by G A Chase
He turned left into the hallway just as the last person headed down the stairs at the far end. The sounds of drinking, singing, and shouting indicated the customers below were too busy with their own affairs to pay much attention to anything else. Myles didn’t bother hanging close to the shadows but turned down the stairs, hammering his cane on each landing with one hand and yanking on the chain to the beast with the other.
“You don’t think we should be a little more inconspicuous?” Kendell brought up the rear. Her cautious movements were slowing down the procession.
“I don’t give a damn who notices, but no one will. You’ll see.” At the bottom of the stairs, Myles turned in to the kitchen, still tugging on the chain like a dog owner expecting the animal to heel.
“How do we get to the basement?” She was whispering, not realizing she didn’t need to.
He pointed the cane at the back door. “There’s an outside entrance to a root cellar. That’s as low as we can go in this building. There’s a grotto of the deep waters that extends under this side of the street, so all we’ll need to do is punch our way down.”
“And what if we run into one of the loas? They must have some kind of a security system against people just directly accessing the deep waters.” Her whisper was so quiet on the last words that he barely heard her.
“They’re all busy figuring out what to do with the backlog of souls. Those waterfalls I saw were mere trickles compared to the influx of the dead. Right now, we’re the least of their worries.”
She was still lagging behind. “Aren’t we going to need shovels?”
He held up the cane. “We’ve got everything we need. Now, get a move on. I’d like to get home before the dogs miss their dinner.”
Outside of the saloon, the cane guided Myles to the locked doors that tilted back toward the building. Though the alleyway was vacant, the crush of revelers on the street threatened to spill into the empty space. With no one looking, Myles aimed the green crystal at the lock, which snapped open.
“Cool trick. Too bad the doors didn’t magically open as well.” Kendell huddled against the wall. Her position indicated she wanted to keep as much distance from Colin as possible while also trying to be invisible.
“We’ll be out of sight in just a minute.” He set the cane against the wall so he could maintain his hold on Colin and pull the doors open with his free hand. Every second that the cane wasn’t in his hand left him with a growing feeling of anxiety.
With the access open, he retrieved his stick and instantly knew there was nothing to worry about. But they had to keep moving. He followed Kendell and the beast down the small ladder and pulled the doors closed behind them. Only the green glow from his cane illuminated the dirt-sided cellar.
“Hold onto his leash.” With his hands free of the chain, Myles turned the cane over and hit the dirt floor with the crystal.
Like shattering ice, the ground collapsed around them, but instead of freefalling to their doom, they floated down like leaves on a windless afternoon. When they landed, they stood on a rock outcropping surrounded by an endless ocean.
Myles stood over the writhing body. “Take off his chains.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Couldn’t we just kick him into the water?”
He aimed the crystal at the beast to quiet him down. “It doesn’t work that way. He needs to become one with all humanity. That’s one of the things I learned while holding the cane. I’ve floated on these waters many times but never bonded with it. Moving on to the deep waters isn’t just about dying. It’s a matter of accepting that we’re each only a small part of a much greater whole. Dying frees us from our bodies, but letting go of our souls has to be a conscious decision.”
He kept the cane aimed at Colin while Kendell carefully unlocked the chains. Once freed, the beast unfolded its bloated body and stretched out on spindly legs to its full nine-foot height. Its skin was covered in boils and scars. The contortions that rippled its wolflike face exuded pure contempt. Nothing about the body looked human except its basic structure. It extended its bony hand toward the cane. “Give it to me.”
Myles didn’t back down. “So now we see your true self. Welcome to my version of the seventh gate. Instead of requiring you to accept the deep waters like Baron Samedi, I give you a choice: enter the reservoir of human souls as an outcast to be forever condemned—drowning for an eternity in humanity’s judgment—or embrace the love that has occasionally found a home in your spirit and let your life go. Either way, you’re not getting out of this grotto.” He pushed the crystal against the beast’s chest.
The animal’s howl gave way to the outcries of a man. “What am I supposed to do?”
Myles pushed the stone farther into the man-beast’s chest. “The time for your education is over.”
A beating heart appeared under the green glow of the crystal. “Serephine.” As Colin fell backward into the deep waters, the beast that had driven his existence faded away, leaving only the man. Instead of submerging himself in the waves, he melded into the lapping ocean. The last Myles saw of Colin Malveaux were the sky-blue eyes that turned one final time to Kendell and the smile that ensued.
Kendell stood at the shore between life and death. “Rest in peace.”
Myles watched the waters to make sure Colin didn’t have one last trick up his sleeve. The calm ocean reflected the rock cave like glass. Without realizing what he was doing, Myles kicked off his shoe and dipped his toe in the welcoming liquid.
“What are you doing?” The panic in Kendell’s voice was like a lifeguard trying to yank him out of a pool.
“All my life, people have told me I was crazy for thinking I could read energy in objects. You were the only one who believed in me, even when I doubted myself.” He looked at her and waved at the water. “This is it. Everything I’ve believed about life from the time I could think. It’s right here.” The desire to dive in made him feel as if his clothing would fall right off his body.
“You’re not leaving me. This is not your death. We’ve done what we came to do. It’s time we left before the loas figure out we’re here.”
He slipped his foot, from toes to ankle, into the calm love of all human souls. The temperature and texture made it hard to know where his flesh ended and the water began. I could finally slip away into what I’ve always dreamed of finding.
She grabbed his arm and wrenched him so forcefully back onto the rock outcropping that he landed on his face. “Knock it off right now.” Her voice was faltering. She sounded far away even though he could still feel her hand on his arm.
As with the welcoming water, he wasn’t sure where her fingers ended and his forearm began. He didn’t just love her. She was a physical part of him—at least in the spirit world.
“Come with me,” he said.
“You’re acting like a damn fool. We’ve got an entire life ahead of us and two dogs that need us. When the time is right, many years from now, we’ll come back here, and I’ll gladly go for a swim with you. But right now, we still have things to do.”
He turned back to the ocean of souls with tears in his eyes. As they ran down his cheeks, he knew his sorrow would join with the deep waters. “You’re right. I don’t know what came over me.” He reached for the cane that connected him to the place beyond the shore, but instead of being drawn forward, he stayed huddled on the rocks like someone afraid of falling off a ledge.
She eased off of her viselike hold of his arm. “You got a glimpse of the sum of human love. Who wouldn’t be enticed by something like that? I know I can’t compare to that, but I need you with me.”
He turned to look at her. Tears were flowing down her face too. “You are my deep waters—at least, the precious glass of it that I get to keep with me in life. I’m sorry I scared you. Let’s go home. The dogs are probably missing us.” He slipped the shoe back onto his foot as if it were his protection from the siren calls of the deep. As he got up and took her hand, he took one last longing look a
t the vast expanse of water. For the only time in his encounters with Colin Malveaux, he actually envied the man.
64
For the first time in what felt like years, Kendell woke up without the feeling that the world was her responsibility to save. She rolled against Myles’s back and wrapped her arm tightly around his chest. Though sex had always been an exhilarating experience, she’d never before understood what people meant by the term making love. In the past, it had always sounded so fake—as if people were trying to cover the raunchy act in a cloak of respectability. She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. “There just aren’t any words to describe last night.”
He turned over to face her. His cheeks and eyes were still pink from the emotions that had been released. “We were like two halves of the same spirit.” He frowned. “You’re right. There are no words.”
She pressed her head to his chest. “I can’t believe how close I came to losing you yesterday. Don’t ever scare me like that again. Understand?”
He ran his fingers through her hair from the top of her head to her back. “I’d like to say I don’t know what came over me, but that would be a lie. The only other time I’ve felt like that was in your arms.” Though his fingers stopped at the end of her hair, the tingling continued down to her toes.
She undulated against his body. “I like that.”
“My touch, or that you make me feel wanted?”
“Both,” she said. “If I wasn’t having a craving for coffee, I’d recommend we stay in each other’s arms all day.”
He took the hint and kissed her on the head. “Stay here. I’ll go make it.”
Cheesecake stretched out in the warm indentation left by Myles. Doughnut Hole lay curled up at the foot of the bed. Kendell snuggled deeper under the heavy comforter while she waited for him to bring her a cup. The feeling of family harmony had her humming “Here Comes the Sun.”
“Somebody’s in an awfully good mood. I’m not so confident in my moves as to believe this is strictly about our night of passion.” Myles handed her the cup of coffee and rejoined her in bed. Cheesecake gave him a grumpy look at being moved but didn’t outwardly protest.
“I feel like it’s the first day of summer vacation, or maybe the day after graduation. I still find it hard to believe we actually defeated that devil.”
He tickled Doughnut Hole with his feet, enticing the dog to join the family. “You’re not worried life will feel somewhat boring now that you just have to run a business and play with the band?”
“Not even a little bit. When one adventure ends, there’s always another on the horizon. Hopefully, the next one will be something more positive than defeating evil.”
He contemplated his coffee. “And what about Sanguine?”
Stop trying to cast a shadow on my happy morning, Kendell thought, but she knew he was only trying to help air out any lingering issues. “Of course, I’d rather she returned to life, but she’ll never leave hell until Sere can as well. Until we find a way to make Sere’s body real, that girl is going to need someone to raise her. At least without Colin driving our need to make hell a realm of the damned, Sanguine can turn it into a world fit for a growing child. We do still have our gates, so it’s not like we’ll never hear from them again.”
He set his cup on the nightstand and snuggled back against her. “Hopefully, she’ll check in soon.”
The small black puppy circled around the covers until he made himself into a fluffy ball pressed against Myles’s side.
“And what about you and the loas of the dead?” she asked. “You do still have that cane.”
“I’m sure they’ll make contact soon. I’m hoping we dropped Colin off in such a way that they’ll believe it was Sere and stop their search for her.”
Between the coffee, comforter, dogs, and Myles’s love, Kendell felt warm all over. “I guess Sanguine can’t be the only one looking out for the child. We’ll probably always have to run interference from our reality. If the loas figure out it wasn’t her soul we dropped into the deep waters, they’ll be coming after all of us.”
“I’m positive Papa Ghede will be hitting me up sooner or later with another interdimensional problem. With our proximity to Sere, we’ll have to be careful dealing with the loas of the dead. Our advantage, however, is that those spirits will owe me, and we can keep an eye out for any time they might be getting suspicious.”
She reached over and fluffed up the little dog’s head. “At least we got this puppy out of the deal.”
“And the deed to the club.”
She laughed. “Right, and that. I suppose I should be grateful to never have to work for someone else again, but honestly, I’m more excited about the puppy. I’m just glad we got to share the wealth with Polly and Lynn. I suppose I should think of something nice to do for Scraper and Minerva now that this is all over.”
“If we’re going to try to pay back all the people who’ve helped us, I’m not sure where we’d stop. I’m guessing gratitude is going to be a lifelong condition for us.”
Kendell snuggled down in the covers and pulled Cheesecake onto her stomach. “And you, little dog, have been my savior more times than I can count. I love you so much.”
The dog started kissing Kendell’s face with such enthusiasm that the licking felt like a tongue facial.
* * *
Though Myles shared in Kendell’s sense of relief, he still had the burden of the loas hovering over him. At any moment, they might show up and demand he risk his very soul for some fool mission again. So when she headed off to band practice, he snagged the bottle of expensive rum from the cupboard and went out to the veranda for a late-afternoon shot.
Papa Ghede was already sitting at the metal table with an empty glass in hand. “I thought you might want to chat.”
Of course you did. Myles filled the loa’s glass before doing the same with his own. “How are things in Guinee?”
“We’ll have the seventh gate back up and running by the end of the week. A hole was discovered under one of the saloons, and the deep waters are a soul fuller than expected. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Myles doubted there was much point in lying, but hopefully, a little redaction of the truth wouldn’t be noticed. “I couldn’t exactly turn a soul that had been torn through multiple dimensional shifts loose in Guinee. You already had your hands full.”
Papa Ghede shook his head while contemplating the rum in his glass. “No need to explain. I appreciate the help. So long as the tally of the living and the dead remains constant, how we get to the balance is of only marginal concern. Now, if that soul you have locked in hell were to break loose into life, we’d need to hear about it. I hope you understand.”
Is this a warning or a threat? “We have control of the situation.”
“Then we can consider this commission complete.”
Myles watched the dogs lounging inside the apartment in a patch of sunlight. “Not quite. There is the matter of payment for services rendered. What I want has to do with Cheesecake and her pups. I don’t ever want any of their human companions to suffer a loss of their beloved dog.”
The old loa’s smile revealed ivory-colored teeth coated in rum. “The souls of those animals are bonded to the spirits of the people who care for them. Neither will continue without the other.”
Why can’t you just speak in plain English? “So when it comes my time to die, Doughnut Hole will join me? But he won’t die before that?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
Myles needed another drink. With no life-or-death challenge on the horizon, he filled his glass to the rim. I haven’t had a proper hangover in months. “Just making sure. The terms of our arrangement aren’t always as clear as I’d like. Speaking of which, how do we go forward?”
“As I said when I gave you the cane, we will have jobs for you from time to time. Right now, the balance between our worlds doesn’t require an intervention among the living.”
<
br /> I’ll bet your realm is a mess, though. Myles kept his observations to himself. He didn’t even want to imply any willingness on his part to help police Guinee. “Then I’m free to live my life again?”
“For the time being.”
* * *
Kendell couldn’t remember a gig where she’d been so excited to be onstage. Her music was her own again. Any magic that ensued from her guitar was strictly to enhance the crowd’s enjoyment. She was Olympia Stain, lead guitarist for Polly Urethane and the Strippers. No devil would walk through the door on this night. No souls would need her music to find their way home. And her band was rocking out in full force.
Behind the bar, Myles and Charlie once again flipped bottles between them in time to the music. All the customers were up on their feet, singing, laughing, and dancing. Kendell laid into a riff, knowing the enhanced energy that filled the room would be pumped into the mirror club in hell. Even if Sere was too young to frequent the dance club and Sanguine too occupied with the child for a night out, the energy had to have a positive influence on the realm.
Kendell didn’t set her guitar down until the last group of customers stumbled their way to the door at two in the morning. Even then, she wished she could continue playing instead of closing up the club. “That was some night.”
Polly handed her a bottle of water. “Girl, you played like there was no tomorrow. I don’t know how you’re going to find the energy for our next gig. Our regulars are going to start expecting a whole new level of commitment from all of us. Way to set the bar higher than it already was.”
Kendell meekly shrugged. “What use is being onstage if we don’t stretch our abilities from time to time?”
Polly tapped her foot on the plywood stage as if the limb had fallen asleep. “Anyone else feel that vibration?”
Kendell didn’t feel a thing, but the other bandmates nodded their agreement with Polly. Myles came out from behind the bar. “Someone’s calling us from the beyond. I can feel it from the speakeasy as well. Looks like maybe Sanguine has come out of hiding.”