Ghostlands

THIRTY-ONE

In the apartment Melissa Wade had assigned him in Married Student Housing, across the hall from where Colleen and Doc lay sleeping, Cal Griffin was restless.

He had slept fitfully for a few hours atop the old mattress, vagrant springs pressing insistently into his back, dimly aware of the stubborn odors of this room that had seen much use: the array of cold pizzas, textbooks running to mildew, sweatclothes piled in heaps; all of it cleaned out now but too late to exorcise their ghosts. Twice, he thought he heard bells ringing in the distance, or imagined it.

He woke again, at some hour after midnight but still well before dawn, and couldn’t find his way back to sleep.

Awake in the dark, he heard no bells but was alert to a thousand other subtle sounds. The tick and crackle of the old building as it gave up the last of its stored heat to the dark.

From outside, he heard the brittle conversation of autumn trees; he heard an animal, maybe a raccoon, trundling through the unmown grass. His hearing had become very acute.

Hours before, he had sent Goldie to escort Rafe Dahlquist through the door in the air, back to his room. Neither the guards standing unaware at their posts outside his quarters nor Jeff Arcott nor any of his lieutenants must have the slightest inkling that Dahlquist had taken a little sojourn tonight, and told all.

Nor that Doc had shared his day’s researches and findings with Dahlquist, and that together with Cal and Colleen and even Goldie, they had come up with an alternate plan.

One that, if it worked, would put the Spirit Radio to a very different purpose than its designers intended.

But for now, Dahlquist was merely to keep right on working, to draw not the least suspicion down upon himself.

Meanwhile, he would pull a double shift, moonlighting on a series of experiments and tests to see if what Cal had in mind had the faintest prayer of working.

Because if it didn’t, then their only option was to bring this whole place crashing down around their ears, and that was a far from pleasant prospect….

Which explained more or less why Cal was having trouble sleeping.

He climbed out of bed in his T-shirt and boxers, pulled on his 501s and buttoned them, grabbed a jacket from where he had dropped it at the foot of his bed, and eased on his shoes without undoing the laces. He buckled on his sword and walked out of the apartment.

There was a little more light in the hallway despite it being after curfew, with battery-powered LED emergency lights posted on the walls, each tiny white box equipped with a set of garnets arrayed in the shape of a horizontal 8, the infinity symbol.

He found the stairwell and climbed up to the flat roof of the aging apartment building. The moonlight was bright enough to make the town seem cased in white ice. It was almost cold enough tonight for genuine ice-well, chilly, anyhow. The breeze was from the north, and it carried the faint sound of calls that weren’t quite wolves and weren’t quite men. Cal didn’t care for that noise. It was too human, too heartbroken.

Cal practiced his moves on the roof of the school building, where he wouldn’t be seen, shuffling his scuffed Nikes over gravel and tar. The night sky was clear and deep, and soon the wind fell off and the air hung motionless. Despite the cold, with the effort of movement he soon felt the sweat on his arms and back.

This sword had taught him a great deal. Even back when he had discovered it atop a heap of trash culled by Herman Goldman from the profligate curbs of Manhattan (and before that, when he’d first seen it in that disturbing, prescient dream), he had recognized its style and quality. As metalwork, its design held simplicity and sturdiness. No need for gaudy ornamentation, it effortlessly wore its purpose and primacy; it took an edge and kept it exceeding well. Its leather scabbard was dyed rust-red and worked with depressions for fingers that exactly matched his own. There was also a subtle design embossed around the finger grooves that could be barely discerned, it was so worn now, of a sun and a heart and a stone.

In the long journey here, both sword and man had been tested and seen hard use; and while it could not be said they had emerged unscathed, they had not been broken, merely further tempered.

The sword itself had been his best teacher. It moved smoothly in certain ways, resisted him in others. It wanted his wrist turned thus, wanted his shoulders squared, his body balanced. It counseled him to use its mass and momentum, not fight them.

He worked for twenty minutes in the autumn night, emptying his head and letting the sword take him. Thrust and parry, crouch and whirl. Had anyone been watching, they would have marveled at the speed and efficiency with which blade and wielder moved as one.

But to Cal there were only the myriad flaws and shortcomings within himself, the many missed opportunities, and the long road ahead toward the proficiency that so eluded him…at the same time sensing that that other road, the one to his dark objective, to Tina and the Source, would be shorter by far.

Time was no ally, Cal knew; it was a merciless, relentless adversary.

At length his arm tired. He let the swordpoint drop. Finished.

But the sword still felt alive with…something. Readiness? Impatience? Perhaps both, and a good deal more. It held mysteries and secrets, of both its destination and origin, a puzzle box that might open if it chose to reveal itself.

“Thought my pal with the hammer was greased lightning…but you put him to shame.”

He whirled at the sound of the voice.

It was the old woman, Shango’s odd traveling companion, the flinty, sun-weathered one who called herself Mama Diamond, near the doorway that opened onto the stairs. She stood with her back to the steel frame of the ventilator outlet, a faint smile on her lips.

Cal realized his right hand had arced the sword instinctively around to aim at her heart. Vaguely ashamed, he let it drop. “You appear out of thin air?”

“Remember when questions like that used to be rhetorical? No, I just walk light. Heard you cutting capers up here, saw you from the street. Decided I’d pay a call.”

Cal didn’t ask how her aged eyes had spied him in the dark, her creased old ears had caught the sound. Let her have her secrets, for now.

The blade lost its willfulness and felt heavy again. He returned it to its scabbard. Tonight he would oil it to preserve the metal against corrosion.

“Cold time to be out walking,” he observed.

“Sleep and me, we’re only sometimes on speaking terms,” Mama Diamond replied, a cold wind gusting up to ruffle her short hair. Cal wondered idly how many people this reedy, self-reliant woman might be on speaking terms with, as well. She had the feel of someone folded in on herself; if not antisocial exactly, then not needful of society.

“It’s different at night,” Mama Diamond said. “The town, I mean.”

Cal followed her gaze to the big autumn moon, grand as a sailing ship up there in the ebony ocean, its pale face as cool and eternal as the face of God. A silhouette fluttered across it, and was gone. A bat, Cal thought. Or maybe the cold shadow of a dragon.

An eerie sound wafted through the air to them, so distant and forlorn it almost wasn’t a sound but merely a remembrance. Still, it made Cal’s hackles rise.

“It’s not Stern,” Mama Diamond said with assurance. “I know his call.”

“So do I,” said Cal. Or at least, I thought I did. Today’s revelations had shaken his conviction.

Stern had stolen Mama Diamond’s gems, had brought them here, apparently under orders from whatever dwelled at the Source, whatever now held Cal’s sister captive, if indeed she were still alive.

(But she was, Cal’s heart insisted, she must be….)

Stern had traveled from New York to Chicago to Mama Diamond’s shop, and then here to Atherton.

Ahead of them, always ahead.

Stern had drawn Mama Diamond and Shango here. And, Cal thought, wondering about the grunter boy Inigo, perhaps himself and his companions, too.

Whose lives Stern had chosen to save…

Cal was suddenly conscious of the heft of his sword in its scabbard, of the singing ache in his arms and shoulders and legs, of the pathetic limitations of his humanity.

The dark road ahead stretched off to an unknown future…under a shadow from above.

Am I leading anyone, or merely being led?

Cal saw that Mama Diamond was scrutinizing him, far more closely than she had studied the moon. “You look like a man with a question.”

“It’s not one you can answer,” Cal replied.

Mama Diamond walked to the edge of the roof, held her face immobile in the frigid wind.

“I had a man once, Danny,” she said, not looking at Cal. “We kept company, for a time. Then he was gone. I truly cannot say why he did a single thing he did, beginning to end…. I don’t think he could, either.”

She turned to Cal, and her eyes were hard and clear. “Most of what happens just happens, and most everyone’s plans go bust, one way or another.

“And maybe, just maybe,” Mama Diamond said, her cracked voice so quiet it was like the wind rubbing against itself, “every now and then, a bad heart can do good….”

Another cry came on the wind, a different one, close to the ground and high-pitched.

“Coyote,” Mama Diamond said. “He’s just found some pizza in a Dumpster.”

“You say that like you know.”

She gave him a Mona Lisa smile, and rubbed her arms against the cold, like sticks trying to start a fire.

“I ran into that pal of yours,” Mama Diamond said, seemingly changing the subject. “The one with the shirts that are a conversation all by themselves.”

That would be Goldie, of course.

“He told me what’s on the other end of what they’re building…and what you’re gonna try doing with it.”

Cal felt a momentary flash of irritation, then realized that if Goldie had let Mama Diamond into their confidence, it must be for a reason. His wild airs to the contrary, in certain ways Herman Goldman’s actions were the most deliberate and considered of all of them.

“What do you think?” Cal asked.

“That you’re crazy…but it’s a good crazy. Don’t mean it won’t fry you on the griddle, though.”

“True.”

“But I’ll tell you this much-you get your foot in the door, you’d best take me with you.”

Looking at this frail old woman, Cal thought to protest, but the words died in his throat. There was something below the surface in her that belied appearances. Underneath, he sensed, she was hard stone, diamond hard….

And Cal knew in that moment that it was not Shango’s iron will that had brought them here, but hers.

What monstrosities would walk the streets were men’s faces as unfinished as their minds, Stern had once said, quoting the philosopher Hoffer.

But that wasn’t always true. Sometimes the face beneath the mask was finer and stronger than the mask itself.

“Why do you want to come?” he asked Mama Diamond.

“Maybe just because I’d like to see what all this has been for.” She smiled, making the lines in her face crinkle up like a paper fan. “And maybe I’d like to meet that little sister of yours.”

Cal nodded. “I’ll do my best, when the time comes.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Mama Diamond yawned hugely, and stretched. “Time this old night owl went to roost.”

“Good night, ma’am.”

Mama Diamond walked slowly and cautiously to the door that led to the stairs. Then abruptly, she turned back.

“Do you think there’s forgiveness in this world, Mr. Griffin, or just atonement?”

The question startled him, but he found the answer readily there. “I think every day’s a new one…and we do what we can.”

She ran back and kissed him on the cheek, surprising them both.

“You go get some sleep now, son,” Mama Diamond said. “And you have yourself some sweet dreams.”

Then she was gone, down the stairs.

Cal peered over the lip of the building, but curfew had come and the streets were dark. He heard Mama Diamond’s steps echo away into the night, and knew she meant for him to hear it, a lullaby and good night.

His eyes lifted again to the moon, bright as God’s serene, eternal gaze.

Proficiency was not everything, Cal realized, nor even readiness. Sometimes, he had seen, compassion and consensus and mutual need won the day.

And sometimes not…

In the distance, in the night beyond, Cal thought he heard, or only imagined, the sound of wings.