Derek Ramone's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The main stage slot was two weeks away. Derek knew the amp would flare wild at a crowd that big. He'd felt it lock last time and drag the whole band with it. So he called the one person who might understand a relic that played with your feelings. Dewey Mallard answered on the first ring and told Derek to bring the amp to the tavern before the doors opened. The tavern glowed with neon guitars and hummed with an empty room's echo. Dewey sat on the edge of the stage, stirring a coffee he hadn't ordered. His feathers stuck up in tired tufts. "You look like a guy whose gear runs him," he said. "Not the other way around." Derek set the amp on the stage. Its blue core pulsed under the runes. "At small crowds I can hold it," he said. "But the festival's thousands of people. It'll spiral. I can't tame it." Dewey looked at the amp a long time. "We've got a relic too. Showed up backstage, no note. Band plays garbage without it." He shrugged. "One night it went missing. Our drummer cried. I kicked a monitor. We played one chord for forty minutes." He set down the coffee. "You're trying to tame the thing. That's your problem. You don't tame it. You feed it something to chew on." Hoot arrived then, guitar slung on his back, blinking in the neon. He'd heard enough from the doorway. "He means the beat," Hoot said. "Give the magic a shape. It fills whatever you leave empty." That landed. Last time Derek fought the tempo and lost. He'd left the beat loose and the spell had grabbed it. Now he tried the opposite. He climbed behind the borrowed kit and started a hard, tight pattern. No gaps. No room. Hoot plugged in and locked to it, matching every hit. The amp flared blue. The power rose, hungry, reaching for the empty room. But Derek gave it no empty space. He drove the beat harder, and the magic poured into the shape he set instead of spilling past it. The blue core steadied. The runes stopped flickering and held a clean, even glow. The sound thickened, then bent to the rhythm and stayed there. Derek held the pattern for a full minute, then let it fall clean. The amp dimmed on his cue. Not on its own. His. "There it is," Dewey said. He didn't smile, but his eyes did. "You quit fighting it." Derek could tame the amp now. He could hold the spell through any crowd, as long as he filled every gap. But holding a beat that tight for a whole festival set meant he could never let up, never breathe, never miss a hit. One dropped note and the magic would flood the empty space. The booker wanted the main stage. Now Derek had to play it perfect, or not at all.