Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel (30 page)

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 almost 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 then, 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.