Стивен Бойетт - Mortality Bridge

“I can’t believe you have a compress that size.” Niko tries to smile bravely and not think about how his back must look. “Maxi-pad. I can’t believe you’re not screaming your head off.”

She smooths the bloody end of the surgical tape across his belly. “Can’t feel a thing.”

She looks doubtful but helps Niko to his feet. He hisses like a brand in water. Now the cut hurts, now he feels his broken rib.

The cabbie brushes hair from her forehead and leaves behind a dark red streak of Niko’s blood. “Well I guess you’ll play the guitar again.”

Niko looks up from his field dressing. “Really? I don’t think so.” And as he says it knows it’s true.

“We better get in there,” says the cabbie.

“Yeah.”

The gate code is the date that he and Jemma floated on Lake Arrowhead and felt themselves begin again. Niko punches in this anniversary and the gate begins to rattle open. “This still isn’t your fight,” he tells the cabbie.

Her only reply is a get-serious expression and a gesture for him get moving, for which he gives a grateful smile. He owes her so very much.

Niko passes on into his statuaried driveway. Behind him the cabbie takes a last long pull at her cigarillo and flicks it away.

THE FRONT DOOR stands open. Niko and the cabbie look through the doorway at the veined marble floor, cherry knickknack shelves with dried flowers, Lalique crystal, an oval mirror. Niko is struck with sudden fear that he’ll see his own body on the couch, an empty hypodermic beside it. All of this the raving of a mind that’s shutting down. I am returned to haunt myself.

He gives the cabbie what he hopes is an encouraging look and limps into the ululating house. The black leather couch unoccupied. The empty hypodermic rests where it was tossed on the glasstopped table. Sweeping curve of carpeted staircase. No one else in sight.

Niko limps to the security alarm panel and enters the code. Sudden silence jars the house. Faint tick of the moonfaced clock. Niko jumps when the telephone rings.

“Security company?” the cabbie ventures.

Ah. He hobbles to the phone and picks it up and says Hello. “Regent Security, sir. We show an activation at your residence.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. My uh friend came into the house ahead of me and uh I was unloading the car. I forgot, sorry. It’s off now but thanks for—”

“Who am I speaking with please?”

“I’m the homeowner. Niko, Nikkoleides Popoudopolos.”

If the man from Regency recognizes Niko’s name it doesn’t register in his tone. “The alarm has been active for several minutes, sir. I’ve dispatched a unit to your home.”

Niko strangles the phone. Somehow he feels it’s all that’s holding him upright. “Oh that isn’t necessary. We’re fine.”

“Fine, sir. If I could just get your password.”

“Password.” Niko feels thick and stupid. “It’s eight oh one—”

“Not your alarm code, sir. Your secret password.”

Niko looks helplessly at the cabbie. This is just too fucking absurd. Here in his house in the Hollywood Hills there’s a dead body, a demon, a messenger of death, a mythic ferry operator, and a leaking mason jar containing his girlfriend’s soul, and he has no idea how to stop a bored security dispatcher on a telephone from sending armed rentacops to his door.

“I can’t recall the unit without your password, sir,” the dispatcher says into the silence.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just never had to use it, hold on a second.” Something thuds upstairs.

“Sir?”

Niko feels an absurd urge to command the dispatcher by one of the old Keys. Leave me alone, this has been willed where what is willed must be. But that won’t play here.

“Sir, I’m afraid I have to—”

“Lyre. It’s lyre, L Y R E.”

A pause. Niko hears taps on a keyboard. “That’s correct, sir. Sorry to trouble you.”

“No um trouble. You’re just doing your job.”

“You have a nice night now, sir,” says the dispatcher.

“Too late.” Niko drops the phone to the marble floor. “You all right?” the cabbie asks.

“Fuck no.” He nods at the stairs. “Let’s go.”

The cabbie helps him climb the stairs. Every step a gardenclaw embedded in his ribs and lower back and pulling. By the top of the sweeping curve his compress feels hot against his back and he suspects his wound is bleeding freely again. They pull up short at the top of the stairs and Niko grabs a newel to keep from falling down.

“Darn,” the cabbie says.

Down the hall stands Nikodemus, back to them and tattered wings outspread and trembling taut to fill the corridor. Niko starts to call out to him but suddenly the wings retract and Niko sees his demon holding the fractured mason jar and glaring sliteyed at the Driver who stands calm and confident between Nikodemus and the door to Jemma’s sickroom. Wearing his perpetual halfsmirk and waiting for the demon to make his move. With Jemma seeping out into the mortal night and Jemma’s body soon to pass all hope of resurrection time is on the Driver’s side.

The cabbie touches Niko’s arm. “Even if he gets by him he won’t have time to put her back.”

Niko tries to make what the cabbie says mean something but he’s having trouble making words connect. He feels he’s looking out through eyes not quite his own. But he understands that once again the game has changed and that their hastily concocted plan must be abandoned.

Just to drive home his point the Driver lights a cigarette and blows smoke in Nikodemus’ face. The demon whipcracks the air in frustration.

The sound goads Niko to action. “Give me a minute. Stall the Driver any way you can and then send Nikodemus my way when you hear me honk out front.”

She nods. Niko glances once more at the silent power struggle in the hallway and then struggles back down the staircase. He clumps through the living room and master dining room and into the big kitchen hung with copper pots. On the tiled wall a green-painted pegboard hung with several sets of keys. He snatches up the black keychain embossed with the winged B and hurries back as best he can through the living room. His lower back throbs in time with his heartbeat. Pain lances his ribs and flares his twisted ankle with every step. I am held together now with paperclips and duct tape. I believe my clock is winding down.

He clutches the keys and heads for the door. How strange to be back among his comforts and accumulations. He hadn’t expected to see them again when he left. An hour I’ve been gone. All this traveling encompassed by a single sweep of any clock. This time he feels no pang of loss at leaving them behind forever once again, and when he leaves he doesn’t look back.

THE BENTLEY CHIRPS and flashes and unlocks itself. The burgundy GT Speed looks almost black in this light. Niko nearly falls into the seat. It hurts but the pain is somewhere far away, a noise in another room. He touches his back and his palm comes away red. Well beyond panic at the sight of his own blood he merely shakes his head and wipes his palm on his filthy pants leg. The dealership’s gonna love me.

He starts the car and half expects it won’t turn over, thinking it must have been months since he drove it, but it starts right up and Niko realizes it has in fact, only been a few days since he took the Bentley out.

Niko drives out of the garage. Rounding the fountain in front of the house he sees the cabbie trotting down the driveway toward the front gate. What gives?

She glances back at the sound of his car and waves and then gestures for him to stay put. He stops before the front door. When he honks the horn he half expects to hear the bellow of some prehistoric beast. But no. It’s just a carhorn and the Bentley’s just a car.