The stage again, the first song of the night, two bars in and Case already had that performance high going full blast. G.o.d, nothing was better than this. Erin had outdone herself, and word-of-mouth was starting to pick up, and the result was that there were a lot of people in this little club. Some of them were people Case was starting to recognize from past shows, pushing to the front, getting close to the stage-always crowding more thickly stage right. Not all of them were there to hear Ragman, though Case thought most of them were.

Johnny came in, and he sounded good. Case was again amazed at how far he'd come in such a short time, and she grinned. Danny was thrashing away with a similar smile on his face, right in the pocket, nailing it. Only Quentin seemed immune to the energy onstage-he was playing his parts okay, but he scanned the crowd, searching for something the way he always did lately. Looking for that old dude, probably; maybe he was spoiling for another fight.

They played through the set to ever-greater cheers from the audience, but as the set neared its close, a formless dread built up around Case, like a static charge. There was something about this part of the set she didn't like, though she couldn't really remember why. Sure, they always did one of the slower numbers about now, and those weren't her favorites because they brought down the energy so much, but that wasn't enough to explain the p.r.i.c.kles of gooseflesh that had broken out on the back of her neck, her arms, her thighs, or the slow beads of cold sweat that trickled into her eyes.

She caught a glimpse of Quentin, and he'd gone pale. She followed his eyes-and there was that old f.u.c.ker in the audience, circulating, whispering in ears, pausing to look in one person's eyes for an unseemly long time.

They moved on to the next song, the slow number Johnny liked so much. Half a dozen people-regulars, Case thought-leaned in at the front of the stage, gazing raptly up at Johnny. One reached out toward him, hand scrabbling on the stage inches from Johnny's foot.

The sound guy dimmed the lights and brought a spotlight up on Johnny as the intro figure closed. Johnny moved up to the mic.

"The sun slides from his sky . . ."

One of the stage lights flared briefly and burned out, and Case jumped. It was really dark now, except where Johnny burned white in the spotlight. Even the bar lights had dimmed, and Case could see nothing of the crowd other than a few glimmering eyes and reflections off gla.s.ses. The hand that clawed and scrabbled for Johnny onstage looked almost disembodied, as if it had been severed by the darkness.

Where's that old guy? Case thought, suddenly unnerved by the fact that she couldn't see him anymore. Where did he go?

She missed the fingering for the next chord, eliciting a wooden thud from her guitar, and scowled. Just f.u.c.king play the song, okay?

The song went on and on, and even though it wasn't a loud song, Case couldn't hear anything from the crowd. Not the usual murmuring of a large group of people, not a single shout. It felt like the world had disappeared outside the stage. She edged farther away from Johnny's spotlight, trying to get her eyes to adjust so she could see something out there.

There was a movement in the crowd, a ripple as somebody pushed through the bodies. Even that didn't get a response that Case could hear. The vague shape-she thought it was a man, though she couldn't be sure-pushed forward, approaching the stage.

The song reached the final verse, and Johnny's voice rose in an eerie, wavering crescendo that made Case's skin creep.

"Hey, f.u.c.k this!" the guy in the crowd shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria. There was a swift motion, a blur through the darkness, and then a beer bottle appeared in the spotlight, spinning end-over-end toward Johnny's head.

Johnny's mouth was open wide as he belted out the last chorus, and in her mind's eye Case could already see the bottle hit, smashing through his teeth, exploding, and sending shards of gla.s.s into his tongue, his palate, his throat. She had no time to scream a warning, barely time to inhale- And the bottle was spinning past, missing Johnny's head by a hairsbreadth before sailing over Danny and shattering against the back wall.

Johnny didn't even blink.

The song ended and the lights came up, and the usual solemn ovation that followed that particular song broke over them. Four people in the front, including the one who'd been reaching for Johnny, turned, watching avidly as the bouncer grabbed the bottle thrower by the arm and dragged him out. One of them pointed at the man and smiled a crooked, awful smile that seemed horribly out of place on her pretty face.

Johnny was staring at Case.

"You all right?" she asked him.

"Huh? Yeah, fine. Start the song already, will you?"

She checked the set list, tuned up her E string, and began the last song of the evening.

"Wow!" Erin shouted. "You were amazing!" She gave Johnny a giant hug as Case stood by and watched, conflicted. This was Johnny's moment, and she ought to be happy for him . . . but the room still didn't feel right.

A hand touched her shoulder. "Looks like your boy really turned it up a notch since last time I saw him."

"Brad! You came!" Case found a smile now, and it even felt genuine. She'd done the session work for his band just the week before, and he had been so professional about it that she'd nearly given up on any personal interest. To be sure, though, his professionalism had helped. She hadn't had any experience in a real studio before, and it had turned out to be surprisingly nerve-racking. The sense that every note was under intense scrutiny had been pervasive and distracting, and the environment, despite its funky decor, oddly sterile. She had supposed that came from playing with recorded tracks instead of the push-pull action and reaction of a live band, but whatever the cause, it had been tough at first. Once she'd gotten the hang of it, though, she had laid down some tracks that got an appreciative nod from the engineer and made the band happy besides. She'd thought there was a good chance that would be the last she'd see of Brad, but now here he was.

"Come on," she said. "I'll buy you a drink."

"Lady, are you tryin' to get me all liquored up? Ain't gonna happen. Besides, you're working tonight-it's on me."

"Sold."

They made their way to the bar. Case did her best to be polite to the fans that wanted a word, and she even talked shop briefly with a couple of admiring guitarists ("How did you get your guitar to sound like bagpipes in that one song?" one of them asked. Baffled and laughing, she answered, "I don't know, but if you figure it out, tell me so I can make sure I never do it again!"). She wasn't entirely comfortable with the attention offstage yet, but it was becoming tolerable.

It would be a great night if she could just shake that ugly feeling from the stage. Already, the specifics were hard to recall, and all she could remember was a feeling of dread, and then the bottle thrower.

Case and Brad edged in next to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks.

"Hey," Brad said, shouting over the crowd, "where the h.e.l.l did Johnny learn to sing like that?"

"Just like getting to Carnegie Hall," Case said uncomfortably. "Practice, man, practice."

"I gotta talk to his voice teacher. That slow tune was amazing. Up until that jacka.s.s threw something at him, I think everybody in the crowd was holding their breath. It was intense."

Case took a drink.

"Seriously," Brad continued. "He puts this weird excitement into this song about the end of the world, but it's kind of sad, too, and it's creepy as-"

"You want to get something to eat?" Case asked. The room was too loud already, and from the pointy guitars of the band that was setting up now, it looked like there was going to be some awful metal blasting real soon.

"Yeah, all right," Brad said. "Let's get outta here."

Chapter 16.

Alan kicked angrily at a newspaper on the sidewalk. "That was some bulls.h.i.t!" he said to no one in particular. A couple of clubgoers gave him the hairy eyeball and crossed the street. "f.u.c.kers!" he shouted, whether at them or at the muscled-up security meatheads who'd thrown him out of the club he wasn't sure.

What the h.e.l.l had happened in there? He'd heard of Ragman around town-it was impossible to miss the flyers, if you spent any time down here-but never seen them before. He and his buddies had come down to catch the Judas One Thirteen show and walked in on the last half of the Ragman set. It was kinda cool, up until the end-not as heavy as his usual thing, but they rocked all right, and the chick playing guitar was hot.

Then-then what? He pressed his palms to his temples as if he could squeeze the memory out of his head. Things got bad. Everybody was all "oooh, aahh," but that was some sick s.h.i.t even by his standards, and he was a guy who liked his alb.u.m covers with exploding heads and eyeb.a.l.l.s and s.h.i.t. The singer's voice had done-something. It had gone weird, and dark somehow, or something. It was bad, that was all Alan could remember, like the guy was f.u.c.king with his head on purpose. That he couldn't remember exactly what had happened was all the proof he needed.

By his reckoning, it had taken him way too long to decide to put a stop to it.

"Too bad I f.u.c.kin' missed," he said. The only thing that sucked was that his friends had pretty much just waved goodbye to him as he was dragged out. "See you later, Alan," Deke had said. "We're gonna stay and watch the show." a.s.shole.

Alan walked to the end of the street, past the lights and the occasional line of people. He heard the thump and buzz of a car with an oversized stereo a street down, and over that, a woman's laughter. More laughter after that, from behind him, and there was an eerie, familiar quality to it.

Alan turned around.

There were four of them, skinny rocker kids from the club. The laughing woman was, he was pretty sure, the woman who'd pointed at him on his way out, like she was marking him. She wasn't much more than a girl, really, and an underfed one at that, and the three bony punks she was with didn't look like much, either.

"What the f.u.c.k do you want?" Alan asked.

She giggled, and the other three stood smirking to either side. Two of them started to come closer, flanking him.

"Oh, is that it?" Alan asked. "I didn't like your favorite band, so now you think you're gonna f.u.c.k me up? Give me a break." They were nuts if they thought that would fly. He was off the main strip, sure, but lights blazed and people shouted only a block or so away. Even if they got a few lucky shots in, somebody would call the cops or something.

And, really, Alan was bigger than any two of them put together. Who were they kidding?

Unless one of them has a knife or something, he thought uneasily. If they did, though, they weren't going for it. Both of 'em had their hands in full view down at their sides, gangling around. They stumbled, too-probably drunk.

The kid on his left moved into the light, and Alan took an involuntary step away from him. The kid's cheeks twitched, and his eyes blinked in a strange, erratic pattern.

Is he f.u.c.ked up on something? Alan didn't care anymore-it was time to go. He turned to run and stumbled himself, and before he could take one more step, they were on him. One grabbed his belt and hauled on it, dragging Alan to the side, and another lunged for his T-shirt, fingers catching the neck and tearing it open.

Alan reeled, then shoved the kid pulling on his shirt. The kid staggered back, stepped off the curb, and fell flat on his back. Alan thought he heard something crack, but he didn't have time to think about it. A third guy jumped on him. Alan pushed the guy away, but he sprang back like some kind of hyperactive monkey, small but determined. Alan pulled back his fist-and, G.o.ddammit! The kid who'd been hanging on his belt let go and grabbed Alan's arm with both hands. He wasn't strong, but he was heavy enough, and Alan's blow never came.

"What the-"

The girl lunged at him then. He tried to swat her away, but suddenly that other f.u.c.ker was there, and Alan's left arm was all tangled up, too.

"I'm hungry," the girl said, and the words had barely registered in Alan's brain when he felt a searing pain in his right biceps.

She was biting him, and not a little. Her mouth was open wide, teeth buried deep in his flesh, and she was still pushing, still biting.

WHAT THE f.u.c.k??.

Now she was burrowing, digging and tearing, and finally, Alan had the presence of mind to scream.

"Help! Help!" He pushed and screamed and flailed around with his left arm, pulling it loose from the psycho cannibal maniac who'd been clinging to it at last, and using it to smash a fist into the other psycho cannibal maniac who was eating his G.o.dd.a.m.n arm. He hit her in the head, and she pulled away, taking a huge chunk of Alan's flesh with her.

Blood poured down Alan's arm, down his side, soaking the remains of his shirt, and he lurched, just trying to get somewhere, anywhere away.

"HELP!" he yelled.

Case stepped out of the bar with Brad close behind, and the sound of screams coming from down the block hit her like a slap. A jolt of adrenaline hit her bloodstream.

"Call the cops," she said, and she started running without waiting for Brad's reply.

A crowd was already drifting in the direction of the screams, but not in any particular hurry-more like a clot of idle rubberneckers approaching a car accident. Case pushed through, shoving and shouting, and that seemed to galvanize a few of them into motion.

She slowed down as she reached the end of the block. There was n.o.body in the street ahead of her, though the last building cast a long, black shadow. Anything could have hidden in there.

Half a dozen of the braver souls from the crowd trailed her. "Anybody hear shots?" she asked. "Anything?"

She got a chorus of muttered "no"s in response, which at least lowered the chance that she was about to walk around the corner and get her head blown off. It was rea.s.suring to have a handful of people with her. The only time she'd ever heard screams like that had been when somebody got knifed in a bar she shouldn't have been in, and this had all the hallmarks of the same kind of bad scene.

A strange snuffling, shuffling sound from the darkness ahead reached her ears, and she slowed. "h.e.l.lo?" she said. "Anybody there?" No answer, but the sound got louder as she approached. She checked to her right and left and saw fear on the faces there-but n.o.body was backing away. Counting herself, there were eight people, which seemed like good odds.

"Do you need help?" she asked, and she turned the corner.

It took precious seconds for her eyes to adjust, but she got a sense of bodies, three or four, huddled and squirming on the ground around a limp ma.s.s.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on here?" she asked.

Two of them turned. She saw eyes, and mouths ringed with a dark substance, and just as she began to understand that it was blood, blood smeared over their faces and dripping off their chins, one of them-a young woman, Case thought-bolted.

Case didn't think-she took off after the woman. The race wasn't even close. The woman tripped over her own feet and fell, and Case caught up a second later as she tried to get to her feet.

Case wasn't taking any chances. She hauled off and kicked the woman in the gut before she could stand. There was a grunt and a wheeze, and the woman fell gasping back to the pavement.

Behind her, the crowd she'd brought over had subdued another three blood-streaked crazies. She was just about to congratulate herself when the cops rolled up, illuminating the back side of the building with a spotlight.

The b.l.o.o.d.y mess of flesh lying in the corner was barely recognizable as a human being, but Case saw a pair of jeans, dark with wetness, and the sole of a black boot sticking out of the gore.

She looked away. Nearby, a couple of people fainted.

"Are you all right?" Danny asked. It was maybe the fortieth time somebody had asked her that in the last couple of hours, and maybe the tenth time Danny himself had done so.

"Yeah," Case said, pushing her coffee away. The six of them-Brad, Erin, and the four members of Ragman-sat crowded around a small table at an all-night diner. The coffee was terrible and Case felt like she might never be hungry again, but the glare of cheap fluorescent lightbulbs had never seemed so inviting, and she was in no hurry to leave.

"I'm not," Brad said, raising his hand. That got a few weak smiles. The police had quickly cordoned off the area and tried to disperse the crowd, but Brad had gotten there in time to see the human wreckage in the corner, and Case didn't figure he'd forget that any time soon. She knew she wouldn't.

She'd never been so glad to see cops. They'd taken the woman she'd been standing on from her, which would have been plenty to earn each of them a gold star right there. The woman freaked Case right out, twitching and babbling, the blood around her mouth a bright red smear in the spotlight, and Case was only too glad to get away from her.

After that, there was a short round of questioning, and Case had been relieved to find she was under no suspicion whatsoever. There had been plenty of witnesses to her actions, the cop said, and he only wanted to know what she'd seen.

"What was wrong with those people?" Case had asked him. "Were they on something?"

The cop tapped his pen against his notebook. "Yeah, probably. We're having blood and urine tests done, but I've never seen anybody act anything like that unless they were flying high on something."

"Like what? What could make a person do that?"

"PCP, maybe, or a bad trip on some kind of hallucinogen. Any number of things." He didn't sound very convincing, though, and he looked down at his notebook while he said it.

The others had undergone only cursory questioning, since most of them weren't there when Case found the body. Afterward, n.o.body had wanted to go home yet, and they'd found their way here.

"It's that f.u.c.king guy," Quentin said, interrupting Case's thoughts. "Johnny's friend, the old dude."

"He's not my friend," Johnny said. "But I don't think he had anything to do with that s.h.i.t."

"I saw him talking to those kids during the show," Quentin said. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

"So? f.u.c.k, I think I talked to them before we started playing. Does that mean I had something to do with it, too?"