Rock and Roll Heaven
Gwyn’s heart pounded like a drum played by a giant. Under other circumstances, he might have worried that he was having a heart attack. But this time, he knew his wild heartbeat was prophetic.
Tonight, he would gain possession of The Song. It should have been his from the beginning, of course. After all, he had created the band, Dormach, in the first place. That backstabber, Viktor, had gotten him kicked out. But The Song was still his, and he would have it, whatever the cost.
His footsteps echoed in the gloomy hallway down which he stumbled in his eagerness to reach the studio. There were many sound studios for rent in this particular building, but Dormach had a long-term lease on the one at the end of the hallway. He could see its name, written in calligraphy on the door. Beneath it was painted the picture of a Welsh hound intended to represent the original Dormach from Welsh mythology. The beast seemed to be looking right at him, and why not? The band’s name, its logo, everything about it, had been Gwyn’s idea. The hound welcomed its master just as the mythical Dormach had welcomed its master, Gwynn ap Nudd, the holly king, lord of the winter sun.
It was late, and for a moment, Gwyn feared that Viktor might have left for the night. But no, light shining around the door betrayed the traitor, who was still within. He liked to work late, and though he didn’t have to compose in the studio, he usually did. Gwyn knew Viktor’s habits all too well.
He tried the knob, but the door was locked. He knocked, and the sound echoed as his footsteps had. If Viktor heard, he didn’t respond.
Gwyn rapped harder, but he still heard nothing. “Viktor!” he yelled. The echo answered him a hundredfold, but the traitor didn’t reply.
Gwyn felt watched and looked behind him, even though he knew better. Viktor was the only other person in the building. Gwyn was just being paranoid.
“Viktor! I’m just going to keep pounding until you let me in!”
The door creaked open just a little. Gwyn didn’t remember it creaking like that.
“What do you want?” asked Viktor. Backlit as he was and only partly visible, Gwyn wouldn’t have recognized him. But he recognized the deep, resonant tone of the band’s lead vocalist.
Viktor raised both hands, palms open, even though he worried they’d shake a little. “I just want to talk, okay?”
“Man, you look terrible.” Gwyn supposed he did. This morning in the mirror, he had seen his tangled hair. He’d peered into his bloodshot eyes and seen his skin, pale as that of a corpse, as well as his too-thin face. But what did appearance really matter? He’d be back to his old self soon enough.
“Please,” said Gwyn, trying to sound sincere.
Viktor opened the door so slowly it seemed for a moment that it would be Christmas before he finally got it open. Grudgingly, he stood aside, allowing Gwyn just enough room to pass.
If Gwyn hadn’t known better, he would have thought Viktor was somehow sucking the life right out of him. Gwyn looked like something that belonged in the morgue, but Viktor remained the picture of health. He could just as easily have been a model as a singer, with his perfect blond hair and the perfect muscles visible even through his clothes. His clear blue eyes stared at Gwyn with a mixture of pity and ill-concealed aversion.
To Gwyn’s left was the booth where the sound engineer did the recording and editing. Naturally, the engineer wasn’t there, but the lights were on, suggesting that Viktor had been working in there, probably using one of the free flat spaces as a desk.
To Gwyn’s right were the band’s instruments, including the drums that had been his—were still his, by right. But they were too bulky to carry away by himself. He’d have to settle for The Song.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” said Viktor, though Gwyn didn’t think he sounded sincere.
“I’d look a lot better if my friends hadn’t betrayed me.” Gwyn sounded whiney even to himself, but that wouldn’t matter shortly.
“We didn’t want to kick you out,” said Viktor. “It was the drugs—”
“Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, ‘Sex and drugs, and rock and roll?” Gwynn asked. He was trying for humor, but his words had a hostile edge to them. “Well, how many rock and roll greats—”
“Don’t kid yourself,” said Viktor. “Some people might have been great despite drugs, but no one was ever great because of them. Don’t you remember all those missed performances and even concerts?”
Truth be told, Gwyn didn’t remember much of that. But Viktor was right—Gwyn was great despite the drugs. Why didn’t anybody else see that?
“I didn’t come to argue with you,” said Gwyn. “I just came to collect what you owe me.”
Every muscle in Viktor’s face was suddenly taut as a bowstring. “What exactly is it that you think I owe you?”
“The Song,” Gwyn replied. “The one we were working on when you kicked me out.”
Viktor laughed. Gwyn felt his blood run cold and his hands tighten into fists.
“Yeah, you suggested writing a song about love overcoming death. But that suggestion was literally your only contribution. If you want to write a song of your own on the same theme, go ahead. But the one I just finished is mine.”
“It’s not,” Gwyn insisted. He took a step toward Viktor, who stood his ground.
“It is. Take me to court if you like—that is, if you can get a lawyer to represent you. Now, if that’s all you came to say, you can go.”
“You can’t just dismiss me!”
Gwynn did his best to search for the Song without being too obvious about it. Viktor was old-fashioned about composing. He’d eventually digitize the music and lyrics, but he got all the way to the final draft stage on paper. He said he’d just finished, which meant the paper copy—the only copy—had to be here. Probably, it was in the engineer’s booth.
“I don’t want to dismiss you,” said Viktor. “I let you in because I thought maybe you were trying to do better, but it’s obvious you’re just the same as the day we had to kick you out.”
“I want what’s mine.” Gwyn’s voice shook, but he took another step toward Viktor.
“Just be happy the band didn’t decide to sue you for breach of contract,” said the singer. His voice was steady, but this time, he took a step back from Gwyn. “Your drug use would have come out in court, making it a lot tougher for you to find another band, even if you got clean. And don’t even get started about your idea that you were really the incarnation of some ancient Celtic god. It made for a good gimmick at first, I admit—but that was before you started believing it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Gwyn yelled even though he hadn’t meant to, and Viktor took another step back.
Gwyn spotted a handwritten score lying on the keyboard to his right. That had to be what he was looking for, but he shifted his eyes back to Viktor to avoid revealing he’d found his objective.
“This argument is pointless,” said Viktor. “Anything else you have to say, you can say to my attorney.” His voice had the sound as final as the sound of shovelfuls of earth hitting a coffin lid. He pointed toward the door as if he thought Gwyn had forgotten where it was.
One way or another, the conversation was over. Gwyn pretended to stagger forward as if he were going to pass out. Viktor moved in his direction, as if to catch him.
Gwyn got his right hand into his pocket far enough to grip the switchblade. As soon as the distracted Viktor got close enough, Gwyn pulled the knife from his pocket, pulled the safety down, and hit the button to extend the blade.
Maybe Viktor did care about him a little. The singer was so focused on keeping Gwyn from falling that he still didn’t notice the knife. Gwyn struck fast, aiming for his heart. Somehow, the knife ended up in Viktor’s gut instead, but that was more than enough to make him scream in a satisfying way and stumble backward.
Gwyn jumped up unsteadily and managed to pull out the knife, knowing that such a move would speed up his blood loss. Viktor tried to put his hands over the wound, but by then, it was too late. The large pool of blood staining the hardwood floor was a clear indicator of just how much he had already lost.
The soundproofing in the room would prevent any passerby outside from hearing Viktor’s screams. Gwyn was tempted to sit back and enjoy the show. But he had more important things to do. He ran at Viktor and plunged the knife in again and again. Blood sprayed, but not as vigorously as it had from the first wound. The singer’s heart must already be slowing down.
Viktor fell backwards, hitting the floor with a thud. Gwyn pursued him, getting in more and more strikes. By now, they were more for fun than for any practical reason. The singer was already doomed.
Gwyn stopped when Viktor stopped breathing and his bleeding diminished to a trickle. The singer’s eyes looked blankly up at the ceiling.
Gwyn’s clothes were covered with Viktor’s blood, and since the drummer had stepped in the first blood puddle, he left bloody footprints as he moved around. He should have handled the situation differently. He had nothing else to wear, nothing to clean up with. Anyone who saw him on the street would know he’d committed an act of violence. The police could follow his bloody footprints back to his apartment.
But none of that bothered him. After all, was he not the incarnation of Gwynn ap Nudd, king of the Welsh faeries, leader of the Wild Hunt, guide for the souls of the dead? What mortal law enforcement could touch him?
More important, The Song was now within his grasp. He found enough blank sheets to clean the knife and his hands before picking up the score and examining it.
His hands trembled as he read the notes. He could hear The Song playing in his mind, a song so moving that it would melt even the coldest heart. Perhaps it could even raise the dead. But if not, it would surely go platinum once he organized a new band.
He thought about setting the studio on fire, but perhaps that was overkill. He wouldn’t be able to completely destroy the body that way, and he didn’t even know the people renting other studios in the building. Likely, they’d all become fans once The Song debuted at the top of the charts.
Gwyn reluctantly decided to skip the arson, mostly because he hadn’t brought an accelerant with him. He left the studio and walked slowly down the hall, The Song reverberating in his mind. His hands moved a little as he imagined playing the drum part. His heart beat in rhythm with his mental drumming.
He probably should have stopped in the restroom and tried to clean up, but it wasn’t as if he could wash his blood-saturated clothes, so what was really the point?
He walked, almost danced, really, toward his apartment, which was only a short distance from the studio. By now, it was after midnight, which meant it was officially Halloween—Samhain, as it should be called. He could almost feel the barriers between the mortal world and the spirit world thinning. Tomorrow, Gwynn ap Nudd would take his rightful place as the winter king. His constellation, which mortals wrongfully called Orion, would appear for the first time this year in the northern sky. All of that would make Gwyn, his earthly incarnation, that much more powerful. By the winter solstice, all his dreams would come true.
Gwyn glanced up in the sky, imagining he could already see his divine counterpart mirrored in the stars. No, the constellation wasn’t yet visible, but he could wait. He had all the time in the world.
A couple of cars passed him, but neither one even slowed. Perhaps the drivers didn’t see him. Perhaps they saw him and assumed he was test-driving his Halloween costume. Perhaps they saw him and didn’t want to get involved. Perhaps the protection of Gwyn ap Nudd made him invisible to mortal eyes. Yeah, that had to be it.
He heard thudding on the pavement behind him. The sound was like a dog running in his direction—a large one, judging by the volume. He looked back, but the street was empty.
The Song playing in his head was interrupted by another sound, but it was nothing like rock and roll. If anything, it sounded like an old-fashioned hunting horn.
The Wild Hunt? But that wasn’t supposed to happen until after sunset tomorrow. Gwyn looked all around, but again, he saw nothing.
Yet the horn had sounded very close.
He quickened his pace, though he wasn’t sure why. After all, he was perhaps the only person in the city who had nothing to fear from the Wild Hunt.
However much he tried to reassure himself, the next sound he heard, that of horses’ hooves, got his own heart pounding in a quite unmusical way. His mind told him that there was nothing to worry about, but his instincts told him to run like hell.
He broke into a run, but his own racing footsteps couldn’t drown out the sound of horses’ hooves moving closer to him with each passing second.
He stumbled and almost fell, twisting his ankle in the process. That didn’t stop him from hobbling forward. He was only two blocks from his apartment.
The hoofbeats faded away. He turned to make sure he was safe. As before, there was nothing to see. No horseman riding into the distance.
Then he noticed his bloody footprints. Moonlight struck them, and they glowed. He blinked a couple of times, but they continued to shimmer. He knew blood wouldn’t reflect moonlight in that way. But perhaps the thinning of the veil was causing something unusual to happen.
He heard someone humming the old Righteous Brothers song, “Rock and Roll Heaven,” and the silver glow rose like steam from his footprints, leaving the sidewalk and becoming a cloud in the air. The hunting horn sounded again, and the cloud assumed a roughly human form.
“It…it can’t be,” mumbled Gwyn, but the silver form would not allow him to run. He felt as if the blood on his shoes had glued him to the concrete.
The glow was still a little fuzzy, but he couldn’t deny that it wore Viktor’s face. Gwyn tried to turn and run, but his feet remained trapped, no matter how hard he tried to pry them free.
Gwyn would have expected Viktor to look angry, but instead, the singer looked sad. “You could really have been someone,” he whispered.
“I am someone,” Gwynn said, though his continued efforts to break free and run made his voice hoarse and shaky.
“I’m the greatest musician alive. And I’m the incarnation of Gwynn ap Nudd—”
His words were cut off by a deafening horn blast and hoofbeats that sounded like thunder. Gwyn would have fallen over if his shoes hadn’t been nailed to the ground. As it was, he covered his ears and looked around frantically.
Already deafened, he was blinded by a brilliant white flash. By the time he could see again, someone else had joined Viktor’s ghost.
The stranger was mounted on a pale horse. Gwyn remembered hearing the phrase, “Death rides a pale horse,” somewhere, but the newcomer looked nothing like Death—except perhaps in the face. It looked as if it had been fashioned from shadows, though Gwyn could see recognizable human features. He couldn’t help noticing eyes dark blue as a twilight sky. The whites of those eyes sparkled in the moonlight.
The stranger wore what looked like full plate mail that was white as pure snow. When he dismounted from the horse with surprising grace, a few snowflakes fell from him and glistened on the pavement like tiny stars. He drew an impossibly long sword from his scabbard and pulled a shield off his back as if he were readying for battle. An enormous hound with dark brown fur trotted up to stand beside him.
Only one being could look like the armored stranger. Gwyn did his best to bow. “Gwynn ap Nudd, you honor me by your presence.”
“I came not to honor, but to condemn,” said Gwyn in a voice like Viktor’s, but loud as thunder. “You have sullied my name by speaking it, for you are a scoundrel and a murderer. To claim you were my human incarnation—I cannot bear to think of it!”
Gwyn didn’t know what to do. He had to be hallucinating, but he’d never had so bad a trip.
Gwyn ap Nudd handed his sword, still impossibly long and wicked-sharp as well, to Viktor, who started singing “Rock and Roll Heaven”—except that the words were wrong.
When Victor got to, “If there’s a rock and roll heaven, you know they’ll be a rock and roll hell,” he thrust the sword into Gwyn’s gut exactly as Gwyn had thrust the knife into his.
Gwyn screamed as his blood sprayed out, destroying The Song but passing through Viktor without touching him.
“Encore!” yelled Gwynn. “Encore!”
Viktor had never disappointed an audience. But he was just the opening act. Afterward, Dormach headlined with fangs and claws.