Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel (28 page)

“You don’t have time.”

I fumbled for my phone.
 
My fingers shook as I scrolled through my recent contacts.
 
I found the number Sharon had called from and I hit call.
 
They say timing is everything.
 
Perhaps if I’d told Persephone to be here at 3:50, Sharon would be stepping through and all would be OK.
 
Perhaps if I’d left the summoner out of the equation and just handed Sharon over, all would be OK.

The call failed.

“Shit.”

I tried again.
 
I had full signal, but the call would not go through.

“Let me try a text.”

Kelly and Brand still hung in the air, and Persephone’s face took on a reddish tint.
 
I was running out of time.

I sent the text
PLEASE COME NOW - J.
 
The top bar read,
sending,
but it wouldn’t go.

I didn’t know if it was a case of magic blocking the technology or more likely that Sharon was in another dimension and the calls and texts couldn’t get through.

The text failed.

“She’ll be here,” I said.

“I’m tired of waiting.”
 
She snapped her fingers and Brand’s body exploded in a shower of blood, flesh, and shattered bone fragments.

“No!” I shouted.
 
I stared at the mess on the bridge for a moment then looked at Persephone.
 
“Please, you don’t have to do this.”

“You have no idea what I’ve gone through,” Persephone said.
 
“I’ve been waiting for Charon to return.
 
How could he have left me?
 
My existence means nothing without him and you, a mere human, think it’s funny to rub my face in it?”

“That’s not what I was doing,” I said.

“Jonathan Shade, you actually hurt me.
 
I’m not going to kill you.
 
I want you to know that.
 
You’ll wish that I had, though.
 
You’ll remember that if you’d simply been a decent person, you could have avoided the pain and the loss.
 
Say good-bye to your friend Kelly.”

“No, don’t!” I said.

Persephone grinned but there was no humor there.
 
The grin was one of anger and vengeance and retaliation.

I couldn’t just stand here and do nothing.
 
Direct magic does not affect me.
 
Her force field wouldn’t stop me.
 
I had to save Kelly.

I raced forward and leaped at Persephone.

She didn’t expect an attack.

I crashed into her and took her to the deck.
 
We slid through Brand’s blood and guts.
 
I punched Persephone in the nose, then in the jaw, then in the throat.

She laughed and tossed me away.
 
I crashed into the safety fence then hit the deck hard.
 
I scrambled to attack her again, but this time she was ready and she caught me by the throat.
 
She shoved me against the fence.
 
I pounded on her forearm and wrist but couldn’t break free.

She motioned with her other hand, and Kelly floated closer.

I know there are no gods.
 
There are beings people have mistaken for gods, but religion is a construct of man.
 
I wanted to believe in a god at that moment.
 
I wanted to pray for Sharon to show up and stop this.

“Tell your friend good-bye,” Persephone said.

I met Kelly’s gaze.
 
She couldn’t vocalize but she mouthed the words, “It’s OK.”

But it wasn’t OK.

I kicked and scratched and punched, but it was no use.

Persephone snapped her fingers.

Kelly exploded in a shower of blood, guts, and bones.
 
Gore slammed into my face and mouth as I screamed.

Persephone released me and I dropped to my knees in a puddle of blood.
 
Fragments of bone cut into my flesh.
 
I could feel scratches and cuts on my face, and I knew that some of the blood dripping from my body was mine, but most of it was Kelly’s.

“You had your chance, Jonathan Shade.
 
You squandered it and your stupidity cost your friends their lives.
 
My lover is gone, but like me, you have no one.
 
If I could grant you immortality, I would, just so you’d have to carry the events of this day forever.
 
Instead, you’ll eventually die.
 
But not today.
 
All of this”—she gestured at the gore that covered the bridge—“is your fault.”

She opened a rift and stepped through, leaving me alone in the bloody remains of my friends.

I cried out but no one came near.
 
I let myself fall to the deck and lay there, blood and tears staining my cheeks.
 
It couldn’t possibly get worse.
 
After a time, I pushed myself to a sitting position with my back against the fence.
 
It was still hard to breathe.

I expected Sharon to step through a rift at any moment.
 
But I sat there alone.

I bowed my head.

I don’t know how long I sat there.

Eventually, a familiar voice said, “Jonathan?”

I looked up and saw Esther.
 
She was staring at the mess.

“Oh my God,” she said.
 
“You...Are you...?”

“I’m alive,” I said, and my voice sounded like it came from a faraway tunnel.

“Where are Kelly, Brand, and Darla?”

I couldn’t speak the words, so I just gestured at the blood that dripped through the planks of the deck and dropped 1,053 feet to the Arkansas River.

“Oh, no,” Esther said.
 
“What did you do?”

I cleared my throat, still tasting blood in my mouth.
 
When I spoke, my voice was soft as the whisper of a forgotten spirit.
 
“I got them killed.”

She stared at me as if I’d betrayed her.
 
“No!”
 
She spun in a circle.
 
“No no
no
no
no
.”

Then she popped away.

I wondered if I’d ever see her again.

I didn’t have the energy to rise.

The sun was low now, and the sky grew dark.
 
I stared up.

And then it hit me.

It was after four.

I looked around and found my phone.
 
I wiped blood and flesh from the screen and pressed the button to light up the time: 6:17.

When I thought it couldn’t get worse, I was wrong.

I dropped the phone.

Sharon never showed up.

I bowed my head, surprised I could even draw breath.

She never arrived.

She had abandoned me.

I

was

alone.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I don’t remember how I got home.

The hours following the massacre were a blur at best.
 
I half recall getting into Kelly’s SUV, thinking life would never be the same.
 
I knew I was in shock.
 
Somehow I managed to get back to I-25, and I made the drive to Denver.
 
I parked at my apartment and glanced at the clock on the dashboard radio before I shut off the engine: 8:59 p.m.

In a daze, I walked to my apartment.

A white sheet of paper was taped to the door.
 
The wind made it flap about, and the fluttering sounded like a tattered wanted poster in a movie ghost town.
 
The temperature had dropped into the twenties, but I didn’t feel it.

I flattened the note against the door and read the words in the soft light from the exterior fixture.
 
It took a moment for the words to register in my brain.

The note read,
I’m sure you’ve seen the movie The Godfather.
 
—P.

My fingers were amazingly steady as I shoved the key into the lock and twisted.
 
I pushed the door open, stepped into my apartment, and clicked on the light.

At first, it seemed normal, but then I noticed Miranda’s purse perched on the arm of the sofa.

Why was her purse here?

I moved down the hall to the bedroom and turned on the light.

Mostly what I saw was red.

Red splashed on the walls, floor, ceiling, unmade bedsheets, and blankets.
 
Something sat on the pillow.
 
Blonde hair matted with brown and crimson.
 
The image took a moment to reach my brain.

Miranda’s head.

Just her head.

I blinked a few times.
 
I knew I should feel something, but my body was numb.
 
Was Persephone framing me for murder now on top of everything else?

“It’s about time you got here!”

I spun toward the voice behind me and saw the translucent image of Walter standing there.
 
He cast glances behind himself and tried not to look at what remained of Miranda.
 
I didn’t blame him.

Walter was my friend.

Why could I see through him?

“Walter?
 
Are you OK?”

“Fuck no, Shade.
 
I’m dead.”

“You’re a ghost?”

“Not exactly,” he said and took another glance over his shoulder then to the other side.
 
His eyes darted about as if he expected an attack.

My voice sounded hollow as I spoke.
 
“What happened?”

“You know those dark, shadowy creatures in the ether I mentioned?
 
The demons?
 
They’re after me.”

I barely remembered them.
 
I wondered if I was still on the bridge.
 
Was I dreaming?
 
I idly scratched an itch on my left hand, and flakes of Kelly’s blood fluttered to the carpet and stuck beneath my fingernails.
 
Nope.
 
Not a dream.

Walter leaned and twisted his shoulder a bit to show me what looked like a scratch, but I realized that it was like a negative image or something.
 
Where his spirit body was slashed, there was nothing.
 
The lines made by claws dragging through his spirit were like deep gouges with nothing there.

“They can touch me now, and it feels like they ripped out part of my soul.”

“Things in the ether?”

“They’re not far behind me.
 
I don’t have much time.”

“Time for what?”

“To let you know you got me killed.”

“What?”

“I was outside my body when I felt something pull at my spirit.
 
I didn’t know what it was, so I followed it and found myself back in my basement room.
 
Only where my body had been, there was just the nastiest blood-and-guts image you can imagine.
 
I moved through the wall and saw that Cynthia was blown to bits too.”

“My fault?”

“That’s the impression that came to me when I tried to follow the trail through the ether.
 
Then the demon things came at me, and I’ve been on the run ever since.
 
What happened?”

“Everyone died.”

“But how?”
 
He spun around and I saw shadowy figures flow through my wall.
 
The figures had long claws and malevolent smiles.
 
Their eyes were empty patches in the shadow.
 
Ten or twelve of them converged on Walter’s spirit.
 
He tried to run but they grabbed him and slashed at his body.

As their claws raked through his spirit, pieces of his soul tore free and disappeared in puffs of smoke.
 
They kept hacking and slashing until there was nothing left.

One of them darted toward me, and its face hovered inches from mine.
 
It raised a claw and tapped at my forehead, but I didn’t feel anything.
 
It tilted its head to the side, nodded to me, then dissipated, and the shadowy tendrils drifted out of sight like cigarette smoke swirling in the wind.

I considered how I felt.
 
I knew I was still in shock and that sometime soon I’d have to deal with what I’d seen and experienced.
 
I glanced back at Miranda’s face, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
 
If I’d been a normal man, I could have been happy with someone like her.

That was why Persephone gave me that night.
 
It could play as a gift if I’d been true to her, but now it was a curse because it was a bloody reminder of what could never be.

Walter was dead.

My fault.

Darla, someone I barely knew, but once again, if not for me, she’d be alive right now.

Brand.

Kelly.

I staggered into the living room and collapsed on the sofa.
 
When I landed, Miranda’s purse toppled to the floor, and the contents spilled out.
 
I stared at the keys, tissues, cash, and a roll of Mentos.
 
Normal things in a normal apartment.

But nothing was normal.

Not anymore.

I closed my eyes and hoped to die.

#

I woke to the sound of a car alarm in the parking lot.
 
It wailed for a time then chirped and went silent.
 
I sat up and my head pounded.
 
I still wore the same clothes from the day before.
 
I knew none of it was a dream because my coat was caked with dried blood.

I sat there and focused on breathing.

My phone rang.

I fumbled in my pocket and took it out.
 
The screen had blood and gunk smeared across its face.
 
The caller ID read
Mike Ender.
 
I answered.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Shade.
 
Mike Ender.
 
Are you at home?”

I nodded then realized he wouldn’t be able to see that.
 
I cleared my throat and said, “Yeah.”

“Stay there.”

The call ended and I dropped the phone on the sofa.
 
It wasn’t as if I had anywhere to go.

I got up and glanced in the bedroom to see that the mess remained along with Miranda’s head.
 
My eyesight seemed blurry, so I rubbed at my eyes and felt tears streaming over my filthy fingers.
 
I looked at the dried blood with smears of wetness on my hands.

I shrugged out of my coat and clothes and padded into the restroom.
 
I started the shower, cranked the water to steaming hot, and stood under it.
 
I watched the clear water crash against my skin and turn red as it spilled to the tub and swirled down the drain.

If only it could take me with it.

After a time, I got out, toweled myself dry, and put on clean clothes.
 
I went back into the bathroom, ran my hand across the steamy mirror, and stared at my reflection.
 
It looked like I was an automaton going through the motions of getting ready for work in the morning.

It occurred to me that I should let Patrick O’Malley know about Miranda’s death.
 
He could make sure the police came over and were respectful.
 
I wasn’t sure I wanted respect from them, but Miranda certainly deserved it.
 
My phone was still on the couch, but I looked all over before I found it.
 
I scrolled through my contact list, noting that most of the people there were already dead because they were foolish enough to call me friend.
 
Should I call them all to be certain they were among the dead?
 
I didn’t know if I could because every call would be another knife in my heart.

I called O’Malley.
 
The call went directly to voice mail.
 
That made no sense.
 
He always answered at this hour unless he was at a crime scene.
 
Maybe that was it.
 
I called back, got voice mail again, but didn’t know what to leave as a message, so I hung up and called the police station.

“Denver P.D.,” a woman’s voice said.

“Patrick O’Malley, please.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Detective O’Malley was murdered last night.
 
Is there someone else you’d like to speak with?”

“Murdered?”

A knock sounded on my door, and I dropped the phone.

I heard the dispatcher saying, “Sir?
 
Are you there?”

But I simply stared at the door.
 
Who could be here?
 
Who did I know who was still alive?

Another knock, louder.

I shook the cobwebs from my head and answered the door.

A man and woman stood there in business suits, and a large man in a leather trench coat and long hair stood behind them.
 
A Sekutar warrior, of course.
 
That meant they were from DGI.

“Jonathan Shade?”

I nodded, thinking the world seemed so surreal.
 
How could things keep going when Kelly and everyone I cared about no longer drew breath?

“May we come inside?”

I stepped back and let them in.

They looked at Miranda’s purse.
 
“You have company?”

“Not anymore,” I said.
 
“Who are you?”

“My name is Ralph Westin.
 
This is my associate Catherine Meyer.
 
We’re here to escort you to DGI for a hearing.”

“Excuse me?”

The woman stepped toward me.
 
“We have a seer on her way to the office, Mr. Shade.
 
You were with Darla Stevenson yesterday.
 
She never returned from her assignment with you.”