Chapter Eight

The Impossible Mistake

Emerald Dusk had been a spot for aspiring Rock and Roll musicians for nearly twenty years, a place where the up and coming could go without worry of being too harshly judged. It was also a lesser known hang-out spot for teens who enjoyed the music but disliked the thick crowds many of the clubs in London offered. It was small, authentic and simply comfortable.

It was also the spot that the enigma Bridge made his debut in front of about fifty people, who weren't sure what to expect from the tall lanky man with the strange style. After his ten minutes were up, their opinions would help shape millions as time went by.

Down below Emerald Dusk's main building in the basement was the stage area. It was simple enough, with a wooden platform at one end of the room and musical equipment and boxes stacked randomly around the walls. The stage had a few fancy gadgets imported so the owner could get with the 'new crowd'. Three small tubes which would shoot out various kind of pyrotechnics. Not the most impressive things you would see but enough to get some extra excitement for a performance. Most of the time it was a public place, where anyone could venture down to see what new stars were trying to make a future for themselves but at the moment there was a restricted sign hung on the door handle.

Bridge stood on the stage, concentrating intently on his guitar. His tune was improvised, though it sounded like it had been tempered perfectly. His eyes followed his fingers and the pitch-black pick as it moved up and down. He experimented with fast rhythms and slow rhythms, slowly nodding every time he adjusted the tune. Every time Bridge head moved, the beads that were tied into the strands of hair moved and flashed like tiny stars.

Standing with her back against the door outside of the performance area, Lily Talbot couldn't help but smile to herself. It seemed like Bridge hadn't lost any of his edge after the incident at the Epsilon Concert Hall. It was easy enough to sneak into Emerald Dusk, since anyone was allowed to walk in the front door without even a questioning look.

Lily had been here all that time ago, when she was barely a teenager. She smiled softly to herself, remembering the sight of that majestic man standing on the stage, oozing confidence. He was an absolute asshole, sure, but Lily loved that. She loved the fact that Bridge didn't give two thoughts to anything, speaking his mind. He was so good that he had that right. Lily had grown up watching him develop – first, bouncing from band to band, making a name for himself around the local scene. Then joining Razor's Edge and rising them up to national and then international status. After he had disappeared, she had tried to track him down but after finding out he had ended up in Japan of all places, she was forced to sit on her hands and wait…

It proved worth it. Bridge came back with more confidence than ever. She hadn't a chance to listen to his music at the Epsilon Concert Hall but she had sneaked into more than a few of his training sessions in the week he had been back in England and heard just what he had learned from that time over waters.

A sudden jarring chord struck through Lily's ears, making her jolt in surprise. She whipped around, shocked, looking through the glass window of the door to Bridge on the stage. He was staring wide-eyed at the guitar in his hands, paying no attention to anything but the instrument. Lily narrowed her eyes and silently opened the door, slipping into the room and moving to the dark corner. Bridge couldn't have just made a… mistake, could he?

"Hrm…" Bridge took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started playing again. Once again his tune was perfect. He started slow, strumming as he got into the rhythm. He sped up, his fingers quickly turning into a blur as the music struck out over the stage. He slowed down again, throwing some long chords in there before speeding up once more. Then his pick seemed to get caught and flung from his fingers, sending another broken chord echo around the stage. "Damn it!" Bridge growled, watching the black guitar pick bounce down into the crowd area.

Lily couldn't believe what she had seen and heard. It had to be a fluke, right? In all her time she had watched Bridge, all those years, watching him rise from nothing to become an international superstar, through all the training sessions with Razor's Edge and performing in front of millions, Bridge had never made a mistake. Not a single one.

Bridge was a musical genius, after all. One of the first things Lily had done after coming in contact with the man was look up his history, which was easy enough to find if you knew where to look. He had grown up in the Somerset country-side, in an old English manor as if it was stuck in the Victorian Era. His parents were both musical prodigies themselves – his mother was a violinist that had performed all over the world; able to manipulate all kinds of string instruments as well. His father was a pianist who once played a twenty minute solo without losing even an moment of the crowd's attention.

But Bridge… Bridge could do it all. He could play the violin to perfection, he could play the piano with ease, he could play the trumpet, the guitar, the drums, he could sing, dance, and perform. One story from someone who claimed to be an old classmate of Bridge's said that he had overshadowed the entire music class with a steel triangle.

Hearing him make a mistake – no, two mistakes – something was very, very wrong.

Bridge had dragged a microphone stand on stage this time. He held an old-style microphone in his hand, the kind with the wire still attached plugged somewhere at the back. He placed it on the stand and stood staring at it for a moment. He counted to himself four beats before opening his mouth to sing.

His voice was one of a kind. It wasn't too high nor too deep. It seemed to fit his persona and look perfectly, with little room for error. It was a voice that could woo men and ladies alike, if Bridge so felt like it. It was a voice that could make a nun blush and get an old man dancing again.

Lily listened with her eyes closed, just taking it in. His voice was very special to her, worming its way deep into her heart. Even if Bridge refused to accept it and called her a nuisance, Lily knew that she and Bridge shared a connection deeper than even lovers.

As sudden as a gunshot, Bridge's voice cracked.

Both Lily and Bridge reacted the same. Their eyes opened and they stared at the microphone, wondering a brief moment if it was somehow the microphone's fault. But no… Bridge's voice had decided that it didn't want to work for the first time ever.

"What… the… hell…" Bridge's short temper emerged, his face growing heated. "…is going on!?" He kicked at the stand in a fury, letting it clatter over the floor. The microphone spun on the floor as the cord stretched out in front of Bridge, though the lanky man was paying no attention to it. Instead he was looking at the palm of his hand intensely.

His fingers were shaking. Bridge clenched his fist tightly. At that moment, his eyes moved across the room and saw a shadow in the corner. A flash of red moved over his head as he recognised that small girl that was consistently and constantly stalking him. He took one step forward; Something was wrong with him and he knew it and he just wanted to shout at something, just wanted to break something. However, before he could say a word the microphone cord caught at his ankle.

The normally sure-footed Bridge stumbled, slamming his left foot hard on the stage in an effort to stop himself from falling. Instead, it slipped on the polished wood, sending Bridge sprawling forward, his right eye falling straight towards the middle pyrotechnic tube.

At the last moment Bridge moved his long arms and slammed his palms down either side of the tube, stopping his momentum. His eye was only centimetres from the tube, centimetres from a very embarrassing death. Many rock-stars had died in many ways, but Bridge guessed that impaled by a pyrotechnic tube was a first.

What Bridge hadn't seen was the cord of his microphone snapping out of the wall as he tripped. The cord swung through the air like a pendulum, catching on a small black console which would usually control the pyrotechnics during a performance. The three metal prongs caught the switch which would fire off all three of the tubes simultaneously.

Bridge saw the spark flash inside the tube and knew his time was up…

…and it would have been had his sole audience not realised what was happening. The moment Lily had watched Bridge trip, she had saw the cord snap through the air. Something inside her knew that she had to move – and move she did. A life of running coursed through her veins as she pushed away from the corner and sprinted over the floor of the small performance room. Near the stage she took a running jump, leaping up onto the stage just as the cord hit the switch of the pyrotechnic controls.

She didn't have time to warn him or even shove him out of the way – she was not strong enough to move his body like she needed. So instead she swung her foot back and like a pro footballer swung it through the air towards the tube. Her foot hit the tube just as the spark flashed.

There was a massive flash of red and green sparks that burst nearly as high as the ceiling, mixed in with a roar of pain. Bridge threw himself backwards, clutching at his face. Lily was forced to cover her own face as the sparks shot out diagonally from the broken tube, showing no sign of stopping like it should after five seconds. Blinking away the stars in her eyes, Lily ran over to the control panel and initiated shutdown. The sparks sputtered and died down, allowing Lily to focus on Bridge.

He had managed to scramble to the back of the stage, his back straight against the wall, both hands pressed against the right side of his face. Lily ran over and knelt in front of him but Bridge swatted at her.

"You…" Bridge sneered, breathing heavily. "You are… a…" Bridge let out another snarl of pain, his breathing growing more rapid. "A… a…" Bridge's left eye rolled into the back of his head and his hands dropped, revealing to Lily a ghastly sight.

The entire right side of his face had been burnt off. What remained of his skin was blistered and raw red, his ear seemed all but gone and his hair was still smoking. She could almost swear she saw the white of his orbital bone next to wear his contact-covered eye should have stared at her, only the lenses must have melted into his eyeball judging by the yellowed remnants of the lens.

"Bridge?!" Lily tried to shake him by the shoulders to no avail. He was still alive, thankfully, the pain must have forced him unconscious. The fact that he had overcome the pain momentarily to curse at her showed her exactly the strength Bridge held. She quickly dialled for an ambulance, using her free hand to clutch Bridge's right hand. "I'm here, Bridge," she muttered over the calling tones. "I'll be right beside you, okay? Always. Hang on for me, okay... Hang on..."