Moonwick - 1. Afterlife

Afterlife

“I don’t believe the afterlife is another symbol of death.” The deep voice was calming when placed with the music surrounding them, but the words and timbre were what brought a shiver to Michael Quinn as he listened to the stranger sitting beside him at the long, ebony bar. “It could very well mean a new beginning without any of the flaws the person experienced in their former life.”

Michael laughed and shook his head at the stranger’s odd conception. “Are you saying that ‘afterlife’ refers to reincarnation? If that were the case, wouldn’t our present life be reflected in what we come back as?”

He turned on the stool to face the man, and ignored the wobble in his stomach when he looked into those emerald eyes made almost black by the low lighting. “That could be why there are so many damn cockroaches and flies in the world, and why they are nearly impossible to get rid of, eh?”

The man was silent a few moments before smiling and raising his glass of wine in a mock toast to Michael. “I believe the afterlife does have its punishments, but that’s a refreshing outlook on the human purgatory.”

Human purgatory … Michael frowned slightly as he contemplated those words for several seconds before shaking his head and turning back to the bar. He motioned to the bartender near the end to refill his glass and rested his forearm on the shiny top of the bar to wait for the arrogant shit to extract himself from his group of friends at the far end, shaking his dirty blond hair out of his blue eyes and looking sideways at the stranger.

“Human purgatory would imply that people know they deserve to be punished for their deeds,” he said while leaning back on the stool to dig his money out to pay for the refill when the bartender started ambling his way. “Very few even realize that they are doing bad things, much less feel that they deserve to be punished for them.”

Before he could extract his wad of cash from his jeans, the stranger slid a five across to the barkeeper and motioned for Michael to put his money away. “It’s not about being punished,” he said with a chuckle as the glass of bourbon was refilled and the bartender moved away after giving them both a knowing smirk. “It’s about living the way you should have the first go around. A second chance, so to speak.”

“Afterlife denotes that death has occurred and the life itself is over.” Michael picked his glass up and tipped it toward the stranger in a gesture of thanks before taking a sip of the fiery liquid. “If it is meant to be a second chance, then why call it the afterlife? Why not just call it that, a second chance?”

Something sparked in the man’s eyes that made them glow in the flickering neon over the bar, and he tilted his head to the side thoughtfully while staring at Michael in that unsettling way, a faint smile spreading across his lips that brought on the wobble in the boy’s stomach once more. “You are a very insightful, young man, very insightful indeed.”

He drained the last of the blood red wine from his fluted glass and slid down from the stool, towering over Michael by quite a few inches in his seated position. “I would like to pursue this conversation more if you are willing, but right now I need to attend to something.”

Michael shrugged and rested his elbow on the bar, propping his cheek on his palm and staring up at the man. He could see interest beyond just stimulating conversation in the emerald eyes, but it didn’t put him off. He was actually attracted to this man in a primal way that he didn’t feel very often, if ever. “I’ll be here for a while so …”

He shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”

The man’s lips quirked up into an engaging smile before he dipped his dark head into a nod of acquiesce and turned away. “I will be back shortly to pick up where we left off then.”

Mysterious and attractive … wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to leave here with him. Michael watched the man moving away through the tables toward where the bathrooms were located, and he took in the dark colored pants and black dress shirt that encased the lean, muscled body, immediately pegging his unknown companion as a man of means and not some pseudo pretender who made his money in the drug game like so many others of Michael’s acquaintance.

The soothing trembles of a saxophone joined in with the tinkling waterfall of the piano, and together the sounds washed over Michael’s body like a cloaking blanket of tranquility now that he didn’t have the stimulating conversation to keep him from it. His fingers moved unconsciously on the edge of the bar along with those of the piano player, and transported him back to a time when he’d been the one touching the cool ivory instead of listening to it vicariously while sipping his usual glass of bourbon.

At seventeen, he wasn’t even supposed to be in the Jazz Shack since it was a bar and he was underage, but he’d cultivated a friendship with Gavin Miles, one of the men who owned the small tavern, and he’d been allowed to come and go as he pleased once his love of the outdated music inside the establishment had been realized and they had settled on an appropriate payment for the deference being given.

The Shack was the place to be for anybody who was into the retro hippie rhythm, beatnik poetry readings, and jazzy swing bands that had gone out with the onslaught of the flannel shirt brigade of grunge rock and the gold-plated beats of rappers. Michael loved all three former offerings and could barely tolerate the latter two when his friends rhapsodized over the latest band to come screaming across a stage.

He didn’t know why he felt so strongly pulled toward the past that way, but he figured it had something to do with his long gone father and the man’s influence on his early years. He couldn’t remember a time when jazz, blues, and the hippie movement weren’t in his life since it was a big part of who his father had been before the man had disappeared without a trace to some far away musical wonderland when his son had been barely five years old.

Mom should’ve known better than to marry a musician, Michael thought ruefully as he swirled the last of his bourbon in the glass before tossing it back and setting the empty on the bar with a thump that was barely audible over the music coming from the speakers. They have wanderlust and never stay in one place long enough to …

“Seneca once said that the day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity,” a deep voice said from beside him, the familiar emerald eyes of his companion shifting to the side to meet Michael’s blank stare and a smile quirking the corners of the man’s full lips upward. “Maybe the afterlife is a new beginning for those who need it.”

I didn’t see him come back … Michael released the breath he’d inhaled so sharply at the sound of the stranger’s voice and slipped down off his stool, grabbing the leather seat to steady himself when the bourbon made his head do a swooping loop-de-loop. He gave the man a drunken grin as his kidneys throbbed a warning and said, “Right now my kidneys need a new beginning. Be right back, buddy.”

Without waiting to see the stranger’s reaction to his proclamation, Michael pushed away from the stool and staggered his way through the tables toward the hallway where the bathrooms were located. The flashing lights coming from the stage disoriented him some, but he sailed onward and kept his eyes on the red-lit hallway across the room where he knew the relief he sought was within reach.

At least it’s Friday night. I can have all day to recover from the hangover before Sol will expect me back on my corner.The red glow that lit the small hallway disoriented him somewhat, but Michael ignored the strange sensation of being in Hell. He never had understood why Gavin and Tait had chosen to outfit the hallway and bathrooms with those ugly infrared lights since they looked tacky to him every time he had to come back here to the hallway, and the sight of his manhood being blood red gave him quite a start several times when he was drunk off his ass.

I wonder if that good-looking guy will still be there when I get back, Michael thought with a smirk as he reached the wooden door of the men’s room and reached out as if from miles away to push it inward. Maybe I’ll leave here with him and see what he has to …

His thoughts were cut off abruptly when hands grabbed him from behind, and he was dragged backward away from the men’s room door toward the side exit of the Shack. His heartbeat pounded in his ears and almost drowned out the voices coming from behind him as he was forced away from the bathrooms toward the end of the narrow corridor. What the …

“You’re sure he’s the right one, Kingston? We fuck this up and Zen will have our heads on a spike before dawn.”

Zen? Heads on a spike? What the hell is going on here? The smell of ripe garbage from a dumpster and something familiarly organic washed over Michael as he was shoved through the exit door into the narrow alley beyond. His head was spinning alarmingly when he was pushed against the wall of the old building and the door slammed shut with a bang that echoed throughout the narrow alley.

“What the hell is going on?” Michael pried his eyes open as wide as he could for the alcohol numbing his brain, and he stared at the shadowy figures in front of him. “Who are you?”

One of the figures shifted closer, the one holding his shoulders against the rough bricks of the building, and the light from over the exit door cast an orange glow over the hardened features and icy blue eyes of a man who looked to be in his early twenties. “Shut the fuck up, cattle.”

A low chuckle came from behind the man and another figure stepped forward, eyes as black as the darkness surrounding them boring into Michael from a pale face. “I’m quite sure he’s the right one, Malik. He fits the description Petra gave of the Redeemer, and he is present where we were told he would be.”

“Redeemer?” Michael fought the relaxing fog of alcohol and tried to focus his mind on what was being said, but the words really made no sense to him in any dialect he could put them into. “What the hell is that? I don’t even go to fucking church so why are you …”

His words ground to an abrupt halt when the orange light over the exit door gleamed off of metal and he realized that the guy holding him was brandishing a wicked looking knife that hadn’t been there before. The blade was rippled like a snake moving over the ground and the grip was all but hidden by the man’s hand except for the head of a wolf with two glittering red eyes.

He had been in many fights before, but never anything like this that left him so completely confused about what the hell he’d done wrong. “Oh shit …”

The words had barely left his lips than that sinful looking blade dipped down out of sight and was followed by a stinging pain in his left side, the increasing pressure taking his breath away and making him feel like his whole chest had just collapsed in on itself. The hands gripping his shoulder released and Michael slid down the wall, the rough bricks shoving his t-shirt upward and scraping over his back.

“Let’s get out of here. He’s fucking done for.”

Footsteps rang on the alley floor and Michael watched his two assailants leaving the scene of their crime through half closed lids. He could feel warm blood soaking his shirt and the waistband of his jeans, and his vision grew dimmer by the seconds as the sound of the steps faded along with his life. The names spoken before still echoed in his head despite his limited ability to think, but he couldn’t place any of them as being familiar. It was all a mystery to him.

A banging to his right penetrated the dark shroud now settling over him, but he couldn’t find the energy to turn his head and see where it had come from. Logic told him it was the side door to the Jazz Shack and he wondered vaguely who would be coming out here to this filthy alley for a rendezvous. Shadowy figures moved closer to stand over him and Michael struggled to suck in another breath while the numbing cold crept further up from his ankles toward his knees.

“He’s dying, Loren,” a low voice stated over the sound of Michael’s labored breathing. “You better do something before the point of no return is reached.”

“I can’t do that, Dagan.” The answering voice brought Michael out of his haze a little when he realized it was the man he’d been talking to inside the bar. “What if he turns out like Brett did? I can’t be responsible for unleashing another such as him on this world.”

“And what if he doesn’t? Can you live with your decision if he is the one meant to stay?”

Michael shivered as the cold crept further up past his knees toward his thighs, and he wished the two would just move on and let him go in peace. Having them standing there discussing him like he was some kind of cat that had been run over and left to die in the gutter was both irritating and unsettling considering his position.

“I can live with it if he is a stayer, but if he’s a …”

“There is no sure way of knowing how he will turn,” the low voice interrupted in an almost regretful tone. “Just do it, Loren, and deal with the consequences later. I would myself if I didn’t already have a protégé to bring up.”

Michael thought about protesting their objective conversation, but before he could get his numb lips to form the words, a hazy figure knelt down on his right side. “Relax, my child,” the stranger’s soothing voice said close to his ear, the warm breath washing over his chilled skin. “This is just the beginning that we talked about inside.”

Child? I’m seventeen … I am far from being anybody’s child, Michael thought as a hand brushed his hair away from his neck and tilted his head further to the far side. A stinging pain broke through the fog briefly, but faded in the wake of a tranquil sensation of floating that made him smile. He didn’t know what was going on and he didn’t really care now that the feeling of impending doom was lifted from his mind.

This is it … the afterlife … will it be cockroach or fly for me?