I made my way over to the champagne bottle, drank half of it in a few fizzy chugs, and picked up the phone, dialing the front desk. I tried to explain what had happened, but it was too complicated for their understanding of English, so I just told them I needed to see the manager. Then I asked to be connected to Jacob’s room.
He answered on first ring. “Yellow?”
“You need to come to my room—now,” I said, slamming down the phone.
I paced back and forth for a few minutes, eyeing the bathroom, until Jacob arrived, knocking at my door.
I let him in and pointed at the bathroom. “Take a look at that.”
Jacob went over and poked his head in, looking from side to side. “Your bathroom is bigger than mine. Wanker.”
“The mirror, Jacob,” I said, gritting my teeth. I plucked up the bottle and guzzled the rest of it.
He looked back at the mirror, nodded, and said, “Huh. Graffiti.”
“Is that it?” I couldn’t tell if he didn’t care or was being particularly evasive.
He opened his mouth to say something, his crooked bottom teeth showing, just as the hotel manager appeared in the doorway, looking blasé.
I quickly explained to him what had happened and let him see for himself. The manager looked at us apologetically and pressed his palms together.
“You must excuse me, monsieur Knightly. We, ah, have a housecleaner here who can sometimes be a little…strange. She hasn’t done something like this in a while.”
I studied him, trying to see if he was telling the truth or not. I wasn’t sure why he’d lie, but it was hard to know with the French.
“It’s in English, though, mate,” Jacob said, pointing at it. “Does your loony housecleaner know English, too?”
The manager shrugged. “Perhaps. I will talk to her about this. Like I said, she hasn’t done anything like this for a long time.”
“Well, what else has she done?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest and trying to look slightly more intimidating than a jet-lagged, scruffy-faced musician.
The manager’s eyes were blank as he responded. “Nothing for you to worry about. She won’t do anything like this again. My apologies to both of you. I’ll have someone else clean it for you and send up a few more bottles of champagne for the inconvenience.”
“No bother,” Jacob said, grabbing a white washcloth and rubbing it with soap before running the tap over it. He glanced at me over his shoulder. “No bother about the housecleaner. I’ll take care of this. You may still send up the free champagne, though.”
The manager nodded and left, closing the door behind him. I watched as Jacob smeared the red against the mirror so it looked like a wash of blood. Then he rubbed the wet cloth in harder and the marks faded away.
“You’re making too big a deal out of this,” Jacob said, almost as an aside. Still, there was strain apparent on his forehead and a strange depth to his tone. “So someone wrote this on your mirror. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It could mean something,” I said softly.
Jacob turned to face me, tossing the wet cloth into the bathtub. “Dawn will be here tomorrow.”
I swallowed thickly. “I know.”
“You’re worried about her,” he said, angling his chin down.
“I am now,” I said. I sat down on the edge of the bed. “What if that was meant for her? Be careful what she wished for? The whole deal…my whole deal…was because I wished for something. What if Dawn did the same thing?”
He squinted. “What makes you think that?”
“Something the demons said to us at Lake Shasta…” I said, the memories pouring through me like wet concrete. “Alva, as we were pulling away from her, yelled at us, at Dawn, to be careful what she wished for. They were her parting words to us. It had to mean something. You heard it, too, didn’t you?”
His gaze never wavered. “There was a lot going on at the time, boy, but I don’t think the two are related. You heard the manager. Whacky old loon. Likes to write on people’s mirrors.”
“And isn’t that kind of disturbing in and of itself?”
There was a knock at the door, causing me to jump. Shit. I was going to hell in a handbasket.
Jacob quickly opened the door and accepted the bottle of champagne from the bellhop. He shut the door and, once he caught the salivating look on my face, popped the bottle open.
“I suppose you deserve this,” he said, handing me the champagne bottle. “Now take it easy. I know you’re feeling like a bit of a nutter at the moment, but we still have this tour to do and we still have this dinner tonight. I don’t know what Angeline’s angle is, other than that she wants to sleep with rock stars, but she still has a lot of sway with the French promoters, and if we want the tour in this country to go right and for us to get paid on time, we have to play nice. I like it a lot less than you do, but it’s something we just have to do.”
“And after this country?” I asked, feeling the bubbles go straight to my head. My father would beat me over the head for drinking such an expensive and—most importantly—sissy drink, but whatever did the job was fine by me.
“It’s Italy—Rome, of course—then, if our visas come in time, we’re flying to Prague. That’s your biggest show, sold out right away. I think you have a really large fanbase there, so if we can get those visas in time, we’re definitely not going to miss that opportunity. After that, West Germany for Munich and Cologne, rounding off in Dublin and London. I’m still seeing if we can squeeze in Norway, Sweden, and Finland.” My eyes must have looked unfocused because he added, “We’ll go over it at dinner. Just…keep your bloody wits about you, Sage; you’re the unfortunate star of the show here and if you don’t go on, no one does.”
He took the other bottle of champagne for himself and went for the door. He opened it and paused. “If it makes you feel any better, Sage, try and think about the girl. But only if you’re in a good place. I like her, Sage. I know you do, too. Don’t let her trip out here be for nothing. See you downstairs in an hour.”
He closed the door and left. My thoughts wanted to drift to Dawn. I drank the whole bottle and silenced them.
Dinner was hell. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad; after all, I’d had my own personal glimpse into Hell. But it took a f**kload of effort to keep my eyes open. Tricky, Jacob, and Angeline went on and on about the shows in Paris and Nice (we had a day to ourselves on the French Riviera, which was good, nice even) and about the musicians I’d meet tomorrow, the guys who would form my touring band. I’d approved them all months ago, but had already forgotten their names or who they sounded like. I wasn’t worried about that anyway; I was worried about myself and how well I’d perform.