The woman turned away. Overhead the sky howled, mournful and…
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Clouds covered the sky, turned all the bright, hard edges…
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Orange tombs swayed and tossed, an angry sea, a melancholy…
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Sometimes life can be measured in small miracles. A string…
Chapter Eighty
Once, centuries ago, we thought the world ended at the…
Chapter Eighty-One
There was a point, at the beginning of all this,…
Epilogue
“Promise me, Uncle Chaz. Promise me that when I’m gone…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PART I
“Remember, death is a choice.
And I know you’ve all heard the latest rumor,
that One-Timers don’t really exist.
They say that everybody’s a First-Timer
and that when death comes, we all choose life.
I’m here to say that’s just not true!”
—Reverend Josiah Byrd,
leader of the first pro-death rally
CHAPTER ONE
October 11
Chaz:
Jazz swirled through the room, competed with my heartbeat and pressed against my skin, sensuous as a lover’s kiss, steamy as the bayou in mid-August. It stole my soul. It always did. For a few sweet moments I forgot about the world; I leaned forward and imagined another ending, one where I sat next to the bass player, nodding half asleep in a midnight mass of smoke and whiskey, saxophone reed thrust between my lips like the ultimate pacifier.
Bodies swayed and sagged, forever twined together with the music; it was a romantic symphony, it was worship for the weary.
And, in my mind, I was the worship leader.
I soared with the music to a land that didn’t exist. Beyond time and space. Beyond the never-ending cycle of life and death, and hit-me-again, more life please.
Outside I could hear the ancient city of New Orleans whispering like a ghost down back alleys and twisted cobblestone streets, a rough, sultry memory of what she had once been, before the soul of the city had been stolen by urban regeneration; before the Cities of the Dead had been transformed into high-priced condos.
Is it too late for us, too late for redemption? That was my thought. But that wasn’t what I said. Sometimes I get so caught up in the rhythms around me that I don’t notice my own contribution to the white noise.
“Sterilization is the new death.” That was what I really said.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I nodded at a passing dark-skinned waitress, the one with the heart-shaped birthmark on her right cheek. Talking out loud was just one of the many unpredictable side effects of black-market whiskey. A moment later I had another crystal tumbler, two fingers full. I knew I should quit. At least for the night.
“What now, Chaz? You game?”
I blinked as I downed my second glass, felt the liquor sizzle down my throat all the way to my gut. Shadows moved through the club like disembodied spirits with lives of their own.
“Hey, yeah. We could, you know, go somewhere else. Dancing.” A woman leaned into my line of vision, blue eyes, silver-blonde hair. Angelique. This was her first time. It had to be.
I chuckled. “I mean the first time at the second time.”
“Huh?”
“Did I say that out loud? Well, it doesn’t matter.” I set down my glass, focused on her face. Smiled. “Yeah, dancing. Sure. That’s what Babysitters are for, right?”
Angelique grinned, ear to diamond-studded ear. “Hey, yeah.” She sucked down the last of her margarita.
I mentally focused on her speech patterns, a harmonic convergence created in the Northeast, let’s see, early twenty-first century—Norspeak, that’s it. What I really couldn’t figure out was, why do twenty-one-year-olds always drink margaritas? And why do they all want to be twenty-one? It didn’t matter. A week out of the joint and this Newbie would be on her own; she’d be done downloading all her past lives and I’d be done playing chaperone.
I had six more days and nights with Little Miss Margarita.
As far as I was concerned, that was seven days too long.
She stood up slowly, adjusted her dress. It was made out of one of those new synthetic fabrics that molded to her skin, whispering and rustling every time she moved. Very sensuous. Every goon in the bar was watching her, me included.
She was beautiful. More beautiful than I wanted to admit.
Maybe I was staring at her when I should have been watching the gutter punks who had sauntered in a few minutes earlier, all stitched up with black laces across their cheekbones. Just as we were about to leave, two of those underfed urchins broke into a fight. I saw the flash of knives and should have noticed that everything was too neat and clean, no blood, no torn flesh.