Brandywine Investigations

by Angel Martinez

  "But she should feel the gathering in her domain, shouldn't she?" Leander asked. "My lord Hades always knows when a soul has entered his."

  "We're not really in her domain. Just kinda on the front lawn. But I bet she'll feel it when they start to dance. That's gonna be a lot of dance moves."

  "Azeban?"

  He turned to find concern in those big dark eyes. "Um, yeah?"

  "Are you safe here?"

  "She won't even know I'm here, right?" Azeban shrugged. "I couldn't stay away. I have to know."

  The hospital at four in the morning was as silent as hospitals ever were—soft typing and machine beeps, the occasional shush-shush of soft-soled shoes in the halls, and snatches of conversation in low voices.

  Charon paced the corridors wrapped in shadow, reaching out with his sense for any change, any hint that something was happening. A sizzling undercurrent of anticipation seemed to charge the air, but that might have been him projecting. Just inside the entrance to the ICU, he found wandering ghost Jason Sinclair.

  "Mr. Stygian!" Jason's anxious features lit with hope when he spotted Charon. "Did you fix death? Is everything okay now?"

  "Not quite yet." Charon swept a hand toward the occupied rooms. "But we need to be ready. If this morning goes well, I hope I can count on you to help the youngsters on their way."

  Jason regarded him with wide, transparent eyes. "Me? Really? But I'm not a… you know… guide-y person."

  "Anyone patient and caring can be a guide-y person." Charon patted his insubstantial shoulder. "Anyone who can see spirits, at any rate. You certainly qualify on all counts."

  "Okay." Jason raised his chin in resolute fashion. "It's just a go-to-the-light kind of thing, right?"

  "Mostly. More or less. I tend to play it by ear, since human experience varies wildly."

  "This won't get scary, will it, Mr. Stygian?"

  Charon considered the question. Scary for him wasn't quite the same as scary for humans. "Probably not. These spirits are in pain and confused. They'll be relieved to move on. But if you run across any malevolent or particularly angry ghosts, just call for me."

  "I can't use the phone," Jason huffed.

  Charon shrugged. "You're a ghost, and you believe in me. That's all it takes. Just sing out for Charon."

  "Holy cats.… That's who you are?"

  "Yes." Charon gave him a sharp-toothed grin. "Who you gonna call?"

  An answering smile bloomed on Jason's face. "Sure as hell not Ghostbusters."

  "Good. You stay here. I'll be in the pediatric wing." Charon started to walk off but turned for one last thing. "I'd ask you to start praying, but most deities who would do any good can't hear you right now."

  Some of the muses had set up to one side of the bowl—drum, lyre, and pipes. Uzume and Terpsichore, both goddesses of dance, walked to the center of the gathering hand in hand and faced each other. The drumbeat began slow and steady, the thud… thud of a resting heart. Uzume and Terpsichore stepped one way, then the other. After four of these, they turned side by side for a simple right-foot-over-left, left-foot-over-right pattern, ending in a right-foot stomp.

  The lyre joined the drumbeat in a simple, rhythmic strum. Uzume took Innana's hand, Terpsichore took Sekhmet's, and the two newcomers joined the pattern. Step-cross-step, step-cross-step, step-cross-step, step-cross-stomp. Yasigi leaped from the crowd to dance facing them, four repetitions of the pattern before she danced over to seize Sekhmet's hand. Then, after each completion of the pattern, each end dancer caught the hand of a new participant, until a long line of deities snaked around and around the bowl in this simple, primal dance: war goddesses with fertility goddesses, moon with sun; creation and destruction, fire and water; hearth and commerce, harvest and hunt; arts and strategy, birth and death. Azeban watched in breathless wonder as the line of dancers grew. He gasped and clutched Leander's arm when the stomp became a physical vibration through the mountain.

  The minotaur librarian put his huge hand over Azeban's to get his attention, then pointed to a dark figure just joining the line. Wrapped in black furs, a long, impenetrable veil over her face, her form was indiscernible, but Azeban felt the chill of her presence all the way up on his perch.

  "I thought she was with Lady Itzpapalotl in this?" Leander said close to Azeban's ear.

  Azeban shook his head. "I don't think Unhcegila's ever with anyone. She thought the whole scheme was interesting, maybe. And now… sweet mother…"

  "Now she's drawn by the dance, like all the rest."

  The bowl should have been too small to contain all the dancers, and yet the snaking line fit, no matter how many deities joined. A subtle trembling in the rock face accompanied each coordinated movement, the simultaneous steps of hundreds of feet sending vibrations through the ground. The stomp had gathered enough force that Azeban felt each one in his bones and at the center of his chest.

  She has to feel it now. There's no way she can't. It's like they're shaking the roots of the mounta—

  As if she had heard him, Itzpapalotl arrived in a clatter of obsidian wings, shrieking with incoherent rage. She had taken on her most fearsome aspect—the empty sockets of her skull filled with flame, a shining obsidian knife in either skeletal hand. Screaming winds whipped the falling snow into frozen attack squadrons, pelting the dancers as Itzpapalotl attacked. But no matter where her knives struck, the dancers pivoted away, no matter where she slashed, her target was always a hair's breadth out of reach.

  Azeban knew on some level that he was clinging to Leander too hard, but the sheer terror of seeing her like this again overrode any social skills or sense. His ears popped, heralding a displacement of air.

  "He's here!" Suddenly standing beside him on the ledge, Eris screamed and pointed. "He's up here! The little rodent who betrayed you!"

  Itzpapalotl's howl of fury shook stones loose from the mountains. She'd spotted him with Eris' prompting, and her flaming eyes locked onto him, seething hate.

  "Oh, fuck," Azeban whispered as she spread her obsidian-blade wings, preparing to launch. Leander pulled him close as if to shelter him, but Azeban knew he would have to squirm away when she landed. He couldn't endanger Leander, who had given him safe place to sleep and a garden of food when he'd needed it.

  No. I have to go now. Before it even gets to that point.

  Azeban ducked out from under Leander's arm, shoved Eris out of the way, and bounded down the slope into the bowl.

  "Az, no! This is no time to be brave!" Leander roared behind him, followed by an ominous snort, stomp and, "Lady Eris, I need to advise you that we are not in the library, and you owe me explanations."

  No looking around, no chance to gloat that Eris might be in a bad spot, Azeban skidded the last few feet down the slope, small stones bouncing away from his boots. His intent was to reach Itz and confront her directly, to draw her attention away from innocent deities until the dance could seize hold of her. She tracked him and began to move in his direction, knives gripped tight and at the ready.

  Brave? Oh fuck no. Azeban was scared out of his skin. His bones were about to jump free and dance a terrified jig all on their own. At the floor of the bowl, he hesitated. All the dancers were so tall. He stood on tiptoe to peer over them, trying to recall if this was normal. Were all the goddesses that much taller than he was? He thought he recalled standing eye to eye with some of them. Maybe?

  But here he was, shrimpier than usual, bobbing and craning as he tried to locate Itzpapalotl. There. She was still across the bowl from him, in the same predicament—and had she grown shorter?

  Azeban stepped closer to the dancers to peer up at them. The tempo had accelerated, and the heavy vibration of each stomp nearly kept time with his hammering heart. The deities engaged in the dance no longer appeared familiar. He had known all of them as they arrived, and now he couldn't identify a single one, as if their features and aspects had melted together. A wing here, a hint of weaponry there, but for the most part he could no longer distinguish
one dancer from another. He caught himself swaying to the beat, unable to stop his feet from taking another step closer, and another.

  Waves of dizziness swept over him, a strange pulling centered in his heart, as if he were on a fishing line. A shriek came from above, and Eris flew over his head to land in the middle of the dancers. Holy shit.… Did Leander throw her? The line never broke, never wavered. She was simply absorbed.

  Across the bowl from Azeban, Itzpapalotl appeared to be having similar issues. She'd abandoned her skeletal aspect and put away her knives in favor of clutching her head.

  "No! I won't! You can't!" she cried out and threw her head back to howl her frustration into the sky, but her feet, like Azeban's, drew her inexorably toward the dance, even as she fought against every step.

  Azeban tried to walk backward, to return to his perch with Leander. His legs wouldn't do as he told them to. "But I'm not a goddess," he whispered to the ever-wilder strains of drum, pipes, and lyre.

  Soft laughter was his only answer, though he couldn't say who had laughed or what it meant. The line of dancers shifted closer to him. A sleeve brushed his fingers. A hand seized his, and he gasped as he was yanked off his feet into the snaking line of dancers, stumbling, struggling to keep up.

  Until he wasn't. The cold, the fear, the dark vanished. Golden warmth surrounded him, buoyed him, cradled him, and he barked out a laugh of sheer joy, even as tears tracked down his face. He no longer knew where the ground was. He no longer cared.

  Itzpapalotl's anger still vibrated through the dance, though he no longer feared it. Her struggles were dark wavelets at the edge of the golden weaving, but no matter how hard she fought, she couldn't resist the call. A collective sigh ran through the dancers when she finally acquiesced and joined the steady rhythm rather than fighting against it. Her anger faded into confusion and finally evened out into serenity.

  A murmur ran through the dancers. The work can now begin.

  As one they flew or 'ported—it was hard for Azeban to tell—but the movement was breathtakingly swift. One moment they danced atop Cerro Mohinora; the next they faced one of the gateways to an Abrahamic heaven. A strangely silent, empty gateway with its supporting clouds billowing restlessly, and the blinding brightness of its gates dimmed.

  Of course. Azeban understood now why he was there. He found himself at one end of the chain of dancers and Itzpapalotl at the other. The line of dancers curved into a U, so he stood side by side with her—a blended, melded version of her. Gently, he took her hands and guided them to the first anchor point for the soul netting on the gates. Her hands, their hands, the hands of the goddess dance.

  With great care, gathering up the netting as she unhooked it, Itzpapalotl began to remove the barrier to the souls who could not die.

  Charon had nearly made it to Keri's room when the world shifted. Hard. A wall of force slammed into his chest, and he dropped to one knee, gasping as he lost his shadow cloaking.

  "Sir? Are you all right?" One of the night nurses dashed up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. She jerked back when he glanced up at her. Humans often did that the first time they saw him.

  "I'm fine, thank you." Charon put a hand on the wall to haul himself up. The rushing sensation was still there, stronger and stronger now, but he could brace against it. "It's a talent, tripping over your own feet."

  She laughed uncomfortably but moved off on her rounds. Charon took a quick glance around and 'ported to where he'd left Jason.

  "It's starting. Get in there with them. I have the feeling things are going to happen fast."

  Jason blinked at him, startled and maybe a little frightened. "Okay. I… I'll do my best."

  "Good man—ah, ghost." Charon gave him a salute and 'ported back, directly to Keri's bedside.

  She sat where he had seen her previously, still rocking miserably beside her unable-to-expire body. Charon dropped to one knee again, this time under his own power, and took her ghostly hands in his.

  "Mr. Stygian?"

  "Keri, something's happening. I want you to hold on tight to me and try to leave the bed."

  She scowled at him. "But I can't. You know that. I've tried so many times."

  "This one last time." He gripped her hands tighter, as only a soul guide could. "We'll try together."

  "Why?"

  Charon tipped his head to one side. "Do you know who I am? Really?"

  Keri shrugged. "You're like the grim reaper or something. Except you're not all old-school with the cloak and the sickle thing."

  "Close enough. I know death, and it's been broken. But something's changed. I felt it change."

  "Okay." She still squinted at him, clearly still skeptical. "I'll try."

  Charon stood to give her room without releasing her hands and held his breath while she swung her transparent feet off the bed. At first, she wriggled in place and shook her head, unable to move past the edge of the bed.

  A second wall of force hit, nearly taking Charon out at the knees. Keri's eyes widened. She pulled hard against whatever held her to the bed and lurched against Charon's chest.

  "Mr. Stygian, there's a light behind you."

  Great rivers of the Underworld. "Good. As it should be." Charon stepped out her way so she could see the light he couldn't.

  "It's so beautiful," she whispered. "Thank you."

  "It's nothing to do with me and everything to do with you." Charon stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle push. "Go on, Keri. You're free. You can do this."

  She turned to him, eyes wide. "But that means I'm really dead, then."

  "It's long past time for your body," he said softly. "It's not an end, you know. It's something wondrous and new."

  With a little huff, she squared her shoulders and stepped away from him. One slow step after another, she moved away from her body, becoming less visible with each step. She looked back only once, to whisper, "Bye, Mom. Love you."

  Charon only saw the light in the split second when she stepped through, then she was gone. So many souls… He'd sent so many across, and rarely was there such bittersweet joy in the crossing. But he couldn't linger and analyze. He had to keep moving.

  A little boy who had died in a fall, a teenage girl who had been struck by a car while cycling, a little girl with an undiagnosed heart condition—he went to them all, one by one, explaining as their ages allowed, encouraging and exhorting until they made that final, delayed journey.

  When he had made the rounds of the pediatric rooms, he 'ported back to Jason, who stood in the corridor, eyes wide and glazed.

  "All right there?"

  "It was amazing." Jason swallowed hard. "And really, really hard not to cross over myself."

  Charon peered at him closely. "It's long past time for you too. If you need to go—"

  "No." Jason straightened his tie. "I want to help. This feels right. Like it's something I should be doing."

  "All right. It's your funeral."

  Jason shot him a hard side-eye. "You did not just say that."

  "No, it was some other ferryman of the dead. Next hospital." Charon took his hand and 'ported them across town.

  From gate to bridge to river to cavern, the goddess dance moved effortlessly from the entrance of one death realm to the next. For Azeban, it was as if he moved in a particularly misty and disjointed dream, where it was increasingly difficult to focus on guiding the removal of the nets.

  Uriel waved from beside one of the newly opened Abrahamic gates, then spread his huge white wings and took off to his renewed duties. Weird reaction to the goddess dance, like he knew they were coming, but Azeban thought he understood. Probably part of Char's death guide social group or something.

  The lost souls at the Path of the Moon moved courteously out of the way when the dance arrived, much different from when Azeban had arrived in stealth mode. Not having to dodge and bump into souls made removing the soul netting so much easier than the nightmare of putting it up.

  As soo
n as they removed the netting from Osiris' palace in Duat, the doors flew open, and Anubis leaped out snarling, a blade in either hand. He yelped and backpedaled when he caught sight of the unstoppable goddess collective stomping in unison. His ears flattened against his head. His swords fell to the stones. Azeban wanted to say something reassuring. He felt bad, but he'd lost the power of speech, and he began to fear that this strange collective would absorb him and he would never be seen again.

  I'd say that's okay 'cause I have to do this. But Char…

  The thought of never seeing his ferryman again hurt more than Azeban would have thought possible. He wanted, oh, he wanted things that had nothing to do with lust and the want, the need, the memories of warmth and someone who wanted him just as he was wrapped tight around his heart. It made him determined to hang on to himself for as long as he could. Just a little longer, that's all he needed. The goddesses would end the dance when they were done, wouldn't they? Except… he wasn't sure where his own hands were anymore, and he couldn't recall how it felt to move independently.

  Removing the netting from Mateguas' warren was the easiest of the paths to death. Small, compact, and peaceful, there were only four anchors and no need to scale heights or plunge to depths to reach any of them. The moment the hands of the goddess dance rolled the netting away, Mateguas in rabbit aspect popped his head out, long ears swiveling and nose twitching. He blinked in confusion at the collective entity before him and fled back into his tunnels.

  Nearly finished, they regarded the rabbit god with equal confusion. He should have seemed more familiar, perhaps. But everything filtered through the lenses of hundreds of eyes became strange and disconnected.

  Finally, they reached the last, the cave entrance to the Underworld in Cape Matapan. No fierce three-headed guardian rushed out to confront them. Only the wind sang mournfully through the caverns. A sigh rippled through them, sorrow and concern, but only for an instant before purpose reasserted itself and their hands returned to the last part of their task.

  They recalled in some distant way struggling to remove the netting here. The scratches and gouges of desperate claws stood witness to that struggle. Now, the netting parted from the rock face as easily as if they brushed away dry leaves.