Warlord (Anathema Book 1) (5 page)

Lyn hopped off
the desk. She leaned over my chair, knowing full well how good a view I had
down her corset.

“You start
listening to me, you might have more than a month.”

Her hand tickled
over my chest. She brushed aside my vest and tugged at the black shirt
underneath.

“There’s a rat
in Anathema.”

Her hand stilled.
Those green eyes went radioactive.

“Are you
serious?”

“Serious enough
to tell you.”

“Who?”

“I have my
suspicions. But I don’t know yet.”

Lyn pulled away.
I resisted the urge to grab her hair and push her back between my legs. But she
was classier than that, even if a run-in with Priest and the chase on the
highway ached me in places that hadn’t needed to wait for relief in years.

“God damn it.” Lyn
paced the room.

“Your girls say
anything?”

“Tracie and Shannon
are involved with some of Exorcist’s men. But they know not to say anything. And
Molly’s been strung out with Keep lately.” She pointed at me. “You better get
Keep’s shit together.”

“Might not have
to.”

The implication
struck like a back-hand. Lyn stepped away.

“Not Keep. The
rat isn’t
Keep
.”

“I don’t know.”

“I fucking do.” Her
voice hardened. “I thought I did. Holy shit, Thorne. This city can’t take
another war. Not unless you all want to be hauled off for murder.”

“I’m trying to
avoid that.”

“How?”

“I’ll find the
rat.”


How
?”

I hadn’t figured
that out yet. Didn’t matter. I curled my finger and beckoned Lyn closer.

“I’ll start by
calling in that favor.”

Lyn shook her
head but knelt before me. Her eyes darkened. “And then what?”

“I’ll set my
traps.”

 

 

 

I swore I bombed
the audition before I made it off the stage, but a few frayed nerves never stopped
me before. Not when plenty of scarier things existed in the world—like what
would happen if I couldn’t find a gig.

At first, I sang
sharp. My fingers tangled in the key change, and the vibrato in my voice wasn’t
intentional. I turned Adele into Bob Dylan, and God I hoped they hadn’t
recorded it.

But the recovery
was worth it. When the song’s melody melted like chocolate and my last tremble
rocketed up from my pink toenails and escaped in the flick of my curls behind
my shoulders. No sample of Cream ever rocked so hard and sounded beautiful.

“Thank
you...Rose?” The cafe manager looked up from counting his receipt to glance at
the packet of business cards, photos, and resumes I handed him. “Rose
Darnell
?”

“I can play
piano too.”

“Yes...” The
manager nodded. Even in the dim light cast by the bar, his face paled a sickly
green. “Rose, thank you for your time...but I don’t think you’re what we’re
looking for at the moment.”

My smile cracked
but didn’t shatter. “Oh. I can do contemporary too. Or classical. Or whatever
you want. Really. What kind of music would you prefer?”

“The kind...” He
rubbed the sweat from his brow. “The kind that gives us the least amount of
trouble. I’m sorry, we just can’t afford any...incidents now. Thank you for
your time.”

I stuttered when
I introduced myself but only because I worried about the acoustics of the
cramped cafe. I never considered taking a stage name. Now it only seemed
logical. As long as I stayed in the city, it was possible everybody knew who I
was.

Who my brothers
were.

What my father
did.

My stomach
twisted. I prayed no one would ever find out what my father did.

I packed my
guitar and muttered a polite
thank you
, though my face flushed with more
than just insult. Shame. A mortification my brothers never would have
tolerated.

But I wasn’t my
brothers. The manager didn’t care. He locked the cafe door behind me with a
frightened click. I might have pounded on the door and shouted to the manager
that it wasn’t like my wool jacket and rusted, ten year old Honda Accord raged
like Anathema in the streets of the valley.

It didn’t
matter.

My first
real
shot in months. Not a one-time show. Not a silly little fundraiser where I’d be
stuffed in the corner. A real gig. A paying job. Something that could finance a
new guitar if mine broke or get my car the oil change Brew demanded.

The cafe’s
parking lot wasn’t the greatest place for existential crisis.

It also wasn’t
the best place to cry.

I did both.

It wasn’t worth
heading home. When I called the diner to request the day off, Steve gave me as
many days as I needed. I doubted he wanted me to return, even to hand in my
apron.

Keep always said
if I visualized what I wanted, and imagined the outcome I desired, I could make
it happen. Dreaming wasn’t much of a help now. The lovely vision in my head
fizzled away. The intimate stage, the quiet audience, the record producer offering
me a latte and presenting me with a contract.

Now the only
thing I could imagine was how far half a tank of gas could drive me. I
visualized eking out another two blocks of my normal commute, but optimism was
easier when a switchblade earned the desired result.

That would
change. I had two choices. Head home, scoop out a bowl of ice cream, and queue
up Pink Floyd with a desperately needed bubble bath. Or, I could do what I
needed to do.

My beautiful
guitar played sour in my ears, and the thousand dollars sitting in my purse
ticked away like a time-bomb, just waiting to explode and impale me with
Anathema’s shrapnel.

I would never,
ever touch the money. It was stupid to ask for it. Stupid to let my brothers
back into my life. Stupid to let what happened in the diner...happen.

It was my fault.
My boss went to the hospital, and he swore to me on every holy book that he
didn’t tell the doctors or police who pummeled him. He apologized to
me
for getting hurt.

For Keep and
Brew, violence solved everything. When life gave them lemons, they pulverized
the fruit, chopped down the tree, and salted the earth where it once grew.

But that wasn’t
me. No matter how many auditions I could book with a functioning instrument, I
couldn’t be a part of it. Not anymore.

So I didn’t go
home. And I didn’t mourn the audition. First I had to take care of myself, and
the only way to do that was to yank the thorn out of my paw.

The pawn shop on
Washington and Third was almost as old as the town. Dad knew the owner, but no
one wore a cut. I hauled the guitar inside. My heart ached with the musty, wooden
smell permeating the store. Not much sold here. The clutter grew like mold on
the walls—anything from cracked rocking horses to fishing poles. My guitar was
the newest and best item in the store. I hoped that meant it wouldn’t be here
for long. The poor instrument didn’t need to suffer because I had a bout of
nobleness. Or guilt.

Whiny punk music
screeched from a tinny radio behind the counter. I filled out the receipt and
handed it to the tattooed clerk drumming out of sync with the beat. Facial
tattoos weren’t the counterculture statement I chose, but ink ran in the blood
of most club members. The clerk scarred his face with reds and yellows. I
offered a polite smile as he shifted onto a chair.

“I’ll give you
eight hundred,” he said.

The smile
cracked. “It’s a fifteen hundred dollar guitar.”

“Eight fifty.”

I shook my head.
“I’m not going lower than twelve hundred.”

“Nine
twenty-five.”

I patted the
case. “You don’t understand. This is a Gibson. It’s a
brand-new
guitar.
I only played it three times.”

Tattoo shrugged.
“Then what? Is it defective?”

“No! It’s a
great guitar.”

“The why you
gettin’ rid of it?”

I wasn’t about
to share my life story and recent emotional catharsis with a man who inked the
naked Virgin Mary on his cheek.

“The music store
doesn’t do refunds,” I said. “Can you be fair? My dad used to come here all the
time.”

“Who’s your old
man?”

“Blade Darnell.”

The tattooed man
stilled. Apparently everyone reacted the same way when confronted with my father.
I thought I was the only one who cowered.

“You’re Blade’s
girl?”

“I want thirteen
hundred for the guitar. That’s fair.”

The clerk
cackled, and the colors on his face swirled. A chill curled around my spine.

“Thirteen
hundred then.” He took the guitar and counted out the money. “Blade always did
drive a hard bargain.”

“I guess.”

He bound the
bills with a rubber band and pushed the stack to me. “Great doing business with
Anathema again.”

I didn’t want to
correct him. The hair on my neck rose. I hated leaving the instrument in the
clutches of someone more likely to use it for firewood than composition, but
something wasn’t right. It didn’t take the daughter of Anathema’s former
Vice-President to realize this was no place for anyone without a weapon.

I took the money
and ran. Another deal done. Business as usual for Anathema. They paid the dues
to get in, and they paid with their life to get out. No in-between, no easy
escape, and no pity for those who didn’t belong.

And now? Freedom.
The club would be a memory, the money a mistake, and my family’s paranoid rules
just a quark of a childhood lost, forgotten, and healing.

My brothers
could live for the patch sewed onto their vests. They could ride the bikes and
intimidate the diner patrons and inject themselves with whatever drugs they
needed to ease their conscience.

But I was done.

And it felt
incredible.

Unfortunately,
being done meant seeing them again. And I was a lot braver in my own head than
I was face-to-face with my brothers.

I hadn’t been to
the bar in years. Not since the party when Dad gave it to Keep and the name
changed from The Imp to Pixie. We hadn’t stayed long. Dad didn’t want his
daughter present at the true MC party.

That was his
excuse to go home anyway.

I tried not to
think about it.

The guys used to
joke Pixie was the reason the town built train tracks to designate good and bad
sides. Leather ruled the streets near Anathema’s headquarters. The exhaust of
industry padded wallets and more secrets housed within the empty warehouses
than wholesale stock.

Pixie blended
into the dark and dank of the street. It didn’t even have a sign out front,
only the emblem of the naked fairy kneeling over the entry. I parked and earned
the snicker of the lone prospect guarding the door.

“No,
sweetheart.” He pointed to the car. “This ain’t a place for you. Not unless
you’re sellin’ something to make it worth our while.”

I auditioned in
a black sweater with a sensible skirt. Not the usual attire that graced
Anathema’s hangouts. The prospect wasn’t an idiot, and he was right. But I knew
what to expect inside.

“I’m looking for
Keep and Brew. Are they here?”

“They might be.”

I reached for
the door. The prospect pressed his hand against the wood before it opened.

“You’re not
their type.”

Ew. I heard
enough about my brothers’ exploits without the prospect painting a picture for
my benefit. I shook my head.

“I just need to
talk to them.”

“Sure.
Talk
to them.” He grinned. “When you’re done, come back and
talk
to me too.”

The prospect’s patch
on his vest wasn’t as intimidating as a top rocker. Knowing the club’s
hierarchy, he’d probably be stuck outside all night.

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