Part 71 (1/2)

”I died of an OD in 1978,” he said. ”Heroin. It was after that concert at Hammersmith. Do you remember?”

”Jesus Christ, Graham,” Em said. ”Don't tell me the c.o.ke paranoia finally got you.”

He laughed, though, big and brash, and put his palm against her cheek. It was cool, room-temperature. He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. ”Feel anything?”

And of course, she did not. Not even the rise and fall of his breathing.

Nothing at all.

She tried to say his name. Failed. Would jerk her hand away, if he would let it go, but he didn't and so she stood shaking with her palm pressed to his cold self.

He shrugged and let her hand drop, finally. ”Ange said she told you that you should take the cure. And me, I'm here telling you that you don't have to-”

”Die?”

”No.” A dismissive snort turned into a much less dramatic laugh. He was half-yelling to be heard over the stacks. It didn't matter; n.o.body who wasn't standing right behind her would ever overhear them. ”You have no choice about dying. But what happens after death-for most people, it's just a candle snuffed out. All those pretty stories amount to nothing.”

”How do you know?”

He smiled.

He knew.

And while she was processing that-the OD, the idea that maybe you didn't even need to put the ring on before you died-he shucked off his flannel, leaving the s.h.i.+rt slumped on the boards like a discarded skin. Em looked away from his withered pecs. He cleared his throat and said, ”You don't have to stop existing, is what I mean. Actually, all in all, I expected undeath to be a bigger deal.”

”Jesus, Graham.”

But he was holding out a hand, and she reached out and lifted hers up underneath it, open, flat, and expectant.

He laid a silver ring across her palm. It was cool to the touch.

”When you put it on,” he said, ”You'll seize. It's pretty awful. You'll want to be someplace safe and easy to clean. You'll heal damage after, better than before, but it still takes a while. Give yourself a few hours for the transformation.”

”Uhm.” She stared at the ring, and it stared back, unwinking. ”Ange too?”

”1981,” he said. ”Sorry. We would have told you-”

”No,” Em said. ”It's all right.” She weighed the ring on her palm. ”What's it cost?”

Oh, that grin, and all the lines on his face rearranging themselves. ”You lose weight,” he said. ”Mostly desiccation. It's not great for your facial tone.” With one hand, he rubbed slack cheeks. ”Ange has had her face pinned a couple of times.”

”That's not a cost.”

He shrugged. ”Life isn't Hollywood. Everything doesn't come with a price. Hey, I gotta get my hair fixed. See you onstage?”

”See you onstage,” she said, and held out the hand with the ring in it. But he brushed past her, making a dismissive gesture with one long hand. Keep it.

So she slipped it into her pocket and did, pausing to congratulate Objekt 775 as they came off.

Sanya beamed at her, and gave her a quick, sweaty, distracted, euphoric hug. She ran her palm across Em's scalp and laughed, but the noise from the audience was too loud for talking. The hug was sincere, and she leaned in and shouted ”That was for you, Em!” and kissed Em on the cheek.

A pretty girl kissed me, Em thought. She blinked back the sting of tears, but the embrace made it easier to contemplate the blood blisters from the Strat. That hour warming up didn't make calluses miraculously grow back. Neither would lubing the fretboard and her left hand from an aerosol can of Finger-Ease.

Those new Trial songs just weren't getting any better, no matter how many times she listened to them. And it was Graham, all Graham. His playing was technically great, better than ever.

But he might as well have been dead up there. She thought about that as she heard her name, and strode out to a roar, swinging the strap of the borrowed guitar over her head.

She might be out of practice, but she still had her ear. When she jammed with the band, they took fire.

When Em got back to the house in Carlsbad, the dogs were waiting on the cool marble of the entryway. She scratched chins and fondled ears, and they pushed one another out of the way to lean against her thighs. She picked her way through them, moved to the living room, and raised a hand toward the dimmer switch.

The silence in the big house stopped her. The whole place was sealed up and alarmed; she couldn't hear the swish of the sea, far below. And suddenly, she needed to.

So she was outside on the deck that cantilevered out above the cliffs when Ange found her, tossing stones over the rail into the hissing ocean forty feet below.

Ange had the key and the codes, of course, because somebody other than Em and her business manager had to. In truth, Em would have been surprised if Ange hadn't followed her home.

Ange sat down on a cedar recliner beside Em, and put her feet up. ”Did you put on the ring?”

”Can't you see in the dark?”

”Not that well,” Ange said, and reached out to take Em's wrist. Her touch was as chill as the night air, and Em bit her lip, forcing herself not to pull free. Instead, she reached out and folded Ange's hand in her other one, her sister's silver ring like a cool nugget against her palm. ”And I'm not tired either,” she said. ”I don't sleep any more, before you ask.”

”It's a mug's game, Ange.”

Ange shuffled her chair closer, near enough that Em would have felt her warmth at hip and shoulder if Ange had any to give. ”You live forever.”

”And cut the same old f.u.c.king alb.u.ms.”

”Oh, yeah,” Ange said. ”At least Graham's cutting alb.u.ms.”

”And at least you had the integrity to put down your axe when you figured out you couldn't play worth s.h.i.+t any more. Isn't that right? When was the last time you picked up a guitar?”

Ange stared at her. And then she sat back in her chair, released Em's wrist, and swung her feet up. ”Not since I broke up the Sisters. You figured that out?”

Em nodded. Far below, the sea fluoresced. The sky behind them was graying; they were facing the wrong way for sunrise. She tossed another pebble. ”You died, and that broke up the Shock Sisters. And I'm sitting on my a.s.s and drinking myself to death because Seth broke my f.u.c.king heart and I never got over it. You could just say it.”

”Do you want me to say things you already know?”

”h.e.l.l. n.o.body could ever tell me s.h.i.+t. Why should anything change now?”

”It's because you already know everything,” Ange said.

Em laughed.

Family. d.a.m.ned if they didn't know you.

Ange sighed and plucked a stone from Em's pile. The first one she selected glistened silver; she placed it back atop the pyramid. The second she kept, rolling it between her fingers. ”h.e.l.l, Robert Plant made a comeback.”

”Yeah, but it's easier to live off your f.u.c.king royalties forever.”