Song for the Dead: An Ada Palomino Novel

by Karina Halle

  I swallow, feeling my stomach flutter. “Okay. So, say I’m there. Lurking in the background.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve said the beach bar in Mexico would be a good start. Or maybe open a hotel somewhere. I want to be in a place where people are always passing through. A place where no one gets suspicious.”

  “What would they get suspicious about? The fact that you gulp down scalding hot coffee like it’s no big deal?”

  “Well, in the past, it was the fact that I don’t age.”

  “Oh, right.” I sit back in my seat and pass him the Dr. Pepper. He takes it from me, fingers brushing against mine, creating a charge that makes the hair on my arms raise beneath my sweater. “Are you aging now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to?”

  He sucks on his lower lip for a moment, eyes trained to the road. He nods. “Yeah. I think I do.”

  I mull that over. About how long he’s gone without aging, only to die and come back and now he’s half alive and half dead and now he wants to age. He’s seen what it’s like to die and yet doesn’t want to live forever anymore.

  The man is loneliness personified.

  All the decades, all the centuries, having to keep moving on while leaving loved one after loved one behind. I’m starting to understand why he’d give that up for Rose. Because he didn’t want to live forever if he was going to keep being alone.

  And that just makes me think about Jay.

  That the lonely life is the life that Jay chose over one with me.

  Fucking hell, it hurts.

  It’s enough that a tear spills out from my eye.

  “Ada?” Max asks softly.

  I shake my head, facing away from him, angrily rubbing the tear away with the heel of my palm. “I’m fine. Just malfunctioning.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Keeps driving. Lets me be, stewing in my heartbreak and frustration. Why isn’t this getting any easier? Why, when I think I’m finally getting over him, I’m pulled back into my feelings? How am I so easily undone?

  “I don’t think I can say anything to make things make sense to you,” Max eventually says, voice low. “And I never knew Jay. But from what you told me, you need to take it easy on yourself. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  I try to swallow but the tears are blocking my throat. I can only shake my head.

  He goes on, gently, “You were his first. First everything, by the sounds of it. He’s just starting out. He doesn’t know what it’s like to…he has no experience with people, with love, with this world. And maybe, just maybe, he’s a fool, too. A fool with fear in his heart. Heaven knows he doesn’t want to end up like me.”

  I lick my lips. “Were you afraid when you gave it all up for Rose?”

  “No. And I would do it again.”

  “For her?”

  “For someone. If I loved them, I would.”

  His words seem to float between us.

  “Ugh, what a mess,” I say, searching my purse for tissues and bringing them out, dabbing my nose and under my eyes so I don’t ruin my makeup. “Sorry for being such a wet blanket.”

  “Darlin’, if only you knew half the shit that goes on inside me. It’s not a pretty place. You’re handling things very well, and as only you can. None of this is linear. Life just doesn’t work that way. Neither do hearts.”

  I exhale shakily, though the tears leave me feeling lighter. “I just want this over with. I want to stop caring and start moving on.”

  “You are moving on,” he says. We zip past the towering forests. “Even when it feels like you’re standing still.”

  We pull into Mendocino just before sunset, the journey having slowed down as soon as we turned off 101 and onto Highway 1, which is even more narrow and winding.

  “Oh my god, this is so fucking cute,” I practically squeal as Max takes the Super B down the side roads, past rows of tiny claptrap houses with shutters and well-manicured gardens. The cypress trees are all bent from the constant wind from the Pacific that crashes on the shore below, there are tons of little shops, galleries, and restaurants, and, when I roll down the window, the air smells like eucalyptus.

  When we drive past a dive bar called Dick’s Place with a dog inside, I’m practically wriggling in my seat. “We have to get drunk there.”

  Max groans. “Not again.”

  I ignore him. He seems fine, hangover forgotten.

  We finally pull up in front of the hotel, a small building painted marigold yellow with white trim and I’m itching to document this all for Instagram and my blog. Maybe this will be my first foray into being a travel influencer.

  We check in, and this time I insist Max leave the mind tricks out of it and just charge it to my card. This, plus the meal from last night, and I know I’m racking up the bill, but I also know tomorrow night we’re going to be in San Francisco which is stupidly expensive, so he can save his funny business for then.

  Our room is small, but there are two beds at least and a view over the street and into Mendocino Bay. Though the sun is going down somewhere on the horizon, it’s been blanketed by a layer of incoming fog that lights up the world in a hazy orange.

  “Hmmm,” Max muses, staring out the window. “I see this town has the Hell filter on.”

  “Hey, no negative attitudes tonight,” I tell him, throwing my suitcase onto my bed. “We’re going to have fun.”

  “I thought we had fun last night.”

  “I’ll let you think that,” I tell him. “But you were brooding to the extreme, and then you were flat-out hammered. Not a lot of fun for me.”

  “Guess I never did apologize.”

  “No, you didn’t. And it’s fine. I get it. Maybe tonight is my turn.”

  He grins at me. “I’ll keep an eye on you. Just remember that the road from here to San Francisco won’t be so friendly to a hangover.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Now, let’s go get something to eat.”

  We end up eating at the restaurant in the hotel since it’s closest and they had space available for us. We both manage to behave ourselves, opting for a couple of beers each instead of bottles of wine.

  But when dinner is done, I’m grabbing Max’s hand and dragging him down the street to where I saw the bar earlier.

  “You’re trouble,” he tells me, but lets me hold his hand and doesn’t fight it.

  Dick’s Place looks like an old West saloon from the outside with a little boardwalk out front, the building painted stark white, with peeling paint, the name done up with gold lettering on the windows.

  It’s surprisingly busy, and the kind of dive bar that tourists seem to love. It’s hard to tell who is who in here, but I guess we’re lucky to get two high chairs over a barrel in the back.

  The blues blare from the speakers and a grizzled looking man with a beard comes over, asking us what we want to drink.

  “Two dirty martinis,” I tell him.

  He frowns, making a gruff sound, and then walks back to the bar.

  “Dirty martinis?” Max asks me. “Really?”

  “There’s a little picture of a martini outside. I bet they’re really good. Also, he didn’t even ask me for my ID, so that’s a win for me.”

  He sticks a toothpick in his mouth. “I suppose if I were being responsible, I shouldn’t be letting you drink.”

  I give him a loaded look. “You’re not letting me do anything, Max. You’re not my babysitter. And I’m an adult. I can do what I want.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Hmm. Usually I get a bit of pushback.

  “I like that about you,” I tell him.

  He moves his attention from across the room back to me. “What?”

  “That you treat me like an adult.”

  “Because you are an adult.”

  “I know but…everyone else, they seem to think I’m eternally fifteen.”

  “Well, I’m not everyone else,” he says. “And you’re not fifteen. I was t
here when you were. That was almost five years ago. You’re not the same person. No one stays the same, even though others might want to put you in a box in the hopes that you will.”

  “When did you get to be so wise?” I joke.

  He grins at me. “Somewhere around the fifteenth century.”

  Wow. Sometimes I totally forget about his history, and then he reminds me, and it feels even more unreal. “How are you not the smartest person alive?”

  He laughs, loud enough to carry above the music. “Well fuck, Ada, I don’t know. I can only work with what God gave me.”

  This is the first time I’ve heard him mention God with a capital G.

  I wonder if he thought about where God went when he was trapped in Hell. But that seems like a conversation for another time, not in this dive bar in California. Or maybe this is the perfect place for that.

  “Well, God gave you the ability to be immortal,” I say.

  “Someone did, anyway,” he says as the bearded waiter comes by and brings us the dirty martinis. They look cloudy with extra olive juice and when I take a sip my eyes roll back in my head, it’s so orgasmically good.

  I glance at Max, who has the glass to his lips, watching me with a strange look of heat in his eyes, and it’s not of the dancing flames variety. “I take it it’s good?”

  “Fuck yeah,” I say as he takes a sip.

  He blinks, then coughs, pounding his fist on his chest. “This is fucking pickle juice with a splash of vodka.”

  “So good, right?”

  “I’m ordering the next drinks,” he says between coughs, eyes watering.

  I laugh and pull an olive off the plastic sword with my teeth. “Sorry. I’ll drink yours if you want.”

  I make the motion to take it from him but he pulls his away. “I’ll get used to it.”

  “So,” I say, munching on the olive, “back to the whole someone giving you immortality thing. Do you know who that is?”

  He shakes his head. “Hence why they’re a someone. Or a something.”

  “But it’s not God? Because obviously you believe in him. Or her. They. It. Or maybe it’s the big dude with the pointy horns.”

  “No small talk with us anymore, huh?” he muses, having another sip of his drink, bigger this time.

  “Small talk with you goes to waste,” I tell him. “You’re the most fascinating person I know.”

  He shoots me a dry look. “Ease up on the flattery there, sweetheart. You’re making me nervous.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He has the nerve to roll his eyes when I try to pay him a compliment.

  But when he brings his eyes back to mine, flames are burning in them just as the hair at the back of my neck stands up.

  “Someone’s here,” I say, quickly looking around the bar. It’s still busy, a mix of biker dudes, middle-aged couples in khakis, a group of young girls, the table of guys next to them trying to hit on them, a few scattered couples. So far none of them look like the demon kind.

  I look back to Max, but the flames are dying out. I can feel it too, like my nerves are easing.

  “What was that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says, sitting up straighter and looking around the bar. He’s probably the tallest person here, plus being up on the high seat, he really does have the eagle’s view. “Maybe they just passed by outside.”

  The both of us keep our eyes peeled, watching every person leave and enter the bar until we’re done with our drinks.

  “I think we should probably go back to the room,” he says to me. “To be safe. And I need to stop by the car.”

  “Forgot something?”

  “My sword.”

  Ten

  “I feel nothing, am I better yet?”

  – Everybody Knows That You’re Insane

  We walk quickly back from Dick’s Place to the hotel, the eerie fog having thickened in the night, covering the streets. We stop outside the Super B, Max opening the trunk. He pulls out the sword and brandishes it, the length gleaming in the streetlight.

  “Uh,” I say, looking around to see if anyone is watching. Hard to say since there are so many houses packed together here. “What if someone sees us? We can’t exactly walk into the hotel with a sword.”

  “How about we give it a shot and see,” he says, slamming the trunk shut and locking it. “Let’s go.”

  We walk into the hotel, passing by the receptionist.

  Max waves the sword at her. “Just bringing in my sword.”

  “Okay,” the receptionist says, smiling at us politely.

  I shake my head at his abilities as we run up the stairs, hoping we don’t run into anyone else in the hotel.

  Luckily we get into our room in one piece. Max rests the sword against the wall across from his bed and I start pulling my silk pajamas from my suitcase. “So, the sword,” I begin, glancing at it as he sits on top of the bed, kicking off his shoes. “Why the sword?”

  He lies back against the headboard, puts his hands behind his head, closing his eyes. “I told you. In case we need something stronger. Not everyone’s head will come off easy.”

  I shudder. “Why do they have to come off at all? Can’t we just…drive a stake in them?”

  “They aren’t vampires, darlin’.”

  “That sword is for someone like Michael, isn’t it? Do you think…do you think we’ll run across a demon like him?”

  He opens his eyes and looks at me. “I’ll always tell it to you straight. So, yeah. I reckon we will at some point. All signs point to yes.”

  My gut churns uneasily.

  “We can handle it,” he adds. “Don’t worry.”

  I give him a wan smile as I make my way to the bathroom. “I’m going to worry a little bit.”

  “Then you should worry less with this.” He reaches out with his leg, tapping the sword with his foot. Man, he’s got big feet. Not that I’m surprised. Not that I should be thinking about that.

  I pause in front of the bathroom. “Where did you learn how to wield a sword by the way? Because you handle that thing like it’s second nature.” I pause. “And don’t you dare tell me it was because you were around way back when people were using swords to settle arguments.”

  He runs his fingers over his lips like a zipper. “Won’t say a word.”

  Figures. For a moment I picture him sword fighting alongside William Shakespeare, but I’m not sure that image makes any sense.

  I get changed into my pajamas, take off my makeup, do my business, and then head to my bed, crawling under the sheets while Max is already snoring lightly on his bed, lying in his clothes on top of the covers. Don’t tell me he’s passed out again.

  “Go to sleep, Ada,” he says, not moving.

  I flinch. “You reading my mind?”

  “Don’t have to.”

  I’m about to tell him he’s the one who needs to go to sleep but before I can my thoughts are turning to mush and I slip into sleep.

  My last wish is to not have any dreams.

  “Ada.”

  I wake up slowly, my hair standing straight up, my gut swirling with white lightning energy.

  I don’t even have to open my eyes to know that something is happening and it’s bad.

  “Ada,” Max’s voice comes through, hard as steel. “Don’t you fucking move.”

  But I do move. I sit straight up in bed, open my eyes, and I’m face to face with a woman, stringy dirty blonde hair, a gaunt face, eyes black as holes, mouth stretched in a snapping shark-toothed grin.

  FUCK.

  I open my own mouth to scream just as the demon lunges to take a bite out of my face.

  Then there’s a whoosh of air passing inches in front of me and I watch as the tip of Max’s sword swipes across my vision. The woman’s eyes turn from black to white, her face shattering and crumbling into ash until all of her disintegrates, covering every inch of me in burning demon dust.

  “I said don’t move,” Max grumbles.

  I
pinch my eyes shut and try to scream but I hear Max’s voice in my head telling me to keep my eyes and mouth closed. I can feel the ashes burning through my pajamas, the smell like burned hair, and then Max is picking me up in his arms and carrying me.

  Oh my god, what the fuck is happening?

  “We need to wash this off you now,” he says, his voice rock solid, though it doesn’t do much to ease my anxiety because I’m totally screaming on the inside, because what the fuck, what the fuck!?

  He places me in the bathtub on my feet and my hands are fluttering beside me and I don’t know what to do, I can’t see, I can’t open my mouth to speak, or to cry, or to scream.

  Water sprays me as he turns the shower on. “Might be a bit cold, sorry.” He grabs my shoulders and pulls me into the stream, the water cold but quickly turning warm.

  “Get your clothes off,” he says.

  What? I say in my head. In front of you?

  “Give me a break, Ada,” he scoffs.

  Then he turns me around so my back is to him, thank god, and grabs the hem of my pajama top, pulling it up. I raise my arms and he takes it off of me, then tugs down at my pants until I’m wiggling out of them.

  Yeah, and of course I’m wearing a tiny pair of white lacey underwear that shows off most of my ass. I mean, at least they aren’t granny panties.

  I start rubbing at my eyes and my face, trying to wash the ashes away, opening my eyes just to see Max’s wet arm reaching for the hotel soap in front of me.

  Then he gathers my hair at the base of my neck and lifts it up, then starts running the soap over my shoulders, down my spine, stopping just at my ass. It would feel nice if the circumstances weren’t so batshit.

  Then his hand with soap in it appears in front of my face.

  “Here,” he says from behind me. “You can take care of the rest.”

  I take the soap from him and then I hear the bathroom door close.

  I whirl around to find myself alone.

  Stare down at the ashes in the water.

  Meanwhile my favorite pajamas are in the corner of the tub, the top disintegrating before my eyes. What the fuck? When I got the demon dust on me yesterday it didn’t happen quite like that. I guess I’m lucky that only my upper half got covered in that shit.