Nether

by Jason Beymer

  “Obviously,” Garrick said.

  “Wanda broke free, crawled out of the pit, and waited there behind the fence.” He looked up at Garrick. “She stole the Eiffel while I talked to you in the garage. I shouldn’t have left the engine running, especially with Pearl in the front seat.”

  “Yes. You were stupid.”

  “Don’t you have anything constructive to say?”

  Garrick jingled some loose change in his pants. “There, there now?”

  “My soul is in that car.”

  “Technically your soul is in the dog, not the car.” He paused. “Does that make you feel better?”

  “No.”

  “I’m terrible at this. You should have called me the second the woman came back to life.”

  “I did.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t tell me about the woman’s resurrection. I could have dealt with her then. Still, I suppose you had your reasons for keeping the information secret. Let’s set aside our differences so we can think rationally.”

  Burklin looked down at a trail of ants working its way up his leg. “If Pearl dies I’ll lose my soul. Is that rational enough for you? You just had to put my soul inside the dog.”

  “I had to put it somewhere.”

  “You knew my personality would change without it. I’d become paranoid, indecisive … limp down there. You knew Lorraine would leave me and that you could steal her away.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, were those questions?”

  “You claimed you ripped out my soul to make me less rebellious, to get rid of my rage, but I still get pissed off all the time. Not the way I used to, but like …” He fished for the word.

  “Frustrated?” Garrick nodded. “Your anger is as impotent as the appendage between your legs. Frustration is nothing but anger’s spark. It’s useless without fuel. Since you can never get angry anymore, you’re a flaming pilot light with no gas. I’ve spent hours conjuring metaphors for your emotional impotence. Would you like to hear more?”

  “No.”

  “Flame with no fuel, candle with no wick, swimming pool with no water.”

  “Stop.”

  “I’m trying to help. Your rage is hereditary. You get that from me. That, and my vanishing hairline. Before I died, I lived as an inconsequential little man with a job any brain-dead monkey could perform. I got angry all the time. And I used to see that same rage inside you, Burklin. Removing your soul cured you of that anger.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I once met a man in the Nether,” Garrick said. He leaned against the wall. “Back when I was dead. Henry. While he lived, he worked as a vivisectionist. He’d experimented on several subjects, most of them human, with one goal in mind. He wanted to prove the tangibility of the soul. He had no patience for the idea of a mystical or metaphorical one. After years of work, he learned one well-kept secret. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Do I look like I care?”

  “Henry said he found nothing unusual about any of his subjects, not one of the thousands of people and creatures he dissected. The personalities differed. Their lives, passions, tastes, loyalties, sins … all of that differed, but he found no organ that influenced these traits. So, he wondered, is the soul tangible at all?”

  “Uh, no?”

  “Quiet. While not a living organ itself, Henry concluded, the soul is indeed tangible. It simply lacks cohesion and atomic structure. The soul resides two inches below the heart, near the left ventricle. But because we can’t see it, conventional methods of removal are useless. So it remains there until the heart ceases to beat, at which point it expels itself naturally. After spending several centuries in the Nether, concentrating on nothing but his work, Henry devised a method of extracting the soul before the host body died. This discovery, though monumental, led to his eternal damnation. It also brought about the Golden Rule, ‘Souls are Non-Transferrable.’“

  Burklin slumped farther into the dirt. “So how does this help me find Pearl?”

  “I told you to shut up. Before the Bureau exiled Henry from the Nether and condemned him to Eternal Aimless Drift, he explained to me that while tiny and invisible, one need only regard the soul as a dry sponge contained within a one-gallon jug. Ironically, in seeking to eradicate what he deemed the ‘ridiculous metaphor of a soul,’ he’d proven its existence as nothing but metaphor. After a bit of prodding, I got him to show me how to extract it while the heart still beat.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “This is a father-son moment. Appreciate it. Henry told me the words to use, and the exact amount of Netherite required to pop it free of the ventricle. You probably still have the scar. I had to stitch it up in a hurry.”

  He did. The white, jagged mark would always remain, a reminder of Garrick knocking him out, cutting him open and rendering him soulless.

  “Now listen to me,” the old man said. “Every human is born with this metaphoric dry jug, containing said sponge. But instead of filling it with water, humans fill it with emotions like anger, rage, and lust.”

  “My soul is not a

  “Are you listening? We’ve come to a point in our relationship where you need to understand the arrangement I have created, why you need to stop resisting me. Your sponge sat inside the jug your entire life, soaking up those things you poured into it. The more anger and rage you took in, the more your sponge grew. When I removed it at its fullest point what did you have left? Nothing. Just an empty one-gallon jug. Sure, you get frustrated now and again, everyone does. But the sponge soaked up all your real anger. Instead of cursing me, you should be thankful. Most people spend their entire lives seeking the kind of peace I gave you. Can’t a caring, giving father get an amen?”

  Burklin grumbled. “You are not my father. Now give me back my soul. Give it back before Wanda murders Pearl.”

  Garrick sighed. “I’m trying to explain how we can correct this. For years, philosophers believed the soul contained one’s entire essence, that without it one would become a zombie, dead and hollow. But look at you. Yes, you’re a pussy, but something still drips into your one-gallon jug. There are certain advantages to walking around without a soul. As long as that soul remains inside Pearl, outside your body, it will anchor you to this world. Even if your heart stops. Why do you think the Nether gets so uppity about the golden rule?”

  Burklin recalled what the voice had called him on the cellphone earlier: Drifter.

  “Your predicament will work to our advantage,” Garrick said. “We can still fix everything.”

  “I want my soul back.” He pointed to his chest. “In here.”

  “How? How are you going to get it? First, that woman can’t return your soul. Few know how to perform a proper transfer. She’d botch it and make things worse. Second, what form of transportation did you intend to use? Taxicab? County transit?”

  Burklin pointed to Garrick’s Bavarian Roadster parked on the street.

  Garrick shook his head. “You can’t start my car.”

  “You don’t think I can remove your index finger?”

  “Try it. You’d never find her anyway. She’s probably driving around aimlessly, waiting for the signal.”

  “The what? Hey, how would you know what she—”

  “This is a gamble, son. Yes, we could have gone after her, but it would’ve been pointless. There’s still too much to do, and little time to do it.”

  “Time for what?”

  “I’ll explain later. Right now we need to prepare. If word of Max’s death has reached the Nether we might already be disqualified from the sweepstakes.”

  “Again with the sweepstakes? I don’t care. Why can’t you understand that? I don’t care about miles of sand and oil and a world infested with demons anymore. And what kind of woman is Wanda anyway? Did you know she’d come back to life?”

  “No,” Garrick said, “I always thought we went to the Nether after we died. Netherite blood is powerful, but I never realized it could self-replicate and bring us back
to life. How could I know that? I haven’t tested the theory.”

  “Your blood is Netherite?”

  “To the last drop. It’s synthetically enhanced to come out red and make it appear human. But exposure to air turns it into black goo. Now, we should do something about your mother. With the sun shining, the neighbors might get nosy.”

  They walked to the pit. Garrick picked up the remaining boards. Delores stared up at him with her arms and legs still bound to a chair, her lips sealed with thick duct tape.

  “How charming,” Garrick said, his lip curled. “My, you’ve aged poorly.”

  He hunkered down at the edge of the pit, swung his chunky legs over the recessed floor and jumped down. “Hello, Delores.” He looked up at Burklin. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello before you showed up.”

  Delores grunted.

  “My son did this?” he asked, touching her bound wrists. “I’d say I’m proud of him if I wasn’t so upset.”

  He stooped to the bottom of the pit and touched the ooze, then lifted his finger and sniffed. “Netherite. The bitch is regenerating.”

  “Garrick,” Burklin said, “why did you refer to Wanda as ‘we?’“

  “Hmm?”

  “A few minutes ago you said you always thought ‘we went to the Nether after we died.’ What does that mean?”

  Garrick sighed. “It means the woman you call Wanda was my replacement.”

  Chapter 18

  The Prayer Breakfast

  Senator Kamilla McPhee had abandoned sleep hours ago. She’d tossed and turned, tried yoga relaxation exercises, but nothing helped. Frustrated, Kamilla had dialed up her sex-toy-in-training and sweet-talked him into returning. At first, the intern seemed reluctant, but resisting the senator’s advances proved fatal to one’s career.

  Within minutes of his arrival, the intern served his purpose. He moved slower this time and allowed her to come first. She’d rewarded him with the privilege of sleeping next to her. Now he snored, mouth open and drooling.

  A narrow beam of sunlight crept through the paisley curtains. Kamilla watched it, unblinking. It crawled along the carpet, onto the bed and over the intern’s bare shoulder. When at last it spilled over her left eye, she turned onto her side. The light brought a weighty message with it: Today is debate day. With no further phone calls from Garrick, Max was still capable of screwing up her election.

  Kamilla crawled out of bed and lumbered to the bathroom. She allowed herself a long, hot shower, willing the water to wash away the fretting and unease. When she stepped out, the hotel phone rang.

  “Don’t answer that,” Kamilla said through the bathroom door.

  It continued to ring as she dried herself off and began the preening process. Kamilla applied lipstick and smacked her lips together. She scraped the red off her large front teeth, bringing her face so close to the mirror her nose brushed against it. Next came the blush and concealer to hide the crows’ feet, the laugh lines, the aging flesh. Appearances meant everything, and makeup helped. Even without it, she gave the best seductive winks and suggestive smiles. Her weekly schedule involved grueling hours on the elliptical machine, liters of injections, and constant facial maintenance.

  She went to work on her blond hair. Oh, the hair. If she ever allowed it to go natural, the world would see the real Kamilla.

  They would see an old lady.

  Kamilla’s hotel phone kept ringing as she put in her earrings. She refused to answer it. Garrick would call her on the cell, so she only listened for that phone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone but him.

  “Baby?” the intern said. The sheet slipped off his sculpted torso as he patted the empty side of the bed. “Come back here.”

  Her blue pantsuit fit too snug across the chest when she buttoned it. She adjusted her cleavage in the mirror. Why had she scheduled a debate this morning? What had she been thinking?

  “You did it because you’re at your best the day before an election,” she told herself.

  “What did you say, baby?” the intern asked.

  “Shut up.”

  “You want a quickie before the prayer breakfast?”

  Prayer breakfast. Kamilla had forgotten about that formality. Christians didn’t make up her constituency anyway. My God, whoever heard of a Religious Left in California?

  Kamilla grabbed her cellphone and started to pocket it when she noticed the blank display. Her lips pulled into a frown. She batted her eyelashes at the naked man in her bed. “Why is my phone turned off?”

  The intern rolled onto his back and smiled. “I powered it off before we, you know, did it? I didn’t think you’d want any interruptions while I went down on you.”

  Kamilla picked up the intern’s pants and threw them on the bed. “I’m going downstairs for some coffee.”

  “Can you get me a—”

  She shot him an icy look. He clammed up immediately.

  “You don’t touch my phone, intern,” she said. “Ever. This deed will not go unpunished.”

  He clasped his hands behind his head, a smug smile on his face. “Punish me, Madame Senator.”

  “Later this morning I will break one of your fingers. Consider this a warning. You might want to pocket some painkillers and a splint.”

  He started to laugh, but stopped as he caught her eyes. “That’s a joke, right?” he said.

  “Feel free to take a shower. You can let yourself out.”

  Kamilla hurried out of the room. When she made it into the hall, she placed the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob and powered on her cellphone. She took a deep breath, turned and headed for the elevator.

  Prayer breakfast, she thought. Fucking prayer breakfast.

  Kamilla entered the elevator and pressed L. She clasped her hands together and looked down, not wanting to catch her reflection in the mirror. If she did, she might find something else to criticize.

  A man wearing a cheap beige suit stood behind her, staring at her ass. Kamilla categorized him as either an old-boy segregationist or an Independent, both of which made him useless to her. But who could blame the geezer for staring? Her ass looked magnificent in the blue pantsuit. Too bad he couldn’t see the eight-hundred-dollar bra and panties underneath.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Madam Senator,” the man said.

  “Uh-huh,” she replied, willing the creep to catch fire and melt.

  “You must be upset.”

  “Uh-huh.” She turned to him. “Wait. What loss are you referring to?”

  Kamilla considered her competition, the polls, and the coming debate. Had something happened that might cost her the election? Maybe she should have answered the hotel phone instead of ignoring it. Was there something she needed to know before she entered the lobby?

  The elevator dinged, the doors opened and she stepped into a cluster of reporters.

  Too late.

  The mass of humanity, too many to count, repeated her name and clamored for position in front of their fellow colleagues. All seemed eager to get Kamilla’s response to a question she hadn’t heard yet. They thrust microphones in her face and bumped against her. She stepped backward. Her shoulders banged against the closed elevator doors. Trapped.

  “Senator McPhee,” one of them said. “Was the driver drunk? Were drugs involved?”

  “What are you talking about?” Maybe her opponent had given up. She smiled. Had he died? Had he keeled over while drinking his morning coffee?

  Her cellphone rang, but she barely heard it over the barrage of questions. If not for the vibration, she would have missed it. Garrick’s number showed on the caller ID. Finally. She bulled through the crowd, pushing aside microphones and reporters.

  Her personal security detail, two intimidating men in black, hunched over a box of powdered doughnuts and devoured them. Kamilla wedged herself between their broad shoulders. “Keep those media ghouls away while I take this call.” The bodyguards nodded and formed a barrier between her and the press.

  Once isolated, she answ
ered the phone. “It’s about time,” she whispered into the receiver.

  “Good morning to you, Madame Senator,” Garrick said. “Has your phone been turned off?”

  “Why are you acting cordial? Are you having issues with my son? I can call Max again if you think it’s necessary.”

  Pause. Then, “I take it you haven’t been watching TV?”

  “I’ve been … preparing for the debate. Why? What’s going on?”

  “I’m concerned for your well-being, Madame Senator. With the rigors of politics what they are. I’m admittedly bad at calming one’s nerves, but I suspect you’re anxious.”

  “What is this about?” She switched the phone to her other ear. “You’re hiding something.”

  “Are you feeling okay? Are you experiencing any unpleasant sensations? Stomach pains, for example?”

  Kamilla felt the color drain from her face. She remembered the last time Garrick had asked her that question. Seventeen years ago. She’d had no idea who this heavyset man was; she definitely hadn’t known what he was.

  “Oh no you don’t, Garrick.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “I can’t deal with this. Not now.”

  “Neither the symptoms nor the results are mine to control, dear.”

  “The answer is no.” She enunciated each word. “I feel fine. I feel wonderful.”

  “Excellent. However, debating your rival on television might be unwise.”

  “Where are you? Why aren’t you here with me?”

  “I will be there soon, but I have other pressing issues at the moment.”

  She disconnected the call and leaned against a fake planter filled with cigarette butts.

  Not again, she thought. Not again.

  “Madame Senator?” someone said from the other side of the security detail. “They’re ready for you at the prayer breakfast.”

  “I’ll be right—” A rumbling in her stomach caused her to burp out “there.”

  * * * *

  Strains of Mozart accompanied the prayer breakfast. The long table, outfitted with a peach tablecloth, contained the hotel’s most expensive dishware. Every important political figure, religious whacko, and campaign contributor occupied a seat, crammed shoulder to shoulder. Anxious waiters and bus boys darted in and out of the dining room while guests enjoyed their grapefruits served in ceramic bowls, along with eggs and tofu bacon.