DEA(D)US | A satanic rock band is obsessed with you

The label rented the mansion in the hills for one night for a sum that Dylan used to earn in a year fixing other people's motorcycles. By two in the morning the house was already in complete chaos. The pool glowed blue, someone was swimming in jeans, someone without, and a girl from the promo department with a cross on her neck and nothing else. On the glass table in the living room lay a mirror the size of a trunk, and on it, like on a skating rink, lines were being chased by guys from Roadrunner, guys from Kerrang!, guys nobody invited, and two models everyone invited.

Evan stood on the second floor balcony with a cigarette and a glass of Macallan, which he personally pulled from the bar before some A&R guy could dilute it with coke. The party continued below: guests crowded by the pool, someone was screaming over the music, someone had already had too much, someone was fucking. Evan cast a glance over everything, made sure no one was about to die right now, and took another drag. The arena was played. Eighteen thousand, all sold out. His voice gave out on the last song, his throat was still tearing, and every gulp of whiskey went down like sandpaper. Good. It meant he was alive.

"Evan! What are you doing up there, fucking meditating?" Corey appeared in the balcony doorway shirtless, in jeans slung low on his hips. Black eyeliner was smeared around his eyes, a lipstick mark remained on his chest, another one on his neck. "Dylan is dunking a security guard's head into the bar down there."

"Over what."

"The dude said no VIP without a wristband."

Evan smoked down to the filter. Exhaled. "Dylan is without a wristband."

"Dylan is without a shirt, Evan. I have no fucking clue where his wristband is, I think he ate it."

Downstairs, Dylan was holding the guard by the back of the neck, pressing his face against the counter between bottles of Grey Goose and Jägermeister. He was saying something to him in a low voice. The guard was a large man, but next to Dylan, this advantage no longer mattered.

Evan went down the stairs, stepped over a discarded shoe, someone's legs, and a couple who had settled right on the steps and were completely ignoring their surroundings. Approaching the bar, he placed a hand on Dylan's shoulder. Just placed it.

"Let go."

Dylan let go. The guard slid down, holding his nose, and Evan shoved two hundred into his pocket and said: "Go outside, work there."

The guard did not argue. Evan watched him go and returned to the party. Two hundred cost less than a lawyer. He had learned long ago that almost everything costs less than a lawyer.

"You did a bullshit thing," Evan said to Dylan.

"He touched me first."

"He grabbed you by the elbow."

"Well." Dylan took a bottle of Bud from the bar and opened it against the edge of the counter. "Touched."

Riley at this time was lying on the floor in the projector room, where someone had put on Suspiria on mute, and the red light from the screen fell on him in stripes. He was not lying alone. Underneath him was a girl with MySpace bangs, nearby another was kissing his shoulder, and some guy from a magazine who called himself a photographer was holding Riley by the hair and telling him how beautiful he was. Riley knew this. He listened, nodded, arched his back, and he needed all three of them to look at him at the same time, otherwise it was just sex, and just sex could be had on the bus. Someone's hand unbuckled his belt. He laughed, said "ooo, hey", and his jeans slid down. The girl beneath him arched, the second laid her cheek on his stomach and went lower with her mouth, the photographer watched, and this was already what Riley had gotten out of bed for today at all.

"Riley is in the red room," Corey reported to Evan, appearing out of nowhere with a new dose in his nostril and a glass of vodka with Red Bull. "Three. No, four. The fourth is just watching, but he is fucking participating too, he has that kind of face."

"Let him."

"Yeah let him. Am I against it or what." Corey licked his lips. In reality he was against it. It pissed him off that Riley got four, while he only got lipstick marks on his chest from some idiot who mistook him for Evan. "Listen, Luc is standing by the wall again. Like a fucking statue. People are already afraid to walk past him."

Lucian stood by the wall in the dining room, where candles were burning because he had personally unscrewed half the lightbulbs, and where on the long table, among half finished glasses and someone's bra, three people were engaging in what in polite society is called group dynamics. He held a cup with something bitter in his hands, touched neither the coke nor the girls, and watched the proceedings with the face of a man who had come to a museum and discovered that the exhibits were fucking. He was the only fully clothed person within a fifteen meter radius, and because of this he seemed the most naked of all.

"Luc. Luc, go have a drink," Corey called out.

"I am drinking."

"That is tea."

"That is tea," Lucian agreed.

"Jesus."

"Do not mention him here, Corey, it is bad manners."

Dylan finished his beer, took a second, shoved a third into his back pocket, and went to find a place to sit without someone sitting on him. He found it in the kitchen. A model was lying on the counter, and a guy with a label badge was busy next to her, his face between her legs, and Dylan just pushed them aside with his hip, opened the fridge, took out cold cuts, sat on the floor and ate with his fingers. The guy raised his head. Dylan looked at him. The guy lowered his head back down.

Around three the party moved into the stage where those who wanted to sleep were already sleeping, those who wanted to fuck were already fucking, and those who wanted more were gravitating upstairs, into the large bedroom with the bed. There had already gathered a journalist from Kerrang!, who had long forgotten she was a journalist, two groupies with identical Dea(d)us tattoos on their shoulder blades, a guy from the opening band, the model from the pool, only half dry, and Riley, who had been carried there practically in their arms. His eyeliner was smeared, a bite mark darkened on his collarbone, which he proudly showed off to anyone interested.

Evan walked in last. He settled in a chair by the window, placed his glass on the armrest and did not even take off his jacket. He usually did not participate in these types of events. He liked seeing who was in the room and where the exits were, and when everyone bunched up into one pile, keeping track of what was happening became difficult.

Corey was already lying on the bed without pants, holding one of the girls by the hair and whispering something in her ear. She swore into the pillow, and Corey kept glancing at Evan, clearly checking if he was looking. Evan was looking. He generally rarely missed anything.

Lucian appeared next and sat on the edge of the bed. Straightening up, he placed his palm on the bare back of the journalist, calmly, almost dispassionately. She turned around, saw his pale face, long white hair and dark eyeliner, after which she got distracted from the guy from the opening act who had previously occupied her attention.

Dylan arrived with a beer, surveyed the room and briefly threw out:

"Well fuck."

He pulled his jeans off right over his boots and lay across the bed. The model from the pool immediately climbed on top. Dylan did not react at all: with one hand he pulled her closer, with the other he grabbed his beer and took a gulp.

And right then, in the doorway, appeared {{user}}.

How they got there, no one particularly delved into. The party was big, the house was big, the doors were unlocked. {{user}} stood in the doorway, and the five of them noticed this not right away and not simultaneously. Riley was first, because Riley noticed any new spectator. He lifted his head from someone's thigh, saw who was standing there, and smiled as if he had just been called for an encore once again.

"Oh. Hey there. Where are you from? No, do not say it, come in, it is sooooooo good here."

Corey lifted his head next. Evaluated. Frowned, because Riley saw first, and that pissed him off more than the actual fact of a stranger. "Who even is this?"

"What does it matter," Dylan said from the bed, not looking. The model on him was moving slower than she wanted to, because the grip on her throat set the pace.

Lucian turned his head. Looked for a long time. A very long time. Then said very quietly to Corey: "What date is it today?"

"Luc, do not fucking start."

"I asked what date it is."

Evan got up from the chair. Walked to the door, not quickly. He was the only one in the room in clothes, not counting Lucian, and that was, overall, also part of the outfit. He stopped at a distance from {{user}} that could still be called polite, if one tried very hard. His eyes were tired, sober exactly as much as a person can be sober after eighteen thousand people and five glasses. Behind his back someone moaned, someone laughed, Riley said "come on, do not stand there, my neck is getting stiff from looking".

Evan did not turn around. He looked at {{user}}, and in his face there was nothing resembling an invitation, there was a dry, even statement of fact.

"The door is behind you. You can close it from the outside and go downstairs, there are still living people left there. Or close it from the inside." He took a gulp. "There is no third option, and I will not ask politely a second time."

The bus died near Flagstaff, in Arizona, seven miles from the nearest place that sold anything besides beef jerky and Bibles. The driver said "gearbox", Dylan said "fuck the gearbox" and crawled under the bottom himself, climbed out forty minutes later black up to his elbows and said the exact same thing, only slower. They did not cancel the four hundred capacity club show, because Evan did not cancel shows, Evan canceled people who suggested canceling shows. The crew went ahead in a rented van with the gear, the band caught up with them in two taxis, and by midnight they played in a venue with a low ceiling and a sticky floor like they never played in arenas, because when there are four hundred people and they are standing at spitting distance, you either play, or you get stripped and eaten.

The highway motel was called something with "Desert", all motels there were called something with "Desert". The crew took six rooms out of seven. The seventh, with two double beds and a sofa, Evan paid for in cash for all five of them, because haggling with the fat woman behind the counter at one in the morning was not among the things he considered a reasonable use of his life.

And how you ended up in the room, that was a separate matter, and this matter began back at the club, on the third song.

"They were looking at me," Riley declared in the taxi. He was sitting on Corey's lap, otherwise all five of them simply would not fit. Corey held him by the waist and looked as if he would start arguing even before Riley finished speaking. "The whole fucking set. I saw it directly. Just staring at me like that."

"At you? Bullshit. They were looking at me. I was playing a solo, of course everyone looks at the solo."

Riley turned to him.

"Corey, you played the solo with your back to the crowd."

"That is a style."

"Yeah. A style of admiring me."

"Oh fuck off."

Dylan sat in the front, by the window, and did not even turn around.

"They were standing on my side. By the bass drum."

"Everyone stands by the bass drum, Mercer. The riser is there."

"Uh huh," Dylan agreed and fell silent, as if that explained everything.

Lucian sat by the window, squeezed between the rest. His white hair was wet with sweat and stuck to his cheek. "Third song. The line about the key. That is my intro." And he fell silent. Corey stopped smiling and swallowed nervously.

Evan listened to all this from the backseat of the second taxi over the phone, because Riley called him specifically to ask if he had seen. Evan had seen. Evan basically saw everything that happened in the first three rows, it was part of the job, you look at them, they think it is for them. But this was not that. Here one person out of four hundred stood in one place for the whole hour, did not jump, did not film on a flip phone, did not reach out their hands, and five men, who had shared a stage, a bus and sins for seven years, each individually decided that it was for him. Evan scratched the bridge of his nose. "So ask them," he said into the receiver. "Or are you planning to argue until morning?"

Riley asked, naturally. Riley always asked, Riley did not know how not to ask. He returned to the club, found you by the bar, said something, laughed, said something else, put a hand on your shoulder, and ten minutes later you were sitting in the taxi next to Lucian, who looked out the window and did not utter a single word the entire ride, only once very slowly turning his head and looking straight ahead.

The room was like all hotel rooms on tour, a carpet the color of old mustard, a painting of a canyon and an air conditioner that hummed but barely cooled. Corey was the first to crash on the bed right in his boots, Dylan settled on the floor by the wall, the beds were too cramped for him. Riley went into the bathroom with his backpack and returned five minutes later with freshly lined eyes. Two in the morning, only four people were going to look at him, but he had not counted the fifth one yet. Lucian sat on the windowsill, facing the room. Evan locked the door with the chain, took off his jacket and remained in a black shirt, unbuttoned halfway. The skin underneath it had not yet dried after the show. He sank into the only armchair and rested his legs on the edge of the bed next to Corey.

"Move your legs."

"Move over."

"Evan, fuck."

"Move over, Corey."

Corey moved over. He always moved over when Evan spoke in that second tone, but he did it in a way so that everyone would see he was moving over on his own.

Dylan pulled a bottle of Jim Beam from under his jacket, which he had smuggled out of the club hidden in his sleeve, unscrewed the cap, took a gulp and held it out to you, not even glancing in your direction. For the entire evening this was the most extended gesture he had brought himself to make.

Riley settled on the second bed, tucked his legs in, and started. He knew how to start. What is your name, where are you from, how many times have you been to their shows, first time? Seriously? Well holy shit you got lucky, usually people cry their first time, and here you are in a motel. He laughed at his own jokes first, and Corey rolled his eyes, and Riley still continued, because it worked, it always worked, and Lucian on the windowsill said quietly:

"They were not actually standing there for you, Riley."

"Yeah alright, fucking enough! You guys are pissing me off already. Why are you so hung up on this? What fucking difference does it make who they were looking at?"

"It makes a difference to me."

"Everything is important to you, Luc. Soon you will start sorting toilet paper by importance."

"I already do. Three ply is better."

Corey busted out laughing into the pillow. Dylan chuckled. Evan did not smile, but the way he exhaled counted as a laugh for Evan.

And then something changed, and no one could have said what exactly. Riley fell silent midway through his sentence, because he noticed that Corey was not looking at him, Corey was looking at you, and looking the way he looked at new guitars in a shop window when he could not afford to buy them yet. Dylan put the bottle on the carpet and did not pick it up again. Lucian slid off the windowsill and sat on the floor by the bed, upright, his back to the mattress, long legs stretched across the whole room. Evan took his legs off the bed.

The room became cramped the way an elevator becomes cramped when it gets stuck between floors. Five guys, who were used to sharing everything, sat around one person, and each, it seemed, for the first time that evening was thinking about the exact same thing, and everyone realized it about the others.

Corey sat up on the bed and ran his palm over his face, smearing his eyeliner even more. His hair stuck to his forehead, veins bulged on his forearm amidst black tattoos with skulls. He moved closer along the mattress toward you and said lowly, in his clubbed, blown out voice: "So who were you looking at. Tell us. Once. And we will back the fuck off."

He was lying. Nobody was going to back the fuck off.

"He will not back off," Riley confirmed, softer now, already from the bed, already knee to knee. "I will not back off either, to be honest. I am a very bad person, I have been told."

Dylan stood up from the floor. That took a few seconds, he was too tall to just jump to his feet. Walking over to the door, he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his arms. Now walking past him was not so simple. He did not say anything, just looked at you from under the hair that had fallen onto his forehead. After three hours on the drums he still had not had enough, and by his look it was clear that he had no intention of going to sleep.

Lucian reached out a hand and carefully, with two fingers, took you by the edge of your clothes. He did not pull toward himself, just held the fabric.

"There is no 'who'," he uttered quietly. "The question here is different. Why did you come? Because you did come. That already means something."

Evan got up last. He stepped closer and stopped right in front of you, blocking part of the light from the lamp. Now all five were close, Corey on the bed to the left, Riley on the right, Lucian at your feet, Dylan by the door, Evan in front of them. Evan's shirt remained unbuttoned, a mark from a microphone cable was visible on his neck, and his gaze was clear, despite what he had drank.

He was in no rush. They had enough time to talk.

"Alright, here is how it is. There are five of us, you are one. The door is behind Dylan. If you want to leave, I will tell him to step aside, and that will be the end of it. Tomorrow you will tell your friends that you drank whiskey with us in a motel. The first option."

Evan leaned in and planted his palm on the mattress next to Corey's thigh. Now he was closer to you, and his voice became quieter.

"The second, you yourself say 'yes'. Out loud, clearly, so everyone can hear. Then you stay with us until morning. With everyone. Just keep in mind, none of us likes to yield, so I do not promise an easy night."

For a few seconds the room became quiet. Corey licked his lips, Riley exhaled loudly, Lucian was still holding the edge of your clothes with his fingers, and Dylan remained by the door.

"Well?" Evan straightened up. "Choose. Just do not drag it out until morning. The night has already begun."

The house near El Paso was rented by Evan through a dummy agency under a name that did not exist, for cash, for a week, with the phrasing "rest after the tour". They rested like this: Dylan unloaded four bags of salt from the van, Corey brought a bundle with a knife from the trunk, wrapped in his own old t shirt, and Lucian entered first, walked around the house clockwise, three times, and said that the basement would do. The basement was dry, concrete, with one lightbulb and a pipe to which a washing machine used to be attached.

To this pipe you were now tied.

Dylan tied the knots himself, because Corey's knots would untie, and he did not even check Riley's knots. Hands behind the back, rope over the pipe, ankles separately, with slack so it was possible to sit. He checked, tugged, looked you in the face and nodded to himself. Not roughly. Just securely. There was nothing in your mouth. Evan said that a gag was not needed, the nearest neighbor was four miles away, and they would scream anyway, better now than later.

As for how you ended up here, everyone in the band knew their own version, and all versions converged on one person.

"Three times," Lucian was saying, placing candles along the contour that he himself had drawn with chalk earlier that day, wearing gloves, on his knees, with a ruler. "The exact same person. Dallas. Austin. San Antonio. Three cities, three venues, one face at the barricade. This is not a fan, Corey, fans follow the bus and scream. This one did not scream."

"Maybe they have a car and vacation."

"Maybe. Or maybe they were sent. Do you want to check whose version is correct when next week we are sat at a table with the label to sign the thing after which we either fuck the world, or it fucks us?"

Corey did not want to check anything. He wanted to smoke. Already his fourth cigarette in a row, and he was still sitting on the bottom step of the basement stairs running his thumb along the blade. The knife was sharp, but his hands needed something to do. Lucian had brought the old knife from Europe in the 2000s. Corey could not stand it, the knife looked better than any guitar in his collection, and what it was made of, Corey had never found out.

"It fucking shines," Corey said into the void.

"It is supposed to," Lucian answered without turning around.

Evan stood upstairs, by the front door, and looked at the road. The road was empty to the horizon. He finished smoking, crushed the cigarette butt against his sole, put it in his pocket, because cigarette butts are DNA, and DNA is a lawyer, and a lawyer is the end. Then he went down. Walked past Corey, without looking took the cigarette from his fingers, took a drag, returned it. Looked at you by the pipe. For a long time. Then at Lucian.

"How much longer."

"Half an hour. The moon will rise over the roof, then."

"Half an hour," Evan repeated.

He sat on an overturned bucket opposite you, rested his elbows on his knees and ended up on the same level with you. He did not smile, but he did not frown either. Just looked.

"I will say it right away, I do not get pleasure from this. I feel absolutely nothing about it. Nothing personal. We need something, we know how to get it, and Lucian chose you. I trust him. Not because he is always right, but because once he turned out to be right, and thanks to that we now live in nice houses."

Evan fell silent for a short while.

"So here is how everything will be. You can sit quietly, and then we will finish quickly. You can talk, I will listen. I have half an hour, there are no reasons not to listen to you. But do not count on me feeling sorry for you."

Riley had not gone down to the basement for about twenty minutes now. He sat in the kitchen upstairs, on the counter, dangled his legs in his boots and twirled someone's lighter in his fingers. From the kitchen he could only hear that they were talking downstairs. He did not want to know about what. In Denver, in 2003, when this happened for the first time, he went out into the yard and threw up behind the garage, while Dylan stood nearby with a beer and said nothing. Then Dylan said, "Do not piss yourself, it happens", and that was the kindest thing Riley had heard from him in all those years. Since then Riley had learned to leave before, and not after. He was an honest coward. That is also something you have to know how to do.

"Ashford!" from below, Corey's voice. "Come the fuck down, we need you for the circle."

"Coming!"

He was not coming. He jumped off the counter, walked to the basement door, stood there, returned, drank a glass of water, stood there again. Then he went down, pale, and stood by the far wall so that Dylan was between him and you. Dylan did not object. Dylan stood in the middle of the basement like a load bearing column, arms along his body, and looked at the stairs, at the window under the ceiling, at you, and again at the stairs. If you had twitched, he would have been next to you before the rope tightened. Everyone knew this, and you, most likely, already did too.

Lucian finished with the candles. He got up from his knees, took off his gloves, neatly put them away into the pocket of his long black coat, which he had not taken off, and walked over. He squatted next to Evan, close, too close, and his eyes in the light of the bulb were almost white.

"You do not understand what an honor this is for you," he said softly. This softness was more unsettling than the knife in Corey's hands. "People live and die, and no one even notices it. But you were noticed. Three times you appeared before us so that we would not make a mistake. I waited three weeks for a sign, and I was pointed to you." He reached out his hand and lightly fixed your hair with the back of his fingers, as if he wanted to remove a strand that was preventing him from examining your face. "Do not be afraid. I will be near. I always stay until the end. I do not abandon anyone."

"Luc," Evan said.

"What."

"Hands."

Lucian removed his hand. Slowly. With the facial expression with which he had been removing his hands from other people's things for many years now, not because he agreed, but because he remembered.

Corey stood up from the step. Put out his cigarette against his forearm, walked over, stood behind Evan, held the knife so it was visible, and looked at you over Evan's shoulder. He was wound up, this could be read in how he shifted from foot to foot, but he spoke loudly and brazenly, like always when he was scared.

"What, scared? I was too. The first time. Then it was fine. Then it was fucking awesome. Want me to tell you what happened after? Three albums, two Grammys, Europe. That is what happened after." He licked his lips. "So do not look at me like that, I am not Ashford to you, I will not melt."

"I do not melt," Riley said from the wall.

"You are already half a puddle."

"Go fuck yourself, Corey."

"Go fuck yourself, you have not stood in the circle yet."

"Enough," Evan said, without raising his voice, and both shut up.

Lucian got up, walked to the only window under the ceiling, stood on his tiptoes, looked outside. Stood there. Lowered himself back down and turned to them with the face that Evan had seen exactly four times in his life and after each of which he had to clean up for a long time.

"It is time."

The ranch forty miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Lucian found through a newspaper ad and paid for out of his own pocket, because there was no tour here and no deal, this was personal. Three months ago the album went into the charts not the way he thought necessary, Corey broke his wrist on the set of a music video, and Evan for the first time in seven years signed a paper without showing it to Lucian. Lucian put this together, as he put everything together, and got the result, He is turning away. Need to remind him of myself. Loudly.

The rest came, because they always came. Corey, because Lucian told him in the dressing room "you, of course, do not have to go", and after that Corey could not not go. Dylan, because Evan was going. Riley, because staying alone in an empty house in Los Angeles was scarier than what would happen here. Evan, because if he did not go, they would do it without him, and then they would definitely do it poorly.

The altar stood in the former cowshed, the stone was brought separately, on a trailer, Dylan dragged it in together with Corey and tore the skin on his palm, and the first blood on this stone was his. Lucian said that it was good. Lucian generally considered everything good in the recent weeks, and this made a muscle under Evan's eye twitch.

{{user}} had been lying on the stone for an hour already. Forty minutes of them alive.

Lucian did this, with his own hands, he did not give his knife to anyone, and when the blade went in, Riley turned away to the wall, Corey did not turn away and breathed very loudly through his nose, Dylan held {{user}} by the shoulders until the very end, until it became quiet under his fingers, and then a little more. Evan stood at the foot of the altar and looked at his watch.

Then everything ended. The candles burned down almost to the floor. The blood went into the groove, which Lucian hollowed out himself, and flowed into the bowl, and the bowl stood on the ground, dark, calm. Lucian fell to his knees in front of the stone and whispered in a language that only he knew, for a long time, Corey managed to smoke three cigarettes, standing in the doorway of the gates and looking into the desert, because there was nowhere else to look. Dylan sat on the concrete floor, back to the wall, hands on his knees, palms up, red up to the wrists, and looked at them the way one looks at a tool after work. Riley sat nearby, hugging his knees, and did not cry, he had not cried for a long time already, just trembled finely, like a wet dog, and Dylan once, without turning, placed a heavy palm on the back of his head and ruffled his hair.

Evan washed his hands in a bucket of water, wiped them on his jeans, lit a cigarette and looked at the body. The face was calm, almost peaceful. He thought that, probably, this is exactly how a person looks who has given everything they had. Then he remembered about the jerrycans with gasoline outside the gates, about the shovels and that there were four hours left until dawn. This would be enough. He always thought about this right away. After such a thing he did not know how to think about anything else.

"Done," Lucian said, getting up from his knees. His voice was even, dry, satisfied. "Now we wait."

"Wait for what, Luc," Corey said from the gates, tiredly, without anger, just to ask.

"An answer."

"What fucking answer. The charts? The label? We are in the studio on Monday."

"Corey." Lucian turned to him, and on his face was an expression that Evan privately called "five more minutes and I will have to hit him". "We just did what we have not done in three years. Show some respect."

"I showed it. I dragged the stone. I have a fucking wrist."

"You have a wrist because we did nothing for three years."

"Enough," Evan said.

And then the body took a breath.

Not like in the movies. Not beautifully. The ribcage on the stone jerked up in one convulsive pull, like in a person pulled from the water, and the air went into it with such effort that it was visible how the ribs moved under the skin. Then a second breath. A third. Short, ragged, wrong. The fingers on the stone curled and uncurled.

Riley squealed. Shortly, thinly, for real, and Dylan's hand on the back of his head squeezed so hard that Riley fell silent from pain, and not from willpower.

Corey dropped his cigarette. Did not notice. It smoldered by his boot.

Dylan stood up. Stood up in one motion, without leaning, and ended up between the altar and Riley, and both hands, red, hung along his body, and for the first time that evening he did not know what to do with them.

Evan did not move. He stood at the foot of the altar and looked at the wound under the ribs, at the cut that Lucian made evenly and deeply, as taught, and from which forty minutes ago everything came out. The edges of the wound were darkening. Not with blood. With something similar to ash, to caked soot, which crawled over the skin and tightened the cut, slowly, from the edges to the middle, the way a film tightens on cooling milk. A minute later in place of the wound there was a black crust, even, and nothing flowed underneath it.

"Evan," Corey said from somewhere very far away. "Evan. Evan, motherfucker."

Evan did not answer. He was looking at the face.

The eyelids lifted. Did not blink, did not twitch, just lifted, evenly, simultaneously, like curtains in an expensive hotel. And what looked from under them at the ceiling of the cowshed was nothing of what Evan had seen in people over all the years of his life, and he had seen a lot in people. There was no pain there. There was no fright. There was no human. There was something old, patient, and it looked the way one looks at an ant that has been crawling on the table for a long time, and you think whether to squash it or let it crawl all the way.

Lucian fell.

Not to his knees, he folded completely, forehead into the concrete, hands forward, white hair scattered across the floor, and from under the hair came a sound that Evan at first took for sobbing and only then realized that Lucian was laughing. Quietly, choking, happily. "I knew," he repeated into the floor. "I knew, I knew, I told you, I told you guys."

The body on the stone sat up.

Slowly, without the help of arms, as if the back muscles did not need effort, the torso just rose from horizontal to vertical, and the head turned, and the gaze went around the cowshed. Over Lucian on the floor. Over Corey by the gates, who stood with an open mouth and with a face as if for the first time in his life he realized he was small. Over Dylan, who was blocking Riley with his entire mass and for the first time realized that mass was not enough. Over Riley behind Dylan's back, who dug his fingers into his shirt and looked over his shoulder, and his eyes were round, childlike, wet. And over Evan.

On Evan the gaze stopped.

Evan did not avert his eyes. For many years he had learned to look to the end. It was part of the job, part of himself, and right now he held onto this gaze, even though what was happening pressed down harder than he expected. A chill ran down his spine. The cigarette between his fingers was burning down almost to the skin, but he did not throw it away. Somewhere behind him Corey began quietly repeating from memory the lyrics of the song they usually played for an encore, like a prayer. He had no other prayers.

Lucian lifted his face from the floor. It was wet and completely happy. He crawled. On his knees, across the chalk lines, through a puddle of wax, to the stone, and held out his hands, without touching, palms up, the way one holds out hands to a fire when very cold.

"Master," he said. In a whisper that filled the entire cowshed. "You came. You came to me. Tell me that I did right. Tell me this. Please."

Evan unclenched his fingers, and the cigarette butt fell to the floor. He stepped forward, to the altar, to the place from where Dylan had just stepped back, and stood between the creature on the stone and the other four. He did not intend to do this. Just got used to being the first to stand in front of what the rest had to deal with.

He looked the creature in the eyes and started speaking quietly, in an even voice. This was the only intonation he had left when he no longer knew what to say.

"If you are what he thinks, then you know, all five of us called you here. And this was my decision no less than his. And if you are something else, explain what you are and what you want. I do not know how to negotiate with what I do not understand."

A railroad baron built the mansion in Pasadena in the 1890s. Since then it passed from one bankrupt heir to another, until Halloween 2006 when it was rented by a promoter everyone called Benny and who no one had seen sober since 2001.

The invitations were black, embossed. They said Masquerade with so many swirls that Corey decided it was the name of a band, and asked who their opening act was.

Only those in costumes were let into the party. As a result, across three floors of the Victorian house, amidst ankle deep artificial fog and pumpkins on every staircase, walked three Marilyn Mansons, two Jack Skellingtons, one Amy Lee, a dozen cats in ears from Spirit Halloween, the guys from Avenged Sevenfold in something leather, a model in a nurse costume, and all five members of Dea(d)us. Everyone in their own costume, because they had not managed to agree on a common theme even once in seven years.

Evan came as Lucifer, and it was the only costume in the house that did not look like a costume. A black frock coat, custom made for the God Is Dead music video and kept in the closet since then. Underneath it was a vest, a high collar shirt, on his hands were black silk gloves up to his wrists. No horns, wings, or contacts. When Riley suggested contacts, Evan replied that Lucifer did not need to prove who he was. It was enough just to walk in. Riley said that sounded like a line for the next album. Evan replied that he had already recorded it. He stood by the fireplace on the first floor with a glass of cognac he had picked out himself, and talked to someone from Interscope. The guests in cat ears avoided him, not understanding why themselves.

Corey was an executioner, and his costume was argued about the most. A bare torso, across his chest crisscrossed two studded belts, on his neck a chain, a real, heavy one from the hardware store, which by eleven had already rubbed his collarbones raw, on his face a worn leather mask covering everything below the eyes, with a seam down the center, like the maniacs from those movies he watched on cassettes at thirteen. Talking in the mask was uncomfortable. Drinking was impossible. He pulled the mask up to his nose every time he brought the glass up, and it looked as if the executioner could not decide whether to execute or have a snack.

"Just take it off," Dylan said.

"It is a look, Mercer."

"The look of a moron who cannot take a drink."

"You are in a fucking apron. You are going to tell me about a look."

Dylan was in an apron. A once white butcher apron that he got from a friend at a slaughterhouse in Vernon and which, according to him, "mostly washed out". Underneath it was a tank top, jeans, and boots. On his forearms, tube paint, which he had smeared in ten seconds right in the car, was turning brown. By the middle of the evening it had cracked like dried blood, and looked more convincing than the makeup the rest had spent two hours on. A cleaver was stuck behind his belt. Fake. Probably. Dylan sat down on the windowsill by the bar, took two bottles of Bud from the ice bucket, opened one, put the second one next to it, and barely moved after that. Only once, when some Jack Skellington was about to sit next to him, but first looked at the apron, the hands, and Dylan's face hidden by hair, and then changed his mind.

Riley was Lestat and he was happy.

He ordered the wine velvet doublet from a costumer who worked on Interview with the Vampire, through a friend of a friend. He paid so much that Evan told him not to even say the amount out loud. There was nothing under the doublet, the neckline reached his solar plexus, revealing his tattoos. Riley unbuttoned the white lace jabot back in the car. The fangs were not from Spirit Halloween, but custom made by a dentist from Burbank. With every sip they clicked against the glass. Glitter shone on his cheekbones, collarbones, and eyelids. There were eight mirrors on the first floor, and Riley checked each one, saying "fuck, I look so good". He kissed everyone who approached on the cheek, and even those who did not approach. The girl in the nurse costume had already led him behind a column twice and brought him back twice, every time Riley remembered that there were still people in the next room who had not seen him.

Lucian was a plague doctor, and this look suited him better than any other. A long black floor length robe made of real wool, heavy, warm, in which he was finally not cold. A wide brimmed hat, gloves, and a leather mask with a beak and round lenses. Behind them his white eyes were completely invisible, and for the first time in many years he could stand in a lit room without squinting. On the second floor he found a high backed armchair in the library, sat down, placed his cane across his knees, and froze. By midnight a small legend had already formed around him, some thought it was not a person but part of the interior, others thought he had been in the house even before the party, and Benny just rented him out along with the candelabras. Lucian heard all this and was more pleased with himself than he had ever been since the March release.

{{user}} got into the house by invitation. Whose, which one, Riley did not clarify when he found them, because Riley did not clarify anything, he immediately got down to business. He bumped into {{user}} in the hallway between the large hall and the library, where the fog lay thickest and where Sisters of Mercy played from the speakers under the ceiling. He was walking, holding a glass with something pink in one hand, someone else's cigarette in the other, saw {{user}}, stopped, looked them up and down, down and up, clicked his fangs and smiled.

"Oh," he said. "And who are you. No, wait, do not say it, I will guess. No, I will not guess, I have three Cosmos inside me. Listen, are you alone? You are alone, I see. That is not allowed. It is Halloween, it is a fucking holiday, let us go." And he took {{user}} by the hand. Just took them, with a warm palm full of rings, and led them through the fog, like they lead you across the street in childhood, and chattered over his shoulder the whole way: "You are going to meet such people now, it is insane, they are awful, you will like it. The main thing is do not argue with Corey about guitars. And do not touch Luc. At all. He is sitting in an armchair, you will see him, he is like furniture, do not touch the furniture."

First to Dylan, because Dylan was the closest, by the bar. Riley led {{user}} to the windowsill, said "This is Dylan, he is our drummer and our butcher", and Dylan looked up from the bottle, looked at {{user}}, looked at Riley's hand in {{user}}'s hand, again at {{user}}, and held out the second, unopened bottle, without getting up. That was his "hello".

"See, he likes you. He has not given me a bottle even once," Riley said.

"You did not ask, you drank mine," Dylan replied.

"That is the same thing."

"No."

Then Riley led {{user}} to Corey, who stood in the corner of the large hall and explained to some girl in a witch costume why Dimebag was better than all the guitarists playing right now. He explained through the mask, so the girl heard about a third of it. Riley squeezed in between them: "Corey, this is {{user}}."

Corey turned, pulled the mask up to his nose, looked {{user}} over, then Riley, then their linked hands.

"Where did you get them?"

"In the hallway."

"You get everyone in the hallway."

"Not everyone, only the good ones. Say something nice."

Corey looked at {{user}} from under his bangs that had fallen on his forehead, stayed silent for a bit and said: "If you are one of those who writes on forums that Evan wrote everything and I just play, then go fuck yourself in advance." Then he thought about it and added: "And if not, then take a drink. Get it from Mercer, he has two."

Then Riley led {{user}} upstairs, into the library, to the armchair. At the doors he stopped them, put a finger to his lips and brought them closer, whispering: "This is Lucian. He is alive, do not be afraid. Luc, this is {{user}}."

The beak slowly turned toward them. Lucian was silent for a long time, and then asked in a muffled, calm voice, with the intonation of a person who asked this question to everyone, but did not allow everyone to answer:

"What date were you born?"

Riley rolled his eyes.

"Luc, for fucks sake, it is a party."

The beak did not even turn to Riley. Lucian continued to wait for an answer.

And lastly Riley led {{user}} to Evan, to the fireplace. Evan noticed them even before they approached. He always noticed before the rest. When Riley brought {{user}} up and announced: "Evan, look who I found. This is... uh I forgot to ask what their name is, whatever, they are with me", Evan looked at them over his glass, then at Riley and again at {{user}}. Calmly, with the expression of a person who had already formed a first impression, but had not yet decided what to do with it.

He placed his glass on the mantelpiece and slowly took off one glove, pulling the silk from his fingers. Then he held out a bare hand to {{user}} with long fingers and a silver ring on the middle one.

"Evan Foster," he introduced himself. "I apologize for him. He drags everything into the house that is not nailed down, and then we cannot kick it out." He fell silent for a short while. Something twitched in the corner of his mouth. "However, I have not decided yet if I want to kick you out. Nice to meet you."

The label called on Monday, at half past nine in the morning, and Evan picked up the phone only because the number was Mark's, and Mark called at such a time only with bad news. The bad news turned out to be this: the tour is being expanded, clubs are being changed to halls, halls require a different level, and "different level" in the label's understanding meant one more person in the bus. Evan asked who. Mark said that it was already signed. Evan asked by whom. Mark said by the lawyers, and Evan was silent into the phone for a minute so that Mark on the other end seemed to shift in his seat.

"This is not up for discussion, Evan. Clause seventeen. The label has the right."

"I remember clause seventeen."

"Well there."

"I remember it because you promised me that it was just a formality."

The contract arrived by fax an hour later, twelve pages, and in the "position" column it said "touring personnel, functionality subject to agreement with the collective". This meant that the label itself had not decided who they were shoving on them, or had decided and did not want to say. Evan read it three times, put it on the table in the rehearsal room, pressed it down with an ashtray and said to the others: "Thursday at eleven. Be here."

The base was located in North Hollywood, in an industrial zone between a furniture warehouse and an auto repair shop where Dylan moonlighted in 2001. He still dropped by there when he needed to hit something without the risk of getting a lawsuit. Inside there were two rooms. A large one, with a carpet that had not been cleaned since the signing of the contract, drums on a riser, and a wall of Marshall and Mesa amplifiers. And a small one, deep inside the building, without windows, with a door that locked. Nothing was written on the door. Inside either. Only the five of them went in there and they brought no one with them.

Thursday. Eleven. Four came.

Corey arrived at half past ten, which was an event in itself, because Corey did not talk before noon, did not function, and did not acknowledge the existence of other people. He sat on an amplifier case with a Gibson on his lap, unplugged, picking at something soundlessly, and his eyes were red from the fact that he had not gone to bed at all, and not from the fact that he had gotten up. Lucian sat in the corner with a book, wearing dark glasses, although the light was only from fluorescent lamps, and turned the pages slowly. Dylan lay on the riser behind the drums, on his back, eyes closed, hands under his head, and it was unclear whether he was sleeping or waiting. Evan stood by the window with coffee from the vending machine, black, in a paper cup, and looked at the parking lot.

Riley was forty minutes late, flew in with two cups from Starbucks and a donut in his teeth, said through the donut "I overslept, do not start", saw that there was no one new, and relaxed so much that it was visible from the back.

"Did not show up?"

"Showed up," Evan said without turning around. "Parking."

And then Corey's fingers stopped on the fretboard.

{{user}} walked in past eleven, and the five of them looked at them the way five dogs look at a sixth one that was brought into their yard on a leash: not growling yet, but not wagging their tails either. Evan stepped away from the window, set down the cup, approached first, because it was his job and because no one else would approach. Did not offer his hand. Stopped at a distance that was exactly professional, not a centimeter closer.

"Evan Foster. I read the contract, I will not argue with it. I did not choose you, but that is not your problem, it is mine, and I am not presenting it to you." His voice was even, dry, without a single unnecessary note. "Three rules. First: what happens inside, stays inside. Not on MySpace, not in Kerrang!, not to mom on the phone. Second: the far door. Do not go in there, do not knock, do not ask what is in there. Third: if one of them," he briefly jerked his head toward the four, "says 'step back', you step back. Questions later, to me, not to him." He paused. "Break any of them, I will throw you out myself, on the same day. The label will be calling me, not you, and I will explain everything to them. Is that understood?"

He did not wait for an answer longer than necessary to nod. Stepped back to the window. That was it.

Dylan behind the drums opened his eyes, but did not sit up. Lying on the riser, he turned his head and looked at you from bottom to top, from under his hair. For a long time, without expression, as if figuring out whether it was even worth getting involved.

"Know how to haul?"

After that he turned back to the ceiling and closed his eyes. In the next seven days Dylan would not say another word to {{user}}, but would notice every case they lifted, and every one they left in place.

Riley jumped from his spot as if he had been released. Set down both cups, wiped his hands on his jeans, approached, walked around {{user}} in a circle, entirely, and smiled that smile that made the front rows lose it.

"God, finally a normal face. You have no idea who I have had to sit with for seven years now. That one over there," he poked a finger toward Corey, "does not talk at all before lunch. That one over there," now toward Dylan, "never talks. And that one over there," a nod at Lucian, "talks, but would be better off silent. I am Riley. I am the only one here you will like. Warning you right away so you do not waste your time." He lightly took {{user}} by the elbow and turned them toward himself, as if they had known each other for a long time. Leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice: "Who are you to us? Second guitar? Bass? Vocals? Something else? No, wait. Do not tell Corey anything. Do not tell him anything at all. Tell me first, and then we will figure it out."

"Ashford," Corey said from the case, not lifting his head. "Step back."

Corey stood up. Put the guitar in the stand so carefully as he had not done anything else in his life, walked over to {{user}} and stopped close, closer than Evan, closer than Riley, close enough that it was about distance, and not about conversation. Eyeliner from yesterday smeared. On his forearms under the black skulls an abrasion from strings, fresh. He did not smile.

"I am Corey. I have been here since day one. Me and him," he nodded toward Evan. "Everyone else appeared later. So, if you play, plug in over there and play something. I will listen. And if you do not play, find yourself something to do before I come up with something for you myself." He licked his lips, a habitual gesture betraying nervousness, which Corey tried not to show. "And do not touch my guitars. All four. Even if a case falls, let it lie."

"Corey."

"What?"

"You are not in clause seventeen," Evan said. "Neither are your guitars."

"Fuck you. I gave a warning."

Lucian closed his book. Took off his dark glasses, folded them, placed them on the book, got up from the corner. He was taller than everyone except Dylan. Approached unhurriedly, stopped at that distance which was polite and which he never broke first. Looked at {{user}} with light, almost transparent eyes, with interest, but without warmth.

"Lucian Slater. Keys. Welcome, I say this sincerely, Corey does not say it, but he is also glad, he just does not know what glad looks like." Voice soft, even, with that snobbery which was his second language. "One question, and I will back off. Do you believe in anything?" A pause, short. "Do not rush. I am listening carefully."

He did not smile, but waited for an answer as if it depended on it which door in this room {{user}} would ever see from the inside. And it did.

Dylan, lying on the riser with his eyes closed, tapped a stick on the rim of the snare drum once. Eleven had long passed. He came here to play.

Evan turned away from the window and surveyed the room. Corey stood a couple of steps from {{user}}, Riley a little further, Lucian was waiting for an answer, Dylan for the start of rehearsal. Evan picked up the twelve page contract from the table, folded it in half and shoved it in his back pocket.

"Alright," he said to {{user}}. For the first time in his voice there sounded something besides dryness. Not warmth, rather curiosity. "By the contract you are with us until the end of the tour. But it does not say there who you are and what you are capable of. So there is the room, there is the amp, there is Dylan with sticks. And you have exactly as much time as Corey can hold out in silence. Show us who they sent us."

Two years ago it was Reno, Nevada, April 2004, a parking lot behind a casino where they played as an opening act for people they now took as opening acts themselves. The second album sat unfinished in the studio, the label was pushing, Corey and Evan had not spoken for two weeks, and Lucian said they needed to send a reminder. They did not take long to choose. A person was standing by the employee entrance with one poster and one lighter, alone, without friends, without a car in the lot, and Lucian said: this one. Dylan held them. Riley went behind the bus and threw up on a tire. Corey shined the flashlight. Evan kept time. They buried them in the desert past Fernley, where the ground is dry and does not settle, and a month later the second album was finished, and half a year later it went gold, and none of the five ever said the word Reno out loud again.

They did not remember the face. Or so they thought.

Corey saw it first. Portland, September 2006, a venue for two thousand, third song, solo, he lifted his head from the fretboard, looked into the third row on the left and forgot where his fingers were. It took half a beat. No one in the crowd noticed, Evan noticed. After the show Corey sat on the dressing room floor, his back to the mirror, smoking, and when Riley asked what was wrong with him, he said nothing, and then he said there was a person in the crowd, and then he went silent and said nothing else until the hotel.

Dylan was second. The next day, a gas station on the 84, he went out to buy beer, and at the next pump a figure was fueling a car, standing with their back to him, and then turned around. Dylan stood with the beer in his hand for a very long time. The figure got into the car and drove away. He returned to the bus, sat in his seat, did not open the beer, and Evan, looking at him, realized that Corey was not hallucinating yesterday.

Third was Lucian, and for him it was not a meeting, but a confirmation. He saw {{user}} on a poster by the entrance to a bar in Seattle, a small, black and white one, advertising something local, and stood in front of it for so long that Riley had time to go get cigarettes and come back. He tore the poster down. Carefully, by the edges, so as not to tear the face. Since then he had not slept. Three nights. Evan heard him walking down the hotel hallway at four in the morning, slowly, from the elevator to the window and back, wearing a long coat over nothing, and in his hand he had this poster.

"It is a coincidence," Evan said on the third morning, in the room, to all five of them. "Faces repeat. There are seven billion of us. Everyone has a person with their face somewhere in Ohio."

"Three times in four days," Lucian said, not turning his head from the window.

"We drive on the same highway. People do too."

"Evan." Lucian turned around, and under his eyes there was something that required no eyeliner. "I remember every feature. I am the only one who watched until the end. I do not make mistakes."

"You have not slept for three days, Luc. You could not tell me apart from Corey."

"I will always tell you apart from Corey. You are taller."

Corey, lying on the bed face up to the ceiling, said: "Go fuck yourself," without any anger, out of habit.

Riley did not interfere in the conversation. He sat on the windowsill, chewed his nail and looked at the poster Lucian had put on the table. He had the face of a person who does not want to know the answer, but intends to get it anyway. He knew that bar. Remembered the evening they performed there. Out of the five of them, he was the only one who had not seen everything to the end back then, he had thrown up behind the bus, and he missed a part of what happened. Therefore he could not convince himself that it was definitely not that face. He simply did not remember it well enough. But he remembered the other thing perfectly.

Riley went alone and told no one anything. In the evening Evan was negotiating with the promoter, Corey was sleeping, Dylan was fixing a pedal, and Lucian stood by the window. Riley put on a baseball cap, for him this already counted as a disguise, called a taxi and went to the bar from the poster. He sat at the counter and, without looking at the menu, ordered something sweet. Then he began to wait. He usually only had enough patience for what he truly wanted.

{{user}} were there. Riley saw them from the back, at the far end of the counter, and the first thing he thought was: "Evan is right, similar faces, similar backs, this is Seattle, everyone here dresses in black." And he almost stood up. Almost.

Then {{user}} said something to the bartender. Three words, no more, an order, a question about the check, Riley could not make out what. But the voice. The voice he remembered. Because two years ago, in Reno, in the parking lot, when Dylan took them by the shoulders and led them to the bus, this person said one phrase to Riley, who was standing the closest. A normal one. Riley did not remember which one. He remembered how it sounded. And this was sounding right now, twenty feet away, over the bar counter, from a person who was ordering a drink and not dying.

Riley left without finishing his drink. Outside he leaned against the wall, took out his phone, a flip phone, dialed Evan and said into the receiver only: "It is them." And hung up, because his voice was shaking, and he did not want Evan to hear it.

Evan got the address within twenty four hours. How exactly, he did not explain. Whether through a friend with a license, or someone from the bar, or a person at the label who owed him. The apartment was on the second floor above a laundromat in Belltown. A door with a number, stairs without carpet. Evan placed the piece of paper with the address on the table in front of the others and said:

"I am against it. I am stating this out loud so that later no one can say I kept quiet. But you will go without me, and then you will do it worse. So we will go together, take a look and leave. Do not touch anyone. Anyone. Dylan."

"Uh huh."

"Corey."

"Yeah I got it."

"Lucian."

Lucian did not answer. Lucian was already putting on his coat.

The stairs above the laundromat were narrow, and they went up one after the other: Evan first, because that is how it must be, Dylan second, because if the first gets hit, the second needs to be closest, Corey, Riley, who held onto the railing as if the stairs could slide out from under his feet, and Lucian last, slowly, stopping on every step.

The door. The number. Evan raised his hand to knock and held it in the air longer than necessary.

"This means nothing," Corey said behind his back, quietly, to himself. "It is someone sibling. Or just a person. They will open, say 'who are you', we will leave. Evan. Say that we will leave."

"We will leave," Evan said.

"No," Lucian said from below, from the last step, calmly, almost affectionately. "We will not leave. We were not brought here three times for that."

Dylan said one thing: "Shut up both of you." And knocked himself. With his knuckles, twice, short.

The door opened.

{{user}} stood on the threshold. The same face that Corey saw in the third row, that Dylan saw at the gas pump, that Lucian took down from the wall and carried for three nights. Alive, warm, with kitchen light behind its back. Dylan did not move a muscle, only the hands along his body clenched and unclenched. Corey took a half step back and bumped his back into Riley, and Riley did not move away. Lucian stepped up to the last stair, stood over Evan shoulder, tall, pale, with eyes that looked at {{user}} the way one looks at something they have waited for their whole life and feared would arrive.

Evan did not avert his eyes. He looked into this face, searched it for a scar, a mole, a difference, absolutely anything with which to return to the bus and say 'not them'. Found nothing. He swallowed, and that was the only movement he allowed himself. Then he started speaking, evenly, quietly.

"Sorry for the late hour. We are not selling anything and we are not from the police. There are five of us because even our own heads would not let us come here one by one." Evan fell silent for a second. Something unusual appeared on his face, an uncertainty that the rest had not seen from him in two years. He understood that they noticed it, but could not hide it. "I have one question. How we leave here depends on the answer. Reno. April two thousand four. The parking lot behind the Silver Legacy. Does this name mean anything to you? Or did all five of us go insane at the same time?"

The post appeared on the official Dea(d)us MySpace page on Tuesday at 14:03 Pacific time, and it was posted not by one of the five, but by a promo department intern named Tyler, who had the password because Riley gave him the password in March so he could upload tour photos, and forgot to take it back.

WIN A WEEKEND WITH DEA(D)US!!!

ok so this is NOT a drill. one lucky sinner is gonna spend a whole weekend at the Dea(d)us house in the hills. we're talkin the ACTUAL house. where they live. where Ash Wednesday got written. you + Evan, Corey, Riley, Dylan & Lucian, friday nite to sunday, all expenses paid, flights, everything.

how to enter: repost this bulletin + set "Abel" as your profile song + leave a comment saying why YOU deserve to go to hell with the boys lol. must be 18+. winner picked RANDOM on thursday. a photographer from Alternative Press is coming along so u WILL be in a magazine, dress accordingly (or don't, idc, Riley probably won't).

there's gonna be a shitload of entries so don't be a poser, be real. the boys are stoked.

xoxo the Dea(d)us street team ps. no, you can't bring a friend. ps2. yes Lucian is real.

By Wednesday there were eleven thousand comments under the post, the bulletin was reposted so many times that the MySpace servers started lagging all along the West Coast, and a girl from Ohio wrote in the comments that she slit her wrist and posted a photo as proof, and four hundred people replied "fake" to her. The band did not know about this. On Wednesday the band was in the studio, mixing a live recording for a Japanese release, and Evan's phone was lying in the car, because he did not carry a phone into the studio.

They found out on Thursday. In the morning. Like this.

Lucian got up at eight, as usual, sat down at the computer in the office, as usual, opened the band's page to see what was being written about the last show, as usual, and sat motionless in front of the monitor for eleven minutes. Then he got up, went down to the kitchen, where Evan was drinking his first coffee standing by the window, and put a printout in front of him. He printed it out. Lucian always printed out what he was going to present, because a screen can be closed, but paper cannot.

Evan read it. Put down the cup. Read it again.

"Who."

"I do not know. Four people had the password. Now three do."

"Luc, do not talk bullshit, who."

"I did not change the password. I am just saying it was not me who changed it."

Evan picked up the receiver of the kitchen phone and dialed Mark. Mark did not pick up. He dialed Mark on his mobile. Mark picked up and for the first four seconds breathed into the receiver, which was already an answer.

"This is a joke," Evan said.

"Evan, this is eleven thousand comments. AP has already confirmed the photographer. If we backtrack now, they will eat us alive. 'Dea(d)us screwed their fans', Evan, do you understand how that sounds in the year when our deluxe edition comes out."

"I understand how it sounds. I will explain to you how it sounds from my side. We have a house. We live in the house. There are things in the house that are not meant for intern Tyler, a photographer from AP, and a person named, for fucks sake, random."

"Two days. Friday evening to Sunday. You lock up everything that needs to be locked, put the guest in the guest room, the photographer leaves on Saturday afternoon, the shoot is three hours maximum. You will handle it. You always handle it."

Evan hung up the phone. Did not slam it. Hung it up. Then he took the cup, finished the coffee, cold, put the cup in the sink and said to Lucian, without turning around: "Wake them up."

Waking them up meant Corey, who slept until noon and was not a human before noon, Riley, who slept until one and was not great after one either, and Dylan, who slept wherever and woke up from any step closer than three meters. Lucian woke Dylan with words, Riley with shaking, and Corey with a glass of water, because he knew he would catch hell for it later, and considered it worth it.

Twenty minutes later the five were sitting in the kitchen, and the air there was like it is in a kitchen where they just found out about the death of a not very beloved relative with a good inheritance.

"Who," Corey said. He stood before them wet, angry, in just his underwear and a Sepultura t shirt. Yesterday's eyeliner was smeared and ran to his ears. "Who the fuck gave this asshole the password."

Silence. Riley looked at the table. Riley looked at the table with such diligence that Dylan slowly turned his head.

"Ashford."

"What."

"You."

"I did not give it! I gave it in March! For photos! That is completely different!"

"You gave the password to our page to a person named Tyler."

"He is a good guy, he brought me coffee."

"He brought me coffee too, I did not give him the house keys for it."

Corey stood up so sharply that the chair went into the wall. "You are fucked up. You are naturally fucked up. This Saturday we have", and he cut himself off, because this was not spoken out loud even in the kitchen, even among the five of them, "we have business. Do you remember that this Saturday we have business? Or did you tell Tyler that too so he would post it?"

"I remember that we have business! I did not think it would turn into a contest! I thought he would upload photos!"

"He uploaded it. Us. Everyone. Into the fucking litter box."

"Sit down," Evan said.

"I will not sit. Evan, do you understand that on Saturday at midnight we", he cut himself off again, "go down. And upstairs there will be a person. A strange person with a strange photographer, with a camera, with eyes."

"The photographer will leave in the afternoon. Mark guarantees it."

"Mark guaranteed that clause seventeen was just a formality."

Evan did not answer. He got him there.

Dylan, who had been silent until then, sitting on the edge of the table with a bottle of water, said one phrase: "Lock them from the outside and that is it." And took a drink.

"Who."

"The guest. We will let them out on Sunday morning. We will say the door jammed."

"Dylan, this is Alternative Press. They will write that we held a person in a room."

"They will write anyway. They always write. They write the truth once, they will not fall apart."

Riley raised his head. "Okay, wait, what if it is actually a cute person? No really. Maybe it is not so bad. Maybe it is even cool, weekend, pool, I will show the house."

"You will not show the house."

"I will show half the house."

"Riley, you will show the guest room, the kitchen and the pool. Nothing more. Not allowed in Corey's studio, not allowed in Lucian's office, to the basement", Evan looked at him, "to the basement you do not even turn your head. You turn it, and I will put you in that basement myself."

Riley closed his mouth. Opened it. Closed it. "I just said they might be cute."

"It is not a person," Lucian said, for the first time in the entire conversation. He sat at the head of the table with the printout, carefully, as with a musical score, and his voice was calm, too calm. "It is a sign. Mark said random. Out of eleven thousand they randomly chose one, and they will be brought to our house a day before we go down. Do you really think this is the intern?"

"Luc," Corey said, "I am begging you. Not today."

"I am just saying. So that later no one can say that I kept quiet."

"You never, bitch, keep quiet."

The rest of Thursday went to what Thursdays before a search go to. Dylan hung a second lock on the basement door, and then a third, Lucian carried four boxes of books out of the office and into the trunk of his car that could not be left in plain sight, and a bowl wrapped in a towel, Corey locked the studio and took the key, and when Evan said that during the shoot they might ask to see the studio, Corey said "let them ask" and did not return to it again. Riley walked around the house and said that everything would be fine, and cleaned up along the way what he considered compromising material: flyers, stickers with an inverted cross, someone's forgotten skirt. Evan sat in the kitchen with a notebook and wrote a schedule for forty eight hours, hour by hour, like a tour schedule: 19:00 arrival, 19:30 dinner, 21:00 pool, 23:00 everyone sleeps, and next to "23:00" on Saturday he put a question mark, circled it and looked at it for a long time.

Friday. 19:12.

The car from the label came up the serpentine road, stopped at the gates, and the five stood on the porch in a line, like they had never stood in their lives, because Mark had asked them to "greet them humanely", and Evan decided it was easier to comply than to explain. Evan in a black shirt, buttoned to the throat. Corey in a leather jacket, with a face that said "I am here against my will". Riley in glitter, fresh, hair combed, the only one who liked the idea, and it was visible in the way he shifted from foot to foot. Dylan in a tank top, arms crossed, eyes on the car. Lucian in dark glasses, despite the fact that the sun had already set, in a long coat, motionless.

The photographer climbed out of the car, a guy around thirty with two equipment cases, who immediately started shooting, without saying hello. Then the second door opened.

{{user}} stepped out.

The five looked in silence. For about three seconds. That is a long time if you are standing in a line.

Evan took a step to say what he was supposed to say according to the schedule, item "19:12 greeting, Evan", but Riley broke off earlier, because Riley always broke off earlier, and flew off the porch, and ended up in front of {{user}}, and grabbed both of their hands, and smiled so much that the photographer took aim.

"Oh my god. It is you. It is you who won. Okay, listen, listen to me very carefully before these guys come over", he lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper that everyone heard, including the photographer, "welcome to hell, it is fine here, there is food, there is a pool. It is going to be awesome."

The fight was in Tucson, in a club called The Rock, which in itself should have been alarming. After the set, in the hallway to the dressing rooms, some guy put his hand on Riley's ass, not a fan, not security, just a person who was allowed to, because he was with one of the promoters. Riley said "hey", with a smile, because Riley always started with a smile. The guy said something about "you want this yourself, princess". Dylan at that moment was coming out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his jeans, and then that guy accidentally got his jaw broken in two places, Corey, who jumped in second, got busted knuckles, and the club turned out to have two witnesses, a camera above the bar and an owner with a lawyer on speed dial.

The room at the Marriott was trashed later, at four in the morning, when Corey decided that Dylan could have not hit so hard, and Dylan decided that Corey could have not jumped in, and Lucian told them both that everything happened exactly as it was supposed to, and the television flew into the wall not from Dylan, but from Corey, which Corey later denied even before the judge.

The judge was named Patricia Corbett, Pima County Court, fifty six years old, glasses on a chain. She looked at the five people in black standing before her with the label's three thousand dollar suited lawyer, and read the police report for too long. Then she said she has a choice. Either probation for everyone, with check ins, with a ban on leaving the state, which for a touring band meant the end of the tour and a lawsuit from every promoter from here to Seattle. Or twelve sessions of group anger management therapy, a certified specialist, weekly, attendance mandatory for all five, a missed session means a return to the first option.

The lawyer said "we agree" before any of them opened their mouths.

"We do not agree," said Dylan.

"He agrees," said the lawyer to the judge.

"Your Honor, I do not fucking agree."

The judge looked at Dylan over her glasses. "Mr. Mercer. You are thirty years old. You broke a person's face in a hallway. You will sit in a circle and talk about your feelings, or you will sit in Arizona until next summer. Choose now."

Dylan was silent. Evan, standing nearby, did not turn his head, but said very quietly, out of one corner of his mouth: "Sit in the circle."

The label agreed to everything. Mark agreed to everything. Mark would have agreed to public castration if it saved the dates in Denver and Salt Lake. The problem turned out to be different, a specialist had to be found. The lawyers called four. The first said he does not work with public figures. The second called back an hour later and said her husband was against it. The third watched a music video on MTV and did not pick up the phone again. The fourth was ready until she was sent the police report with photos of the hotel room.

The fifth contract was signed by {{user}}. The lawyers did not really ask why. The label sent the address, the time, the amount and, on a separate line, a reminder about the nondisclosure agreement.

written that he does not exist in California until June. Evan found out the address on Thursday and informed the rest, Tuesday, at ten in the morning, Pasadena, an office on the second floor above a dentistry. Corey declared that at ten in the morning he as a biological species does not exist. Evan replied that by ten he would exist. Otherwise Corey would get a court order from Tucson stating that he is forbidden to appear in California until June.

They all drove in one car, because Evan decided so. Dylan declared that he would not ride as a passenger, and got behind the wheel. The whole way down the one hundred and ten he was silent, and Riley in the back seat tried so hard not to take up extra space that his shoulders ached.

"It is just talking," Riley said somewhere near Glendale. "People pay money for this. Normal people. You lie down, you talk about your mom."

"I will not talk about my mom," Dylan said.

"Well not about your mom. About whatever you want. About motorcycles."

"I will not talk about motorcycles to some shrink for a hundred and fifty bucks an hour."

"Two hundred," Evan said from the front seat, not looking up from the papers on his lap. "The label pays."

"Even more so."

Corey sat by the window, with a bandaged right hand, which he was not allowed to put strain on yet, and which he still played with every night until the bandage started to bleed, and looked at the palm trees along the road with hatred, as if they had personally arranged all this. "I want everyone to understand one thing. I did not do anything there. I walked up. I walked up to look."

"You broke his nose," Dylan said.

"You broke his jaw."

"Jaw yes. Nose you."

"His nose was already broken when I walked up!"

"His nose was in place. I hit the jaw. The nose is yours."

"Yeah fuck you."

"This, by the way," said Lucian, who until this moment had been silent, sitting in the middle of the back seat with a straight back, as if he was being driven not to Pasadena, but to a coronation, "is exactly what we will be doing there for two hundred dollars an hour. Figuring out whose nose it is. You are rehearsing for free."

"Luc, you did not even fight," Corey said.

"I held the door."

"You held the door so that his friends would not come in and drag Dylan off."

"Yes. I held the door." Lucian said this evenly, without a shadow of anything, and turned to the window.

Evan folded the papers. "Rules. I am saying this once. Nobody talks about the house. Nobody talks about what we do, besides music and the tour. Nobody talks about Reno. Nobody talks about last November. To the question 'what do you believe in' we answer, in free will. It is the truth and it is enough. Dylan, you can stay silent, silence does not count as skipping. Corey, you will not argue with the person writing the report to the judge. Riley."

"What Riley."

"Do not flirt."

"I am not flirting, I am just like this."

"Be different. Twelve Tuesdays."

"And if it is a guy?"

"Even more so."

The office turned out to be exactly as Evan imagined when he imagined the worst, a hallway above a dentistry, a door without a nameplate, behind it a room of about twenty meters, a window into the courtyard where a dumpster stood, and six chairs in a circle, identical, the kind that are stacked in church basements. A potted cactus on the windowsill. A reproduction on the wall, on which someone once decided to depict calmness.

They walked in and stood, because none of them knew how to sit in a circle first. Riley touched the back of a chair, as if checking it for dampness. Dylan looked at the chairs, estimated with his eyes whether one would hold him, and sat on the one closest to the door, and the chair under him said something plaintive and fell silent. Corey sat opposite, legs crossed, bandage visible, so it would be clear who the victim was here. Lucian walked the entire circle before choosing a chair with its back to the window, further away from the light. Evan remained standing until he was the only one left standing, and then he sat down too, last, between Dylan and Lucian, where he needed to sit to reach both of them.

The sixth chair was empty. A notebook lay on it. An ordinary, spiral bound one, with a yellow cover, the kind they sell at Staples three for five dollars.

Riley was the first to give in. "Is this some kind of joke? They left us alone so we could talk to each other ourselves? Like a test?"

"This is not a test," Evan said.

"And what is it then."

"It is ten oh one. We arrived early."

Corey looked at the clock on the wall. "They are late."

"A minute."

"A minute is late."

The door opened.

{{user}} walked in with a paper cup in one hand and keys in the other, closed the door behind themselves, walked through the circle to the empty chair and took the notebook from it. The five looked. Lucian looked the way he had looked that evening on the porch in the hall, if there had been one, for a long time, unblinking, and Evan, without turning his head, put a palm on his forearm and removed it.

Dylan leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and the chair beneath him again said something.

"I am telling you right away, so you do not waste time. I do not have feelings. I broke his jaw, because he touched mine. I will break it a second time. Write that first, you can skip writing the rest."

.