"Have a good time in there; I'll be out here if you need some company, baby." The creepy bastard checking tickets winked at me as I passed him. I fought an urge to kill him on the spot, but Nyx swung her arm around my shoulders (which, considering she was about a foot and a half taller than me, involved her being half-bent over) and led me inside, Nico fighting through the crowd behind us.

"Don't you just love this energy?" She said through a huge smile. Her voice easily pierced the roar of people; I had to yell my head off though.

"Who's playing?" I yelled while looking back for Nico, who was being mauled by Goth and emo girls. Nyx had dressed him in black combat boots, black skinny jeans, and a black V-neck with the sleeves torn off and the whole thing torn down the middle, so it looked like he was wearing a Y-Incision vest more than a shirt. She'd also put a little bit of eyeliner on him and styled his hair.

"One of my favorite bands! They're the ones who'll invent Shredder!" Oh, great.

"What are they called?"

"Sunz of the Wyld!"

"How good are they?" My throat already hurt.

"Let's just say that the lead singer has an unbeatable death roar." I'd gone seven years without rock music, I was just ecstatic about getting my eardrums blown out. She turned around and gestured at Nico. "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying! He wrestled his way out of the mob and caught up to us. I heard a few disappointed calls while he dusted himself off. "So, when's the music gonna start?"

"Any minute now!" Nyx was genuinely excited, and let me tell you, it is really weird to see someone that timeless be giddy about some band I'd never heard of.

The roar of fans got louder and I turned to face the stage. The band was finally coming out, and I got my first look at Rueben Dwayne Talley.

He looked about twenty-six and was obviously of African descent. He had a look of frightening mischief on his smooth and careless face, but his eyes freaked me the hell out. They were a bright luminescent orange, and, looking around at the other band members, they all had orange eyes too.

The bass guitarist had snake bites and platinum blonde hair that was in knots all over her head, the drummer was a bald white guy with a red goatee, and the rhythm guitarist, doubtlessly my favorite member aesthetically, had bright blue hair in a shaggy mess on her head, and rings that looked like she could kill people with them. Rueben (Ridley, as I later learned he was called) stepped up to the microphone, his guitar slung loosely from his shoulder, and his head nodding in rhythm with the crowd's chanting.

"My dear fans, and all those who have come here to get a taste of the future of rock; we are the Sunz of the Wyld!" The whole place went mad as the rest of the group started the first song.

I have to say they kicked some serious ass. I was enamored by the fourth song and found myself swaying and head-banging in unison with everyone else. Nico was stiff, but I could tell he liked it too, and Nyx was just going wild in the midst of all the mortals. Then, of course, something weird had to happen.

It was sometime during the fourth or fifth hour of straight music, just after one of the half-hour bands left the stage. Ridley and the rest of the crew stepped out and started playing, but faster than before, harder, louder, everything more. He was singing furiously, and the entire group seemed to be getting more intense with each note. Finally as they reached the crescendo of one of the choruses, he stopped singing, looked out, and screamed like a banshee into the microphone.

Actually doing it into the microphone was unnecessary, because the Call of the Wild is so loud that car alarms for a mile radius started going off, and everyone seemed to go mad in a heartbeat. I barely managed to stand my ground against the sudden fervor, but I saw Nyx standing stone-still and looking straight at me, a somewhat scary smile on her face.

She was a good fifty feet away from me, but when her lips moved I could hear her words clear as day. "Get Nico, we're going backstage."

I grabbed the dumb-founded son of Hades' arm and dragged him to where the Titaness of the Night was walking, and into a new chapter of weirdness with the Sunz of the Wyld.