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= Ghosts and the City #1 =

a dark fantasy short story

by John Argo

Chapter 4. Destiny

(8)

One day not long after, Lolo and I were sitting on the patio sipping a spirit tea she had made, which tasted like mango and peaches. The doorbells rang. That's right, bells rang everywhere, and a shadowy being could be seen down long dark halls, under archways and viaducts, over rivers and lakes, through the amber walls and stained-glass windows.

"Oh-oh," said Lolo ominously.

She rose and hurried through the house. Her green silk wrap flowed gently in the air currents around her. She seemed like a spirit floating over water. I followed. There, at the front door, stood a messenger. He was a seraph, black as night, hard as a stone carving. Rising behind him were his folded wings. He wore the black cloak of a postal carrier in the spirit world. He said in a deep, disembodied voice: "I have an important message for Louise Maurian-Wheeler and Ray Elgin." So saying, he took his cloak in his hands and raised this cloak in a great circle. Leaving it hanging like a shelter in the air, he took a parchment-like scroll from an inner pouch and unrolled it. I saw a complex digital network sparking electronically under its surface. His fingers were onyx, and the hairs on his knuckles just as black—I could see the hairs because they gleamed faintly. He read: "Tomorrow will be a night of no moon. You will both come to the News Shop on the Old Shore Road in Dark San Diego. You will bring the children. There you will learn of your destinies."

He put the electronic scroll away, pulled his cape down out of the air, wrapped the cape around himself, and crouched into a turning run so that he vanished in the same instant.

Across the street, the two children stood watching us with burning eyes.

"He said futures, not future," said Lolo as we returned to the patio. She dabbed at her eyes. "It means we go our separate ways, my Ray."

We were quiet much of that day. I spent the night, but slept alone on the couch in the tavern. Ghosts don't sleep, of course—we lose consciousness when there is no reason to be awake, so you might as well call it sleep. Sometimes we dream, and sometimes we don't. That was one hell of a deep, dreamless night.

The next day, we coaxed the boy and the girl close. They came reluctantly after much calling, and said nothing. We couldn't get them to talk. We fed them sweets and chocolate drinks, which they seemed to enjoy. Lolo wiped mustache smears off each of their upper lips with a washcloth.

A clock chimed deep in the house. "It's time to go," I said.

"We're ready," Lolo called. With a child at each hand, she stepped from the house, and I pulled the door shut. I held the boy's hand, and Lolo held the girl's. We started walking, down twisty alleys full of amber light that fell in rain sheets. It was not wet, but light fell through the misty air and bounced like water on shiny sidewalks. As we walked, the light dimmed. It seemed that all our clothes turned black. I don't know how long we walked, but eventually the ocean glittered before us in starlight. It was a clear, moonless night. Over the sea, from one horizon to the other, stretched the Milky Way. There weren't many live people around, so our range of sensation was limited. The air smelled vaguely of night-blooming jasmine and citrus mixed with eucalyptus and sun-burned pine. There were faint whiffs of lavender and frangipani (highly poisonous, but fragrant, night-blooming blossoms that attract moths in the dark, related to the deadly oleander).

Ghosts hovered everywhere. Some were the long-dead Native people of many tribes and peoples over thousands of years. Some were the vanished Conquistadores wearing armor, and casque helmets. Many spirits of animals stood about in the shadows. Everywhere, I saw the spirits of plants—dark trees, some extinct, and weird flowers that must have bloomed in Jurassic swamps. I saw the ghosts of Mexican vaqueros, cowboys, who had died along the Royal Road between Baja California and Fort Ross in Nor-Cal, where the Spaniards in the 1700s, and later in the early 1800s the Mexicans, faced the Russians. The invaders had already conquered Alaska and the western coast of North America almost as far south as San Francisco. They wanted to capture the rest of the continent for the Tsars, but the scheme fell apart. The Russians had come, and the Mexicans had stood them off. I found that amusing, though I was too scared to laugh.

As we descended the hills, and reached the Shore Road of Dark San Diego (not far from Loma Portal, by coincidence), the boy ran from my grasp and joined Lolo. The three of them seemed driven, and walked faster and faster. Lolo leaned forward. A wind arose, that blew her veil around her head.

"Lolo!" I called out.

She turned and regarded me, without ever slowing. As best I could dimly make them out, her features looked confused, transformed. Her voice sounded frail in the wind. "Keep up with us!" Her face and head looked skull-like, dark holes in white bone.

The wind blew grit up as Lolo led us down the Shore Road—which has a counterpart in the world of the living, but I don't remember what it is. It's all different here. What houses there are, are built of shadows. What dim lights they have here remind one of amber coach lights.

The lights I saw were blurs of broken bottle glass, in brown, in green, in leaded panes, with the occasional wink of ruby or sapphire, emerald or peridot or smoky topaz. These hovered amid gloomy structures shaped like melted candle wax.

In the ocean foam danced sea nymphs, while centaurs rode lustily on the beach. Other mythological creatures mingled with magical characters from green histories. But we had no time for distractions. We were on a mission. Lolo dragged the children ahead. She herself had turned black and looked like a goddess.

We followed the curving Shore Road to a small building that looked like a bunker smothered in ivy. Whirling around it in the disturbed atmosphere were more of the dimly glittering lights. Many ghostly figures stood about in the dark, guarding this place. A compass ornament glowed over the entrance, like a corporate logo. The compass ornament was about three feet in diameter, a white glowing disk, with an ornate pointer, and scrollwork letters in poured brass at each of the major compass points: N-E-W-S.

In the front was a small entrance, heavily buttressed in concrete. A single ray of light shone from the wall overhead the door, illumining a leaf-strewn walkway. As we approached, the door swung open and lights came on inside. Lolo's skin returned to its normal color. A distinguished looking man of about 50, with dark brown skin and short, kinky white hair met us in the door. He wore a black business suit, white shirt, and gray silk tie. "Good evening," he said. "Welcome to the NEWS." He gestured for us to enter, and let the door slide shut as he ushered us down a softly lit concrete hallway. "My name is Nestor," he said. "Jonas Nestor."

"You are a living person," I said in wonderment.

"I am indeed."

"And you see us," I said.

"I do indeed."

We walked past a series of dark office doors. The walls had magical symbols on them.

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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.