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and soul beneath that prickly veneer, and now my dear Noelle was recovering in a mental hospital somewhere in California while I was jet-setting with her replacement.
    It just wasn’t fucking fair. I shouldn’t have been the one to walk away.
    “Sage,” Jacob was trying to get my attention. I blinked a few times and realized that Tricky and Angeline had introduced themselves to each other, his dark hand grasping her pale one firmly, her gazing at him coyly, eyelashes practically batting. There was something so mistrustful in her eyes, but deceit was easy to come by in an industry where you could fuck your way to fame. For all I knew—for all I figured—Angeline had a job to do in more ways than one.
    I looked to Jacob and was immediately met with disapproval. He’d been watching me, the way that a heron watches a fish, waiting with infinite impatience for me to realize I’d done something wrong. Maybe in his weird, quasi-supernatural way, Jacob could see where my thoughts were. Or maybe he read the self-loathing on my face. Either way, he didn’t approve.
    “Yeah?” I replied as Tricky deftly reached down to the carousel and plucked my newfound bag from it like a sack of feathers. Jacob took it from him and placed it in the luggage cart before shooting me a quick look.
    “Angeline was wondering if she can take us all out for dinner,” Jacob went on. I looked to her, and under the harshness of the airport lights, I had the distinct impression that every expression that came across her pretty face was all precalculated. A queer feeling to have but nothing new for me.
    “That’s fine,” I said, though dinner was the farthest thing from my mind. I just really wanted to crawl into my bed at the hotel, go to sleep, and not wake up until this whole thing was over.
    Fucking brilliant frame of mind to be in. First solo tour—in Europe —and I was more interested in sleeping.
    “Sage, man,” Tricky said, slapping me hard on the back, “try to show some enthusiasm for the beautiful lady here.”
    I turned my head away from them before rolling my eyes. I was sure that Tricky would show her enough enthusiasm for both of us later on.
    “Well, now that you have your luggage and your ride, Paris awaits,” Angeline said, flicking her wrist toward the doors leading out of the airport.
    We followed her sharp little Marilyn Monroe walk out into the pick-up area, where a ton of funny-looking cabs and giant black Town Cars were all vying for space, honking like their lives depended on it. Even though the sky was a heavy, even grey, I pulled my shades down. I just wanted to protect my eyes and shield off the creeping headache that I could feel coming on, but maybe instinctually I knew shit was about to go down.
    I was bombarded with bodies.
    Jacob, Tricky, and I were halfway to a white limousine that Angeline was standing triumphantly beside when people surrounded me from all sides and started rushing me. I could barely get a glimpse of the individual faces within the crowd—mostly males in their teens and early twenties with some hardcore females thrown in there—all of them yelling “Sage” in a French accent, along with a bunch of other shit I couldn’t understand. They waved the album cover of Sage Wisdom at me, along with their pens and markers. Some had T-shirts. A few had Hybrid merchandise. I tried not to look at those pieces.
    “Everyone step back!” Jacob boomed, pushing me behind him. I was taller than my manager and in better shape, but Jacob had a way of making people listen to him. Before I learned he used to be immortal, I chalked it up to his fists and a pocketknife. Now I had to wonder if he didn’t have trace residues of Hoodoo in him.
    The crowd backed up reluctantly, but they didn’t shut up and they didn’t stop waving their stuff at me. I knew I should have felt flattered by all of this, but I was just overwhelmed and shaken to the core. All these people were here to see me…they met me at the