Chapter Three – Bishop
I was the first to arrive at the suite in the Redborne. A fancy hotel in the heart of the city, where many rich people lived. I never considered myself one of them, even though I had money to spare—though it had gotten tight these past few months. Royalty checks could only go so far when you weren’t putting out new music.
The Redborne was a building with fancy arches and architecture, with a doorman and security up the ass. Even the elevator had a man working to press the buttons for you; he doubled as security. People who lived here long-term liked that added benefit. Not just anybody could stroll in through the front door and come upstairs.
Priest and Deacon should be here soon enough. I didn’t know what was going on, but it was late. Ramona had mass-texted us to say we were ready for our comeback.
And we were. I, for one, was itching to make music again. When it was in your blood, it was so hard to resist. I loved having a guitar in my hands. I’d tried making some music with Priest and Deacon these past few months, but things just hadn’t been the same since Pope…
Since Pope did what he did, and the band as we all knew it broke up.
But that wasn’t the story Ramona spun. She was good like that—able to twist things and get the media to say whatever she wanted them to say. Black Sacrament never officially broke up; we were just on hiatus, until we weren’t. Until now.
I sat in the living room, sprawled out on a couch, watching some stupid show on the TV while scrolling my phone. It was late for Ramona to make a house-call, so to speak; nine at night. Not really late for someone like me—or for Priest or Deacon, which must’ve been why they were taking so long to get here. They were out and about, living their lives, pretending Black Sacrament wasn’t everything to them.
A lie, because it was. This band was everything to us. For the last five years, ever since we started it in Pope and Deacon’s parents’ garage back in high school, this band had been everything.
None of us expected it to blow up. We hoped for it, sure, but we didn’t really think we’d make it big. How many guys started up bands, tried their hands on social media and local battle of the bands competitions, and still failed? Lots. More than you could count.
But, somehow, in spite of all that, Black Sacrament took off. We made a name for ourselves. When we were Black Sacrament, we weren’t the same kids from high school. We went by different names, dressed in all black, and wore black masks that made us look demonic. What skin wasn’t covered by the masks we painted black with body paint.
Mostly black, I should say, because there were a few key exceptions.
I, for instance, had an upside-down white cross that started on my bottom lip and traveled all the way down my neck. Priest had white, twisted crosses on his mask’s cheeks, right under the eyes. Deacon’s mask was divided in half; half was white while the other half was black, and each side had half of an upside-down cross in the opposite color, like a twisted yin yang symbol.
We looked like devils when we were on the stage. It went with our fake names and our band name. It was our thing, and the girls loved it. Guys and girls painted their faces and wore knock off masks when they came to our shows, wanting to be one of us.
And everything had been going great until Pope fucked up, and then Black Sacrament was in limbo for so long.
No public appearances. No press releases, save for what Ramona fed the press herself. It’s been hell.
Eventually, I heard someone pop their keycard into the lock on the main door, and it dinged as it opened. I turned my head and leaned back from where I was sitting to see Priest stroll in. He wore an off-white V-neck shirt, showing off his muscles and the many tattoos lining his skin—tattoos that got perfectly covered up with body paint when we were onstage.
I’d known the guy since middle school, though he was a grade above me. The tattoos had started out as a single star on his chest and spiraled from there. He worked out like a maniac when he wasn’t practicing guitar or singing backup vocals. He kept his shaggy blond hair messy—though don’t ever assume he rolled out of bed that way. He stood in front of the mirror a lot and practiced with some kind of hair gel to get it to stay like that.
He strolled straight to me and plopped himself down on my right, letting out an earth-shattering sigh. He faintly smelled of booze; he’d been drinking since high school, but now that he was twenty-one, he could get it anywhere legally.
Me? I preferred to be of a sound mind. Call me a prude. Call me squeaky clean. I didn’t give a shit.
“I take it Ramona’s not here yet?” Priest asked, tossing me an off-handed look. His facial expression read that he was bored, but underneath that uncaring exterior, I could tell he was brimming with curiosity.
He was probably wondering the same thing I was, if Black Sacrament was going to try to move past what Pope did. It’d been months. Surely long enough that the world had moved on and forgotten about the drunk rant Pope went on after getting caught doing drugs.
None of that was out of the norm when it came to rock bands, but Pope being in character—as in, still wearing his mask, his lips and chin painted like he’d just gotten off the stage—and the things he’d said to a group of women, were enough to cause backlash. One of the videos went viral, and the record label had to respond. We were told we had to kick Pope out, or Black Sacrament was done. It wasn’t an easy decision, but none of us could ever truly let go of Black Sacrament.
“No,” I answered him. “And no, she didn’t tell me what the hell this is about, either.”
Priest grumbled, “I hope this means we can get back to work. As much as I love fucking around, there’s only so much you can do.” As a group, we weren’t allowed to tell anyone who we were. When we weren’t Black Sacrament, we were ourselves. Couldn’t use the name to impress any girls or anything.
Priest was a ladies’ man, let’s just say. I was surprised he hadn’t spilled the beans about our identities already.My money had always been on him fucking something up, not Pope. I didn’t think any of us ever thought Pope would be the one to screw the band over.
“I wonder if Pope is coming, too,” Priest went on. He ran a hand through his blond hair, his gray eyes fixated on me.
Pope. Priest. Bishop. Deacon. Could you tell what our schtick was?
“I doubt it.” I didn’t know if Pope could ever be welcomed back into the band after what he did. The internet was forever. If we could’ve forced him into rehab and made him make a public apology, maybe things could’ve been salvageable—but Pope wasn’t the type of guy who ever admitted he was wrong.
If only his mistake didn’t leave the rest of us up Shit Creek.
Priest was about to say something else, but right then another person walked in the suite. We both glanced over to see Deacon coming toward us. His long, thick black hair was pulled back in a bun, and he wore a loose t-shirt with paint splatters on it, along with tight jeans. His mouth was drawn into a frown, and he said nothing to us as he joined us on the large couch.
Deacon was Pope’s brother, younger than him by a year and older than me by about the same. He and Priest were both twenty-one. Age didn’t mean a thing when you were in a band, though.
Deacon’s green eyes fell to his lap as he pulled out his phone. He said not a word to either of us as he started to scroll. We were allowed to have social media profiles under our real names, but anything we posted on it had to be approved of by Ramona. It was in our contracts.Needless to say, we didn’t post much at all for that specific reason.
“Well,” Priest deadpanned, “I see you’re in a good mood tonight.”
All Deacon did was glare at him for a moment, and then return his eyes to his phone.
Honestly, Deacon had become a bit of an asshole since his brother had been kicked out of the band. The few times we’d gotten together to play, to see what we could do without Pope, it’d been miserable. So miserable, in fact, thoughts I never thought I’d ever have had crept up in my mind.
Doubt. The question of: why are we still doing this?
“You know, Deacon, you are a bright ray of sunshine I just can’t get enough of,” Priest rattled off. “You’re the literal light of my life. I don’t know where I’d be without you. Probably lost in an alley somewhere—”
“Shut the fuck up, Priest,” Deacon hissed out as he shot a glare his way.
I could sense an imminent fight, so I tried to change the subject by asking, “Deacon, do you know why Ramona called us here? She wouldn’t tell me anything, and she didn’t tell Priest anything, either.”
The glare turned icy, and that was my answer.
Okay, shutting up now.
An awkward, uneasy silence settled upon us. Take one look at us now, and you’d never know we used to be best friends. You’d never know we’d dubbed each other brothers. Everything had fallen apart when Pope fucked up.
Was there any hope of salvaging this, or did Ramona want to meet us here to tell us that Black Sacrament was officially a dead band?
Forty minutes passed before Ramona strolled in through the door, huffing and puffing as she talked on the phone—something she always did. That woman always had something going on. It’s what made her such a good manager.
She looked tired, and her long black hair seemed extra frizzy, like she’d had a long day. She told whoever she was talking to goodbye before ending the call, and then she grabbed the remote from the coffee table and shut the TV off. Standing before us, she folded her arms over her chest and surveyed us three on the couch.
Ramona was never impressed by us, and her dark black eyes never gave anything away. Whenever she dealt with us, she wore a stern expression, and tonight was no different.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the three of you in the same room together,” she said. “That’s going to change. I want you three moved in here by the end of the week.”
I leaned forward, eager to hear more. If she wanted us here together, that meant…
Priest put it together: “Are we back?”
“Not yet,” Ramona told us, “but you will be.” Priest whooped, clapped, and bumped shoulders with me. He tried to do the same to Deacon, but Deacon only flipped him off. “Now before you go celebrating, there is a condition.”
I exchanged looks with Priest. Why did I have the feeling this wasn’t good?
“I ran a little… grassroots operation to find a new member for Black Sacrament.”
Priest’s good moon fouled a little, and he shook his head and said, “No fucking way. We ain’t taking in any wannabe. Black Sacrament was always the four of us—”
“There’s only three now,” Deacon pointed out with a frown. I said nothing, because who knew? Maybe new blood would get us back to where we were before. I was willing to try.
“Precisely why I didn’t tell any of you about this competition. Me and my team combed through thousands of videos sent in to us by fans—the whole point of this, besides making a comeback, is to show that Black Sacrament is and will always be a family. A brotherhood that welcomes men and women of all ages.”
That… sounded suspicious, like Ramona was going to drop a bomb on us. Black Sacrament was a family—before, but I wouldn’t call it one now. Adding a random guy to our ranks wouldn’t bring us back to the way things were, even if we pretended it did.
Priest groaned. “All right, all right. Lay it on us. Who’s the new guy you and your secret team picked? What kind of weirdo do we have to put up with?” To me, he whispered, “We can always turn him to the dark side after Ramona’s gone.”
“Ramona heard that,” she said pointedly. “And, actually, we decided to go in a new direction.”
The three of us on the couch were quiet, and my head was spinning. A new direction? What the hell did that mean? I couldn’t think. Was she inviting more than one new guy into the band? Were we going to rebrand Black Sacrament or something?
Because no. I wouldn’t do it, and I knew for a fact Priest and Deacon wouldn’t do it, either.
“The person coming into Black Sacrament is actually,” Ramona paused for either dramatic effect or to let us catch our breath, “a girl.”
No one spoke right away. My mouth dropped open, while Deacon’s scowling intensified. Priest, on the other hand, threw up his hands, always one to speak his mind, even if it got him in trouble. He said, “A girl? In Black Sacrament? Come on, Ramona, that’s a shitty idea, and you know it. There’s no place for a girl in B.S.”
“As much as I hate agreeing with him, he’s right,” Deacon muttered with a deep frown. “I’m fucking done with this.” He got up, and he started to move around the couch, his intent to leave the suite, but Ramona stopped him.
“Sit your ass back down, Deacon, if you want to have any hope of having a career in this business.” Her tone was hard and demanding, the kind of tone she took on when she caught us letting loose before a show.
Deacon grumbled, slow to sit back down.
“After what Pope did, you need something different, something to re-endear you to your fans. Something they won’t expect. Black Sacrament has always been a dick show—” Ramona’s stare was hard and serious, telling me there was no way we would change her mind. “—so I’m bringing in a cute little girl from a small town. You’re demons on the stage. She’s going to be your angel.”
Ramona’s words fell on my ears like bricks. Heavy as they were, as much as I wanted to struggle against them, it’d be pointless. Once she had her mind set on something, no one could change it, and if this was what it’d take for us to bring Black Sacrament back from the dead, then that’s what we’d do.
We’d invite a girl into our ranks and make her our angel.
“A girl, huh?” Priest spoke with a smirk. He leaned back on the couch, folding his hands behind his head and flexing his arms somewhat, as if the girl in question was about to walk through that door right now. “It might not be so bad, having a girl in the band.” Anyone with eyes and ears would be able to tell exactly what was on his mind.
The possibility of in-house pussy.
Ramona snapped her fingers to bring him back to reality. “No. Angel’s off-limits, okay? The moment she walks through that door, I don’t want any of you guys to touch her. She’ll be coming here to be your sister-in-arms, not your personal fuck-buddy, okay? Tell me you understand. Priest, I’m mainly talking to you.”
Groaning, Priest rolled his eyes and said, “Fine. I don’t really like them cute, anyway.” He shot me a devilish smirk as he added, “I’d rather go for the sexy ones. Cute’s more your style, bro.” He slapped my back with a chuckle, and I just barely resisted the urge to punch him in the gut.
“Nobody is going to go for her,” Ramona hissed out. “Think of her as the new Pope.” To Priest, she said, “You’re going to be singing with her, Priest. You can have all the sexual tension you want with her on stage, but that’s it, do you understand me? I ain’t playing with you.”
Deacon was the one who spoke next: “Having a girl in Black Sacrament is going to completely change our sound. What if the fans hate her?”
“If we play it right, they’ll love her. They’ll want to be her. Duets, when done right, are better than singles. You guys can do this. I have faith in you… not a lot of faith, but some.” She lifted a finger at us, wagging it at us like she was our mother. “Don’t fuck this up. I’ve been working really hard on this rebrand, so it needs to work.”
I leaned forward and asked, “How long are we going to be stuck with her?”
“Minimum one year, or however long it takes to create enough buzz, record an album, and do a tour with her. If things go the way I want them to—and if you three idiots play nice with her—I know we can go the distance together. Who knows? Maybe by the end of the year, you’ll be begging for her to stay.”
Deacon harrumphed, “I doubt that.” All Priest did was shrug.
I did nothing. Out of the three of us, I think I was the most open to accepting a girl into our ranks, but I didn’t want to seem overly enthusiastic about it. This could either be a fun experiment or blow up in our faces, and it really all depended on how well Deacon and Priest got along with this girl, whoever she was.
“When is she coming?” I asked, since no one else was going to.
“She’s got until tomorrow to sign the contract and NDA—which she will. No country bumpkin can turn down the money she’ll make joining Black Sacrament. I’ll be going to get her next Monday and bring her here. Just make sure, once she’s here, you are on your best behavior.” She lifted a brow, sending a hard look Priest’s way.
She might go for the ladies herself and therefore not give a shit about men, but even she knew Priest was the pantie-chaser out of the three of us.
“I’m always good,” Priest spoke with a smile. “Unless bondage is involved, and then all the rules get thrown out of the window—”
Ramona waved a hand through the air and started to walk away. “I’m heading home. Call me if you need anything.” She didn’t look back once as she left.
Deacon, Priest, and I sat on the couch in silence for a while, neither of us moving or saying a word. Ramona hadn’t even shown us the video that won this girl the position. We didn’t know what she looked like or who she was. We didn’t even know how old she was.
Well, Ramona was smart. She hadn’t let us down yet. She was the only reason we were still here, that Black Sacrament didn’t implode the moment Pope fucked everything up. If she thought we needed new blood to reignite the fire B.S. used to have, then that’s what we’d do.
Still, telling a group of guys that one particular girl was off-limits was pretty much a surefire way to make us all want her. I wasn’t too worried about myself or Deacon; I could keep my hands to myself, and Deacon’s personality didn’t lend to many girls swooning over him. Priest, on the other hand…
He’d be the one to watch.