Back from the Undead

by DD Barant

  I’m beginning to see how an eternity of vagueness could be considered Hell. “Which is what, exactly?”

  “Well, that’s the catch. You knew there was going to be one, right?” Zevon sighs. “That’s the problem with this place. Nothing surprising ever happens … anyway, it’s got be something you can both agree on, and acceptable to me. Let’s get those lines of communication open, eh? Full and frank discussion, all options on the table.” He beams at both of us.

  “Not very subtle, is he?” Stoker says.

  I shake my head. “Honestly? I’m a little disappointed.”

  Zevon blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, it beats all the artificial sexual tension we were trying to generate,” Stoker admits.

  “Maybe, but at least that was almost enjoyable.”

  “I thought the slap was a little cliché.”

  “Me, too. But hey, what about your leering redneck impression?”

  “Over the top, I know. I was just trying to keep up.”

  Now Zevon looks a little miffed. “Artificial? Wait a minute—”

  I cut him off. “We’re not going to emotionally eviscerate ourselves while you watch, Zevon. Arguing back and forth over what really matters to us and what we’re willing to give up? Not gonna happen.”

  “No,” Stoker says. He takes a long, deliberate step toward Zevon, then another. It’s that even, measured pace men use when they’re being confrontational, accompanied by a steady gaze and an impassive expression. “But I’ll tell you what will.”

  He stops a few feet from the thrope, who’s looking at him more in curiousity than fear. Stoker leans forward—and says something too softly for me to hear.

  Zevon grins. He throws an arm around Stoker’s shoulders, and they stroll quickly away. The fog swallows them in a second.

  “Hey!” I shout, and bolt forward.

  But it’s no use.

  They’re gone.

  SEVEN

  I know if I get lost in that fog I’ll be even worse off than I am now, so I stay with the car. The car, and my new dead friend.

  “I can’t believe he did that,” I fume. “Can you believe he did that?”

  Ghost woman appears to think about it. “I’m not sure. Believing in things is hard.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a request. Christ, I should have known he’d shaft me the first chance he got … what was I thinking, working with him? Did I leave my brain in my other pants?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have pants.”

  “Or much in the way of gray matter,” I mutter. “Well, that makes two of us. Maybe we should team up—the Idiot Twins, Seventh and Eighth Wonders of the Underworld. Watch us perform amazing feats of stupidity without a neural net…”

  “I’m not an idiot,” the woman says. There’s no trace of anger or any other emotion in her voice; she’s simply stating a fact. “I’m just dead.”

  That shakes me up a little. The woman has so little presence that it’s hard to think of her as a person—but even if she’s no longer alive, there’s still some kernel of humanity there, some self-awareness that makes her more than just an object. She was born, she had a life, she died; she deserves more than my offhanded glib insults—

  “You really smell,” the woman says.

  “What?”

  “No. That’s not right.” The woman pauses. “I mean you smell real.” There’s just the barest emphasis on the last word.

  “Oh. I guess that’s because I am. Real, I mean.”

  The woman nods. “Nothing here is. Not even me. We’re just … moving pictures. Gray light through film.”

  That’s more eloquent than I expected, and an unusual metaphor; a comparison to shadows seems more likely to me than a cinematography reference. “What’s your name?” I ask, while doubting I’ll get a useful answer.

  She surprises me again, though. “Jinjing. Jinjing Wong.”

  “What did you do when you were alive, Jinjing? What was your job?”

  “I was a cook. Many years. But only for my family the last ten. Retired.”

  “Retirement. That sounds good, right about now.”

  “Hated it at first. Always been useful. But found something else. Magic.”

  Now, that gets my interest. If Jinjing here was some sort of shaman, maybe her ghost still has a little mojo—enough to get me out of here maybe, or at least steer me in the right direction. “You were a shaman? Shinto?”

  “No. Not that kind of magic. Movies.” This time, there’s something approaching actual emotion in her voice. “So new. So wonderful. Light and shadow dancing, telling stories. I watched them all.”

  I blink. I’m not sure when Jinjing died, but apparently she became a film buff in her old age. “All?”

  “Yes. I loved Buster Keaton. Very Chinese, in his way.” A trace of a smile touches Jinjing’s lips, but it’s gone in an instant. “My friends didn’t like them. Disrespectful of reality, they said. But I thought films were more than real, not less.”

  “I know what you mean. Life with all the exciting bits concentrated and the boring bits removed.”

  “Yes. Like a good stew.” She pauses. “But now … nothing has flavor. There is only this…” She takes in the featureless landscape with one slow, all-encompassing look around. “Nothing.”

  I shiver, but the cold I feel isn’t physical. I wonder if I’ll sound like Jinjing after being trapped here for a few decades …

  Which is when Stoker strides back out of the fog.

  “Hey, Jace. Ready to go?”

  I don’t know whether to slug him or hug him. “What the hell was that all about?”

  He reaches for the passenger-side door, but I block him. He sighs. “How about I tell you when we’re out of here, huh? A door is about to open and we need to be ready to drive through it.”

  I give him a hard look, but if he’s telling the truth my questions will have to wait. The fog in front of the DeSoto is swirling around, looking like the eye of a hurricane as seen from space; we both jump in and I start the engine. A yawning black hole opens before us. I have time to hope this isn’t the proverbial from-frying-pan-to-fire routine, and stomp on the gas.

  We roar into the darkness. My last glimpse of Jinjing Wong is through the rearview window, and she’s already turning away.

  Back to oblivion.

  * * *

  Leaving Hell, it turns out, is considerably rougher than entering it. I have enough time to yell “Close your eyes!” to Stoker, and then we’re into the eye of the hurricane.

  I’ve been across dimensional boundaries before. Sometimes the transition is hardly noticeable; other times it’s disorienting and unpleasant. Guess what it’s like this time?

  The very first time I made a trip like this, the sorcerer who brought me across warned me to close my eyes, “for my own safety.” I finally understand what he meant.

  The darkness doesn’t last long. It’s replaced by madness.

  I can’t even properly describe it. An infinity of invisible eyes bleeding fire the color of pain. The smell of sideways hours. Gut-wrenching terror, overpowering déjà vu and hysterical nostalgia. Sharpness turned inside out and the taste of overcooked bleach. All of it pouring through my optic nerves, like my senses have narrowed down to one channel and everything’s overlaid on top of it. I really wish I could close my eyes, but the rational part of my brain that’s still working tells me that’s not a good idea while I’m behind the wheel of a car. Okay, this isn’t exactly driving, but I plunged into that portal at a pretty good clip and I’m probably going to come out the other end doing the same speed. I need to be ready.

  It’s over as abruptly as it began, leaving my abused central nervous system gasping and flopping around. The car is—

  Indoors.

  I slam on the brakes. We plow through what looks like a roulette wheel, then a craps table, then a few round tables covered in green felt. Poker chips explode into the air like a million tiny, brightly colored Frisbees. I w
ish I could say we didn’t run anyone down, but at least four bodies thump off our fenders or grille. The last one hits the windshield face-first and sticks, an elderly Asian pire in a plaid cardigan who looks more offended than afraid.

  We screech to a stop before we run out of casino—or gambling den, more likely.

  “Can I open my eyes now?” Stoker says.

  I look around at the room full of stunned gamblers. Some of them are starting to look a little upset, and the pire stuck to our windshield is shaking his fist at us and berating us in Cantonese.

  “I wouldn’t,” I say.

  Fortunately, that’s when Charlie shows up. He makes his way past the wreckage and yanks open my door. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sorry about the car.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Little body work, is all. Bang out a few dents, she’ll be good as new.” He grabs the pire by the scruff of the neck and tosses him over his shoulder as casually as a gas-station attendant pulling a scrap of newspaper from under a wiper blade. “But you should really let me drive from here.”

  I don’t argue, just slide over next to Stoker. Charlie climbs in, puts the car in gear. “Brace yourself,” he says, and guns it.

  Apparently the wall I stopped just short of is made of smoked glass—or was, anyway. Charlie smashes through it, into a thankfully deserted restaurant on the other side, through a dozen or so round tables with chairs stacked on them, into another large, smoked-glass window, over a sidewalk on the other side, and finally into the street.

  “Nice,” Stoker says. “Hope nobody’s stuck to the undercarriage.”

  “Nah,” Charlie says. “She’d be riding a lot rougher if that happened.”

  It looks like we’re still in Chinatown—hopefully the right Chinatown in the right world. World-hopping always makes me nervous; what if I come back to the wrong one? What if it’s so close I can’t tell until years later, when some weird detail turns out to be different from the original—you know, like the French worshipping Jerry Lewis or something equally bizarre? Would the knowledge destroy me, or would I just shrug and go on about my life?

  Of course, if I do wind up on an alternate version of Thropirelem I’ll probably never find out, so I tell myself not to worry about it. And at the moment, I have more pressing problems.

  “Doesn’t look like we’re being followed,” I say. “Guess Zhang isn’t quite as cocky in the non-metaphysical realm.”

  “He was just taking advantage of an opportunity,” Stoker says. “I can’t really blame him—I probably would have done the same.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. Now how the upside-down seven seven three four did you get Zevon to open the exit door?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” All the adrenaline in my system is being converted to pure frustration, and despite the fact that he just saved both of us, I’m about ready to throttle Stoker.

  He shrugs. “That was the deal. I gave up something to gain my freedom … and got yours in return for keeping mine a secret.”

  “What? That’s … that’s…”

  “Maddening? Sure. He knew that’s how you’d react, which is why he went for it. Apparently Zevon likes his entertainment on the obnoxious side.”

  I take a deep breath and settle back in my seat. I am not going to let this get to me. Whatever Stoker traded, that’s his business. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care at all.

  I don’t.

  * * *

  It’s been a less-than-satisfying night. Stoker tells us that in light of Zhang’s attempted abduction, there are certain things he has to attend to if he doesn’t want every gang in Vancouver thinking he’s now a target; not so much retaliation as sending a message. It’s something he has to do on his own, not out of machismo but simply to reassert his position in the local underground heirarchy. It should have the added benefit of shaking loose a little more information about the missing children, too, or at least that’s what Stoker claims. I’m guessing that the next time Zhang and Stoker talk it won’t be quite as polite.

  We drop him off on a street corner and he vanishes into the night. Charlie and I return to the hotel, where we give a worried-looking Eisfanger a quick rundown of what happened. Charlie, it turns out, was dumped in the bathroom of the gambling den. While surreptitiously checking out the operation, he overhead someone mention Zhang’s name and decided to stick around to see if the sorcerer made an appearance—though he was just as happy to see us instead.

  Then we collapse into our respective beds. I’m exhausted, more so emotionally than physically, and don’t so much fall asleep as pass out.

  And dream.

  “Hello,” Cassius says. “Nice dress.”

  I look down at myself. I’m wearing Nice Outfit #3, the one I wear on first dates when my hopes are still relatively high: green silk blouse, mid-length skirt, two-inch strappy heels.

  Cassius, though, is considerably more upscale, if not exactly modern. He’s dressed like medevial royalty, a gold-embroidered vest over a billowy shirt of deep purple, with heavy golden rings on his fingers and a spray of lace at his throat. Normally I’d mock him for such a getup, but dream logic tells me to simply accept it.

  We’re sitting at a café table on a patio under a sun umbrella. Cassius is in the shade, but he seems unconcerned at the closeness of the sun.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Bear with me, okay? I don’t date much.”

  He smiles. It makes me a little light-headed, that smile, in all the right ways. “I’ve been known to go a few years between relationships myself. But let’s not put too much pressure on ourselves, all right? I won’t bite if you won’t.”

  I laugh at that, because I know he’s a vampire but he doesn’t know I know, which puts me one up on him.

  “So, what do you do?” I say, trying to keep a grin off my face.

  “Well, let’s see. I got my start in Rome. Lot of people think I was in on the bottom floor, but that’s not strictly true. After that I kicked around Europe for a while, did some backpacking, helped found a few countries … you know, the typical young-guy stuff. How about you?”

  “Got into a lot of trouble when I was a kid. Not because I was bad, exactly, more like I wouldn’t back down from anyone and had the tendency to stick my nose where it didn’t belong.”

  He nods. God, his eyes are so blue … I find myself thinking he must be a jerk. Anybody good looking gets so used to being handed everything on a silver platter, they can’t help but turn into spoiled brats.

  “Never back down, huh?” he says. “Wish I could say the same. But you know how it is: Once you start to compromise, your ideals begin to erode. Happens so slowly you hardly notice. By the time you do, decades have gone past and you’re doing things you never dreamed you would. By then, it’s too late; you can’t undo the mistakes you’ve made. All you can do is atone…”

  His voice is full of regret. Most jerks are defined by their selfishness; they just don’t care about other people’s pain. But listening to Cassius, I can tell he does.

  “Sounds like you’ve led an interesting life,” I offer.

  “I suppose. Want to see some of it?”

  “Sure.”

  He stands up and holds out his hand. Hesitantly, I take it.

  We step away from the table and onto the ramparts of a castle, gray stone lit by torches. The moon is full, the sky full of stars. “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Bavaria. Somewhere around 1550, I think. Lot going on back then; what eventually became Germany was divided into a patchwork of little kingdoms, and they were all at war with one another. I was in the thick of it.”

  “On whose side?”

  He shakes his head ruefully. “Depended on the day of the week. So many different alliances, treaties, betrayals … honestly, I can’t remember it in detail. But I do remember the countryside, and this view in particular. Lovely, isn’t it?”

  Beyond the castle’s walls are rolling hills of green, shimmering gently like wa
ves in the moonlight. “Very,” I say. “You always bring women here on a first date?”

  “No,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Just you.”

  The night air is rich and heady, the smell of wild grass after a spring rain mixed with the tang of wood smoke. I feel like I’m about to be kissed for the first time ever, nervous and excited and a little impatient. He leans forward …

  “Jace,” he says softly. “The membrane is ripening.”

  “Yes,” I murmur.

  “Soon potential will maelstrom the lattices.”

  “I know, I know. Me, too.”

  There’s something wrong with his face. It’s—it’s spiraling, eyes and mouth going into orbit around his slowly twisting nose.

  “I need you,” he says. “Leapyear, Jace. Leapyear for me.”

  I step back, horrified. Now it’s his whole body, spinning into a vortex of stretching, distorted limbs. “I will,” I say, my voice shaking. “I will, I promise!”

  The faster he swirls the smaller he gets, until there’s only a blurred, whirling circle the size of my head hovering in front of me. I feel like I’ve just watched someone die.

  And then I wake up.

  EIGHT

  “You look like hell,” Charlie observes at breakfast.

  “Didn’t sleep well. Bad dreams.”

  Eisfanger looks up from the huge plate of food he’s halfway through consuming: eggs, toast, bacon, sausages, pancakes, and hash browns, with a side order of ham. I’m sticking with coffee and a Danish, and so far the Danish is doing better than I am. “Well, no wonder, after what you guys went through—psychic trauma is practically a given.”

  “I slept fine,” Charlie says. He’s reading a local newspaper while we eat.

  I give him a withering look. “You weren’t there for very long.”

  Charlie has the grace to look wounded. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like I left of my own free will.”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it.” I drain my coffee cup and look around for the waiter, who bears absolutely no resemblance to a movie star.

  “So—what did you dream about?” Eisfanger asks. He studies me with interest, as guileless as a puppy. For some reason, I just don’t have the heart to smack him down.