Half an hour later, he’d begun to regret his need to walk off his energy. The cold crept in to strangle the city, and the once-promising sun slipped back behind a veil of threatening gray clouds. He turned around and headed down one of the alley cut-throughs, hoping it would shave off some walking time so he could grab two cups of coffee before begging Sionn to let him back in.
Something about the surrounding brick walls and battered green dumpsters made Damien’s feet stumble, and he dropped his pace to stand in the middle of the narrow space. There was definitely something about the alley that grabbed some part of his brain and held on, sinking its fingers into his thoughts until he was shaking from the want of knowing.
Even the crackle of thunder off in the distance didn’t jolt him from the spot, and Damien turned on his heels, taking in his surroundings. The cement beneath him was stained green from years of runoff and algae, and the blackened grout between the weathered brick of the buildings’ walls shone white in spots from halfhearted, futile scrubbing near some of the doors. The space felt closed in, barely wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and what little sun able to reach between the tall buildings had been replaced by the alley’s encroaching shadows.
Several white-painted wooden signs hung over security gates and green metal doors, most covered with dark red han zi to identify the businesses they belonged to. Above him, windows were being closed as residents living in the tiny apartments above the main street woke for the day and found the cold too much to take.
Behind one of the metal screen doors, someone was beginning to cook. The sound of food hitting a sizzling wok was soon followed by the aroma of garlic and seared meat. Somewhere close by, someone was speaking Cantonese loudly, a harsh and scolding patter answered by a softer, grumbling voice.
He padded forward, drawn to a single fire escape hung above the restaurant’s back door, unable to take his eyes off of the seemingly innocuous black metal grating. It was all so… familiar, tugging at him until a throbbing hooked through the base of his brain and traveled up into his eyes.
“I know this place.” It was too fucking familiar. Something about where he stood called out to him, and Damien skimmed his fingers over a rust-speckled iron ladder leading up to the platform above him.
Some hopeful soul had great plans for a flower bed, a long burnt-orange ceramic box filled with yellow and violet pansies. A pink plastic bin sat on its side, probably to avoid it filling with water during the season’s heavy rains, but Damien wasn’t really seeing what was there.
Instead, he saw the alley in his mind, in the dead of long ago night when he’d been broiling in his own anger.
There’d been a club he’d just played at—Dino’s. It’d been a shitty gig, with a couple of guys he’d played with before, but nothing had gone right. The drummer showed up drunk, and the bassist was out of tune for most of the set. Half an hour into the show, the manager yanked the power from the stage, and they’d been left there, standing in the reverb of their dying strings.
He’d walked out. Packed up his guitar and left the club, too pissed off to demand payment for what was probably the worst fucking set he’d played in his entire life. Instead, he’d stepped out the back door, simmering with an anger hot enough to melt glass, and stalked down the alley toward a destiny he’d never even imagined having.
There was no sign of the singer, not in the shadowy darkness of the alley’s feeble lighting, but the voice—that voice—snared him in a golden web he couldn’t break through. Even through the heat broiling his thoughts, the raspy pour of want and blues filled him with something indescribably beautiful, and Damien knew he wanted… needed… to write for that voice.
Instead of a plastic bin, there’d been a mongrel of a boy, barely old enough to be left home alone, much less possess the kind of sorrow Damien heard in his singing. Unable to do more than stand there, frozen to the cement, Damie listened to a voice someone stole from heaven and gave to a skinny, dark-haired waif leaning against the brick wall of a Chinatown fire escape.
“He was singing… Joplin.” Damien turned quickly, drinking in his surroundings. Glancing back up, he only saw pink plastic and bobbing flower heads, but then… back then… there’d been a suspicious-eyed, lanky teen with a bee-stung mouth and a filthy attitude born of hard street living. “He found me on a staircase of steel, nowhere near Heaven, a Devil making a deal. Come on down, son, my Satan said with a grin, Come with me and we’ll make Sinner’s Gin.”
The words came easily, the music flowing through him and into his fingers. He’d laid down the notes for Miki’s song… that moment when he’d looked up and told the oil-splattered street rat that they were destined to take the world by storm. He’d laughed at Miki’s fuck off and talked to him through the metal grate, urging him to take a chance on a crazy, pissed-off guitarist with nothing to lose.
Damien wasn’t prepared for the headache when it hit, nor for the rush of blood bursting from his nose, but the tide of memories overwhelming his senses made him want to dance, even as he was driven to his knees from the pain.