by Tom Abrahams
Eyes open again, she took two steps back from the map. She studied it. Tried to catalog its features. When she finished, she sighed.
“Thank you,” she said.
Le Grand looked puzzled. “For what?”
“Letting me see my home one last time.”
Before Le Grand could respond, a familiar booming voice cut through the noise of the stone building. It silenced the rest of the place, and everyone stopped eating. They turned to see the boisterous man who’d entered the space.
“There you are,” said Desmond Branch. “I’ve been looking for you two. Not surprised to find you where the food is, Le Grand.”
Nobody in the stone building touched their food. Nor did they speak. It was hard for Anaxi to tell if they were even breathing. Some of them were stricken, the color sapped from their faces.
Branch took deliberate strides toward Anaxi and Le Grand. A broad smile leeched across his face. The shadows cast by the flickering light gave him a ghoulish appearance.
“Don’t stop eating on account of me,” he said coyly, palm to his chest. “Even if my reputation precedes me.”
Nobody moved.
Branch stopped by one man holding his bowl at his chin. The man squeezed his eyes shut, and Branch bent down, put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “I said eat.”
The man lifted the bowl to his mouth and slurped. Others did the same. Branch tossed back his head and laughed.
“I guess people know him,” said Anaxi.
Le Grand nodded. “They do.”
Branch found his way to their sides. He planted one hand on his hip, the other on the hilt of his sword. He jutted his chin at the map. “Giving geography lessons?”
“I was,” said Le Grand. “She’s never—”
“I was talking to the girl,” interrupted Branch. “She’s the one with the map in her head. Didn’t I tell you to find out as much as you could? Showing her this? Asking questions?”
“She’s never seen one. Doesn’t mean anything to her. I haven’t even asked if—”
Branch put his hand on Le Grand’s shoulder to silence him. Then he eyed Anaxi.
“What,” he asked, “do you see on the wall? Any hints? Any guiding notions?”
“No.”
The dream was over. The moment gone. Anaxi was back in captivity and wanting revenge.
“No?” Branch pressed.
“No,” Anaxi said. “This map doesn’t know what I know. It can’t tell you what I can.”
Without waiting for a response, Anaxi walked away from them. She maneuvered through the tables of people and out into the sunlight. The humidity hit her along with the breeze that swirled from the docks to her left and the peak to her right.
She imagined what the world was like when this was ice. When standing here might mean a frozen death. She picked up a skull from atop the pile of bones and studied it.
She wondered whom it had once belonged to. A man? A woman? A good person? A bad one? None of it matters, she supposed. Whoever it was, whatever he or she had done, they were long dead. Their flesh and soul defrosted and decayed. She envied the skull.
As they sailed from port hours later, she turned her back on the land. In front of her and to either side was the endless sea. She couldn’t bear to watch the port shrink on the horizon as they ventured farther from it. She was awake now and couldn’t waste time with dreams.
Chapter Twenty
Pedro leaned on the polished oak counter separating him and Li. “You can come around the bar if you’d like.”
Li ran her hands along the shellacked wood, feeling the imperfections in the topcoat and the thick grain that ran along the surface of the massive bar. In her previous life, she’d worked at a bar. It was where she’d met Zeke. It was where they’d fallen in love. It was where things had fallen apart.
Pedro flipped the rag from his shoulder and ran it across the surface, soaking up the condensation from chilled glasses and previous pours. He smiled at her and motioned with his chin.
“Really, come around,” he said. “I know you have an appreciation for this.”
Li nodded almost imperceptibly and pushed herself away from the bar. She squeezed between a pair of stools and wound her way to a hinged section of the bar where it met the wall. She lifted it like a hatch, sidestepped behind the bar, and closed it.
The floor behind the bar was sticky underneath the soles of her boots. Pedro faced her, his right side leaning against the bar. His leather vest was open. A large buckle at his waist gleamed. He was watching her boots.
“I should get out the mop,” he said. “It’s a bit of a mess back here. Sometimes, when it gets busy, I’ll spill as much as I serve. My apologies.”
Her boots peeled from the floor with each step. She stopped when she reached him and shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Pedro nodded. “Good. I’ll let the film build up another couple of layers.”
Li scanned the shelves that ran along the back wall. The length of it was covered with an aged mirror. The corners were speckled with black dots, which lessened in frequency toward the center of the reflective glass. On both sides of the mirror were the rough-hewn planks of wood that held the myriad bottles of liquor.
Pedro jutted his chin at the inventory. “What’s your poison? I’ve everything from Rebel Yell to Macallan. Take your pick.”
“Lagavulin. Malted Scotch,” Li said. “There’s something familiar about it.”
Pedro said nothing. He let her talk.
She rolled her tongue around in her mouth. Her eyes narrowed. “I…I…can taste it.”
Li took two steps toward the shelf. She grasped the bottle’s neck and lifted it from the shelf. Swirls of dust danced. She swallowed; the burn of the Scotch settled in her stomach even though she hadn’t drunk any. It was the oddest sensation. She closed her eyes and made sense of the flavor.
“The dryness is offset by the sweet,” she said. “Some salty notes and a strong earthy finish.”
She ran her fingers along her throat as if tracing the path of the liquor. Her eyes fell to the floor. Why was the drink familiar?
Pedro motioned to the bottle.
She lifted her chin and looked at Pedro. The bright blue of his eyes, almost electric, locked onto hers. It was like he knew what she was thinking. Did he?
“That was Zeke’s first drink here,” he offered. “I picked it for him.”
She ran a thumb across the label. “What does that mean?”
“It means you have a connection. Whatever bond you shared in your past life is strengthened here. But I’m not telling you something you didn’t already know.”
Li thought about her connection to Zeke. He was a mark at first, a bootlegger her government bosses handpicked for her to meet, seduce, use. She’d done that. As a skilled spy, she’d infiltrated his off-books existence. She’d learned how the Aquatic Purveyors, the collective of black-market gangs, stole and transported the most valuable commodities.
Zeke never suspected she was a spy. That was how good she was at her job. He’d fallen for her. He was putty in her hands. And then, unexpectedly, she’d fallen for him too.
Even in this afterlife, or echo, or purgatory, there was something binding them. It was ethereal. She felt it in her chest.
Pedro interrupted her thoughts. “You have lots of questions. I can see it on your face.”
He was right. She had more questions than she could ask. The Scotch turned sour on her tongue.
“Could I have some ice water?” she asked.
Pedro flipped a glass from the counter behind the bar and dipped it into a steel bucket of ice. He ran the glass under the faucet until water spilled over its rim. He handed it to her; a splash sloshed over the side.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He wiped his hands on the sides of his vest. “Sorry about the mess.”
Li took a sip. The cold water was delicious. She licked her lips and smiled.
“No worries,�
�� she said. “It’s only water.”
The incongruity of the sentiment, given the water-starved place from which she’d come, wasn’t lost on her. Nor did she think it was lost on Pedro, who offered a rueful grin. He then folded his arms and pointed at her with the back of his hand.
“You’ll get used to it here,” he said. “Or you won’t. Either way, it’s best if you settle into the place. Have a few more drinks. Play cards. Shoot billiards or darts. Whatever strikes you to pass the time.”
“Is there nothing else to do here?” she asked. “It seems boring.”
“I thought about putting in a putting green or maybe a movie theatre. I love movie theatre popcorn. The fake butter is addictive. It’ll kill you, I’ve heard. But if you’ve gotta have a vice, might as well be a tasty one.”
Li took another healthy gulp from the glass and set it on the bar in front of her. She held it in both hands. The chilly condensation felt good against her palms. Leaning on her elbows, she surveyed the bar.
“I’m just saying you might want to find something else for people to do,” Li said. “What about a gym? Or a swimming pool?”
“You talk as if the place from where you come had so many different things to do?” Pedro noted. “I seriously doubt you had a swimming pool of all things.”
She shrugged. “We didn’t. I read about them in my books. I’m saying if you’ve got all this magical power, why can’t you offer more than the mundane?”
It reminded her of a scene from one of her forbidden novels. Something from Patrick Hamilton absent the prostitutes and barmaid, or Louis L’Amour without a desperado with fingers twitching above a hip-holstered pistol.
It was brighter than the dank underworld club in which she’d worked. And Pedro seemed like a more affable proprietor than the leech for whom she’d worked.
She watched the various tableaus play out on the other side of the bar. There was the card game, which seemed friendly until the pile of money in the middle grew too big. They were playing Texas Hold ’Em or some close facsimile. All the men at the card table swigged from large steins of dark beer.
The billiards table saw two couples playing nine ball against one another. One man and woman were touchy with one another. She’d put her hand on his arm or touch his chest. He’d hold her hips from behind or brush against her. She laughed at everything he said.
The other couple couldn’t be bothered to flirt. They were focused on the game.
Nobody played darts. A lone man, slender and tall, leaned against a stainless and glass machine. He fiddled with a toothpick between his teeth while he stared at whatever was behind the curved, lighted glass display. After a minute, he punched a series of buttons on the side of the machine. Almost instantly, music filled the cantina. It carried a thick bass and heavy percussion. The man bobbed his head to the beat.
Pedro interrupted Li’s thoughts again, as if he was reading them. “It’s a jukebox. And the man over there is named Barach. He was a soldier in his past life. He’s a tactical genius and the one who typically designs each mission’s recon, the insertion, the extraction.”
She studied Barach. Thick stubble dotted his wide, strong jaw. There were dimples in his cheeks and at the center of his chin. His straw-colored hair was parted down the middle and hung over his ears. He danced to the music with his eyes closed. His boots shuffled along the floor. The soldier was in a world all his own and unabashedly confident in his movements. Li noticed that nobody else in the bar paid Barach any attention. They were involved in their own stories.
Li took another drink from her glass. “You said typically?”
Pedro’s blue eyes sparkled. “You caught that. You’re as observant as Zeke says.”
“But I bet he didn’t tell you something you didn’t already know.”
The barkeep’s smile broadened into a genuine grin. “I like you, Adaliah Bancroft. Even if you don’t like my place.”
Now it was her turn to smile. And she didn’t expect the reaction. It was natural. She lifted her glass and toasted her host.
“I like you too. Especially when you answer my questions. Just consider a swimming pool.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Back to Barach,” she said. “You said he typically plans missions?”
He wagged a finger. “Yes. I said typically. That’s because he doesn’t always do it. Sometimes, I want someone else to get a chance, to experience the highs and lows of planning a mission that succeeds or fails.”
“Did he plan Zeke’s mission?”
“No. Zeke did. For the most part. He didn’t choose the mission, but he picked his team and how to approach the challenge.”
She set the glass on the bar, trying to set it in the same spot where a ring of condensation marked its place. Her eyes again fell on Barach as she spoke to Pedro. “What is the mission?”
“That’s a broad question without a narrow answer,” Pedro replied. “Our mission changes. Sometimes we must tilt the balance this way. Other times it needs a lift over here.”
She studied him. He had his hands out in front of him, palms up, as if balancing two weights.
“What about Zeke’s mission?” Li asked.
“Zeke has many missions. They evolve and—”
Li was tired of the games and the endless circle of questions. She changed the subject. “Did you build this bar?”
His eyebrows shot up with surprise. He whipped the cloth rag from his shoulder and swiped it across the shellacked oak counter, drying a spot that wasn’t damp.
She tried again. “Cantina, I mean. Did you build it?”
He kept running the rag across the bar. “I did. With some help.”
“How long did it take you?”
“Time is relative. I couldn’t say. We’d build. We’d rest. We’d build some more. The construction was an evolution.”
Li swirled the ice around in the bottom of the glass. She stopped spinning and the ice continued to move in a clockwise direction. Time is relative.
“Why did you put it here?” she asked. “In the middle of a desert?”
Pedro slapped the cloth back onto his shoulder. He faced Li and leaned on the bar with his right arm. “It’s not in the middle of a desert. Not now.”
She glanced toward the door, her lips twisted.
Pedro gestured to the bar doors. “Go take a look.”
Li ignored the sticky sensation on her shoes as she rounded the bar and slalomed her way between the tables and the gathered crowd of denizens. She moved with purpose and pushed her way through the swinging doors. On the porch, she stopped.
It was the smell in the air that hit her first. Even before she processed the visual, her olfactory senses told her this wasn’t the desert. There was a briny, almost fetid stink. The humidity was suffocating.
But what almost dropped her to her knees was the sight of an endless sea. Waves lapped at the lowest steps leading from the porch. A collection of skiffs and small boats bobbed in the surf a hundred meters from the cantina. The things, the Horde, watched her. Paddles in hand, they all sat silently, their full attention on her. It was like they’d known she was coming outside at any moment.
Her heart raced. Her breathing shortened. She worried she might have a panic attack or hyperventilate. She’d never experienced a feeling like this before, but she’d heard about people having involuntary, visceral reactions to shocking turns of events.
The doors swung on their hinges behind her. Heavy boot steps clopped toward her.
Perhaps sensing her confusion or again reading her mind, Pedro put his hand on her shoulder to draw her attention to him. His explanation was as esoteric as every answer he’d given up to now. His voice was soft. Comforting.
“The bar isn’t in any one place,” he said. “It’s wherever it needs to be. Does that make sense?”
Li frowned. “Not at all. Almost nothing here makes sense.”
“I understand your confus—”
“Why water? Why not the d
esert? What happened?”
“Our newest guest comes from an Earth with an endless sea. When he arrived, our surroundings took on the landscape of what was familiar to him. Just as when you arrived, we were in the middle of a wasteland.”
“What is this place? What did you build?”
“A gateway. It’s a bridge between where you’ve been and where you hope to go.”
Li turned from the water for the first time since Pedro joined her on the porch. She wiped the bloom of sweat from her brow and looked up at him. She understood now. Despite all his verbal gamesmanship, she got it.
“Purgatory,” she said. “Plato wrote about it. A temporary destination while awaiting the final, eternal destination.”
Pedro shrugged. “Meh. Not so much. Good guess though.”
She tried again, couching her belief. “Limbo, then. The permanent edge of hell.”
“This is distinctly not limbo,” said Pedro. “We’re not on the edge of hell.”
“Then what are those nasty-looking beasts on the boats out there? What are they if not the things that would drag me to hell if I didn’t get to your place in time?”
Pedro blinked. He stole a glance at the skiffs and then leveled his gaze back on her.
“They’re the Harbingers of the Real Death,” he said. “Some of us call them the Horde.”
She snapped, “Who are they though? I didn’t ask you what they’re called.”
Li didn’t intend the sharpness in her tone. She regretted it. Her frustration and confusion were getting the best of her. She opened her mouth to apologize.
Pedro lifted a hand to stop her. “No need to say you’re sorry,” he said. “This is difficult for the best of us. Frankly, I’m impressed with how well you’re handling all of this. C’mon, let’s go back inside to finish the conversation. I don’t enjoy looking at the Horde any more than you do.”
Again, he didn’t answer her question. She believed this was her version of hell: a place where each question bore two new ones, ad infinitum.
Pedro took a step toward the doors to the bar and waved her along. He stepped in front of her and swung out an arm to open one door for her. She went first, the cool blast of drier air hitting her like a wall when she entered the bar.