Page 4 of Bewitched By the Phantom
Three
The apartments are set up like shared dorm rooms. There’s a central area with living space and a small kitchen, and then there are four small bedrooms that offshoot from the central hub. They aren’t particularly luxurious, but honestly, having luxury with rock n’ roll bands may have been insane. After all, I’ve watched more than one band party too hard and trash a place, and there are sixteen of us here. The possibilities for destruction are pretty high.
My little room has its own small bathroom and then a twin sized mattress. That’s it. They didn’t bother with any decorations or anything of the like, which I’m honestly happy about. What would they even decorate the space with? Music notes. I could have done without the insane asylum white walls though.
There are three rounds of competition we’ll be going through according to the information packet they’d emailed us, and the rules can change at any time depending on NYX. We compete against each other in different formats and we’re expected to have three songs prepared. Each round, more bands are eliminated until only three remain for the finale. The first round, we’re expected to play our asses off and hopefully make it to the top eight. Then it’s whittled down from there. Seems easyenough . . . until I realize that we have to beat fifteen other bands just to get the record deal.
I check my phone for messages and frown where there’s nothing there. Phantom hasn’t messaged me since he’d left me hanging before and I’m starting to wonder what’s going on. I’ve sent him a few messages, hoping to get a response, and nothing. Instead of just chilling like I should, I type the word, “hey,” and send it before I can think better of it. I’m not one to act desperate, but I’ll admit I’ve used Phantom as a bit of a crutch for the better part of a year now. He’s always there, so when he’s suddenly not, it feels like I’m missing a piece of myself, and that really pisses me off. I don’t need anyone. Especially not a man who’s probably a catfish pretending to be something he’s not.
Except he does know what he’s doing when it comes to music.
He’s the reason I can sing as well as I can. Hell, he’s the reason I learned how to scream without damaging my vocal cords. So even if he turned out to be some middle-aged dude living in his mom’s basement, it wouldn’t matter. I owe him.
He doesn’t respond before we end up all passing out in our little beds. I don’t even bother to make up my bed before I pass out, figuring I’ll do it later. I’m just so exhausted after the long drive and the high of being here. When I wake up in the morning, I feel more refreshed than I’ve been in a while.
Today, we all get assigned stage time for soundchecks and to test out the acoustics of the stage where we’ll be performing. When our time comes up, we head that way a few hours early, just to catch the vibe and potentially see some of our competition.
And fuck, do we see it.
The first band we catch sight of is named The Medusa Complex, a glam rock band made up of women. The lead singer has a massive Medusa tattoo on her neck that looks so realistic,it almost gives me the creeps. When they sing, it’s almost . . . hypnotizing. Normally, music makes you want to sway, but their music makes you stand still, like you’ve been literally turned to stone. You have to absorb their sound, take it in, and when they finish with their soundcheck, I have to shake my head to clear it.
“What the fuck was that?” I whisper to Lidia.
“Beats me,” she whispers back. “That was intense.”
“What? Did you think we’d be up against a bunch of garage bands?” Claudia asks. “You knew we’d have to play our asses off here.”
“Yeah, but that was . . . different,” I reply, watching as the seemingly normal chicks leave the stage. The lead singer’s eyes meet mine as she steps down and she winks at me. Shit. If I were into women . . .
“The Cadaver Cantata on stage,” the guy who’s running the soundchecks, Ted, calls.
A group of four men come stepping onto stage and I immediately sit up at attention. The four of them all wear masks that conceal their faces, each of their identities as mysterious as their persona is.
“Have you ever heard of them?” I ask Claudia.
Claudia is heavy into the underground circuit. If I don’t know a band, she almost always does, but when she shakes her head, I frown. A band with such an atmosphere about them that she doesn’t know? That’s weird enough.
But that’s not even the weirdest thing about them.
The lead singer wears a golden mask that covers the top half of his face, so that all I can see are his lips and his eyes. He’s dressed almost in gothic period clothing, like he should have ridden a horse here instead of driven in a car. Most of the bands doing the soundchecks are just in their normal clothing. Hell, even I’m in sweatpants. But this band is dressed to kill.
And then the lead singer’s eyes meet mine.
Something inside me freezes. My body hums with anticipation and awareness. Everything about this man is electric, from the bright blue of his eyes I can somehow see from twenty feet away to the way his large hands wrap around his matching golden electric guitar. The golden mask obscuring his face only adds to his allure, his black hair messy around his face making him feel ethereal in a way most men are incapable of. The whole band feels like that. I would have heard about a band like this. There’s no way they made it this far and don’t have a cult following looking like that.
The lead singer’s lips curl up the longer I look at him, but I don’t turn away. I’m not shy. He’s hot, and the mystery only seems to add to his attractiveness. There’s something about this man that feels . . . haunting . . . familiar even.
“Equipment’s ready,” Ted says with a nod as the band takes their places. “Go ahead when you’re ready.”
The lead singer doesn’t break eye contact as he steps up to the microphone stand. “We are The Cadaver Cantata,” he says in a deep and seductive voice. “And this is ‘Hymn for the Hollow.’”
A shiver runs through my body as his voice washes over me. What the fuck? Sure, I’m an audiophile, but this is otherworldly. No man should sound so fucking seductive.
I think that’s the worst of it. That I just like his voice. Until he starts to sing. And let me tell you, this band is going to be the one we’re gonna have to beat. Because . . . wow.
Their band isn’t made up of the normal instruments. Or at least, not that I’ve seen. The lead singer plays the electric guitar. There’s a violinist beside him who drags his bow across the strings with clear expertise. They have a drummer who clearly knows what he’s doing. And then a fucking organ. Like, the kind you’d see in church. No keyboard or anything like that. It’s the most metal thing I think I’ve ever seen when his fingers start flying over the keys and the sound of the organ fill the area.
The acoustics are fucking phenomenal.
