But then something emerges. A black shape, a reaper’s cloak without the reaper in it. It rushes toward her. She sees shiny eyes, like nickels catching light, hears the sound of blades scraping together–

In the derby, when you’re a blocker, you have to keep your center of gravity low so you don’t fall – and that gives you speed, too.

Skelly shrinks herself small, hunkering low as she blasts forward.

The reaper’s cloak flutters over her head.

Then through the archway.

Where the stone is no longer smooth.

The wheel hits rough-hewn stone. Clips on a crag. Skate-nose caught.

Chapter 21

21

I have a dead man to lead the way. The undead of Daisypusher know this place better than most, almost like it’s intuition, or second nature – a nature born as they die. It suggests again to me that while the Underworld is a physical place, it resonates with the energies of death, creating a profound sympathetic bond between what we experience in our afterlife and the corporeal channels of this realm. Regardless, my guide is a dead man who has chosen the post-life name of Cerberus, not because he has three heads but rather, ironically, because he was killed by three dogs while trying to protect his daughter from their attack. She was mauled, sadly – lost fingers, needed some reconstruction of her jaw. But she lives while he dies. That is his mission, he said: to help after death to pay for the surgeries she yet needs and to make her life better even as his own is forfeit. We should all be so lucky to have so strong a mission in life or beyond it.

– from the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below

He knows they see him. Mookie stands at the door. Knows now that there’s a camera pointed at him. This is it. This is his last moment to do differently. He tells himself, I could turn and run. Fuck the Organization. Fuck Werth. Hell with my daughter. She’s done me wrong too many times now, and I don’t owe her anything but the sight of my turned back.

But that’s not Mookie. What would he do on his own? Die on the vine like the last grape hanging, that’s what. His is a life defined by others. Whether it’s helping them, hurting them, or just plain doing what he’s told. He’s not the man running the machine. He’s just a rubber belt fed through hungry gears.

Before he does anything, he takes out his tin of Blue, presses a pad of cakey peacock powder between his fingers, and massages it into his temples. The horse-kick hits. A few chills after. Then it’s all melted butter and smooth jazz.

He opens the door and goes inside.