C.E. Murphy - Walking Dead

The cauldron’s black smear had lessened considerably. It was, I thought, partly that I’d shaken off its effects once, and partly that it was losing the connection with the place it had rested. Either way, that had to be a good thing: I couldn’t imagine that with the weight of death pulling at them, any ghost might survive long in its presence. Billy said, “Chan’s gone,” under his breath. “Poor kid went ahead and crossed over.”

“I’m sorry we have to disturb him again.”

Sonata got Sandburg settled down at the farthest point from the cauldron’s empty space. “William, if you’ll stand here…?” She pointed him to a place a few steps to Sandburg’s right, and took up a place opposite Billy on Sandburg’s left. I shuffled over to stand much closer to the cauldron’s dais than I wanted to, and Gary, without being told, stood opposite me, so the five of us made a half circle around the display. “William explained your intentions to me, Joanne. The dead must have a desire to speak with the living for me to bring those who’ve crossed over all the way back to this world. If Jason Chan is reluctant—”

“As long as you can get him as far as the Dead Zone, I can talk to him.” I sat down, folding my legs and plucking at the vest, but decided to leave it on. Easier than arguing with Billy, who gave me a stern look as he, too, sat down. The others did the same—sat, not frowned at me—and Sandburg, looking nervous, followed suit. I felt a surge of sympathy for the mild museum curator. A few months earlier, I’d have felt just as awkward and out of place as he did.

Now, though, I glanced at my friends, then nodded at Gary. “Let’s do this thing.”

The first beat of the drum shattered the cauldron’s remaining death shroud from the air.

Everybody except Gary flinched, though I didn’t know if the shared wince was because the drum was surprisingly loud or if everyone had a sense of the shroud falling. I thought it got distinctly easier to breathe. It was like being in Los Angeles after a rare rainstorm: all of a sudden you couldn’t see the air anymore, and breathing instantly felt less labored.

It was a good sign, anyway. My drum and my magic were all tied up with one another. If the cauldron’s murk could fall under a good thump of healing magic, maybe that meant the universe was on our side. I was all for that.

I was also procrastinating, in that I was allowing myself to be distracted by things that weren’t actually the drum and an inward focus that would send me to the Dead Zone. On the other hand, while we were short on time, we were also trying a séance, and if Sonata could call Jason Chan to us without me tripping the light fantastic, that seemed like a better way to go. My track record for speaking with the dead wasn’t what it could be, and Sonata’s talents actually lay in that direction. I wondered suddenly where Patrick was, and whether it was safe to be conducting a séance without him.

Sonata’s “Weary spirits” rolled through the room and earned another flinch from everybody except Gary, who was evidently completely at one with the drum. I envied him a bit, then tried to tuck away emotion and get ready to slip through the walls of the worlds if Jason didn’t answer Sonata’s call. “I beg forgiveness, spirits, for disturbing you. I come seeking knowledge, not about what lies beyond the veil, but about what has come to pass on this side of it. I have come to a place of sorrow and violence in hopes that one among you may have answers to share with me. Jason Chan,” she said much more quietly. “I know you seek no vengeance, but your fading memories of this world may help us to save another life. Will you speak with me?”

All of us, even Gary, straightened up and peeked around, searching out ghosts. Sandburg looked both poleaxed and fascinated, like he didn’t believe he was participating in a séance and at the same time wanted it to be real with all the strength of a child’s hopeful imagination. Shots of pink zotted off his aura, fireworks-bright, and I had to think that if he was guilty, he wouldn’t be nearly so excited about the prospect of a ghost coming to point a finger at him. Too bad. It would’ve been easy for him to be the killer.

“Jason Chan,” Sonata repeated, then began a quiet, oddly respectful litany of the young man’s history on earth. His full name, Jason Matthew, and his birth date, the nineteenth of September. He’d been barely twenty-four. His family’s names, the towns he’d lived—all information available from his work record, and all of it meant to draw a dead man closer to the living’s world.

All of it meant to draw him closer to life, when there was an ancient, magical cauldron pouring warped vitality back into the dead, and when we already knew that it could help a ghost latch on to mortal magic and gain corporeal form.

Wow. I’d had some really bad ideas, but right then, this one was the prizewinner. I said, “Oh, crap” out loud, and let go of the real world as fast as I could, racing for the Dead Zone.

I wasn’t at all sure it was safer for me to go traipsing around the Dead Zone than it was to call ghosts back from the dead, not when the cauldron was doing its thing. I was, though, very sure that letting Jason Chan or any other ghost get a foothold back in the real world was a mistake, and the only way I saw to have my cake and eat it, too, was to fling myself into another plane of existence and hope like hell it worked.

My general impression of the Dead Zone was a bit Hitchhiker’s Guide: it was a tad smaller than incomprehensible infinity so the human mind could encompass just how really, really big it was. My few encounters with the dead—or anything else there, for that matter—had put me sort of in the middle of an impossibly large space, so that I could feel properly insignificant. It went on for-freaking-ever, and even when I moved around, it never let up with the hugeness factor, or gave me the impression of being near to anything.

Jason Chan stood right on the edge of infinity, about to dive over into the living world. Space and time and eternity spread out, all that enormous emptiness somehow unquestionably behind him, and the only thing standing between him and a twisted unlife was me.

I sprang at him, catching him in the middle with my shoulder, and we skidded halfway across the universe before coming to a stop. The edge of the Dead Zone disappeared, thankfully and familiarly an endless distance away. I flopped over, trying to calm a rabbit-fast heart.

Jason, upon whom I’d flopped, said, “Jesus Christ, lady, what the hell is your problem?” He flung me off in a tangle of elbows and knees, and I skittered onto my backside.

“Sorry. Sorry, I—”

“Are you crazy? What’re you doing tackling people like that? Are you—” He broke off, panting for breath and staring at me. After a couple of seconds his ire faded, leaving him with a little grin. “Okay, so this isn’t usually how I meet girls, and you’re nuts, but maybe I shouldn’t bitch if women are going to literally throw themselves at me.” He offered a hand. “Jason Chan. You always tackle guys when you want to meet them?”

It probably said something about my life that I actually had to think about it before saying, “I don’t think so,” and shaking his hand. “I’m Joanne Walker. Sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” His grin broadened and we finished getting untangled from one another. “I’ve seen you before.”

Dude. Even the dead used the worst pick-up line in history. I said, “Er, no, I don’t think so,” again, and he shook his head.

“Yeah, I have. You were at the museum yesterday with that cop who was asking me about the cauldron. You were the other cop!” He scooted back a few inches and looked me over. “I didn’t recognize you right away. You look better now, if you don’t mind me saying so.”