Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel

by Gary Jonas

“Because the spirits won’t go away. They’ll just go get new bodies.”

  “These are not ghosts,” Von said. “Ghosts can’t take bodies. What sort of Pandora’s box have you opened here?”

  “Hey, I didn’t open it.”

  She nodded and I doubt she believed me. “I will make the bodies go away for one hundred dollars each. That is a bargain rate. It’s a simple spell.”

  “That’s over twelve thousand dollars.”

  “I take Visa and MasterCard.” She pulled out her iPhone. “I even have an app so I can charge you right here and now.”

  “That’s too much.”

  “In that case, Mr. Shade, have fun with the dead people.” She moved past me toward the SUV.

  “They’ll just get more bodies,” I said.

  “I can destroy those for one hundred dollars each too.”

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “Then you’re wasting my time.”

  “Hey, I saved DGI from Ravenwood. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “As I understand it, you had help.”

  “Fine. My friends and I handled it when you guys couldn’t or wouldn’t.”

  “Have your friends help you here.”

  I walked over to Von. I was extremely proud that I didn’t look over my shoulder to see if she’d released the dead folks. I figured as long as she was there, Von wouldn’t let them approach. I was also trying to suggest a level of trust I didn’t really feel. She did work for DGI, after all. They aren’t exactly the poster children for ethical behavior. I lowered my voice so Miranda wouldn’t be able to hear us.

  “I think this is blowback from helping you guys out. They’re after one of my friends.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “I’d rather not say. Names have power.”

  “Is your friend dead?”

  “No.”

  “Then I couldn’t do anything with the name.”

  “I’m a little concerned about speaking the name anyway. Especially when so many of the dead folks are in such close proximity.”

  “What’s your point, Mr. Shade?”

  “Can you cut me a deal here? I have seven thousand dollars clear on my credit card. You can make the charge, but in exchange for that, I want you to cast a spell that will disintegrate all the dead bodies in Colorado and the surrounding areas and do something to prevent the freshly dead from being used.”

  She laughed. “Do you have any idea what kind of power that would take?”

  “Not nearly as much as you want me to believe. You and your team could handle it with no trouble at all.”

  “The entire state? Not a chance.”

  “Fine. How about just the metro area and the front range? It’s just a question of casting a spell to destroy the bodies in the morgues and cemeteries.”

  “It would be improper.”

  “It would earn you seven thousand dollars.”

  “How do you think grieving families would feel to have their loved ones dissolved?”

  “How would they like it if their loved ones sat up during the funeral?”

  “These corpses are merely a nuisance. They aren’t particularly dangerous.”

  “Tell that to my car.”

  “Seven thousand dollars is a paltry sum.”

  “It’s all I have.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What’s the matter? Can’t you do it?”

  “I have nothing to prove to you, Mr. Shade. A spell like what you want would run at least a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Too rich for my blood. Fine. I’ll take you back to DGI. Give me a minute.”

  I turned away from her and walked toward the throng of corpses.

  “If you give her to us, we’ll let you live,” one of the dead guys said.

  “If I tell you where she is, will you go away?” I said loud enough for Von to hear.

  “What are you doing?” Von asked. “If you aren’t paying me, you need to take me back to the office.”

  “Be right with you, Von,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m just going to let these fine dead folks know that their target is hiding out at your office building. No worries.”

  “Where is the office?” one of the dead folks asked.

  “Don’t you dare answer that!” Von said.

  “You can’t hide her forever,” I said. “They’re going to find her eventually whether or not I tell them where you have her.”

  “We don’t have her. I don’t even know who she is!”

  I glanced at the dead lady before me. “She’s lying. Von here works at a place called DGI. It stands for Dragon Gate Industries. They have a gateway in the corridors beneath their building that leads to other dimensions and—”

  “Shut up, Mr. Shade!” Von was pissed now. I guess I wasn’t done being a dick.

  “—their building is in the Tech Center. Should I give you their address, or can you follow the energy pattern that surrounds the gate?”

  “We can find it.”

  Von stepped forward. Five seconds later, her hands glowed something fierce. She lashed out at the line of dead people. I was in the way, but magic doesn’t affect me. I don’t think this magic would have affected me regardless since I’m not dead, and Von didn’t seem to expect it to do anything to me.

  The dead people staggered backward.

  I turned to look at the closest guy. His face bubbled then melted like that guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He dropped to his knees, and his clothes burst into flame. The rest of the bodies suffered the same fate. I glanced back at Von, who made a sweeping gesture with her arms. My gaze returned to the dead people just in time to see their skeletons shatter and crumble to dust.

  The entire thing took perhaps fifteen seconds.

  Von strode up to me and stabbed me in the chest with her forefinger. “You, sir, are a Grade-A asshole.”

  “Be that as it may,” I said, “you could have simply agreed to my price.”

  “You planned this from the start.”

  Actually it had only occurred to me when her price was too high, but I knew better than to say that. Far better to let her think I was smarter and more calculating, so I simply smiled and said, “I’d better get you back to the office. You’ll want to launch that spell soon or you’ll have a real problem with dead people crashing your party.”

  “Fine. At least tell me who they’re looking for.”

  “It’s best if you don’t know.”

  She glared at me.

  I kept smiling and headed back to the SUV. As I started the truck, I wondered if any of my neighbors witnessed the destruction of all those corpses. If so, I’d tell them it was a test of special effects for that movie. In a few days, their mundane lives would bury the magic, and they wouldn’t remember it or they’d think it was a dream.

  That was probably a good thing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I dropped Von off at DGI.

  As she got out of the truck, she glared at me. “My team and I will conjure up a spell and liquefy all the corpses in the metro area. It will be done in an hour or two. One way or another, we’re sending you the bill.”

  I laughed. “Good luck with that.”

  “You’ll pay.”

  “Get in line.”

  “We’ll sue your ass.”

  “Your lawyer would cost more than I make in a year, so you’d gain nothing.”

  “We will get paid. One way or another. Mark my words.”

  “Consider them marked. You have a nice day.”

  I pulled away. It was almost noon. Traffic on I-25 would be awful because it’s always awful.

  “That was…interesting,” Miranda said.

  “Aren’t you glad you tagged along?”

  “Does it bother you to sic those zombie guys on the people at DGI?”

  “They’re not zombies.”

  “Whatever. They’re dead guys walking around, so in my book, that’s a zombie.”

  “Fin
e. Call them what you want.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you, though?”

  “Nope.”

  She stared at me, so I sighed and figured I’d best explain myself.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “The people who run DGI are assholes. They think that because they have magic that they’re better than everyone else. They refuse to help people unless they can turn a profit at it or unless their asses are on the line, and even then they’d rather not do anything unless absolutely necessary. They should have looked at the corpse problem as a public hazard and agreed to handle it because it’s the right thing to do. They don’t see the upside. I just made sure they had to take care of the problem. They aren’t in any danger. They’ll have to use a few people to cast the spell, so those people won’t be researching new uses for magic. The cost of materials to get the job done will be miniscule. The benefit to the public will be astronomical. For a few hours of work, the public is safe and anyone who dies in the next week or so won’t have their bodies walking around without their souls.”

  “You don’t think they should make money for providing magical services?”

  “I’m not against it unless I’m the one footing the bill. However, the magic division is funded by all the engineering branches. The wizards and necromancers and healers and such don’t have to bring in any money for the company to be profitable.”

  “That doesn’t mean they should simply donate their services.”

  “In cases where public safety is an issue, I think they should.”

  “You said yourself that the dead people are really more of a nuisance. They attacked us, but you were calm and when I look back at that, I suspect you knew they weren’t trying to kill us.”

  “True enough. But even if they were trying to kill us, DGI would try to price gouge, and I think that’s wrong. On anything else, they can charge whatever they like. My parents worked there, and back then it was a much different company. They used the mundane business side to fund their research and everything was geared toward improving the world in general.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  “They died in a car wreck.” That wasn’t true, but it saved a lot of questions.

  “They were wizards?”

  I nodded and changed lanes. Traffic sucked ass. My phone rang. “Hang on,” I said. “It’s Kelly.” I took the call. “We’re gonna be a bit late.”

  “I’ll have Brand take me home. You have a meeting this afternoon, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is Miranda going with you?”

  “Walter doesn’t like her.”

  “Take her home, then. And get the truck back by six. Don’t forget to gas it up.”

  “You got it.”

  “How did it go with DGI?”

  I filled her in, and she said she liked my play. Then she said, “You planning to leave the Firebird in my parking lot?”

  “I’ll call the insurance company and have it towed to the shop.”

  “It’s probably totaled.”

  “I love that car. I may have it fixed anyway.”

  “So it can get wrecked again? Nice. You should buy something that can withstand your proclivities.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “A tank?”

  #

  Against her wishes, I dropped Miranda off at her place. She owned a nice American Foursquare house in the Capitol Hill area just south of Wax Trax, where I used to buy a lot of records and CDs. I guess DGI paid better than I realized. I could barely afford my apartment. Maybe I should ask Phil for an application next time I head down to the Tech Center. I stopped in front of her house, but there was no place to park. I promised to swing by and get her after my meeting with Walter, but she was not happy.

  “You’re not my only client,” I said. “However, I am meeting Walter to try to get your heart back, so deal with it.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “Some other time.”

  “What if people show up here?”

  “That’s not going to happen. Von and her team should be getting rid of all the bodies now. Whatever’s using them won’t have them to use anymore.”

  “I hope you’re right. I know you say they’re not dangerous, but what if they decide to change tactics?”

  “I think they’re under strict orders. They need to find out where my friend is staying, so they can’t change tactics too much. If they kill anyone, all bets are off.”

  “I wish I believed that.”

  “You have my number. Call me if anything happens.”

  A car pulled up behind me, and I motioned the driver to go around. His car barely squeezed past the truck, and he glared at me as he went by. The neighborhood really needed wider streets and driveways so people could park somewhere.

  My phone rang. Sadly, it wasn’t one of the Denver Broncos cheerleaders wanting to go out on the town.

  “Give me a number,” Walter said.

  “Seven.”

  “A control number, Shade. Four digits.”

  “You anxious to get started?”

  “I’m going to have Cynthia monitor me in the car. She reminded me we have bowling practice today with the guys. You’ll need to meet us at the alley.” He gave me the address on Leetsdale. I knew the place.

  I checked the time on my phone then put it back to my ear. “It will take me about twenty minutes to get there.”

  “No rush. We’ll be there for a few hours. Number?”

  “Four sevens,” I said, thinking I wanted him to find the heart.

  “Your originality is impressive. See you in a bit.”

  I ended the call. Miranda stared at me. “Was that the call I hope it was?”

  I nodded. “Walter is going to try to locate your heart.”

  “From a number?”

  “Control number. He says it doesn’t mean anything, but evidently if he has a number, he can go back to the same location again using it.”

  “Would he see his astral body there and multiply like time travelers at the crucifixion?”

  “I think the only time travel we can actually do is moving into the future one second at a time unless we move across time zones.”

  “From what I read about remote viewing on the Internet, they claim to be able to move through time and space and even visit alien worlds.”

  “Sounds like bullshit to me.” I started to leave, but she clearly didn’t want me to go yet.

  “You don’t believe in alien worlds?” she asked.

  “I know there are other planets out there. There might even be life on some of them. But these clowns can say they go to other worlds all they want and that doesn’t prove anything, and in my view, if someone makes an outlandish claim like that, the burden of proof is on them.”

  “But you’re still having Walter try to locate my heart.”

  “Can’t hurt.”

  “And if he locates it, will you believe the other things too?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? He’ll have given you proof.”

  “Being able to locate something here is one thing, but being able to go back in time to explore the Library at Alexandria is something else again.”

  “It wouldn’t do them any good unless they can read ancient languages.”

  “They’d probably claim they can read any language in their spirit form or some crap like that.”

  “What if they could?”

  “Then they would have done so already.”

  “Maybe they did.”

  “Right, and the government has the bodies of aliens at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and they test flying saucers at Area 51 and vacation at Atlantis under the Antarctic.”

  “I thought it was in the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “Or the Madagascar Trapezoid.”

  “I’ve never heard of that one.”

  “Probably just as well. I’ll be back later.”

  “Be safe.”

  I
laughed. “I’m going to a bowling alley. What could possibly happen there?”

  “You probably shouldn’t have said that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Von called me as I drove and told me they’d liquefied all the bodies in the Denver metro area. She started to go back into how they were going to send me a bill for it, but I’d heard that song before, so when I pulled into the parking lot at Monaco Lanes, I pretended to lose the signal.

  The distinctive sound of rolling balls striking pins hit me as I entered the bowling alley. The place was packed. I scanned the lanes for Walter and his teammates. They practiced at the far end. I walked down to them. The table behind the lane was buried in coats, and their street shoes sat beneath it. Bowling balls lined the ball rack around the return.

  Walter stood on the approach, holding the ball and staring at the pins. Then he looked down and adjusted his stance. He pushed the ball out from his chest as he approached the line, let the ball swing back, then swung forward and released. The ball hit the lane over the second arrow and curved quickly right between the head pin and the three pin. It struck hard and the pins flew every which way but left the ten pin standing.

  “Oh, the widow won’t go down. You got robbed!” Lou said.

  Walter walked back to the rack and held his hand over the air vent. He glanced back at me. “With you in a second.”

  “No worries,” I said and sat down next to Fred and Cynthia.

  I glanced up at the score, which lit up on the panel at their table. They were in the fifth frame. Looked like Walter was the anchor, playing last. He was also the best bowler.

  I heard the chunk chunk of the ball coming up the return. Walter spun it around so he could slip his fingers into the holes then stood on the far left of the approach. He looked at the ten pin then lowered his gaze. He walked toward it, pushing out and swinging. He released the ball over the center arrow, and the ball shot straight down the lane and smacked the ten straight on.

  “Nice pickup,” Lou said.

  “You a bowler, Jonathan?” Walter asked me as the pins reset behind him and Lou rose to take his turn.

  “Not really,” I said. “I played in a league back in college mostly to spend time with a girl who liked to play.”

  Walter sat down beside me. “I’m not sure what you’re after, but it’s in the basement of Zach’s house.”