“What about Sage? He saw the one in the bathroom.”
He nodded. “Sage’s mind has been opened to this world. I don’t think either of you will ever be able to unsee them, to unsee the things that cross through the Veil. But with a little luck, you won’t ever have to deal with that.”
It was then that I noticed I was trembling. He gave me a light squeeze and said, “Come on, let’s return you to your man.”
We walked down the aisle, me pausing to pick up my toiletries and clothes, which I’d dropped on the empty seat, and back to our car. Jacob was already asleep, and we didn’t say anything to Sage. What would be the point in making him worry? ‘By the way, when I went to use the washroom, I ended up in the train car to The Twilight Zone and some kind of fucked-up Grim Reaper almost dragged me to Hell. Well, I’m okay now. Good night!’
So Max and I kept it to ourselves. But there was no way I was sleeping alone on the top bunk. I climbed in with Sage in the bottom and tried to get some sleep despite Jacob’s vibrating snores. In the morning we’d be in Rome. Another day to face, another day to die.
Chapter Thirteen
Sage
Arriving in Rome was like a goddamn breath of fresh air. Not that the air in the city was exactly fresh. But when we stepped off the train and into the baking heat of the station, I felt like I could breathe a bit better, despite the hazy brown smog that sat high above the church domes of the city. Apparently we were entering an early heat wave, but after the moodiness of Paris and the neat façade of Nice, I was ready for something different.
I could tell Dawn was, too. She confessed she hadn’t slept very well thanks to Jacob’s snoring (I was an old pro when it came to drowning that out) and she looked unusually pale, but when she started walking under that Roman sun and we stopped to admire a street performer while Jacob got us a cab, she seemed to perk up a little.
Truth was, I was barely holding it together as it was. I was afraid to let her out of my sight, afraid for each other thing that approached, knowing, always fucking knowing, that something was out there coming for her. Debt collectors were an insistent bunch, and these ones had teeth, horns, and claws.
But I couldn’t dwell on it—I wouldn’t let myself. Jacob was right: I just had to be there for her, that’s all I could do. We had to go on, take that step into each hour, toward the end of each day, and hope that we could handle whatever horrific thing was going to be thrown at us. It wasn’t much of a life, but we had to make do. And tonight I had a show to put on in motherfucking Rome. I had a show to make up for the drunken one I played in Nice. I had a show to prove that I was capable of coming back from the brink.
Those fucks didn’t have us yet, no matter what deal was made.
Our hotel was the best one on the tour so far, a white-and-gold temple, just steps away from the Trevi fountain and a gelato shop that Jacob called the world’s best.
I looked at Dawn as we sat in the backseat of the cab, holding her hand before we stepped out. “Gelato sounds good. It sounds like Rome to me. You ever see Roman Holiday?”
She shook her head, her eyes squinting at the harsh sun coming through the dirty windows.
“You haven’t?” I asked. “Audrey Hepburn? My man, Gregory Peck?”
She gave me a funny look. “Your man?”
“There was no greater hero for me than Gregory Peck when I was growing up. Atticus Finch, man. Almost made me want to be a lawyer.” She still looked confused. “Jeez. Okay, well, let’s live a little. Let’s do fun things today before the show.”
Her brows came together in trepidation. “Are you sure that’s smart?”
I leaned into her and kissed her softly. I pulled away and stared into her eyes. “We have to keep going on. We have to live a little…while we can. Where better than Rome?”
She sucked in her bottom lip but nodded. We got out of the cab and stared at the bustling world around us. Tourists with their knee-high socks and giant cameras around their necks, little boys playing around the edge of the fountain, an old man in a purple suit selling newspapers from a cart. Pigeons everywhere and the scent of coffee beans in the air.
We checked into the hotel and naturally Max had to insist he was staying in our room. The front desk clerk seemed really disturbed at the idea of two men and one woman sharing a room together, especially when she saw the roadies behind us with my acoustic guitars in their arms, but she let it slide. It may have been 1975, but Rome was still a pretty conservative city.
I started thinking about that as we put our bags away in our tiled-floor room. The churches in the city, the Vatican, the Pope, the Holy See. I wasn’t a religious man, though in hindsight perhaps I should have been, considering what I’d been through. But when I was a boy, when my mother was alive, we went to church in Redding every Sunday. She was a devout Catholic, as most of our family in Mexico had been, although my father had no interest. The church-going stopped after she died, but I still held on to a kernel of my faith throughout the years. I wasn’t sure if I was about to rediscover it now, but churches were always a haven for those in trouble, if not a place to seek answers.
However, I didn’t want to bring this up around Max. I didn’t know how he fit into any of it. He admitted to there being a Heaven and a Hell, but he never described himself as an angel, even though it was the closest thing I had to compare him to. A guardian without the angelic part. Even still, I didn’t want him to tell me it was pointless or futile because I would have no choice but to believe him, and the little faith I did have would be gone.
“Let’s go explore,” I said to Dawn, grabbing her hand and pulling her to me. I looked up at Max, expecting him to say something. He wasn’t protesting, but he looked uncomfortable with the idea all the same. “Any objections?”
His eyes narrowed in thought, studying me carefully.