Derek Ramone's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Derek carried the enchanted amp into the practice loft the next morning. It hummed under his arm, alive now, ready to carry a beat like a spell. He set it down and grinned at his bandmates. Then he told them what it could do. Hoot the owl looked at him with half-closed eyes and said nothing. Luna the cat girl kept tuning her fish-shaped bass and did not look up at all. "A spell," Hoot said finally. "From an amp." "Not the amp," Derek said. "The rhythm. If we play the right beat together, it carries. People will feel it." Hoot set his red guitar in its stand. "I spent three months learning one chord because my fingers wouldn't bend. That was real work. This is a story." Luna plucked one string. It sagged flat already. "I've watched a whole festival tune out of key from too much bass," she said. "Sound does what it wants. It doesn't do spells." Derek felt the room turn cold. His own band thought he'd lost it. And he understood the trap. The amp meant nothing alone. A spell-carrying rhythm needed a band playing it together, and his band was two people who thought he was dreaming. So he stopped explaining. He sat at his kit and counted off. "Just play. One song. If nothing happens, I'll drop it." Hoot sighed and picked up the guitar. Luna shrugged and slung the bass over her shoulder. Derek hit the snare. The amp caught the sound and pushed it out into the loft. He kept the beat simple and steady, the way you'd calm a frightened animal. Hoot came in on the offbeat. Luna found the low note and held it. For eight bars they were just three tired musicians in a rented room. Then the beat locked. Derek felt it snap into place under his sticks, like a key turning. The amp glowed blue. The sound thickened. Luna stopped playing. Her ears flattened, and her eyes were wet. "Why am I crying," she said. It wasn't a question. She wiped her face and stared at her own hands. Hoot kept his fingers on the strings but his beak had opened. A tear ran down through his feathers. "I felt it," he said quietly. "In my chest. That was the rhythm." Derek let the beat fall away. The blue light faded. The three of them sat in the ringing quiet. "Okay," Hoot said. He said it once and stopped. Luna tightened a tuning peg with a shaking hand. "We need to learn to control it," she said. "That was too strong. I couldn't stop it." Derek nodded. He had his band now. But he'd seen the danger in their faces. The rhythm didn't just move a crowd. It took hold of the players first, and none of them knew how to let go.