Four
August 1994
Life After Baba Lucine was rotting.
It had started after that strange little tour of the Black Iris', Saben was thinking as she sat with her face to the wall. Her hand was poised, her wrist bent at an odd angle, ready to scribble words, tease out lines of poetry and smear new melodies on the walls.
She had become withdrawn, she could feel herself recede from the world, sucked into the vortex of her own mind which was a jumble of memories. She barely went out. They had played a handful of gigs since Sterback but the magic had faded now it spilt on the walls of the one room apartment.
The seams of their little family were coming undone.
It had started with Deckard. Thinking of Geoff Deckard made her jaw tighten with frustration and anger. He had begun to act so strangely when they moved into the city and she had noticed his sly little ways.
He wore long sleeves even in the worst of the desert heat, the circles beneath his eyes deepened, the delicate skin turning shades of purple. His skin had grown unnaturally pale and he was given over to sweats and shakes though he didn't take any drug that she knew of.
He slept all day, usually curled up in the darkest corner behind their beaten up couch. When he was awake he would take every opportunity to snap at whoever was closest. Things started to go missing, at first it was the small stuff, replaceable stuff and then it was his guitar and it all became dismally clear.
Heather had taken a job as a waitress in a nearby diner, she made big tips with the tourists and moonlighted at open mic nights, singing throaty Patti Smith covers. Pin Cushion was temping for some local hardcore band. He slept at his brother's place, finding it impossible in the cramped little one room apartment with the rest of them.
Tough shit. It was just the way things were. She had known she only ever had herself to rely upon.
As days bled seamlessly together the apartment deteriorated around her. It was only until she ran out of paper she chose to use the walls.
"What does this all mean?" Deckard shouted.
"You're tripping." Saben replied softly as she continued her mad scrawl, unravelling mysteries through her lyrics.
"This place needs a lick of paint." He said kicking over a bucket of black emulsion that oozed across the carpet like toxic blood.
She was on her knees, face to the wall wearing only underwear, having run out of clean clothes days ago. The paint was cold as it smeared her skin and she flinched.
"Fuck you Deckard."
The apartment seemed to crackle with energy and Saben knew as Deckard loomed above her that he was ready to hit her or worse. His anger was so fierce it pressed upon her like a body.
His cell phone rang, distracting him, he picked it up and few words were spoken. She barely had time to look at him before he slammed the door behind him on his way out.
That was the end of the band.
She stood in the empty apartment, the beaten up couch they had dragged from an alleyway, the empty take out trays rotting in all four corners, a stinking blanket that anyone of them would crawl under to sleep.
She put her hands to the black paint and smeared the walls with it, hiding her words and putting her thoughts back into unfathomable black mysteries. She worked until every inch of the apartment was covered and night turned into day.
She washed as much paint off her hands as possible before pulling on one of Pin Cushion's clean tees and her old worn out motorcycle boots. She picked up her hard guitar case, the weight of the guitar felt good in her arm and this was all she would be taking with her.
She knew she couldn't go back. In effect she had written her goodbyes on the walls and knew they'd get the message. Even as she thought that she sweltered beneath the searing heat of the desert.
Saben hated the desert.
She folded arms in front of her chest as she walked aimlessly. Before long she was on the strip, her lips dried from the sun and her pink hair turned into cotton candy. She walked with the tourists and couldn't muster the energy to confront the strange looks.
It took her a while to realise she was being followed.
She lead the stalker into an empty side road, parked cars and hotel windows bearing witness to them She turned to face the stranger to find a girl. She was a waif, only slightly more kempt than Saben but dirtier somehow.
Her hair was dark but eyes were darker, they seemed to sparkle with an inner light that was not altogether natural. Her voice, though, was light and chirpy, different to what it should have been. "You're her, aren't you? Are you the ver-human in that band? The singer?"
"Not anymore." Saben mumbled, disturbed by the girl's phrasing. She took her last cigarette and put it to her lips. She didn't have a light but the girl stepped forward flicking her fingers to produce a flame. Saben exhaled a shaky halo of smoke. She muttered a thank you before turning and walking away.
"Wait." The girl ran after her. "I saw you at the Black Iris."
"Which one?"
"Are you alone?" The girl's tone changed.
"I don't want company if that's what you're asking." Saben paused glancing at her cigarette. "I'm not looking for company, I haven't got any money…or…anything."
She considered smacking the girl with her guitar, the weight of it dragging on her arm. Saben was only vaguely wary about being mugged and beaten, but with only the guitar to steal the kid wouldn't get far hawking it in the condition it was in.
The raspy, primal part of her mind told her to get as far away as she could from the girl because she was not a girl at all she only looked like a girl.
The girl smiled as if reading her thoughts and there was a lot to see in that smile. Something alien, something old and terrifying and she had too many teeth, her eyes became too bright and large, like saucers reflecting both the sun and moon. Hypnotising.
Saben shook her head trying to clear her mind of a sudden encroaching sluggishness. Her fingers became numb and she dropped the cig and almost let go of her guitar. She turned on her heels once again to walk away but the girl still followed.
Saben ducked into the first store she found. It was a side entrance, a dingy little hole with spray paint scarring the front. The bells seemed to squeal as if they understood her urgency. A young man sat behind the counter, blue eyes on her, suspicious of her. "Can I help you?" He asked mildly irritated.
She had one eye on the door, waiting for the girl to stride in and drag her out. Her flesh was crawling with wild thoughts of grave dirt and claws, the wild eyes of the creatures in the Black Iris, Deckard's pale and purpling skin.
She slipped between two aisles, surrounded by pungent herbs. She began to get lost amongst the clutter, crouching by some wicker baskets, the waft of lavender flooded her sense and she doubled over to sneeze.
"What do you want?" The clerk asked, already out of his seat, moving toward her through the aisles.
She was about to tell him, lips poised to spill the grief of being set upon by what she was almost convinced was a demon but then decided against it. "Never mind."
He stared at her intently as if waiting for her to say more, when it was evident she wasn't he touched her wrist, pressing a folded piece of paper into her open palm. "You better take my number." He said softly. "Just in case."
She left the shop almost more panicked than when she first entered.
The paper still clutched tightly in one hand, the stench of the cruddy shop stuffed up her nostrils like the taste of magic mushrooms on the back of her tongue.
She wandered in circles until she was satisfied she was once again alone. The sun was going down and she had the stomach churning kind of hunger that drove her to the familiar sight of the Black Bear Diner.
She slipped into a stool with a view into the kitchen and propped her guitar beside her. She knew the cook and owner, Ronnie Orson, he owned a club a little down the way and Life After Baba Lucine had played a set there once and once had been enough for Ronnie. He said he'd never invite them back but they could come for a drink at the bar.
He sent a plate of oily fries her way.
"Rough day?" He asked throwing his greasy kitchen towel over one shoulder.
She stared down at her stained hands, the crumpled paper in her palm. "Maybe the best day of my life."
He smiled. She stared at his teeth, yellow with cigarette stains but not sharp though not like the girl's. She shook her head, it ached with too many thoughts and too many possibilities.
She sat in the Black Bear for a long time, so long when she looked up from staring at her hands it was night time again and the fries had wilted in the basket in front of her. She wondered if Deckard had gone back to the apartment, she wondered what he'd say when he saw the place, she wondered if he'd even care.
There was still a small lingering part of her, that she hated, the part that missed being with Deckard or with anybody. Instead of being stuck with the phantom inside her head, blue eyes and cool fingertips. The ghostly romance so different from the awkward, rough and sticky fling with Deckard.
She squeezed the piece of paper tightly in her palm and then slipped it in her bra as she dragged herself out of the diner feeling both sick and tired and lost.
She couldn't wander aimlessly now with the sun down and the darkness spreading over the city and the gaudy lights of the bars, clubs and casinos rising to defy the night. She went to a place she could curl up for the night, a slim alleyway she knew she could bed down in. It could get terribly cold at night and she had nothing but the oversized tee that served as a dress and her guitar case to use as a pillow.
Sometimes these places were the safest she knew. Places people didn't want to go: into the dark, the dirty, the places built on human filth and wasted lives. Places only junkies and the desperate would go. She sunk down in alley dirt orphaned all over again. With her head pressed to her knees she knew she had come to a point where she just didn't care and she fell into an uneasy asleep.
Saben came awake with a sudden jolt to find the dark eyed street girl staring down at her. She was sneering, revealing those awful sharp teeth that Saben had since convinced herself was imagination. Saben screamed.
"For once why can't they stop screaming in my ear hole?" The girl mumbled to herself whilst pinning Saben down with incredible strength.
"What the fuck are you?" She stammered slipping out of the girl's claws and sliding back through the dust and dirt until her back hit the wall and there was no where further to go.
The girl laughed incredulously. "Oh please. Please don't ask me that of all questions. What am I? What are you? What is the meaning of this all?"
Saben stared dumfounded.
The girl leant over her and she felt the same sensation when Deckard had stood over her, the searing hot feeling of imminent violence and then the certain knowledge that she was going to die. The girl's head whipped up and she hissed, a reptilian, chilling sound.
Someone stood at the mouth of the alley. Saben saw the distorted silhouette before she was released by the girl and landed unceremoniously in the dirt.
The girl lay herself in the dirt in genuflect. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. I didn't know she was yours."
The figure didn't speak but there seemed to be a silent conversation because the expression flittering across the girl's face was very animated. The girl stood. "Of course, my Lord. Forgive me. Please forgive me." She bowed and scraped until she disappeared from sight.
Saben shakily got to her feet, she was more terrified now than she was of the girl's predator teeth inching toward her gullet. The figure began to approach. She couldn't move back any further and she was already pressed hard against the wall. She was trapped.
She felt the shadow fall over her and she instantly lost her breath. She closed her eyes listening to the thundering of her own heart. A whisper blossomed in her mind. It told her to sleep. Peaceful images passed behind her eyes and the voice persisted.
She was picked up off her feet.
"But Abberline, I'm not sleepy." She said in a little girl voice.
"Sleep." He said.
She gave in and slept.