had thrown their quarters from a distance and moved on. Even through dark glasses they could see the intensity leaking out of my eyes. They could smell my hunger.

But this woman stood there, spellbound.

I’d always wondered if charisma was something in your genes, like brown eyes or big feet. Or if you learned it from the sound of applause or cameras snapping. Or if famous people glowed because I’d seen so many airbrushed pictures of them, their beauty slammed into my brain, like advertising jingles with faces.

But it had turned out that charisma was a disease, an infection you got from kissing the right person, a beast that lived in your blood. Connecting with this woman, drawing her closer, I could feel how I’d been magnetized.

She took a step forward, fingers tensing on the purse clasp. It popped open.

I didn’t dare stare back into her spellbound eyes. There were no police down here anymore, not late at night. No one to stop me if I lost it.

Her fingers fumbled inside the purse, eyes never leaving me. She stepped closer, and a five-dollar bill fluttered down to lie among the coins. A glance at her pleading expression told me that she was paying for escape.

I stopped playing, reaching into a pocket for my plastic bag of garlic. The spell broken, the woman turned and headed for the stairs, the last strains of the Strat echoing into silence. She didn’t look back, her steps growing hurried as she climbed away.

Something twisted inside me, angry at me for letting her go. I could feel it wrapped around my spine, growing stronger every day. Its tendrils stretched into my mouth, changing the way things tasted, making my teeth itch. The urge to follow the woman was so strong…

I put the plastic bag to my face and breathed in the scent of fresh garlic, burning away the noises in my head, smoothing the rushing of my blood.

Min had given me the bag for emergencies, but I used it all the time now. I’d even tried to make Luz’s disgusting mandrake tea, which Mom said stank up the apartment. Nothing soothed the beast like meat, though, and nothing—not even Min—tasted as good. Raw steak was best, but there was a shortage these days, the price climbing higher all the time, and plain hamburger ripped out of the plastic still fridge-cold was almost as wonderful.

I stood there inhaling garlic, listening.

Min was right—you could learn things down here. Secrets were hidden in New York’s rhythms, its shifts of mood, the blood flow of its water mains. Its hissing steam pipes and the stirrings of rats and wild felines all rattled with infection, like a huge version of the illness inside my body.

My hearing could bend around corners now, sharper every day, filling my head with echoes. I could hear our music so much better, could almost see the beast that Minerva called to when she sang.

And I knew it was down here, somewhere… ready to teach me things.

A little after eleven-thirty, its scent came and found me.

The smell was drifting up from below, carried on the stale, soft breeze of passing trains. I remembered it from that first night I’d gone out to Brooklyn, when Minerva had led me down the tracks and pushed me into that broken section of tunnel; the scent made me angry and horny and hungry, all at once.

Then I heard something, a low and shuddering note, more subtle than any subway passing underfoot. Like when Minerva made the floor rumble beneath us as we played.

I scooped up the glittering change and stuffed it into my pockets, shut the Stratocaster safely into its case, snatched up the little battery-powered amplifier. By then the smell had faded, pulled away by the random winds of the subway, and I stood there uncertainly for a moment. Union Square sprawled around me, a warren of turnstiles and token booths and stairways down to half the subway lines in the city.

I half closed my eyes and walked slowly through the station, catching whiffs of perfume and piss, the bright metal tang of disinfectant, the blood-scent of rust everywhere. Finally, another dizzying gust welled up from the stairs leading down to the F train. Of course.

F for fool, I thought. Or feculent.

Downstairs the platform was empty, silent except for the skitter of rats on the tracks. The push-pull wind of distant trains stirred loose bits of paper and kept the scent swirling around me, the way the world spins when you’ve had too much beer.

I pulled off my dark glasses and stared into the tunnel depths.

Nothing but blackness.

But from the uptown direction came the faintest sound.

Walking toward that end of the platform, a cluster of new smells hit me: antiperspirant and freshly opened cigarettes, foot powder and the chemical sting of dry-cleaned clothing…

Someone was hiding behind the last steel column on the platform, breathing nervously, aware of me. Just another late-night traveler scared to be down here.

But from the tunnel beyond, the other scent was calling.

I took another step, letting the man see me. He wore a subway worker’s uniform, his eyes wide, one hand white-knuckled around a flashlight. Had he heard the beast too?

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just…” I shrugged tiredly, adjusting the weight of my guitar and amp. “Trying to get home.”

His eyes stayed locked on mine, full of glassy terror. “You’re one of them.”

I realized I’d taken my sunglasses off; he could see straight through to the thing inside me. “Uh, I didn’t mean to…”

He raised one hand to cross himself, drawing my eyes to the silver crucifix at his throat. He looked like he wanted to run, but my infection held him in place—the way I moved, the radiance of my eyes.

An itch traveled across my skin, like the feeling I got climbing the stairs to Minerva’s room. I was salivating.

The fear in the man’s sweat was like the scent of sizzling bacon crawling under your bedroom door in the morning—irresistible.

“Stay away from me,” he pleaded softly.

“I’m trying.” I put down the amp and guitar and fumbled in my jacket for the plastic bag of garlic. Pulling out a clove, I scrabbled to peel it, fingernails gouging the papery skin. The pearly white flesh poked through at last, smooth and oily in my fingers. I shoved it in my mouth half-peeled and bit down hard.

It split—sharp and hot—juices running down my throat like straight Tabasco. I sucked in its vapors and felt the thing inside me weaken a little.

I breathed a garlicky sigh of relief.

The man’s eyes narrowed. No longer transfixed, he shook his head at my torn T-shirt and grubby jeans. I was just a seventeen-year-old again, tattered and weighted down with musical equipment. Nothing dangerous.

“You shouldn’t litter,” he snorted, glaring at the garlic skin I’d dropped. “Someone’s got to clean that up, you know.”

Then he turned to walk briskly away, the scent of fear fading in his wake.

I breathed garlic deep into my lungs.

Mustn’t eat the nice people, Minerva’s voice chided in my head.

I was going to try that mandrake tea again. Even if it did taste like lawn-mower clippings, that was probably better than the taste of—

Down the tunnel the darkness shifted restlessly, something huge rolling over in its sleep, and I forgot all about my hunger.

It was down there, the thing that rumbled beneath us when we played.

I grabbed my Strat—leaving the amp behind—and jumped down onto the tracks. The smell carried me forward into the darkness, the tunnel walls echoing with the crunch of gravel, like Alana Ray’s drumbeats scattering from my footsteps. The scent grew overpowering, as mind-bending as pressing my nose against Minerva’s neck, drawing me closer.

The ground began to swirl, the blackness suddenly liquid underfoot. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a horde of rats flowing like eddies of water around my tennis shoes, thousands of them filling the tracks.

But the sight didn’t make me flinch—the rats smelled familiar and safe, like Zombie sleeping warm on my chest.

The scent led me to a jagged, gaping hole in the tunnel wall, big enough to walk into, just like the cavity where Minerva and I had first kissed. It led away into pitch-blackness, its sides glistening. The rats swirled around me.

I could smell danger now, but I didn’t want to run. My blood was pulsing, my whole body readying for a fight. I listened for a moment and knew instinctively that the hole was empty, though something had passed this way.

I reached out to touch the broken granite, and a dark gunk as thick as honey came off on my fingers. Like the black water, it shimmered for a moment on my skin, then faded into the air.

But its scent left behind a word in my mind… enemy. Just like Min always said: I call the enemy when I sing.

The ground rumbled underfoot, and the rats began to squeak.

I started running down the subway tunnel, feet crunching on gravel, the rats following, anger rippling across my skin. My tongue ran along my teeth, feeling every point. My whole body was crying out to fight this thing.

Then all at once I heard it, smelled it, saw it coming toward me…

A form moved against the darkness, shapeless except for the tendrils whipping out to grasp the tunnel’s support columns. It dragged itself toward me—without legs, with way too many arms.

I staggered to a halt, a nervous garlic burp clearing my head for a few seconds. I realized how big it was—like a whole subway car rolling loose—and how unarmed I was…

But then the thing inside me tightened its grip on my spine, flooding me with anger. I pulled the Stratocaster from its case and held its neck with both hands, bringing it over one shoulder like an ax. Steel strings and golden pickups flashed in the darkness, and suddenly the beautiful instrument was nothing but a weapon, a hunk of wood for smashing things.

The rats flowed around me, scrambling up the walls and columns.

The thing refused to take any shape in the darkness, but it was heading toward me faster now, its body spitting out gravel to both sides. It lashed at the dangling subway work lights, popping them one by one as it grew closer, like a rolling cloud of smoke bringing darkness.

Then something glimmered wetly at its center, an open maw ringed with teeth like long knives—and me with an electric guitar. Some small, rational part of my mind knew that I was very, very screwed…

It was only twenty yards away. I swung the Stratocaster across myself; its weight made my feet stumble.

Ten yards…

Suddenly human figures shot past me out of the darkness, meeting the creature head on. Bright metal weapons flashed, and the monster’s screech echoed down the tunnel. Someone knocked me to one side and pinned me against the wall, holding me there as the beast streamed past. Cylinders of flesh sprouted from its length, grasping the steel columns around us, ending in sharp-toothed mouths that gnashed wetly. Human screams and flying gravel and the shriek of rats filled the air around us.

And then it was gone, sucking the air behind it like a passing subway train.

The woman who’d shoved me against the wall let go, and I stumbled back onto the tracks. The monstrous white bulk was receding into the darkness, leaving a trail of glistening black water. The dark figures and a stream of rats pursued it. Weapons flickered like subway sparks.

I stood there, panting and clutching the Strat like I was going to hit something with it. Then the creature slipped out of sight, disappearing into the hole I’d found, like a long, pale tongue flickering into a mouth.

The hunters followed, and the tunnel was suddenly empty, except for me, a few hundred crushed rats, and the woman.

I blinked at her. She was a little older than me, with a jet-black fringe of bangs over brown eyes, a scuffed leather jacket and cargo pants with stuffed-full pockets.

She eyed the guitar in my hands. “Can you talk?”

“Talk?” I stood there for another moment, stunned and shaking.

“As in converse, dude. Or are you crazy already?”

“Um…” I lowered the Strat. “I don’t think so.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. So, like, dude, are you trying to get yourself killed?”

She led me to an abandoned subway stop farther up the tracks, a darkened ghost station. The stairways were boarded over, the token booth trashed, but the graffiti-covered platform was abuzz with hunters regrouping after the chase. They slipped up from the tracks, as graceful as the dark figures climbing down the fire escape that night I’d met Pearl.

Angels was what Luz called the people in the struggle. But I’d never figured on angels carrying backpacks and walkie-talkies.

“Easy with that thing,” the woman who’d saved me said. “We’re all friends here.”

“What?… Oh, sorry.” I was still clutching the Stratocaster like a weapon. The shoulder strap dangled from one end, so I slung the guitar over my back.

Confusion was finally setting in. Had I really just seen a giant monster? And wanted to fight it?

I looked at her. “Um… who are you?”

“I’m Lace, short for Lacey. You?”

“Moz.”

“You can say your own name? Not bad.”

“I can do what?”

Instead of answering, she pulled a tiny flashlight from a pocket and shone it in my eyes. The light was blinding.

“Ouch! What are you doing?”

She leaned closer, sniffing at my breath. “Garlic? Clever boy.”

A guy’s voice came from behind me. “Positive? Or just some wack-job?”

“Definitely a peep, Cal. But a self-medicator, by the looks of it.”

“Another one?” Cal said. His accent sounded southern. “That’s the third this week.”

Tracers from the flashlight still streaked my vision, but I could see Lace’s silhouette shrug. “Well, garlic is in all the folklore. Who told you to eat that stuff, Moz?”

I blinked. “Um, this woman called Luz.”

“A doctor? A faith healer?”

“She’s, uh…” What was Min’s word? “An esoterica?”

“What the hell’s that?” Cal said. My vision returning, I noticed he was wearing a Britney Spears T-shirt under his leather jacket, which seemed weirdly out of place.

“Probably something esoteric,” Lace said.

I shook my head. I’d never met Luz face-to-face. “She’s a healer. Some kind of Catholic, I guess. She uses tea and stuff.”

“Amateur hour,” Lace said in a singsong voice. “So, Moz, how long have you had an appetite for rare meat?”

I thought of Min’s kiss. “Three weeks and four days.”

Cal raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty precise.”

“Well, that’s when I first…” My voice faded. It didn’t seem like a good idea, telling them about Min. “Who are you guys anyway?”

Lace snorted. “Dude. We’re the guys who saved your butt. You almost got flattened by that worm, remember?”

I swallowed, watching as two angels lifted a third onto the platform. He was bleeding from a huge gash on one leg, black water dripping from the wound. He didn’t cry out, but his face was knitted in pain, his teeth clenched.

And I’d been about to fight that thing alone?

“Uh, thanks.”

“Uh, you’re welcome.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you got any girlfriends? Any roommates? Cats?”

“Cats?” I thought of Zombie’s strange gaze. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Or what that thing was! What’s going on here?”

“He doesn’t know anything, Lace,” Cal said. “Just bag him and let’s get moving. That beastie’s only wounded; it might swing back around.”

The woman stared at me for another moment, then nodded. “Okay. So here’s the thing, Moz. Old-fashioned folk remedies aren’t going to keep your head together for much longer. Very soon, you’re going to do unpleasant things to your friends and neighbors. So we’re taking you for a little trip to New Jersey.”

“New Jersey?”

“Yeah, Montana’s full.” Lace smiled, pulling a small, thin object from her cargo pants. A needle glistened in the darkness at its tip. “This won’t hurt a bit, and you shouldn’t be there more than a week or two, thanks to your esoterica friend. Got to admit, she kept you in pretty good shape.”

“Hey, wait a second.” I backed away, holding up my hands. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got a gig next week.”

“A gig?” Lace glanced at the guitar on my back and shrugged. “Cool. But I’m afraid you’re going to miss it. We need to train you.”

“Train me for what?”

“Saving the world,” Cal said.

I swallowed. “You mean Luz is right? There really is a struggle?”

“She told you about the…?” Lace’s voice faded, and she closed her eyes, sniffing the air. “Hey, Cal—did you feel that?”

I had. My magic powers were spinning. I took a step away.

“Not so fast, Moz!” Lace grabbed my arm, thrusting the needle closer.

As I pulled free from her grip, the ground broke open beneath us…

Columns of flesh tore themselves up from the concrete of the platform, rings of teeth flashing in the darkness. One whipped past me, leaving my jacket sleeve in ribbons. I was already running, dodging through the flailing tendrils, stumbling over broken concrete.

The angels fought back, swords whistling through the air around me, as deadly as the gnashing teeth.

I jumped from the platform, then glanced back. Lace was spinning in place, her long sword slicing low through the air, cutting through columns of flesh as they thrust up from the ground. Black water spewed from the ragged stumps.

My hands reached for the neck of my Strat again, itching to pull it off my back. I was dying to run back and rejoin the fight, but I shut my eyes, yanked out the garlic, and bit straight into an unpeeled clove.

The burning sharpness cleared my head: I didn’t want to be part of any struggle. I didn’t want to go to some camp in New Jersey. All I wanted was to stay here, be in my band, play gigs, and get famous!

I turned away from the battle and dashed down the tracks, running back toward Union Square Station. As I passed the gash in the tunnel, a storm of rats spilled out, headed back toward the fight. I danced like a barefoot kid on hot asphalt as they swept past.

Finally the lights of the station glimmered in front of me. I leaped up onto the platform and kept running, climbing stairs and slanting tunnels until I’d dashed into the open air.

My pockets were heavy, jingling with enough change to catch a taxi out to Brooklyn. I had to tell Min what I’d seen. The enemy was just like she’d said: something monstrous. There really were angels, and they were recruiting, taking infected people away to… New Jersey?

Whatever. The struggle was real.

I hailed a cab and gave the driver Minerva’s street name. When he said he didn’t go to that part of Brooklyn anymore, I leaned forward and bared my teeth, asking him to reconsider. He turned, met my demented rock-star gaze, and changed his mind.

Once the cab was speeding up the Williamsburg Bridge, climbing away from the earth, my nerves began to calm. I was headed toward Minerva, to safety. I’d escaped the angels, and as long as I stayed out of the subways, they’d never find me again…

Then I remembered that my guitar case and amp were back there, underground. I sank down into the vinyl seat, eyes squeezing shut.

The amp didn’t matter—I didn’t need it anymore—but the case. If the angels came looking for me, they’d find it on the tracks. Inside was a polite note, asking anyone who found this guitar to please call Moz at this number. Big Reward!

And, of course, the note gave my address as well.

21. THE RUNAWAYS — MINERVA-

I pulled out Astor Michaels’s birthday present right before midnight, just like he’d told me to.

It was wrapped in silver foil, my own face gazing back at me in the candlelight, blurry and twisted. Zombie jumped up onto the bed and sniffed the package, then looked up at me, his little face worried.

Astor Michaels wasn’t family to me and Zombie—and now Moz. He was more like a distant relative, part of the clan who spelled their last names differently. It made him smell funny.

“It’s okay, Zombie. Astor’s going to make Mommy a rock star.”

When I pulled on the red ribbon, its knot only tightened, so I lifted the box to my mouth. The ribbon tensed for a moment as my teeth closed, then relaxed, like a chicken when Luz broke its neck.

Teeth were useful for all sorts of things these days. Mozzy could open beer bottles with his.

I slid the box out from its wrapping, checking the clock. Ten seconds.

I counted down, hoping the present wasn’t something heart-shaped. Eww. Astor Michaels knew I was with Mozzy. He’d spotted it faster than anyone else, except maybe smelly Alana Ray—and Zahler, of course, who Moz had told before he’d even called me. (Okay, really it was only Pearl who didn’t know. Poor little Pearl.)

My fingernails slit the box open, and I smiled.

It was a cell phone, shiny and microscopic. Lifting it up, hefting the insubstantial weight, I felt its shape fitting into my palm. What a very excellent idea…

Zombie, who’d been batting at the red ribbon, came over for another sniff, and at that moment the phone buzzed silently against my palm, like a housefly trapped in my fist. Zombie looked up at me and meowed.

“Must be for me,” I said.

I kept Astor Michaels waiting for three vibrations before I pushed the big green button.

“Aren’t you clever?”

“It’s my job to keep the talent happy.”

“Mmm.” I was already wondering when Mozzy would be home from playing down in the subway. He was supposed to call me exactly at one; I could phone him right before and give him a little surprise… I giggled.

“Sounds like I’ve succeeded,” Astor Michaels said.

“Very much so.” Then I frowned. “Why didn’t Pearl ever give me one of these?”

“Maybe she thought you’d get yourself into trouble.”

“Hmph.” Pearl probably liked being the only one with my number. Showed what she knew. “It’s about time. Luz stole my buttons, you know.”

“So you said. You needed a real phone, Min. In fact, it’s about time you had a real life.”

Zombie stared up at me, as if listening.

“What do you mean by that, Astor Michaels?”

“Why don’t you move out, Min?”

“Move… out?” My eyes swept the candlelit darkness around me.

“Red Rat has a few apartments set aside for our special artists, for when they come to town to record. Nicely furnished and in Manhattan. You could move in anytime.”

I swallowed, reaching out to stroke Zombie. His fur had the shivers. “But what about—”

“Your parents?” He made a disappointed noise. “You’re eighteen in two weeks, Min. You can disappear for that long, can’t you? Do you think the police will spend much time looking for a runaway who’s about to turn legal?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t care about the police, or my parents much either. But I wasn’t sure how long I could go without Luz. She could be a total pain, but she’d cured me, more or less.

And Mozzy needed her even more than I did. I was splitting Luz’s medicines with him, making sure he got through the first stages of the illness. So far, he was keeping it together just fine, but I didn’t want him to turn all bitey.

“Min?”

I covered up the microphone. “What do you think, Zombie?”

His eyes opened wide, glistening, nervous but… excited.

Mozzy needed to get well, but we needed things too—to breathe the air outside at night, sucking in the smells and the moonlight. To go down in the subway, like Mozzy got to every night.

I wanted to learn more… to make my songs stronger.

In a couple of weeks I could call up Luz and have her come to my new place. She could make birthday mandrake tea for both of us. Once I was eighteen, it wouldn’t matter if she told my parents where I was.

Me and Moz could make it for that long, couldn’t we? We knew to eat lots of garlic. Probably all those other smelly herbs were just for show.

Zombie meowed, still staring at me with gleaming eyes. In our own place, he could go play with his little friends whenever he wanted.

Astor Michaels was talking again. “Once you’re out of that room, the band can rehearse every day. Think what that would do for you, especially with your first gig coming up.”

I bit my lip. Pearl had been complaining about having only one more Sunday to rehearse. Zombie stared at me, tail twitching, anxious.

“Okay. I’ll move.”

“I thought you might say that,” Astor Michaels said, and I could hear his smile. It slid through the airwaves like a needle. “Go pack.”

“What, right now? But it’s midnight.”

“Best time to run away, don’t you think? I’m on the road as we speak, coming over to collect you.”

“Um, but Moz said he was going to call later.”

He filled my ear with a little sigh. “You can call him instead, Min. Remember my little present? The one we’re talking on?”

“Oh, right.” I giggled. “Clever Astor Michaels.”

“I’ll see you in twenty minutes. Pack light.”

Pack light? Puh.

I needed lots of dresses—all my black ones, for wearing onstage. All my necklaces and rings too, even though my old jewelry box was pink and tattered. Only a few pairs of shoes, because I really had to buy all new ones; none of mine were very rock star. I packed every bit of the underwear me and Pearl had bought the day we’d gone to Red Rat Records, but no pajamas, because I was so bored of lying around all day. Bored of sleeping.

Never again, I thought as I stuffed my two suitcases full. I could save up all my sleeping for the grave.

I packed my notebooks, of course. I’d memorized most of the songs in them, but they smelled good, and I liked to stare at my old handwriting. It was sweet how only I could read the songs, all of them in my own special language.

Zombie trilled from the top of the dresser, reminding me to bring cat food and a place for him to pee. I grabbed his bag of dry food and promised to get him a litter box. And big piles of bones—Moz and I were going to need lots of meat, especially without Luz’s tinctures and teas to help us.

I wondered if he would come and stay with me…

The thought made me shiver a little, and I looked around my room again, the place I’d lived for almost eighteen years. It was time to grow up, after all.

The illness had emptied this room of meaning. Luz had cleared all my old possessions out, back when they’d made me scream. She was reintroducing familiar things one by one, but none of them held any significance now. Everything from before the disease smelled like old toys from childhood, sugary with memories, a little embarrassing.

Better to let my parents keep it all.

Mommy and Daddy would be upset, but I could call them from my new phone and tell them how happy I was.

I snapped the suitcases shut, then crossed to the door, closing my eyes to listen. Maxwell was sleeping loudly down the hall. He’d started snoring lately, puberty making him prickly and restless. He’d be much happier without a crazy big sister sucking up everyone’s attention.

I listened harder, trying to hear through Max’s snuffling. The slightest creak of settling sounded below… was it Astor Michaels on the stairs? But he didn’t know about the secret key.

The phone vibrated again, like a tiny, nervous animal in my hand.

“I’m ready,” I whispered.

“Excellent. We’re just pulling up now. Heavens, this neighborhood’s seen better days.”

“It’s not our fault. The mean garbagemen won’t come here anymore.”

“Well, I’m glad I’m taking you away.”

I frowned. Suddenly I wished it wasn’t Astor Michaels helping me escape. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, rushing off with him. Mozzy could help me instead…

But I couldn’t imagine unpacking my bags, putting everything back into closets and drawers and under the bed, defeated.

One more day, even one more hour, was too long to stay here.

“Okay,” I whispered. “First you have to get the key. Then you sneak to the top of the stairs without making any noise—”

He laughed. “Just a moment, darling Min. I don’t do sneaking.”

“But… there’s a lock on my door.”

“Yes. And you can break it.”

“The lock?”

“The door. You’ve had the condition for five months, Minerva. You can feel your strength, right? I’ve broken doors down by accident. Just hit it with the palm of your hand. Hard.”

I touched the door softly, thinking of all the nights I’d tried to stare holes in it. But knock it down?

“It’ll make noise,” I whispered. “Wake them all up.”

“You’ll be down and out the front door while they’re still wondering what’s going on. Don’t be shy. Just hit it, Min.”

I remembered how I’d lifted Pearl’s mixing board with one hand last Sunday, making her eyes as round as buttons.

But bash down my own door?

“Do you want to stay in your room forever?” he said.

I hissed at the phone. Astor Michaels and his little tests. Were we mature enough to stay together? Tough enough to face a nasty audience? Strong enough to… bash things down?

Fine.

I hung up, scooped Zombie from the floor, and placed one palm against the wood. Drew my arm back…

And smashed it into smithereens.

Moz stood just outside, his jaw open.

“Mozzy!” I cried.

His smell rushed into the room, and Zombie struggled to jump down and say hi.

I stared at my stinging palm. “I’d have heard you coming up except for smelly Astor Michaels distracting me.”

“Um, I…”

“Poor Mozzy. You look frazzled.”

“Something happened to me. Something weird.” He looked down at the bits of wood around him. “Why did you do that?”

I bent to pick up a suitcase. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

“What way? The way where?”

“My new place,” I said. “Quit squirming! Not you, Mozzy. Grab that, would you?”

He blinked a few times, then saw my other suitcase and gripped its handle.

I paused for a moment, listening. Maxwell was definitely awake, his snores shattered into little pieces, just like my door. I could hear him twisting on his bed, snuffling with confusion.

Downstairs in my parents’ room, the floor was creaking with footsteps.

“Come on,” I hissed.

We didn’t bother sneaking. The stairs complained, but it felt so good not to be worrying over every squeak of the cranky old steps. We were past my parents’ room, almost at the front door, when Daddy flicked on the lights above us.

“Minerva?” he called softly. “Max?”

I pulled open the front door. The outside smells rushed in: the garbage mountains, the rotting leaves of fall, Zombie’s little friends skittering in the dark.

“Bye, Daddy,” I called up, trying to sound a little sad at leaving. “Don’t worry, please. I’ll call you soon.”

“What are you doing? Who is that?”

Moz looked very embarrassed to be stared at. But it was Daddy in his pajamas who looked silly.

“Tell Max and Mommy goodbye and that I’ll see you all on my birthday, okay?”

“Minerva! You can’t just leave… You’re not well! Where are you—?”

“I said I’d call you!” Daddy never listens. I stomped out the door.

“How are we going to get anywhere?” Moz sputtered, running after me. “Won’t they call the cops? I sent my cab away, and we can’t take the subway! There’s this thing down—”

“It’s okay, Moz. Look, there he is!”

Astor Michaels was half a block away, standing next to his limo, looking surprised to see Mozzy. His driver hovered close to him, scanning the piles of garbage nervously, one hand in his pocket like he was getting ready to shoot some of Zombie’s little friends.

We ran up, and I handed Astor Michaels my suitcase. “Take this; Zombie has his claws in my dress.”

“You’re bringing your cat,” he said flatly, staring at Moz.

“And Mozzy too!” I said.

“Yes, I see that.” Astor Michaels sighed tiredly. “Hello, Moz.”

“What’s going on here?” Moz said, sounding all manly and jealous, which made me giggle.

But then Daddy yelled something, and we all got in the limo, dragging the suitcases in behind us instead of opening the trunk. The driver put the car into gear and whisked us away.

I waved to Daddy out the back window.

“We’re going to our new place, Moz,” I explained. “You should come stay there with me.”

“Um…” Astor Michaels said.

“I can’t go home,” Mozzy said, staring out at midnight Brooklyn rushing past. “I saw this thing down in the subway, and the angels caught me. They almost took me away, like Luz always says.”

“Angels?” I asked. For the first time, I noticed how shaky Moz was. He was pale with shock, twitching and sweating like he’d seen something much worse than my door exploding.

“It’s real, Min,” he said softly. “The struggle’s real.”

I wrapped my arms around him. “Don’t worry, Mozzy. We’ll take you someplace safe.”

“By all means,” Astor Michaels said. “Must keep the talent happy.”

22. CROWDED HOUSE — PEARL-

The morning after the Morgan’s Army gig, my phone rang—Astor Michaels calling.

“You gave me a hangover,” I answered, still feeling all the glasses of champagne he’d brought me. Mom gave me a stern look across the breakfast table, but I ignored her. Stupid champagne genes.

Astor Michaels laughed at me from the other end. “Well, at least we have something to celebrate. They’re finally ready.”

I squinted in the sunlight streaming into the dining room. “The contracts?”

“In my hand.”

“Your lawyer works on Saturday morning?”

“They were ready yesterday.”

Mom was pretending not to listen, but I tried not to swear too loud. Everyone had been nine kinds of bugging me to get the negotiations over with, like the delay was all my fault. “And you didn’t mention this last night why?”

“I had a very busy evening in front of me.”

“Oh. Your mysterious errand.” He’d left me and Alana Ray at the club before the gig had ended, smiling like he had a dirty secret.

“And after that, things got even busier.” Astor Michaels sighed tiredly. “If you meet me downtown in two hours, I’ll explain everything.”

“Explain whatever you want,” I said. “Just bring the contracts.”

“Contracts?” my mother said the moment I hung up. “Does this mean you’re really going through with all this?”

I looked down at my hands, which were quivering a little—half hangover, half excitement. “Yeah, I really am.”

She looked out the window. “Why we wasted all that money on school, I don’t know, if you were just going to do something like this.”

“Juilliard wasn’t a waste, Mom. Not hardly. But it’s… over.”

She looked at me, trying to muster up a look of disbelief, but she knew I was right. Fewer students showed up for classes every day, and those that were still around were all planning some kind of escape from the city. Ellen Bromowitz had called it exactly right: one week ago, the senior orchestra had been officially put on hold for the rest of the year. The infrastructure was already failing.

“Plus,” I said, “this is my lifelong dream and everything.”

“Lifelong? You’re only seventeen, darling.”

I looked up at her, about to reply with some snark, but her eyes had turned shiny in the sunlight. Suddenly I saw something I’d never even imagined before: my indestructible mother looking fragile, as if she really was worried about the future.

I wondered if her friends were all doing the same as mine—heading to Switzerland, leaving the city behind. What if no one bothered anymore to raise money for museums and dance companies and orchestras? What if all the parties she lived for had no more reason to exist and simply stopped happening, leaving all her diamonds and black cocktail dresses useless?

Mom needed her infrastructure too, I suddenly realized, and she was watching it crumble away.

So all I said was, “Seventeen years is a long time, Mom. I just hope this isn’t too late.”

I called Moz’s house right away to tell him to come along. The two of us had started the band, after all. This was our moment of success.

His mother hadn’t seen him that morning. She wasn’t sure if he’d come home the night before and didn’t sound very happy about it. Maybe sometimes in the past Moz hadn’t made it home on Friday nights, she kept saying, but the way things were these days, he really should know better…

I hung up a little worried, hoping Moz wasn’t going to go all lateral on me. Except for Alana Ray and almost-eighteen Min, all our parents had to countersign the Red Rat contracts. With our first gig only six days away, now was not the time to pick a fight.

I called Zahler’s house next, but there was no answer, and my brain started to spin with every imaginable reason the two of them might have gone missing. The police were investigating a lot of disappearances lately, especially underground; there was talk of shutting the trains down altogether. But Moz and Zahler wouldn’t be stupid enough to go down into the subway, would they?

Not now, when we were this close…

Astor Michaels had given me the address of a huge block of apartments on Thirteenth Street. I got there right on time and found him waiting in the lobby, an alligator-skin briefcase clutched under one arm.

“Shall we go on up?” he said.

“You live here?” I frowned. The lobby carpet was a bit threadbare in spots, and two security guards sat in reclining chairs behind the doorman, eyeing us carefully, shotguns across their laps.

“Heavens, no. Red Rat owns a few apartments here. I thought you might want to see one.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I looked at his briefcase. “Whatever.”

The elevators were the old-fashioned kind, zoo cages on cables. An ancient guy in uniform slid the door closed after we stepped in, then wrenched a huge lever to one side. The machine began to rise, the floors passing just through the bars. My hangover started to grumble about the three cups of coffee I’d had.

Astor Michaels turned to me, clutching his briefcase a little tighter. “Pearl, I’ve been doing this since the New Sound was really new.”

“That’s why I tracked you down.”

“And I’ve signed fifteen bands in that time. But yours has something special. You know that, right?”

As I watched the floors slide past, I let myself smile, remembering how thrilled I’d been to find Moz and Zahler. “We’ve got heart, I guess.”

“That heart is Minerva, Pearl. She is what makes you special.”

We came to a stomach-jerking halt. I swallowed, my heart beating harder, wondering where Astor Michaels was going with this. Did he not want to sign the rest of us? Was he trying to make me jealous of Min?

The elevator man was nudging his lever one way and then the other, bouncing us up and down to align our feet with the red-carpeted floor on the other side of the bars. I tried to remember how many glasses of champagne Astor Michaels had bought me last night.

“I know Minerva is special,” I said carefully. “I grew up with her.”

“Indeed.”

Finally the elevator lurched and bumped its way to a halt, and we stepped off into a long hallway. The cage rattled shut and slipped away.

Astor Michaels just stood there. “Of my fifteen bands, Pearl, eleven have self-destructed so far.”

I nodded. That was pretty famous, how Red Rat bands tended to explode. “All part of the New Sound, I guess.”

“And why do you suppose that is?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Drugs?”

He shook his head. “That’s what we usually tell the press. But it’s rarely true.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You mean, you cover up the truth by saying it was drugs? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

“Generally. But certain things are worse than drugs.” He shivered. “Late last night, Toxoplasma had something of a meltdown. Right after their very first gig too. Those boys never really got along, you know.”

I saw a line of sweat roll down his forehead. It was the first time I’d ever seen Astor Michaels looking discomposed.

“What happened?”

“Who knows, exactly? It was all very stressful. And expensive to clean up.” He looked down at his free hand, picking under the fingernails with his thumb. “And messy.”

“They broke up?”

“Not exactly.” He didn’t smile. “As you say, that’s always been the problem with the New Sound. Toxoplasma had heart, but they only lasted a single gig. One gig!” He let out a long sigh. “Morgan’s Army may last forever, but of course they’re not the real thing.”

“Hey, maybe they weren’t perfect last night, but I thought they played a great set. What do you mean, ‘not real’?”

Astor Michaels glanced up and down the empty hall. “I’ll tell you inside.”

He turned and walked away, and as I followed, my stomach started to roil again. My knees felt shaky, as if someone was adjusting the exact height of the floor beneath me. What were we doing here?

Reaching an apartment door, he rapped on it twice sharply, then waited a moment. “Don’t want to disturb the tenants, but I think they’re out.”

“Whose place is this?”

He pulled out a key, opened the door.

Zombie was waiting just inside.

“I could always see them,” Astor Michaels began. “Even before it happened to me.”

I was staring at the couch, where half of Min’s clothes were draped: black dresses and shawls and stockings strewn across the room. Two open suitcases lay on the floor.

My stomach twisted again. Minerva lived here now. Astor Michaels had installed her here, his special girl.

“They were coming to the clubs, leaking sex out of their eyeballs, only a few of them at first. But once they got onstage…” He shook his head. “They’re natural stars, charismatic as hell. Except for that one little problem.”

“They’re bug-ass crazy?” I said harshly, looking at the dresser—the old pink jewelry box I’d bought Min when she was twelve was splayed open, full of shiny things.

“Crazy? I work for a record company, Pearl. Crazy I could deal with.” He leaned forward. “But they’re bloody cannibals.”

I looked up into his eyes. Had he just said cannibals?

But then I remembered how Min had hospitalized one of her doctors in the days before Luz. I thought of all the raw meat she ate, the way her teeth grew sharper every day.

Almost as sharp as Astor Michaels’s.

There in the darkened apartment, something cold crawled down my spine. “Why did you bring me here?”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then let out a snort. “Please, I never even tried it, not once. I’m different than the rest of them.” His eyes twitched; he still looked nervous. “Sane. And I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, my dear little Pearl. You’ve done me such a huge favor.”

“A favor?”

“For the last two years, I’ve been looking for someone like me—someone who’s infected but immune to the hunger. A singer who can get onstage and take the New Sound to the world without…” He looked down at his fingernails again, then shrugged. “Quite so much cannibalism.”

I wondered again what exactly had happened with Toxoplasma the night before. Probably nothing a rehab clinic could fix.

“That’s why I was so thrilled when you brought me Minerva,” Astor Michaels said. “She’s real, don’t you see? Not a mimic, like Abril Johnson. But not like those lost boys in Toxoplasma either.” Zombie jumped onto his lap, and he stroked the cat’s head. “She’s immune to the hunger.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, looking at the clothes strewn around the room. “She had it pretty bad there for a while.”

“Then somehow you’ve kept her together, Pearl.”

“But it wasn’t me. Her parents hired this… esoterica. Someone who knew what to do for her.” I looked around the apartment, wondering how Min was going to get what she needed now. How long would she last without Luz’s medicines?

“Well, if someone’s figured out how to cure this thing, we really do need to move fast. Won’t be long before they bottle it and everyone’s a rock star.” He shivered. “What a disaster.”

I looked at his hands, with their long, sharp, manicured nails. “And it never made you…”

“Crazy? A cannibal?” He shook his head. “Just hungry for raw meat sometimes. And horny, always.”

“Horny?” My skin was crawling now.

“Of course.” He giggled. “That’s how it spreads, you know. It’s nothing but a disease, Pearl. Just some new bug in the water. And as far as I can tell, it’s sexually transmitted. It makes you want to spread it.”

I closed my eyes. So Luz had been right about boys. What else was she right about? I wondered where her angels were, now that I needed them…

Then I remembered that Mark had cracked up too. Had he given it to her? Or vice versa? One of them had to have been cheating…

Zombie jumped up onto my lap, and I opened my eyes.

Astor Michaels was still talking. “I’ve been shagging wannabe singers for two years now, trying to find someone who could keep it together after the charisma set in, and every single one went nuts. Fifteen bands, Pearl. And finally you bring me a rock star already made!” He leaned back, rubbing his palms across Min’s dresses and sighing. “After all my labors.”

I sat there, stroking Zombie, trying not to scream as what he’d just said sank in. Astor Michaels had intentionally spread this disease; he’d been making more casualties like Minerva, broken people stuck in attics by their families, or lying huddled on the street, on subway platforms…

We were in business with a monster. The New Sound was the music of monsters.

I took a deep breath, reminding myself about the contracts. This didn’t have to change anything. Artists had been bat-shit crazy before; it was what you did with your insanity that mattered. We were still a good band, a great band even, even if our whole style of music was based on… a disease.

As long as we were the Taj Mahal of cannibal bands, maybe it wasn’t so bad.

“Okay,” I said.

It wasn’t really, but sometimes saying that word helps.

Astor Michaels smiled. “So we’re in this together, right, Pearl? We have to keep Min healthy, so that all our hard work—yours and mine—finally pays off. Even if she does something that makes you really, really angry. Okay?”

I looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Like what?”

“You know, something she’s not necessarily… in control of.” He shrugged. “The disease makes people crazy, violent, and especially horny. Sometimes even I can’t control myself.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’ve been trying that hard.”

He smiled, revealing his razor teeth to the gums. “A small price to pay for art.”

Zombie’s ear perked up, and he jumped from my lap and ran to the door. A second later came the jingling of keys outside.

“Ah. They’re home,” Astor Michaels said, eyes twitching. “Just remember, we all want this band to be a success. So don’t get mad at poor Min. I’ve seen the change happen with my own eyes, and she’s been through more than you can imagine. So be nice, all right?”

I nodded, but my head was spinning again.

They’re home, he’d said.

They.

The door opened, and Minerva breezed in. Moz followed behind, carrying a threadbare duffel bag.

“Mozzy! Look who’s here!” Min cried, beaming all the wattage of her fawesome beauty at me, her cannibal-rock-star charisma. Moz just stood there staring, looking a little surprised, a lot guilty.

With a twist in my stomach, I remembered his mother’s anxious voice on the phone that morning.

He took a slow breath, then shrugged the duffel bag from his shoulder. It thumped to the floor like a dead body—stuffed full.

He was moving in.

“Hey, Pearl. How’s it going?”

I tried to answer, but my gut was writhing now, squeezing the taste of stomach-ripe champagne up into the back of my throat. Minerva moved a step closer to Moz, five pale fingers wrapping protectively around his arm.

He was hers now. Completely.

With the three of them here together, I could finally see the changes in Moz, all the clues I’d managed to blind myself to: the luster of his skin, the beautiful, inhuman angles of his face. Just like Min back in spring—when the hunger was first welling up—he’d grown a heart-twisting shade more fetching.

Even slitted against the dim candlelight, his eyes glowed, full of pity for me. He must have known what I’d wanted.

But she’d taken it instead.

Suddenly the desolate feeling in my stomach was swept away by fury: Minerva had done it again, hooked up with someone in the band—in my band. Even after what had happened with Mark and the System, after everything Luz had told her, Min had done this to me again. I clenched my fists. Of course she would throw it in my face now, when we were this close, the contracts near enough to touch, ready to be signed.

I felt Astor Michaels’s gaze, willing me to keep it together. For the good of the band. For the good of the New Sound… the music of monsters.

He snapped open the locks on his briefcase, pulled out his pen.

I swallowed my screams whole. They went down my throat as sharp-cornered and cold as ice cubes.

“Hi, guys,” I said. “Nice place.”