by Gary Jonas
She shook her head. “You can’t transfer to another host down here,” she said.
He released her then flexed his hands. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Your magic won’t work down here either. Bob should be able to force you out in a few minutes.”
“Bob?” I asked.
“My replacement,” Sharon said.
Up ahead, the river flowed around an island. I could see people gathered there. They didn’t seem to be moving.
The boat glided over to a pier and stopped of its own accord.
“This is my stop,” Naomi said. “I go to be judged. I’ll face up to all that I’ve done, and I’ll accept whatever judgment they render. But only one opinion matters to me: yours.” Her eyes pleaded with me.
I considered what she had done. She had used me. She had played me like a well-tuned guitar. Her actions had cost people their lives. However, she wasn’t asking me to forgive her for them. That wasn’t my place. She only wanted my forgiveness for what she had done to me.
I stared into her eyes.
“Can you ever forgive me?” she asked.
I shook my head. “What’s sad is that after all this time, you think you have to ask.”
She tried to embrace me, but her arms passed through me. She moved her ghostly face close to my ear and whispered, “I love you.”
It was the first time she’d ever said those words to me.
With that, she turned and walked away. She climbed off the boat and walked down the pier toward a group of spirits. While they looked human, they didn’t seem to pay much attention to anything. They simply stood around without any expression on their faces. I guess the afterlife is pretty boring. Either that or they must enter some sort of suspended animation until Judgment Day.
The boat started to pull away from the dock. Now that his duty to Naomi was complete, Ravenwood was no longer bound to the office. He jumped out of the boat to the pier and raced toward the group Naomi had joined.
“Damn it,” Sharon said. “We can’t let him stay here. Bob will be missed, and if that happens, I’m in some seriously deep shit. I can’t set foot on the grounds here without alerting some unsavory types that I’m here. That would not be a good thing.”
“I’ll get him.” I started to follow Ravenwood.
Sharon grabbed my arm. I turned to face her.
“If you can’t catch him fast, remember that blood makes the grass grow.”
That didn’t make any sense to me. Was it part of some ancient mythology? I could never keep all the mythologies straight, and even when I did remember them, the reality was often quite different.
I jumped to the pier, sword in hand, and followed Ravenwood. He ran through spirits. They didn’t seem to notice him; they simply stood on their mist-shrouded ground. I saw Naomi step into a line of people and close her eyes. My heart wanted to drop out of my body. I forced my eyes away from her and focused on Ravenwood.
“Aren’t we a bit old to be playing hide-and-seek?”
Many of the spirits looked to be soldiers and warriors. I couldn’t remember what, if anything, that meant. Was this some realm discussed by Virgil that gave military men a place to go that wasn’t quite the same as Hades? I had no clue.
Ravenwood tried to hide behind a group of spirits. I knew I didn’t have much time. I didn’t want to miss the boat, and trying to swim in the Acheron didn’t strike me as a good idea.
I ran right at Ravenwood. When I drew close, I whipped the sword around and tried to slash him.
“Blood makes the grass grow,” I said. It sounded so familiar.
Ravenwood jumped on me.
I flipped him to the ground, and the rest of the saying emerged from the murky reaches of my brain. “Marines make the blood flow,” I said. Of course, I wasn’t in the Marines, but I still didn’t understand what Sharon was trying to tell me.
Ravenwood tried to kick my legs, but I easily avoided his attack.
“You’ve been a real pain in the ass,” I said.
“You can die here as easily as in your city,” Ravenwood said. He rolled to his feet and rushed me.
Without his magic, I knew he wasn’t much to talk about, so I punched him in the face. Pain thundered up my arm, but he did not go down.
He grabbed me and swung me hard. I tried to keep my balance, but he was incredibly strong. I flew sideways, lost my grip on the sword, hit the ground, and rolled. I picked myself up off the ground and faced him, ready now.
“I may not have my magic,” Ravenwood said, “but this body does have some advantages down here.”
I attacked but he caught my fist in the air. I tried to hit him with my other hand, but he caught that one too. He kicked me hard in the chest. I felt the air burst from my lungs, and when I hit the ground, I couldn’t breathe.
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a long, wooden staff. It looked to be the same one he’d left on the boat. I didn’t know if it was a case of that being part of his office and that the tools were always at his disposal or if he’d opened a rift and pulled it from the boat. It didn’t matter. The end result was the same.
He swung the curved staff and brought it down hard. I rolled to the side but still caught a glancing blow on the ribs. It sent waves of agony shuddering through me as they were the same ribs the Sekutar had bruised several days ago.
I curled up into a fetal position, trying to protect my vitals as he pounded me with the staff.
Finally I managed to catch my breath. My arms and sides screamed in agony. No wait, that was me. I tried to crawl away, and he smashed me across the back.
I did a face-plant and rolled over as he swung again. I managed to block the blow with my forearm; then I rolled hard to the left and cut myself on Kelly’s sword. Smooth move, moron. I got to my knees and touched the cut. My hand came away bloody.
“Feel free to try the sword,” Ravenwood said. “I’ll wait.” He kept his distance. The smile on his face told me he was enjoying this.
I picked up the sword and rose to my feet, using my bloody hand to push myself up. For a moment, I thought one of the spirits had moved toward me, but when I looked at it, I saw that it stood motionless.
“Ready?” Ravenwood asked.
I responded by rushing him. I swung the sword, and he managed to parry with the staff. I spun and slashed downward at him. He dodged and laughed.
“This is more like it,” he said.
We attacked and parried and jabbed. The clang of steel on wood filled the air. I kept thinking the sword should cut into that staff, but the wood didn’t look even nicked. Ravenwood swung hard and I jumped back to avoid the attack, and when I hit the ground, I did a backward somersault to my feet. I saw blood on the grass, but it disappeared into the ground. One of the spirits shifted on his feet.
I looked at the spirit, but now it wasn’t moving. It stood as impassive as the ages.
Ravenwood attacked again, and I parried and countered. He didn’t seem to grow tired, but I found the effort of swinging the sword beginning to wear on me. My shoulder burned and my shirt was stained with blood. I jumped to the side to avoid another swipe of the staff. I fell through a spirit, and the spirit suddenly straightened. Once I passed through, it resumed its old stance. I glanced at my shoulder. The bloodstain was gone. I could still see the cut, and blood began to seep out of the wound again, but passing through the spirit had cleansed it momentarily.
Blood makes the grass grow.
I looked at the sword. Naomi’s blood still stained the steel.
“Are you tired?” Ravenwood asked.
I nodded.
“Ready to give up? I can kill you fast and end your misery.”
“I’m not that miserable,” I said.
“The woman you love is dead. You failed to save her. You can’t win, Shade. You are a pathetic excuse for a man.”
I laughed. “This pathetic excuse for a man has fought your sorry ass to a standstill.”
He considered that then nodded
. “Perhaps not so pathetic. Maybe if I kill you, you’ll remain in the Elysian Fields. Perhaps, like your Naomi, you’ll have earned a place here.”
And that’s when it finally hit me.
Blood makes the grass grow.
“Maybe,” I said. “One thing I do know for sure is that you don’t belong here.”
He leaned on the staff, content to chat. “In this body, I do belong here. I can go wherever I please. You, however, are lost here. The boat is gone. Sharon can’t rescue you or help you in any way. I can take my time and kill you fast or slow. The choice is yours. I have time.”
“I don’t think you do,” I said and placed the sword tip against the ground. I leaned on it the same way he leaned on the staff. The blade bit into the ground and slid deep, Naomi’s blood seeping into the grass.
I looked around.
Nothing happened.
Had I miscalculated?
Could I be wrong?
Did I need the blood of the living?
Did I need to cut myself and let my own blood pour on the ground?
I looked around and saw only the spirits of dead soldiers standing around, ignoring our discussion as they had ignored our battle.
Ravenwood glanced around too. He laughed. “Were you expecting help from ghosts?”
I shrugged. “A little.”
He laughed harder. “You amuse me. It will be a shame to kill you. Pull out the sword, and let’s finish this as warriors.”
I gripped the sword and pulled. It didn’t budge.
“Problem?” he asked, twirling the staff around.
I smiled. “For you,” I said.
He laughed again. But that’s only because he hadn’t looked behind him.
I pointed.
“That trick was ancient even back in my day.” He approached me, ready to swing the staff.
“Okay, but I warned you.”
I sat down.
He looked at me as if I were crazy, but after a moment, staff poised to deliver a killing blow, he did glance behind him.
Naomi’s spirit smiled at him. “Hello, Blake,” she said.
And she reached into the ferryman’s body and gripped Ravenwood’s spirit. He struggled, trying to get away. She pulled him out of Bob’s body, and Ravenwood stood there in stunned silence.
Then I heard a rumble, and the ground beneath me shook.
“You should go, Jonathan,” Naomi said. “I’ve got this.”
Bob shook his head, confused.
I patted him on the back. “You all right, Bob?”
“Release me,” Ravenwood said. “They’re coming!” He struggled, punched, kicked, and twisted, but Naomi held him tightly.
The ground seemed to roll beneath my feet. The spirits around us wavered, and the grass blew in a soft breeze. Dirt danced on the ground.
“We need to get to the boat,” Bob said.
“Let me go!” Ravenwood yelled. “They’ll take you too, Naomi! They’ll drag us to the pit of Tartarus!”
“You’re the one who doesn’t get it,” Naomi said. “They won’t drag you down. That pleasure is all mine.”
“You’ll be trapped down there too!”
Naomi nodded. “But the people I care about will be safe.”
She wrapped her spirit around his and drove him to the ground. Wisps of energy tore free from his eyes and he screamed. Naomi pushed him beneath the ground, and the scream died. She followed him under, and the ground shuddered.
“We need to go,” Bob said.
I grabbed Kelly’s sword, which came out of the ground easily, and we raced to the banks of the Acheron. The boat was long gone. The water now flowed back toward the land of the living. Sharon stood on the dock and approached the land when she saw us.
“You made it,” she said, stopping a few planks from the riverbank.
“Where’s the boat?”
“Probably back at the entrance by now.”
Bob nodded to Sharon. “Thanks for the help. I got sloppy.”
“You should thank Jonathan, not me.”
“Actually, he should be thanking Naomi,” I said.
Bob walked to the edge of the pier. “You two might want to stand back.”
Sharon shook her head. “I don’t want to set foot on land here.”
“You don’t work here anymore. You can’t change the current. It will only take a minute.”
“They’ll know I’m here.”
“But they won’t get here before you’re gone.”
She had no choice but to trust him. She glanced down at her feet and slowly stepped from the planks of the dock to the sand of the shore. I stood beside her.
Bob took his staff and thrust it into the water. Fountains of liquid shot into the air, swirled around, and crashed back into the river, drenching the entire pier. Sharon pulled me away from the edge so none of the droplets could hit me. When Bob turned toward us, his face was hidden by the cowl, but I could see that his hands, still clutching the staff, were skeletal. He leaned the staff against his shoulder, shook the water from his bones, and held his hands out.
Muscle, veins, sinew, and flesh wove around his bones until his hands returned to normal. When he approached us, I saw that his face had been burned away too. I watched it mend itself back together. The Acheron now flowed toward us. A minute later, the boat returned.
“Shall we?” he said.
The spirits started marching toward us.
We raced to the edge of the pier and hopped into the boat. Bob pushed us into the current and waved his staff through the water. The water shifted direction again and carried us back toward the entrance.
The spirits stopped at the edge of the river.
“They know,” Sharon said.
“That you were here?” I asked.
She nodded.
“So?”
“I wasn’t supposed to leave here, Jonathan. They’re going to come after me.”
“You have time on your side,” Bob said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Time works differently down here. In your world, you’ve been gone for only a few minutes. Down here it’s been more than an hour. They’ll need time to assemble a team to go after you, and they might not even bother. I’ll certainly put in a good word for you. It’s also possible that they didn’t notice your presence.”
“The spirits did.” She seemed afraid. I’d never seen her scared before.
“You could stay and face them,” Bob said.
“I like my life up there,” she said. “I don’t want to give it up.”
“I’ll cover for you,” Bob said as the boat exited the cavern. He steered us to the edge of the river by the paupers.
“Thank you,” Sharon said.
Bob shook my hand. “Thanks for saving my ass.”
I nodded.
He placed a hand on Sharon’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said. “If they ask me, I’ll send them in the wrong direction. If the gods are smiling on you, nobody will ever find you.”
“They won’t be smiling,” she said.
“You never know,” Bob said. “Don’t abandon hope.”
“Right,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
When we stepped through the rift back to Denver, Kelly and Esther leaned against my damaged Firebird with two headless Sekutar lying on the pavement.
“Nice of you to join us,” Kelly said.
“Ravenwood is history,” I said.
Esther smiled. “You’re a darb.”
Sharon kept looking over her shoulder. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I don’t want to be here in case we’re followed.”
I heard sirens approaching—more backup.
“I don’t think any of us should be here,” I said. “But I’m more worried about the cops.”
Sharon nodded to me, opened another rift, and stepped through it.
The front of my car on the passenger side was crumpled, the headlight popped out of its hous
ing. It could have been worse.
“I only see two warriors,” I said.
“Brand stopped fighting once you took Ravenwood away,” Kelly said.