Modern Sorcery: A Jonathan Shade Novel (34 page)

By the time the Fourth of July rolled around, my injuries had mostly healed.
 
My shoulder still gave me the occasional twinge, but Kelly had been working on it after training at her new dojo.
 
She insisted that I train every damn day.
 
My heart just wasn’t in it.

Sometimes Brand was there to be my sparring partner.
 
I know Kelly told him to take it easy on me, and to his credit, he listened to her.
 
He was incredibly fast, but he always pulled his punches.
 
In some ways, I wished he wouldn’t.

We sat at the picnic table in O’Malley’s backyard, eating hamburgers, hot dogs, potato chips, and assorted goodies.
 
We washed it all down with ice-cold beer.

O’Malley watched Kelly and Brand laughing and holding hands.
 
He looked disappointed, but he’d taken it well and was dating a woman named Donna who worked in the evidence room.

As for me, I didn’t have a new office yet, but I did find an apartment.
 
Esther went shopping for decorations with me.
 
She insisted that it should feel like home.

I wasn’t sure any place would ever feel like home, but I went through the motions of life anyway.

Every night in my dreams, I tried to save Naomi, but she’d still leap onto that sword and I’d hold her as her life bled out.
 
For weeks I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get over it, but last night things hit a turning point.
 
I didn’t wake up crying when she died.
 
Last night, we rode down the Acheron, and she gave me a look filled with love and forgiveness.
 
She kissed me and faded away like a forgotten memory.

When the people you love die, they leave an emptiness inside you that can never be filled.
 
You carry that emptiness with you forever.
 
The trick is to fill the rest of your life with good things.
 
I looked around at my friends.
 
They were laughing and smiling, and I knew they were there for me.
 
I figured that was a damn good start.

THE END

Check out the next book in the Jonathan Shade Novel series!

ACHERON HIGHWAY

(A Jonathan Shade Novel)

Gary Jonas

CHAPTER ONE

You ever have one of those days where dead people just won’t leave you alone?
 
Well, I’d been having one of those months, but it didn’t get too crazy until Miranda Hammond walked into my life.
 
Picture this: it’s a cool Tuesday morning in early December.
 
Denver in late autumn wasn’t too bad this year.
 
We had more mild days than arctic freezes and the temperature hovered in the high thirties.
 
I could deal with it, but I had the car heater going.

I pulled into my apartment parking lot and noticed a beautiful blonde leaning against the wall by my door.
 
Esther stood beside her for a moment, but saw me and popped into my passenger seat.
 
I should probably mention that Esther is a ghost.
 
As always, she wore her short flapper dress.
 
She was a secretary who died back in 1929.
 
For many years, she couldn’t get farther than fifteen feet from her typewriter, but six months ago, the Underwood shattered and we kept most of the remains.
 
She can teleport to any of those pieces whenever she likes.
 
She loves the new mobility.

“Hi, Jonathan.
 
I think the Sheba is here for you.”

“Hmm,” I said.

“If it’s a blind date, you got lucky.”

“No date,” I said.
 
“How long has she been here?”

“Ten minutes tops.”

“Is she alive?”

Esther frowned.
 
“It didn’t occur to me to check.”

“Well, let’s see what’s cooking.”

Esther popped back to the woman and walked through her.
 
Esther tapped her chest and gave me a thumbs-down.

Great.
 
Just what I needed.
 
Another dead person.
 
What can I tell you?
 
My life is complicated.
 
I stepped out of the Firebird, closed the door, and shivered as the wind cut into me.
 
Too bad I couldn’t carry the heater with me.

As I approached the door, the woman turned toward me.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Are you Jonathan Shade?”

“According to my driver’s license,” I said.

Her voice was silky smooth and, while at first glance, I’d have placed her in her early thirties, when I looked into her eyes, I adjusted the number closer to forty.
 
A well-preserved forty, but her eyes held wisdom.
 
She wore black slacks and a red blouse buttoned all the way to the top.
 
She didn’t seem to notice the cold, but being dead, she wouldn’t.
 
She stepped closer.

“My name is Miranda Hammond, and I want to hire you.”

“Is this about Sharon?” I asked.

She gave me a confused look.
 
“What makes you think that?”

“I’m psychic,” I lied.

She gave me the
I was born at night, but not
last
night
look.
 
“Could have fooled me.”

“Come on.
 
You want to hire me to take you to a woman named Sharon.
 
Been there, done that, sold the T-shirt on eBay.
 
I’ll send you a bill.”

She placed a hand on my chest.
 
“I don’t know anyone named Sharon.”

“You may know her by another name.”
 
I moved past her to unlock my door.
 
“The spirits play tricks sometimes.”

She shook her head.
 
“May I come inside?
 
I really need to talk to you.”

“Sorry.
 
I’m not taking on any new clients at this time.”

“Mr. Shade, I need your help.
 
I was told you were my best shot at handling my little problem.”

I grabbed her forearm, turned it, and placed the pads of my middle and ring fingers on her wrist.
 
As Esther had indicated, Miranda did not have a pulse.

“Pretty little crazy dead girl, go back to your grave.”

“I’m not dead.
 
Really.”

“Pretty little crazy
un
dead girl, go back to your grave.”

I opened the door, entered my apartment, and closed the door behind me.
 
As I expected, the woman knocked.

“Is she a vampire?” Esther asked.

“I don’t believe in vampires.”

The woman kept knocking.
 
“Please open the door, Mr. Shade!”

Esther frowned.
 
“She was trying to get an invitation to come inside.”

“You’ve been around for more than a century.
 
Have you ever seen a vampire?”

“I spent most of my time in a filthy storage closet.
 
It’s not like I was out enjoying the night life.”

“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, so even if vampires existed, she wouldn’t be out right now.
 
Or maybe she’d be all sparkly.”

Miranda persisted with the knocking.

I sighed, turned around, and opened the door.

Miranda stood there, fist raised to knock again.
 
“Oh,” she said.

“Are you a vampire?” I asked.

She blinked.
 
“No.”

“A vampire wouldn’t admit to being a vampire,” Esther said.

“Right,” I said.
 
“At least you aren’t covered in glitter.”
 
Leaving the door open, I turned, walked over to the sofa, and sat down.

Miranda hesitated then entered my apartment.
 
“I’m guessing it’s all right for me to come inside.”

“Whatever.
 
Shut the door.
 
This place costs a fortune to heat.”

She closed the door.

Esther moved in front of Miranda and stared at her mouth.
 
I suspect she was trying to see if Miranda had elongated incisors.
 
Since Miranda couldn’t see Esther, she walked right through her and stood before me.

“Spill,” I said.

Miranda took a moment to look around the apartment.
 
“You have no furniture,” she said.

“I have a sofa.”

She was right, though.
 
Aside from the sofa, I didn’t have any furniture in the living room.
 
My old condo and my office had been destroyed, and while I rented an apartment, I hadn’t bothered to furnish it beyond the sofa and a few essentials.
 
Esther kept trying to get me to replace everything, but I felt more dead than Miranda.
 
The decorations I let her talk me into buying still resided in bags in the closet.

“I don’t trust her,” Esther said.
 
Esther didn’t trust anyone.

Miranda took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
 
That made her blouse expand in interesting ways, but I reminded myself she was dead.
 
Look in her eyes
.

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

“I don’t know who I can turn to, and you came very highly recommended.”

“By whom?”

“Naomi Miller.”

I felt a knife in my heart.
 
“Naomi’s dead,” I said.

“I heard.
 
I’m sorry.
 
I work at DGI Engineering.”

The fact that she added the word
Engineering
told me she didn’t realize that DGI stood for Dragon Gate Industries or that the thirteenth floor housed a bunch of wizards.
 
Naomi had worked there as a wizard.
 
Yes, a real wizard.

“Naomi and I used to go to Starbucks every morning before work,” Miranda said.
 
“One day over lattes, she told me that if I ever had a problem—a problem that seemed too weird for normal people—that I should look you up.
 
She said you handle strange cases all the time and nobody could do it better.
 
I don’t know who else I can talk to about this.”

“Let me guess.
 
You died and now you’re back and it’s freaking you out.”

“I’m not dead, Mr. Shade.”

“Sorry, Miranda, but when your heart stops beating, that’s the textbook definition of dead.”

“Denial much?” Esther said.

“A year ago, I had a problem with a guy I dated.
 
He worked on a different floor and he seemed nice, but he got really attached to me really fast.
 
I tried to break it off with him, but he wouldn’t let go.”

“Your very own stalker.
 
How nice for you.”

“He left me twenty messages a day.
 
I changed my number and had two terrific days without him bothering me.”

“Then he got the new number, of course.”

“That’s right.
 
And he told me that he would win my heart one way or another.”

“By leaving you twenty messages a day.
 
That always works.”

“A month ago, I read a book about stalkers and I finally realized the smart thing to do was to get a second phone, but I kept the original phone too.
 
That way I could have my friends and family call my new number, but stalker boy could leave me all the messages he wanted.
 
As long as the phone was live, he wouldn’t know I’d switched numbers and eventually he’d give up.”

“That’s usually effective as long as you’ve told the guy you’re not interested.”

“I told him that time and again.
 
Of course, now I know I should have said it once and then ignored him from then on.”