Spirit Wars Read Online Free PDF

divides the person
from an empty shell.
    She’s grown familiar with those additions to my body. They’re her
best pals in so much as they still keep me with her. The ICP monitor attached
to my skull, the pads on my chest linked to the ECG, the ventilator pumping air
into my lungs through a tube inside my windpipe, the PEG tube going directly to
my stomach wall…
    She worries about bed sores. She feels anger – at herself, me, the
fishermen’s children who stole me from her, God – but always there’s the gnawing
feeling of not knowing what comes next. She feels the urge to do something
stupid and crazy, to tear away clumps of her hair and scream herself hoarse
because she could’ve done something to prevent everything. She should’ve seen
it coming. At least this is what she believes.
    Ironically, it’s during this time (time flows much faster in the
world of the living than it does in the land of the dead) that she finally
learns about my personal history, deeper than what she would have found out
under normal circumstances. That I was a foundling and most of my childhood had
been spent drifting from house to house, family to family. That I didn’t have
any real parents to speak of though I pretended to be just like everyone else;
when all I had was a name assigned by a social worker and a judge. Nataniel
Cuervo, after all, was too fancy a name to be true. 
    The unglamorous truth is, when I was an infant I was discovered
naked and wailing inside a cardboard box in front of Blessed Children’s, with
nothing so much as a note or a piece of lint in the way of identification;
nothing except an inquisitive crow standing by like some emissary of the devil.
To the old nuns it seemed as though I had been delivered to earth by a crow
instead of the usual stork. Hence the name Nataniel Cuervo – child of the crow.
    Going back to the crisis at hand, I can see in the monitors how
Sam’s silently suffering inside. She acts calmly and bravely above my bed but
collapses like a castle of cards out of earshot. More than
any man at any point in his life, I’m now aware of how grief is the other side
of the same coin. Love, heartbreak, memories, pain; humans can never really
have one without the other. Any idea to the contrary is nothing but human
illusion.
    I guess it’s Sam’s private limbo
counting the days that I didn’t open my eyes while dreading what will come
after. The doctors are already talking about pulling the plug as I’ve been
declared brain dead. I’ve lost a lot of functions in my cerebrum, cerebellum,
and brain stem but amazingly my heart still makes normal cycles per minute. I
know it’s just a matter of time though.
    “Diabolical, isn’t it?” My skin breaks out in goose bumps when I
realize Death’s in the same room. More alarmingly, the dark angel’s addressing me in that voice that will wither a freshly-bloomed flower.
    “The
Lachesis supercomputers, courtesy of the Fate Weaver. These
machines are thought-run. They never lie. They always show you the thing you
desire the most to see.”
    I recognize the name Lachesis from my constant nightmare
and my memory of Greek myths, but Fate Weaver doesn’t ring a bell.
    At Death’s words, the computer monitors
directly in front of him flicker and switch to only one image and, from where
he stands with his hands clasped at the back of his cloak, it’s like a huge
wave of dominoes rolls over and spreads this single image to every last monitor
until it’s almost narcissistic; except instead of his own reflection, we’re now
looking at a striking woman sitting at a coffee shop, reading a book and just
enjoying her private time. She could be an actress or a model judging by her
looks.
    I
wonder about this woman, and also the Fate Weaver, and just about a hundred
other questions running through my head. But the
thought of speaking to this spawn of darkness, the reaper of souls, was enough
to zip the mouth of even the most loquacious man.
    “Don’t fall