Vex Riotborne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The lock clicked shut behind Vex. The pink dust still buzzed in her blood. She stood in a dark hall inside a converted radio station, brick walls layered with old graffiti. Bass rolled up through the floor. No stage in sight. No band, no crowd, just a corridor and a hundred doors. She needed to find the stage. Until she did, she was nobody here. A trespasser. She could feel it. The building was watching. Vex made a choice. She would not creep. She would walk in like she owned the place. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and stomped forward on bare feet. Latex squeaked. She let it. "I'm the headliner," she said to the empty hall. Loud. Mean. "Move." “Hey, what’s with all the yelling?” The familiar voice of that little goth fairy shouted from somewhere in the shadows. “Shut up will ya? I don’t have time for your games right now.”Vex shouted to the unseen fairy then returned her attention to the task at hand. The hall answered. A shape shuffled out of a doorway. A rotting punk, red mohawk crusted with dried blood, leather jacket heavy with band patches. One eye glowed red. He dragged a spiked boot and grinned with gray teeth. Behind him came another, a decayed thing in a torn plaid kilt, pink-and-black mohawk stiff over its skull. Dead performers. The ones who never made the encore. They smelled the fear on her. “Uh oh… looks like you’re in trouble….” The fairies voice mocked her again from somewhere unseen. “I’ve got this” Vex said to the fairy as much as herself. Vex did not run. Running was proof she didn't belong. She planted her feet and got in the red-eyed corpse's face. "You had your shot," she snarled. "You choked. I won't." She shoved him. Her palm hit cold, wet leather. He staggered. The kilted one laughed, a wet rattle, and it sounded like respect. The red-eyed corpse studied her. Then he turned and pointed down the hall. A door had opened that Vex hadn't seen. Warm light spilled out. He grunted one word. "Prove." The fairies voice chimed in again from somewhere Vex couldn’t place. “Seriously… this is like.. a really bad idea”. Vex thought she detected a hint of actual concern in the fairies voice and not her usual mocking tone, and that worried her. “I can do this, I know I can, if you’re not going to help then buzz off.” Vex yelled towards a dark corner, the direction she thought the fairy was hiding. She regained her composure and continued on. Vex walked past both dead punks. Neither touched her. The door led to a small green room. Cracked mirror, dead flowers, one guitar on a stand. The guitar stopped her cold. It was shaped like a wing, shell-white, covered in gold marks that glowed soft. Beautiful and wrong. She reached for it without deciding to. “Stop!” The little goth fairy flew from the shadows and hovered in the air between Vex and the guitar. “Listen I know I can be a pain sometimes but I’m completely serious, do not touch that guitar, it’s cursed.” “Sure it is” Vex said dismissively and she pushed her hand past the little fairy. Her fingers closed on the neck. The runes flared. Heat shot up her arm. In the mirror she saw her own reflection turn its head when she had not. The reflection smiled first. “I warned you.” The fairy whispered in a defeated voice. A voice crackled through an old speaker in the wall. Bright, showman's cheer, painted over something rotten. "There she is! Our new headliner, holding the one and only, the legendary, the something else impressive..” The voice trailed off and began again with renewed enthusiasm. “The Angel’s Axe." The speaker hissed jovially. "Now all you need is your stage, darling. It's three floors down. Everyone who touches that guitar goes on. Nobody has ever came back up from the pit, if you can’t master your instrument it may master it you.” The voice’s words dripped with patronizing concern. The voice said one final thing over the speaker “And if you aren’t ment for the stage pretty thing, then you’re ment for the pit, where the show never ends…. Ever…” the speaker cut off with a screech of static. “Well, you’ve really gone and done it now.” The little goth fairy in front of Vex’s face. “Maybe so but, there’s no turning back now, only option is to move forward” An odd sensation crept up Vox’s spine and into her head, a presence in her mind, whispering. “I suppose I should tell you to break a leg” The fairy said in a soft voice. “Thanks” Vex said and managed a slight smile. Vex looked at the glowing guitar in her hands. She had wanted proof she belonged. Now she had it, welded to her palm. The dead punks filled the doorway behind her, waiting to walk her down. She was on the bill. She just couldn't put the guitar down.