Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,56

my body lies pinned to the couch. I stand there, perched on the brink of two universes, gazing dreamily into this hypnotic gate of Hell.

I have to know.

I have to find out what’s going on. For Riley, for me, for Dro. For Sasha, in spite of everything. The only way to end this is to get to the bottom of it, even if that means walking into obvious damnation. I take a deep breath and feel my barely there body flap gently in the wind like laundry on the clothesline. Then I step into the entrada.

* * *

Most afterlifers spend their time in the Underworld. The Council does its best to keep it that way, but of course, there are always stragglers. Life has that certain magnetism; it draws death in even as it repels it. They chase each other like high school sweethearts, now loving, now fighting. Teasing explodes into full-blown warfare, which leads to great make-up sex. The sun sets and the moon rises; the cycle begins again. The dead will always strive toward living, and the living will always cruise inevitably toward death. What keeps things stable, as Mama Esther pointed out, is that divine inexplicable balance.

Sometimes it’s nostalgia that keeps a spirit swinging back up into to the sunlit earthly plane. Could be an open thread or some unanswered question. Or the perception of one. The dream of a memory can go on haunting a soul well past the grave, can reap supernatural havoc for ages; it drives many a glowing shadow to late-night wanderings through the Brooklyn streets.

Besides a few notable exceptions, the living tend to wait till their time has come before going downstairs. I mighta passed through during my however-long-it-was period between death and resurrection, but if I did, I have no memory of it. Since then, the closest I’ve come is the Council’s wide-open misty warehouse.

Until now.

First it’s just darkness. Gradually, shapes waver into existence around me. They’re abstract, though, and don’t really seem sure whether they exist or not. Far off in the murkiness, swirling misty towers jut into black skies. Is there a sky in the Underworld? Whatever it is that surrounds me, it’s splashed with grayish clouds and seems to go on forever. What’s gone is the striking contrast between my own semiexistence and the solidity of the physical world. Here, everything is vague and ethereal and at first it’s disconcerting as shit.

Sarco stands a few feet away, staring intently at me. He’s excited. I can feel it bristling in the air around both of us, see his body panting up and down with anticipation. He’s gotten me this far—some massive check on his to-do list for fucking up the planet, I’m sure. And now gears are turning for the next series of steps.

“Welcome to death.” Sarco’s voided face breaks into another grin. He loves this shit.

“All right, man. Show me what you brought me here to show me and let’s get this over with.”

“Why the hurry, Mr. Delacruz? Your body surely has a few more hours before it begins to decompose. Enjoy yourself. Few mortals have been where you stand.”

“Charming. I’m charmed. Now, if you please.”

There are shapes congregating around us, fluttering shadows, hunched over in vague humanoid forms. They lope toward where we stand, humming with curiosity. I start to feel suffocated, like the gathering swarm of ghosts is hoarding all the oxygen in the place. But then, I probably don’t even deal in oxygen in this state. Either way, the feeling is not pleasant. Sarco draws a blade and waves it in a great semicircle. The wandering ghosts fall back with murmurs of shock and anger. A wide berth has been cleared around us, but I notice that the shadowy crowd keeps growing exponentially. Death seeks out life like a drug.

“Come,” Sarco says, and for the first time, I detect a hint of something off in his voice. Is it fear? Frustration? I have no way of knowing. Either way, maybe all is not going quite according to the plan.

“This way.” He sweeps his arm again, clearing a throng of whining, whispering shrouds. “Stay close. I would hate for you to get caught up in the swarm. You know how the dead love to make things their own.”

He sounds somewhere in between genuine and mocking. I don’t even care which it is anymore. The thickness in the air is making it hard to concentrate. I try to focus on his towering form as it glides on