All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (9 page)

“
Don’t
go in the water.”

I returned my foot
to dry land and shook my head as I dragged myself from her touch
before all the blood left my brain. I blinked a few times to clear
the mud from my thoughts.

“
Why
not? I thought you said to go to the city.”

“
We
do, but you can’t touch the water of the River Styx.”

I stared at her for
a moment, looked at the stream, then back at her, trying not to
laugh—I didn’t know if doing so would hurt her
feelings—but couldn’t stop myself.

“
The
River Styx. Really? Disappointing.”

She raised an
eyebrow.

“
I
expected something bigger, a bit more...torrential.”

I gazed back at the
over-sized creek, searching the flowing water for signs of damned
souls sliding by under its surface, eyes blank, mouths open in
eternal screams. Think I saw one of those ornamental Japanese
goldfish—koi. Big, but I didn’t notice any teeth.

“
How
do we get to the other side?”

She looked left,
then right. “I suppose we have to find the ferryman.”

The
second the word cleared her lips, a solitary puff of fog appeared on
the far bank. It roiled and moved in place for a minute, then struck
out across the creek, misty tendrils trailing behind. A minute and a
half later, it reached us. The fog cleared to reveal a flat-bottomed
raft bearing a stooped old man with long pole in hand. A black patch
covered one of his eyes, the other bulged and stared beside his hook
nose; long, stringy hair hung past his shoulders. He looked enough
like Marty Feldman’s rendition of Igor in
Young
Frankenstein
that
I expected Mel Brooks to shout: ‘Action!’.

Piper took a step
toward the boat but I caught her by the sleeve of her shirt,
stopping her.

“
Whatever
you do, don’t pay him 'til we get to the other side.”

She looked at me
like she thought she’d been wrong about the brain damage.

“
Come
on...Chris de Burgh. ‘Don’t pay the Ferryman’. You
must know it.”

She shook her head.

“‘
The
Lady in Red’? ‘Spanish Train’? ‘Patricia the
Stripper’?”

A blank stare.

“
You
guys need better tunes up in Heaven.”

Nothing worse than
funny references your audience doesn’t understand. It felt
like I was talking to my ex-wife—she never appreciated classic
rock humor, either.

“
Are
you done?”

I paused a second
before nodding. She stepped onto the raft, making it rock gently; I
hesitated but followed. The bent ferryman stared at us with his one
eye but didn’t push off. I looked at him expectantly—this
was his job, he should know what to do—then turned my gaze on
Piper, who was staring across the stream toward the city. I sidled
up beside her.

“
What
are we supposed to do now?” I asked out of the corner of my
mouth, one eye on the ferryman.

“
You
can’t wait until the other side to pay him, no matter what
this de Burgh fellow told you.”

Her mouth crinkled
up in a smirk and I almost laughed aloud, but the urge dissipated
quickly as the man’s unblinking eye bore into me. He extended
his hand. I patted my pockets and found them as empty as when I’d
set out to feed the ducks.

Shouldn’t
have left all my change to tip the barkeep.

“
Pay
him what?”

“
I
don’t know, I’m an angel. Ask him.”

I took a hesitant
step toward him. The wrinkles in his cheeks and forehead were deep
enough to be crags; I thought, if I looked close enough, I’d
find tiny mountaineers scaling them. I didn’t want to look
that close.

“
Excuse
me, sir. We need to reach the other bank.”

He stared at me,
mouth pulled down in a scowl. I swallowed the lump forming in my
throat and rephrased the question, not liking how this was
proceeding. I gestured across the stream.

“
What
will it cost to get there?”

His palm up,
expectant hand turned, the exaggerated knuckles folding all but one
of his twig-like fingers back until his hand quaked in my direction.
The lump returned to my throat.

“
Me?”

He nodded. I backed
away a step and whispered to Piper.

“
Ah,
a little help here?”

I didn’t look
at her—didn't want to take my eye off the wizened man—but
felt her gaze. Its effect didn’t match her touch, but it
brought goose bumps to my neck and courage I wouldn’t have
found on my own.

“
Give
him what he wants.”

I didn’t want
to look away from the ferryman for fear it would be the last thing I
ever did, so I clenched my teeth instead of giving her the
disbelieving look her statement deserved.

I raised my hand
tentatively toward him. Our hands drew closer and I felt an
uncomfortable warmth radiating from his flesh. Then, with enough
speed to make a mongoose jealous, his fingers encircled my wrist.

As soon as his
flesh touched mine, I saw it wasn’t really a man stooped in
front of me, but a wolf-shaped beast—the huge, misshapen
werewolf from ‘An American Werewolf in London’ come to
life. Terror froze me. The wolf-beast jerked me toward him and
lurched forward; its jaws found my shoulder, fangs dug into muscle.
I screamed.

The thing shook its
head once, rending my flesh. It reared back, a chunk of me in its
teeth, my blood running between its jaws. A wave of nausea overtook
me, spinning my head, dizzying me. I stumbled away and the beast
released its hold on my wrist. My feet tangled and my tail bone
struck the raft’s deck hard enough to click my teeth together.
A second later, Piper knelt beside me.

“
Are
you alright?”

My lips moved but
no sound emerged. I registered the concern in her eyes, then
returned my gaze to the man-wolf.

Gone.

The stooped
ferryman stood at the back of the raft working his pole as he guided
us across the stream. I jerked my head around expecting to find the
beast behind me, but the raft held only the three of us.

“
Did
you see what happened?” I asked, breathless.

“
Yes.
You asked him what it would cost to cross, shook his hand, then you
stumbled. Did you hurt yourself?”

I shook my head and
brought my hand up to the shoulder where the beast took a chunk out
of me. No pain. When I looked at my fingers, they were free of
blood.

What the fuck?

“
You
didn’t see it?”

Piper shrugged.
“See what?”

I opened my mouth
to tell her about the wolf-thing, its bite, but the instant my lips
moved, my cheeks burned with embarrassment.

I
must have imagined it
.

I couldn’t
admit to this beautiful woman—angel—that a mirage made
me panic.

“
Nothing.
Never mind.”

She offered her
hand to help me up off my ass but I chose again to do it without the
aid of her skin against mine. I climbed to my feet, head feeling
like the Hindenburg—lighter than air but about to explode.

“
Are
you sure you’re alright?”

I nodded, then
promptly vomited over the side of the raft. A group of huge goldfish
like the one I’d seen earlier gathered and made a meal of my
spew. The sight made me gag again but I retained the rest of the
contents of my stomach and stood on unsteady legs.

The ferryman stared
straight ahead, his one bulging eye fixed on his goal of the other
shore. Over his shoulder I saw the bank we’d left receding.

Good.

I wanted to get off
this raft as quickly as possible, leave the man with his craggy face
and long pole behind. And whatever-the-hell-it-was that bit me.
Pivoting on my heel, I faced Piper. An amused smirk had usurped her
expression. I wanted to tell her how it’s not polite to laugh
at the folly of others, but the far bank caught my eye.

It was no closer.

“
What
the...?”

I spun back toward
the spot we’d left, saw it was farther away, then looked back
to our destination which looked the same distance as before.

“
What’s
going on, Piper?”

She shrugged. “It’s
Hell,” she said, unconcerned. “We’ll get there
eventually.”

I slouched down
onto the deck of the raft, sitting cross-legged—what Trevor’s
kindergarten teacher called criss-cross applesauce—and
breathed deep, attempting to quell my shaking hands.

An hour later, I’d
shifted position a few dozen times—criss-cross applesauce is
fine for kids but gets uncomfortable quickly when you’re in
your fourth decade. A warm wind rose from the direction of our goal,
which was no closer; waves lapped the side of the raft. I peered
into the water and saw the school of giant goldfish swimming
alongside, their tails working but getting them no further ahead
than us. Piper sat at the front like a monk deep in meditation. I
stared a few seconds at her dark hair hanging to the middle of her
back, at the smooth whiteness of the flesh of her arms, then finally
at the distant city, still as far away as when we began the trip
across the river Styx.

“
Enough,”
I said.

I climbed to my
feet, knees aching, and approached the ferryman. He remained fixed
on our destination, so I stepped into his line of sight but stayed
far enough away he couldn’t reach me.

“
What’s
going on here? You got the payment you wanted, when will we get to
the other side?”