Morpheus Road 03 - The Blood (6 page)

It took Ennis several seconds to gather his wits and pull himself out of the tub. There was so much water spewing into the room from so many sources that the small bathroom began to fill up. In seconds the water level had reached his ankles. Ennis splashed for the door and grabbed the handle
but it wouldn't turn. He was locked inside. He yanked des
perately on the knob but the door wouldn't budge. There was one large window in the bathroom. Ennis went for it and struggled to lift it but the window would not open.

The water had reached his knees and was rising fast. A strange calm came over Ennis. He had made a decision. A tough decision, but in that insane moment of impossibility he finally felt clarity. It was a good feeling. The children were right. Hiding wasn't an option. The fear wouldn't go away. Action had to be taken or they'd be lost.

He didn't panic. It was as if he understood that what was happening was impossible, but he didn't care. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath to keep his heart from racing, and moved deliberately to the sink. Looking into the mirror, he saw that the spirit was gone, though he knew Damon was still there. Somewhere. As water poured down over him, he pulled open the mirror that covered the medicine cabinet. Inside was a black Sharpie pen. He grabbed it, then glanced down to see that the water had reached his waist. Float
ing on the surface were several empty potato chip bags. He grabbed one and tore it apart until he had a rough piece of white plastic the size of a playing card. The vanity was already underwater so Ennis had to put the paper against the tiled wall in order to write on it. It took only a few seconds to scribble the message with the black marker. Sat
isfied that his words were legible, he tossed the pen and squeezed the paper into his hand.

Above the sound of roaring water, Ennis heard another sound that was even more incongruous. It was the sweet sound of steel drum music. Being Jamaican, he was as famil
iar with the sound as he was with any other instrument. Rather than question why he was hearing it, he let the music calm him. The song reminded him of when he was a boy. Of soft white sand and warm tropical water. He turned
to look out the window, but rather than seeing a view of New York, Ennis saw the shore of his home. A bright blue fishing boat sat beneath a small grove of palm trees on a white-sand beach under a warm Jamaican sun.

The water had reached Ennis's chest. It wouldn't be long before it filled the room. He briefly wondered if it was pos
sible to drown in an illusion. He focused on the window. On home. Ennis
wanted to be there. He knew in his heart that he could make it. He also knew that he would first have to make another stop. It was a stop he was prepared to make. That he
wanted
to make.

He was tired of being a victim.

Marsh and Sydney hurried away from Ennis's building, headed back toward McSorley's to grab a cab to Grand Central.

"This is wrong," Sydney declared angrily. "How can you just walk away and leave him unprotected like that?"

"It's what he wanted."

"He's out of his mind! Nobody can make rational choices when they're in such bad shape. This was a totally wasted—"

She was cut off by the sound of smashing glass that was quickly followed by a terrified scream.

Marsh stopped short. "Oh my god," he muttered to himself.

He didn't have to look to know what was happening. Sydney did. She spun back toward Ennis's building in
time to see a dark figure plummeting from the tenth floor. "No!" she screamed, and took off running back to the
building.

Marsh steeled himself and followed.

Mercifully, neither saw the impact. The woman on the street who had screamed wasn't as lucky. She was coming out of a bodega and saw the whole thing . . . from the first
sight of a man diving headfirst through the shattered glass ten stories above, to the horrifying plummet, and finally to the sickening crash as he landed in a narrow patch of grass, barely missing a spiked fence.

Sydney ran up to the woman, who stared straight ahead in shock, pointing to the building. Sydney ran across the street, barely aware of the traffic that was screeching to a stop all around her. She only slowed when she saw the crumpled mass that was once a human being. She stopped several feet away, not able to bring herself to go any closer.

"Ennis?" she called out.

There was no response.

Marsh ran past her and went right to his friend. Look
ing down, he tried to convince himself that Ennis was simply unconscious. But his spine was twisted into an impossible angle that said otherwise. Marsh knelt down and forced him
self to look at Ennis's face. He expected to see an expression frozen with fear but instead saw a man at peace.

"You knew," Sydney said as she tentatively approached Marsh from behind. "You knew he was going to do this."

"I didn't," Marsh countered.

"Yes, you did," Sydney insisted, holding back tears.

A far-off siren sounded. The authorities were on their way.

"This was inevitable," Marsh said. "From the moment Ennis and my mom cracked the seal on that tomb. One way or another, Ennis was doomed."

"And we did nothing to help him," Sydney said with disgust.

The siren grew louder. Soon the police would come and take Ennis away. There would be questions. Marsh's dad would have to come. Marsh didn't care. His only concern was that the mechanics of putting Ennis to rest would take them away from their mission.

From Ennis's mission.

Marsh saw that Ennis had something clutched in his hand. A white piece of paper. Was it a suicide note? It had to have significance. Why else would he be holding it while jumping out of a window to his death? Marsh reached for it and gently removed it from Ennis's still-warm grasp.

"Don't touch that," Sydney commanded.

Marsh ignored her. Ennis's fingers gave up the paper easily. It looked to have been torn from a bag of chips. On one side was the colorful print from the product. Marsh flipped it to see that there was writing on the other side. Two simple words.

Marsh read them and frowned. The words were familiar but he didn't know why. He looked down at Ennis, relieved that the man's eyes were closed.

"Ennis," Marsh whispered. "Find Mom for me."

He stood up and handed the torn paper to Sydney. "What's this?" she asked.

"Ennis's last words."

Sydney looked at the torn paper to see the two curious words.

Lignum vitae.

Cooper was torn between the thrill of seeing the ancient wonder of the Colosseum in its original glory and figuring out a plan to find Damon.

Whoever's vision he had found himself in, it was on a day when the Colosseum was rocking. Coop could hear the roar of what seemed like multiple thousands of spectators, who were inside cheering whatever mayhem was on display. The area around the stadium was also busy with hundreds of people milling about and chatting. It was like a game day tailgate scene . . . gladiator style.

This vision was by far the most populated that Cooper had been to. Seeing the eclectic mix of spirits from so many eras made him realize that the Colosseum was just as big a tourist attraction in the Black as it was in the Light. He won
dered if that applied to other interesting spots too. Could
one spend their time in the Black bouncing from the Grand Canyon to the Great Wall of China and then make a quick side trip to Niagara Falls before hitting Disneyland? It made Coop think that he could be having a lot more fun in the Black than he had been.

He stuck Damon's glove into the back pocket of his jeans and wandered toward the Colosseum, gazing up at the struc
ture that was both familiar and alien. Though he had seen many pictures of the ruined structure, it took some imagina
tion to recognize the iconic, crumbling image as it existed in modern day through the complete, pristine facade he now faced. It was four stories high with a ring of tall arches on the first three, many of which held large marble statues. The circular building was intact, unlike the contemporary ruins, where one whole side had collapsed. The exterior was light brown limestone that was constructed with such care to detail that it made Cooper lament the fact that the actual structure in the Light had crumbled into such disrepair.

"It was called the
Flavian
Amphitheater," a man announced.

A skinny guy wearing shorts, black knee socks, and sandals approached Coop holding a travel guide. The guy had on a loud aloha shirt and a New York Mets cap . . . not exactly a classic Roman look. It was more of a classic
geek
tourist
look.

He continued, "Opened in 80 AD. They started calling it the Colosseum after that guy." He jerked his thumb toward the giant bronze statue that stood a few yards away. "The Emperor Nero. That statue is called the Colossus of Nero. Hence, the Colosseum."

He looked up from his guide book to Coop, squinting against the bright sun. "Isn't that fascinating?"

"No," Coop said flatly.

The man shrugged and went back to his reading.

"Does that book tell you whose vision this is?" Coop asked.

"No. But it does say that the structure could hold up to fifty-five thousand spectators, which is roughly the capac
ity of Shea Stadium."

"Or
Citi
Field," Coop said.

The man gave Coop a curious look. "What's
Citi
Field?"

"The new Shea."

The man looked stunned. "No! Shea is gone?"

"Hold on to your socks—so is the old Yankee Stadium." The guy's jaw dropped.

"But I've only been dead a couple of years!"

"Yeah, well, life goes on. What year is this?"

The man scanned the surroundings. "My guess is it's pretty close to when they first opened for business. Did you know that to celebrate its opening they slaughtered over five thousand animals?"

"No," Coop said coldly.
"
And I don't think that's fasci
nating either."

"
And they held a hundred straight days of competition. Right now they've got gladiators going at it inside. I took a peek but it's a tad barbaric for my taste. They outlawed gladiator battles in 438, so this vision is somewhere between 80 and 438. AD."

"That's, like, a 350-year window," Coop said. "What kind of tour guide are you?"

The guy straightened up, offended. "Just trying to help."

He turned with a huff and hurried off in search of some other vision-hopping spirit to impress with his wealth of Roman trivia. Coop figured that if Damon had come to this vision, his reasons must have something to do with the action inside the Colosseum, so that's where he had to go.

Entering the ancient stadium was simple. No ticket was required. He wandered through a tall archway into the cool of the shade beneath the seats and made his way toward the arena.

"Man," he marveled aloud. "It's just like a stadium back at home."

The general design concept was the same, but rather than steel and cement the Colosseum was constructed with
wood, marble, and limestone. Coop pushed past bystanders
to make his way through a long tunnel until he re-emerged into the hot sun . . . and was instantly dazzled by the spec
tacle of the arena. The mix of the familiar and the bizarre
was overwhelming. He was on the lowest level, the same level as the competition. He looked up and around at the
imposing structure to see that it was packed with cheering
fans, and not all of them were citizens of ancient Rome. The raucous crowd had come from every other vision and age
imaginable. There were soldiers from many different eras
and countries, who sat in small groups, possibly having died together. The majority of the spectators were men, but there
was also a peppering of women. Ladies with parasols sat
next to primitive tribesmen in colorful wraps. They wore every kind of headgear imaginable, from turbans to feath
ered crowns, baseball caps to helmets, burkas to sun visors.

"Peanuts!" Coop shouted, though he didn't expect to have a vendor toss him a bag. That was one of the few obvi
ous differences between an event in ancient Rome and a baseball game at home. No vending.

Though the spectators were as varied as could be, they all seemed to have one thing in common: They were all
caught up in the excitement of the contest that was playing out on the floor of the arena. Coop walked down to the brick wall that surrounded the competition area and peered over the top to see that a fight was under way.

Man, right out of the movies,
he thought.

Two gladiators in full armor were hammering away at each other with oversize swords. There wasn't much ele
gance to the fight. It was a brutal battle of strength and
stamina. Whoever ran out of gas first would lose. If it had been an actual battle in ancient Rome, a loss would have meant death. In the Black the worst that would happen is
that the loser would experience the pain of being skewered and then have to endure the shame of defeat. Knowing that neither of the contenders was actually in danger of dying took some of the thrill of the fight away for Cooper.

But not for the other spectators, who were leaning over from every level as if trying to get closer to the fight, while screaming commands and encouragement.

No wonder they're all still stuck in the Black,
Coop thought.
They're vicious.

Above him, on the second level, Cooper saw what looked to be an open-air royal luxury box with several men and
women sitting in elaborate carved chairs. Unlike the rest of the stadium, which was in a fever pitch, these people looked totally bored, as if the sight of two huge men beating each other's brains out was an everyday occurrence . . . which it probably was.

In the center of the box, seated in an elaborate golden throne, was a rotund man in a toga who casually ate from a tray of fruit.

Coop grabbed a U.S. sailor who was walking by and asked, "Who's that guy?"

The sailor looked up and said, "Emperor Titus. This is his show."

"It's his vision?" Coop asked.

"Yeah. He's been putting on these battles forever."

Coop said, "Staging battles to the death isn't exactly a smart way to get out of the Black."

The sailor shrugged. "Like I should care about him? Gotta go, pal. I got money riding on this fight."

The sailor kept walking. Cooper thought the guy wouldn't be getting out of the Black anytime soon either.

It wasn't that Coop felt as though everybody should be running around the Black picking flowers and spread
ing sunshine, but the people in that stadium were out for blood . . . not exactly proof that they were working hard toward becoming evolved spirits.

Coop looked up to the emperor's box to see Titus watch
ing the fight with a satisfied smile. Was this the guy Damon came here for? It seemed as though he enjoyed human suf
fering as much as Damon, which meant the two would have a lot in common. Coop decided that he would have to speak with Emperor Titus.

A cheer erupted from half of the crowd. The other half groaned with disappointment. Cooper glanced into the arena to see that one of the gladiators was on his back with a sword sticking out of his chest. The victorious gladiator stood over his fallen victim, raising his fists in celebration. The people in the stadium were out of control, either cheer
ing or booing.

The winning gladiator grabbed the handle of his sword and yanked it out of his victim. There was no blood. Spirits didn't bleed. The losing gladiator sat up and struggled to his feet while clutching his wound. As soon as he stood, the entire crowd jeered. Losers got no respect.

It was an ugly glimpse into the darker side of the human psyche. Coop couldn't imagine being there in the days when blood was actually spilled.

A trumpet fanfare blasted through the stadium. It was the call for the next battle. Coop took it as his chance. While people milled about, stretching their legs between bouts, he made his way back through the tunnel and found a set of stairs leading up to the next level and the emperor's box. His plan was to try and get to the emperor during the next battle while all eyes were focused on the gladiators. He sprinted up the narrow stairway and came out onto a wide
walkway that circled the Colosseum, just like in a modern stadium. The only thing missing was the hot dog conces
sions. He ran until he came upon a tunnel that would bring him close to the emperor's box and was happy to see that there were no guards stationed at the mouth. He ducked into the narrow tunnel and sprinted until he reached the far end. Peeking out, he saw that he was only a few aisles away from the emperor's box. Perfect. He stayed in the shadow of the tunnel, waiting for his chance.

The trumpets sounded again and two gladiators entered the arena from opposite ends. He couldn't have cared less who they were. If they wanted to fight it out in the afterlife, that was their choice. It was probably how they lived and died in the Light anyway.

The crowd let out a cheer. The previous fight had been forgotten and they were getting themselves fired up for a little more old-fashioned gladiator thumping. The two com
batants walked slowly to the center of the sand-covered arena. One guy was big, with full armor and a shaved head. The other gladiator was a foot shorter with long curly black hair. He wasn't a close match to the other guy, either in height or weight. It was obvious which fighter had the advantage. Coop hoped the fight would last long enough so that he could get a few words in with the emperor. He stepped out from the cool shadow of the tunnel into the burning hot sun, headed for the emperor's box. No guards were there, either. There was no need to protect the emperor, seeing as he was already dead. Along with everybody else. Coop was a few steps away from the box when he glanced down to the arena to try and judge when the fight might begin.

The two gladiators stood face-to-face in the center of the ring.

Coop got a better look at them both—and froze. He stared at the two combatants, hoping he was wrong about
what he was seeing. As with the previous fight, the gladi
ators were armed with swords and shields. But unlike in the previous battle, the swords looked different. They were smaller. They didn't catch the light of the sun.

They were black.

"Oh man," Coop gasped. Instead of continuing on to the
emperor's box, Coop ran down the steep steps past rows of benches packed with eager spectators and right up to the
edge of the second level. He wanted
to get a better look at the gladiators and their swords in the hope that he was wrong.

He wasn't. The weapons they carried were not made from ordinary metal. They were black spirit-killing swords that
had come through the Rift from the Light into the Black. The
barbaric spectacle had suddenly taken on a more ominous tone. The loser of this battle wouldn't be able to pull the
sword from their gut, shrug, and live to fight another day. The spirit who got pierced by one of those swords would be destroyed. For good.

Did those gladiators know the power of the weapons they held? Did the spectators know that this time they actu
ally were going to witness a battle to the death? Was this why Damon had come to this vision, to bring his lust for destruction to yet another vision?

The gladiators circled each other. Until that moment the back of the gladiator with the long hair was to Cooper. As they moved, they exchanged places and Cooper caught a glimpse of the face of the smaller combatant.