The Ferryman

by Christopher Golden

  Janine rushed to Annette’s side and crouched by her, cradling her gently. But Annette’s attention was on the girl in the shower.

  Maggie melted.

  As the shower rained down upon her, Maggie’s body turned to water, mixed with that spray, and swirled down into the drain. The shards of glass that had jutted from her wounds broke into even smaller bits as they fell to the tile floor.

  Annette stared at the empty shower, at the water flowing in circles toward the drain.

  Father Charles began to pray.

  CHAPTER 15

  It should be dark out, David thought. He sat on the couch in Annette’s apartment and stared out the windows at the long afternoon shadows falling over Medford Square.

  Shit like this isn’t supposed to happen during the day.

  But he knew that sort of thinking came from movies and television, and what was happening around them wasn’t a movie. Movies could not kill you. They didn’t run you off the fucking road or choke your best friend half to death in the shower.

  “Jesus,” he whispered to himself.

  Annette was off in her bedroom, getting dressed. She had taken Janine with her because she did not want to be alone, not even for a second. The only other person in the room was Father Charles, who stood with his arms crossed like an angry parent and stared at nothing as though he’d gone catatonic.

  He twitched when David spoke, a sign of life, and then actually glanced over at him.

  “I hope that was a prayer, my friend. I’d say we’re going to need some.”

  David nodded slowly, out of respect for the man. It did make sense to him, though. For if Father Jessup’s insane theories were true, if faith, simple belief, was what created the world’s deities and their minions, prayer might actually be the only weapon they had. Yet what would they pray for? That Charon had never been created?

  The Ferryman’s very existence proved that faith endured. What once was worshipped could not be erased except by time and circumstance.

  “How do we fight something like this?” David asked, surprised to find his voice steady and strong.

  Father Charles began to reply, but then his gaze flicked toward Annette’s bedroom. David rose from the couch and turned to see the two most important people in his life, his lover and his best friend, coming into the living room. Janine was pale, shaken, but she was being strong for Annette, who was a wreck. Her eyes, always so bright, seemed dull and lifeless to David now. Annette seemed tiny, dressed in jeans and a sweater, with Janine’s arm around her.

  David went to her. Annette gazed up at him, searching his eyes for something, perhaps strength. Whatever it was, she seemed to find it, for she nodded once as if to silently reassure him that she would be all right. There were bruises on her throat, and several small cuts on her skin, but beyond that, she seemed all right.

  “I’m sorry, Elf. Sorry you got caught up in this.”

  There was so much more he should have said, but Annette was well aware of what this truth had cost her: love, and trust, and a taste of happiness. The last thing he wanted to do was rub it in, even unintentionally.

  Annette reached out to lay a hand upon his chest. “This . . . Maggie?”

  David nodded.

  With a sad shake of her head,Annette turned to include the others. “Janine’s told me a lot about what you’ve all got figured out.”

  “What we think we’ve got figured out,” David corrected.

  Annette nodded. “All right. And an hour ago I’d have said you were out of your fucking minds.” Her eyes flicked toward Father Charles. The barrier that she always put up between them was still there, but perhaps not quite so solid now.“Except you, padre. I would have found a more polite way to call you crazy. Now, though ... it all sounds a little too logical to me, now that I’ve got all the pieces of it in front of me. But here’s what I don’t get. Jill ...”

  Her expression tightened painfully and she took a breath. “Maggie. This Maggie ... what the hell is she? She turned to water, you guys. And excuse me again, Father, but what the fuck is up with that?”

  For a moment it was so quiet David could hear the clock ticking on the wall and the sound of music coming down from the apartment above them. His heart broke for her just then, for though somehow Annette had found the strength to face this thing with them and not simply shatter, he knew that it had to be a near thing.

  They all looked to Father Charles for an answer. The priest raised his eyebrows, and then sighed.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d say there’s plenty of room for speculation, however. Maybe these things are just manifestations from David’s subconscious mind—”

  “No,” David said quickly. “That was Maggie. Didn’t you hear the pain in her voice? And I saw my grandfather. It’s him.”

  “The ... the girl I was with wasn’t just some mirage,” Annette added, a bit of defiance in her voice, as if daring the priest to bring her sexual preference into the equation.

  “All right. All right,” Father Charles said slowly. “Perhaps, then, if Charon is really bringing these ... spirits ... back from the underworld, he’s somehow created bodies for them out of water.This sort of wild speculation is not my bailiwick, my friends. I’ve always indulged Father Jessup’s expeditions into logic and theology, but this ... I’m as baffled as you all are. Still, water is Charon’s element, isn’t it? So that’s a bit of logic in itself.”

  “But why would they do it?”

  Janine had asked the question, and they all turned to look at her. She sat on the arm of the couch, hugging herself as if cold. Her eyes were distant, and David knew that her mind was working, turning it all over, trying to make sense of it.

  “Good question,” Annette said. Then she glanced at David. “Why would they?”

  A chill ran through David. He felt their eyes upon him and turned away, strode toward the window. Pain and guilt began to boil over inside him, but they had been simmering there for some time ... since the truth of all this had begun to present itself. He planted his hands against the window and the glass was cool, soothing.

  Outside, the sky had begun to darken as the day slid toward dusk.

  That would be better. It would be right, he thought.

  A prickle of heat ran across the back of his neck, as though he could feel their attention on him, and he closed his eyes.

  “You’re wondering how my grandfather could kill someone. He killed Spencer, right? And Steve Themeli tried to kill me. Twice. And Maggie ... God, poor Maggie. I can’t tell you if my grandfather ever killed anyone else, except in the war. I guess what’s important is that he has always hated me. Even when I was little, he hated me. He was a sadistic old fucker even then.

  “You all know what happened with Maggie. She died because of me.

  “And Themeli? I wanted to help him get off drugs and I tried to reach out to him, and when I couldn’t help ... I turned him in. I thought even if he went to jail, at least he’d stay alive. Maybe it’d just be rehab, maybe not, but one way or another, he’d have a chance to get clean. He was stabbed in jail, died there.

  “So they all have reason to hate me. Somehow Charon found them, gave them a chance to hurt me. Maybe to drive me away from Janine or maybe to kill me to get me out of the way.”

  His eyes opened. It had grown even darker outside, the night coming on inexorably, sucking the life from the day. David could see the reflections of his companions in the glass. All three of them were staring at him.

  “I never knew that about Themeli,” Janine said, her voice low.“You never told me.”

  “It wasn’t something I was proud of,” David confessed.

  “But it was the right thing.You tried to help. It wasn’t your fault,” Janine went on.

  David knew that. It didn’t help.

  Annette went to him, leaned against the wall between the windows. He could see her staring at him in his peripheral vision and his gaze was at last drawn away from the window. David turned toward her
.

  “Hey,” Annette said. “For ... for what it’s worth, Maggie doesn’t want to be here now. She said some things that have me thinking maybe this Charon offered her something to do this. Maybe offered it to all of them. All right, they weren’t hard to convince, but ...”

  She shrugged.

  Father Charles cleared his throat noisily. Though he had seemed as disturbed as they all were by what had happened, what they had seen, he had gained some of his dignity back.There was power in the symbolism of his priestly garb, and he stood straight and noble as he regarded them now.

  “It’s possible he offered to let them stay when he was through with them.”

  “God,” Janine whispered. “Can he do that?”

  She moved to David and slipped into his arms. It felt so good to him to have her there, as if the two of them together were somehow safer, stronger. It wasn’t true; not really. He knew that. But it felt true, and he thought maybe that was enough. It was about faith, after all.

  “I guess he can do just about anything,” Annette said, her voice haunted.

  “Not anything,” Father Charles said confidently. “He can’t kill.”

  “What about Spencer?” David replied, frowning. “What about—” But he stopped midsentence. He was going to mention Janine’s mother, but did not want to hurt her. From the look in her eyes, however, she had gotten his meaning. She flinched and glanced away.

  Father Charles walked across the room, deep in thought. He spoke as if to an empty room, as though they were not there at all.

  “The Ferryman hasn’t killed anyone yet. Your grandfather killed Spencer.The attempts on your life, David, and on yours, Annette, were made by these ... revenants of his. If all that we’ve theorized is true, what would happen if a creature responsible for shuttling human souls from this plane to another were to start killing people?”

  David frowned, not sure where the priest was going with that.

  But Janine got it. A tiny “hunh” escaped her lips. David glanced down at her.

  “Well,” she said, “if he exists, it stands to reason that there are other things like him, some kind of hierarchy. Call ’em angels if you want to. Whatever this enormous God-being is, it might not notice if Charon starts to kill people. But these other things, the things that are supposed to watch out for humanity’s well-being, to guide our souls ... they might have a problem with that.”

  “Excellent,” Annette said.

  They all looked at her. She shrugged.

  “Hey, it has a weakness. That’s good, right? I mean, okay, he’s in love with Janine. In love enough to torment her and do all this shit. But he can’t kill anybody.”

  “Unless he stops caring about the consequences,” David said, his voice low, almost hating himself for saying it.

  “Thanks for that thought,” Annette snapped.

  Several moments of silence ticked past before Janine spoke. “So what now?”

  “I want to call Father Jessup again,” Father Charles said.“And possibly some old friends from my days in seminary who also gave his theories a bit more credence than the Church would like. I’ll have to pose the questions hypothetically with them, of course. But we may be able to learn something.”

  “Good,” David said. “You can do that from my place. Take some clothes, enough for a few days away from home.We’ll stop at Janine’s, then the rectory.”

  “Why your house? He’s already been there,” Annette reminded him, a frightened look in her eyes again.

  “He’s been here. He’s been to Janine’s. I doubt there’s anyplace he can’t be. But we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about this ... figure out if there’s anything we can do about it. Anyway, my house is the only place big enough for us all to stay together.”

  “And we’ve got to stay together, protect each other,” Janine added. Her eyes locked on Annette’s.

  “We’re all targets now.”

  The thing that amazed Kindzierski most about David Bairstow’s neighborhood was how quiet it was. Medford wasn’t exactly Boston or Cambridge, and there were plenty of well-groomed side streets, but the city was usually pretty active. On Briarwood Road, though, with the tall trees all around and the river not too far off, they might have been in New Hampshire, it was so peaceful.

  Peaceful was bad. It lulled him, made his eyelids droopy, and he yawned in spite of the surplus of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee he held between his legs in the biggest travel mug on God’s green Earth.

  He was parked three houses down and on the opposite side from Bairstow’s in an aging Toyota he’d borrowed from the pool.The view of the front door and driveway was decent, and he had not dared park any closer during the day. Now that it was dark, he’d thought a dozen times about moving up, but did not want to draw the attention of the neighbors. Better to just stay put, see what turned up.

  So far, nothing at all.

  While it was still light out, he had been able to read the sports page and a film magazine he’d brought with him. Now that it was dark, though, Kindzierski simply sat and stared at the house up the street. The window was down and the night had grown cool. His light jacket was just enough so that he was not cold, and the air felt good on his face, helped keep him awake.

  The coffee, though, wasn’t helping. He had more than two hours to go before Simmons would arrive to take a shift on surveillance, and he did not want to have to leave his post to piss, so he was nursing the huge mug.

  Boredom was the biggest enemy on a surveillance gig. Kindzierski knew that from long experience. A couple of times, on past details, he had actually fallen asleep briefly. Fortunately, both times he had woken up pretty quickly and hadn’t missed anything vital, as far as he could tell.

  As he sat and watched Bairstow’s house, he fought to avoid falling asleep a third time. With the quiet neighborhood and the pleasant weather, though, it was a tough fight. The only thing that saved him was that as soon as it began to get dark, the frequency of cars down Briarwood increased, people coming home from work. Each time a fresh set of headlights lit up his windshield, Kindzierski went on alert, and a bit of adrenaline shot through his system.

  But, so far, none of those cars had been Bairstow.

  It was his case, and Kindzierski couldn’t get the kind of manpower he would have needed to stake out both of the people he wanted to keep an eye on—Bairstow and his girlfriend, Janine Hartschorn—so he had been forced to choose. Instinct made him go with Bairstow. Hartschorn had a stalker, maybe that was true, but twice, someone had supposedly tried to off her boyfriend.

  Kindzierski didn’t have the first clue as to what was actually going on, but he had a very strong suspicion that at least one if not both of them knew a hell of a lot more than they were letting on. Maybe the Hartschorn woman had a stalker; maybe she didn’t. Bairstow could be the guy, might even have trashed his own place, but he sure as hell had not run himself off the road. He hadn’t killed Spencer Hahn, either.

  At the moment, though, Kindzierski was mainly concerned with only one part of this bizarre tangle of interrelated events, and that was the disappearance of Ruth Vale. He had a pretty good idea Ruth Vale was dead, but if he was wrong about that, he would need to find her soon.

  So he sat and sipped at his coffee and tried to keep his eyes open as the cool breeze carried the rich scents of spring into the car.

  As it neared seven thirty, the flow of after-work traffic onto Briarwood dropped off to nothing. Despite the cool night, Kindzierski began to feel warm all over, and several times his eyes fluttered to stay open. His head began to bob as he tried to stay awake.

  “Shit,” he muttered as he sat up straight.

  Though he was trying to quit—and knew it was more likely he would be noticed if he smoked in the car—he pulled a partially crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit up.The nicotine gave him an instant rush and he stretched a bit. After a moment, he turned the key backward in the ignition, not wanting to start the engine but needing
at least the temporary company of the radio. He did not want to drain the battery, so he would not leave it on for long. But a few minutes of classic rock would help him clear his head.

  As he fiddled with the search buttons, trying to find a station to his liking, headlights washed across the windshield and he could hear the sound of an engine approaching. More than one, actually.

  Kindzierski ground the cigarette out in the ashtray and slid down slightly in the seat so he could just see over the dash. Beneath the streetlights, he saw that the first car was the rental Bairstow had been driving. Both vehicles pulled into the teacher’s driveway, and then Kindzierski got a good look at the second, a mid-nineties-model SAAB.

  Doors opened. Bairstow and Hartschorn got out of the rental, then went around to the trunk where the woman retrieved a small suitcase. The driver of the other car was a petite woman with her blond hair cut short. Though he could not make out her features very well in the dim light from the streetlamps and from that distance, Kindzierski figured from what he could see that it had to be Annette Muscari. Bairstow and Hartschorn had been at her birthday party the night Spencer Hahn had been murdered.

  The Muscari woman opened the back door of her SAAB and took out an overnight bag.

  Whaddaya know? It’s a sleepover.

  Muscari was not alone, either. A tall man in a long black coat emerged from the passenger side of her car. This was new, and Kindzierski narrowed his eyes and cursed under his breath because he could not really make out the man’s features. Muscari’s boyfriend, maybe.

  The man in black opened the rear passenger door and pulled out a small case as well. It was getting stranger by the moment. The women both lived nearby, in the same city even. Unless they were all having some kind of fucked-up sex party, Kindzierski could not imagine why they would all stay overnight at Bairstow’s house.

  The four walked up to the front steps together. Bairstow pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. As he did, the man in black turned to say something to Hartschorn, and Kindzierski got a better look at him. At his throat, the man wore the white collar of a Roman Catholic priest.