Darkness Falling

  DARKNESS FALLING

  By David Niall Wilson

  Cover art by Neil Jackson of the Penny Dreadful Company

  Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital Edition

  Copyright 2010 by David Niall Wilson & Macabre Ink Digital

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  PROLOGUE

  Excerpt from the Journal of Sebastian Barnes

  Meteors don’t rise; not to success, not to fame. They fall, and they burn, and when they’re gone there’s nothing left but the strobed afterimage of their passing and the dust, riding the uncaring wind. That’s what I would have said to Klaus, if I’d thought he’d listen. Instead I kept quiet and watched as he built his own private kingdom in hell, dragging me along as a willing court jester. Klaus may have been a meteor, but God was he beautiful when he burned.

  I know about meteors. I never burned as bright as Klaus, nor did I aspire to the heights he reached. The meteor traces a solitary path, as have I. My father, who was nearly fifty when I was born, was my idol – my life. He was a teacher. He taught music, and he taught the beauty of words. I was a good student, fascinated by the mysteries he unveiled. It was those lessons, I suppose, that brought Klaus and I together. I amused him.

  My speech, the product of too many classical works of literature before puberty, and my sense of morals, which I inherited from long talks with my father, make me somewhat of an oddity. Archaic is the word that comes to mind. If not for my music, I might have ended up dusting the shelves in some museum, or rearranging books in a library. Klaus heard me, I once thought by accident, in a recital in my senior year of college. He liked what he heard and became determined to show me the world. Infatuated as I was by his looks, his popularity, and his seemingly unwavering control over the events of his life, I followed.

  Of course, there was the music. If Klaus had been a gnomish dwarf, diseased and ugly, I still would have followed him for the music. I and a thousand others. In the end, it was the music that drew around him like a shroud.

  It began in Germany, not ten miles from Klaus' birthplace, in the shadow of the mountain that held his father's tomb. It was a small town, a village really, and Klaus’ fame had long outdistanced his roots. We were there on a whim; that was the story of his life.

  We walked those streets, the four of us, Klaus, Damon, Peyton, and I, moving like aliens on a visit to Earth from a far galaxy, or royalty slumming through the dregs of some ancient kingdom. Only Klaus and I were comfortable there, he because it was the place of his birth, and I because it reminded me of my own roots. I was raised in such a place, and at times I missed the quaint solitude.

  The great cities of the western world accepted Klaus as a musical prophet, a dark, brooding god of the pantheon of rock music, a term he held in the lowest contempt. Klaus' music transcended the understanding of his audiences, moved them through private, inner realms where their insipid vocabularies and tired, clichéd consciousness was at a loss. They called him a star. They were nearly right. It was I who finally realized, and too late to do any good, that it was the path of the meteor Klaus aspired to, not that of the star.

  He wanted to play on the mountain. He wanted to perform on the land where his father, and his father's father, sowed their seeds, where the ghosts of his past still walked. He wanted to leave his mark where his ancestors had left theirs. So that's where we went.

  The people of Rathburg were distanced from us by culture, by a morbid, unavoidable sort of curiosity, and by their fear. They did not, I think, want us there – Klaus especially – and they did not want our music. We were outcast, and we brought a horde of others in our wake that belonged, if possible, even a bit less than we did.

  Klaus would never perform without his entourage of groupies, fans, celebrities and wannabe's of the moment following, and if he preferred an obscure mountain above a small German village, that was where they would flock to, trashing taverns and devastating the quiet countryside as they came.

  There were few among the citizens of Rathburg who even acknowledged us. We were a bad dream, a plague that would be cured only by the passing of time. Klaus haunted the streets, hovered in the darker corners of the Inn's public room, passed in resolute silence before the gates of the tiny cathedral, and ignored the accusing eyes that shadowed him.

  He spoke with those few who remembered his family. He questioned those who had known his father, ten years dead. He walked for hours in silence among the small trails and cottages, staring for what seemed small eternities at things I could never know – things from a past he never spoke of, but that consumed him like burning flames.

  He was never alone, but by the time we realized the truth of it, he was beyond our help.

  Chapter One

  The promoters who handled the concert on the mountain outdid themselves. The stage was a level plateau of rock that jutted from the side of the mountain about 150 feet above the small valley below. It was high enough to command a majestic view of the village of Rathburg, and low enough that the gathered masses would have no trouble seeing the band.

  More precisely, the crowd would have no trouble seeing Klaus. While there were cliques and smaller groups who gathered to discuss the merits of Peyton, Damon, and Sebastian's musical abilities in contrast with other bands of the day, it was Klaus Von Kroft they were coming to see. The rest were just demigods in the rock hierarchy, worthy of note because Klaus chose to play his music with them, but ultimately replaceable and forgettable in the eyes of the fans.

  Portable generators mounted on large trucks rolled into town three days before the actual show and parked discreetly behind the tree line, just beyond the looping bend in the trail that served as a road up the mountain. Snaking lengths of wire and huge black columns of speakers flanked the cliff face below the stage. Some were mounted further up and at angles designed to create the strongest acoustics in such a large, open space. There were huge cones directed at the base of the mountain in order to use the reflective quality of the stone. The idea was to capture the sound and hold it near the stage as much as possible.

  The 'seating' was an open field. Concession booths had been erected around the perimeter of this area, as well as tables for the mixing boards and equipment. Public facilities lined one side of the road, and truckloads of beer, ale, and wine arrived in a seemingly constant stream. They didn't expect much trouble with police here, but of course, not having the police meant that security could be a problem as well.

  The concert's promoters had imported a small army of security guards and created a sort of base camp about a mile below Rathburg. Their job was to babysit the army of fans, roadies, and camp followers flooding into the town.

  The concert field itself was a large, dish-shaped valley with only two viable entrances. Across these they strung portable chain link fences with swinging gates and ticket stations. The area was as secure as any big-city stadium or auditorium, though much more picturesque. While it was certainly possible for some enterprising fans to attempt climbing in over the mountain on either side, it was not likely they would be able to do so unnoticed, and it was certainly enough to discourage the majority.

  One thing promoters will go to great lengths for is the guarantee of profit. There was enough room for 30,000 fans, and tickets were going fast. Suddenly what had been Klaus' whim, an idea the band's agent and the promoters had
opposed from the start, had become the concert event of the year.

  Sebastian stared up at the last of the huge PA columns as it was hoisted into place. A huge hand settled onto his shoulder, startling him, and he turned.

  "Jesus," Peyton said, raising his gaze to follow Sebastian's, "maybe we are in for a serious party. If they don't end up raising a damned Klaus idol some day and start worshipping it, I'll eat my cymbals. Every rich girl in Germany will be here soon, and a lot from other places. Maybe there will even be a few left over for us, you think?"

  Sebastian smiled distractedly. Peyton's tastes were a lot less subtle than his own, but that was part of the big drummer's appeal. It seemed like every moment he wasn't adding the rhythm to one of Klaus' performances, he was out trying to carve more notches in his romantic belt. At times, he amazed Sebastian, and at others he disgusted him.

  Peyton was one of the finest percussionists alive, and, more importantly, he amused Klaus. That was a prerequisite for joining the band, and rare enough to make Peyton special. What he'd said in this case was, in fact, nothing but the truth. The mere cast-offs from Klaus' groupies would set most men on fire.

  "If they do put up that statue," Sebastian said, "there will be a bidding war to see where it's erected."

  The two turned away from the stage and headed back to the small cottage they shared. The cottage beside theirs, more of a chalet, housed Klaus and their lead guitarist, Damon. Sebastian might have been jealous of this arrangement if he hadn't understood from personal experience who was getting the smaller share of everything in that match up. Klaus and Damon stepped out of their door as Sebastian and Peyton approached. Klaus grinned and stretched lazily.

  "Breakfast?" he asked.

  It was a rhetorical question. None of them would miss breakfast, though they often didn't wake and get to it until later in the day than is normal. The staff at the Inn would be clearing away the remnant of the morning meal and readying themselves for lunch when they arrived, but it wouldn't stop Klaus, or any of them, from ordering eggs, bacon, and biscuits. It would also put another brick in the growing wall between the town and the band, but Klaus was used to getting what he wanted.

  They walked slowly down the hill and entered the Inn. The heady scent of freshly brewed coffee greeted them, and Klaus drew in a deep breath of it.

  "Heaven," he said to no one in particular. He smiled at the girl who came to seat them and followed her to a table near the rear, away from the few locals lingering over breakfast.

  Damon stumbled along and rubbed his eyes, as if he'd never really agreed to wake up. He didn't sleep well on road trips, because he preferred to spend his time pining and moping. No matter how comfortable his bed was, or how early he got to it, he spent his night awake, staring at the ceiling and missing his fiancé. As the one member of the band in a serious relationship, he wasted no opportunity to make the others feel guilty for dragging him away from home.

  He'd left his heart in the care of a girl in Hamburg named Melissa two years earlier and had never been the same. He still followed wherever Klaus and the music led, but he was only really happy when the band played near home, or was in the studio recording. The wild life he'd once shared with Peyton no longer appealed to him, but the lack of sleep accentuated his haunted, rock-start image. That made it a wash.

  The band was an oddly matched quartet. Klaus was tall with long gold hair that fell over his shoulders and spread out like a lion's mane. He had green, cat-like eyes, a broad muscled back, and the physique of a dancer. He gave off a sense of aristocracy, as if he might have been a lost Russian prince from a romantic fantasy. When he entered a room, or stepped onto a stage, there was an almost audible crackle of energy. He spoke softly, but there was an underlying power and rhythm to his speech that gave even simple conversation a melodic quality.

  Damon, in stark contrast, was so thin he appeared half starved. His hair was dark as lamp-black and draped over his collar in a fine, blue-highlighted cascade that stretched nearly to his knees. He kept that hair carefully braded in a pony tail he could tie up and out of the way if he needed to. He had the melancholy aspect of a lost soul and the deep set, haunted eyes of a martyr. Since Melissa had complicated his life, his already sunken features had borne all the animation of a George Romero zombie.

  Damon had long, slender fingers, but the muscles in his wrists and forearms rippled when he moved. His lightning speed and subtle artistry on the guitar were almost magical at times.

  Peyton was the biggest of them, with curling black hair, a carefully groomed beard, and a chest like an Olympian. He was well over six feet tall and probably weighed in at over two hundred and fifty pounds. It was an enigma how such a powerful, boisterous man could apply the finesse he did to a set of drums. Of equal mystery was his appeal to the ladies. He gave no indication of settling down, made no promises to any of them, and yet his boyish grin and eternal party philosophy drew more than a little attention from the fairer sex.

  Sebastian was quiet, unassuming, and calm. Slender, just under six feet tall and dressed more like an out of place professor than a rock star, he was the last person you'd notice in a crowd. Musically, his keyboards formed the structure for the band's sound. Peyton was the heartbeat, Damon the fire, and Klaus, perhaps, the soul – but Sebastian was the network upon which it all hung. Klaus was well aware of this, but the others seemed not to notice. Sebastian was used to it.

  Just then, Sebastian was glancing around the interior of the Inn. Light filtered in through the four small windows that lined the front wall and broke up across the intricate wooden frame. The room was open and comfortable. The scent of coffee was even stronger than it had been when they'd first entered, accompanied by the pungent aromas of sausages and freshly baked bread.

  The girl returned with a pot of coffee and four mugs. She took their orders shyly and backed away from the table. Klaus watched her distractedly, and then turned to Sebastian.

  "I want to try that new piece tonight," he said. "The one with the old harp riff, you know?"

  Sebastian nodded. He did know. It was a solo from a medieval piece he'd heard somewhere, probably at a recital at the university. His synthesizer had an eerily accurate harp simulation, and he'd worked at the bit of song, embellished it, and honed it before presenting a tape of the music to Klaus.

  That was how they worked when they wrote the music. Genius that he was, Klaus fed off the others. There was none among them lacking in talent or inspiration, and it was the bits and pieces of things they brought together that kept the creative fires burning.

  The night Sebastian had given Klaus that tape, they'd listened to it once together. The room had been utterly silent; a far away, dreamy expression had drifted over Klaus' features.

  Klaus had taken the tape, his bass, and his twelve string guitar into the next room, locked the door behind him, and stayed there. The two had shared a suite of rooms in Frankfurt at the time. They were on the third week of a European tour, the same tour where Damon met Melissa. Peyton and Damon had been out that night, and with Klaus locked away, Sebastian had nothing to do but to sit, read a book, stand in the window and gaze out at the streets below, and think. He heard the faint strains of music from the next room; some that he thought were the tape, and others that were obviously Klaus on one instrument or another.

  Three hours had passed. Sebastian had finally managed to concentrate on the novel he'd been reading when the door to the other room opened and Klaus stepped out. He said nothing; he handed the tape back to Sebastian, turned, and walked out of the room, not to return until well after dawn.

  Sebastian played the tape. At first there was only the harp solo, just as he'd presented it to Klaus. Then his recording ended, and the tape rolled on. Klaus always carried a small four track recorder with him on the road, and he must have had it in the room. On the remainder of the tape, several tracks had been hastily mixed and assembled around the basic solo.

  There were lyrics, as well. Music had been added tha
t stretched beyond the solo, and then rolled back to it easily. Klaus must have dubbed the tape at least twice, even if he'd sung along with his guitar; there were too many intricacies to the recording for any other explanation.

  What Klaus had created was a ballad, a love song written for a woman Sebastian was certain his friend had never met – a dream lover, or a fantasy? The structure was weak without the keyboards and percussion to hold it together, but there was an eerie power in the notes, and a compelling edge to the lyrics that stuck in his mind. He was so wrapped up in the sound, so lost in the words, that when the song ended he'd sat staring at the wall until the loud click of the tape recorder reaching the end of the tape startled him back to awareness. The song was magnificent.

  Klaus had returned just before dawn. When he came in, Sebastian was still sitting, staring at the wall. The tape deck was stopped at the end of the tape where he'd left it. Klaus met his gaze for a long moment, studied his face, and then walked from the room and went to bed.

  Sebastian had stored the tape carefully, and that had been it. Klaus had never mentioned the song, and Sebastian, uncertain over his friend's silence, had left it alone. They'd never told the others about it, or presented the tape, and as far as Sebastian knew, Klaus had never played the song again.

  Now, over eggs and coffee in a small German town a thousand miles from anywhere, Klaus brought it up casually, as though it had been the obvious next project in line. Sebastian turned and glanced at the others.

  Peyton and Damon stared at Klaus, and then at Sebastian, then back at Klaus.

  "What harp solo?" Peyton cut in. "You holding out on us Sebastian?"

  "What song are you talking about?" Damon asked, frowning. "I don't remember anything about…"

  Klaus held up his hand and waved them silent with an impatient gesture. He gave them a quick rundown of the night Sebastian had given him the tape, and how he'd taken it and written a song around it.