"Probably not in the budget," he answered. "Believe me, I've had enough reasons to check during other tours."

"You can't sweet-talk Gavin into lending you some?" I asked, looking across the parking lot at the guitar player for Blistering Twilight, the headlining band for our tour.

He shook his head. "Even if I could and we did kidnap them, we wouldn't be able to get their absence past Stan. That man runs a tight ship. Well, he does before he gets so aggravated with someone that he threatens to throw them off a moving bus. You have to let him, musician egos, and a lot of Jack Daniels run their course naturally."

"If we wanted to badly enough, and I really do, there would have to be a way to get it past him," I protested. "Nothing is impossible. Right?" I realized I was getting dangerously close to whining, but there wasn't a lot of time left. Soon I would be held captive in a tour bus chain gang prison, with no chance for parole. With David and Cady as my fellow inmates, I had serious doubts about any good behavior.

Bailey smiled. "Sorry, Maddy, but many have tried. Many have also been grabbed by the scruff of their neck or other unmentionable areas, dragged to the bus door, and come mighty close to becoming roadside ditch vegetation, on more than one occasion. There was also this one incident involving a singer with a serious case of lead singer disorder, a dumpster, mysteriously disappearing clothing, duct tape, a razor, the words 'Stan is my deity, I am a scum sucker,' and a rather memorable encounter with the locals. No one in the industry heard from him again after that night, and all anyone has seen of him since was his hair, shaved off of his head at the scene."

"That's an urban legend!" I exclaimed, laughing against my will for the first time that entire day.

"It's not," he replied. "Stan and his exploits could be the basis for an entire compilation of so-called urban legends that are actually true. I've been witness to several."

"If we could somehow make them the target of Stan's fury..." I mused, lost in wistful thought about how to make that happen.

"See? Now you're thinking and working with what we've got," Bailey grinned. "So cheer up. They've got the attitude already, now fantasize about the exact moment one of them pulls a signature smooth move over the next three weeks. Once it happens, problem solved. I've seen bands pack it in entirely after Stan was through with them."

Hearing his name, Stan took a momentary breather from his latest tirade to raise an eyebrow in our direction.

"I'm just praising your fine work, Stan," Bailey called out, as we walked over to him. "By the way, your J.D. shelf is stocked, ice is in the freezer, and there's a highball in the cupboard with your name emblazoned in gold."

"Excellent, my man. Excellent." He clapped Bailey on the back. Half a second later a string of curses came tumbling out of his mouth, directed at the unfortunate soul he currently had on the phone, who apparently hadn't told him what he wanted to hear. It was an impressive lesson in the profane, and our cue to high-tail it somewhere else. With his arm still around my shoulders, Bailey steered me in the opposite direction, right onto somebody's foot.

The foot was encased in a scuffed, black leather boot. With a sinking feeling of shipwreck proportions, I realized that I recognized that boot. Slowly, I looked up to face the person wearing it. David.

A torrent of thoughts that would have made Stan proud ran through my mind, as I surveyed the man in front of me. What I wanted to say and what I could politely say waged a battle inside of me, until the desire for my continued employment won out.

I fixed David with a steely glare. "You're late."

He matched my icy look with one of his own. "The buses haven't gone anywhere yet."

No, but if I'd had my way, one of them would have been making bowling pins out of him and Cady just then.

"Well, I can't win 'em all," I muttered.

"Good to see you too, Madison."

"Where's Cady?" I sighed, noting the conspicuous absence of the appendage that was usually all but surgically attached to him. "We have to board the buses in a few minutes."

"Call off the dogs, chica, I'm right here," Cady called from behind me. Hearing her voice produced the same entirely grating effect as a room full of tone-deaf fifth graders learning to use those godawful plastic recorders. Then again, she had the ability to make me feel that way without even speaking.

She came to stand beside David, and linked her arm with his. "I didn't know you were my baby-sitter," she said to me.

"That's one word for it," I mumbled under my breath. I felt Bailey give my shoulder a squeeze, reminding me to remain calm. Pretend she doesn't irritate you, I told myself. Pretend that her obnoxious blonde, red and brown-streaked spiky hair doesn't make you want to yell "Pick a colour, already!" Pretend that her eyes don't make you want to gouge them out of their sockets. Pretend that even the very atoms that make up her existence don't aggravate you to no foreseeable end. Deep breaths.

"Do you have an itinerary?" I asked them.

"Yes, mother." Cady waved a bundle of papers in the air.

"Do you have any questions, then?" I prompted.

Cady thrust a page in front of me, and pointed to a line halfway down the page. 2 p.m.: Madison and Cady, 89 ROCK interview.

"What does that mean?" she demanded.

"You're 30 years old, you should be literate enough to figure it out," I replied casually, not quite wanting to acknowledge the time we'd be spending together, myself.

She glowered. "I'm 24, according to my press kit," she hissed. "You're my publicist, so I certainly hope you'll remember that."

Ah, the miracle of rock years. I sometimes wondered if the person who came up with that concept was vying for a younger audience appeal by shaving the years off of a rock star's age, or if it was really a damage control strategy to compensate for how old some of them actually behaved. Thirty-year-old Cady had been transformed into a fresh-faced 24-year-old through the miraculous fountain of youth that was the bald-faced lying public relations machine, otherwise known as my job. I knew that, all right, because I'd helped to fabricate that particular piece of fiction. I'd also suspected that reminding Cady of just how much I knew about her would grate on her nerves. One point, me.

"Don't worry your pretty little head over that," I assured her, with latent sarcasm. "I made you that age. Unlike some of us here, I'm on this tour because of my abilities, not because of my relatives."

Nerve hit. "Go to hell," she snapped.

"Sister, I'm already there." We glared at each other, until Cady turned on her heel and stalked away, David in tow.

"And let the games begin," Bailey chuckled, as he turned and headed up the stairs of the bus we'd been standing beside.

I slumped backwards against the vibrating metal, closing my eyes and wishing to God that I was anywhere but here. It occurred to me in passing that hell on wheels would be a fitting name for this tour. We hadn't even hit the road yet and already it had begun. As I tried unsuccessfully to force my blood pressure down, I felt the flame of defiance start to flicker within me. It was a welcome feeling, because I was going to need every ounce of strength I could muster to get me through what was shaping up to become a three-week-long grudge match.

There was no way I would let them win this time. This wasn't San Jose anymore. This was my home turf now and I would defend it, my new life and my continued happiness to the death, or at least to an all-out showdown. They would be the ones to break, to be sent packing back to where they'd come from and what I'd left behind. With fresh resolve, I climbed the stairs and stepped onto the bus, taking a long look at the bus in line behind me as David and Cady disappeared inside.

We were on the road. The road to hell.

Take a number, Beelzebub.