The Grey Tier (28 page)

Chapter Forty

AS IT TURNED OUT, I ended up leaving the bar earlier than usual. I was tired after a few sets, but a good sort of tired. I felt replenished and renewed.

Although I spent much of my time on stage zoning out to my music or thinking about Lucas, I couldn’t help pondering the situation with Jackson. Frankly, it was pretty freaky, especially with what Candace said. What if Jackson had been murdered like Roger had? What if the police had missed something?

I pushed it out of my mind, wondering for the umpteenth time if Lucas would be there when I got home tonight. I really wanted to see him again . . . all of him. But part of me worried last night had been a one-time deal. I mean, wasn’t sex technically sinful outside marriage? So how much worse was it that Lucas, a grey spirit trying to make it to the White Tier, had sex with a human? Well, even if last night was our one and only time, I wouldn’t trade it in for anything in the world. And I knew I’d see Lucas again, since I was part of his big project.

All these thoughts of sex let me back to the wild, kinky dream I had when I first moved into the house. The one where I’d woken up feeling violated. The guy in that dream had blonde hair, very dark eyes, and frightened the heck out of me. Totally different from my experience with Lucas.

Oh boy, I really needed the distraction of my pets and Letterman tonight. However, when I walked through the door, I quickly realized there was no way I was going to have the relief of late night TV to take me away from my troubles.

I had visitors again. Dead ones.

Bob was strumming “Careless Love” to a reggae beat, and Janis was following along in time with her raspy voice. They looked up and gave a nod as I walked through the foyer. The smell of pot was thick in the air. I couldn’t help but wonder how the White Tier felt about pot . . . if it was okay there, then I guess it couldn’t be all that bad, could it?

“Evie!” Bob called out with a smile as the song ended. “Hey pretty woman, come sing with us.”

“Yeah, come jam with us, Evie,” Janis said, patting the couch next to her.

Cass thumped her tail, happy to see me. Mac, of course, was on his back, once again stoned out of his mind. I am positive he loved these visits more than Cass or I did.

I sat down next to Janis.

“Bet you’re wondering where Lukie boy is.”

“Um, yeah.” Then again, I think I knew. He was getting “space” to recharge his batteries.

She cackled and I cringed, because even when laughing, she could hit the high note she was famous for. Something about the sound made me a bit uneasy.

“Of course you’re wondering!”

Bob leaned his head on my shoulder, his heavy dreads draping down my back. “Don’t be listening to her. She likes to tease.”

Janis wiggled her bushy, strawberry blonde eyebrows at me. “I’m just having a little bit of fun. Lukie told us what happened here last night. That is some crazy shit, girl!”

For one intensely awkward moment, I thought she was referring to my time with Lucas in the bedroom.

Bob rubbed my shoulder with his head. “Leave off, Janis. That girl don’t want to tink about dat body anymore.”

Phew! “Yeah, it was definitely not what I was expecting to see when I got home.”

Janis’s raspy laughter stopped abruptly, and a look I can only describe as sly spread across her face. “Don’t you want to know what happens next?” she asked in a low voice.

Bob pulled his head off my shoulder and cocked a brow at her, shaking his head just the tiniest bit. To me, it looked like a warning. But my curiosity was piqued.

“What do you mean, ‘what happens next?’”

Janis leaned in closer. “With that guy. The one who drowned in your pool. Don’t you want to know what happens to us when we go? How it all works?” she asked.

“Sure. But Lucas has already been telling me a lot of that stuff and, well, I guess I’ll figure out the rest for myself one of these days.”

“He done tell you ‘bout the review and judgment?” Bob asked, cocking that brow in my direction and looking slightly amused. Clearly I was missing something here.

“He told me when we die, we go through a kind of trial or life review, and the Black Tier and White Tier are present and they vote.”

Janis leaned her head forward and took another hit off her joint. She inhaled deeply, giving me a long look, and blew the smoke in a slow exhale. “Yeah, well that’s all true. But wouldn’t you like to see it for yourself? I mean, before it’s your time to go?” She turned to Bob, “What do you say, Bobby?”

“Oh no. I doan know ‘bout that.” Bob shook his head, a look of alarm spreading across his face.

“Oh man, come on! It will be good for her to see. Let her get a real idea.”

“What are you talking about?” I interrupted.

“The guy who died, you knew him.” This was a statement, not a question.

I nodded. “Yes. He came into the bar where I work sometimes. His name was Jackson, Jackson Owens.”

Janis looked down at her watch and then back over at Bob and me. “It’s about time.”

“For what?” I asked.

“His judgment. Want to go see it?”

Either Janis had taken one too many hits this evening, or the second hand smoke was getting to me, because I was totally confused. “Huh? I mean, how could I possibly see Jackson’s judging? He’s dead, I’m not . . . end of story.”

She grinned, showing her teeth. “Not so fast, little lady. Here’s how it works. You become me for a little while and Bob will lead you through the portal and to the judging.”

Say what? “Um, what happens to
me
?”

“I become you.” Her eyebrows wiggled again, making her look more and more like a red-headed Groucho Marx. All she needed was a cigar and a moustache.

My eyes widened. “How do we do it?”

“What do you have that you hold dear? It should be something you’ve had for a long time, something of value.”

I immediately thought of the eagle feathers on the dresser in my room. As if she’d read my mind, Janis brought her arms up and out, the same way Lucas had when he created the luster. But instead of the luster, there was a bright blue flash of light and then, one of my feathers appeared in her hand. Janis twirled it around for a moment. “Pretty, isn’t it?” And then she reached down and grabbed her guitar, handing it to me. “I hang onto your feather and you take my guitar. That way you can come back.”

“But, how did you do that? I mean, how did you even know about the feather at all? I didn’t say anything.”

She smiled and patted my knee. “Hey, there are some real perks to being on this side of things. One day, you’ll see.”

It was all very tempting. I’d been hearing so much about the tiers from Lucas . . . and the chance to go there, without having to take the usual path (which typically involved dying), definitely appealed to me. But there was one more thing . . .

“What will you do? I mean if we do this. What will you do here, in my body?”

“Be human again for a little while.”

And there’s the rub. I shook my head, “I don’t know.”

“Oh come on,” she purred. “All I want to do is walk in your garden and smell the roses. Nothing more.”

Bob cleared his throat nervously. “I doan know about this, Janis. What if . . .”

Janis cut him off. “Come on, Evie. Don’t you want to take a walk on the wild side once in a while? Now’s your chance!”

“Since you put it that way, I’ll go,” I said. “As long as you’re sure I can come back.”

“You can come right back,” Janis said, smiling.

I looked at Bob for confirmation. He nodded slowly. “You can as long as no one knows the vibration is off.”

“Her vibe won’t be too far off. Hell, she’s a singer! A musician, like us.”

“She be pure, though.” He shot Janis a pointed look.

“Oh come on, Bob! Don’t be such a stick in the mud. I really want to walk and smell and breathe.”

Bob tilted his head to the side in thought and then let out a deep sigh. “Okay then. You want to go, girl? Really?”

I did. I wanted to see what it was like through the portal. I nodded.

“You won’t leave the house?” I asked Janis.

“Nope. Don’t want to go anywhere special. Promise.”

“Okay. How do we do this?”

She took my hand. The eagle feather was in her other hand and her guitar was strapped around my neck. “Sing with me. Close your eyes and we’ll sing in pitch together.”

She started singing “One Love.” Bob started singing too. After a few minutes, my body felt like it was floating in a warm jacuzzi near one of the jets. Warm and drowsy.

Then it was over, and I was through the other side. Through the portal.

Chapter Forty-One

BOB AND I STOOD on the edge of a cliff with a large door to our backs. The cliff was deep red and appeared to be suspended in mid-air. The sky had a soft, pastel yellow tint to it. Stretched out before us was a bridge, the kind I imagined you might see in the middle of a jungle somewhere—made of rope and wood. The kind that might make some people afraid to cross it. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t scared.

There were doors lining both sides of the bridge and three large doors at the end, about a hundred or so yards away.

Bob took my hand. “We cross here.”

I followed behind him, taking one step at a time. The bridge swayed a bit as I grabbed onto the sides of it. What I’d thought was rope wasn’t rope at all but something soft and smooth, like silk, and very, very strong.

“What are all of the doors for?”

“Various tiers,” he said, his dreadlocks swaying with the bridge. “This man we are going to see the judgment of will be told what door to go through when it’s over. If he be lucky, he be going through the white door.” He pointed ahead to a large, white door. “Not lucky, the black one. And if he need to straighten himself out, he go back through the grey. And if there be some confusion he might go through any one of the doors. It all depends how the judgment go.”

The air in this space was still and silent. It felt serene . . . peaceful. Then I heard a bell. It rang clear and pure and seemed to come from all around us.

Bob glanced over his shoulder at me. “We need to be hurrying. The review beginning now.”

We picked up our pace and walked straight to the middle door at the end of the bridge. It was painted a deep red, similar to the color of the cliff behind us. Bob opened it and we stepped through.

The place we entered reminded me of something from the Roman Empire. It was a large room with pillars and coliseum-type seating, and it was filled with spirits. I leaned over to Bob and whispered, “Does everyone come to these things?”

He replied in a hushed tone, “Nah. Be too many. Not everyone be needin’ a trial tho. Those that do, then we be getting’ a number so we know what trials to go to.”

The afterlife was starting to sound a lot like jury duty to me. “And your number came up? And Janis’?”

He nodded. We sat. Down in the middle of the seating area, on a raised dais, were two enormous chairs. In one sat a young, handsome man in white, and in the other—you guessed it—a young, beautiful woman in black.

I leaned over to Bob again. “The Bodha?” I nodded toward the two spirits.

He shook his head. “Nah. Them be the messengers. No one sees the Bodha until they want to be seen, and the same with the Asat.”

“The leaders of the Black Tier?”

Bob nodded as an older spirit in front of us turned around, bringing a finger to her mouth. She stared at me for several seconds and then turned back. For a moment, I wondered if she was surprised to see Janis Joplin seated behind her. But considering the number of famous people who were likely wandering around here, I doubted that was the case.

I took a good look around and noticed everyone in our section was dressed in various shades of grey.

A gavel rang out in the crowd, and suddenly I saw Jackson come in through the door Bob and I had entered. On either side of him stood what, I assumed, were two more representatives—one from each side. Jackson looked pretty confused. They sat him down in a chair and the trial began.

The man in white, representing the Bodha, spoke first. “We are here to review Mr. Jackson Owens’ life. Mr. Owens, are you aware what has happened?”

Jackson shook his head slowly. “Is this a dream? Where am I?”

The young man in white gave Jackson a sympathetic look. “You are dead, Mr. Owens. And this is your life review, where a jury of your peers takes into account your life. Afterwards, we will vote, and the vote will determine where your spirit winds up. Do you understand?”

Jackson’s eyes widened. “Is this Purgatory?” he asked.

The man laughed softly. “Oh no, dear boy. There is no Purgatory to speak of.” The Bodha rep looked over at the Asat rep. “Are we ready to begin?”

The young woman in black nodded.

Everything around us went completely dark. Then, as if I were sitting in an IMAX theater, Jackson came into full view all around us, his life flashing by in segments. We saw him hit his dog when he was ten. We also witnessed him being beaten by a man I assumed was his father. We saw him walk an old lady across the street when he was a teenager but then he also stole from her purse when she wasn’t looking. We saw him steal food from the local market. We saw him go to college, but it wasn’t USC like he had said but a local state school. He watched reruns of Nick’s show and other TV shows, he yelled at his mother, he lived alone . . . The review went on and on. Most disturbing to me was that not only could I see his life, I could also feel everything he felt.

And then I caught my breath. There he was with Nick—alone, just the two of them. Nick had the clothes I found his body in. And they were arguing. Punches were thrown. Nick went down behind the bar, and I was certain Jackson had murdered Nick. But then Nick got up, wiped the blood from his lip, and Jackson left. There was no sound to any of this. Just the visuals and the feelings.

Suddenly, I was on the screen. A wave of anger and lust swept over me.
That was what he felt toward me
. Jackson followed me. He took photos of me. And he had plans to hurt me. The night he had come to my house, he wanted to do very bad things to me. Then we saw Jackson falling into the pool and hitting his head on the side—and behind him was a shadow. The shadow became clearer on the screen. I caught my breath—it was that man! The one from my kinky sex dream!—and then he was gone. What the heck was going on?!

The minute the review stopped, the room erupted into agitated conversation. The Bodha rep yelled out, “Quiet down, everyone!”

Jackson looked pale. Granted, he was dead, but it was clear he hadn’t been expecting any of this at all.

The young man in white stood and looked at the woman in black. “Mr. Owens was murdered by an Asura in your tier?!”

An enigmatic smile crept across the woman’s face. “I cannot say if I recognize who that was or not.”

“It is against the rules!” The Bodha rep said.

“Oh, come now, it is not as if you want Mr. Owens’ vibration!”

“No, not as it is. But if he’d been allowed to live, he would have had the chance to change.” The Bodha rep stood, his mouth in a grim line. “This will be taken up to the next level.”

The young woman shrugged.

The Bodha rep turned toward Jackson. “Do you deny any of this to be true of your life, Mr. Owen?”

Jackson shook his head.

“Do you have anything to say? Any regrets about the things that happened in your life?”

A strange smile crossed his face. “No,” he said.

The Bodha rep looked over to the Asat rep.

“I think this is an easy vote, and seeing how Mr. Owens was an Asat Order target, take him. But this is not over! You cannot steal vibrations before they are ready to go.”

“We will gladly take him,” she purred.

I took a closer look at the Asat rep on the stand. She seemed familiar. And then it dawned on me . . . she was the woman I’d seen with Pierre that night at Nick’s, when Simone and Dwight had come to listen to me play. And she was looking straight at me. Uh-oh.

Bob took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come on.”

I followed him quickly to the door. But the woman in black was there before us.

“Janis.” she smiled. “Your vibration seems . . . different.”

“How would you be knowin that? She doan beat at the same vibe as you,” Bob said, standing protectively in front of me.

“That’s a matter of perspective,” the woman replied.

The Bodha rep suddenly appeared in front of us. “What is the problem?” he asked, looking from me to Bob to the woman and back to me again.

Bob held his hands out, palms up. “No problem, brah. We be getting’ back to the Grey Tier now. Review be over.”

The woman stepped forward. “A moment of your time, please.” She sidled up to the young man in white. “Look at her. She’s no spirit. She’s human! The vibration is completely wrong.”

They both turned to look back at Bob and me (but mostly me). And then the man in white reached out to touch my arm. “Janis, you need to go back to the Grey Tier now.” He eyed me pointedly and then turned back to the woman. “And you need to take your newest member and leave. This review is over. But please,” he said a grimace spread across his face as if there were a bad taste in his mouth, “Tell the Asat we know one of your kind murdered a human. I will take this up with the Bodha, and there will be consequences. Of that I am certain.”

The Asat rep stared in hostile silence at the young man. “You cannot speak to me this way!”

The young man replied, “You don’t want to start this here. This is not how it all begins or ends. Go back to your tier and do not anger the Bodha any more than you and your order already have, Anastasia.”

Anastasia? I took another long look at the woman . . . could she possibly be the jaguar who tried to attack me?

In a huff, she turned and walked back to where she’d left Jackson standing.

The representative for the Bodha turned to me then. “I don’t know what is going on here. I don’t know who brought you here . . . however, I can wager a guess.” He glanced at Bob who just smiled. “But you are not allowed here. And if you ever come here again before you are allowed, the consequences will be grave.”

He turned and walked away. Bob, still holding my hand, pulled me towards the open door and we crossed the bridge, back to the portal, without speaking. Within just a few minutes, we were back in my home.

And what I saw waiting for me in my living room made me want to go back through the portal door and never come back.