Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel
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She’d devoted herself to me when she thought I’d saved her from destruction so many years ago. Her designing principle was that she would be with me through anything because in her view, if not for me, she’d have died back then. I used to wonder if she’d have changed her mind if she knew she’d die today. But looking into her eyes now, I realized that she knew death was on the horizon, waving to her. She didn’t turn away; she simply waved back.
I looked at Darla, who had barely touched her salad. She looked so young. She glanced out the window, and I watched her. I saw her hand tremble when she set down her fork. She only nibbled at the lettuce because she was scared to death. She knew she didn’t have a hope in hell of getting off that bridge alive. She’d been loaned out to a moron who was going to get her killed.
A year ago, I’d taken the time to follow each of the players in this moment back through the previous few days. I’d watched Darla beg Mike not to loan her out to me. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t have the power. Mike told her to hum a few bars and fake it. “Things always seem to work out for that Shade guy. He won a Sekutar, scratch that, two Sekutar warriors to his side, and he’s defeated enemies who should have been able to tear him apart. You’ll be fine.”
So I knew that for all her holding her head high and looking ready to take on the world, she was a scared little girl counting on me to keep her safe. She put her trust in me, and she was wrong to do so. In a few hours, she’d be dead. I wanted to apologize to her. I wanted to tell her to go back to Denver and pretend she’d never met me. She didn’t deserve this. She should be learning to use her magic and dating and taking big bites out of life.
As we left the restaurant, she grabbed my arm. I faced her.
“Thank you for trusting me on this,” she said. “I really appreciate you giving me a shot at this.”
“Is this your first field mission?”
She nodded.
“You’ll do fine,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The meteorologists were way off base on their weather forecast of snow. The temperature tipped into the thirties, but I barely noticed. It could have been seventy or zero and it was all the same to me. The sun sent its light and warmth and even knowing what was to come, I found the view was breathtaking. Looked like a painting, all that.
Brand walked up behind me and slapped me hard on the back. He looked down at the support struts and smiled. I knew he was trying to distract me, but now, as then, my focus was elsewhere.
“You know what would be fun?” he asked. “Swinging from bar to bar on those struts there. You could go across the underside of the bridge all the way from one cliff to the other. The spacing is perfect. Just like the monkey bars back when I was a kid.”
Five years ago, I thought he was thinking about himself and how the magical engineering on his body would slowly fail and he’d feel pain again, but now I realized he was simply giving me a distraction from thinking about what was to come.
“That doesn’t sound fun to me. Sounds dangerous.”
“Monkey barring across the bridge on the struts is a hell of a lot safer than your stupid plan. You’re going to get us all killed.”
“You didn’t raise many objections at lunch.”
Brand shrugged. “Gotta die sometime.”
Yeah, he knew it was coming, but he didn’t care. He stood with me because Kelly had judged me worthy. I could tell by the way he looked at me that he was still trying to figure out why she felt that way, but he was with her, and that meant that he was also with me come what may. Whether it meant a great bar story about fighting a goddess or exploding at the snap of said goddess’s fingers, he would be stalwart and true. He might bitch about it, but that was just his way.
Kelly approached and looked at the cliff walls and down at the river. “What time is Sharon coming?”
I wanted to say she wasn’t coming, but at this point, I knew everything needed to be as it was the first time. “Four.”
“I think the bridge closes at four.”
“I think that’s just the rides.”
“You sure about this?”
“Pretty sure.” Now I realized she was saying we could still leave and she wouldn’t think less of me. Did she suspect Sharon wouldn’t show?
“I think it’s stupid,” Brand said.
“Jonathan, I’ll back your play.” Kelly held my gaze, and in her eyes I saw that she appreciated the time we’d had together and that she wouldn’t trade it for anything. That only made what was coming that much harder to carry. She knew she was going to die, but as long as she died by my side, that was all right with her.
It was not all right with me.
I took a deep breath. This had better work.
#
Show time.
Three-thirty rolled around, and a light glowed about fifteen feet from us. A rift opened and Persephone stepped onto the wooden deck of the bridge. As before, Brand stood behind her to keep people away. Kelly stood behind me.
Without hesitation, as soon as the rift opened, I strode right up to Persephone. As I approached, I reached into my coat and pulled out two katar punching daggers. As soon as the rift closed behind her and Persephone opened her mouth to speak, I punched the daggers up through her gut into her heart. I pulled them out, getting blood all over me.
If something bleeds, it can die.
Persephone froze for a moment. Sudden, unexpected violence will make damn near anyone freeze. Before she could snap out of it, I plunged the daggers through her eyes into her brain and I gave them each a savage twist. If she couldn’t see us, she couldn’t aim her magic at us, so she could never kill my friends. I didn’t see her as a woman because if I did, I could never do what I did. I simply saw her as the enemy who had murdered everyone I’d ever cared about, and there was no way in hell I’d ever let that happen twice.
I shoved her body to the ground and just to be safe, I used the blades in a scissor like motion to sever her head. I dropped the blades, picked up her head with my right hand, and hurled it as far off the bridge as I could.
“Holy shit!” Brand said.
But I wasn’t finished. I scooped up Persephone’s headless body and I raised it high above me so I could toss it over the safety fence. I watched her body fall the 1,053 feet to the ground. The body missed the river by a few feet and instead hit the rocks beside it then rolled into the water. The swift current carried it away.
“Holy fucking shit!” Brand said. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”
Kelly approached me from behind. “This was your plan all along?” she asked. “Why didn’t you say so?”
I met her gaze. “Some things are better as surprises,” I said.
She smiled.
She would get to continue smiling for years to come.
Emotions welled in me, but I took a deep breath and forced them down. I was no longer the man who had set foot on this bridge to face Persephone five years ago. I knew I’d have to carry what had happened that first time for the rest of my life. I could never allow myself to be that careless again. Not when people like Kelly and Brand were willing to follow me, no questions asked. I owed it to them to not get them killed.
The air shimmered and glowed, and Charon appeared on the bridge.
“Bob,” I said with a nod.
“Shade?” he said, confused. “What the hell am I doing here?”
“I want you to pass a message to Sharon.”
“I haven’t seen her since you guys left.”
“I know she keeps in contact with you.”
He gave me a slow nod. “I’m listening.”
“You tell her that if I ever see her again, I’m going to kill her. No chance at reprieve. She’s not welcome here. Got it?”
He looked confused but he nodded. “I got it.”
“Good.” I turned to Darla. “You can send him back now.”
She had the magic ready, of course. She let it loose and Charon vanished.
“Is that it?” Darla asked. “I thought you wanted me to…” She looked around. “I thought…”
“You were Plan B,” I said. “Thanks for coming. We’ll give you a ride back to Denver, and you tell Mike that when he needs something, all he has to do is call me.”
“OK,” she said. I could see the relief on her face.
She had no idea about the relief I felt to see her standing there, breathing and ready to continue on her journey of life.
Brand came up to me and held his hand up for a high five. “Now I finally get why Kelly is so devoted to you.” He kept his hand up. “Dude, don’t leave me hanging here.”
I gave him the high five and looked at Kelly. The smile still lit up her face. We walked back to the car, and I made a note to apologize to Esther. I had wronged her, and while for me that was ancient history, for her it was recent and painful, and I never wanted to hurt her or any of the people I loved.
For all the bad things I knew were on the horizon, I knew I wouldn’t be facing them alone.
More than that, I had a knowledge very few people truly have.
I knew who my friends were.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
They say that truth is stranger than fiction.
Some of the following is true. For example, Gary Jonas writes fantasy novels such as Modern Sorcery and One-Way Ticket to Midnight. Well, that’s sort of true. The truth is that he’s already written those, but he will write more unless he gets too bored. But we’ll call that an example of true. Gary’s wife is Jessica Alba. Sadly, this is false. Jessica Alba won’t return his calls, but that’s the way it goes, and no, the restraining order doesn’t prevent him from going to California.
Gary is an author for Sky Warrior Books. This is also true. In our quest for world domination, we know that having someone like Gary at our side during a zombie apocalypse is pretty useful. We can at least throw him in front of the zombie hordes while we run away screaming.
It's not that we don't appreciate our authors. We just know our limitations.
Gary, however, has added a number of true and false questions for us to puzzle over. Here are three; can you pick out the false one?
1. Gary’s stepmother hired a stranger to shoot off her foot with a shotgun.
2. Gary dreams of creating a religion so he won’t have to pay taxes and, in spite of the fact that he writes fantasy, people will believe him and pay him lots of money.
3. Gary dressed in drag and appeared on stage in front of a large audience telling a popular fantasy author that he wanted the author to lick his beaver, and raised his skirt to reveal a stuffed beaver hanging there ready for action.
Which is false? None of them. Which is why Gary is part of the Evil Overlord plan and a valued minion. His other works include the upcoming Quick Shots, a collection of short stories and Modern Sorcery, an urban fantasy series. Check out his website HERE.
Oh, and don't tell him about the zombie hordes.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Artist Mitchell Davidson Bentley spent the last 20 years moving physically from place to place and artistically from traditional oils to cyber compositions. Trained in the traditional medium of oil by his mother, and inspired by his grandfather’s love of science fiction, Bentley began his career as a full-time science fiction artist in 1989 from his home base in Tulsa. While actively involved in the science fiction art world, Bentley also moved from Tulsa to Austin to Central Pennsylvania where his search for knowledge earned him bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Penn State University. Over the same period of time, Bentley shifted from the more traditional oil painting to airbrushed acrylics, and since 2004 has been working exclusively in electronic media.
As art director of Atomic Fly Studios, Bentley produces cover art, marketing materials and Web sites while he continues to produce quality 2D artwork marketed through the AFS Web site and at science fiction conventions across the United States.
Bentley has lectured at universities, worked in film, edited publications and served as Artist Guest of Honor at more than a dozen science fiction conventions. He has also earned 35 awards, is a lifetime member of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, and is serving as President. Visit his website at http://www.atomicflystudios.com/
Books Published by Sky Warrior Books
Purchase them through online resellers and better independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us at www.skywarriorbooks.com for news and upcoming books and promotions.
Alma Alexander
2012: Midnight at Spanish Gardens (E-book, Trade Paperback)
Embers of Heaven (E-book, Trade Paperback)
S. A. Bolich
Firedancer (E-book, Trade Paperback)
Windrider (E-Book, Trade Paperback)
M. H. Bonham
Prophecy of Swords (E-book)
Runestone of Teiwas (E-book)
Serpent Singer and Other Stories (E-book)
John Dalmas
The Second Coming (E-book, Trade Paperback)
Deby Fredericks
Seven Exalted Orders (E-book)
Carol Hightshoe (Editor)
Zombiefied: An Anthology of All Things Zombie (E-book)
Gary Jonas
Modern Sorcery (E-book, Trade Paperback)
One-Way Ticket to Midnight (E-book)
Quick Shots (E-book, Trade Paperback)
Frog and Esther Jones
Grace Under Fire (E-book)
Michael J. Parry
The Spiral Tattoo (E-book)
Phyllis Irene Radford
Healing Waves: A Charity Anthology for Japan (Editor) (E-book)
Gears and Levers 1: A Steampunk Anthology (Editor) (E-book, Trade Paperback)
So You Want to Commit Novel (E-book, Trade Paperback)
Deborah J. Ross (Editor)
The Feathered Edge (E-book, Trade Paperback)
Laura J. Underwood
Ard Magister (Book One of Ard Magister) (E-book)
Dragon’s Tongue (Book One of the Demon-Bound) (E-book)
The Hounds of Ardagh (E-book)