Demon Sun Read online

Demon Sun

  Marie Brown

  ©2012

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Earth

  Chapter 2: Demon Sun

  Chapter 3: Earth Again

  Chapter 4: Return

  Earth

  ". . .there's whiskey in the jar-o!"

  The set ended with a firm chord and a ragged cheer from the crowd. Patrick flapped his chording hand, shaking out an incipient cramp before it could take hold. He slung his guitar over his back and leaned close to the mike. "That's all for tonight, folks, and thanks for listening. We'll see you next week, same time, same place, for another night of Celtic folk-rock with Ceilidh."

  * * * *

  Tires screeched. Hope looked away from the "walk" signal and saw the car before it smashed into her. The world went black.

  * * * *

  Patrick staggered as he stepped off the small stage.

  "What's wrong, Patrick?" Trish, the tin whistle player, darted to his side, steadying him.

  "I don't know," Patrick frowned. "I just felt very—I don't know, dizzy or something."

  "Bit too much beer, eh?" Dan, the bodhran player, nudged him with an elbow.

  "Maybe," Patrick shrugged it off. "Anyway, good gig tonight. See you all for practice tomorrow?"

  "One of these days we'll have to start practicing the day before the performance, not the day after," Trish complained.

  "Not as long as none of us are free Thursday nights," Dan said.

  Off stage, his two friends stowed their instruments with the ease of long practice. Patrick secured his guitar in its case, fumbling. His hands felt distant, disconnected from the rest of his body, and his head floated at the end of a tether.

  "Are you staying for a beer?" Trish asked, touching his arm.

  "Not tonight," Patrick shook his floating head carefully. "Think I'm getting sick or something."

  "Get to bed, then," Trish said. "Get some sleep so you can play tomorrow."

  "That's the plan," Patrick agreed.

  He waved a casual goodbye to Dan and set off, guitar in hand, for the bus stop, glad for once he didn't own a car. He didn't feel safe to drive. What was wrong with him, anyway?

  Patrick reached home in a fog, barely aware enough of his surroundings to take his guitar with him. He managed to lock the door and get his boots off before collapsing facedown on the bed.

  * * * *

  Music swirled around him, wild and fey. Guitar? Mandolin? Something stringed, anyway. It teased at his soul, pulling him into a world he'd known before, a world of swirling, shifting color, drawing at his heart with poignant strength. He remembered this place, a refuge of his childhood, where dreams became reality and music soothed his soul. . .

  * * * *

  When Patrick woke, the music lingered in his head. It settled under the surface, vibrating and tickling at his nerves, a subliminal companion as he rose and dressed. Last night's malaise faded to a dim memory, an explanation for why he still wore rumpled clothes rather than a reason for concern.

  He drifted through the day, listening to the inner music. It grew stronger during Ceilidh's rehearsal, coming through his fingers into the world. . .

  "What's that?"

  "Shh! Don't interrupt him!"

  Patrick heard the voices and wondered what they meant. He opened dreamy eyes and saw. . .

  She floated in a sea of feathered clouds, a small, delicate beauty all but obscured by heavy black bindings. Her blue eyes begged him, pleaded with him, help me.

  He cried out in protest at the cruel bindings and the vision dissipated.

  "That's never happened before, man," Dan shook his head, eyes wide. "Who was she? How in hell did you get her here? And how come you've never played like that?"

  "Holy shit," Trish breathed, staring at the emptiness left by the vision.

  "It's the music," Patrick blurted. He continued, not thinking, just speaking. "The music builds a bridge. You said I've never played like that before. That's because I haven't been there since I was twelve, to the land of music. That's where she's from, and she's being held captive, and I need to save her."

  He broke off, realizing how crazy he sounded. "Sorry. I think I'll just call for the men in white coats now."

  "Nah, dude, don't do that," Dan waved off his suggestion. "I want to see you do that trick again."

  So did Patrick. He folded his fingers around the neck of his guitar, struck a chord, and wondered how the hell he could do this consciously. But the song still tickled under his skin, ready to break free through the conduit of his hands and instrument.

  This time he watched the magic happen. Ludicrous and out of place in the middle of a mangy, half-cleaned, poorly-furnished apartment, a shifting globe of mist formed. It shimmered and rippled, bands of color moving through at random, then it grew and expanded and opened like a lotus blossom. The girl looked out at them, bound and helpless, pleading with her eyes. Help me.

  He poured more soul into his playing. The girl strained against her bonds, crystal teardrops shining in her eyes. She rocked back and forth with the effort to do something, anything—

  Then vanished in a shower of rainbow fragments when Dan's cell phone shrieked.

  "Fuck!"

  Patrick felt like echoing the profanity. The music drained away. He felt empty, hollow, like maybe he'd never play again.

  Dan answered his phone and walked into the kitchen. Trish gave Patrick an impenetrable look.

  "You're. . . it's not going to happen again, is it?"

  "Very insightful, Trish." Patrick rubbed his head. "It's gone. There's no music anymore. Now what?"

  "I don't know. Too bad you can't play like that all the time, we'd be rich."

  "No doubt."

  Dan finished his call and returned to the living room. "Sorry, dude. Bad timing."

  "Yeah, I'll say. It's done. There's no more magic. None."

  "Damn."

  "Yeah."

  They stared at each other in glum silence for a moment.

  "I'm going home," Patrick decided. "I need to think."

  He ignored the responses. No music. His nerves felt dead. He felt dead. He wanted to see the girl again.

  He brushed off the others like annoying flies and made his way back to his own apartment, two and a half blocks away. He hoped, maybe, while he walked, the music would come back, but it didn't. It didn't come back inside his home, either. The comforting chaos of his apartment surrounded him, but it did no good. No more music.

  He stashed his guitar in the usual place behind the couch and flopped into his favorite (and only) chair. The emptiness inside burned. All his life he'd dreamed of magic. Now it finally happened to him, real magic, right in front of his conscious eyes and mind, and he'd lost it to a cell phone ringer. Without even helping the girl. . .

  Restless eyes, shifting around the apartment, fell on the bottle atop the refrigerator. Vox. Gift from a friend, because of course he couldn't afford a pricey vodka like that on his own.

  "Vodka is my friend," he muttered, picking himself up off the chair and finding a highball glass. Vox on the rocks. What better way to become comfortably numb?

  The alcohol relaxed him, although it did nothing to ease his inner distress. He still felt empty inside. He could see her, with thick black bindings (not leather, looked more like. . . like. . . slightly inflated bicycle inner tubes) holding her immobile, tear-filled eyes sparkling. . .

  The vodka did its thing and Patrick slipped off into a parody of sleep.

  Demon Sun

  His body died. Yuck. Dead and unpleasant, like a lump of meat left out on the counter too long, heavy and distasteful. The music teased and tantalized him. Not in his body, outside. Where? Must get to it. Just leave the disgusting d
ead body behind. (Not dead, his analytical side insisted. Drunk. Dreaming.)

  He ripped himself out of his body and left his name behind. Once free, he became the music. It pulled him, stretched him, sucked him in. . . to Demon Sun.

  He remembered this place from childhood. When he'd described the land of music to his mother, she'd laughed and told him it sounded like he'd found a magic new dimension. Dimension, Demon Sun—an amusing play on words for a young boy. And here, in Demon Sun, music was born. It filled him, pulled him along on drifting bands of glorious chording, tickled him with pure harmony. He flowed with it, one with the music, reveling in what he thought he'd lost forever.

  Then he saw something that jarred him out of his state of bliss. A woman, made of ivory, cupping an iridescent fluttering square in her hands and bending to whisper to it: flutterby. She released it. Her blue eyes raised and fastened on him.

  One smooth ivory hand beckoned him closer, and he came, wondering at the familiarity of her eyes.

  "Collector."

  "What?"

  "I name you Collector."

  "I have a name," he protested. "I think."

  "I am the Namer of Names, and I name you Collector."

  "Collector. Why?"

  "Because it is your function. By collecting, you will free them all from the prison."

  "What? Who?"

  "All," she replied enigmatically, waving her hand. "From the prison."

  "If all are imprisoned, then how are you free?"

  "Because no one can imprison the creative soul." She smiled, then caught a bit of shimmer from the air. "Bubble."

  She released the bubble, and it floated away.

  "Fare well, Collector," the Namer said, then vanished.

  A glimmer of light caught Collector's eye. A small shiny bag sat where the Namer had been. He picked it up, wondering. It looked like a handbag a little girl would carry back in that other world, all pink and sequins and beads, with a delicate silver chain and the kind of clasp that would pinch unwary fingers. He put it down. . . or tried to. The chain settled firmly around his wrist and refused to come off.

  As he struggled with the stubborn handbag, something settled around Collector with a dramatic whoosh. He looked up, catching a fleeting impression of tattered black wings, then blackness smothered him and he knew no more.