Soon, I thought, still listening. The music had me humming, venturing into the spaces Pearl had left open, finding lines to twist and turn. She was right—it was New Sound-ish, like all those indie bands we’d loved last spring. But less frantic, as smooth as water. My whole body wanted to jump into this music.

But when my lips first parted, only random curses spilled out, verses from the earliest, most unreadable scrawl in the notebooks under my bed. Then they sputtered to a halt, like the fading geyser from a shaken beer bottle, and I gradually gained control. I began to murmur a jagged, wordless song across the music.

For a few moments it was beautiful, a savage version of my old self, though with new spells in it. The sound of my own singing made the beast inside me burn, but clever Pearl had cheated it for a few moments: I could only hear myself with one ear. The other was filled with the riff, a dense and splendid protection.

But soon enough the sickness closed my throat, the song choking to a stop. I looked at Pearl, to see if I’d imagined it. Her eyes, inches from mine, glowed like her music player’s screen.

Catching my breath, I concentrated on the riff again, listening. She was right: They were way outside the System, this oddball pair of guitarists. They had pulled something out of me, slipped it right past the beast.

“Where did you find them?”

“Sixth Street. Totally random.”

“Hmm. The one who can really play, he sounds…” I swallowed.

“Yeah,” Pearl said. “He’s lateral and raw, like I always wanted Nervous System to be. No lessons, or at least not many, and no theory classes. He fills up whatever space you give him. Almost out of control, but like you said, controllable. He’s the Taj Mahal of random guitarists.”

I smiled. All those things were true, but I hadn’t been thinking them.

To me, he sounded more like… yummy.

PART II

AUDITIONS

The Plague of Justinian was the first time the Black Death appeared.

Fifteen hundred years ago, the emperor Justinian had just embarked on his greatest work: the rebuilding of the Roman Empire. He wanted to reunite its two halves and place the known world under Roman rule once more.

But as his vast war began, the Black Death came. It swept across the eastern Mediterranean, leaving millions dead in its wake. Thousands died daily in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, and Justinian was forced to watch his dreams crumble.

Oddly, historians aren’t certain what the Black Death was. Bubonic plague? Typhus? Something else? A few historians suggest that it was a random assortment of diseases brought on by one overriding factor: an explosion of the rat population fostered by the Roman army’s vast stores of grain.

That’s close, but not quite.

Whatever caused it, the Black Death’s effects were clear. The Roman Empire slipped into history at last. Much of the mathematics, literature, and science of the ancients was lost. A dark age descended on Europe.

Or, as we said back then, “Humanity lost that round.”

NIGHT MAYOR TAPES:

142–146

7. STRAY CATS

— ZAHLER-

My dogs were acting paranormal that day, all edgy and anxious.

The first bunch seemed fine when I picked them up. In the air-conditioned lobby of their fancy Hell’s Kitchen building, they were full of energy, eager to be walked. Ernesto, the doorman, handed over the four leashes and an envelope stuffed with cash, my pay for that week. And then—like every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—I headed one block uptown to pick up three more.

I got the idea of being a dog walker from an old trick of mine. Whenever I was totally bummed, I’d go over to the Tompkins Square Park dog run—a big open space that’s just for dogs and owners—and watch them jumping on one another, sniffing butts and chasing balls. Huge dogs and tiny ones, graceful retrievers and spastic poodles were all jumbled together and all fawesomely ecstatic to get out of their tiny, lonely New York apartments and into a chase, a growling match, or a mad dash to nowhere in particular. No matter how depressed I was, the sight of scrappy puppies facing off with German shepherds always made me feel much better. So why not be paid to get cheered up?

You don’t make much per dog per hour, but if you can handle six or seven at a time, it starts to add up. Most times it’s easy money.

Sometimes it’s not.

Straight out the door, the heat and stink seemed to get to them. The two Doberman brothers who usually kept order were nipping at each other, and the schnauzer and bull terrier were acting all paranoid, zigzagging every time a car door slammed, too jittery even to sniff at piles of garbage. As we battled down the street, their leashes kept tangling, like long hair on a breezy day.

Things only got worse when I picked up the second pack. The doorman realized that the owner of the insanely huge mastiff had forgotten to leave money for me and buzzed up to ask her about it. While I waited, the two packs started tangling with each other, nipping and jumping, their barking echoing off the marble walls and floor of the lobby.

I tried to unwind them and restore order, one nervous eyeball on the elevator. It would be totally unfool for my customers to see their dogs brawling when they were supposed to be getting exercise. So when nobody answered the doorman’s buzzing, I didn’t stick around to complain, just hauled them out of there and back into the heat.

I was already wishing I hadn’t been in such a hurry to show Moz our possible drummer. A trip to the anarchy of Times Square was exactly what my unruly dog pack didn’t need.

Here’s what I’ve learned about dogs:

They’re a lot like pretty girls. Having one or two around makes everything more fun, but when you get a whole bunch together, it turns into one big power struggle. Every time you add or subtract from the pack, everything gets rearranged. The top dog might wind up number two or fall all the way to the bottom. As I watched the Doberman brothers trying to stare down the mastiff, I was starting to wonder if being in a band was pretty much the same thing—more Nature Channel than MTV.

And really, all the jostling was a big waste of time, because Pearl was clearly the right girl to run things.

Don’t get me wrong, the Mosquito was my oldest and best friend. I would never have picked up a guitar if it hadn’t been for him, and he was the fawesomest musician I’d ever seen. But Moz wasn’t cut out to be in charge. Of anything. He’d never held on to even the crappiest job, because any kind of organized activity—waiting in line, filling out forms, showing up on time—made him all buzzy. There was no way he could keep five or six unruly musicians on their leashes and pull them all in the same direction.

As for me, I thought the little dogs had the right attitude. The schnauzer didn’t really care whether the mastiff or the Dobermans took charge: he just wanted to sniff some butt and get on with the walk.

He just wanted the struggle to be over.

Today, though, nobody was in control—certainly not me. The seven leashes in my hand didn’t mean squat. Each time we got to an intersection, I’d try to pull us toward Times Square, but the pack kept freaking out about every stray scent, surging off in random directions. I’d let them wander a bit until they got it out of their system, then pull them back toward the way I wanted us to go. We weren’t going to set any crosstown speed records, but at least there was plenty of time before we were supposed to meet Moz, who, like I just mentioned, was probably going to be late anyway.