I am working on Dead to Rites, the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo, which is much longer than I’d expected it to be, but I have finally reached the rock concert, a scene I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.
Amidst the roars of the crowd, the keyboardist started in, and the other instruments soon followed. After several opening licks, Vanessa, with a voice rough and raw and passionate, started singing.
The crowd jumped and shouted and waved. Jake couldn’t make out most of the words, but when Vanessa reached the refrain, she roared out:
“Beaten, battered, bruised, and torn, and stabbed with a million knives! But we’re still alive!”
All around the stadium, people, Dana included, pumped their fists in the air and shouted, “We’re still alive! We’re still alive! We’re still alive!”
“Let me hear you, Urbanopolis!” Vanessa called. “We’ve had a hard couple of weeks, haven’t we? But they can’t keep us down! All the forces of evil in the whole darn universe can’t keep us down! Shout it loud! Shout it proud! Shout it so the Moon Princess can hear you! Let her know that her children are still alive!”
“We’re still alive!” the crowd cried. “We’re still alive!”
The lead guitarist stopped playing and tossed his guitar into the air. With a high leap, Vanessa caught it, landed back on the stage, and moved into a squealing guitar solo. “Keep it going!” she shouted.
“We’re still alive!” the audience chanted. “We’re still alive!”
In spite of himself, Jake swayed back and forth to the deafening, punishing music. Dana had her feet on the lowest rung of the railing and was leaning precariously over the side, pumping a fist and banging her head. Her wild, unkempt red hair flew about her face like raging flames. Overhead, the moon shone brightly, and a few stars twinkled.
Then Jake understood. Slowly, he raised a fist. The humans had been through some tough battles in the last few days, and it was true that everything in the cosmos and beyond was out to kill them—but they kept going. They suffered, and they bled, but they always gave better than they got: Innumerable alien races had set upon the Earth to wipe the humans out, but most of those races were now dead, and humanity lived on. They survived. And tonight, in the music of Metal Huntress Vanessa Van Halensing, humanity was letting it be known: They were cutting loose with a rebel yell and lifting a middle finger to the universe.
“We’re still alive!” Jake shouted. “We’re still alive!”