[This is actually more like the REAL section 02, since it comes right after section 01, but I think I'll simply have to post a Google Doc that keeps all the sections in the right order. Or at least in the best order I've got for them so far.
[I do recognize that this story isn't going to be for all of my readers. I recognize that it's not as lighthearted as the other stuff, and I'm sorry if I lose anyone because of that, but I do think this story is the next step for me.
[Anyway, nothing happens in this section. I'm starting to realize that when I feel like that's the case, it's actually a pretty good sign. City of Dreams was an entire book where it felt like nothing happened, and that might be my best so far.]
I slid off my stool, picked up my bag, and made my way to the door that said ‘STAF O LY’ in black and gold stickers. I pushed through the door, turned down a short hallway that should have had photographs on the wall but didn’t anymore, and stepped into the bathroom.
“Teal,” I said out loud to myself. The towels were supposed to be teal, since it coordinated with the tile, but Bela had decorated in a style I might have called ‘Colorblind Bachelor,’ or maybe ‘Grandma’s Leftover Linens.’ Gretchen, my ex, would never have put that color of pink for a hand towel. I’d never seen what the big deal was, one way or the other, until after we had separated. Then, for reasons probably obvious to a psychiatrist, I always needed my towels to match.
I did the necessaries and flushed. I watched and waited as the water kept trickling into the bowl and the little knob on the toilet stayed down. I guess Bela had never bothered to fix it, either. I reached out and flipped it up, washed my hands, and made my way with my bag to the stairs.
It was at the top of the stairs that Bela found me, two minutes later. He had his shotgun in one hand and Morzsa in the other. The little dog wasn’t happy to see me--he’s too neurotic to ever be happy, I think--but he also wasn’t scared, which was reassuring. Though I knew I wasn’t riding any souls at the moment, and none were riding me, so I don’t know what I was worried about. A dog can’t be scared of something that’s not there. Well, Morzsa could be, but he wasn’t.
“I wondered if I’d find you up here,” said Bela. The shotgun wasn’t aimed at me exactly, but it wouldn’t take much for it to get there. “You sure you’re clean, Lance?”
“Except for your toxic coffee and it’s lifetime supply of caffeine, I’m sober as a saint.”
“Some of them weren’t too sober, I can promise you. Some were Hungarian.”
“Even so, Bela, I swear on that shotgun that’s waving around my knees, I’ve got nobody inside me but the soul I was born with.”
He sniffed. “Which your parents probably picked out in a second-hand shop.”
I shrugged. “That would explain a lot about me, then, wouldn’t it.”
“So tell me,” he said, jerking his chin toward the top of the stairs, “why aren’t you already down in the basement?”
I scratched at my head. “You’ve done some remodeling.”
“Of course I have. That’s why you gave me the house in the first place, Lance. You wanted me to keep things locked up that should never have been opened in the first place, and doing that takes extra precautions. Also, I needed to make the front of the place into a cafe.”
“A great choice, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
He was staring at me.
“I swear, I’m clean, Bela. I haven’t been to the Road in years. I promised Gretchen.”
“And she still wouldn’t stay with you?”
I grimaced. “Why should she have? I wouldn’t have stayed with me. She needed to move on and find someone new.”
“Has she?”
“No. Why? Have you talked with her?”
“Of course not. I’m still pissed at her for dumping you.”
I stared at him, and Bela stared right back. Then he sniffed again.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “It’s okay to like her.”
“I do like her.”
“So call her up.”
“No.”
“She’s a good woman.”
“Don’t I know it. Better than you by a long shot.”
“I’m sure she still likes you, too, Bela.”
“Probably does. But you were my friend first, and whether you’ve forgiven her or not, I’m still pissed, so shut up, turn around, and open the doors. Prove to me there’s nothing riding you.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Sure, I trust you. You want me to give you a free pass, then?”
I didn’t even have to think about that. “Here I go, opening the doors.” I slung my bag over my shoulder and shook my hands out. “This is highly disturbing, though.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
“You’ll have to do the doors for me on the way back out.”
“Assuming you pass the sniff test, that is.”
I looked back at Morzsa. “You doing all right, boy? Your nose working?”
“Shut up and open the door, Lance. The night isn’t getting any younger.”
I nodded and turned back to the door, and I winced. “A cross, Bela? You know that’s all psychological.”
“Possible. But you still haven’t opened it.”
“That’s because I’m sure I know what’s on the other side, and no, you don’t have to say anything more. I’m opening the doors.”
Psychological or not, messing with symbols of any religion that frowns on necromancy--which, as far as I know, is pretty much all of them--is hard for a Road Walker to do. There’s something about unnaturally ripping a soul out of its progress to eternal reward, and then feeding off that soul, that doesn’t mesh well with the teachings of most religions. Haven’t met God personally, but I expect that when essentially all religions agree that something is bad, you can figure that God frowns on it.
I looked at the cross that was carved on the door, touched it with one finger, then grabbed the handle and pulled.
“Only six more to go,” said Bela.
“Just six? You made this door out of rowan?”
“Rowan wood and a cross. I economized.”
I reached into the dark and flipped on the light switch that I knew was there, the bulb flickering to life on the wall just inside the first door.
“A crescent on the next door? I’m not even sure that’s an actual religious symbol.”
I glanced back at Bela, and he just shrugged, then jerked his chin toward the stairs. “Keep going.”
I felt strange as I opened each door in turn, but I think it was more psychological than anything else, a nostalgic dread for the barriers that before would have been such a pain for me to pass, and I mean that literally. Intense pain, each worse than the last. Souls ripped back from the road unnaturally don’t do well with the harmony of natural things, and each barrier embodied some harmony of the world. Rowan, bone (don’t ask me how he got a bone door), silver (mostly little bits of metal, pounded into the wood), oak, one door that looked like it had been painted in salt crystals, another door that sloshed like it was filled with water (and moved like it, too), and a final door that was more a gate than anything else, made of cold iron. Each one had almost certainly been treated by someone who was either very holy or very strong with the natural spirits of the area, giving each the kind of spiritual glow that made hell for necromancers. For my kind.
I pushed past the last one, flipped the switch that kicked on the florescent tubes along the ceiling, and waited while Bela closed each door behind him.
“You satisfied?” I asked.
“Mostly, yes,” he said. “I think I’m someone who sees the good in life.”
“I meant do you believe I’m clean.”
“I believed you from the beginning, Lance. I just wanted you to open the doors so you’d remember the seriousness of what you’re doing.”
“Her father asked me, Bela. He begged me to help him protect her.”
“Did he know what he was asking?”
“I have no idea.”
“He probably didn’t mean this.”
“I don’t have the strength to do it any other way. I wish I did. I wish I had a life of virtue to fall back on that would give me the power to do this some other way, but I’ve only got what I know, no matter how messed up that is.”
“You’re breaking your promise to Gretchen.”
“She’d understand.”
“You think?”
“No. But I’m doing it anyway.”
“You sure you’re doing it for the right reasons?”
I suppose he’d had to ask that question. It was exactly the question I’d been avoiding, but it really was the elephant in the room. I thought I was heading back to the road for the noblest of causes, because what are we without our children, right? But maybe I wasn’t. Maybe there was another way to do this. I mean, even the toughest shaman wasn’t immune to a bullet, and the nastiest necromancer still couldn’t do much against good, old-fashioned decapitation. Arm myself--borrow a gun or two, easy enough to do in Colorado--and go in, guns blazing. No, not guns blazing. Quietly. This might not even come to violence. But if it did.
“I’m pretty fit,” I said.
Bela shrugged. “Looks like you’re keeping up with things.”
“I’m also a decent aim.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“So you tell me: if this comes down to a fight, you think I stand a chance with just that?”
Bela stared at me for a long, long moment. I wanted him to say I could manage with ‘just that,’ and I wanted him to tell me to climb into the grave, step back onto the Road, to go walking on that Old Way one more time. Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t--hell, I was probably damned by this point no matter what I did, but I wanted to spend the time I had left in this world as well as I could. Was this living well? Was I satisfying my right purpose?
Bela turned to a work table, set down Morzsa and the shotgun, and looked back at me. “Anyone you bring back just walks with you.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
“You don’t ride them, and you make darn sure they don’t ride you.”
“I don’t know how to answer that, Bela. I’ll do my best.”
“You just tell me that’s how it will be.”
I looked him in the eye, and I didn’t know what he was thinking. I couldn’t tell if he were angry or frightened, though I suppose it’s true that those two are never far apart. “That’s how it will be,” I said.
“Then let’s get this open.”
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