Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Savage, “I think you’re a raving lunatic.”
    He handed me the Cask. “Take it. Keep it with you during your performance. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.”
    I took it and frowned. It was light and cold. “It’s not going to... .” I waved it as if making a rabbit appear out of a top hat. “I don’t know—make my legs disappear, or something. Is it?”
    He laughed.
    I wanted a reason to get rid of the thing. “I don’t want to break it. I get pretty crazy when I’m playing.”
    “It’s not nearly as fragile as it looks. Put it in your pocket. It’ll get heavy. And warm. At intermission we’ll swap the wooden part out. Meet me in the bathroom just off stage.”
    The knocking at the door became a pounding.
    “Richie!” Mom screeched. “Get out here this instant!”
    I got to my feet, still holding the Cask, just a little weirded out.
    “Go on, son,” he said. “Just drop it into your pocket.”
    What did I have to lose? Nothing, as far as I could tell. Besides, this was Nick Savage. I’d finally met another rock star. Despite his weirdness, it felt like a victory. A significant one.
    Nodding, I shrugged and dropped the Cask into the front pocket of my True Religion jeans. Personally, I thought the jeans were about like any other pair, but the execs at my record label said I should wear expensive pants. You know, for my image. My T-shirt, though, was a simple orange thing from American Eagle.
    I headed for the door. I certainly didn’t want Mom and the show manager breaking in and seeing Nick.
    “I got to go.”
    “I’ll wait in the bathroom,” Nick said. “Whatever you do, don’t let anyone see that Cask.”
    I stopped at the door. From outside, somewhere, the crowd cheered. My heart began to pound.
    Nick Savage was in my dressing room. He’d apparently appeared out of nowhere. He seemed perfectly insane.
    I was ignoring the red flags going off in my head.
    It was all too awesome to believe.
    I exited the dressing room, well on my way to making the biggest mistake of my life.

Chapter 6: Safe from what?
I can always sense when Richie is up to no good. I can’t always prove it, but I can sense it a mile away.
-Elizabeth Van Bender
    As we walked to the stage, I endured quite a lecture from Mom and the show manager. But I kept silent. When we reached the side of the stage, the manager peeled away, and Mom turned to me, her face solemn in the dimness. Beyond the curtain, the crowd chanted my name. My band mates waited under spotlights. The curtain was down.
    “Richie,” she said. Her voice trailed off as she looked at me with concern. Her expression raised my fears that she wanted to cancel the concert.
    I tried to move past her. But she grabbed my shoulders.
    “I thought you wanted me on stage,” I said.
    She shook her head. “You’re getting older.”
    “Aren’t we all? Do you know something I don’t?”
    A sad smile touched the corner of her mouth. I’d seen that expression a hundred times back during the cancer. She’d always looked at me like that when trying to put on a brave face, when I was sicker than a dog on a Tilt-A-Whirl. She’d done so much for me back then. The effects lingered. I couldn’t question her good intentions on my behalf.
    “I wish,” she said, “you understood. The world is scary. I’m afraid for you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
    That’s the kind of thing kids are obligated to roll their eyes at.
    “Have fun out there,” she said. “Don’t do anything rash.”
    “Mom, I haven’t done anything rash since I was in diapers.”
    Except, maybe, that the Cask already sat in my pocket.
    As if on impulse, she pulled a silver chain from around her neck and over her head. She reached to place it around my neck, and I let her.
    She always wore the simple necklace with a silver pendant of a stick figure standing inside a circle, arms stretched to the side. A little diamond was stuck into it, where the stick head met the stick body. It was warm