Kealan Burke - Currency of Souls

He releases his grip on me. I don’t fall, but there’s not a whole lot of strength left in me. I stay standing only so I can look him in the eye when he tells me what’s going to become of my son. And maybe when he does I’ll have just the right amount of energy left to punch his fucking face in.

But he doesn’t answer right away. Instead he grabs my left hand, forces it out of the fist that I’ve made to follow up on my unvoiced threat, and drops his two pennies into my palm.

I look up at him.

His eyes probe mine, and my guts squirm as if a surgeon has put his cold fingers in there. I’m afraid I’m going to be sick. “Consider it a loan,” he says, and closes my fingers around the coins.

“Why?” I ask, as he starts to walk toward the burning building, the smoke whipping itself into specters that chase each other around the flames. Sparks dance like giddy stars.

At the threshold to the inferno that used to be Eddie’s Bar, he stops, seemingly unaffected by anything but the light from the blaze. He squints back over his shoulder at me, and though his voice is still a whisper, I hear it as surely as if he’s said it right into my ear.

“It’s all I have.”

Eddie’s is still burning bright by the time we snap out of whatever cocktail of grief and shock and confusion has held us there like moths, and I give up waiting for Cadaver to come back out and explain just what it is that’s making two cold spots in the palm of my right hand. Whatever he is, he’s right where he belongs, but that doesn’t make me feel much better. I thought for sure that Hill’s death meant it was all over, that at last the shackles had been removed and we were free to move on, if we could ever figure out a way to do it without taking the guilt and ghosts with us.

But nothing’s over. There won’t be any new chapters here. And Eddie’s might just as well be standing untouched by fire because after this, even though the numbers are lower, Milestone’s purgatory is still going to house a few folks pretending to live their lives while they wait for someone to come collect a debt they’re never going to be able to repay. Only difference is next time the debt collector won’t be a cocky bible-thumping Reverend with dyed hair, but a skeletal man with an electronic doodad where his larynx should be.

Kyle’s still watching the fire with tear-filled eyes, and I don’t have a goddamn clue what I’m supposed to do next, but because I need to move, I have a quick word with Kyle, watch him head for my truck, then I make my way over to the shadows, where I can hear Brody hacking and coughing as he stumbles away from the burning building.

“You’re alive.” The announcement is my way of letting him know he’s not the only one, in case he was wondering. His face, clear of the shadows and lit by the flames, is streaked with soot, his eyes narrowed as his lungs convulse and force another phlegmy cough from him. The nice suit is officially beyond saving.

“Yeah, no thanks to you.”

“How’s that?”

“You left me with that crazy man, didn’t you? The healer? Executioner, more like.”

I reach down, slip an arm underneath his elbow and yank him up. “You’re looking a damn sight better than when I left you. He did something for you or you wouldn’t be standing here.” I inspect the front of his shirt. The bullet hole is still there, but I can’t tell if there’s one in the flesh beneath it to match.

“I owe that to the big black dude.”

“Wintry?”

“Guy threw me right through the fucking window after your naked friend went nuclear.”

“Nuclear, how?”

He takes a few unsteady steps, and leans against the wooden fence. “The guy put his hands on me. Cobb did. And yeah, he fixed me up just like he said he would, but then…” He shakes his head, a humorless smile on his grimy face. “Then he starts bawling and whatever invisible shit’s pouring from his hands into me turns to fire. I tell you, I’ve been around—don’t be fooled by my age, I’ve seen plenty—but I’ve never seen nothing like that before. Blue fire, man, streaming like piss from his fingers. I don’t think even he expected it, but he just went right on bawling about his wife, about how he wasn’t going to let her go, then he raises those hands so the streams are about an inch from the top of my head—Christ, it was like looking up at an electric fence—and POW!, he cooks the hot chick right where she’s standing.”

“Flo?”

“Yeah, the one looks a bit like Marilyn Monroe.”

“Goddamn it.”

“Yeah, no kidding. Hell of a waste. So she drops, and that sets the big guy off. He grabs a handful of my shirt, the world starts spinning and next thing I know I’m doing a swan dive through the goddamn window.”

“What happened to the others?”

“Don’t know for sure. Didn’t see it; but it isn’t that hard to figure out, is it? Guy grieving for his wife finds his hands have turned into flamethrowers. Three seconds later the whole place goes up in smoke. Looks like your friend had himself a barbecue.”

Kyle finds us and with a grim look at Brody, hands me the set of handcuffs I keep in my glove box. Can’t remember the last time I had call to use these. Brody straightens a little. “What are those for?”

“You’re lucky to be alive, boy. You shouldn’t be, and that’s a fact. But you’re a murderer, and that’s a fact too, so you’re going to cool your heels in my jail for a while until I decide what to do with you.”

He stiffens, takes a step back, and I’m suddenly more aware than ever that I don’t have a gun.

Kyle does though. “Stay where you are,” he says, weapon trained on Brody.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. After all the shit I just went through, you’re going to stick me in a cell?”

“That’s the plan.”

“You don’t have proof to say I did anything.”

“I’ve got you threatening a police officer, and that’s enough for now.”

“Aw that’s bull shit. Besides, my gun is in there,” he says, jerking a thumb at the burning tavern. “Without that, you haven’t got squat.”

“Your girl didn’t make it,” Kyle says then. The guy’s expression falters, but only for a moment, like a breeze across a calm pond. “Yeah, I figured that. Thanks for breaking it to me gently, though, you asshole.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Naked old guy with flamethrower hands, fruitcake holymen…and a hick Sheriff and his trigger-happy boy trying to railroad me. I mean, for Chrissakes…where the hell am I anyway?”

“Milestone.” I motion for him to start moving. And Hell isn’t a million miles off the mark either.

We put Brody, cuffed, in the truck. He doesn’t resist, but I can tell by the tension in his muscles that he’d like to. “This is a crock of shit.” His grumbling lasts only until Kyle and me start unloading the girl from the truck bed. “What are you doing?” he asks then, his voice muffled. “Where are you taking her?”

“She needs burying,” I call back, and ignore whatever else he says. He probably thinks being her lover gives him some right to dictate what happens to her in death, and ordinarily I’d agree. Fact is, though, this isn’t an ordinary situation. Fact is, she’s dead because he was going too fast, hightailing it along dark twisty roads probably looking for somewhere to rob. Doesn’t matter how he felt about her in life. For her, life’s over, and he drove the hearse. So fuck him and his sense of entitlement. We’re planting her.

Kyle stands and draws the back of his hand across his eyes, carving clear furrows in the dust and soot. He glances at me for a moment, then shakes his head. I can’t figure out if the gesture is more disdain for me or regret for the tragedy that’s befallen our friends. Guess it doesn’t matter now. I get back to work clearing the debris from my own head. After all, we’re standing over a dead girl, about to put her in a hole far from home where no one will ever know she’s planted and won’t be able to visit her if they care to. But I’m guessing she was just as lost as the company she kept in her final hours, and probably won’t raise a fuss about where I lay her bones, and no one else will either. No milk carton appearances for this one, just an unceremonious burial out back of a burning tavern.