Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Most semblances who arrive in the Endless Dark choose to join their stratum, but some remain inside the Dark, where they will either feed or be fed upon.
—Chris Marlowe, The Bearing of Choice upon Lost Souls
Henry was falling, a deep bloody wound in his chest. Candles bounced on the cobblestones . . .
I sat straight up, heaving, my skin slick with sweat, my head pounding.
It took me several minutes to stop shaking and get my bearings—bare lath-and-plaster walls, unvarnished wood floor, couch-bed, orange-crate coffee table littered with books, including the ones Church had given me last night, a dead eucalyptus plant in the window, and my guitar in the corner.
I was home. Sunlight fell in squares across my ankles—I’d slept most of the day away.
But I didn’t give a damn about the time. The narrow shadow falling on my old faux Oriental rug next to my ankles was shimmering with a pattern—something I hadn’t thought to look at last night when I’d peered into the shadows of my friends.
I might have expected my own gleam notes to look like something heavy from Nightwish or Dream Theater. But when I hummed them, they reminded me of a theme from the soundtrack of The Shawshank Redemption—two notes descending, then two ascending. They repeated
and evolved, a languid line of syncopated notes weaving a melody in major seconds above them. Several dark spots interrupted the pattern, the largest of which looked like a narrow lake with a dozen black tributaries seen from thousands of feet above. And that line of gold still rimmed my shadow.
My head killed, and I couldn’t make any sense of what I was seeing—not that a clear head would have helped.
I fished a couple of Panadol from the bottle on my orange-crate table and chewed them into a paste before swallowing them down.
I was still wearing the same jeans, boots, and bloody T-shirt from the night before.
I pulled on a fresh T-shirt and a Dream Theater hoodie and put on some Zeppelin—always good for my aching head.
Then I dug out my phone and, hands trembling, quickly dialed Henry.
Eight rings. No answer. I left a message on his voicemail.
When I finished, I found my own message light blinking.
So I set my phone down on the orange crate and dialed my voicemail, bracing for the worst. Chuey, Lady, and Church had all left messages to call back.
I tugged on the elastic ties on my wrist. Sixth Angel Entertainment had called, too.
Hounds’ management. Something about their new singer.
Delete. Then a message from a Detective Bryant with the Metropolitan Police.
He said he’d be in touch, which sounded more like a threat than anything else.
It had to be about the shooting. The last call was from someone identifying herself as Raptorial Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan.
She asked me to call her back but also promised to be in touch, said she was investigating “possible violations of thanaturgic law.”
I hung up and left my phone where it lay on my orange-crate coffee table.
The crate had been a housewarming gift from Henry—something from the Iron Horse storeroom.
We’d laughed to tears over how small and ridiculous it looked as my only piece of furniture.
I’d needed that laugh after casting about London looking for a future, and I think Henry knew it.
Now Henry was missing. I just hoped he’d made it back across the Meadows.
I still wanted that place to be a dream.
But just thinking about it made me see it more clearly, almost feel it.
I had died out there. I felt sure of it now.
And I’d returned as a thanatist or necromancer, or whatever.
At least that’s what they were telling me.
Yesterday, I hadn’t believed in necromancers or any of that crap.
Now I was one. It made no sense. But the hot energy I’d felt swirling in my chest and pulsing through my veins .
. . I’d never experienced anything like it.
That had been real as hell—like fire ripping through me.
It was gone now, but I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t been there.
Still, something had to give. There had to be a reason for all this.
And that reason, as far as I could tell, was Henry.
That old pressure of being left behind sent stabbing pains into my temples. I began to pant, feel like I might vomit.
I tugged again at the elastics on my wrist, snapping them hard once against my cutter scars. But I could do better than that here. I had just stood to fetch my guitar when someone knocked on the door. Damn. Not right now.
Then again, louder.
I caved and went to answer it. On the floor just inside the door was a folded piece of paper. I picked it up. On the outside, in a neat small script: The quick and the dead. I unfolded it and read:
Dear Mr. Solomon,
Congratulations on your return. Do you still have the item? I encourage you to use it.
Regards,
An Interested Party
I dug into my pocket. The stone was still there.
Another knock.
After reading the note, I wasn’t about to answer it, but then thought it might be the woman who had given me the stone.
I cautiously turned the bolt and opened the door.
Jimmy stood there holding his guitar case in one hand.
His iron-grey hair was a mess, and he wore his usual faded-blue flannel shirt, work jeans, and scuffed brown boots.
His eyes were red and ringed with dark circles.
“You hear about Henry?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said.
“Anybody heard from him?” I still believed he would come back.
Jimmy shook his head. “Listen, Jack, if you’d rather not d-do this today, I’ll understand.
I don’t even remember b-bringing this along.
” He glanced at his guitar case. “I mean, a music lesson seems a bit impertinent today, d-doesn’t it?
” Henry had been Jimmy’s friend, too. We both needed music right now.
Playing some songs together to fight back our worry was maybe the best thing we could do.
“Actually, man, I think your instincts are spot on.” I waved him in. He smiled and shuffled past me.
I pulled my blanket and pillow off the couch and threw them aside so we could sit down.
Jimmy sat, opened his case, and fetched out his Martin 00-17—his one extravagance.
His shadow fell on the sunlit square of the couch, soft edges around a cloud-grey shimmer.
Vestige. It took me a few seconds to get my head around it.
Jimmy may listen to old-school punk, but the gleam notes of his shadow had the unrushed lilting quality of a Bing Crosby tune. His spots had their own unique placement, too. And what I’d always thought were handyman sweatbands on his wrists were actually bindings.
It was beginning to seem like nearly all my friends were, in a way, not really here. Not like I thought, anyway. I grabbed my guitar and sat at the other end of the couch.
As I positioned my Gibson—a nicked-up acoustic I’d had since I was thirteen—Jimmy hunched over his beautiful Martin and stared at the floor. He was usually chomping at the bit to play. Not today.
“Help me write a song,” I said.
Jimmy’s old eyes lit up. “Brilliant, w-what shall we write about?”
“I’m stuck on a verse,” I said. “Play along, and when we get there, I’ll cue you. Just riff on something from your life. Something you think about when it snows. That sort of thing.”
I showed him the chord progression, and we began. Almost immediately, “They Always Go Away” was changed. I picked over the chords as Jimmy strummed an upbeat rhythm. I’d never tried it like that.
I started to sing, and the stabbing in my head and clench in my gut began to ease. I relaxed into the song, and when the third verse came, the one about Mama, I caught Jimmy’s eyes and signaled for him to take over.
He didn’t skip a beat. In a lilting tenor—a lot like the crooners of the forties—he began to tell a story about a soap box derby and a car he’d made with a couple of his buddies named Nesbit and Hollings.
There was a racing cap and the number 001, which they thought would make it fast. And their parents were there, looking on with pride under a summer sun as their soap box car sped toward the checkered pennant.
I’m not sure he sang the exact words, but I saw snow cones, smelled funnel cakes, and heard the laughter and cheers of a city finally putting the war behind them.
It was bright damn happy. And Jimmy grinned all through it like it was the secret of his heart, like it made him impervious to troubles and doubt.
Good old Jimmy had taken up that Martin, and where I’d expected a dirge—something drafting off Henry’s disappearance—my friend had used his music to respond to the loss in a whole different way.
I smiled and made a mental note: Memory isn’t always about regret.
This feeling, though. This was why I wanted a life in music—to share these sounds and stories with people. I wanted it so bad I ached. Not even the events of the past twenty-four hours had changed that.
Jimmy’s lesson was short. On his way out, he paused at the door and gripped my hand. “Thank you, Jack.”
“You did the cool part.” “No, sir,” he said.
He told me I had a way of helping friends see things. I don’t know if it’s true. We both felt the same way about Henry. And Jimmy had done the singing and the thinking. I’d just plucked the old Gibson. But I told
him I felt a little better, too, and invited him back for another jam the following day if he was up to it.