Page 13 of The Music Demon

“Yeah? Well, that’s not a phone number, Lyric.”

The demon blinked so slowly it was almost hypnotic. “And yet, if you call it, I will come.” It was the Lyric’s own private joke.

“Because you’re going to transport me back in time?” Gray laughed.

“What if I knew a person who could make magic happen on a fine night such as this?”

There was something in Lyric’s tone that made Gray stop smiling and look up into the demon’s face. After staring for longer than would normally be polite, he decided to play along and hear the madman out, he said, “And would you happen to know such a person? Who makes magic happen on fine nights like this?”

“I might. If you find there is some appeal to the idea of being twenty-three in San Francisco in 1967, call me and we’ll talk further. If not, just toss the card up into the air and it will disappear.”

Gray barked out a laugh then tossed the card up into the air. When it disappeared with a tiny pfffft, he jumped like he’d been shocked, scrambled to his feet quickly and stood gaping at Lyric.

“You’re welcome for dinner,” Lyric said, swinging his leg over the bench to rise. “See ya around.”

Gray put his hands out and said, “Wait!”

With his back turned to the kid, Lyric smiled at the mesquite trees on the edge of the parking lot before looking back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

Gray swallowed, sat down hurriedly before he lost his sense of balance in every way possible. “Look, man. I, ah…” He glanced around nervously. “What are you?”

“That’s a conversation for another time and person who appreciates the gift of my card.”

“Your card! Can I get another one?” The silence of the pause was clearly stress-inducing. “Please!”

“If I give you another card, are you going to call me?”

Gray was already nodding before Lyric reached the end of that question. “Absolutely.”

Lyric produced another card, literally, and handed it over. This time Gray grabbed for it like it was the winning lottery ticket in a billion-dollar tri-state Powerball.

“Don’t wait too long,” Lyric said over his shoulder as he was walking away.

The music demon sat on a bar stool in a Greenwich Village bar and listened to an old black woman sing Billie Holiday songs. The rich, sultry timbre of her voice had him closing his eyes with pleasure. When he listened to Billie Holiday, he was sure there was nothing better than blues done well. When he listened to Wagner he thought nothing was better than opera done well. When he listened to Led Zeppelin, he thought nothing was better than orgasmic rock. At its best.

Demons don’t carry phones or have numbers that work with human technology, but he knew the instant Gray dialed ‘666’.

Gray had put his ten-year-old niece to bed and stepped out onto the front porch of the old Victorian house that was his inheritance. What was left of his family, his sister and himself, had exactly one asset to list in their combined net worth; a pre-WWII clapboard house filled with every sort of good memory and in need of every sort of repair imaginable.

He left the front door open so that only a screen door separated him from his niece. Just in case. Sometimes she had night terrors.

When he dialed the number on the card, he didn’t know what to expect, but it would be safe to say that wouldn’t be Lyric walking out of the night and stepping onto the porch. Gray held the still-ringing phone away from his ear, looked at it curiously, then put it in his pocket.

“You rang?” Lyric said.

Gray nodded. “Yeah. Do you, ah, want a beer? Or something?” Motioning to the swing and two metal lawn chairs on the porch, he asked, “Want to sit?”

Lyric sat in one of the chairs without answering.

Gray sat on the swing and cleared his throat. “So. Was that a trick?”

“What?” Lyric knew exactly what Gray meant, but was enjoying prolonging the cat and mouse game.

“The card disappearing.”

“Guess it depends on what you mean by trick. But that’s not what you really want to know. Is it?”

“No.” After a brief pause, Gray shook his head. “What I really want sounds crazy.”

---