Currency of Souls

can’t. “You’re speaking in goddamn riddles. What do you want from me? From Kyle? How do we end this? Do we have to die, to burn? Is that it? Tell me!”

Cadaver rises, a skeleton beneath plastic skin. The smell of his cologne will from this moment on remind me of death. “How these things turn out depends on the choices that are made. Sometimes it happens that everythin’ turns out fine. But not often. It ain’t in our nature to consider others when we’re sufferin’ ourselves. And unfortunately for Milestone, everyone gets to bargain if they want it, even the monster hidin’ among you.”

I’m standing as close to him as I am willing to get. His one good eye holds me as sure as if it were a loaded gun. “Tom, you were a good man once. You lost your way. Tonight you’re goin’ to lose everythin’ else, and for that I’m truly sorry.”

He’s trying to scare me. It’s working.

“What about the coins, the loan? What about—” Frantic, I dig in my pocket until I have those two cold discs grasped in my hand, then I hold them out for his inspection. “—these?”

“What about them?”

“You said they were a loan.”

“I did.”

“What if I give mine to you? What if…?” Unsure what I’m doing, but praying it achieves the desired result, I shove one of the pennies under his nose. He backs away, looking slightly annoyed. “What if I let you have mine, me, right now, whether or not Kyle took the bargain? What then?”

“You misunderstood, Tom.”

That’s not what I want to hear.

“Just listen—”

He puts a hand on my wrist, forcing me to lower the coin from his face. “It was a loan for you. The coins ain’t some kind of barter for your soul and Kyle’s. They don’t represent souls at all.”

“Then what the hell are they?”

“Time. I let you borrow time.”

I feel something being yanked away from me, the knot in the tug o’ war rope vanishing into the darkness in the corners of a room that smells of death/cologne and furniture polish. The man looking at me from the glass over Cadaver’s shoulder is a monster. His eyes are gone. My eyes are gone, but I’m not blind enough to miss seeing the picture this old man has drawn for me.

“He couldn’t sell you out. I knew he wouldn’t, no matter what I offered him. He’s one of the few good ones, Tom, so I broke the rules for him. I gave you the pennies. Both were his. I gave you time to save him.”

Sweat trickles down my neck even as a chill dances across my back. “How much time?”

From the room directly overhead, something crashes to the floor. The light sways slightly. Grains of plaster float down between us like sand from a cracked hourglass.

I feel a vibration in my bones, terror twisting my gut.

Helpless, I look at Cadaver.

“That much,” he whispers.

Chapter Sixteen

I run, taking the steps two by two though the sweeping angle of them seems designed to slow me down. As my feet make sounds like gunshots on the steps, I feel a part of me rip away, a part of me that wants to go in the other direction, back downstairs to Cadaver, to kill him, so there’ll be nothing left to face when I return. In the split-second instances when my mind cuts away from the sight of my own filthy boots pounding polished wood on this fucking endless staircase, I can almost feel his body come apart beneath my hands, blood and bone, or maybe just dust and oil spattering the walls, wet and satisfying beneath my shaking hands. I’m ripping that box from his throat, taking no care with it, just yanking it free and delighting in the sight of the gaping void it leaves behind as his head lolls atop withered shoulders. I’m hurting him. I’m showing him agony. I’m showing him how I feel, how I felt long before I first stepped foot in that goddamn tavern.

I’m tearing him apart. Returning the favor.

But then the steps run out and the landing isn’t nearly long enough for me to get my thoughts in order, to force myself to be calm. Three strides and I’m at the door I’m guessing is the one from which that thumping sound came. I don’t wait a second longer.

I throw open the door.

It’s a bedroom.

Bed, neatly made.

Sink in the corner, dripping.

Sunlight making shadows that lay flat upon the floor.

Window overlooking the yard.

There’s no one here.

Cursing, I head for the next door, the echo of that sliding thumping sound bouncing around my brain. I know what that sound was, but I’m going to dismiss the certainty and tell myself I’m letting terror mislead me. But deep down inside where reality is a small dark plot of land under an indifferent sky, I know the truth. I feel it. Right now, there is no tiny dirt road I can sidle down to avoid that big sprawling highway that runs only one way— straight into the mushy black heart of truth, the true nightmare of this situation. I can’t get away. Never could. But I could have gotten Kyle out of this and didn’t.

Still, Be there; be alive. I won’t let you down. Not again, I repeat in a mantra inside my head, a head that feels as if it’s become a porcelain vase dropped from a height.

My hand finds the door knob.

Please. Just a little more time. One more chance. One more penny.

I open the door.

The hinges shriek.

There’s light coming in the window.

My mouth’s dry.

There’s light coming in the window.

I can’t see for the tears.

There’s light coming in the window.

And there’s a long thin shadow swinging in front of it, touching my own feet, which I let drop me to the floor. They’ve held me enough, held me longer than that creaking rope is going to hold my boy.

I can’t look at him. Won’t.

Then I do.

Help him down, goddamn it. He’s still alive.

I’m back on my feet in an instant, hugging my boy’s legs, my arms tight, lifting, lifting. Trying to unbreak his neck; trying to unchoke him. He rises, but doesn’t make a sound. Christ…he doesn’t make a sound.

No words, no breath. No life.

He’s dead and gone.

Slowly, so slowly, and gently, I let him go until the rope is tight once again and his body twists in a breeze that isn’t here.

Another man, another father, might persist, try to free him, try to save him, wailing and moaning all the while, crying out to God, promising retribution for this heinous injustice.

But I’m not another father.

And God isn’t listening.

I find myself looking at my son’s shoes, note that they are cleaner than mine, though we’ve walked the same paths tonight. Guess that probably means something. All I take from it is the fact that they’re cleaner, and that the laces are untied, same way they always were when he got done with a day’s work. He never could tie laces right, but he sure did a hell of a job with that noose.

His belt buckle is silver, a rearing horse locked inside an oval, and it glints in the sunlight, until the body