SAM WALLACE
Atlanta, Georgia — September 1984
The Wrought came at them in Dallas.
At the venue, three hours before doors, while the crew was loading in and the band was supposed to be doing soundcheck. They came up through the loading dock access tunnel, two of them, smaller than the Benowen pack, faster, built for ambush rather than assault. They tore through the grating at the base of the tunnel like wet paper and hit the dock before anyone had time to think.
Tony Marchetti was the first person they found.
Jace's drum tech was hauling a road case across the dock when the first Wrought burst through the floor six feet in front of him. Tony didn't scream. He didn't run. He stood there, road case still in his hands, staring at something his brain couldn't process: a creature of blackened hide-armor and coal-fire eyes, its jaw unhinging with a sound like shearing metal.
The second Wrought came from behind.
It hit Tony low, its burning jaws closing around his left leg below the knee with a force that shattered bone instantly. Tony's scream tore through the loading dock. The road case crashed to the concrete. Blood sprayed across the dock in an arterial arc.
Mongo heard it first. The big roadie was three bays over and covered the distance in seconds, arriving just as the first Wrought lunged for Tony's throat. Mongo didn't have powers. He had a tire iron and thirty years of roadie survival instinct. He swung it into the creature's face hard enough to crack one of its eye sockets, buying two seconds, which was exactly how long it took for the circlets to light up.
Jace's voice hit all five minds simultaneously: Wrought. Loading dock. Tony's down.
They came fast. Erik arrived first, he'd been closest, running cables on the stage above, and hit the Wrought savaging Tony's leg with a flying tackle that sent both of them crashing through a concrete pillar. The creature released Tony's mangled leg and turned on Erik, who already had Durandach drawn, the sapphires blazing.
Ricky appeared out of displaced air directly above the second Wrought, the one Mongo had stunned, and drove three of the Filleadh into its back in rapid succession. The creature shrieked and twisted, but the enchanted blades burned where they struck, silver fire eating into the chitinous armor.
Nathan came through the stage door at a dead run with both hands raised. The loading dock was damp: concrete sweat, puddles from the morning rain tracked in off the street, moisture sitting heavy in the air. He pulled it all inward in a single violent draw and drove a pressurized surge directly into the wounded Wrought's chest. The water hit like a battering ram. The creature's coal eyes guttered and dimmed, the fire at its joints sputtering as the water found the heat beneath, and it staggered backward into the wall hard enough to split the cinderblock.
Connor came through behind Nathan and went straight to Tony. The drum tech was conscious, barely, his face drained of color, his left leg destroyed below the knee: bone visible, the limb bent at an angle that made Connor's stomach drop. Blood was pooling fast.
"Tony, look at me," Connor said, pressing both hands over the wound, pushing pain-dampening pressure through the telepathic connection. "Stay with me. You're going to be okay."
Tony's eyes were glassy. "What... what the hell was that thing?"
"Don't worry about that right now. Just breathe."
Erik finished the second Wrought with a single devastating strike of Durandach through its neck joint, the weak point they'd learned at Benowen. The creature collapsed into inert metal. The dock went quiet except for Tony's labored breathing and the distant sound of crew shouting from the far end of the tunnel.
Jace arrived last, the Macalla in his hands, opal blazing. He took one look at Tony's leg and his face went still. He knelt beside Connor and placed a hand on Tony's shoulder, pushing steadiness through the Guardian Amulet, not healing, he couldn't heal, but grounding, holding Tony's consciousness above the shock that was trying to drag him under.
"Sidney." Jace pushed the words through the network, knowing the cross would carry them. "We need medical. Now. Tony's leg is gone."
Sidney's response came back through the same channel without a breath of delay: Already called. Three minutes. Keep him stable.
Tony looked up at Jace with eyes that were losing focus. "Jace... I can't feel my foot."
Jace swallowed. "I know, Tony. I know. We're going to take care of you."
The ambulance came. The paramedics came. The cover story came: stage rigging malfunction, falling equipment, a freak accident during load-in. The Wrought remains had already dissolved into inert metal and scattered plates by the time anyone without an amulet arrived to look.
Tony Marchetti lost his left leg below the knee. The surgeons in Dallas did what they could, but the damage was catastrophic: the Wrought's bite had shattered the tibia and fibula, severed the major vessels, and introduced something into the wound that the doctors couldn't identify but that burned like acid through whatever tissue remained. Amputation was the only option.
The band sat in the hospital waiting room for seven hours. Nobody spoke much. Erik cleaned Durandach in the bathroom, his hands steady, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle twitched. Ricky sat cross-legged on the floor, the Filleadh spread across his lap, counting them one by one. Nathan stared at the wall. Connor had his eyes closed, monitoring Tony's emotional state from across the building, feeding him calm in steady pulses.
Jace sat apart from the others, the Macalla across his knees, the opal dark. When Sidney sat down beside him, Jace spoke without looking up.
"They're targeting the crew now."
Sidney nodded.
"He's probing our perimeter. The band is protected. The crew is not."
"Tony's been with me since the beginning," Jace said quietly, "Since before Aelin. Since before any of this."
"I know."
"He lost his leg because of us."
"He lost his leg because of Aldus."
Jace didn't respond. The opal stayed dark.
Tony came out of surgery at four in the morning. He was groggy, medicated, missing a limb, and somehow still Tony. When Jace sat beside his bed, Tony looked at him through a fog of morphine and said, "So... I'm gonna need a stool now, huh? For the kit setup?"
Jace let out a sound that was half laugh, half something that wasn't.
"Tony, I..."
"Don't you dare apologize to me, Jace." Tony's voice was thick but firm, "I've been around long enough to know who you guys are. Those things weren't random. That was a hit." He paused, adjusting painfully against the pillow.
"I can't tech your kit anymore. Not like this. Not for a while, maybe not ever the way it needs to be done."
"Tony..."
"But I know someone who can." Tony's eyes cleared slightly, the morphine losing its battle with his professionalism, "Sam Wallace. Out of Salem, Oregon. Best drum tech I've ever seen work, and I've seen them all. Top level. Grade A. Number one. If you can get Sam, you get Sam."
He rattled off a phone number from memory. Jace wrote it on a napkin.
"One thing," Tony added, his eyes drifting closed, "Sam's particular about being treated right. Respect the craft. Respect the person. Sam'll give you everything."
Jace pocketed the napkin.
"I'll make sure of it."
Tony was asleep before Jace reached the door.
Management made the call the next day.
John Kavanaugh handed the napkin to Sarah Cole, one of the office assistants, and asked her to reach out. Sarah got Sam Wallace on the phone within the hour, described the position, drum tech for a major touring act, immediate start, competitive pay, travel required, and had an enthusiastic yes within twenty minutes.
She reported back to John with a thumbs up. "Sam's in. Flying into Atlanta tomorrow. Incredible resume: three arena-level acts, two theater tours, rebuilt a kick drum pedal mid-show in Sydney with a Swiss Army knife and gaffer tape."
"Perfect," John said. "Set up the meet at the management office before the show."
What Sarah Cole neglected to mention, because it simply didn't occur to her that it mattered, was that Sam was Samantha. Sarah had travel and woman on the phone, scheduled a woman's travel, and confirmed a woman's credentials without once thinking this was information anyone would find surprising. Why would she? A drum tech was a drum tech.
John, Linda, and the entire band walked into that meeting expecting a man named Sam.
The management office in Atlanta occupied a rented suite in a hotel three blocks from the venue. Functional, unglamorous, currently occupied by four members of Battle Cry who had arrived on time. Connor sat on a desk. Nathan leaned against the wall. Erik filled a chair that was slightly too small for him. Ricky perched on the windowsill, swinging his legs.
Jace was late. He'd taken the motorcycle from the hotel, which meant he was either enjoying the ride or lost in his own head. Possibly both.
John Kavanaugh was near the door, checking his watch when it opened from the outside. He stepped aside.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this is Sam Wallace."
Samantha Wallace walked into the room.
She was twenty years old, five foot nine, and striking in the way that stops a room without trying: copper-red hair that fell in waves past her shoulders, green eyes sharp and warm at the same time, cheekbones that belonged on a magazine cover if she'd had any interest in that kind of thing. She wore a black t-shirt, jeans, work boots, the uniform of someone who expected to get her hands dirty, and carried a leather bag heavy with tools. She moved like she owned whatever floor she was standing on, not with arrogance, just ease.
She smiled.
"Hey. I'm Sam."
Connor's first thought, unbidden and immediately set aside, was the kind of thought he would have acted on without hesitation two years ago. He recognized it, acknowledged it, and filed it under not a chance, because he could feel the room, and the room had just gotten very complicated. His second thought was that she had the most genuinely confident emotional signature he'd read in a long time. Twenty years old. He found that remarkable.
Erik noticed. Said nothing. Sat up slightly straighter.
Nathan's eyebrows rose a fraction. He clocked the intelligence in her eyes first, how she'd assessed the room in under two seconds, and found himself curious about what was behind it.
Ricky's legs stopped swinging. He tilted his head. Grinned slowly.
John Kavanaugh had the grace to look slightly sheepish.
"I, uh... may not have specified..."
"That I'm a woman?" Samantha finished for him, completely unbothered. "Happens every time. Tony warned me it might. He said you guys were open-minded, though."
The awkward silence lasted about two seconds before Connor broke it.
"Tony said you were the best drum tech he's ever seen. He didn't say anything about anything else, which honestly sounds exactly like Tony."
Samantha laughed, unguarded, real.
"He's not wrong. And I'm sorry about what happened to him. He called me from the hospital, actually. Told me to take care of his guy."
"His guy?" Erik asked.
"Jace," Sam replied, "Tony said Jace is the best drummer he's ever worked with and he'd find a way to haunt me from a Dallas hospital bed if I let anyone mess up that kit."
Nathan smiled.
"That does sound like Tony."
Ricky, who had been quiet for about as long as he was capable of being quiet, leaned forward from the windowsill.
"So... Sam. Can I call you Sam? Fair warning about this one."
He pointed at Connor with the confidence of a man who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
"Ladies' man. Legendary. It's actually embarrassing. We've had to physically remove women from hotel corridors. There are tour cities where he's not allowed to do press interviews alone anymore."
Connor turned to look at him.
"Ricky..."
"I'm doing her a public service."
"I'm sitting right here, dude!"
Samantha looked at Connor with an expression of polite, interested calm.
"Connor Braydee," she said. "Born in San Diego on November 9, 1961. Father's Persian, mother's Irish. Lead vocals, violin, guitar. Rolling Stone called you 'the most dangerous combination of talent and blatant sexuality since Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant' in the March issue." She tilted her head slightly. "I did my homework. On all of you."
The room went quiet.
Ricky stared at her. Then at Connor. Then back at her.
"She already knew."
"I already knew," Samantha confirmed pleasantly.
"About the corridors?"
"Three cities mentioned in the fan press. I assumed it was more."
Connor opened his mouth. Closed it. A slow, reluctant smile crossed his face that he clearly did not intend to be there.
Erik, from his chair, said nothing. His shoulders were shaking.
"In my defense," Connor said, "that Rolling Stone quote was taken entirely out of context."
"Of course it was," Samantha said, with exactly the tone of someone who believed none of that.
Nathan caught John Kavanaugh's eye across the room. John's expression said, very clearly, I like her.
"For what it's worth," Samantha added, glancing around the room with the easy confidence of someone who had done the reading and wasn't shy about it, "the article also said, and I'm paraphrasing, that Battle Cry is the most unfairly good-looking band in rock history. Having now seen you all in person, I'd say the journalist was more than honest."
She said it the way she said everything: straight, no performance, no flutter. A statement of fact delivered and immediately moved past.
Ricky pointed at her. "I want her on the tour permanently."
"She hasn't been hired yet," Nathan said.
"Then hire her faster."
What followed was fifteen minutes of the most impressive professional interview any of them had witnessed. When Connor asked how she'd gotten started, Samantha said, "Friend of mine needed someone to tech his kit at the Vernonia Friendship Jamboree. I was sixteen. I figured it out."
She said it the way people do when a story has been told enough times it's just fact. Ricky opened his mouth. She added, "Vernonia, Oregon. Small town."
Ricky closed his mouth.
From there she didn't stop. Samantha more than knew drums. She understood them at a level that went well beyond technique. She talked about tuning, head selection, shell resonance, mic placement, monitor mixing, stick weight, pedal calibration, and emergency mid-show repairs with a fluency that made Nathan lean forward with genuine interest. Her resume was impeccable: teched for arena acts across three continents, managed a thirty-two-piece jazz kit change in under four minutes, rebuilt a kick drum pedal with a Swiss Army knife and gaffer tape during a live show in Sydney.
"The kick drum held for the rest of the set," she said. "The gaffer tape didn't. But the pedal did."
Ricky was sold. "I love her already."
Connor was reading her throughout, not invasively, just the surface impressions he couldn't help perceiving. Confidence. Professionalism. A deep, genuine love for the craft. No performance, no insecurity, no angle. Just someone who was good at what she did and had long since stopped needing anyone's approval about it. Twenty years old and already completely herself. He found that more impressive than the resume. He also found, carefully tucked beneath all of it, something else: a quiet familiarity with their faces, their music, their names. Taking a job was the surface of it. She'd wanted this one. And somewhere in there, layered under the professionalism, was a certain note when she'd mentioned Jace. Not loud or obvious. Just there.
Connor filed it away and said nothing.
They were so engaged with Samantha that none of them heard the motorcycle pull up outside. None of them heard boots on the stairs. None of them had thought to mention to Jace that Sam was Samantha.
The door opened.
Jace came in brushing road dust off his leather jacket, helmet tucked under one arm, hair wind-tossed. He was talking before he looked up. "Sorry I'm late, the 285 was a parking lot. Is Sam here yet?"
He looked up.
He saw her.
Everything stopped.
The vision hit him like a freight train, not slow, not gradual, but an instantaneous cascade of images slamming through his mind faster than thought. Samantha at his drum kit, hands moving with expert precision. Samantha laughing on the tour bus, feet tucked under her, head thrown back. Samantha standing in the rain outside a venue, turning to look at him with an expression that made his chest ache. Samantha in Aelin, the opal light catching in her hair. Samantha in white. Samantha with a ring. Samantha's face close to his, her breath warm, her eyes full of something he recognized instantly: the thing he'd been afraid to want since Celia left.
The images lasted less than two seconds.
The empathic shockwave lasted less than one.
It detonated outward from the Guardian Amulet in a single uncontrolled pulse, not violent but overwhelming, a blast of raw emotional force that hit every person in the room like a warm wall of wind. Nathan stumbled. Erik braced against the desk. Ricky grabbed the windowsill. Connor gasped and pressed a hand to his temple. He'd caught the vision, all of it, every image pouring through the empathic bond like a broken dam.
The laughter was gone from the room as if it had never been there.
Connor stood very still. He'd felt Jace's visions before: fragments, impressions, the edges of things. This was different. This was the full weight of a Guardian Amulet prophecy moving through the bond at point-blank range, and it carried everything. Every image. Every certainty. The white dress. The ring. The opal light in her hair on Aelin. He understood, with a clarity that hit him like cold water, exactly what he had just witnessed.
He said nothing. He would say nothing. Not tonight, not to Jace, not to any of them. Some things a man had to find his own way to.
John Kavanaugh sat down hard in his chair. He'd been around the Brotherhood long enough to know what an empathic shockwave felt like. He'd never felt one that size. He looked at Jace. Then at Samantha. Then back at Jace. Something in his expression went very quiet.
And Samantha Wallace's eyes rolled back, her knees buckled, and she dropped.
Jace moved on pure instinct. The helmet hit the floor. He crossed the room in two strides and caught her before she reached the ground, one arm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head. He lowered her into the nearest chair with a gentleness that made everyone in the room go quiet.
"What the hell, Jace!" Ricky hissed.
Nathan was already beside her, checking her pulse.
"She's fine. Just overloaded. She'll come around."
Connor straightened up, the afterimage of the vision still moving behind his eyes. He looked at Jace, really looked at him, and saw something he'd never seen on the Guardian's face before. Not fear or guilt. Wonder. Terrified, bewildered, helpless wonder.
"Jace," Connor said quietly. "What did you see?"
Jace didn't answer. He was still holding Samantha's head steady, his hand trembling slightly against her hair.
John sat with his hands on his knees and said nothing. He was a man who knew when to ask questions and when to simply witness.
Samantha's eyes opened thirty seconds later. She blinked, disoriented, and found Jace's face above hers, amber-gold eyes wide with concern, one hand still cradling the back of her head.
"Hey," he said. "You okay?"
She blinked again, getting her bearings. Then embarrassment moved across her face.
"Oh God. I'm so sorry. I didn't eat breakfast this morning and I was up way too late going over Tony's setup notes. I just..."
She pressed a hand to her forehead.
"I don't usually do that."
"It's fine," Jace said, a little too fast. "Totally fine. Happens to people. Road fatigue. Low blood sugar. Totally normal."
"Totally," Ricky echoed from the windowsill, his voice carefully neutral.
Samantha straightened in the chair, smoothing her hair back with the practiced composure of someone who refused to let a fainting spell define a first impression.
"Okay. Where were we? You must be Jace."
"Yeah," Jace said. He realized he was still touching her hair and pulled his hand back. "Yeah, I'm Jace. Sorry I was late."
"It's fine. Tony told me a lot about you."
"Good things, I hope."
"He said you're the best drummer he's ever worked with and that if I change anything about your kit without asking, he'll find a way to haunt me from a hospital bed in Dallas."
Jace almost smiled.
"Yeah. That's Tony."
He sat down across from her and began asking questions: her background, her experience, her approach to kit maintenance, her availability, her willingness to tour long-term. His voice was steady. His questions were professional. His hands, clasped between his knees, were shaking.
Ricky leaned over to Erik and whispered, barely audible, "Did you see his face when he looked at her?"
Erik whispered back, "Yeah."
"He's done for."
"Completely."
Samantha answered every question with the same easy competence she'd shown before the interruption. She was sharp, direct, funny when the moment allowed it, and entirely unintimidated by five men studying her with an intensity that would have rattled most people. When Jace asked if she had any concerns about the position, she said, "Just one. Tony said your kit is sacred. I need to know your preferences down to the millimeter before I touch anything."
"We'll go over it together," Jace said. "Every piece."
"Good." She extended her hand. "Then I'm in."
Jace shook it. The contact lasted a beat longer than necessary. Neither of them mentioned it.
After Samantha left to check into her hotel, the room detonated.
"Okay," Connor said immediately. "We need to talk about what just happened."
"I lost control," Jace said flatly. "I know."
"You didn't just lose control," Nathan said. "You had a vision. A full-spectrum prophetic vision. Through the Guardian Amulet."
"I saw it," Connor confirmed. "All of it. Jace, that wasn't a possibility. That was a certainty. The amulet doesn't show maybes."
Jace stared at the floor. "She's my drum tech."
"She's more than that," Connor said quietly. "And you know it."
"She just got here. She doesn't know anything about us. About Aelin. About any of this." Jace's voice was tight. "And I just knocked her unconscious within thirty seconds of meeting her. She's twenty years old."
"To be fair," Ricky offered, "you knocked Celia unconscious too, and that relationship lasted..." He stopped at the look on Jace's face. "Right. Not the time. Sorry."
Erik, who had been quiet through all of it, stood and put a hand on Jace's shoulder. "You didn't choose this. The amulet showed you what it showed you. What you do with it is up to you."
"What I do with it," Jace said, "is nothing. She's my drum tech. That's all she needs to be right now."
John Kavanaugh, who had been leaning against the wall taking all of it in, cleared his throat.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I've been managing this band long enough to have felt a few things I couldn't explain. What came off you just now, Jace..."
He paused, steady and plain about it.
"That wasn't nothing. That was the furthest thing from nothing I've ever felt in this room."
Nobody argued with him.
Across the room, Connor stood at the window with his arms crossed, looking out at nothing, and kept what he knew to himself.
Nathan caught his eye. The glance they exchanged said, very clearly, Give it a week.
It took three days.