It is said that when you die you see a light in the darkness, that you are drawn toward the light. Nothing is said about the smell of brick dust and scorched concrete and liquid copper roiling in your nostrils.
It is also said that there are beings waiting in the light to greet you—angels or loved ones that have gone on before. No one ever suggested that you might look upon eternity and see Vlad the Impaler reaching out his hand to you.
I blinked, trying to clear my vision. It slowly became obvious that I wasn't dead, yet.
Bassarab helped me sit up and then moved the Sabrelight's beam about to reveal the damage done.
The plastique that Smirl had planted between the first and second floors had brought the entire building down on top of us. That I had counted on: it was part of the plan.
I had also figured on the building's collapse sealing off the stairwell with a rockslide of shattered concrete and brick. With the basement buried under the collapse of the upper three stories, I had counted on the access tunnel being our secret escape route. But, as the flashlight beam picked out the spill of earth, rock, and ancient brick spilling from the tunnel's maw, I realized that all exits were lost. I might just as well have triggered the detonator for the vest and saved us both a long, slow, lingering death.
I lifted a leaden arm and checked my watch. 3:49 in the p.m.: I had been unconscious for hours. As I digested this piece of information I noticed something else: it was as quiet as a tomb.
Or perhaps not. Bassarab had ahold of my arm and was making strange mouthy expressions at me: he was speaking, maybe even shouting, but I couldn't hear a thing. I put a hand to my right ear, felt something sticky. Bassarab moved the flashlight so I could see my fingers more clearly. My ears were bleeding. So was my nose. Although the ceiling above us had held, the concussive shockwave from the blast had slammed into the basement like an invisible battering ram.
I lay back down and closed my eyes. Bruised and bleeding and stone-cold deaf, I probably had internal injuries that would have killed me had I been human. Might kill me, yet: I wondered how long it took a semi-vampire to die of dehydration. Perhaps Bassarab would solve my problem by finishing the task he'd started in his barn, nearly a year before.
I dozed.
Dreamed of Jenny and Kirsten and happier times. The nightmares didn't come this time.
I awoke to Bassarab shaking my shoulder.
"What?" I asked, my voice now sounding muffled and faraway.
He gestured, pointed at a narrow fissure in the debris choking the access tunnel and then beckoned for me to follow him. With that, he bowed his head, crossed his arms across his chest, and began to fade. As his body became less distinct, it lost form all together and dispersed as a kind of mist. I picked up my Sabrelight and tracked the now tenuous nimbus of vapor as it floated into the passageway and faded from sight.
I glanced at my watch: after ten p.m., now. The old vampire had escaped by traveling the dreampath.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the outside.
Tried to imagine the far end of the tunnel where it came up and out in the remains of the pump station.
Tried to image myself outside.
Tried to project. . .
A hand fell on my shoulder. I looked up at Bassarab who had returned for me.
He gestured.
I gestured.
Together we pantomimed our way through a discussion of what we already knew: my first dreamwalk had been a fluke and I didn't know how to repeat the process. Although they seemed to be healing, my ears were still nonfunctional and, with my head still buzzing from the blast, I couldn't "hear" Bassarab's mindspeech. He couldn't guide me onto the path much less help me off again.
I waved him away. Maybe if I slept, healed a bit. . .
He gestured that he couldn't wait. The sun would return in a few short hours and he had to find Wren. Tell him that the plan had worked. For the most part. I switched off the Sabrelight and he left, signing that he would return.
Sure.
Less than a week before, when we had discussed faking our deaths, Bassarab had promised me wealth undreamed of, a new identity, and a life of ease. Ease, particularly, in the sense that once we were believed to be truly dead, undead hitmen and shapeshifting assassins would stop complicating our existence. We would no longer have the resources of several vampire enclaves scouring the country for us.
Not that I really cared.
I had finally figured that my chances of nailing Bey were next to zip unless I was standing face-to-face with him when I pushed the button. The only reason for adding an escape clause to the plot was to guarantee Bassarab's cooperation.
And it had worked to that degree: Bassarab had cooperated. And now he was escaping.
But I didn't mind, really. All that really mattered was putting an end to the ancient necromancer and giving my family final peace. Now that it was accomplished, I could let go of everything else. I would be joining them soon.
Bassarab wouldn't be coming back. With me dead and buried, his existence was secure. I was an amateur at living this half-life and would eventually make a mistake that would betray my own existence and, therefore, his, as well.
All in all, I felt something akin to contentment. It didn't matter whether I had actually ended my mortal life on the muddy floor of an old barn, in a tangle of twisted metal at a Kansas intersection, or hooked up to life-support equipment in a hospital emergency room: I had lived my life. Maybe it wasn't the biblical three score and ten, but who said life was fair? I certainly knew better by now.
I lay on the cold, hard floor of the tunnel and waited for a final ending.
Slept again. . . .
Chris.
I awoke to a new dream: the voice of my wife, calling to me.
Outside the sun was setting again. I could feel that another day had passed.
I looked up and there she was.
Jennifer sat above me, lotus fashion, floating in midair. Darling, she said, it's time for you to go.
"I'm already gone," I mumbled, unwilling to invest myself in one more hurtful illusion.
You mustn't think that way.
"How do you know what I've been thinking?" I asked awkwardly. Dimly I registered that I could hear her voice clearly while my own words were still a bit muffled.
Chris, I've always been able to tell what you've been thinking. She smiled—a little wistfully, I thought. I'm worried about you.
"About me? You're dead."
And you're not. She shook her finger at me. Not yet. And there's no need for you to hurry the process.
She glowed with a faint, bluish white light: cold and fluorescent, not the red-orange-yellow spectrum of body heat and life force. And I could not only see the details of her face but the details of the brick spill behind it.
I picked up the Sabrelight, but my thumb hesitated on the switch: I feared she would dissolve like so much gossamer if I switched it on.
Still—
"You're not real," I said sadly.
What is real? she asked rhetorically.
"There's no such things as ghosts."
Nor vampires, nor werewolves. . . .
"That's an easy argument that you could use to justify anything. But I know you're not real."
What is real? she asked again.
I shook my head, felt my ears pop as I worked my jaw. "I was warned early on: the virus that creates the vampiric condition also affects the brain—eventually causes madness. You are nothing more than a hallucination."
An undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, she retorted, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.
"A clever comeback, but you make my point. You never did have a head for quotations—even something as mainstream as Dickens. You are merely an early warning system for full-blown dementia."
You silver-tongued charmer; you always did know how to sweet-talk a lady.
"You're not there."
Okay. She unfolded her lotus and floated down to sit by me. If I'm a manifestation of your own mind, then make me disappear.
"Disappear?" I was surprised, wondering why I hadn't thought of that. But then, according to my theory, I just had. . . .
She reached around to place her hands on my shoulders. I could almost feel her massaging the tension out of my stiffened muscles. You don't want me to go, she crooned. After all this time, now that the barrier is finally down: I show up for real and you want to send me back to oblivion?
"You're not real," I whispered.
What is real? she asked again.
"Jennifer—what happened to Kirsten?"
She went into the Light, Chris. She went a long time ago.
I felt tears gathering. "Why didn't you?"
I've been worried about you. I couldn't leave until I knew you'd be all right. Let me help you focus.
"You're not real!" I yelled. "Go away!"
She began to cry. It's hard enough being dead! I don't need you yelling at me and saying I'm not real on top of everything else!
I found myself stammering an apology. "I—I'm sorry, Jen. I-I'm having a rough time, myself, right now."
Poor baby. She wiped at ectoplasmic tears with noncorporeal fingers. I came here to help and all I did was get you all distracted. She tried to touch my face and her thumb went through my nose. You must concentrate.
"What?"
Chris, your only way out is to travel the dreampath. And you can't do that unless you focus your mind completely.
"I don't know how."
I'll help you.
"How?"
Close your eyes.
I closed them.
Now, press the heels of your palms against your eyelids. Push.
"A blot of mustard," I muttered.
None of that. Now, as soon as you begin to feel a pleasant buzz, I want you to expand the feeling outward so that it fills the space around you.
"A pleasant buzz?"
Wait for it.
"Turn on, tune in, drop out?"
In a sense. When it comes, you want to imagine everything around you as being fuzzy, losing its form. We're going to disconnect you from this reality before we try to focus on your destination.
"Sounds dangerous."
I'll be with you every step of the way.
"Not the most reassuring line seeing as how you're dead."
At least you're not accusing me of being unreal.
"Don't know what's real anymore: everything is starting to get fuzzy."
Good. Embrace the nothingness. Push everything else away.
"I'm pushing."
Push harder.
"Pushing. I'm pushing!"
And breathe! Don't forget to breathe!
"What is this, the Lamaze approach to teleportation?"
You never listened to me when I was alive and now you won't listen to me when I'm dead! Her voice was growing fainter.
"Wait a minute; come back here!"
Don't open your eyes.
"Well, don't leave me here."
How can I leave you if I'm not real? If I'm only a projection of your own subconscious?
"This is just the sort of argument I would have with myself."
Fine! Have it with yourself: I am leaving!
"No, you're not! You're my occipital delusion and you're not leaving until I'm ready to imagine it!"
Make me, fang-boy.
I lunged for her. Felt my ears pop. And then my head.
Felt a cool breeze stirring my hair, brushing my face and hands.
Opened my eyes.
I was outside. A mound of rubble some forty yards away marked the collapse of the old hospital. Flashing yellow lights atop highway barriers strobed the darkness, marking the perimeter of the tumbled ruin.
I looked around. "Jennifer?"
She was gone. As if she had never been in the first place. Of course.
Now what?
Walk back to the motel?
Find a phone and call the Doman to come and get me?
Stick out my thumb and try to hitchhike before the sun came up and after me?
As if in answer, a pair of headlights at the other end of the field flashed on and then off again. Red-in-violet parking lights blinked back on and an engine growled to life. Darkness moved within darkness and a vague shape gleamed in starlight. Then a wink of chrome as an automobile took form. A 1950 Mercury Club Coupe—younger sibling to the '49 model James Dean drove in Rebel Without A Cause—rolled toward me. Long, low, incredibly sleek, it had a chopped roofline, narrow windows, and frenched headlights. Darker than black, it was the color of a tar pit at midnight. Only the running lights and a silver chasing of chrome gave it any definable form in the darkness.
I forgot to breathe until it stopped a scant three feet away.
A tinted window slid down. Victor Wren looked out and up at me. "He said you would get out."
I looked at him. "Where is he?"
"Busy. Making sure you—and he—both get a head start. When the time is right and the coast is clear, he'll find you."
I nodded. "What about Suki?"
"She'll make it. She's already on the road to recovery." He opened the door and stepped out.
"And the others?"
"Also gone. Half the town came running when the building blew. It'll take weeks and heavy equipment to excavate down to the basement—if that's what the town fathers eventually decide to do. The consensus has both of you dead. Smirl didn't mention the second set of charges, so I don't know what he really thinks. Pagelovitch called his people home. Smirl flew back to Chicago. They let me keep the Duesenberg."
"Where's Bassarab?"
He smiled. "Waiting in the shadows somewhere. We figure someone's going to be watching me for awhile."
"Where will you go?"
"Home." He smiled and handed the ignition keys to me. "A little present from the boss."
"It's beautiful."
He nodded appreciatively. "Not all of it's vintage antique. You'll find out when you open her up out on the highway." He kicked a tire. "It should get you home."
"Home?"
"Wherever you choose. As long as you stay away from the enclaves. Papers are in the glove compartment. Along with an atlas showing all the known demesnes, marked and labeled. Also an envelope with new identity papers, documents, letters of introduction, credit cards, bank accounts. I hope you don't mind."
"Mind?"
"The name. New identity, new name. We were in a hurry and the boss seems to have developed a sense of humor of late." He smiled. "Serves you right for shooting me with that dart gun. I hear it made Lupé toss her cookies."
"Her dart was loaded with something a little stronger than sterile water. By the way: nice acting job."
"Thanks." He gestured to the rear of the interior. "Your knapsack and computer are in the backseat, along with three suitcases filled with cash. I didn't get an exact count, but it's in the neighborhood of five million dollars. Instructions are included to keep you clear of the IRS and any other banking procedures that might compromise your anonymity."
I stood there, staring at the car, at nothing, at something too complex to decipher yet.
"You really should get going: the local authorities have a lot of questions for anyone 'just passing through' of late."
I opened the door and slid behind the wheel. The front seat felt like a comfortable old sofa. "Can I give you a lift?"
He shook his head. "It's a beautiful night for a walk. I think I'll just stretch my legs a bit."
I closed the door and he leaned down to the window. "Thought about where you might go?"
I shrugged. "Maybe Louisiana."
"Stay away from New Orleans, if you do."
"Enclave?"
He nodded. "With literary pretensions." He reached through the window to shake my hand. "Good luck. After this all dies down, they may forget about me. Then, maybe, my master will take me back."
"Is that what you want?"
He smiled. "I've worked my share of jobs. As employers go, I've had worse."
I turned the ignition and the motor purred to life. "One more question," I said. "You've seen a lot of things: vampires, werewolves. . ."
He nodded. "Categories don't come easy."
"What about ghosts?"
He shook his head. "There ain't no such thing."
"You're sure?"
"Positive. Have it on the best authority." He stepped back. "Take care now. Don't let the sun shine on your parade."
There was nothing more to say. I put the Merc into gear and headed back to I-69. I turned north at the light, planning a quick good-bye and then a one-eighty run south.
I was turning into the cemetery when I heard the catches pop on one of the suitcases.
Wow! We're rich! Jenny's voice said.
I rolled to a stop and looked around. "Where are you?"
Right next to you. Though I'm kind of twisted around and hanging over the seat, right now.
"I don't see you."
I'm invisible.
"Yeah, right."
The suitcase behind us relatched itself with a double snap and her voice turned petulant. Don't start with that "I'm not real," stuff again. The dark glass of the passenger window slid down. What are we doing here? Oh. I see. You came to say good-bye, didn't you?
I nodded, in spite of the fact it was a conversation I was having with myself.
That's so sweet! But it's also rather silly, darling. After all, Kirsten and I are buried under what's left of the old Mount Horeb Hospital building. There's nothing here but two headstones marking two empty graves.
I bowed my head against the steering wheel.
And one helluva big dog!
It took a moment to register. The "dog" was in motion as my head came up, running straight for the car.
Now why, Jenny was saying, would a dog chase a car that wasn't even moving?
"It's not a dog," I said, groping for the button that locked all the doors. There was no such thing in a 1950 Mercury coupe, even one that had been customized in the nineties.
With the window down it was a useless gesture anyway: the wolf leapt, scrambling over the door panel, landing on the passenger seat with its front paws in my lap.
Oof, said my wife's ghost. I'd better get in the backseat. Nice doggy.
A moment later the "nice doggy" was gone and Lupé Garou was sitting beside me with one hand grasping my arm and the other gripping my leg.
"Don't you ever, ever do that again!" she hissed through clenched teeth.
My goodness, Chris: she's naked!
"Uh," I said, "do what? Shoot you with a tranquilizer gun?"
But very pretty. In an understated sort of way.
"Shoot me with a tranquilizer gun! Not trust me with the truth! Make me think you were dead!" Her eyes were wet and furious. "All of it!"
I take it that the two of you are involved—to some degree?
"I'm sorry," I said. I seemed to be apologizing a lot for a guy who was supposed to be dead.
Not that I mind, you understand. You really do need someone to look after you.
"Well," she sniffed, rolling up the window on her side, "don't ever do any of those things again. Now, let's get going."
I don't mind sharing you now. Death is really very liberating—emotionally, that is.
"Going?"
You learn to let go of so many things—
"The sun is going to be coming up in a few hours. You'll need a place to sleep."
What about her?
"Um," I said. "What about you?"
"I'll need a place to sleep, too," Lupé said. "I haven't had a moment's rest since the old hospital blew up. Let's go."
She seems very practical. I like that. You need a practical woman. I was always very practical—
"No, you weren't," I murmured.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
I put the car back in gear and drove the circular road back out and onto the highway. "Would you turn the heater on?" Lupé asked as I swung right and onto the bypass that arced around Pittsburg to the west. "It's a little cool."
Of course she was: she wasn't wearing any clothes.
As I reached for the heater knob, my wife's voice piped up from the backseat: Honey, aren't you going to introduce us?
I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and cleared my throat. "So," I asked, "how did you know that I wasn't really dead?"
"Ah," Lupé answered, doing a fair imitation of Bassarab's accent, "the blood-bond! It called to me!"
I had to laugh. "Really."
"You're a survivor, Chris. You don't give up easily. And . . . I didn't want to believe that you were really gone."
This is really rude, Christopher; conversing as if I weren't here with the two of you.
"So, now what?" I asked. "Do we drive back to Seattle? Or do you need to call the Doman to arrange for a pickup?"
"Neither. I quit. Told Taj to hand in my resignation for me."
"Will they consider you 'rogue'?"
"Probably."
"So, they'll be looking for you. May even suspect that I might still be alive, as well."
She shrugged shapely shoulders. "Relationships always complicate things. You gotta expect a certain number of problems."
Chris—
"Hush!" I snapped.
"What?"
"Not you."
"I don't understand."
I sighed. "My wife's ghost is in the backseat."
Lupé turned around to look.
Pleased to meet you, Jenny said.
"Not really," I explained. "I'm just imagining that I hear her voice. Talking to me. The dementia phase of the virus seems to be advancing."
"So," Lupé considered, "she's not really back there."
I am, too!
"Of course not," I said. "You don't hear her voice, do you?"
Lupé shook her head. "But you do?"
"Just call me Cosmo Topper."
If I'm not real, then how can I do this? The glove compartment opened by itself and a large manilla envelope floated into view.
"If she's not really in the car with us," Lupé asked, wide-eyed, "then how do you explain the floating envelope?"
Precisely, Jenny said primly. A piece of paper emerged from the envelope and unfolded in midair.
"One of the by-products of my altered brain chemistry is certain telekinetic abilities," I answered, trying to keep my eyes on the road and steer. "If I can transport my body along the dreampaths, I can certainly float some pieces of paper without tweaking any conscious brain cells."
"So you're saying your dementia is not only providing auditory hallucinations," Lupé said, "but causing your subconscious to manifest certain psychic episodes, as well."
I nodded, only half-listening to her words. "What are you doing?" I demanded.
Checking on your new identity. The end opened and a piece of paper floated out. Oh my. She started to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"May I see?" Lupé asked.
Your new identity. Jenny turned the paper so Lupé could see, too.
"What?"
As of now your last name is "Haim," Jenny announced.
"Haim," Lupé murmured. "What an odd name. Wonder what nationality that might be."
Celtic, Jenny replied with a giggle.
"Celtic?" I asked. "What makes you think it would be Celtic?"
Lupé began to giggle as well. "Because your first name is now Samuel." On the last word both of their giggles bubbled over.
"What's so funny about Samuel?" It took me a moment: "Samuel Haim—Sam Haim?" I wasn't laughing.
Oh, darling; it could be worse. They could have made your new name Hal O. Ween.
"I'm still not laughing." I pulled up to the four-way stop where 160 split off to the west and 57/171 angled off to the east and then a long curve around to the south.
Lupé kept twisting around to look behind her. "You know, you've got me half-convinced that your wife's ghost is here with us, after all."
Admit it, babe. You're not fully convinced that I'm nothing more than a subconscious manifestation of your deteriorating psyche.
"You're not real," I insisted as my foot danced from brake to clutch and I torqued the steering wheel.
"Are you really so sure about that?" Lupé asked with a smile. "After all, it wasn't that long ago that you didn't think vampires or werewolves—"
"You're not real, either," I announced as the envelope floated back into the glove compartment and closed with a snap. To close off any further conversation, I reached over and switched on the radio.
An oldies station was playing the last few bars of "Earth Angel." There was a disembodied chuckle behind me and Lupé was grinning wolfishly.
"I don't find any of this particularly funny."
Hey, Jenny's voice murmured in my ear, didn't anybody ever tell you: dying is easy; comedy is hard.
I stomped on the accelerator as the radio segued into a new selection.
It was "The Monster Mash."