Dark Muse (16 page)

“Do you think Silver Eye knows?”

“Are you kidding? He knows all about what
goes in and comes out of that thing.”

Corey stared at his friend. “Then why isn’t
he here? Why didn’t he come to help? Why didn’t he
know
?”

The world suddenly morphed from color to
black and white as a thought cut like a razor through Muddy.

They began to run toward the landfill, toward
the portal where they left the door wide open when Muddy stopped
short.

“Look.”

“What? Is that Bentley?”

Their nemesis, the cocky musician stood
frozen before them.

Otis shook his shoulders. “Forget it, man. He
probably didn’t even see us.”

“He didn’t have to,” Muddy replied.

The teen held a cell phone in the air. “He
recorded it?”

“I guess.”

“Well, don’t be an idiot. Take it and hit
erase.”

Muddy tried to wrestle the skinny phone from
the boy’s big hands but as he was a few moments ago, Bentley
remained frozen. “I can’t get it out! What do we do?”

“Hope,” said Otis. “We have to make sure it’s
gone.”

They ran off to their bikes and sped off to
the trail leading to the crossroads.

As they arrived, the creature had just
finished slinking back through the portal.

“What’s that on the ground?” Otis’ voice
shook.

“No. No.” Muddy’s mind broke as he realized
the full gravity of his mistake.

“It’s Silver Eye.”

“Crap.”

“Is he...?

“No, but he seems close. Very close.”

Chapter Thirteen

When Poe and Corey showed up half an hour
later, Muddy figured out that Silver Eye was in fact alive, but
barely.

“Hold on, buddy.” Corey cradled the old man’s
head.

“What you talking about, little man,” Silver
Eye replied. “I’m fine. Just get me to where I’m supposed to go
next.”

By then, Poe’s eyes had brimmed with
tears.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault!” Muddy
cried and yelled into the ground as he hung his head. “We were so
stupid. So dumb—just like they always said we were, especially me.
We should’ve waited for you but we didn’t.”

Silver Eye gurgled, his wounds visible to the
group for the first time. A pair of long fang marks had punctured
his chest, dark fluid oozing out in thin rivulets. “No, I did the
same thing when I was your age,” he said and wheezed.

“You killed your friend?” Corey hugged the
old man closer. He must have felt the kinship he’d abandoned when
he moved from Iron. “You were an arrogant jerk who left the door
open and let something crazy in to kill someone you cared
about?”

The bluesman smiled, blood welling up at his
lips. Clouds began to fill his good eye. “Something like that.
There’s a reason I live where I do, why my only friend is a beastly
beagle and scraggly old cat.”

Poe cried harder. “We’re your friends! You
have all those celebrities who looked like they love you in those
photos.”

He sighed, deflating just a bit. “Maybe they
did one day. Maybe they did. But then I got cocky and she—” He
coughed up some blood.

“Don’t talk,” Poe said, stroking his
forehead. “The ambulance is almost here.”

Something inside of Muddy told him that it
wouldn’t matter, that only one place could save him now. From the
color of Silver Eye’s skin, he knew the snake had some serious
venom in its bite and had been seeking out the man all along. It
had likely smelled him, sensed him—sent by someone over there.

First it aimed for him. And then for the
band.

* * * *

“She was special,” Silver Eye continued.
“Someone I wanted to bring over, to impress and teach, to be my
partner, in music and in love.” He gazed up at Poe. “Grab it while
you can, missy. It don’t come around often.” Then he turned his
head, to Muddy. “Even if the other fears what will happen.”

“Who was she?” Poe’s tears streamed down her
shirt.

He managed to lift a hand, if only to wave
them off. “Doesn’t matter now. “I’ll be seeing her soon enough and
we’ll see if she forgives me for what I did.” He pulled at Muddy.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you ever, ever betray her and turn your back
on your world.”

“I wouldn’t,” Muddy cried. “I did this! If it
wasn’t for me and this idiotic plan, you’d still be relaxing in
your house.”

“And dying slower,” the man finished. “Who
wants to fade away? You know the song. I’ve heard it myself. The
lyrics came from ages ago. It’s better to burn out.”

He coughed again as he gripped Corey and
Muddy’s hand. “Find him. Make things right if you can. Just don’t
give up. Don’t let the Dark Muse turn the blues to black.”

The guitarist sobbed, not caring how he
looked in front of Poe or the rest of the band. “First, my mother.
Now you. I can’t do this.”

As his eyes closed, he said, “Muddy.” The boy
leaned in close. “Yes, you can. You have something in you that your
brother never did. That, my boy, will give you the best chance. Now
bring me over.”

* * * *

While Corey and Muddy helped Poe staunch the
blood flow, Otis pulled out his cell and made a call. Five minutes
later, an Explorer screeched to the curb.

“Satch?” Muddy shot an expression of both
surprise and relief at the sight of their music teacher.

“I came as soon as Otis called me.”

“How?” Then he remembered his friend had
received music therapy lessons during one of his bouts with death a
few years ago. The family had made a friend for life. “Thanks for
believing in us.” His words tasted both bitter and relieved.

“I had a feeling this crossroads thing was
real all along. I wish I had the guts you kids do.” He bent over
the bluesman. “I’d always hoped to meet you. Tell me how to
help.”

“Did you run over any strange snakes while
driving here?” The old guy managed to sputter.

“No,” Satch smiled, “but when a golf cart
flew into my band room, I figured I’d better do something. There
aren’t many reasons a reject from a SyFy movie would be traipsing
down Carteret Avenue during a school day.”

“Enough!” Muddy stomped his heel to punctuate
his point. “We do this now. He’ll be trapped here if we don’t. The
crossroads—now.”

No one said another word as they loaded him
up with care in the back of the Explorer and piled in. Tires pealed
as they sped toward the crossing. Within minutes, they arrived at
the zone where one world met the next.

The group laid Silver Eye at the center of
the crossroads.

“Want me to come?” Satch helped unload the
SUV and turned to his students, a confused expression on his
face.

The guitarist looked at his teacher. “Thank
you, but go. This isn’t your fight and without an instrument over
there, you’d be dead weight, literally. No offense.”

He regarded Muddy with a tear in his eye.
“Muddy,” he said, his voice unsteady. “Are you sure about
this?”

Muddy looked back into the eyes of his
teacher and friend, thinking about what lay ahead. The fight.
Finding Zack. The creatures already encountered and those yet to be
faced. To trust Lyra and the stranger with her or not. Dying, like
his friend here who was dying because of his impulses.

“I have no idea, but we’re not coming back
until we get Silver Eye to safety and find my brother.”

“May the blues be with you,” the teacher
spoke with a smile, repeating the cheesy line he often used as he
dismissed the class. “Just come back.”

Muddy turned to his band and counted to four.
The most heartfelt song he’d ever imagined poured from him as he
felt blue in every inch of his body. Poe, Corey and Otis joined in
as their fading friend held on, breathing through one of his
harmonicas and sounding the softest note, but one which carried
enormous power.

The strings vibrated under Muddy’s fingers,
coming alive in both hands. Each wire he struck, each note he
fingered, shook his being into that place where he needed to be. He
felt all of himself become the song he played.

The curtain not only shimmered but dropped on
the band just as Satch dove out of the way. With a splash, Muddy
left the others behind as he tumbled headlong into the River. He
realized with no regret that the place was an actual River, flowing
with a substance he knew nothing of and knowing he might not live
to surface again. He grabbed hold of Silver Eye’s hand and prayed
he had what it took to deliver him safely to where he could
heal.

The blues entered his skin, flowed into his
blood and circulated up and down his arms, his legs vibrating with
harmonics he barely heard, but felt. It smacked into his brain and
heart as though his guitar's strings were connected to the battery
of the world's biggest truck.

Silver Eye
, his mind screamed. He felt
like he was drowning but couldn't stop playing. Something called to
him. It begged his fingers to keep playing to squeeze the soul out
of each note.
I’m so sorry
.

Don't stop. Keep in the blue. Ride the
River.

It pulled at his will power. Muddy felt
himself sinking further, the strong current tugging at every inch
of him, down, further away from his friends and the crossroads.
Like an ocean, the pressure built up at his ears, but instead of
pain, it yielded a high beyond anything he’d ever experienced
before. Better than his first kiss. Better than the Hulk
rollercoaster at Universal. Better than the first time playing
onstage. Better than when he met Poe. The more he played, the more
intoxicating the feeling.

The harder he played, the deeper he sunk.

The faster the riff, the wider the vibrato
and the further down he went.

In the back of his mind, he knew it wasn't
good, nothing feeling like this could be good, but the calling
overpowered his common sense. Each time he inhaled, a cool blue
flow of something filled him up and he cared less about rising to
the surface, to his friends.

He was probably drowning—and didn’t care.

“Muddy.”

The voice sounded from below him. The sound
of his name broke up into waves. He swore his imagination was
screwing with him.

“Muddy.” Louder this time. Still wavy but
heavier, like someone had dumped a tidal wave his way.

“Yeah?” He opened his mouth to call back but
the blue coolness flowed inside, squashing his voice into a
whisper. Would he really drown here? Silver Eye was, but then again
the bluesman acted like dying here wasn't such a bad thing.

He looked down and through a kaleidoscopic
view, his eyes focused on the old man just floating out of reach.
His eyes uncrossed and drew the old man into focus. The man stared
at him through eyes that were no longer glassy. Their power nearly
parted the blue between teacher and student.

“Boy,” the voice spoke. “Take my hand.
Now.”

Muddy shook the blue substance from his head
and stretched down with his left hand letting the guitar loose. It
almost reached, but not quite. He extended himself further,
throwing his shoulder and hip into it, and turned more than
expected. Without something to ground him, his body was at the
mercy of the River. Fingers touched fingers and the old man
encircled his. A sudden warmth washed over his body and it dawned
upon him that sinking was
wrong
.

His arms and legs kicked like a swimmer
struggling against a rip tide. “Relax,” spoke a strong thought from
outside his head.

The hand held like iron and visions flooded
his mind. Sounds and images of their impending mission branded
themselves on his psyche. Now he
knew
what the group had to
do in order to save Zack.

But instead of comforting him, it scared the
heck out of him, bringing back the chill of the blue surrounding
him. It would take all of them, some together and some separate, to
survive the trials of the Triton and save his brother from the Dark
Muse.

“Muddy,” Silver Eye said. “Do you
understand?”

He nodded but the images ran cloudy.

“Then let me go and get your butt out of
here.” Muddy looked at the source of the voice and saw a man
growing younger by the moment.

“No!” he screamed in his head. He couldn't
let the man drown down here.

“But,” Silver Eye said, the smallest of
smiles curling his lip. “Don't you realize? This is where I'm
supposed to be. I'm home now.”

Muddy still held firm but felt strong hands
reach under him and yank hard. The connection broke. The blue
River’s current washed stronger, as the image of Silver Eye faded
away.

As he rose, he heard the old man say, “I'll
be with you all the way, a part of you, just like the pick in your
hand.”

Chapter Fourteen

The sunlight broke through the darkness,
blinding him. Corey, Otis and Poe dropped him onto the path. “What
the...?”

She looked at him. “Are you okay? We couldn't
find you for a while.”

“But,” Muddy replied, confused, “you didn't
play the song. How'd you get through?” Then he looked around them.
The landfill was gone. The tide had carried them to the other
side.

Otis patted him on the shoulder. “Man, you're
a lot stronger than we thought. You surfed that River and told it
who was boss.” But even he knew the truth. Both of them nearly died
in there.

“How’d we get here?”

“Your song's more powerful than you know. I
guess you really wanted to save him.”

Panic struck him from all sides. Where was
he? “We have to pull him out! He's too weak to do it himself.”

Corey wrapped an arm around him. “Muddy, he
ain't down there. Maybe this was his plan all along. Look around.
The River isn’t something we can get to now. We have live people to
save. Zack, remember?”

“But we have to do something.” Muddy looked
down and sighed.

They stared at the river flowing between the
crossroads. It had been fading, draining from a deep, dark current
to what it remained now; a slow trickle that dried up right before
their eyes.