else was she right about? I wondered where her angels were, now that I needed them...
Then I remembered that Mark had cracked up too. Had he given it to her? Or vice versa? One of them had to have been cheating...
Zombie jumped up onto my lap, and I opened my eyes.
Astor Michaels was still talking. "I've been shagging wannabe singers for two years now, trying to find someone who could keep it together after the charisma set in, and every single one went nuts. Fifteen bands, Pearl. And finally you bring me a rock star already made!" He leaned back, rubbing his palms across Min's dresses and sighing. "After all my labors."
I sat there, stroking Zombie, trying not to scream as what he'd just said sank in. Astor Michaels had intentionally spread this disease; he'd been making more casualties like Minerva, broken people stuck in attics by their families, or lying huddled on the street, on subway platforms...
We were in business with a monster. The New Sound was the music of monsters.
I took a deep breath, reminding myself about the contracts. This didn't have to change anything. Artists had been bat-shit crazy before; it was what you did with your insanity that mattered. We were still a good band, a great band even, even if our whole style of music was based on... a disease.
As long as we were the Taj Mahal of cannibal bands, maybe it wasn't so bad.
"Okay," I said.
It wasn't really, but sometimes saying that word helps.
Astor Michaels smiled. "So we're in this together, right, Pearl? We have to keep Min healthy, so that all our hard work - yours and mine - finally pays off. Even if she does something that makes you really, really angry. Okay?"
I looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Like what?"
"You know, something she's not necessarily... in control of." He shrugged. "The disease makes people crazy, violent, and especially horny. Sometimes even I can't control myself."
"Doesn't sound like you've been trying that hard."
He smiled, revealing his razor teeth to the gums. "A small price to pay for art."
Zombie's ear perked up, and he jumped from my lap and ran to the door. A second later came the jingling of keys outside.
"Ah. They're home," Astor Michaels said, eyes twitching. "Just remember, we all want this band to be a success. So don't get mad at poor Min. I've seen the change happen with my own eyes, and she's been through more than you can imagine. So be nice, all right?"
I nodded, but my head was spinning again.
They're home, he'd said.
They.
The door opened, and Minerva breezed in. Moz followed behind, carrying a threadbare duffel bag.
"Mozzy! Look who's here!" Min cried, beaming all the wattage of her fawesome beauty at me, her cannibal-rock-star charisma. Moz just stood there staring, looking a little surprised, a lot guilty.
With a twist in my stomach, I remembered his mother's anxious voice on the phone that morning.
He took a slow breath, then shrugged the duffel bag from his shoulder. It thumped to the floor like a dead body - stuffed full.
He was moving in.
Chapter 17
"Hey, Pearl. How's it going?"
I tried to answer, but my gut was writhing now, squeezing the taste of stomach-ripe champagne up into the back of my throat. Minerva moved a step closer to Moz, five pale fingers wrapping protectively around his arm.
He was hers now. Completely.
With the three of them here together, I could finally see the changes in Moz, all the clues I'd managed to blind myself to: the luster of his skin, the beautiful, inhuman angles of his face. Just like Min back in spring - when the hunger was first welling up - he'd grown a heart-twisting shade more fetching.
Even slitted against the dim candlelight, his eyes glowed, full of pity for me. He must have known what I'd wanted.
But she'd taken it instead.
Suddenly the desolate feeling in my stomach was swept away by fury: Minerva had done it again, hooked up with someone in the band - in my band. Even after what had happened with Mark and the System, after everything Luz had told her, Min had done this to me again. I clenched my fists. Of course she would throw it in my face now, when we were this close, the contracts near enough to touch, ready to be signed.
I felt Astor Michaels's gaze, willing me to keep it together. For the good of the band. For the good of the New Sound... the music of monsters.
He snapped open the