Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel

by Gary Jonas

  I shrugged and sat down. She sat as well and reached for my hand. I pulled away.

  “May I please see your hand?”

  “It’s really not safe to get too close to me, Ms. Meyer.”

  “Your hand?”

  I sighed and held out my hand. She took it in both of hers. She closed her eyes. She flinched and let go.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Jonathan.”

  She reached for my face, and I started to pull away, but she shook her head and I stopped. She brushed tears away from my eyes. I hadn’t even realized the tears were there. Brand would have called me a crybaby.

  “I don’t know what the council will decide, but I want you to know that I believe you’re innocent.”

  “None of us are innocent,” I said.

  She nodded. “Very well. Allow me to rephrase. I don’t believe you’re responsible for the deaths of your friends. They were your friends, right?”

  I nodded. She must have been some sort of empath.

  “In my opinion, you’re not guilty, and I’ll tell that to the council.”

  “Can you please leave before Persephone decides you’re a friend of mine?”

  She gave me a sad smile. “I’m simply doing my job.”

  “Keep it that way. My friendship is a death sentence.”

  “We’ll let you know what the council decides. Until then, you are not to leave town.”

  “I have nowhere to go, Ms. Meyer.”

  That last bit was a lie, of course.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Walter’s house stood silent and still. I parked Kelly’s SUV at the curb and walked up to the front door. It was locked. I knocked and rang the bell, but no one answered. I wasn’t sure whether or not Persephone would have considered Ryan a friend of mine, but it was probably safe to assume that she did, and that meant he was dead.

  I stepped back and kicked hard at the door by the knob.

  The jamb splintered and the door swung open.

  I stepped inside, closed the door, and went directly to the basement.

  There was no crime scene tape anywhere, so the bodies had not been discovered yet. I moved into the center room. Some of the blood was still wet and sticky, but most of it had dried. I wouldn’t have considered Cynthia a friend exactly, but evidently Persephone drew the line in a different place than I did.

  I walked carefully, not to avoid stepping in the blood—that would have been impossible—but to make sure I didn’t slip in it. I yanked the drawers out of the filing cabinets. Each drawer held a multitude of files—all the notes on all the remote viewing missions Walter had ever done. One drawer had a label that read Lou, so I ignored that one. Killer sunflowers were not going to be useful.

  The drawers were heavy, but I carried them two at a time up the stairs and out to the SUV. I loaded them all into the back. On my final trip to the basement, I stepped into Walter’s room, where his remains were splattered across every surface.

  “I’m sorry, Walter.”

  I knew he couldn’t hear me. Not only was he dead, but his soul had been ripped to shreds. It just seemed disrespectful not to acknowledge him in some small way. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had to give.

  I returned to the SUV and loaded the last of the drawers full of files. I closed the back then moved around to the driver’s side and opened the car door. I noticed a silver Mercedes parked one house down, and I saw the Sekutar get out. Drake smiled and pointed at me, gave me a thumbs-down, then, with his right index finger, drew a line across his throat, and tipped his head back. He started walking toward me. “Let’s go for a ride,” he said.

  I held up a finger, climbed into the SUV, and grabbed a sword from the backseat. He couldn’t see the sword from his vantage point. I held the hilt in my right palm and stepped down, keeping the blade at an angle behind my back and out of sight. To help hide it, I also had my laptop computer in its canvas case, which I held with one finger of my right hand. It made it look like my arm needed to be down and didn’t make my walk seem unnatural as I closed the car door and turned to face him. In my left hand, I held a notebook, which I held up as I walked toward him, letting the wind ruffle the pages.

  “What’s that?” he asked pointing at the notebook. “Your confession?”

  I nodded and looked at the ground in a gesture of submission as I approached him.

  He had a sword strapped to his waist, and to his credit, his hand clutched the hilt, ready to yank it free in a heartbeat.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.” He sounded disappointed.

  When I got close enough, I tossed the notebook at him, dropped the laptop, and whipped the sword around.

  He caught the notebook.

  My sword caught him in the neck and lodged there. I hated magically engineered warriors. It’s so much harder to decapitate them. I pulled the sword free and swung again. He tried to dodge and pull his own sword, but I was too fast, and the distraction of the notebook still had him a bit off guard. The second swing did the trick, and his head bounced on the street. His body stood there for a moment then toppled backward.

  I dropped the sword and approached the Mercedes.

  Ralph stared at me, and I saw that his hands glowed with magic. He was ready to attack, and he didn’t hesitate. He let the energy fly.

  I let it wash over me, and it didn’t even mess up my hair.

  “What the hell?”

  “Sorry, Ralph. I’ll have to pass on the sentencing. I’ll give you one chance to simply drive away.”

  “We’ll come after you, Shade.”

  “Drive away.”

  He opened the car door.

  I sighed, pulled my Beretta, and shot him three times in the head.

  Without glancing back, I picked up my computer, strode to the SUV, climbed in, started the engine, and drove away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  I parked my rental car at the Royal Gorge bridge. I drew a deep breath and glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. The scars that crisscrossed my face had faded to angry white lines, and my empty left eye socket still showed the bumpy and welted ridges from where the red-hot poker had done its damage more than four years before. As I was going to be in public, I put on a pair of dark sunglasses to minimize unwanted stares.

  I rubbed the stub of my pinkie finger on my left hand. The finger ended at the first knuckle and while that, too, was from my first year of traveling the world and training with extreme masters and frequently ending up in unsavory situations, I often found myself rubbing the stub. Someone once asked me if I rubbed it because I was nervous, but to me it was simply to remind myself that I had a lot to learn and sacrificing a finger was minor compared to what others had given. The damage was self-inflicted for failing to learn a lesson fast enough. It had happened twice in my first week of training with a former Yakuza assassin, and I had presented the segments of my finger to him as a token of my respect and proof that I was determined to learn what he was willing to teach.

  While my objective could be achieved from the vehicle, or anywhere else for that matter, to me it was important to go back to where my old life had ended and my brutal existence had commenced. It was symbolic.

  The temperature on that cold December day topped out at fifteen degrees. That meant there wouldn’t be many people on the bridge, and that was a good thing. I stepped out of the car. A woman with her son in tow took one look at me and pulled the boy to her other side as she gave me a wide berth.

  I didn’t bother putting on a jacket. I’d been in much worse conditions in the past few years. Extremes of weather could be ignored by keeping your state anchored to a stronger place. There were times during that first year when I just wanted to curl up and die, but as I grew stronger in mind, spirit, and body, I left all of that behind.

  I strode to the center of the bridge and stood alone by the safety fence, gazing at the cliffs and mountains. Had it really been five years? The place seemed quiet and almo
st serene. I looked at the planks of the deck and couldn’t see any sign of the blood that had spilled there.

  My heart beat in a steady rhythm, and I thought about Kelly and Brand. They should be the ones standing here. Their lives had been stolen, and it wasn’t right. The wind whispered through the struts, and the suspension wires hummed a lonely song. I was alone.

  The need to make things right lived in my soul. Five long years of study and preparation led to this moment. I pulled a straight-edge razor from the pocket of my jeans and flipped it open. I’d spent many hours sharpening the blade.

  I sat down with my back against the fence. After a glance in either direction to make sure there was no one coming, I leaned my head back, placed the blade against my carotid artery, and slashed lengthwise along the vein. The blade was so sharp that I barely felt the incision.

  Watching the blood pour onto my shirt, I focused on releasing my spirit into the ether. Walter’s files on remote viewing had been quite detailed, and I could slip away with no trouble at all to travel anywhere I wanted in time and space. Unfortunately, as many times as I’d visited that horrible December day, I was always anchored to my body in the present, and the pull brought me back. Walter had warned me about the shadowy demons who called the ether home, and I’d certainly seen them. More important, they’d seen me. They knew me now. They knew my needs and my destination.

  As my life ebbed, I felt my ties to the present disappearing.

  The ether existed between dimensions, and time was fluid there. I sent myself back five years to that fateful day where I lost everything I was and everything I could be. By the time my body died, my spirit was in the past. I saw the shadow demons congregating ahead of me. Their empty eyes seemed to focus on me as they smiled. Their claws twitched in anticipation. I knew they recognized that I no longer had any ties to my life and they could shred me at will. It was something I knew they couldn’t do to an actual living soul because once their claws raked the spirit, the spirit would instantly withdraw to the body.

  “Sorry, guys, this is my exit,” I said.

  I didn’t expect them to understand me, but one of them replied in English. Its voice had no sound, but the words burned into my soul. “When you come back, we’ll be waiting.”

  Of course, I knew I wouldn’t be going back to the ether, so they’d be waiting forever for nothing. I gave them a dark laugh. “If I ever come back,” I said, “I’ll rip every one of you apart.”

  None of them reached for me as I stepped from the ether.

  My body was dead five years from now. I felt the pull on my soul to go to whatever place I belonged, whether it was the Underworld or Oblivion. I resisted the call and found myself hovering above my younger and undamaged body. My body lay in the arms of the lovely Miranda, who upon waking, would tell me she never wanted to see me again. Back then, I wasn’t sure whether or not she was Persephone, and I remember being weak and feeling a great sense of loss that morning, not realizing that was nothing compared to what I’d lose nearly nine hours later. I didn’t know if the past could be altered. If so, I had many preparations to make. I wasn’t even sure I could step into my body now. Would my younger spirit prevent me from entering?

  There was no time like the present. No time but the present.

  I stepped into my body.

  I felt my younger spirit. I was amazed at how naive it was. Poor thing never stood a chance. I embraced it and pulled it inside me and absorbed it in less time than it takes to tell you about it. Part of it felt so good and kind and innocent and scared while some small part of it had been through great struggles. Those struggles defined me.

  I opened my eyes.

  Eyes plural.

  The disorientation caught me off guard for a moment. I’d spent four years seeing the world through one eye, being forced to turn my head or to rely on other senses. My other senses in the present were a bit out of tune, but I knew they’d flow right to where I needed them to be if I gave them time.

  I carefully disentangled myself from Miranda’s body. This time Persephone would wake alone, and as soon as she realized I was gone, she’d step out and Miranda’s heart would stop again. The real Miranda had died when Zach took her heart. The entire time I’d known her, she’d really been Persephone keeping close tabs on me, and this one night was to either thank me or destroy me, depending on how things went.

  Miranda represented the life I could have loved. On the positive side, Zach was in jail and could never hurt anyone again. I placed my hand over her scar and whispered, “I’m sorry, Miranda.”

  Her lips stretched into a smile, and a forgotten part of me wanted to pretend she was real and that I could stay there forever.

  The greater part of me knew that the fewer changes I made to this day, the greater my chances at success later.

  #

  My first sight of Kelly when I entered the dojo that morning gave me a start, and I wanted to embrace her and hold her forever. She was beautiful and so full of life. Her eyes were much kinder than I remembered. I’d seen her many times on my forays through the ether, but a spirit life is much like a dream, and the feelings tend to flutter away like invisible butterflies. Actually seeing her with my real eyes filled me with an overwhelming need to tell her to stay home today. But changes have ripple effects, and those ripples grow wider, so I knew I needed to maintain my focus.

  For a moment I wondered if my younger spirit had overwhelmed my older spirit, but no, it had simply infused that excitement back into my being. I focused on the strength and my hard years of training. Kelly must have seen something in my eyes.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  I nodded. We hadn’t had this conversation the first time around, so I refused to go there now.

  Brand entered the dojo and gave me a lopsided grin. “Sure feels like a good day to die.”

  The words punched me in the gut, but I didn’t let it show. “Have a little faith, big guy.”

  “Oh, I do. You sure I can’t bring a sword?”

  “Persephone has been around for thousands of years. Do you really think you can catch her off guard with a sword? No weapons. We’re going to count on Darla being as good as she thinks she is.”

  “Kiss this life good-bye, then, Shade.”

  Every time I’d gone back to this day and watched parts of it in spirit form, I was amazed at how in tune Brand was with his imminent demise. It was as though he knew this was his final day and he’d greet it with a smile and a joke, and most of all, he’d meet it head-on. No looking back. No regrets.

  Kelly probably felt it too, though she didn’t show it. I glanced over at her as she met Brand’s gaze. Was that a knowing look they shared? Did they know they were going to die, but they were OK with it?

  I slipped away to give them a private moment as I’d done five years back. The first time around, I remembered sitting down and going over the plan in my head and hoping Darla could send Persephone back to the Underworld so we could come up with a better plan once Sharon stepped through. It wasn’t much of a plan, and as I knew Sharon would not be stepping through, that made it even worse. In my old worldview, I trusted myself to think of something in any situation, and maybe I could dance around the landmines of life, stumbling into something that would work.

  The old me was counting on improvising something to stall but worried that the timing would be off since Darla couldn’t say for sure when Charon would arrive. The old me knew it needed to be before Sharon stepped through.

  But Sharon was not my friend.

  For all her power and her long life and her magic, Sharon was a coward.

  Sharon refused to face her lover, and her fear cost my friends their lives. Even now I couldn’t believe how fully I’d trusted her and how much her betrayal stung in the months after Kelly and Brand and everyone I’d ever cared about had been murdered. I thought about all of the ramifications of my misplaced trust as I made my preparations.

  We picked up Darla on schedule. Even back th
en, I thought the skinny girl gave herself too much credit, but listening to her now, with her I’m-above-it-all-can-do attitude made me want to just stop the car and tell her to go home to Mommy.

  I ignored the conversations as much as I could and didn’t really engage with anyone until lunch. It had been the same the first time too, only that time I was thinking about what I might do if this or that happened.

  “Here’s the plan,” I said at lunch. “We’ll go to the center of the bridge. Brand and Kelly, your only real task here is to keep civilians away. I don’t want any innocent people to get hurt or killed. I couldn’t live with that blood on my hands. Darla, you’ll summon Charon, but I want you to focus hard on storing up enough magic to cast Persephone back to the Underworld.”

  “What about Charon?” she asked.

  “No worries, he’ll be between you and Persephone, so he’ll be swept back there too. Your focus needs to be on sending Persephone away. That way, when Sharon comes back, we can formulate a plan that will end this without anyone dying. Cool?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Something you want to add, Brand?”

  “It’s a bullshit plan, Shade. Bringing up the current Charon is a bad idea. It’s just going to piss off Persephone to the point where she’ll blast us all out of existence.”

  “She said she wanted to be with Charon,” I said.

  “You know who she means and throwing the other guy in her face is more disrespectful than not trying to punch me during sparring.”

  “I can’t even get close to you in sparring unless you let me.”

  “So you see what I’m saying, then.”

  Back then, I didn’t see it. I saw the clever ploy to throw her off guard. Now, of course, I saw exactly what he was saying. I feigned ignorance.

  Brand shook his head. “Whatever, dude.”

  I turned to Kelly. “Are you cool with this?”

  She met my gaze. Did I see disappointment in her eyes? Concern? I couldn’t read her even now. “I’m with you, Jonathan. I’m with you no matter what comes our way.”