Somebody should have warned me that saving the world from unspeakable horrors is like being a teacher — lots of job satisfaction, but the money’s crap.
“Thirty-three Gilman Street,” he told the driver, an ex-hippie on the edge of retirement age, shoulder-length gray hair draggling out from under his Kangol hat and several silver rings on the fingers holding the wheel. “It’s off Jones.”
“You got it.” The driver pulled back into traffic, wipers squeaking as city lights smeared and dribbled across the glass beside Nightingale’s head. “Helluva night,” he said. “I know we need the rain and everything, but…shit, man.”
Nathan Nightingale had spent so much of the past week in a small, overheated and nearly airless room that he would have happily run through this downpour naked, but he only nodded and said, “Yeah. Helluva night.”
“Gonna be a lot more before it’s over, too. That’s what they said. The storm door’s open.” The driver turned down the music a notch. “Kind of a weird expression, huh? Makes it sound like they’re…” he lifted his fingers in twitching monster-movie talons, “ coming to get us. Whooo! I mean, it’s just clouds, right? It’s nature.”
“This? Yeah, it’s just nature,” agreed Nightingale, his thoughts already drawn back to that small room, those clear, calm, terrifying eyes. “But sometimes even nature can be unnatural.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess so. Good one.” But it was clear by his tone that the driver feared he’d missed the point.
“That’s it — the tall house there.”
The driver peered out the window. “Whoa, that’s a spooky one, man. You sure you gonna be okay, man? This is kind of a tough neighborhood…”
“I’ll be fine, thanks,” said Nightingale. “I’ve been here before — it was kind of my second home.”
“If you say so.” The driver called just before Nightingale slammed the door, “Hey, remember about that storm door. Better get an umbrella!”
Nightingale raised his hand as the man drove off. An umbrella. He almost smiled, but the wet night was getting to him. If only all problems were that easy to solve.
As he pressed the button beside the mailbox lightning blazed overhead, making it seem as though one had caused the other. A moment later the thunder crashed down, so near that he did not hear the sound of the door being buzzed open but felt the handle vibrating under his hand.
The light was out in the first floor stairwell, and no lights were on at all on the second floor, what Uncle Edward called “the showroom”, although no one ever saw it but a few old, trusted collector friends. Enough of the streetlight’s glow leaked in that Nightingale could see the strange silhouettes of some of the old man’s prize possessions, fetish dolls and funerary votives and terra cotta tomb statuettes, a vast audience of silent, wide-eyed shapes watching Nightingale climb the stairs. It was an excellent collection, but what made it truly astounding were the stories behind the pieces, most of them dark, many of them horrifying. In fact, it had been his godfather’s arcane tales and bizarre trophies that had first lured Nightingale onto his odd career path: at an age when most boys wanted to be football players or firemen, young Nate had decided he wanted to hunt ghosts and fight demons. Later, when others were celebrating their first college beer-busts, Nightingale had already attended strange ceremonies on high English moors and deep in Thai jungles and Louisiana bayous. He had heard languages never shaped for the use of human tongues, had seen men die for no reason, and others live when they should have been dead. But through the years, when the unnatural things he saw and felt and learned overwhelmed him, he always came back here for his godfather’s advice and support. This was one of those times. In fact, this was probably the worst time he could remember.
Strangely, the third floor of the house was dark, too.
“Edward? Uncle Edward? It’s me, Nathan. Are you here?” Had the old man forgotten he was coming and gone out with his caretaker Jenkins somewhere? God forbid, a medical emergency… Nightingale stopped to listen. Was that the quiet murmuring of the old man’s breathing machine?
Something stirred on the far side of the room and his hackles rose; his hand strayed to his inside coat pocket. A moment later the desk lamp clicked on, revealing the thin, lined face of his godfather squinting against the sudden light. “Oh,” Edward said, taking a moment to find the air to speak. “Guh-goodness! Nate, is that you? I must have dozed off. When did it get so dark?”
Relieved, Nightingale went to the old man and gave him a quick hug, being careful not to disturb the tracheotomy cannula or the ventilator tubes. As always, Edward Arvedson felt like little more than a suit full of bones, but somehow he had survived in this failing condition for almost a decade. “Where’s Jenkins?” Nightingale asked. “It gave me a start when I came up and the whole house was dark.”
“Oh, I had him the night off, poor fellow. Working himself to death. Pour me a small sherry, will you, there’s a good man, and sit down and tell me what you’ve learned. There should be a bottle of Manzanilla already open. No, don’t turn all those other lights on. I find I’m very sensitive at the moment. This is enough light for you to find your way to the wet bar, isn’t it?”
Nightingale smiled. “I could find it without any light at all, Uncle Edward.”
When he’d poured a half glass of for the old man and a little for himself as well, Nightingale settled into the chair facing the desk and looked his mentor up and down. “How are you feeling?”
Arvedson waved a dismissive hand. “Fine, fine. Never felt better. And now that we’re done with that nonsense, tell me your news, Nate. What happened? I’ve been worrying ever since you told me what you thought was happening.”
“Well, it took me a while to find a volunteer. Mostly because I was trying to avoid publicity — you know, all that ‘Nightingale — Exorcist to the Stars’ nonsense.”
“You shouldn’t have changed your name — it sounds like a Hollywood actor now. Your parents wouldn’t have approved, anyway. What was wrong with Natan Naktergal? It was good enough for your father.”
He smiled. “Too old country, Uncle Edward. Remember, being well-known gets me into a lot of places. It also leads people to misjudge me.”
Arvedson made a face. He still hadn’t touched his sherry. “Fine. I’m also old country, I suppose. I should be grateful you even visit. Tell me what happened.”
“I’m trying to. As I said, it wouldn’t do to recruit just anyone. Ideally, I needed someone with special training…but who gets trained for something like this? I figured that my best bet was through my Tibetan contacts. Tibetan Buddhists spend years studying the Bardo Thodol, preparing to take the journey of dying, which gave me a much larger group to choose from. I finally settled on a man in Seattle named Geshe, who had pancreatic cancer. He’d refused pain relief and the doctors felt certain he only had a few days left when I met him, but he was remarkably calm and thoughtful. I told him what I wanted, and why, and he said yes.”
“So you had found your…what was your word? Your ‘necronaut’.”
Nightingale nodded. “That’s what I called it before I met Geshe — it sounded better than ‘mineshaft canary’. But after I got to know him it…it seemed a little glib. But he was precisely the sort of person I was looking for — a man trained almost since childhood to die with his eyes and mind open.”
Lightning flashed and a peal of thunder shivered the windows. In the wake, another wash of rain splattered against the glass. “Filthy weather,” said Davidson. “Do you want another drink before you start? You’ll have to get it yourself, of course, since we don’t have Jenkins.”
“No, I’m fine.” Nightingale stared at his glass. “I’m just thinking.” Lightning flashed again and so he waited for the thunder before continuing. “You remember how this started, of course. Those earliest reports of spontaneous recovery by dying patients…well, it didn’t seem like anything I needed to pay attention to. But then that one family whose daughter went into sudden remission from leukemia after the last rites had already been said…”