I opened my eyes and the room had changed. It was a spiritual equivalent now. A place walled in emotion and thought, lacking any sort of physicality or borders.
I pushed off from the floor, rising through the ceiling with nothing more than a thought, passing into the open air. Beneath me the city was a wash of writhing spirits, large and small, twisting through streets that pulsed with the steady, sleeping breath of the city’s own, infinitely larger spirit.
For a long moment, I basked in the feeling of freedom, of weightlessness, of flight. Air elementals, tiny things that vaguely resembled winged snakes made of swirling air drifted past me, caught in invisible updrafts. Below me, the spirit of a church, given form by countless years of faith, prayer, and charity, radiated with an unwavering whitish yellow glow. It was a perfect mirror image of its physical counterpart, yet here it seemed more real, more defined, more alive.
Movement through the spirit world was directed primarily with thought, by focusing on the emotion attached to a place. Doing that, you could reach its spiritual equivalent, for the most part, instantaneously. It wasn’t exactly good for spying, and it left you vulnerable, but there were things in the spirit world that were capable of following someone, quite literally, to hell and back. There were spirits here that had been standing on the bank of the big puddle of primordial ooze where we first squirmed out of the muck. That didn’t mean it was easy to get their help, or that it came cheap, but sometimes it was worth it.
There were a few spirits I was on good terms with, weaker spirits that didn’t have a name, and were more animal than what could be considered a rational, thinking being. For something like this, I needed something with some mojo. Something that, if needed, could actually cross over to the real world.
The only spirits that could do something like that were the ones that had been around a while. In this case, it was a death spirit that called herself Bec.
More importantly, I knew where she was. She stayed at the hospital, which seems kind of lazy, honestly. Then again, who am I to judge? Instead I focused on the smell of the cleaner in the waiting room’s air, the sound of the machines and their constant, monotone beeps, the image of the sick and dying, laid out in a hospital bed. Once I had the mental image firmly in place, it was only a matter of closing my eyes for a brief moment, then opening them to find myself standing outside the emergency room doors.
A hospital in the spirit world is a terrifying place. It’s generally a place of healing, or at least that’s how we as people tend to think of it. However, we also think of it as a place of sickness and pain. As such, there were spirits crawling all over the exterior of the building, which was, in a way, a spirit in and of itself. Spirits of sickness that looked like Volkswagen-sized bacteria slid over the exterior. Pain spirits, like spiders made entirely out of razor sharp blades crawled back and forth, leaving bleeding cuts along the hospital’s walls in their wake. Spirits of healing floated along behind them, pure, white glowing orbs that erased the pain spirit’s passing. All in all, it was half disconcerting and half hypnotizing, like most things on this side of the curtain.
The spirits hadn’t noticed me yet, which was a good thing. They have a tendency to be rather territorial and unkind to interlopers and uninvited guests. My best bet from here on out was to walk nice and normal, keep my head down, and pray that none of the things crawling around on the building decided to eat my face off.
So, I put my head down, started towards the front door, and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. The sound of metal scraping against metal stopped me a second before one of the pain spirits took my head off. Because, of course, something decided to eat my face off.
A spirit of pain, nearly as tall as I was, lowered itself to the ground between the door and me. It looked mostly like a spider, though with a few extra sets of legs. Its body was covered in row upon row of serrated, razor sharp blades. Two glowing embers, set deep inside what I’m assuming was its face, stared at me with a hungry intelligence.
“You’re out of your element, Spirit Talker,” it said, its voice vaguely reminiscent of the sound of a knife dragged across whetstone.
Around me, more of the pain spirits were settling onto the ground, all of them smaller than the one in front of me, though not by much. They twitched and shifted back and forth, hungry with anticipation.
“I’m not here to cause a problem,” I said, trying to keep my voice at a nice even keel.
“No? Then why are you here? Out of your element?”
“Did you just call me Donny?” I asked.
The spirit just stared. Guess they weren’t Coen Brothers fans.
“I need to see Bec,” I said.
“And I say you don’t.”
I didn’t take my eyes off the spirit, but I became acutely aware that all the others had inched a bit closer to me. Not surprisingly really, given that spirits grow in power by consuming weaker spirits. I was definitely the weaker spirit here. I really needed to change that perspective before I ended up as kibble. Lucky for me, I’d already put that plan into motion.
My life man, I tell ya.
“I’ve tried being polite. Now stand aside, spirit,” I said.
The pain spirits let out a hissing, grating sound. It took me a second to realized they were laughing at me. Assholes.
“And if I choose to disregard your thinly veiled threat, Spirit Talker?”
I took a step forward. The air around me crackled with hungry anticipation.
“Then I’ll walk out of here with a new pet,” I said.
“Kill it,” one of the other spirits said from behind me. Thankfully, the boss ignored it.
“Oh?” the spirit said, lifting one of the six-foot-long blades it called a leg and putting its point to my throat. I stared at the spirit and tried not to move, lest I accidentally force the blade into my spiritual jugular.
“Perhaps I don’t want to be your pet,” the spirit said. “Perhaps, I am too hungry to be your pet.”
I sighed.
“That’s too bad really.”
Funny thing about Fetishes: once they have a spirit bound to them, they exist on both planes of existence. So, I put my hand into my pocket, the same one I’d cut, and withdrew a hunk of quartz roughly the size of a golf ball. A second later the fire spirit burst out of the fetish, shattering it and launching itself directly into the boss pain spirit’s face. That’s the other funny thing about Fetishes. In the real world, this would have been about the equivalent of a really loud firecracker. Here though, on their own turf, I was essentially releasing a being of pure flame back into the wild, albeit through another spirit’s face.
The fire spirit tore through Mister Crawly Blades, leaving a hole big enough for me to put my fist in, completely through what I still wasn’t sure was its head. The other spirits all jumped back, scrambling away. Big bangs and death are scary, even on this side of reality, I suppose. The fire spirit, howling and laughing like mad, sat on the sidewalk, staring up me.
“I did good, right? Right? What you needed? I can go now? No more debt?”
“You did fine. You’re free. I release you.”
“Good. Good. Make another deal soon? Not bad Spirit Talker. See you soon? Yes?”
“We’ll talk,” I said.
The spirit nodded eagerly and then took off. He was simply there one minute, and then gone.
I turned to stare up at the hospital. Most of the spirits had paid enough attention to note what had just happened, and then gone back about their business. Either I’d made a point that screwing with me wasn’t in their best interest, or they just didn’t care. I figured it was probably the latter. Call it a hunch.
“Well,” a voice, female and utterly unamused, said from behind me. “I suppose I should find a new doorman now.”
“Hi, Bec,” I said, turning to face the death spirit.
Chapter 31
As far as embodiments of death go, Bec didn’t really look that intimidating. She wasn’t wearing a cloak, h
er head wasn’t a human skull, and she didn’t carry a scythe or have big black wings sticking out of her back. She wasn’t dressed like a Viking shield maiden either. She was actually pretty understated, all things considered. I always wondered why that was, why death spirits looked so damn human. Even the Valkyrie that had taken Gus just looked like a woman. A few centuries out of her time, but a woman nonetheless. I guess it made that whole Drag You to the Afterlife thing a little easier to stomach.
Bec looked kind of nerdy, and really, really bored. She was a little over five feet tall, with short blonde hair and glasses. She dressed like a college kid: jeans, black t-shirt, and some old scuffed Chuck Taylors. The only thing that set her apart from looking completely human was her pallor. She had the literal complexion of a corpse, right down to the blue-tinted lips and the milky film of cataracts over her eyes.
“What do you want, Jonah?”
“I came to make a deal, Bec.”
“You’re serious?”
“Very much so.”
“Aren’t you up to your neck in deals as it is?”
“Please?”
“No,” she said, then considered for a moment before adding, “Hell no.”
“Pretty please?”
She stared at me, then turned her head, seemingly taking in everything around us. Finally, she turned back to me and gave an exasperated sigh.
“Fine. But there’s a catch,” she said.
“Name it.”
She quirked a brow.
“You’re eager.”
“Yeah, it’s important.”
“The condition is, I have to come for someone soon, someone important to you. When I do, you won’t interfere.”
That was not entirely a comforting thought. Time in the spirit world worked differently than it did in the physical world. Soon, in her definition, could be anything from five minutes from now to fifty years.
“How soon is soon?” I asked.
“Soon.”
“That’s not telling me a whole lot.”
She shrugged.
“Soon enough that you’ll have time with them. Not a lot, but enough.”
“Who?” I asked.
She shrugged again.
“That’s the catch. You’re going to kill someone important to me, and I have to let you?”
“Let me? Awful sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I said you don’t interfere,” she explained, annoyed.
“Do we have a deal?”
I’m not a fan of hard decisions. If I agreed, she’d come and take someone I cared about. That was a pretty short list. I knew she’d be good to her word, too. On the other hand, I may have time to try and figure a way out of it.
“Tell me who.”
“No,” she said.
“Who?”
“I’m getting annoyed, Jonah.”
I knew I couldn’t stop Bec when she came for whomever it was that she’d have her sights set on. I didn’t know if I’d have time to even make an attempt. I did know that Lysone would do something potentially catastrophic with the Ledberg stone in hand and that time was wasting. The only thing I had control over was how high the body count would be when it was all said and done. Would I be willing to sacrifice someone I cared about to have a chance at stopping her?
I really needed a drink.
“Deal,” I said, quietly.
She nodded once.
“What do you need?”
“Information, essentially.”
“What exactly does essentially mean?”
“There’s a woman. She has a stone. I need to find her.”
“Why?”
“I owe her,” I said.
“And I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.”
“How so?”
Bec shook her head.
“You’ve set things in motion that are outside of my control, even if I wanted to intervene.”
Bec stared at me, lips pressed tight together in a thin line.
“Is there something I’m not seeing here?”
“Seriously, Jonah? You? Miss something right in front of your face? You’re right. I must be talking crazy, you’d never do that.”
“So what is it then?”
Bec shook her head again.
“I can’t. It’s bigger than me.”
“You can’t tell me.”
“Not my place. Bigger players on the board and I’m not stepping on toes,” she said, which did nothing to help my comfort level. “Now, what else, Jonah?”
“I need you to watch someone for me. Make sure they are safe until I can get to them. I have a plan, but I need time.”
“Who?”
“My old man.”
She nodded.
“There’s some bad folk that may be paying him a visit. Can you do that? Keep him whole for me?”
Bec nodded.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“That’s it.”
“Wow,” she said, a look of smug self-satisfaction on her face.
I gave her a cold stare.
“Run along, Jonah,” she said, making a shooing motion with her hand. “It seems I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Thanks Bec,” I said, finally.
“Go, damn,” she said, though she still sounded more bored than irritated.
I figured I’d taken enough chances for one day, and turned my thoughts towards my home.
I came back to the physical world with a sharp gasp of air. My back ached from being propped against the wall. I opened my hand, and the stone was now dust mixed with blood, creating a sticky black mess in my palm. My shirt was all but plastered to my body with sweat, my leg ached, and I was getting one bitch of a migraine. All in all, though, I was pretty sure nothing was broken. I could’ve used a drink, granted, but I’d come back whole. Given the way things had been going for me, I took that as a win.
I checked my watch. I’d been in the spirit world for a whopping total of five minutes. It was damn disorienting. It felt like I’d been there for hours.
I had a little while, I figured, before Bec got back to me. If anyone would be able to find Lysone, it would be her. Like I said, death spirits aren’t exactly lightweights. In the meantime, I needed a few hours of sleep, and then to handle a few things. I didn’t want to admit to myself that a few of them were in case I didn’t come back. Strange thing was, now that I’d made up my mind, I wasn’t really afraid. Whatever happened from here on out, happened. Somewhere along the line, I made my peace with that. In the end, all that mattered was that Lysone paid for what she did to Gus.
I took a few minutes to load my bag with all sorts of fun herbs, fetishes, and one or two other parlor tricks and hit the road.
Chapter 32
I pulled into the parking lot at the Poor Confederate, killed the engine, and stared at the exterior of the bar for a long, long time. There were other cars in the small gravel lot, most of them beaten-down relics from a few decades back. None of them would qualify as classics, and that was being generous. A few of them were literally held together with duct tape and zip ties. I was a little surprised. It wasn’t even dark yet.
I didn’t bother thinking it over. Hell, a few days ago I had been nothing but exposed nerves and anxiety heading in here. Now, honestly, I wouldn’t say this was the least of my worries, but it sure wasn’t at the top of the list.
I grabbed the bags of gold jewelry and watches that Gus had left me and the cash from Lysone, shoved it in the front pocket of my sweatshirt, grabbed a few small things out of my bag, and climbed out of my truck.
Apparently, the rednecks had been carpooling. The interior was standing room only, a sea of denim and flannel as far as the eye could see. One of the Hank Williamses was playing over the jukebox, droning on about drugs and women. The entire place smelled of cigarette smoke (the legal and illegal kind), sweat, and beer, to the point that it felt like the air itself had grown thick and sticky.
Wa
ylon was sitting in his back booth with a few other guys, all of them clad in jeans and cowboy boots. The two opposite of Waylon wore country western shirts, the kind with the pearl buttons and flowers embroidered into them. Waylon wore a black t-shirt, sans sleeves. He said something that set the other two to laughing, then took a sip of his beer and lit a cigarette. After another moment or two of conversation, his two compatriots stood up and left, shaking hands with him before they departed.
They passed within a few inches of me on their way out the door. For a second the air felt cooler, but I didn’t bother to pay it any real attention. I had bigger things to do.
I walked to Waylon’s table and dropped into the seat across from him. A very quick look of surprise crossed his face, but he masked it just as quickly, taking another long pull from his cigarette. He settled back into the booth, took a sip of his beer, and stared at me.
“Jonah,” he said finally. “Was wondering when I’d see you again.”
I didn’t respond. He narrowed his eyes, appraising me in the dim lighting.
“There’s something different about you, Jonah.”
I took the pouch of gold out of my sweatshirt, along with the cash, and dropped them in the center of the table.
Waylon raised an eyebrow.
“And this is?”
“Your money,” I said, surprising myself at how steady my voice sounded.
Waylon picked up the cash and flipped through it, then shoved the whole stack into his pocket. Next, he picked up the bag and peeked inside. He gave it a little shake, the contents rattling, then sighed and put it back on the table. He sat there for a minute, tapping one finger on the tabletop and smoking his cigarette.
“You know, Jonah, I gotta give you credit for your initiative, son.”
“I’m not your son,” I said.
Waylon quirked a brow. The way he looked at me changed. There was a bit of wariness.
The Ledberg Runestone Page 16
