He recognized the tune and brightened. “‘A Thousand Suns.’ That’s when I knew I liked you, when you told me how you connected with it.”
“Yeah, totally.” She donned her messenger bag and breezed past him. “Let’s roll. The Uber’s here.”
“Off we go.” He followed, though some invisible force pulled him back. Her tone was weird. Glib, superficial. Lacking awareness.
But there wasn’t really anything for him to say short of interrogating her about some passing comment she’d made in Minnesota, which would make him look and feel like a paranoid sod. He blamed Jonnie for planting unfounded suspicions and buggering up his thought process.
She left the house, he behind her. A cheap foreign car the color of cat vomit sat in the roundabout. Pulse spiking in a succession of erratic, irrational bursts, Brian walked around to the back window. No logo advertising the ride service.
“What?” Helen chuckled. Setting sun streaked through her hair in luminous shards, imbuing her with an angelic glow. She climbed into the backseat.
He was being an idiot. Tilly was safe with her bodyguard and tutor. His bandmates would intervene in the event of any problems. Brian shook his head, got in beside her, and shut his door.
Mundane details, from the car’s stench of air freshener to the driver’s mounted cell phone showing GPS directions to their destination, failed to ease his duress.
“Are you nervous?” he asked Helen, buckling his seatbelt.
“Nah.” Her smile was a closed-mouthed wisp of a thing fit for housing a trapped canary.
The driver steered his car down the driveway, punched in the code that Brian supplied, and curved through the hills and onto an Interstate.
“Are you sure? You’re awfully quiet.”
She shrugged. “Just thinking.”
“About your audition?”
Every pause, every lull, was painful. The sobering, sinking feeling that something was not right settled into the cabin like a looming fourth rider.
“No.”
Cool, processed air teemed with solid awfulness. The car pulled off on an exit ramp and hung a quick right turn, bouncing over potholes as it passed a junkyard filled with piles of decaying car skeletons, a neon-yellow sign advertising a pest control place, and a bail bond establishment with bars protecting windows already shattered with spiderweb cracks.
Their driver turned into the parking lot of a storage locker facility. No other vehicles in sight.
“Helen.” Brian gritted his teeth. “Where is Soul Krush?” He held on to a morsel of stupid hope.
The car turned a corner, and the open metal door of one of the lockers came in to view. Inside the square of space there was no old furniture or paintings, no worthless items of sentimental value the owners couldn’t stand to part with.
No, in the center of the barren concrete floor, someone had etched a pentagram in red paint. Or at least he hoped it was red paint. Three robed figures flanked the five-pointed star, laying what looked to be trinkets in various parts of the painting. Slabs the color of stainless steel covered their faces. His heart sank. This was not Helen beside him. He should have gathered that.
He was a fucking numpty, fooled by this. His pulse slammed, and sweat dampened his underarms. With a shaking hand, Brian reached for the mobile phone in his pocket.
The imposter posing as Helen opened her bag, pulled out the knife, and pointed the tip right under his chin. “Soul Krush? It’s somewhere on Venice Beach I think. But that doesn’t concern you. Your job right now is to prepare yourself for the Silver Phase.”
Eighteen
Helen unlocked Brian’s front door with the spare key, pensiveness weighing on her thoughts. She’d busied herself with quite the productive outing while he practiced in his home studio.
Her trip to the Venice beach magic shop ended with two bags full of pamphlets, various spell craft tools, and advice from the crone in charge. The woman confirmed Helen’s suspicion about the problems with her Left Hand magic and state of mind.
The front door gave way to a din of male voices engaged in subdued chat. Though tempted to forge ahead with the suggestions of the Venice witch, Helen would be remiss not to first explain to her mentor her reluctance to abandon the Left Hand path. She did some nail polish picking as she walked inside. Nerissa might balk, but she at least needed to hear Helen out. Consider her reasoning.
Jonnie Tollens approached her from across the living room, focused and serious.
“How was the audition?” he asked crisply, dark eyes assessing her with unmitigated skepticism.
Helen cocked her head. Brian’s friend’s palpable distrust swirled all around him, and his mention of this audition topic confounded her in a gruesome way.
“What audition?”
Jonnie crossed his arms over his chest and drew back as if recoiling from her physical presence. “The one you mentioned when you stopped by the studio. Where’s Brian?”
“When I stopped by the—” Her stomach iced. A dread cloud eclipsed confusion. The clone was afoot, and had escalated her meddling by duping Brian into going somewhere with her. “Oh, shit.”
“Look, Helen, I don’t know what your endgame is, but I’ll admit I don’t like you.”
“And that’s fair. I don’t blame you. But if you’ll excuse me, I need to try to help.”
He scowled. “You aren’t making sense. Is Brian safe?”
She looked Jonnie square in the eye. “No. He isn’t.”
Two more men walked up and assumed posts at Jonnie’s sides. Thom from Denver and a guy wearing a warmup suit. She put two and two together, placing the third man as Fyre’s drummer, Jonas.
“How did you get back here so fast?” Thom furrowed his brow.
“She’s dodgy as hell and full of lies.” Jonnie spoke through clenched teeth.
“Look, I get your apprehension, I really do. But I need you all to listen to me right now. I have work to do, and I need the house to myself for awhile. Can I trust someone to take Tilly for the rest
