by Gary Jonas
ACHERON HIGHWAY
(A Jonathan Shade Novel)
Gary Jonas
Sky Warrior Book Publishing LLC
© 2012 by Gary Jonas.
First Edition.
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Published by Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC.
PO Box 99
Clinton, MT 59825
www.skywarriorbooks.com
Editor: Andrea Howe, Blue Falcon Editing.
Cover art by Mitchell Davidson Bentley.
Publisher: M. H. Bonham.
Printed in the United States of America
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This one is for my sisters, Carrie, Judy, and Tracy because what matters most is family
CHAPTER ONE
You ever have one of those days where dead people just won’t leave you alone? Well, I’d been having one of those months, but it didn’t get too crazy until Miranda Hammond walked into my life. Picture this: it’s a cool Tuesday morning in early December. Denver in late autumn wasn’t too bad this year. We had more mild days than arctic freezes and the temperature hovered in the high thirties. I could deal with it, but I had the car heater going.
I pulled into my apartment parking lot and noticed a beautiful blonde leaning against the wall by my door. Esther stood beside her for a moment, but saw me and popped into my passenger seat. I should probably mention that Esther is a ghost. As always, she wore her short flapper dress. She was a secretary who died back in 1929. For many years, she couldn’t get farther than fifteen feet from her typewriter, but six months ago, the Underwood shattered and we kept most of the remains. She can teleport to any of those pieces whenever she likes. She loves the new mobility.
“Hi, Jonathan. I think the Sheba is here for you.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“If it’s a blind date, you got lucky.”
“No date,” I said. “How long has she been here?”
“Ten minutes tops.”
“Is she alive?”
Esther frowned. “It didn’t occur to me to check.”
“Well, let’s see what’s cooking.”
Esther popped back to the woman and walked through her. Esther tapped her chest and gave me a thumbs-down.
Great. Just what I needed. Another dead person. What can I tell you? My life is complicated. I stepped out of the Firebird, closed the door, and shivered as the wind cut into me. Too bad I couldn’t carry the heater with me.
As I approached the door, the woman turned toward me.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Are you Jonathan Shade?”
“According to my driver’s license,” I said.
Her voice was silky smooth and, while at first glance, I’d have placed her in her early thirties, when I looked into her eyes, I adjusted the number closer to forty. A well-preserved forty, but her eyes held wisdom. She wore black slacks and a red blouse buttoned all the way to the top. She didn’t seem to notice the cold, but being dead, she wouldn’t. She stepped closer.
“My name is Miranda Hammond, and I want to hire you.”
“Is this about Sharon?” I asked.
She gave me a confused look. “What makes you think that?”
“I’m psychic,” I lied.
She gave me the I was born at night, but not last night look. “Could have fooled me.”
“Come on. You want to hire me to take you to a woman named Sharon. Been there, done that, sold the T-shirt on eBay. I’ll send you a bill.”
She placed a hand on my chest. “I don’t know anyone named Sharon.”
“You may know her by another name.” I moved past her to unlock my door. “The spirits play tricks sometimes.”
She shook her head. “May I come inside? I really need to talk to you.”
“Sorry. I’m not taking on any new clients at this time.”
“Mr. Shade, I need your help. I was told you were my best shot at handling my little problem.”
I grabbed her forearm, turned it, and placed the pads of my middle and ring fingers on her wrist. As Esther had indicated, Miranda did not have a pulse.
“Pretty little crazy dead girl, go back to your grave.”
“I’m not dead. Really.”
“Pretty little crazy undead girl, go back to your grave.”
I opened the door, entered my apartment, and closed the door behind me. As I expected, the woman knocked.
“Is she a vampire?” Esther asked.
“I don’t believe in vampires.”
The woman kept knocking. “Please open the door, Mr. Shade!”
Esther frowned. “She was trying to get an invitation to come inside.”
“You’ve been around for more than a century. Have you ever seen a vampire?”
“I spent most of my time in a filthy storage closet. It’s not like I was out enjoying the night life.”
“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, so even if vampires existed, she wouldn’t be out right now. Or maybe she’d be all sparkly.”
Miranda persisted with the knocking.
I sighed, turned around, and opened the door.
Miranda stood there, fist raised to knock again. “Oh,” she said.
“Are you a vampire?” I asked.
She blinked. “No.”
“A vampire wouldn’t admit to being a vampire,” Esther said.
“Right,” I said. “At least you aren’t covered in glitter.” Leaving the door open, I turned, walked over to the sofa, and sat down.
Miranda hesitated then entered my apartment. “I’m guessing it’s all right for me to come inside.”
“Whatever. Shut the door. This place costs a fortune to heat.”
She closed the door.
Esther moved in front of Miranda and stared at her mouth. I suspect she was trying to see if Miranda had elongated incisors. Since Miranda couldn’t see Esther, she walked right through her and stood before me.
“Spill,” I said.
Miranda took a moment to look around the apartment. “You have no furniture,” she said.
“I have a sofa.”
She was right, though. Aside from the sofa, I didn’t have any furniture in the living room. My old condo and my office had been destroyed, and while I rented an apartment, I hadn’t bothered to furnish it beyond the sofa and a few essentials. Esther kept trying to get me to replace everything, but I felt more dead than Miranda. The decorations I let her talk me into buying still resided in bags in the closet.
“I don’t trust her,” Esther said. Esther didn’t trust anyone.
Miranda took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That made her blouse expand in interesting ways, but I reminded myself she was dead. Look in her eyes.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“I don’t know who I can turn to, and you came very highly recommended.”
“By whom?”
“Naomi Miller.”
I felt a knife in my heart. “Naomi’s dead,” I said.
“I heard. I’m sorry. I work at DGI Engineering.”
The fact that she added the word Engineering told me she didn’t realize that DGI stood for Dragon Gate Industries or that the thirteenth floor housed a bunch of wizards. Naomi had worked there as a wizard. Yes, a rea
l wizard.
“Naomi and I used to go to Starbucks every morning before work,” Miranda said. “One day over lattes, she told me that if I ever had a problem—a problem that seemed too weird for normal people—that I should look you up. She said you handle strange cases all the time and nobody could do it better. I don’t know who else I can talk to about this.”
“Let me guess. You died and now you’re back and it’s freaking you out.”
“I’m not dead, Mr. Shade.”
“Sorry, Miranda, but when your heart stops beating, that’s the textbook definition of dead.”
“Denial much?” Esther said.
“A year ago, I had a problem with a guy I dated. He worked on a different floor and he seemed nice, but he got really attached to me really fast. I tried to break it off with him, but he wouldn’t let go.”
“Your very own stalker. How nice for you.”
“He left me twenty messages a day. I changed my number and had two terrific days without him bothering me.”
“Then he got the new number, of course.”
“That’s right. And he told me that he would win my heart one way or another.”
“By leaving you twenty messages a day. That always works.”
“A month ago, I read a book about stalkers and I finally realized the smart thing to do was to get a second phone, but I kept the original phone too. That way I could have my friends and family call my new number, but stalker boy could leave me all the messages he wanted. As long as the phone was live, he wouldn’t know I’d switched numbers and eventually he’d give up.”
“That’s usually effective as long as you’ve told the guy you’re not interested.”
“I told him that time and again. Of course, now I know I should have said it once and then ignored him from then on.”
“That’s all well and good, but I don’t do domestics. You should—”
“Let me finish, Mr. Shade.”
I shrugged and motioned for her to continue.
“He came down to my office. He told me that if he couldn’t win my heart, he’d have to steal it.” As she spoke, she unbuttoned her blouse. She slowly opened it enough to reveal an incision in her chest.
“What the hell?” I said.
“He stole my heart, Mr. Shade. I want you to find him and steal it back.”
CHAPTER TWO
I stared at the incision in her chest. “May I?” I asked, pointing at the wound.
Miranda nodded and stepped closer to me. “It hurts, but I find myself touching it all the time. It’s like having a painful tooth that you can’t stop probing with your tongue.”
I touched the flesh above the wound. It wasn’t red or inflamed, and there was very little blood. It was normal flesh but cool to the touch, which made sense since she had no circulation. Then again, it could have been the weather. The incision was a clean, straight cut. She flinched as I parted the flesh a bit with my fingers.
“Does this hurt as much as it should?” I asked.
“It hurts but it’s nothing like you’d expect.”
No blood. Of course, the heart wasn’t pumping because it wasn’t there. Miranda didn’t look overly pale, though. Definitely magic. I parted the flesh a little more and revealed bone. I could see that the breastbone had been cut too.
“How did he do this to you?”
“He cornered me in my office, held up his left hand like a catcher’s mitt, pointed at my chest with his right index finger, made a downward move, and I felt this awful burning. Then my heart shot out of my chest like that alien bursting out of John Hurt in that movie.”
I nodded. “And then?”
“He caught my heart. It was still beating in his hand. He said he’d protect it. Then he turned and left my office.”
I looked at my fingers and saw smeared blood and viscous, clear fluid on them. Can you say nasty? “You never lost consciousness?”
“No.”
I got up, walked into the kitchen, and washed my hands. I grabbed a paper towel from under the sink and dried them. “What’s stalker boy’s name?” I asked.
“Zach Banner.”
“Hang on.”
I pulled out my cell, scrolled through my contacts, and pressed a button. A moment later, a familiar voice answered. “DGI, this is Phil.”
“Hey, Phil, Jonathan Shade here. What’s shakin’, m’man?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to you, Mr. Shade.”
“Oh. Would you rather talk to Kelly?” Phil had a rather unpleasant visit from my partner, Kelly Chan, stored in his recent memory. Kelly is a magically engineered assassin with attitude out to here.
“Uh...”
“In person?”
“What do you need?”
“You have a Zach or Zachary Banner working there?”
“Not anymore. He quit a week ago.”
“Can you tell me in what capacity he was employed?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You must really have the hots for Kelly.”
“Come on, Mr. Shade. Cut me a break here.”
“Is he a necromancer?”
“Yes, but I didn’t tell you that.”
“Got an address and phone number?” I grabbed a pen and looked for something to write on. I didn’t have any paper handy, so I grabbed an unopened credit card offer from the stack of mail on the counter and flipped it over.
“Just a second.”
He gave me an address in Highlands Ranch, and I jotted it down on the back of the envelope. He also gave me two phone numbers. One started with area code 303 and the other with 720. Both are Denver numbers, so I figured the 303 was the landline and the 720 was his cell. “Thanks, Phil. Kelly sends her love.”
When I hung up, Miranda said, “Necromancer?”
“Guy who has power over the dead.”
“Yeah, but I’m not dead.”
“So you keep saying. Let me try the numbers Phil gave me.”
The 303 number was disconnected. The 720 number went straight to voice mail. He didn’t have a voice greeting, so I used an Irish accent and left him a message. “Harry, I’m still waitin’ for ya down at the pub. I forgot me wallet, so bring me some cash.”
“What was that all about?” Miranda asked after I ended the call.
“Don’t want him to know anyone’s looking for him. He’ll just delete a wrong number.”
“So you’ll take the case?”
“I’ll kick it around a bit, but I do have some personal business on the back burner, so if that heats up, I may have to stop working on your problem. Then again, we may be able to get this done now, so I’ll pop over to his house and see if he’s home.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Suit yourself.”
#
Highlands Ranch is a suburb to the south of Denver. Last time I checked, there were nearly one hundred thousand residents, so it’s not a small place. A few of my old friends lived there, but they were married with kids, so we rarely spoke. To be honest, I hadn’t spoken with many of my friends in ages. Zach Banner’s house sat on a cul-de-sac tucked into a residential area off Wildcat Reserve Parkway. I didn’t get out to Highlands Ranch very often. Fortunately, I had my iPad with MapQuest directions, so I zipped into the neighborhood like I’d been living there for twenty years.
Miranda hadn’t spoken on the ride over. She kept reaching into her blouse and caressing the incision. Esther sat in the backseat and kept looking at my eyes in the rearview mirror. When I caught her, she turned away then looked back when my eyes returned to the road. She wore her concern like concrete shoes. I wanted to tell her I was all right, but she knew better.
I parked at the curb in front of the address Phil had provided. The neighborhood was mostly two-story frame-and-brick houses. It seemed like a family-friendly area, so I wondered why a single guy would live here.
“Wait in the car,” I said.
Esther stepped through the side of the Firebird. “You w
ere talking to Miranda, right?”
I nodded.
“I think it’s good you’re working her case,” Esther said. “Let’s you think about someone else.”
“Yeah. Get moving.”
As we approached the house, Esther moved ahead of me so she could check things out before I reached the door. If the guy came to the door with a shotgun, she could warn me. As I stepped onto the porch, Esther stuck her head through the wall.
“I don’t see anyone here.”
I rang the doorbell.
Esther disappeared into the house for a moment then joined me on the porch. “I don’t hear anyone in there either.”
An Oldsmobile pulled into the drive next door, and a guy in his twenties hopped out, carrying a bag of groceries.
“What’s up?” he called with a nod.
“Seen Zach around?”
He pulled earbuds out of his ears and let them dangle. Even from twenty-five feet away, I could hear speed rap music booming from the little buds. “Sorry, man, jammin’ out to some Tech N9ne. What did you say?”
“I asked if you’d seen Zach.”
“Who’s Zach?”
“Guy who lives here,” I said, pointing at the house.
“Sorry, dude. I don’t really know the neighbors. You might ask my grandpa.”
“Is he home?”
“Well, I had his car, so unless he decided to take up hiking, he’s inside watching golf or an NCIS marathon. Hang on. I’ll get him.”
I looked out at Miranda and gave her a shrug. Then I hopped off Zach’s porch and approached the neighbor’s house. Esther did her scouting ahead of me a bit then popped back to my side and gave me the all clear.
A man who looked to be in his mid-seventies stepped out on the porch. He gave me a nod, shook my hand with a firm grip, and said, “Name’s Walter Hendricks.”
“Jonathan Shade.”
“Ryan said you were asking about Zach.”
“That’s right. I swung by his job, but they told me he quit.”
“Hmm. He told me he got fired, but I suppose it’s the same difference. No more checks. He and his wife left town to visit his mother in Tucson for a few days and asked me to keep an eye on his place for him. I thought they’d be back by now.”