Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Upon death, the soul has three paths: It can move on into the light of friends and family; if plagued by unfinished affairs, it becomes a semblance and descends into the Endless Dark; but some few souls find the third, most difficult path.
—William Crookes, “Soul States:
A Guide to Transience”
A scouring wind coursed over me, so cold it seemed hard. I took a quick breath, opened my eyes, and clawed at the chest of my shirt.
No blood. No pain. The sky stretched above me, a deep unending black. Beneath it swept a broad, broken plain of rock and rubble. I wasn’t outside Henry’s door anymore, that was for damn sure.
A coil of air came down in a hard gust, whipping me up off the jagged stones and blowing me back.
I tumbled across an uneven stretch of rock, jouncing along until I was able to hook my arm around a jutting stone and jerk to a stop.
Still, the wind seemed to tear through me.
I looked back in the direction it was blowing and saw in the distance an enormous mountain of fire.
It had to be miles away, but I could still feel its heat.
Not a burning heat. More the way a warm fire feels after long hours in the cold.
I crawled into a small hollow below the jutting stone and peered out at the rocky plain. What I’d mistaken for rubble were statues of people.
Thousands of them, tens of thousands, stretching out as far as I could see. They curled and folded into one another across the vast field of stone, save occasional heads and limbs that twisted up at odd angles.
As I stared out from my windbreak, flashes of light erupted here and there out on the plain.
A moment later, one flashed beside me. When it had gone, a new statue lay twisted into the gruesome soil—a woman, mouth gaping, eyes wide with fear or pain.
A likeness of her quickly rose from her stone statue, the wind whipping at her dress and hair.
She smiled at me just before that wind swept her toward the mountain of fire.
“Fight back,” I cried.
She didn’t hear me—or maybe she ignored me—and continued onward.
Then the wind rushed in at me again, tearing through my little hollow.
It seemed to be pushing me toward the flames. I began to lose my grip.
Part of me wanted to let go, leave the old pressure behind—memories of Mama, my brother Dan’s funeral, the Hounds, everything. More than that, the fire’s distant heat and low-throated call promised peace, rest. Things I hadn’t had in an awfully long time.
I started to let go when a clear picture came to my mind . . .
. . . I’m standing in my bathroom holding a razor blade.
I’ve been casting about London for months, trying to form a band. But it’s not working, and I’m tired. I gave up everything to come here and try. Maybe the dream is finally over.
I haven’t cut in years. Not since I found metal, which somehow fills the same gaps inside me. But it’s not working today. Not even Ozzy can drive back the pressure. So the elastics that I use when there’s no music handy are certainly not going to help.
I stare at the razor.
Then Henry is suddenly there. He doesn’t scold me or look surprised. He just comes up beside me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and says, “Take heart, Jack. You’ve got more to do.”
I put the razor down . . .
I turned back into the face of the wind and began pulling myself away
from the fire. I crawled instinctively toward the sculpture of myself, which I found lying face up, a big hole in its chest. The artistry was exquisite.
It called to me. I reached out, touched it.
Warmth shot up my fingers and arm. As I looked into my own ash-colored face, some new knowledge awoke inside me.
I rolled onto the rocky image of myself and fell inside it.
My eyes flashed open, and I was lying again in the alley in front of Henry’s flat. Hot energy, like a heavy dose of adrenaline, rushed through me. I struggled to breathe. My ears were ringing. Henry was gone, his candles scattered across the cobblestones. Corpse-paint guy was gone, too.
I knew I’d been shot. The logo on my Nightwish T-shirt had been obliterated, the fabric around it soaked in blood.
But the pain wasn’t much more than the itch of tissue doing its last bit of healing, and I wasn’t sure about the rest of it.
So I lay for a minute, catching my breath, trying to remember—the field of statues, the mountain of fire—but when I tried to put the pieces together, it made no sense.
When I thought I could move, I propped myself up on my elbows and felt something pressing against my leg near my groin—the stone that woman had given me.
It was still in my pocket. If you wake up, come find me.
I scrambled to my feet, the ringing in my ears threatening to drop me back down, and stumbled to the door of Henry’s flat.
I used the key he’d given me a while back to open the lock, then pushed inside. “Henry?”
No answer.
I rushed through his flat, flipping on lights and calling his name. Nothing. Only the lingering scent of his Bournemouth pipe smoke. My head was spinning, and the wicked rush of adrenaline—or whatever it was—was coursing through my veins.
Back at the front door, I glanced at the candles scattered in the street and from this angle caught what I’d missed before—alley light glistening on wet cobblestones.
. . . I remembered the first night I’d gone to the Iron Horse. Henry had introduced me around the pub like I was already somebody . . .
I stepped onto the stoop in front of the apartment.
. . . The day Henry had buried his wife, Martha, I’d sat up with him all night looking at grainy family photos and watching eight-millimeter family reels. He’d told funny stories about her as if she were sitting there with us . . .
I descended the steps down into the alley.
. . . Just a few months ago, Henry had played me an unreleased Who track that they’d written for him to say thanks for giving them a shot.
I’d offered to clean the lint from the vinyl, but Henry said to leave it on, said the crackle made it sound personal.
Sharing that had felt like praying together . . .
I dropped to my knees amidst the strewn candles, gently touched the wet stone, and raised my finger to the light. Blood.
“Henry,” I whispered, “where are you?”
Down the alley from the St. Giles end, a man’s voice called, “You there.”
A silhouette was coming my way under the dim streetlights. He was too thick to be the corpse-paint guy, but didn’t look like a cop, either. I stood and started in the other direction. The man’s footsteps turned into a run, and something clattered behind me.
Ah, hell.
I ran. It was . . . I don’t know how to describe it. I should have been dog tired. Dead, really. I wasn’t a fast runner, but right then I felt like I could fly. That hot adrenaline was sizzling down my legs.
“You there!” the man called again.
At Stacey Street, I lost my footing and fell hard on the cobbled road.
The man was closing fast.
“Wait!” His words came muted by the blood racing in my ears. “Let me explain.”
A few yards down Stacey, a row of steel dumpsters hulked in the gloom next to the construction site for St. Giles Playground. I ducked behind one, picked up a hunk of concrete, and peered around the side of the bin.
A couple of seconds later, the guy slowed to a stop beneath the streetlamp at the T-section of Flitcroft and Stacey.
He was wearing a Roman centurion uniform—full-on plume helmet, metal-scaled torso, studded leather skirt.
He looked like something right out of the illustrated version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Broad shoulders, thick waist, muscular thighs glistening with sweat in the lamplight.
He had a wide, angular face, deep-set eyes, and a close shave.
Even the guy’s considerable shadow seemed odd.
Less . . . substantial than the shadow of the Metro newspaper dispenser next to him.
And I could have sworn I saw something moving inside it.
He peered down Stacey Street, then left and right down Flitcroft.
A second later he dropped to his knees under the yellow glow of the streetlamp, his helmet clanging to the pavement and spinning away.
Then he moaned, lurched forward on all fours, and rolled onto his side, his body convulsing.
“Maybe it is for the best,” he said in a faint German accent.
I’d been fooled before by bits like this.
Gangbangers become consummate actors when they’re caught alone in the wrong neighborhood.
But street cons don’t usually come dressed as Roman centurions.
Before I could think better of it, I’d stepped out from behind the dumpster and taken a few steps toward him.
He looked up, lips trembling. “I am sorry. I was trying to get to you before anything . . . They will kill me for this. Please, I need your help.”
I kept hold of my chunk of concrete. “What are you talking about?” “You saw it, did you not? The field of stone? The mountain of fire?” He swallowed hard. “You reclaimed your body.”
“How do you know about that?” I took another step toward him. “And where’s Henry?”
The centurion convulsed again, cracking his head against the road. “I can explain. But I need your help first. Quickly. Please.”
When someone chases you, it’s rarely with good intentions.
He cried out again and began writhing on the street.
I stepped closer and saw a blue translucent double ripping free from inside his body, almost like a soul tearing away from his flesh.
The guy’s skin stretched outward as if stitched to the trembling double that had nearly separated itself from him.
The centurion began to go still, staring vacantly up at the streetlamp.
This I’d seen—that faint glimmer of life fading slowly to nothing. Like when I lost my brother Dan. It was something you couldn’t fake. It was also something you couldn’t forget. I still didn’t know why this guy had been chasing me—it probably wasn’t good—but I couldn’t just let him die there.
I dropped to my knees next to him. He took a quick breath and said through trembling lips, “I am Cassius Classicus.”
“Jack Solomon,” I replied. “Now tell me what to do.”