“Fine. It’s your noggin on the line.”
Bill Jones and his security team were already there. He greeted Loup without animosity. “Clive’s supergirl. No hard feelings, eh?”
“No, sir.”
“You’ll take stage left.” He handed her a radio earpiece. “Any trouble on the floor, call for club backup. Your job is to stay onstage and cover the band.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about me?” Pilar inquired.
“Ah. Clive’s other girl.” Bill Jones shrugged. “Do whatever the band hired you to do. I’m not putting you on the front line.”
Loup eyed an impressive array of bottles. “You could be the backstage bartender.”
“Perfect.” Jones clapped Pilar’s shoulder. “Keep the lads happy and keep them from getting shitfaced, eh?”
“I’ll try.”
The crowd that night was an inhospitable mix of raucous, hard-drinking music lovers and underage girls who’d snuck in to see Kate. The former cheered the opening act, which was loud and fast and thrashing. The latter called for Kate between every song.
“Good set,” Donny offered as the opening act slouched offstage.
The lead singer, clad in black leather and heavy eyeliner, spat casually at his feet in passing.
“Hey!” Loup tapped his arm. “That’s not very polite.”
He looked at his bandmates and grinned, then hawked up another gob of spittle.
Loup intercepted it and smeared it on his narrow chest in one blurred motion, shaking off her hand in disgust. “Jesus! I’m serious. What’s with all the spitting?”
He gaped. “What the hell are you?”
“The future face of humanity,” Randall offered, drifting amiably over. “Fearless, noble, and free.”
“The fuck?”
His head bobbed to imaginary music. “I’m working on it.”
Kate took the stage. Half the crowd squealed; the other half booed. Loup took her position onstage in the left wing. The band launched into a song they’d never recorded, something new and half-finished, with a low, snaking bass line and driving percussion. Randall sang and played guitar, his airy vocals offset by the wailing chords he plucked.
It went well for a while. The underage fans fell silent in confusion, while the regulars deigned to listen. It wasn’t until the end of their set that the mood turned ugly, when they played one of their sprightly pop hits in acknowledgment of the fans.
“Oy!” A big man shoved his way toward the stage. “Don’t play that shite here!”
They kept playing.
“Wankers!” He hurled a half-empty beer bottle.
Loup caught it in midair, pressing her earpiece. “Security! Bald guy in a plaid sleeveless shirt.”
He began attempting to climb onstage. “Little fuckin’ bitch!”
“Oh, shut up.” Loup delivered a quick, sharp tap to the hollow behind the hinge of his jaw. He fell down writhing. She scanned the crowd. One of the big guy’s friends had a frightened young Kate fan pinned against the stage and was grinding against her, humping and laughing. “Hey, you!” She squatted at the edge of the stage and reached for the front of his shirt, hauling him off his feet with one hand. The fabric strained, but held. He looked startled.
A handful of cameras and Dataphones lit up.
“Cut it out,” Loup said irritably, ignoring the cameras. “Leave the kid be, okay?” She thumped him atop his head with her free hand and let him fall, slumping. She pressed her earpiece, already scanning for the next problem. “Security!”
The night was reckoned a disaster by management, a wash by security, and a success by the band.
“They loved us,” Charlie crooned backstage, stroking his bass guitar. “It’s a whole new audience, Rand. They loved the new shit. They wouldn’t admit it, but they did.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So next album?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“A whole new world.”
“Yeah.”
They were still talking about it on the way to the bus when a handful of men emerged from the shadows, led by the bald guy in the plaid shirt.
“Tighten up, team,” Bill Jones murmured, taking the lead. The others moved closer to the band.
“Hey, Grampa.” The bald guy swung a length of chain with casual menace. “Step out of the way. We just want a word with your precious little teen queens here.”
“No, you don’t, son,” he said firmly. “You don’t want that kind of trouble. Let’s just all be sensible and go our separate ways, eh? No harm done.”
“Fuck that!” The chain snaked through the air.
Loup darted forward and caught it.
“Hey!” He yanked in vain.
She yanked, jerking it out of his hand. He stumbled forward. She grabbed a handful of his shirt and held him upright. He stared at her with fear and hatred. Loup stared back at him without blinking and growled deep in her throat, the sound low and vicious, vibrating in a bloodcurdling, inhuman frequency.
“Jesus!” He backed away, putting up his hands. She let him go. “This is too bloody freaky. Forget it. We’re out of here.”
Loup watched them go with a smile.
Behind her, Pilar was laughing hard. “Jesus, baby!” she gasped. “I can’t believe you did that!”
The others gaped.
“You’re not…” Randall licked his lips. “You’re not exactly human, are you?”
“Not exactly, no.” Loup glanced at his pale face. “Oh, c’mon. That’s it, that’s as weird as it gets.”
“You don’t, like, change into—”
“No!”
“You do get a little crazy around the full moon,” Pilar offered.
Loup gave her a look. “You’re not helping.”
“How can you laugh about it?” Donny asked Pilar, wondering. “All the hair on the back of my neck prickles.”
“Oh, mine too,” she assured him. “But did you see the look on the guy’s face?”
“I was just trying to do what Clive taught us,” Loup said mildly. “Control the situation. The guy wasn’t going to listen to logic, so…” She shrugged.
“So you thought you’d growl in his face like a goddamn wild animal,” Bill Jones finished. “Well.” He ran a hand over his stubbly haircut. “Happens it worked. Let’s be on our way, shall we? I think that’s enough excitement for one night.”
“Amen,” the manager, Geordie, said fervently.
By the time the band played their second gig a few days later, their fan feeds were abuzz with rumors.
“Check it out.” Pilar showed Loup a photo of herself crouching on the edge of the stage, the grinding man in his strained shirt dangling from her fist. The shot captured the look of irritation on Loup’s face. “This one’s all over the place, Mystery Girl.”
“Am I still Mystery Girl?”
“So far.”
“Any news news?”
“Nope.” Pilar looked back at the screen. “Look at you, all cute and scowly. Do you know how many fans Kate has? There’re gonna be one in a hundreds crawling out of the woodwork.”
Loup yawned. “Great.”
“I’ll protect you, baby.” Pilar gave her a mischievous smile. “Hey, I have to run out and pick up your new… what did Donny call them? Security togs. They want you to wear them tonight. Want to come?”
“Shopping? No, thanks. I was going to hit the fitness room.” She rolled her shoulders. “Wonder if we could get a portable boxing bag for the tour? I could train backstage.”
“I’ll look into it. I’m going to a sporting goods store anyway.”
“Thanks, Pilar.”
She gave her a quick kiss. “You bet.”
An hour and a half later, Pilar returned, eyes sparkling. She tracked down Loup in the fitness room.
“Hey.” Loup abandoned the weight machine she was abusing. “Did it work out?”
“Hmm?”
“The bag?”
“Oh, yeah. It’ll be delivered and ship with the rest of the heavy equipment. The roadies will be overjoyed.” She rustled a shopping bag. “It’s almost time to go. Don’t you want to see your new togs?”
Loup eyed the bag suspiciously. “Isn’t it just more T-shirts? Ones that fit better?”
“Not exactly.”
Upstairs, she tried on one of the outfits—a black sports bra with SECURITY in white letters across her chest and a pair of low-slung black track pants that barely clung to her hips, SECURITY emblazoned in white across her ass. It left a lot of bare skin in between.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Mmm.”
“You’re smoldering at me.”
“Can’t help it.” Pilar shivered. “You look all kinds of sexy. It kinda makes me want to act unruly just so you’d throw me up against a wall and—” She let out a squeak.
“Like this?” Loup breathed, pinning her hard.
“Uh-huh.” She clutched Loup’s shoulders and shuddered against her. “Oh, fuck!”
Several minutes later, the phone rang.
“Goddamnit!”
“I’m good,” Pilar said languidly. “Sorry, baby. Really, really like the new gear.”
Loup shook her head and answered the phone. “Hi. Yeah. Twenty minutes? Okay. We’ll be there.”
“Twenty minutes?” She brightened.
“Mm-hmm.” Loup eased the phone back into its cradle.
“Plenty of time.” Pilar slid her hand down Loup’s stomach and into the waistband of her track pants.
“Not the pants!”
“You don’t like this?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to stretch the elastic.” She wriggled, torn between desire and pragmatism. “C’mon! They’re barely staying up as it is.”
