Page 16 (1/2)

BY TAD WILLIAMS

Nightingale did not take the first cab he sahen he stepped out into the rainy San Francisco streets He never did Soht call it superstition, but in his profession the line between superstitions and rules of survival was rather slender He stepped back onto the curb to avoid the spray of water as the second cab pulled up in response to his wave Paranorh ood shoes for no reason

So the world fro a teacher - lots of job satisfaction, but the money&039;s crap

&039;Thirty-three Gile of retire out froers holding the wheel &039;It&039;s off Jones&039;

&039;You got it&039; The driver pulled back into traffic, wipers squeaking as city lights sale&039;s head &039;Helluva night,&039; he said &039;I knoe need the rain and everything, butshit, ale had spent so much of the past week in a small overheated and nearly airless rooh this downpour naked, but he only nodded and said, &039;Yeah Helluva night&039;

&039;Gonna be a lot more before it&039;s over, too That&039;s what they said The storm door&039;s open&039; The driver turned down the music a notch &039;Kind of a weird expression, huh? Makes it sound like they&039;re&039; - he lifted his fingers in twitching et us Whooo! I ht? It&039;s nature&039;

&039;This? Yeah, it&039;s just nature,&039; agreed Nightingale, his thoughts already drawn back to that s eyes &039;But sometimes even nature can be unnatural&039;

&039;Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess so Good one&039; But it was clear by his tone that the driver feared he&039;d missed the point

&039;That&039;s it - the tall house there&039;

The driver peered out the&039;Whoa, that&039;s a spooky one, hborhood&039;

&039;I&039;ll be fine, thanks,&039; said Nightingale &039;I&039;ve been here before; it was kind of my second home&039;

&039;If you say so&039; The driver called just before Nightingale slammed the door, &039;Hey, reet an uale raised his hand as the ht was getting to him If only all problems were that easy to solve

As he pressed the button beside the h 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 &039;the showrooh no one ever saw it but a few old, trusted collector friends Enough of the streetlight&039;s glow leaked in that Nightingale could see the strange silhouettes of some of the old man&039;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 whatwere the stories behind the pieces,In fact, it had been his godfather&039;s arcane tales and bizarre trophies that had first lured Nightingale onto his odd career path: at an age whenNate had decided he wanted to hunt ghosts and fight dee beer-busts, Nightingale had already attended strange cereles and Louisiana bayous He had heard languages never shaped for the use of huues, 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 overwhelodfather&039;s advice and support This was one of those times In fact, this was probably the worst tiely, the third floor of the house was dark, too

&039;Edward? Uncle Edward? It&039;s otten he was coone out with his caretaker Jenkins soale stopped to listen Was that the quietstirred on the far side of the room, and his hackles rose; his hand strayed to his inside coat pocket Athe thin, lined face of his godfather squinting against the sudden light &039;Oh,&039; Edward said, taking a oodness! Nate, is that you? I et so dark?&039;

Relieved, Nightingale went to the oldcareful 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 so condition for alale asked &039;It gave me a start when I came up and the whole house was dark&039;

&039;Oh, I had hi himself to death Pour ood man - and sit down and tell me what you&039;ve learned There should be a bottle of Manzanilla already open No, don&039;t turn all those other lights on I find I&039;ht for you to find your way to the wet bar, isn&039;t it?&039;

Nightingale sht at all, Uncle Edward&039;

When he&039;d poured a half glass for the old ale settled into the chair facing the desk and looked his ?&039;

Arvedson waved a dismissive hand &039;Fine, fine Never felt better And now that we&039;re done with that nonsense, tellever since you toldon&039;

&039;Well, it tookto avoid publicity, you know, all that "Nightingale, Exorcist to the Stars" nonsense&039;

&039;You shouldn&039;t have changed your name: it sounds like a Hollywood actor now Your parents wouldn&039;t have approved, anyway What rong with Natan Naktergal? It was good enough for your father&039;

He s well- known gets e me&039;

Arvedson made a face He still hadn&039;t touched his sherry &039;Fine I&039;rateful you even visit Tellto As I said, it wouldn&039;t have done to recruit just anyone Ideally, I needed soets trained for sohthe Bardo Thodol, preparing to take the journey of dying, which gave roup to choose from I finally settled on a man in Seattle named Geshe, who had pancreatic cancer He&039;d refused pain relief, and the doctors felt certain he only had a few days left when I htful I told him what I wanted and why, and he said yes&039;

&039;So you had found youras your word? Your "necronaut"&039;

Nightingale nodded &039;That&039;s what I called it before I met Geshe - it sounded better than "ot to know hilib But he was precisely the sort of person I was looking for - a man trained almost since childhood to die with his eyes andflashed and a peal of thunder shivered the s In the wake, another wash of rain splattered against the glass &039;Filthy weather,&039; said Arvedson &039;Do you want another drink before you start? You&039;ll have to get it yourself, of course, since we don&039;t have Jenkins&039;

&039;No, I&039;lass &039;I&039;ain, and so he waited for the thunder before continuing &039;You remember how this started, of course Those earliest reports of spontaneous recovery by dying patients Well, it didn&039;t see I needed to pay attention to But then that one fahter went into sudden remission from leukemia after the last rites had already been said-&039;

&039;I re, wasn&039;t she? Nine?&039;

&039;Yes, a feeeks before her tenth birthday But of course what caughtit wasn&039;t their daughter at all, that she&039;d changed in ways that no illness could explain But when I got in to see the child, she was asleep, and although she looked surprisingly healthy coeneral experience with possession cases, I couldn&039;t get any kind of feeling from her one way or another When I tried to contact the family a few days later, they&039;d moved and no one could find them

&039;There were others too, too eneral public The greatest hindrance in these situations is the gutter press, of course: Any real study, let alone any chance to help the victims and their families, is destroyed by the sort of circus they create These days, with television and the Internet, it&039;s even worse If I don&039;t strenuously keep s a secret, I wind up with ca over my shoulder&039;

&039;They are ver

&039;In any case, when I talked to you, I had just learned of an accident victiirl in Southern California, seeone a complete personality shift He had been a oer, but noas a violent, alcoholic bully His wife of twenty-four years had divorced hier saw hiton was a wreck, and when he opened the door, the stink of rot and filth just rolled out I only saw hih the chain on his front door, but what I witnessed was definitely madness, a sort ofemotionless focus that I&039;ve only seen in the cri, of course Brain dae can do that, and he&039;d certainly been badly injured But he recognized me&039;

&039;You told me when you called,&039; said Arvedson &039;I could tell it upset you&039;

&039;Because it wasn&039;t like he&039;d seen my picture in the Enquirer, but like he knew , but it wasn&039;t just seeing the Minnesota victi at this rate, or to people so close to death It didn&039;t make sense!&039;

&039;It has my attention, too,&039; Edward said &039;But what I want to hear nohat happened with your Buddhist gentleale let out a breath He sed the last of his sherry &039;Right Well, Geshe was a very interesting man, an artist and a teacher I wish I could have met him at a different time, but even in our short acquaintance he impressed me and I liked hi

&039;He had checked out of the hospital to die at home He&039;d lost his wife a few years earlier and they&039;d had no children, so although soues came by to sit with him from time to time, at the end there was only his friend Joseph, an American Buddhist, and the hospice nurse who checked in on him once a day And me, of course Geshe and I didn&039;t speak e the pain - but as I said, he i days in his apart at his books and other possessions, which is as good a way to get to know so with them Also, I saw many of his oorks of art, whichHe s

&039;As Geshe began to slip away, Joseph read the Bardo Thodol to hi it, myself I think that hippie- ish Tibetan Book of the Dead reputation put er, and these days I don&039;t really need to know the nuts and bolts of any particular religious dogma to ith the universal truths behind the with it, even as Geshe was dying with it, opened reat truth at the heart of all the great faiths,&039; Arvedson said solemnly

&039;Yes, but what I truly came to admire was the calmness of the people rote the bardos - the practicality, I suppose, is the best word It&039;s a very practical book, the Bardo Thodol A roadto happen now that you&039;re dead Do this Don&039;t do that Everything will be okay" Except that this tipa Rinpoche said the best thing we can do for the dying and the newly dead is maintain an atmosphere of calmness, and that&039;s certainly what Geshe see outside most of that week, but quietly Joseph read the bardos over and over while he and I took turns holding Geshe&039;s hand Withof what he was sensing - the approach of the Great Mystery, the crossing, whatever you want to call it - and of course it troubled htened in the least All those years of training andto see how the dying soul colors the experience, Uncle Edward As I said, I have never delved too deeply into Tibetan Buddhish Geshe was shaped so strongly by that tradition that I could not feel it any other way It was as real as you and I sitting here in the dark, listening to the wind and the rain&039; Nightingale paused for a moment while the storm rattled the s of the old house &039;The thousands of gods, which are one god, which is the light of the universeI can&039;t explain But touching Geshe&039;s thoughts as he began his journey - although I felt only the barest hint of what he felt - was like riding a roller coaster through a kaleidoscope, but sih an endless, dark, silent void&039;

&039; "When your body and mind separate, the dharmata will appear, pure and clear yet hard to discern, lu like a e on a plain,"&039; Arvedson quoted &039;At least, that&039;s what the bardo says&039; &039;Yes&039; Nightingale nodded &039;I re it clearly, even though the words I heard were Tibetan Joseph had begun the Chikkhai bardo, you see - the bardo of dying In the real world, as we sometimes think of it, Geshe had sunk so far into hi But I was not really beside hih I could still hear Joseph&039;s voice Most of me was inside - deep in the experience of death with Geshe

&039;I could feel him, Uncle Edward, and in a way I could see what he saw, hear what he heard, although those aren&039;t quite the right words As the voices of people I did not know echoed around us - mostly Geshe&039;s friends and relations and loved ones, I suspect, for I do not think he had h a misty forest It seemed to me a bit like some of the wild lands of the Pacific Northwest, but e was seeping through as well&039;

&039;Cli,&039; said Edward Arvedson quietly

&039;Yes, the part of the afterlife journey the Egyptians called "the Ladder" and the Aztecs thought of as the beginning of the soul&039;s four-year journey to Mictlan I&039;ve never dared hold a connection with a dying soul as long as I did with Geshe, and going so deep frightened th made it possible We did not speak, of course - his journey, his encounters, were his alone, as each of ours will be someday - but I felt him there beside me as the dark drew in

&039;I won&039;t tell you everything I experienced now, but I will tell you someday soon, because it was a researcher&039;s dream come true - the death experience alh the first darkness and saw the first light, which the bardos call the soft light of the gods and which they counsel the dead soul to avoid It was very attractive, like a war very cold, very far fros - and reine what it seemed like to Geshe, as on a one-way journey, but he resisted it The sas" I could feel hi, alluring In the oldest Tibetan tradition, the hot hells are full of terrors - forests of razor-leaved trees, swa corpses - but these aspects are never seen until it&039;s too late, until the attractions of one&039;s own greed and anger have pulled the dying soul off the path

&039;But Geshe overcaht of truth He was brave, Edward, so brave! But then we reached the sht, the realhosts&039;