Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel (9 page)

Fortunately no police cars followed us.

Someone flipped us the bird as we left
Leetsdale
.

Once the car stopped, I shut off the engine and turned in the seat.
 
The dead dickhead tried to pull himself free, but I punched him in the face a few times to get his attention.

“That doesn’t hurt,” he said.
 
“We’re going to keep coming.
 
We are Legion.”

“Blow me.
 
You’re just a damn zombie.”

“Give her to us, and we’ll let you live.”

“Just kill it,” Miranda said.
 
She leaned as far away from the corpse as she could.

“It’s already dead.”

“Cut its head off.”

“Soon.”
 
I turned back to the corpse.
 
“What’s your name?”

“I was Andronicus.”

“Right.
 
I’ll call you Andy.”

“Set me free.”

“You don’t like being skewered?”

“Not especially.”

“Can’t say as I blame you.”
 
I opened the car door, stepped out, and pulled the seat forward.

“What are you doing?” Miranda asked.

“Get out of the car for a minute.
 
Stand on the sidewalk just in case
numbnuts
gets loose.”

I placed a foot on Andy’s chest.
 
He grabbed my leg with both hands.

“Let go or I’ll cut off your arms.”

He didn’t let go.
 
He tried to pull me off balance.

I gripped the sword and pulled it free.

The dead guy lunged, as I knew he would, but I kept my foot on his chest so he didn’t get far.
 
He tried to dig into my leg with his fingers.

“I warned you.”
 
I placed the edge of the sword against his shoulder and leaned into it.
 
His left arm dropped to the floorboard.

“Damn you!”

I pulled my leg free, and he tried to attack me again.

Naturally I knew it was coming, so I punched him in the face.
 
It hurt my hand, but it also pushed him back.
 
I brought the sword down hard and chopped his legs off just above the knees.
 
There wasn’t much blood.
 
The sword cut into my car seat too.
 
I cut off his right arm then
reskewered
him to the backseat.

My poor car.

I did a quick walk-around to assess the damage.

The hood was dented, and the sides were scraped.
 
The remaining T-top was cracked, and the windows were all either shattered or cracked.
 
The passenger side was dented where I’d hit the pickup and scraped a bit since we must have been closer to the lamppost than I realized.
 
The mirror was gone.

“Well...shit.”
 
What could I tell my insurance company?
 
The truth was out of the question.
 
Vandals.
 
That would have to do.

I hopped back into the car and started it up.

Miranda climbed in and cast a nervous glance at the armless and legless corpse stuck to the backseat like a shish kebab.

“He can’t hurt you,” I said.

“He can bite.”

“If he tries, I’ll punch his teeth down his throat.”

“Nice to know you’re such a pacifist.”

If she could make jokes, I figured she’d be all right.

As I pulled back into traffic on
Leetsdale
, it began to snow.
 
Snowflakes landed on my head thanks to the missing T-top.
 
Wonderful.
 
Just another Tuesday night in Denver.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kelly and Brand met us in front of the dojo on 32nd Street.

I parked and stepped out.
 
The snow fell harder.
 
I brushed snow out of my hair and off my jeans.

Kelly laughed.
 
“T-tops are for summer, Jonathan.”

“Now you tell me.”

Of course, I’d filled her in on the phone as we drove over.
 
Miranda got out of the car, and I introduced her to Kelly and Brand.
 
They nodded to her.

“You have a few garbage bags and some duct tape?” I asked.

“Probably.
 
Check the bathroom.
 
Should be garbage bags under the sink.
 
Might have some tape too.”
 
She looked at Brand.
 
“You want to carry the zombie inside?”

“Sure,” he said.
 

“His name is Andy,” I said.

Brand leaned into the car and pulled the dead guy out.
 
He carried him in on the sword since he didn’t want to touch the guy.
 
Or maybe he was showing off for Miranda.
 
It’s hard to tell with Brand.

He gave me a smile.
 
“Based on the mess he made on your backseat, you should call him Mark.”

“My name is Andronicus,” Andy said.

Brand laughed.
 
“I think I’ll hang you on the wall and call you Art.”

“Keep the lame jokes to yourself,
dickless
.”

“Oh, come on,” Brand said,
 
“you lost your sense of humor when you lost your legs and arms?”

“You’re
gonna
lose your life, moron.”

“We could go water skiing, and I’ll call you Skip.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” Andy said.

“I’ll put you on a podium and call you Mike.”

Kelly sighed and shook her head.

I know he kept going, but fortunately I went into the dojo and the door closed behind myself.

Kelly was right about the supplies.
 
I grabbed the box of garbage bags and a roll of duct tape and headed toward my car.
 
As I left the back room, I saw Brand swinging the sword with Andy still skewered to it.

“I’ll knock you over the fence and call you Homer.”

“Please kill me,” Andy said.
 
He was talking to Kelly, not to Brand.

“At least you don’t have to sleep with him,” Kelly said.

“Neither do you,” Andy said.

Kelly grinned.
 
“Good point.
 
Brand, if you make any more bad jokes, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“Oh, come on.
 
I’ve got a million of these.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Kelly,” I said, “want to help cover the windows?”

“Anything to avoid more of his grade-school humor.”

Kelly and I stepped outside.

“You’ve got some pretty major damage here,” she said.

“Tell me about it.”

We brushed the snow aside and taped the bags over the windows.
 
As we worked, I told her about the meeting with Walter and his friends.

“What about the girl?” Kelly asked.

“She’s dead.”

“Well, she’s heartless.”

“You’re as bad as Brand.”

She laughed.
 
It was good to hear her laugh.
 
As much as I hated Brand, Kelly did seem to be happy with him.
 
I’ll put up with almost anyone if it’s good for my friends.

“Since magic is involved, is there any chance her heart is still beating?” Kelly asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“If it is still beating, it could be returned to her, right?”

“Again, color me clueless.”

“Is she single?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s cute.”

“I make it a point not to sleep with my clients.”

“Finish the case first.”

“About that, what are the odds that this Zach guy is working for Persephone?”

“Raising the dead and letting spirits from the Underworld inhabit the bodies?”

“While they search for Sharon.”

“This last batch was after Miranda, though, right?”

I taped the last bag down and leaned against the car.
 
“No.
 
I don’t think so.
 
They never reached for her.
 
They came at me.”

“So?
 
You’re the one destroying them, so they had to deal with you first.”

“Andy never even looked at Miranda.
 
He just said to give them the woman, but why wasn’t he specific?
 
Persephone knows what name Sharon is using.
 
In all the excitement, I didn’t think much about it, but why didn’t he talk to Miranda at all?”

“We can ask him.”

“If he’ll talk.”

“We can leave him with Brand and his stupid jokes for a few days.”

“A few hours might suffice.”

We went back inside.

“What’s the matter?” Brand said to Andy as he waved him around on the sword.
 
“You stumped?”

Andy looked like he was ready to cry.
 
Miranda sat on the bleachers.

“Time out,” I said.

“This is inhumane,” Andy said.

“Talk to me or I’ll let him keep you.”

“Please don’t do that.
 
I’ll tell you anything.”

“See?” Brand said.
 
“I
am
good for something.”

Brand held Andy up so I could talk to him.

“Do you want Miranda?” I asked.

“Who’s Miranda?”

I pointed at her.
 
“The woman.”

He shrugged what remained of his shoulders.

“You said you wanted the woman.”

“We’re after Charon, who is someone you know as Sharon, but that’s not her real name and she isn’t really a she.
 
I mean, I suppose she is a she now, but she was a
he
for centuries.”

“Charon is still in the Underworld.
 
He ferries the souls across the Acheron.”

“The replacement is there,” Andy said.

Of course, I knew that.
 
The replacement was a guy named Bob, but Bob didn’t sound nearly as impressive as Charon, and I wasn’t going to say Bob in front of Brand because I didn’t want to hear Brand say he’d give that name to Andy and toss him in a lake.

“You folks realize I don’t know where Sharon is, right?
 
I told that to Persephone herself.”

“You’re a detective.
 
You can find her.
 
We’ll even pay you.”

“I have a case right now.”

“You’re going to help us whether you want to or not.
 
If you refuse, we’ll have to kill you.”

“Seemed like you were trying to kill me earlier.”

“Just having some fun roughing you up.”

“I see.
 
What does Persephone really want with Sharon?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“You want to be Brand’s permanent playmate?”

His eyes went wide.
 
“No!
 
Until you mentioned Persephone, all I knew was that the order came from on high.”

“Or down low since it’s the Underworld.”

“As bad as that was, it’s still better than your friend here,” Andy said.

“Who rules the Underworld?
 
Hades?”

“You’ve been there twice,” Andy said.
 
“You know Hades doesn’t rule shit.”

“I wasn’t there long enough to delve into the politics of the place.”

Andy sighed.
 
“Persephone rules the Underworld.”

“I thought she was Hades’ prisoner and because she ate a pomegranate she had to spend six months a year down there and six months with her mother or something.”

“I’m not really here to give you a history lesson, Shade, but let’s just say that Persephone wasn’t kidnapped.
 
She pretty much seduced Hades and took over the Underworld.
 
She can go where she wants when she wants for as long as she wants.
 
That said, I’ve never even seen her, so for all I know, it’s all mythology.”

“So Persephone didn’t give you the order?”

“Not to me.
 
A general gave us the order.
 
He sent one guy, then several, and now quite a few, and soon he’ll send so many, your graveyards will be emptied.”

“Why do they care about Charon so much?”

“Nobody leaves the Underworld without permission.”

“So Charon didn’t have a get-out-of-Hell-free card, and Persephone is pissed?”
 
This told me Persephone wasn’t telling her people about her actual reasons, which made sense.
 
She could use this to her advantage to keep others in line if they thought no one could ever leave the Underworld without facing consequences.

“I don’t know who’s pissed or why they care so much.
 
I just know we’re supposed to get you to take us to Charon.
 
We know he’s using a female body here.”

“I have no way to contact Sharon or Charon.
 
After we left the Underworld, Sharon told me she would never see or talk to me again and that there was no way I could ever find her.
 
She opened up a rift and stepped through, and that’s the last I’ve seen or heard of her.
 
If I cut off your head, your spirit goes back to the Underworld, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Can you pass along that message for me?
 
It’s a waste of time to come to me about this.
 
I have no way to help you.
 
Find another way.”

“I can tell them, but that won’t save you.”

“How do you figure?”

“Time moves differently in the Underworld.
 
Down there, you and Sharon left a few days ago.
 
The Acheron has shifted, and spirits are riding it to your realm in larger and larger groups.
 
By the time I get a message to the general and he passes it along to his superiors, many thousands of spirits will be here searching for you.
 
To be honest, you’re not difficult to find.”