Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(52)

I drew the silver dagger from my dress. “This isn’t a channel. It’s just a knife.”

“Your other pocket.”

“I haven’t got anything in my other—” My fingers closed around a cool, round stone etched with simple, concentric circles. I drew it out. “Oh! How curious. I don’t even remember bringing this.”

Jackaby stepped toward me. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

“Pavel gave it to me when he gave me the sketch of Mr. Finstern. I must have already shown it to you—didn’t I?”

“You most certainly did not.” He produced a little red pouch out of the inner pocket of his coat and opened it. The lining on the inside glistened like silver, but it was empty. He held it toward me at arm’s length. I plopped the stone inside, and he pulled the strings taut quickly, as though he were capturing a live squirrel and not a lifeless rock.

“Why? What is it?” I said.

Jackaby scowled hard.

“It has to have come from the council!” I said. “Charon says it’s a channel. A channel to what, exactly? To whom?”

“I don’t know,” said Jackaby. “But I would very much like to.”

I swallowed. “All the more reason to get those answers. Don’t worry. I’ll find Lawrence Hoole. He was at the heart of the council’s project. He’ll know more about those villains and what they’re building than anyone.”

Jackaby tucked the stone—the channel—away into his coat. “Wait.”

“Sir, I appreciate your concern, but you can’t fight every battle for me.”

“No, I can’t. But I can give you this.” He took my hand and pressed into my palm a little leather purse. It was a dull gray-brown.

“What’s this?”

“Four obols. They’re ancient Greek currency. A number of cultures have traditions about paying the ferryman. Also, I packed the most appropriate relic I could find on short notice. You’ll find a small length of petrified string inside. Sheep’s gut, really. It has been passed down for a great many generations under the assumption that it was once a piece of the last lyre Orpheus ever played. I can’t verify that, of course, but it does have an aura of divine contact, so it’s entirely possible.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jackaby.”

“One more thing,” he said. “The dead don’t generally keep things in their pockets. It’s traditional to . . .” He gestured to my face.

“To what?”

“You’ll need to hold it in your mouth when you cross over.”

“Lovely,” I said, eyeing the faded leather.

“Do be safe,” Jenny said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

I tucked the pouch into my mouth as I stepped forward. It tasted like a salty strap of used boot leather. I tried very hard not to think too hard about the shriveled strip of gut inside it.

“Are you prepared?” Charon asked.

I nodded.

“Then come with me.”

I stepped across the little trickle of water, moving out of the warm sunlight and into the cold shadows. Nothing happened for a moment, and then my legs buckled beneath me.

It was suddenly dark. I was falling.

And I was dead.





Chapter Twenty-Seven


I turned around. My body lay behind me in the dirt. It had not landed gracefully. My cheek was pressed against the cold stone floor, loose hair splaying across my eyes. One arm had folded behind me in an unnatural angle as I fell. I felt sick and numb.

“This way,” said Charon.

I removed the leather pouch from my mouth as I followed the ferryman down the path, away from my lifeless corpse. My eyes were adjusting to the gloom, but there wasn’t much except more gloom to see. The inside of a tree, it turns out, looks a lot like the outside of a tree, only darker. The cavern went much farther, deep into the earth. I could hear water flowing somewhere nearby as I followed Charon downward. The trickling little stream snaked into the cave, dribbling down a series of uneven tiers until it drained at last into a wide underground river. Mist swirled above the dark waters.

We descended the steps until we reached the river’s edge, and Charon held out a bony hand. I retrieved two coins from the pouch, offering them up. Charon plucked them out of my hand, rubbing them together with a satisfied tinkling.

“Obols. It has been a long time since I was paid in obols.” He sounded pleased, but his bony face showed no emotion. One of the coins glowed ruby red and then abruptly crumbled to ash between his fingers. He held the other up in the light from the opening above us, rubbing its weathered face with his thumb. “Eight chalkoi to the obol, six obols to the drachma, and one obol”—he handed the coin back to me—“to ride the ferry. I do not overcharge.”

I took the coin and thanked him as I tucked it back into the leather purse.

He stepped out onto an ancient dock and picked up a long pole from where it rested against decrepit ropes. At the top of the pole hung three small rods from a short chain, like a sort of flail. Charon shook the stick as if he were trying to shoo away a fly. The rods vanished and for a fraction of a second it seemed as though a long, crescent scythe blade had taken their place, but then the pole was just a pole. It was a little wider toward the top, but otherwise just a straight staff hewn of ordinary wood.