Danse Macabre

by Kory M. Shrum

  It was that question that haunted her.

  She supposed if she had only been met with his anger, his violence, she wouldn’t have hesitated. After all, anger was fear, and fear was about the self. It would vindicate rather than overrule her conviction that, if in the face of his loss, he’d taken it only as a personal insult.

  But it hadn’t been anger in his eyes. Lou had seen real pain. Real desperation.

  And in that way, Petrov had delivered the killing blow.

  She’d never lost to an opponent before. Petrov’s life may have ended in La Loon, but he’d won the battle between them.

  Lou padded into the living room. On her kitchen island, she saw the gun. A gun she wasn’t sure she could raise again. Then she saw her aunt’s letter, open-faced, with a glimmer of sunrise collected in its pages.

  Lou lifted the letter from the counter, felt its weight in her hand and read it again.

  It was in the second paragraph that Lou put the letter down and dressed in silence. She plucked the letter from the counter, folded it and slipped it into her back pocket.

  Pulling wet hair back into her ponytail, she stepped into the linen closet. She stood in the dark and felt them calling. King. Piper. Konstantine. No doubt they were anxious to know if she’d survived. If she was alive and well.

  But they would have to wait.

  She exhaled. She gave her mind over to the dark as one must do for safe passage through it.

  She expected to hear cars, people. But instead, what she heard was howling wind. She could taste the frost on her lips even before the darkness found its mark and pulled Lou down into it.

  One step and Lou’s boots found solid stone.

  Before her sat an enormous statue. Buddha with his palm out as if to ward her away. This inner chamber was small. No pews. Nothing churchlike about it except for that enormous sleepy-eyed statue and the reverent hush cloaking all.

  Lou realized she wasn’t alone. A figure stirred at the base of the statue. It rose to its full height, apparently coming out of a low bow. Somewhere a bell tolled.

  The figure approached. It was a woman, Lou realized, despite the shapeless robes of red and saffron. The face was too full, too round even with the shaved head. She was barefoot and padded silently across the stone floor toward Lou.

  Lou wondered if she was in the wrong place. She wondered if she should turn and run before the woman reached her.

  But then she was there, so short that she didn’t even reach Lou’s shoulders. Five feet tall at most.

  “I’m looking for Ani,” Lou said, removing the letter from her back pocket. The woman took it, opened it and read the first line before Lou could object.

  Then she looked up at a Lou, surprise sparking in her eyes. “You’re looking for me.”

  Lou stood in this inner sanctum, unsure what to do next. She’d come. She’d found Ani…and now what?

  “Come this way,” the woman said, waving Lou toward a door in the far corner.

  Lou fell into step beside her, following the swish swish swish of her robes on the stone floor. They passed through the arched doorway into a narrow hall.

  The place reeked of incense, reminding her of Mel’s shop. There were many holy places in the world, she thought. Some less formal than others.

  The Buddhist nun might be short, but she had quite the stride. It took effort to match her pace.

  At last, they arrived at a door. Ani pushed it open and beckoned Lou inside.

  It was a small space. Only enough room for a narrow bed and a table. Ani sat on the floor, cross-legged, waving for Lou to close the door. She obeyed.

  “I can tell I am not what you were expecting,” Ani said, her smile bright.

  Lou sat on the floor, mimicking the woman’s pose. It didn’t feel right to remain standing, looming over this woman so slight she could be someone’s child.

  “You’re white. Your accent is Irish,” Lou said. And immediately she felt stupid.

  But Ani only laughed. “Aye. You’re right on both accounts. Like you, my life has brought me down a strange path, far from the life I’d expected for myself, when I was young and a dreamer.”

  Something in her pleasant tone relaxed Lou.

  Maybe it wasn’t the woman. Maybe it was the simple room and its intimate warmth. Aunt Lucy would often go on about energies and the feel of a place—none of which Lou ever believed.

  But now, here, she suspected she understood. There was something in the woman’s energy that disarmed Lou. She thought it was her open face.

  “You’re not what I imagined either, Louie Thorne,” the nun said.

  “You spoke about me with my aunt.”

  “Oh yes. You were the subject of many of our conversations. But now that I can see you for myself, I like it.”

  Lou’s face warmed. “She died.”

  Ani only nodded. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “And yours,” Lou said. “You were friends.”

  The woman smiled at this. “We were. And I would like to be your friend, too.”

  “Even—” Lou began. But she wasn’t sure how to finish.

  “Even though you’ve killed people?” she asked. Her smile was amused.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s true that life is sacred to Buddhists. All life should be cherished, and I certainly do my best, though some—certain politicians for example—make it difficult to cultivate those feelings of warmth and openness. But another tenet of Buddhism is acceptance. I don’t want to change you, Louie. I cannot judge whether your actions are good or evil. My job is only to alleviate the suffering of the world until all beings are free. Are you easing suffering?” Ani shrugged. “I am not the one to say. But I see that you are troubled. You are suffering.”

  “I don’t suffer,” Lou blurted.

  The nun arched her eyebrows. “How enlightened you are. Perhaps you should be here and I there.”

  They laughed. The sound erupted from Lou’s throat before she had a chance to understand what was happening to her.

  “We all suffer,” Ani said. “It comes with the package.”

  She gestured toward her body. “Is it your aunt’s death that hurts you?”

  “Yes,” Lou said.

  “But that isn’t all.”

  Lou felt the desire to run. Suddenly, the room didn’t seem cozy, it seemed claustrophobic. Dangerous. As if monsters might begin to crawl from under that squat wooden cot, or this harmless bald nun might herself transform into something ravenous.

  Ani must’ve sensed this fear because she smiled, sliding her intense gaze away.

  “Your aunt was a little older than you when I met her. Almost thirty.”

  The promise of a story was enough to freeze the blind panic growing in Lou’s mind.

  “Oh yes. Scared the living daylights out of me,” Ani said. “A woman who pops out of the shadows? Buddha help me. I almost peed myself.”

  Lou found herself smiling again.

  “She was my friend for twenty years. I will miss her.”

  Lou’s heart kicked in her chest.

  “Perhaps not as much as you. She told me how afraid you were in the beginning, of your own power.”

  That seemed a lifetime ago. Lou, the horrified preteen who thought every slip in the bath or nightfall spelled her imminent death. It had been Lucy who had taught her to control that gift.

  “She taught me to love the freedom of it,” Lou said.

  “Amazing,” Ani said, arching eyebrows. “Especially considering how much she detested it herself.”

  Lou met that gaze.

  “She was afraid you’d never love your power, because she hated hers.”

  “Always? Until she died?” Lou asked, unable to stop herself.

  “No,” she said. “In teaching you its beauty, I think she fell in love with it herself. But before you came, she only resented it for what it cost her. Her family. Her friends. She knew she couldn’t tell anyone and felt isolated.”

  Hearing her
own history recited to her unsettled Lou. How much did you tell her, Lucy?

  Everything.

  Lou thought of her father’s pleading tape. His desperation—I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. But Lou… He’d been one of the people to reject Lucy’s gift, even if he’d been willing to form a truce on Lou’s behalf.

  “You gave your father and Lucy a chance to reconcile before he died. And you taught Lucy to love her gift, as well. Those are two positive outcomes I know you are responsible for—assuming positive outcomes exist.” Ani flashed a mischievous smile. “So, what is it that troubles your mind?”

  Lou looked at the letter on the floor. You can trust her.

  “I…I couldn’t kill him.”

  Lou began talking. She wasn’t conscious of where to begin, so she simply started. Words formed and delivered themselves as if Lou was only a mouthpiece for another force, another will outside her own. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been talking. Ten minutes? An hour? Time fell away. But somewhere in the middle, she realized that she didn’t talk. To anyone.

  Not to King or Piper. Not to Konstantine.

  She’d kept all her thoughts and feelings wholly to herself, yet from herself. And now that the floodgate was open, she couldn’t stop.

  “Then Petrov was standing there, and I knew I couldn’t kill him. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t. But even before I saw him, I didn’t want to bring the guns. I didn’t want to bring anything. It’s like I knew I didn’t want to give myself the choice.”

  “You have a powerful intuition. It has been your guide thus far,” Ani agreed.

  “Yes,” Lou said, thinking of her compass.

  “That’s a wonderful gift, Louie,” she said. “You’re blessed to have it.”

  She drew her knees up to her chest.

  Ani glanced at the wall as if reading something there. “It’s interesting. You couldn’t kill him, but you also couldn’t let him kill you.”

  “No,” she admitted. “I almost did.”

  “But?” Ani prompted.

  “I wanted to live.”

  Ani nodded. “In the face of Petrov’s loss, you thought you deserved to die. That perhaps you were no different than the others whom you’ve sentenced to death.”

  “Yes.”

  “But then you wanted to live. And you realized that all the others you’ve killed must have also wanted to live.”

  “Yes,” she said and heard the truth in it.

  “Why do you feel guilty for wanting to live, Lou?”

  Lou glanced around the small room. Her eyes fixed on the small table with a book resting on top of it. Then her gaze traced the ridges in the cold stone floor.

  What am I living for? What reason do I have?

  For a while, Ani said nothing. She only regarded Lou in that stony silence of hers. Then she spoke.

  “Maybe your desire to live is also your intuition,” Ani offered. “You may feel like you’ve lost your way, but maybe there’s a part of you that knows you’re not finished here.”

  Lou stood and brushed nonexistent dust from her pants. “I don’t know why Lucy asked me to come.”

  “Your aunt asked you to see me because she wanted you to know there is a path for you. Buddhists call it the middle way. The path between lightness and darkness. The world needs both to be whole, and so do you. It isn’t about judgment. It’s about balance.”

  Lou hesitated at the door. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “We begin with intention,” the nun said. “In the past, your intention was to avenge your father and to ease your suffering. But I suspect your troubles more recently, culminating in this showdown with Dmitri Petrov, are because that intention is not holding water for you anymore. Your father’s name has been restored. The men who killed him are all dead.”

  “But I killed after Angelo. After Brasso and Ryanson.”

  “For a while, you were able to distract yourself by taking up your father’s work. But that was his work, Lou. Not yours. You haven’t even begun to walk your own path.”

  Lou thought of Nico. She suspected he, too, had been a distraction. His desire to have Konstantine’s gang—Konstantine’s life—hadn’t concerned her at all. But somehow, she convinced herself it’d been worth her time.

  And now…?

  “You’re still running, love,” Ani said gently.

  Lou stood in the doorway ready to bolt. She smiled, understanding the irony. “You want me to stop killing.”

  Ani smiled. “I meant it when I said I accept you as you are, Lou. I can’t possibly know your purpose in this world. If you are a tool of karma, or if you are working through karma of your own, I don’t know. I only know that you are here now, and I’m to listen.”

  “And what would you say?” Lou asked. “What do you think I need?”

  Ani laughed. “If only it were that easy. The thing about Buddhism is you must accept that you’ve no idea what’s going on. And to believe otherwise is an attempt to hold fast to the rock while the river beats you half to death. We are all afraid of not knowing. All of us. Me. You. Everyone you’ve ever met. Few of us have it in us to push off from the shore and let the river take us.”

  Lou found herself wondering how often Lucy conversed with this woman. They had a similar mannerism, a similar tone. Or did Lou only see what she wanted to see?

  “Where do I start?” Lou asked.

  “You need a new intention. Before, your intention was to avenge your father. You’ve done that. Then you tried to continue his work, hoping that by doing as he’d done, you would continue to feel connected to him. And it’s why I suggest you don’t rely on me.”

  Lou’s heart fell.

  “I’m not a replacement for your aunt,” Ani said. “I’m only here to tell you that your intention must be your own. Your path must be your own.”

  A new intention, Lou thought.

  “You don’t need to know what it is today,” Ani said with a light pat on Lou’s arm. It was so like Lucy in its manner and sweetness that Lou’s chest ached. “But keep your eyes open.”

  A new intention—a new reason to take on the Petrovs of the world.

  “Be patient.” The nun smiled. “It’ll come to you.”

  35

  Dani couldn’t sleep. If it wasn’t the pain wracking her body, it was the dreams.

  In these dreams, sometimes Lou would only watch her from the darkness. Other times, she would reach out and seize Dani, yanking her into a suffocating black so complete that Dani woke up choking.

  When Lou finally did step into her hospital room, she was awake.

  “Am I dreaming?” she asked. Her throat still throbbed when she spoke, but it had improved vastly in the days she’d spent drinking milkshakes and smoothies.

  “No,” Lou said, stepping into the light.

  Dani’s heart took off like a shot. It ricocheted violently in her chest. It was a war drum, its pounding obliterating all thought.

  “Have you come to kill me?” she asked. She wanted to sit up, and tried, but only managed to lift herself an inch off the bed before collapsing back against the pillows. Lou didn’t offer to help her, for which she was grateful. She didn’t want the woman to come any closer.

  “That depends,” Lou answered.

  “On?”

  “On you,” she said.

  “You don’t want me to tell your story,” Dani said. It was better to state the obvious. Now was not the time for coy games. She wasn’t sure if she was capable of games after seven hours at the mercy of Petrov and his men.

  “No,” Lou agreed. “I don’t.”

  “And you’re prepared to kill me to stop me from telling it?” Dani asked. The question was saturated with curiosity. Part of her wondered if Lou could actually do it.

  Lou couldn’t be much older than herself. Two years maybe? Three at most? And yet she seemed like an entirely different creature. She was cut from the fabric of another world.

  Part of it was the ice-cold resolve.
<
br />   The other part was the unreadable eyes often hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.

  No, more than either of those factors was her presence. The way Lou Thorne occupied a room was different than the other girls her age. It held none of the nervous excitement, the uncertainty, the indecision that she herself wrestled with.

  What the hell was it about this woman?

  She certainly understood Piper’s attraction, which in its own right should have been a red flag against their budding—whatever. It wasn’t a good idea getting into a relationship with a woman who had a death wish.

  Lou watched these thoughts play across Dani’s face. She remained silent, still as if she had all the time in the world to wait.

  “You aren’t afraid for your own life?” Lou asked. She leaned a hip into the bed.

  Dani’s legs tingled as if preparing for a strike. “Yes, but truth is important. People deserve the truth.”

  Lou smiled. “What about my life do they deserve to know?”

  Dani’s bravery faltered. It was a good question. She could’ve made the argument that Lou’s father deserved hero status. That the wrong people had been punished and must be set free. But none of those arguments applied here. Her father’s good name had been restored. The men had been punished. Ryanson and Brasso had both disappeared, and while the media might think they escaped with their lives, Dani had every reason to believe that wasn’t how it happened at all.

  What else could she say? Lou didn’t owe the world anything. She’d already paid for more losses than most would in the course of a lifetime.

  But she had killed Clyde. Then again, Clyde had tried to feed her to a Russian mob boss. Didn’t he get what he deserved?

  “I can tell you’re struggling with this,” Lou said.

  More tingles ran the length of Dani’s body. Fear, she realized. Her body was electric with fear.

  “I know what you do,” Dani managed. The clenched muscles were near spasming.

  Lou smiled. “Do you?”

  “And I don’t want to die,” Dani admitted. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to expose you like that when all you’re trying to do is even the scales.”

  Lou said nothing.

  “But maybe we can reach an agreement. Or an arrangement.”