Power Trio

“What the fuck is up, Glorie’s!” Thekla yells into the mic. “We’re here to rock your faces, nail your girlfriends, and pop an upper decker in your guest bathroom!”

“Can you keep going?” Torvald asks, over the monitor.

“Whoooo’s ready to get pregnaaant! Check one two. One two one two—ah shit.” Thekla jerks her head away from the mic as a ring of feedback goes through it. Her ears, weighed down with a trove of silver rings and gemstones, clatter with the motion. “The volume is kind of hot, man.”

“It will be okay, I think,” Torvald says. “But can you sing a little more up, please.”

“Like, higher? Taller?” Thekla squints into the venue’s gloom, back to the booth. She pulls her glasses from the plunging neckline of her lacy concert top and pops them onto her face.

“Taller.”

“Uh, no, I’m afraid I can’t. This is about as tall as I get.”

“Okay. Can we get you a stool? Or box? I think otherwise your mic will pick up the floor wedge.”

“Torvald, I’m sorry, but no. This hasn’t been a problem anywhere else. Let’s just figure it out and make the box a last ditch thing.”

“Okay.” Torvald frowns. “Run your loudest song and we’ll see how it’s sounding.”

“Dude, who is this Finnish dickhead?” Thekla grumbles away from the mic. “A stool or a box. Fuck off.”

“I think you’re being a little unfair,” Kell says.

“You’re being kind of short with him,” Evan says.

“Laugh it up, skyscrapers,” Thekla says. “I will have you all know that I am in the 75th percentile for goblin female-bodied height. Putting these squarely at nut height.” She leers at Evan with her mouthful of shark teeth.

“We’ll get through, right?” Evan says. He’s been in an unflappably positive mood ever since he got his bass back, sounding as good as new. Better, even; for how terrible a conversationalist Neil was, the guy sure knows his craft. “The first song might be tough, but Fossil Fuel is noisy already. If Torvald needs to dial in while we’re playing, the audience won’t be throwing tomatoes.”

“They won’t be throwing panties, either,” Sion says. His thick shadowy eyeliner makes him appear even more morose than he’s already acting. “Not if Thekla is standing on an apple crate and we sound like mud.”

The normally ice-cool ash elf has been on edge for the entire evening. Evan gets it. The first show is never easy, and the sound engineer at Glorie’s is proving to be a calcified old bastard.

They blaze through their sound check song anyway, and if the mix is indistinct and unleveled through the stage monitors, maybe it’s fine from the audience. Kell’s certainly keeping her enthusiasm up, rocking out to their practice. She’s in a shiny pair of overalls in ripstop nylon that coils the stage light across her like pink and blue neon snakes. A bold choice, but her confidence counts for a lot, as does the fact that underneath it she’s gone bare but for an athletic bralette. Evan is proud of his poker face tonight.

They gather for drinks in the house's front after, at a sticky mahogany bar lit in hazy gold. Kell gets Thekla back to an approximation of a good mood through a series of uncharitable, muppet-esque impressions of Torvald. The bartender, a slim birchwood dryad, stifles a laugh as they pour Evan a red ale.

“He’s genuinely a nice guy off the board,” they say. “He just hates his job.”

“Well, who doesn’t.” Kell sips her seltzer. She never drinks before a gig.

“I lose my sympathy once it affects my craft,” Sion says.

“You don’t even have a job, dude,” Kell says.

The elf, who is normally more than game to deride his own idleness, purses his glossy black lips and is silent.

Shrike’s lead singer, a harpy named Conna with blood-colored plumage and a face full of metal piercings, is the first of the headline act to arrive at the bar. “Kell!” she cries, and they share a feathery hug. Evan remembers how that embrace feels.

“Hi, Sion!” Conna says. “Hi, Thekla! Hi, new guy! This is Evan, right?”

“Great to meet you.” Evan shakes the thinboned claw at the end of Conna’s wing. “So grateful for the opportunity to play with you guys.”

“Kell’s been talking you up, brother,” Conna chirps. “‘Con, you gotta hear the new lineup. Con, I’ve found The One True Bassist.’”

Kell’s face is turning a pretty shade of magenta.

“If you guys sound like she says you sound, we’re the grateful ones.” Conna breaks the handshake and hits Evan with a spindly fist-bump. “I’mma go talk to the sound guy and figure out the check. If any of my bandmates show up, you’ll smack them for being late and send them through for me, Kell?”

“I’ll be merciless,” Kell says.

Thekla waves to the departing harpy. “Good luck with the Finn, Conna.”

“Good luck to us,” says Sion, tracing out shapes on his beer glass’s condensation.

The show doors open at 7:30, and the bar gradually fills with the concertgoing set. Evan sees the usual cross-section filing into the performance space in back with their drinks: the weekend warrior types with their off-season beanies, the giggly groupies just out of their teens with dyed hair and upcycled band tees, severe normcore dudes in coke-bottle glasses, and even a few honest to god punks, safety-pinned and spiked.

He skirts his way to the sparse, grimy green room, the gig bag on his back disconcerting in its lightness after months of duffel bagging. His bass’s sleek new encasement was a gift from Sion, who’d told him he should keep living his truth but that they needed space backstage for something besides his mobile home, thank you very much.

Ten minutes to go, and they begin their individual pre show rituals. Evan stretches, shakes his shoulders out, and hops on both feet to burn off the nerves. Sion is in a corner, eyes closed, going through his complex fingerstyle warmup. Kell sprawls across the green room couch. Thekla perches on the backrest and massages her broad shoulders.

“What about Tusk?” Kell offers. “Hello New Laytham. We are Tusk.”

“Sounds too much like sludge metal,” Thekla says. “I still say Dog Collar Match.”

“You really overestimate how many people watch wrestling, dude.”

“You underestimate our sweaty passion.” Thekla switches from her fingers to her elbow, digging its tip into Kell’s scapula. “Damn, Kell. You’re tensing up back here.”

Nylon crinkles as Kell crosses her legs. “Just keep going.”

“What are we billed as?” Evan asks.

“Right now we are Kellax Falrak,” Thekla says.

Kell growls. “Like I’m some kind of fuckin’ solo project.”

“It’s our own fault for not sticking to something.” Sion stands up and cinches his strap. “I’ll be by the curtain.”

The ash elf stalks from the room.

“Is this a usual thing with him?” Evan says.

“Not at all.” Thekla hops off the lip of the couch. “I’m gonna check in with him. See you guys out there?”

“Bet,” Kell says. “We’re gonna kill, right?”

“Kill ‘em dead.” Thekla blows them a kiss and hustles out.

“Jeez.” Evan’s foot taps restlessly. “Weird atmosphere tonight.”

“Hey, Ev. C’mere.” Kell’s low, fond voice is an instant balm to his nerves. He crosses to the couch. Kell takes his chin in her hand and lowers his face to hers. His breath hitches as the wine-dark pillows of her lips part, but there’s no kiss. Not yet. Instead, she presses her forehead against his, nose-to-nose.

“Thekla can freak out about the Finn, Sion can be in a funk. They’re the front men. They do the drama. But we’re the best fucking rhythm section in New Laytham. And we’ve got them, yeah?” she whispers. “Rock solid, no matter what. You and me.”

“You and me,” Evan echoes. “Locked in.”

“That’s right, babe.” Her hand strays down his front and comes to rest on his heart. It feels like a promise. “Now let’s go bring the noise.”