Gather the Fortunes

by Bryan Camp

  You did the work.

  Besides, Sal could handle himself. He might wear the shape of a scavenging bird or a tired old dog, but what lived within that skin was a spirit of Death. No one lived forever, but Renai was pretty sure it would take more than an arrow—or even a whole sky full of them—to do real lasting damage to her mentor.

  She’d been wrong before, though. She rubbed at the still-tender bruise on her shoulder, where the arrow had hit her. She knew for a fact that they could hurt. Maybe Sal wasn’t as tough as she’d thought. Maybe he’d been wounded and was even now waiting for her to come back and rescue him. And what if the arrows really had killed him?

  What happened to psychopomps when they died?

  Renai had to grit her teeth to keep her wings from unfurling. For every day of the last five years, Sal had been by her side: guiding, teaching, consoling. For the first time, he needed her. She didn’t care that flying into that hail of arrows might mean sacrificing her wings, didn’t care that she had a deal with Mason and an obligation to the Thrones.

  The only thing that stopped her from going back to look for her mentor were the words he’d told her over and over again. Only one direction. Forward. Renai closed her eyes and slipped her wings away into whatever nowhere place they went when they weren’t unfurled, allowed herself just a single moment of weakness—one last glance behind her to see if Sal had found his way through the hail of arrows—and then she put it all behind her and followed the path of raised, smooth paving stones to the center of Lafayette No. 2, where the Third Gate awaited.

  Lafayette No. 2 looked like a combination of the cemeteries that housed the first two Gates: it shared the customary aboveground tombs made of brick and mortar and plaster with St. Louis No. 1, but it also had a number of concrete slabs about half a foot tall that marked belowground burials, like in Holt. Unlike the other two cemeteries, though, on this side of things the Third Gate’s location didn’t teem with flowers or grass in all of the areas surrounding the graves.

  In the Underworld, it was filled with bookshelves.

  It always felt like something out of a dream for Renai—even more so than the rest of the Underworld—to walk out of a forest and into an archive, without leaving behind the trees. There were no walls save the fog that hung everywhere, no ceiling save the canopy of oak leaves high overhead. All the bookshelves were built exactly the same, over ten feet tall and just a few feet wide, with six shelves and a ladder with dangerously thin rungs built in. The books they held were also all identical, thick and tall and bound in brown leather, with gold lettering on the spine indicating a year and a span of letters, like encyclopedias or dictionaries.

  She’d always wondered how the books never got rained on, how the moisture from the fog never spoiled them, but Sal had never had an answer for her. Renai tried not to think about Sal and kept walking down the center aisle of the cemetery. The pristine condition of this archive had just become another one of those things about the Underworld that she’d had to accept. She’d never had to wonder what was recorded in all those books, though, because the Gatekeeper of the Third Gate was the one who’d written them all.

  As Renai approached the center of the cemetery, her view of the Gatekeeper was partly blocked by a huge lectern, a tall, broad bookstand made of wrought iron and gold. The edge of an open book peeked up above the carving of an eagle, its wings spread and talons outstretched, that adorned the top of the lectern, its wings forming the platform where the huge books that lined the shelves in this place could lay open and flat.

  The base was iron and made up of the busts of twelve men, all but one of them facing out, one turned inward. The Greek letters Α and Ω were stamped on the lectern’s broad column in ivory and gold. Depending on the faith or heritage of her dead, the letters might be ﬡ and ﬨ in Hebrew, or a phrase in Arabic script that Renai hadn’t yet been able to find on the internet. When the letters changed, the iconography on the lectern changed as well. Off to the side of the lectern, a microphone—a slitted chrome bulb the size of Renai’s fist—stood on its own stand, a single thick wire trailing off into the trees. Once Renai was close enough to hear the soft persistent scritch-scritch-scritch of a pen nib on paper, she could smell the licorice-sweet scent of fennel, coming from the angel writing in the book.

  They called themselves Plumaj and answered to the title Ghede like any other Gatekeeper loa. While Renai had learned in her time in the Underworld that the gods had a habit of wandering from one pantheon to another, she’d always wondered if the other loa were also angels, or if Plumaj was somehow special. It had always seemed impolite to ask.

  Plumaj had pale beige-tinged white skin, like the flesh of an under-ripe pear, and the soft, brown wings of a barn owl. Like the only other angel Renai had ever met, Plumaj had stark white, pupil-less eyes, and—also like that other angel—dressed like they’d run through a thrift store and grabbed whatever their hands touched. Plumaj wore a faded red flannel button-down shirt with frayed cuffs and the buttons undone over a Ninja Turtles T-shirt, an inflated yellow life vest from a commercial airplane, and bright purple pants with GEAUX written in cracked gold lettering down one leg and TIGERS down the other, a price tag still stuck to the waistband. The angel was short and wide, with thick thighs stretching the legs of the sweatpants and multiple chins folding up when they bent their head to their book.

  The angel leaned their head out from behind the book and smiled, a warm, genuine gesture that should have made Renai feel welcome. Instead, her scalp felt tight and her mouth went dry. She had to tell herself to stay calm, to breathe. Plumaj had never given Renai a reason not to trust them. In fact, they’d been kinder to her than anyone else on this side of things, up to and including Salvatore. If any of the other Gatekeepers had treated her the way that Plumaj had, she’d probably be tight enough with them to have a special handshake with them by now. But Renai couldn’t get past those cold, empty eyes.

  The same eyes as the angel who had killed her.

  “Renaissance Raines,” Plumaj said, in the soft, pleasant voice of an elementary school teacher. “I was starting to wonder if you’d grace us with your presence today.” Most people who said shit like that were trying to make you feel bad for being late. Coming from Plumaj, it sounded like they’d actually been thinking about her.

  “Caught a little drama,” Renai said, waving her hand behind her to show the absence of the dead man she ought to have with her, and of Sal. “So the only presence you’re getting graced with today is mine.”

  Plumaj clicked their tongue and frowned. “No one laments the loss of one of the flock quite like a shepherd.”

  For a brief second, Renai got a chill, thinking that Plumaj knew that Ramses had gone missing, that this wasn’t the calamity Sal had worried it was. But then it occurred to her that the angel just thought that, like so many others, Ramses had wandered off the path and become a shade.

  “I do not envy you your task,” the angel continued. “Is there any aid I might provide?”

  Not unless you want to fly on upstairs and ask your boss if he can spare a minute, Renai thought. She didn’t say it, though, because despite their pleasant, accommodating nature, Plumaj didn’t have much of a sense of humor. They wouldn’t be offended by the joke, exactly, but they’d either take it literally or think Renai was mocking them. Either one wouldn’t go well.

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said instead, trying to keep her voice casual. “What can you tell me about Ramses St. Cyr?”

  The angel’s brow furrowed in thought, and they tapped their lips with the tip of their pen, a quill made from one of their own feathers. “There is a certain familiar ring to it,” they said. “Of course, I’ve always been partial to saints.” They leaned a wink in Renai’s direction, a gesture made eerie by the angel’s pupil-less eyes. Renai’s laugh sounded forced even to her own ears. Plumaj made a come-closer wave toward Renai with the feather in their hand. “Shall we have a look?”

  From where she was standing, Renai
could see the open pages of the book, but the text all looked the same to her, as if Plumaj had simply written the same letter—a ligature of Α and Ω—over and over again. Humming a tune that Renai recognized from years of Christmas Eve masses as “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” the angel used a ribbon to mark their place, and another to open the book a few dozen pages further along, coming to a list written in English: a column each for names, times, and locations, and a space for a brief description of a manner of death.

  Each day of her life since her resurrection, Renai had chosen a name from this book or one just like it, the name of a person living in New Orleans whose time in the living world was coming to an end. And every following day, Sal would guide that soul through the First Gate and give her their coin of Fortune. Yesterday, since she’d been watching for it ever since her deal with Mason, she’d chosen Ramses’ name from this very list.

  Today, his name was gone.

  If the dead made it this far, they would write their Name in the book, a scrap of their Essence left behind so that their memory could live on in the living world without them. Once they’d given up their Name, the dead became less distinct, blurring at the edges like an image projected by a lens just slightly out of focus. Not ghostly, like the shades, but definitely less like a breathing person and more like the memory of one.

  Renai had done the same thing once herself, though she didn’t remember it, didn’t like to think about it. Had resurrection returned her Name to her, or had it remained here in one of Plumaj’s books? Could that explain why her memories were all jumbled up? Why she had a storm living inside of her? And was that why Ramses’ name had disappeared as well?

  She’d gotten so caught up in her thoughts that it took Renai a moment to realize that Plumaj had stopped humming, had turned back to one of the other pages in their book, the strange, indecipherable records of each person’s deeds and misdeeds in their time in the living world.

  Plumaj stared down at the page in front of them, their lips pursed. After a moment, the angel shook their head. “I apologize,” they said. “I seem to have spoken in error. That soul is not among my records.”

  Plumaj’s face twisted in frustration, mirroring Renai’s own feelings. It seemed strange that the angel couldn’t remember the name of the boy Renai had chosen just yesterday, but then, he was one name out of all of those who died in this city, day after day. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising.

  “And yet,” Plumaj said, “that name seems so familiar. I can’t recall—”

  Renai cut the angel off. “Can’t you just look up the last thing you wrote about him?” she asked.

  Plumaj frowned again. “It does not work that way, I fear. Though it is my charge to transcribe every event and choice and triumph of the lives that pass through this Gate, I am not granted the vision to see that life until it is their appointed time.” They set their pen down and folded their hands, their usually expressive face suddenly unreadable. “And why, Renaissance Raines, have you come to me asking after this person? Who is Ramses St. Cyr to you?”

  Renai lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “Just somebody I promised to help find,” Renai said. Somehow, she didn’t think Sal would want her talking about a soul going missing; he’d seemed far too eager to keep it quiet until they knew exactly what they were dealing with. The fact that Ramses had somehow been wiped out of Plumaj’s ledger told her that whatever this was, it was bad.

  Plumaj nodded. “‘Of all tools used in the shadow of the moon,’” they said, quietly, as if they didn’t care whether Renai heard them or not, “‘men are most apt to get out of order.’”

  “That’s deep,” Renai said. “Is that from Psalms?” Like most cradle Catholics, Renai couldn’t recite the Bible chapter and verse like other Christians seemed able to.

  “That ain’t scripture,” Sal said, “it’s fuckin’ Moby Dick.” Renai spun around and there he was, his shaggy fur and mournful eyes and his lopsided doggie grin. She lunged at him, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing him tight. “Aww-right, aww-right,” he said after a moment, pulling away from her, “easy on the fur, Raines.”

  “What the hell happened to you?” Renai asked, letting Sal get far enough away that she could look at him, but not taking her hands off him. “You stop off somewhere for a couple of daiquiris?”

  “Later,” he said. “We still got miles to go before we sleep.”

  “You don’t sleep,” she said, not caring how much sass was in her voice, grateful that Sal was okay and pissed that he’d vanished on her all at once.

  But if Sal heard her, he ignored it. “You mind letting us through?” he said, speaking to Plumaj over Renai’s shoulder. “We got an appointment downstairs.”

  Plumaj, who had gone back to writing in their giant book as soon as Renai’s back was turned, nodded absently and plucked an iron key from the pocket of their flannel shirt. They pressed it into their book, into the crease where the leaves were bound together. A turn of the wrist, a click, and then the book and the lectern and the sky and the earth all split in two as the Third Gate swung open wide.

  Sal went through first just like before, without a word of thanks, without looking back to see if Renai was following. Taking that “psychopomps only move forward” advice a little too literal, she thought. She didn’t know if he’d heard what Plumaj told her, didn’t have any idea where he was leading her. She’d never seen him so driven, so distracted. Who is Ramses St. Cyr to you, Plumaj had asked her.

  But the real questions is, she thought, as she followed the psychopomp through the Gate, who is Ramses to you, Salvatore? Who is he to you?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Almost as soon as they crossed through the Third Gate, Sal started telling Renai why he’d fallen so far behind her. According to the psychopomp, an arrow had hit him right in the wing bone, which sent him tumbling out of the sky. “I tried to tough it out,” he said, “you know, walk it off, but when it still hurt like a bastard after a few minutes of hopping along like a fuckin’ windup toy, I gave the damn thing up for broken and slipped on the dog-skin. So I hate to say it, but we’re grounded until the other shape heals up.”

  “I don’t mind walking,” Renai said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  For a few minutes, they walked in silence through a New Orleans that felt increasingly like a dream. Even though the rain had stopped and the fog had lifted, Renai still couldn’t see much beyond the trees surrounding them. Night had fallen and, without a moon or stars or streetlights, the world had turned into an inky-black void. They didn’t have far to walk through this darkness, thankfully, even though Saint Roch’s was—in the living world—miles away from Lafayette Cemetery. The deeper one went into the Underworld, the closer things got. It was as if each Gate was a funnel, squeezing the city into a more compact version of itself. So a journey that would have normally taken hours on foot only lasted about twenty minutes.

  Something about Sal’s explanation nagged at Renai, felt off. She tried to picture it as he’d described it. She’d seen Sal change skins before, one form vomiting up the other, even though the dog was an order of magnitude larger than the raven. It was both revolting and fascinating. She had no idea how the process worked, though, didn’t know if he had an infinite number of the two shapes inside of him like an eternally renewing set of Russian nesting dolls, or if he swapped out his shapes from the same nowhere place where her wings and her mirror came from.

  What she did know is that when he swapped shapes, it happened pretty much instantly. Which made her wonder if he was telling her the whole story. Girl, she thought, you’re letting the lower levels get to you.

  Down this deep, there were shades everywhere, blending in so perfectly with the gloomy night around them that it seemed like the air itself shifted and moved and watched. It made her skin crawl and got her—as her grandmother would have said—skittish as a five-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Nor did it help that the lingering presence of some soul’s trial had
their surroundings filled with rustling noises in the trees and an occasional growl from some large restless predator. It had to be that. Had to be. Because if she couldn’t trust Sal, who could she trust?

  But no matter what she told herself, she couldn’t just let any dog, sleeping or otherwise, lie.

  “Figuring out you had a broken wing took all that time?” she asked, trying to keep any suspicion out of her voice, not even looking at him, trying to make it sound like she was just trying to fill the silence.

  “Huh?”

  “You were gone a minute. Did you try to hop the whole way across the Underworld?”

  “Oh.” Sal flicked his ears in a dog’s version of a shrug. “Naw. I ran into Link, one of the ’pomps we’re looking for? Obviously, she didn’t know nothing ’bout Ramses, or I’d have told you.” He cocked his doggie grin up at her. “Why, were you worried?” He thumped against her leg, playful.

  Renai snorted. “Boy, please. The thought of handling my business without you weighing me down had me like”—she took a few steps in an exaggerated strut, shuffling her feet so her toes turned toward each other, kicking a leg behind her every other step like she was showing off her footwork at a second line, those uniquely New Orleanian walking parades of revelers and brass bands that followed social clubs and funerals and weddings. She stopped for an instant, her whole body gone still, her hand held up to her mouth as if she’d shocked even herself with her skills, and then fell out laughing. She didn’t know if it was relief that Sal had an explanation for his absence, or just the joy of moving, but she felt better. Or at least, as good as one could feel this deep in the Underworld.