Chapter Nine #2
I’m halfway through my third drink when the door opens. I don’t need to look to know who it is. The French doctor’s pretentiousness and cologne enter the room well before he does these days.
“Big D is the least of his worries right now, Silas.” Kane’s voice is crisp. Clipped.
I don’t turn around. “Kane.”
“Asher. You’re late.” His footsteps approach—precise, measured, like everything about him. He slides onto the stool beside me, somehow making even that simple action look refined. “Silas.”
“Kane! Hi, handsome! What an unexpected surprise!” Silas’s enthusiasm is almost convincing. “What can I get you? We have grappa and Lethe, and if you’re feeling adventurous, I can probably find some vintage that’s only been dead slightly longer than you.”
“Nothing,” Kane says flatly. “I seek no solace in the bottom of a bottle anymore, mon frere. I have love and purpose now.”
“That’s wonderful for you, Kane. Not so great for business, however,” Silas says shortly, then turns his attention from the two of us. “Well, don’t let me stop you. I’ll just be over here, polishing glasses and eavesdropping shamelessly.”
Kane turns to face me. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face.
“Take a picture. It will last longer,” I say, sipping my drink.
“No, it won’t, you fool. You’d lose the picture before you lost your eternal soul.”
“Not the way things have been going lately,” I grumble, then turn my neck to side-eye Kane.
“According to Rue’s LSD intake server and the series of messages from Big D on both our Tombstone Phones, you work in the division. Effective immediately,” he says.
“And I’m on my way. Just indulging in a brief moment of rest.”
“Indulging is right. You’re drowning in Lethe.”
“Don’t forget my feelings.”
“What? You don’t have those. Asher. It’s your most redeeming quality.”
“I thought so too. Yet here I am, drowning in them.”
“Well, sober up. I have a case that requires immediate attention.”
I finally look at him fully. “I just left D’s office. It’s been a couple of minutes.”
“Yes, and we have a soul that’s been waiting for countless years. I see no reason to make them wait longer simply because you need time to … adjust.” The pause before adjust is loaded with judgment. “Unless you’re incapable of starting work immediately?”
“I’m fine to work.”
“Are you?” Kane’s eyes drop to my glass. “Because drinking yourself into a stupor doesn’t strike me as ‘fine.’ ”
“I’ve had three.”
“Since leaving D’s office, what was it you said, ‘a couple of minutes’ ago?” His expression is neutral, but I can hear the disapproval in his voice.
I reach for the drink in front of me and slowly bring it to my lips, downing the rest of the contents. Then I pull the glass from my lips just as slowly before I say, “Four.”
Kane smacks the glass out of my hand before I register the movement. The crash of glass draws the remaining eyes in The Last Call in our direction.
Kane grabs my jaw and whispers directly into my face, “Lost Souls requires mental clarity, Asher. Emotional availability. Vulnerability.” He punctuates each syllable on a growl. “You cannot help souls find closure if you’re numbing yourself with Lethe.”
“I’m not numb.”
“Then what are you?”
The question hangs in the air between us. What am I? Angry. Guilty. Haunted by a face I saw in a burning building. Terrified that I’m one more failure away from The Nothing. Still in love with a woman who’s been dead for over a century.
“Tired,” I say finally.
“Tired.” Kane considers this. His grip on my jaw softens. “Of what?”
“All of it. The job. The OtherWorld. Eternity.” I pause, willing another glass to materialize in front of me. It doesn’t. “Being dead. Having to look at you.”
“Well, it hasn’t killed your charm yet,” he replies sarcastically. Then goes on in a serious tone, “D sent your report, along with the placement.” Kane lets go of my jaw and leans back slightly, studying me. “You failed to clear a scene. A building collapsed. A soul was lost. That’s a lot.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I say, thinking about the thoughts whose whispers grow louder and louder.
“You’re right; I don’t. Want to talk about it?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’d better get used to trying. What happened at the reap?” He pauses. “What did you see in that building, Asher?”
My hands grip into fists as the outline of Alister’s expression comes back in my mind. “Leave it alone, Doc.”
“Wish I could, Asher. I really do. But you’re in LSD now. So, you report to me. And if the tone of D’s report is any indication, I don’t want to know where you’d end up after this if you can’t pull it together and cross some souls.”
My clenched fist travels off the edge of the bar to grip the pommel of my reaper blade. Kane eyes the motion.
“You won’t be needing that. We do things a bit differently these days.”
I look at the steel, then up at the refined reaper in front of me. “I think I’ll keep it on me all the same. For comfort if nothing else, if that’s all right with you.”
“Whatever gets you off that stool and over to Transitions Preview. We have a case to look over.”
“Can’t you just send the details to my Tombstone Phone and I’ll portal on over?”
“Not how it works in Lost Souls. These cases are delicate and require more background research.” He stands, adjusting his coat. “The soul file is in my office. I expect you there in twenty minutes. Sober.”
“How am I supposed to sober up in twenty minutes? That’s not how that works.”
“To quote a guy I know around here: ‘Not my fucking problem.’ ”
He turns to leave, then pauses.
“Twenty minutes,” he repeats. “Don’t be late.”
“I liked you better when you were single!” I call over my shoulder as the door swings shut behind him.
Silas lets out a low whistle. “Well, he didn’t even offer to clean up the glass. Typical.”
“Of the French?”
“No, of Kane.”
“That’s fair.”
“So, what did happen in that building? Might help to get it off your chest.” Silas pours me a new glass. I look at it intently, but don’t reach for it. I lock eyes with Silas across the bar. “Might help to talk about it.”
I stare into the freshly poured gray mist. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”
My fingers itch to take the glass, but I resist again. The contours of Alister’s face cut into sharper relief in my mind, but I fight the urge to soften the edges. For now anyway.
“I have to go,” I say, standing.
The world tilts slightly, but I steady myself.
Silas spins the rim of my full glass. “Word of advice, from someone who’s been around a while?”
“What?”
“The memories you’re trying to drown? They know how to swim.” He pauses. “The only way to keep them submerged is to find yourself a better boat.”
“I worked with steel, not wood. I know how to sink a boat, not build one.”
“Always time to learn something new.”
“Me?” I say, eyeing the drink one more time before leaving it and heading for the door. “Not a chance.”
I make my way to the exit, the cosmic moon visible through the window—cold and distant.
I step out into the eternal night of the OtherWorld. The sleek obsidian towers stretch upward, the streets slick with perpetual rain that never actually falls.
Now, how do I find the Lost Souls from here? Without staring at the one in the mirror, of course.