I had to fall in love.
Concentrate on Alex: his face, his smile. I'd made love with him on the hill, clumsily, tenderly. No, to be honest it wasn't making love, it was just running away from my fear of the Singer, and the jangle of emotions aroused by using the parrots; but it could turn into love, couldn't it? Alex, beautiful, gentle child. In need of protection from himself and the world. Alex, who had tears in his eyes as he held unconscious Roland's hand. And Alex, coming to me in my own hut, stumbling over his words as he talked about his concern for Roland…if that really was Alex, and not just the Singer pretending to be Alex. No, it was Alex, it was Alex, even if he was feeling the Singer creep up inside his mind as the parrot blood took effect. It was appalling to imagine that: Alex hearing an icy other voice lurking beneath the surface of his thoughts, a second personality slowly gripping…
Damn. Concentrate, Lyra.
Deep breath. Falling in love with Alex. Who was kind and eager and vulnerable. A handsome prince held prisoner by his evil twin and now desperately yearning for a loving minstrel-girl to save him.
Alex's smile. His eyes. His need.
When it flows, it flows.
The lights bake the stage, the beat is driving hard, the music stabs you like a grimy finger. Your heart pounds, and if you don't kiss the first face you see, you'll grab the throat and squeeze. You feel hot style. You want to put on a show.
And if you're in love, the flow is creamy juicy lightning.
The music starts and you're on. Cue the backup singer. Showtime.
THUNK THUNK THUNK-AH THUNK. THUNK THUNK THUNK-AH THUNK…a heavy tenor drum, stomped full force, began pounding the night outside the bunker. I recognized the beat as the intro for "Moth Metamorphism," a cut that we'd scheduled to record later in the week. I should have known. All on his own, the Singer couldn't lay down instrumental tracks; for his new song, he must have written new lyrics to existing music.
The flow inside me clicked a notch higher. I knew this music, knew the through-line, the harmonies. I could kick the hell out of it.
When it flows, it flows.
The robot in the doorway began to whir, receiving radio orders from the Singer. I didn't resist as it wrapped a tentacle around my wrist and led me from the bunker; the bot could barely keep up with me as I strode out into the night, up to the plateau where the beam-lamps shone. A second bot appeared, carrying a microphone. I grabbed the mike, no time to wait, the music still booming. One slap to stick on the throat patch, a second slap for the battery pack, check the adhesive on both, and then I was surging forward, into the heat of the lights.
I stepped onto a green expanse of meadow, showing only one sign of the war: a glistening patch where the soil had been seared to black glass by some energy weapon. In the middle of the glassy surface stood a stone altar, a prop made for the recording of "Dead Man's Prayer"; and just back from the altar lurked the fog machine, hooked up with an extra hopper of dry ice.
The mist would really roll tonight.
All right, all right, keep going. The Singer wasn't here, but keep going. Set up for a sprawl-shot on the altar. What else could the Singer want? I slid up on top, sprawling, waiting, shaking, THUNK THUNK THUNK-AH THUNK.
And Alex appeared.
He came over a rise, just a silhouette, sharply backlit with sprays of yellow sparks—nothing more than a black outline against a fountain of fire, but I knew it was Alex. The Singer moved more gracefully, more intentionally, like he was trying to prove a point; Alex just moved. I lifted myself higher, hands and knees, truly believing I could simmer Alex's blood just by staring.
THUNK THUNK THUNK-AH THUNK.
Alex picked his way down to the plateau, trying to hurry but slowed by clumps of weeds on the hillside. Once he lifted his head and maybe he called to me, but the drumbeat drowned that out.
THUNK THUNK THUNK-AH THUNK.
Now Alex hurried into the light of the beam-lamps. His shirt was buttoned and he was shouting, "Get out of here, Lyra! Get out!"
I simply shook my head.
"I pushed him down for a minute," Alex said as he ran to me, panting. "He'd been outside for a long time, he was tired. But he'll be back, he will, and you can't…" Alex held out his hands, showing the brown bloodstains. "This will drive you crazy, it really will. The noise gets so loud, it deafens you. And it's all so angry. I never knew people were so angry. Back at camp it was like a chain reaction, a little hostility, people getting angry in return, then everyone going furious… in five minutes, they were honestly trying to kill each other. And him, the Singer—he was in the middle of it, egging them on…"
I took Alex's hand. The blood on his skin was dry, textured like satin. "It will be all right," I said. "Don't worry, it will be all right."
"It won't, it won't. He loves the anger, he thrives on it, but it'll rip you apart. He wants to see it rip you apart. He wants to see you snarl like an animal."
"Alex," I said again, threading my fingers through his, "it will be all right." I squeezed his hand tightly, wanting to squeeze my strength into him.
"You don't…" He pulled his hand from my grip and pressed it against his forehead. "You aren't…" His head snapped down, then up again, and he roared, "Where are you, milady?"
The Singer emerged in gentle Alex's face like ice crystallizing in water. His eyes narrowed; his mouth grew hard. "Damn the fool!" he screamed, and with both hands, he grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped downward, tearing fabric and scattering buttons onto the ground. Gasping, he lunged forward to support himself unsteadily on the altar. "He caught me by surprise. What has he done with milady? Milady! Milady!"
The man was staring straight at me, blind to my presence. All the rehearsal I'd done before, trying to make myself love Alex—that was pure nonsense, just priming myself to put on a good show. But in the moment of transition, when simple well-meaning Alex was crushed away by the Singer's rage, something sparked in my heart and made the love real. The love didn't feel like Romeo and Juliet or Trash and Thrash. It probably wasn't woman/man love…mother/son maybe, or big sister/kid brother. So what? My heart and brain filled with compassion, and to the Singer, I was invisible.
I rocked back onto my knees and thrust both hands into my sash. Two parrots, the last weapons to be drawn in Caproche's long war. As I touched them, the blare of the Singer's thoughts struck my brain like thunder, hate mixed with fear mixed with anger; but I was moving and mere noise couldn't stop me.
At the last instant, the Singer's head jerked up and his eyes met mine.
With all my strength, I clapped the parrots against his temples, slam, both sides of his head. The parrots burst in my hands like rupturing bags of blood, gushing across the Singer's face in brown spatters. For a split second, I could hear the echoes of fragmented thoughts outside me: the roadies, Helena, Roland, screeching far away. Then a jagged ripping sound split inside my head and my brain shattered.
Two parrots had died in my bare hands.
Imagine reliving your life through a black filter.
You get to remember that first kiss: two hours of standing in front of the house on a cold winter night as your boyfriend worked up the courage to go through with it. You can remember how you shifted back and forth from one leg to the other, shivering because you were only wearing a short skirt and stockings, and you can remember how many times you almost gave up hope, how you hated him for being so stupid, how you hated yourself for being too scared to grab him and kiss him before you died of frostbite. But do you remember the elation when it finally happened? Do you remember how you lay awake for hours with a huge smile on your face, as you counted the ways your life had changed? No—your memory is too busy skipping ahead eight months, when suddenly you and your boyfriend can't agree on anything, you know he makes up excuses to avoid seeing you, and when the two of you do get together it's only because you're hooked on those hour-long petting sessions on that couch in your basement. You get clean, clear memories of all the people you hated or feared, but the people you loved? Only the times they annoyed you.