Modern Sorcery: A Jonathan Shade Novel (33 page)

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 housing.
 
It could have been worse.

“I only see two warriors,” I said.

“Brand stopped fighting once you took Ravenwood away,” Kelly said.

“And you let him live?”

“That’s not all,” Esther said, disgusted.

When we climbed into the car, several people started toward us as if to tell us we couldn’t leave, but I had a sword in my hand and I’m guessing they’d seen Kelly behead the two dead warriors.
 
The people changed their minds about getting involved and backed off.
 
I knew they’d give my license plate number to the police, but I wasn’t too worried about it.
 
I’d get in touch with O’Malley before then and go down to the station to sort things out.

Kelly tossed me the keys.

“You have something more to tell me, Kelly?” I asked as I started the car.
 
I was pleased that the engine fired right up.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” I said as I backed down off the curb.
 
I could see antifreeze on the sidewalk, but it appeared to be a minor leak.
 
I felt sure we could make it to the police station.

“Tell him,” Esther said.

“Tell me what?” I asked.

Kelly shrugged.
 
“It’s not a big deal.”

“What?”

Esther fumed.
 
“She has a date with Brand on Friday.”

“Excuse me?
 
The son of a bitch tried to kill us and you’re going to go out with him?”

Kelly shot Esther a look that said
tattletale.
 
“He’s cute,” she said.

“Oh, boy,” I said.
 
“Don’t tell O’Malley until after we’ve cleared all this shit up.”