All this to say that even though Papa, Nicodemus, and Delia were convinced this next part would be the final leg in our month-long journey, I was not. Cynicism is a matter of survival. At least it had worked for me.
We wound our way deeper into the mountains on the road that gave me repeat heart attacks around every curve. So I was relieved once we stopped at a modest gas station to defrost and refuel. It was at this gas station that we were forced into a greater understanding of each other. The sun had started to rise, causing the station lights to feel brighter than they actually were. Colors, too, felt more vibrant.
As I cupped my gas station coffee, shivering from the remnants of the night chill, my attention was directed to a small television in the corner. I wasn’t the only one to notice.
Marin and his deep, black eyes were on the screen. The two humans working the shop didn’t see him, of course. What they were watching, none of us could tell. The television waves that we perceived were on a different spectrum than what humans could see. This explained why, sometimes, humans didn’t see ghosts when we could. Stygians had the gift of being more open to other dimensions.
“Reports are in across the globe,” said Marin in his grim tone. “Souls have been reported everywhere, confused and undirected. The numbers are too great for our Eidolons to keep this epidemic under control. I demand all of you to continue your work and send these souls to their proper place. Might I remind you that it is your job to ensure they are on track to the Afterlife.”
Everyone—meaning Stygians—in the shop sighed. Some rolled their eyes. Others shoved the shop door open to light up a cigarette outside.
Neema’s voice was in my ear as Marin continued with his broadcast. “See how there are fewer wrinkles around his eyes. This was recorded long ago.”
Marin’s timeless face, lacking a strand of hair that could show his age, did look younger than his more recent television appearances when he was alive. Having seen that skull face without his TV makeup, I could not get hung up on the number of wrinkles around his eyes like Neema. I had seen the devil. I had watched him kill Errol. I had annihilated him. Even though I had won that battle, his face gave me chills I could not shake. I never would.
Wrinkles didn’t meant shit. But to Neema, they were a clue she was right to cling to.
“News of his death is gonna get out eventually,” Neema said.
“Well, good riddance,” Delia, clearly eavesdropping, grumbled.
Neema’s gaze grew heavy on Delia and me. Telling them that I had melted the fascist motherfucker in Lethe seemed arrogant. So I said nothing, even though I gave Neema the slightest cock of my eyebrow as a hint that she was onto something. I would be damned if I let her in on the secret. Following my lead, Delia chose silence, too.
“You know something, Scrivener.”
Delia and I simultaneously sipped our bitter gas station coffee.
Neema began to whisper something to Monkey, and though I wanted to hear for myself what she said, I didn’t need to lean in or eavesdrop as Delia had done.
“We are not assassins,” Nicodemus said from the corner of the shop, giving Neema and Monkey a stern sidelong gaze. He had sharp ears despite his age.
Neema and the Trivial ally stopped chattering.
“We are here for one request, and then we will move along in peace,” he added, this time looking down his nose at them, as wise, old men tend to do. “Your Master is not in any danger.”
“Master Xiangu will want to know everything. She will need to know the truth before we arrive,” Monkey clarified.
“What do you need to know?” I said before Nicodemus would speak.
Neema and Monkey shared looks. Both said together, “Did you kill Head Reaper Marin?”
There were only a few ways in which to respond. Seeing that I didn’t have my wits about me, frozen as I was, the decision was simple. “No, I didn’t kill him.”
Monkey’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “You lie!”
“I do not,” I intoned.
“You did something to him,” Neema said.
“Nope.” They asked about Head Reaper Marin. As it was, he wasn’t a Reaper at all, so I was telling the truth.
“Master doesn’t help killers,” Monkey added.
It was Papa’s fist on the pane of glass on the shop’s door that caught everyone’s attention. “Let’s get moving,” he said.
No one argued with Papa. Few ever had. Papa, who was a six-foot-tall Grim Reaper covered in ropes of thick muscle, was not an Eidolon, but he carried the confidence as if he was one. That’s all that really mattered. So we all marched through the gas station doors back toward our vehicles to continue on the harrowing journey to Xiangu’s hideout.
“We swore to protect Master,” Neema whispered in my ear. “We have to be sure you won’t kill her. You understand.”
“I’m not here to do her any harm.” My words were firm. “I want her to remove the Deathmark on my arm. Then I will never bother her or you again.”
Neema pushed closer into my personal space as if she was about to kiss me. She smelled of tea tree oil, an alluring scent—one I had always found delightful. I still did. Neema was protecting her Master. She was doing what was right. I didn’t hold that against her. “There are some things you must know about Xiangu.” Neema glowered defiantly over at Monkey before continuing, “She will test you. She tests everyone.”
“Do you tell others about these tests?” I asked.
“Sometimes. It didn’t help, in their cases.”
“Why? Did she refuse to to help them?”
“If they failed, she killed them.”
She was attempting to scare me, which was difficult to do these days. If Xiangu killed me because I failed her test, well, what would it matter? I was already a dead Stygian walking. Dying tonight or tomorrow, by Xiangu or Brent, didn’t make a bit of difference to me.
“What kind of test should I expect?”
“Don’t know,” Neema answered. “She’ll expect a lot from another supposed Master Scrivener. She’ll want you be sure you’re good intentioned.”
“Well, I know Teacup, and she’s as badass but as good-intentioned as they come. A real Annie Oakley but with manlier hands,” Delia interjected, forcing Neema to give me some space so I could breathe in mountain air and not her in-your-face menace.
“Thanks, Prada. I’m glad you noticed.” I tried to smile.
“Teacup? Prada?” Neema gave a curious look. “Are those names?”
“They’re called pet names, sweetheart. Get used to it.” Delia’s one curved eyebrow spoke volumes. Neema read Delia’s message and, after brief tense pause, she smiled back at her. This was as much of a conversation as we would have for the remainder of our drive to Xiangu’s hideout, and though it was full of tension, it was the minor lift that I needed.
I was a step closer to healing this Deathmark.
And a step closer to reuniting peacefully with Brent.
Chapter Seven
“Is the Head Reaper alive?
Does he not care for the deaths of his own innocent people?”
—HermesHarbinger.com, December 5th
We arrived at our destination as the morning sun, its full fire still hidden behind the sky swirling with souls, began to rise over the mountain peaks. Coloradans bragged that their state got more than three hundred days of sunshine a year. I was hopeful that as Stygians, we’d benefit from that seemingly endless sunlight. It would be nice to see the sun for once. But, true to our motto—The Sun Shall Never Shine Upon Styx—there were souls clouding the sky above, never letting us see that big ball of light. They were the souls of the dead, headed for Lethe and their final journey.
As daybreak gradually spilled over the cliffs, I became aware of the scenery and the course we had taken to get here. At some point, we had turned off the Million Dollar Highway and onto a dirt road. This road was narrower than the ones we had traveled earlier in the night. The cliffs that flanked us we
re even steeper.
Perhaps arriving in the darkest hours was for the best.
Surrounding us were lofty, vertical mountains with jagged outcrops of snow. While the mountains in Montana were wide and proud, these mountains were cramped and domineering. They felt more like narrow gray city skyscrapers rising toward the soul-cloudy heavens.
This place was beautiful. But even this gorgeousness felt like a tomb.
“We’ll climb.” Neema pointed to a set of near vertical stairs carved out of the side of the rock.
“Say what?” Delia’s voice broke.
“We’ll climb. Up.”
Delia and I, who were the most concerned, gave the stairs a more in-depth inspection. I had previously thought them nearly vertical. Upon my reassessment, they were vertical. They had to be. Was this a joke? Did people really climb them? Did they fall? Oh Hades, if they fell, death would be guaranteed.
“Is there another way?” I asked.
“Up.” Neema climbed two or three stairs to show us on the off chance that we hadn’t encountered stairs before. Her demonstration didn’t put me at ease. There was no handrail. Just extreme stairs barely wide enough for your entire foot.
Neema snickered. “We’ll go through the mountain, Scrivener. You’re so gullible.”
“Oh, thank Hades,” Delia said, her hand to her chest.
When I looked over my shoulder at Papa and Nicodemus, I could’ve sworn that they, too, were relieved, even if they wouldn’t admit to it.
“Half-death?” I put the idea out there because it was always best to know these things ahead of time. Neema grabbed my hand, and that little gesture answered my question. Delia scooped up Dudley and stepped toward Neema. When Nicodemus sidled toward Papa, it was obvious that Papa had some serious concerns.
“I’ll stay out here,” Papa said.
“No, Papa.”
“I’m too big. I’ll wait here.” Papa folded his arms over his chest as if to protect it or hide the beat of his racing heart.
“We won’t leave you here. Please.”
He was stubborn as could be. That was my Papa. But I was just as stubborn, and he knew it. I would not go to meet Xiangu—the only Stygian who could save my life—without him by my side. I didn’t have to beg him—he saw it in my face.
“This half-death…how does it work?” Papa asked Nicodemus who, as an Eidolon, was the only one of our group who could half-death another Stygian.
The old man smiled wide through his thick beard. “We hold hands, of course.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” I said. If I were lucky, Papa would have a chance to tell me how I lured him into the excruciating experience of being ferried through bedrock. You know, if I didn’t die first.
With collective deep breath, Neema, Delia, and I were the first to step onto those steep, awful stairs. A flash of terror ripped through me when I saw an image of Neema dragging me up the stairs against my will, me flailing over the edge, screaming. Instead, blackness overcame me like it had when we were Matched in combat. I couldn’t see, breathe, smell, or hear because I was inside a vacuum, one that kicked around ghastly images and spine-chilling feelings. I focused on something happy to carry me through this discomfort. For some reason, the thought of Dudley fetching his tennis ball in the park by my apartment in Quebec City surfaced like it was the go-to memory of all memories, the one that would assuredly overcome any bit of pain or darkness. And it worked. The image of Dudley’s happy moment eased me through the experience. As convenient as this means of travel was, it was something that I wished to avoid whenever possible.
On the other side of this half-death misery, which ended as fast as it started, I blinked my eyes to find us standing underneath a wooden pergola with a red upturned roof and round columns. Flowers and greenery wrapped around the pergola as if to share that this structure had been around a long time. A set of stairs sat behind the pergola, but unlike the steep, never-ending stairs rising out of the tomb of mountains, this one led to a small wading pool cluttered with pink and white lotuses.
Had we traveled across the earth to China? Was the skill of half-death that powerful, or was I in an alternate reality?
I remembered to breathe, and my lungs filled with energy.
“This is Acheron,” Neema said. “The River of Pain.”
“It’s the river of the ferryman, according to Greek mythology,” Nicodemus said as he and Papa moved out of the mountain. Papa shook Nicodemus’s hand free. Hades forbid he be seen holding the old Eidolon’s hand.
Neema gave him a pointed gaze. She didn’t like being corrected.
“Humans pay Charon to cross them over the River Acheron, according to the Greeks.” Nicodemus walked toward the pergola. He looked at it as if he had seen it before. Knowing his long history, that was possible.
“I thought they crossed the River Styx—that’s why we call our world Styx,” Delia said, and I nodded in agreement. “Right?”
“Mythology is passed down in as many ways. The River Styx of mythology sprang from the Acheron. Acheron is the river on which the ferryman rides.” Nicodemus stuffed his hands in the pockets of his thick grey robe. “But it’s just a technicality.”
Knowing that we were standing in a place known for crossing the dead over, even if just in stories, I became unsettled. And Neema had called it the River of Pain, so I made a mental note not to swim in or drink the Acheron’s waters.
Couldn’t something about this journey evoke just a sliver of hope?
We climbed the four stairs separating the pergola from the pond. Oak trees with long, sagging branches hung over us like a blanket. The Acheron was beautiful and serene, two things I wished I carried inside of my own heart.
“I must see our Master first,” Neema moved around the pond.
Before she stepped behind a veil of green hedges, I called out, “You said a test.” I tried to mask my nerves. “Any idea what that might be?”
“Probably a test of your mental strength. A test of your intentions, like I said. Are you good or bad?” Neema paused to stare down at the lotus blossoms in the water. “You wear a lotus on your neck.”
“I wear it for a friend.” A friend whom I promised to save and would.
I put my fingers to the necklace I had worn since my friend Eve Cassidy had died. I had carried Eve’s soul in the lotus pendant for so long that I didn’t think about it like I once had. She was no longer the human friend I had adored. She was a memory whose face faded more and more as time passed. Had Eve passed me on the street today, I feared I wouldn’t recognize her. But had Eve’s soul left the lotus pendant, I would’ve known.
Two years ago, a Reaper named Nicholas Baird had killed Eve and had only half-ferried her soul out of her body before Brent and I interrupted him. In my grief and rage, I’d branded him with a Deathmark using only my bare hands and the pure energy in them—the first time my Master Scrivener powers had surfaced. At that point, he’d run off and pretty much vanished.
Since the Stygian natural order of things meant that only the Reaper who’d started ferrying her soul could finish the job, Eve had been doomed to a bleak half-life existence, anchored to her dead body, unable to move away from it, to talk, to feel. But then, Brent had used his Eidolon powers to transfer her soul’s anchor from her body to my lotus pendant. Now, I just carried my only human friend’s half-ferried soul with me, next to my heart. She couldn’t communicate with me, but she was still a comfort—until I could find Nicholas Baird and make him finish the job and send her to Elysia. She’d been a good person. There was no way she was going anywhere but Elysia.
Neema gave a slight nod. She disappeared behind the hedges, leaving the five of us alone, observing the beauty of the Acheron. Questions floated silently aloft between us. But none of us cared to or felt the need to speak them. Nothing that could be said now was worth the air from our lungs. Either this would end well for me, or it would not. What was clear was that this was the end of the road: I would eith
er leave the shores of the Acheron intact, or I wouldn’t.
I watched the lotus flowers sitting on top of the water’s surface. They didn’t move. There was no air. Everything was so still, I could hear my heartbeat.
Brent was on the other side of that mountain waiting in agony to honor his job as a citizen of Styx. If his energy returned, he could break from my mental and physical binds, half-death himself through the mountain, and get me. I was not entirely convinced that my reach still kept him in check. I had no choice but to trust that my power did what I asked it to do, but there was no guarantee, no promise.
Neema returned almost too quickly, and her presence ripped me away from agonizing over what could be. I told myself this was good news. Had Master Xiangu desired not to see me, Neema would’ve grabbed my hand and ferried us back through the mountain.
Neema approached me, her face emotionless. She stopped a foot away.
“Well?” Delia said because I couldn’t.
“Master Xiangu will see Dormier.”
Delia and Papa let out little cheers. Nicodemus even made a jubilant noise. But hot anxiety slithered down my throat and pooled in my stomach.
It’s happening. This is my only—last chance. But there’s one person I must protect…
“I want Xiangu to pardon Brent first,” I demanded.
Neema cracked a little smile. “You don’t get to decide what Master Xiangu does with him.”
“Then we’re not going any further.”
“Last I checked, Dormier, you have a Deathmark on your arm. You don’t have leverage against Master Xiangu.”
She was right. I had no true leverage against Xiangu and her followers. I would do everything I could to save Brent. But in this moment when I had to make a snap decision, I had to trust my judgment. I would have to convince Master Xiangu to help me and then Brent.
This made me sick inside. I would have rather died than see him hurt. The idea made me feel selfish.
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