11

THE GIRLS CAN GET A LITTLE DARK AT TIMES

The Great Big Book of Death, as it turned out, wasn't that big, and certainly wasn't that comprehensive. Charlie read through it a dozen times, took notes, made copies, ran searches trying to find some reference to any of the stuff covered, but all of the material in the twenty-eight lavishly illustrated pages boiled down to this:

1. Congratulations, you have been chosen to act as Death. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. It is your duty to retrieve soul vessels from the dead and dying and see them on to their next body. If you fail, Darkness will cover the world and Chaos will reign.

2. Some time ago, the Luminatus, or the Great Death, who kept balance between light and darkness, ceased to be. Since then, Forces of Darkness have been trying to rise from below. You are all that stands between them and destruction of the collective soul of humanity.

3. In order to hold off the Forces of Darkness, you will need a number two pencil and a calendar, preferably one without pictures of kitties on it.

4. Names and numbers will come to you. The number is how many days you have to retrieve the soul vessel. You will know the vessels by their crimson glow.

5. Don't tell anyone what you do, or dark forces, etc. etc. etc.

6. People may not see you when you are performing your Death duties, so be careful crossing the street. You are not immortal.

7. Do not seek others. Do not waver in your duties or the Forces of Darkness will destroy all that you care about.

8. You do not cause death, you do not prevent death, you are a servant of Destiny, not its agent. Get over yourself.

9. Do not, under any circumstances, let a soul vessel fall into the hands of those from below - because that would be bad.

A few months passed before Charlie worked the shop again alone with Lily. She asked him, "Well, did you get a number two pencil?"

"No, I got a number one pencil."

"You rogue! Asher, hello, Forces of Darkness - "

"If the world without this Luminatus is so precariously balanced that my buying a pencil with one-grade-harder lead is going to cast us all into the abyss, then maybe it's time."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Lily chanted like she was trying to bring a spooked horse under control. "It's one thing for me to be all nihilistic and stuff, for me it's a fashion statement, I have the outfits for it. You can't be all horny for the grave wearing your stupid Savile Row suits."

Charlie was proud of her for recognizing that he was wearing one of his expensive secondhand Savile Rows. She was learning the trade in spite of herself.

"I'm tired of being afraid," he said. "I've dealt with the Forces of Darkness or whatever, Lily, and you know what, we're one and one."

"Should you be telling me this? I mean, the book said - "

"I think I'm different than what the book says, Lily. The book says that I don't cause death, but there have been two now that have died more or less because of my actions."

"And I repeat, should you be telling me this? As you have pointed out many times, I am a kid, and wildly irresponsible. It's wildly irresponsible, right? I'm never listening that closely."

"You're the only one who knows," Charlie said. "And you're seventeen now, not a kid, you're a young woman now."

"Don't fuck with me, Asher. If you keep talking like that I'll get another piercing, take X until I'm dehydrated like a mummy, talk on my cell phone until the battery is dead, then find some skinny, pale guy and suck him until he cries."

"So, it will be like a Friday?" Charlie said.

"What I do with my weekends is my own business."

"I know!"

"Well, then shut up!"

"I'm tired of being afraid, Lily!"

"Well, then stop being afraid, Charlie!"

They both looked away, embarrassed. Lily pretended to shuffle through the day's receipts while Charlie pretended to be looking for something in what he called his walking satchel and Jane called his man purse.

"Sorry," Lily said, without looking up from the receipts.

"S'okay," Charlie said. "Me, too."

Still not looking up, Lily said, "But really, should you be telling me any of this?"

"Probably not," Charlie said. "It's sort of a big burden to carry. Sort of - "

"A dirty job?" Lily looked up now and grinned.

"Yeah," Charlie smiled, relieved. "I won't bring it up again."

"That's okay. It's kind of cool."

"Really?" Charlie couldn't remember anyone ever referring to him as cool. He was touched.

"Not you. The whole Death thing."

"Yeah, right," Charlie said. Yes! Still batting a thousand on the zero-cool quotient. "But you're right, it's not safe. No more talk about my, uh, avocation."

"And I'll never call you Charlie again," Lily said. "Ever."

"That would be fine," Charlie said. "We'll act like this never happened. Excellent. Good talk. Resume your thinly veiled contempt."

"Fuck off, Asher."

"Atta girl."

They were waiting for him the next morning when he took his walk. He expected it, and he wasn't disappointed. He'd stopped in the shop to pick up an Italian suit he'd just taken in, as well as a cigar lighter that had languished in a curio case in the back for two years, which he stuffed in his satchel with the glowing porcelain bear that was the soul vessel of someone who had passed long ago. Then he stepped outside and stood just above the opening of the storm drain - waved at the tourists on the cable car as it clanked by.

"Good morning," he said cheerily. Anyone watching him might have thought he was greeting the day, since there was no one around.

"We'll peck out her eyes like ripe plums," hissed a female voice out of the drain. "Bring us up, Meat. Bring us up so we can lap your blood from the gaping wound we tear in your chest."

"And crunch your bones in our jaws like candy," added a different voice, also female.

"Yeah," agreed the first voice, "like candy."

"Yeah," said a third.

Charlie felt his entire body go to gooseflesh, but he shook it off and tried to keep his voice steady.

"Well, today would be a good day for it," Charlie said. "I'm well rested from sleeping in my comfy bed with the down comforter. Not like I spent the night in a sewer or anything."

"Bastard!" A hissing female chorus.

"Well, talk to you on the next block."

Strolled up the block into Chinatown, pacing out the sidewalk jauntily with his sword-cane, the suit inside a light garment bag thrown over his shoulder. He tried whistling, but thought that might be a little too clich��. They were already under the next corner when he got there.

"I'm going to suck the baby's soul out through her soft spot while you watch, Meat."

"Oh, nice!" Charlie said, gritting his teeth and trying not to sound as horrified as he was. "She's starting to crawl around pretty well now, so don't miss breakfast that day, because if she has her little rubber spoon, she'll probably kick your ass."

There was a screech of anger from the sewers and a harsh, hissing chatter. "He can't say that? Can he say that? Does he know who we are?"

"Taking a left at the next block. See you there."

There was a young Chinese man dressed in hip-hop wear who looked at Charlie and took a quick step to the side so as not to catch whatever kind of crazy this well-dressed Lo pak[1] was carrying. Charlie tapped his ear and said, "Sorry, wireless headset."

The hip-hop guy nodded curtly, like he knew that, and despite appearances to the contrary, he had not been trippin', but had, in fact, been chillin' like a mo-fuckin' villain, so step the fuck off, wigga. He crossed against the light, limping slightly under the weight of the subtext.

Charlie entered Golden Dragon Cleaners and the man at the counter, Mr. Hu, whom Charlie had known since he was eight, greeted him with an expansive and warm twitch of the left eyebrow, which was his usual greeting, and a good indicator to Charlie that the old man was still alive. A cigarette streamed at the end of a long black holder clinched in Hu's dentures.

"Good morning, Mr. Hu," Charlie said. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Suit?" said Mr. Hu, looking at the suit Charlie had slung over his shoulder.

"Yes, just the one today," Charlie said. Charlie brought all of his finer merchandise to Golden Dragon to be cleaned, and he'd been giving them a lot of business the last few months, with all the estate clothes he'd been taking in. He also had them do his alterations, and Mr. Hu was considered to be the best three-fingered tailor on the West Coast, and perhaps, the world. Three Fingered Hu, he was known as in Chinatown, although to be fair, he was actually possessed of eight fingers, and was only missing the two smaller fingers from his right hand.

"Tailor?" Hu asked.

"No, thank you," Charlie said. "This one's for resale, not for me."

Hu snatched the suit out of Charlie's hand, tagged it, then called, "One suit for the White Devil!" in Mandarin, and one of his granddaughters came speeding out of the back, grabbed the suit, and was gone through the curtain before Charlie could see her face. "One suit for the White Devil," she repeated for someone in the back.

"Wednesday," said Three Fingered Hu. He handed Charlie the ticket.

"There's something else," Charlie said.

"Okay, Tuesday," said Hu, "but no discount."

"No, Mr. Hu, I know it's been a long time since I needed it, but I wonder if you still have your other business?"

Mr. Hu closed one eye and looked at Charlie for a full minute before he replied. When he did, he said, "Come," then disappeared behind the curtain leaving a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Charlie followed him into the back, through a noisy, steaming hell of cleaning fluids, mangle irons, and a dozen scurrying employees to a tiny plywood-walled office in the back, where Hu closed the door and locked them in as they did their business, something they'd first done over twenty years ago.

The first time Three Fingered Hu had led Charlie Asher through the stygian back room of Golden Dragon Cleaners, the ten-year-old Beta Male was sure that he was going to be kidnapped and sold into dry-cleaning slavery, butchered and turned into dim sum, or forced to smoke opium and fight fifty kung fu fighters at once while still in his pj's (Charlie had a very tenuous grasp of his neighbors' culture at age ten), but despite his fear, he was driven by a passion that had been embedded in his very genes millions of years ago: a quest for fire. Yes, it was a crafty Beta Male who first discovered fire, and true, it was almost immediately taken away from him by an Alpha Male. (Alphas missed out on the discovery of fire, but because they did not understand about grabbing the hot, orangey end of the stick, they are credited with inventing the third-degree burn.) Still, the original spark burns bright in every Beta's veins. When Alpha boys have long since moved on to girls and sports, Betas will still be pursuing pyrotechnics well into adolescence and sometimes beyond. Alpha Males may lead the armies of the world, but it's the Betas who actually get the shit blowed up.

And what better testimonial for a purveyor of fireworks than to be missing critical digits? Three Fingered Hu. When Hu opened his thick, trifold case across the desk, revealing his wares, young Charlie felt he had passed through the fires of hell to arrive, at last, in paradise, and he gladly handed over his wad of crumpled, sweaty dollar bills. And even as long silver ashes from Hu's cigarette fell over the fuses like deadly snow, Charlie picked his pleasure. He was so excited he nearly peed himself.

The death-dealing Charlie who walked out of Golden Dragon Cleaners that morning with a compact paper parcel tucked under his arm felt a similar excitement, for as much as it was against his nature, he was rushing, once again, into the breech. He headed to the storm sewer grate and, waving the glowing porcelain bear from his satchel at the street, shouted, "I'm going over one block and up four, bitches. Join me?"

"The White Devil has finally gone around the bend," said Three Fingered Hu's eleventh grandchild, Cindy Lou Hu, who stood at the counter next to her venerated and digitally challenged ancestor.

"His money not crazy," said Three.

Charlie had noticed the alley on one of his walks to the financial district. It lay between Montgomery and Kearney Streets and had all the things a good alley should have: fire escapes, Dumpsters, various steel doors tagged with graffiti, a rat, two seagulls, assorted filth, a guy passed out under some cardboard, and a half-dozen "No Parking" signs, three with bullet holes. It was the Platonic ideal of an alley, but what distinguished it from other alleys in the area was that it had two openings into the storm-drain system, spaced not fifty yards apart, one on the street end and one in the middle, concealed between two Dumpsters. Having recently developed an eye for storm drains, Charlie couldn't help but notice.

He chose the drain that was hidden from the street, crouched down about four feet away, and opened the parcel from Three Fingered Hu. He removed eight M-80s and trimmed the two-inch-long waterproof fuses to about a half inch with a pair of nail clippers he kept on his key chain. (An M-80 is a very large firecracker, purported to have the explosive power of a quarter of a stick of dynamite. Rural children use them to blow up mailboxes or school plumbing, but in the city they have largely been replaced by the 9 mm Glock pistol as the preferred instrument of mischievous fun.)

"Kids!" Charlie called into the drain. "You with me? Sorry I didn't get your names." He drew the sword from his cane, set it by his knee, then dug the porcelain bear out of his satchel and sat it by his other knee. "There you go," he called.

There was a vicious hiss from the drain, and even as he thought it was completely dark, it got even darker. He could see silver disk shapes moving in the blackness, like coins tumbling through a dark ocean, but these were paired up - eyes.

"Give it, Meat. Give it," whispered a female voice.

"Come and get it," Charlie said, trying to fight down the greatest case of the willies he'd ever felt. It was like dry ice was being applied to his spine and it was all he could do not to shiver.

The shadow in the drain started to leak out across the pavement, just an inch or so, but he could see it, like the light had changed. But it hadn't. The shadow took the shape of a female hand and moved another six inches toward the glowing bear. That's when Charlie grabbed the sword and snapped it down on the shadow. It didn't hit pavement, but connected with something softer, and there was a deafening screech.

"You piece of shit!" screamed the voice - now in anger, not pain. "You worthless little - you - "

"Quick and the dead, ladies," Charlie said. "Quick and the dead. C'mon, give it another shot."

A second hand-shaped shadow snaked out of the drain on the left, then another on the right. Charlie pushed the bear away from the drain as he pulled the cigar lighter from his pocket. He lit the short fuses of four of the M-80s and tossed them into the drain, even as the shadows were reaching out.

"What was that?"

"What did he throw?"

"Move, I can't - "

Charlie put his fingers in his ears. The M-80s exploded and Charlie grinned. He sheathed the sword in the cane, gathered up his stuff, and sprinted for the other drain. Inside an enclosed space the noise would be punishing, brutal even. He kept grinning.

He could hear a chorus of screaming and cursing, in half a dozen dead languages, some of them running over others, like someone was spinning the dial on a shortwave radio that spanned both time and space. He dropped to his knees and listened at the drain, careful to stay an arm's length away. He could hear them coming, tracking him under the street. He hoped he was right that they couldn't come out, but even if they did, he had the sword, and the sunlight was his turf. He lit four more M-80s, these with longer fuses, and tossed them one by one into the drain.

"Who's New Meat now?" he said.

"What? What did he say?" said a sewer voice.

"I can't hear shit."

Charlie waved the porcelain bear in front of the drain. "You want this?" He tossed in another M-80.

"You like that, do you?" Charlie shouted, throwing in the third firecracker. "That'll teach you to use your beak on my arm, you fucking harpies!"

"Mr. Asher," came a voice from behind him.

Charlie looked around to see Alphonse Rivera, the police inspector, standing over him.

"Oh, hi," Charlie said, then realizing that he was holding a lit M-80, he said, "Excuse me a second." He tossed the firecracker in the drain. At that moment they all started going off.

Rivera had retreated a few steps and had his hand in his jacket, presumably on his gun. Charlie put the porcelain bear in his satchel and climbed to his feet. He could hear the voices shrieking at him, cursing.

"You fucking loser," screeched one of the dark ones. "I'll weave a basket of your guts and carry your severed head in it."

"Yeah," said another voice. "A basket."

"I think you threatened that already," said a third.

"I did not," said the first.

"Shut the fuck up!" Charlie yelled at the drain, then he looked at Rivera, who had drawn his weapon and was holding it at his side.

"So," Rivera said, "problems with, uh, someone in the drain?"

Charlie grinned. "You can't hear that, can you?" The cursing was ongoing, but now in some language that sounded as if it required a lot of mucus to speak properly, Gaelic or German or something.

"I can hear a distinct ringing in my ears, Mr. Asher, from the report of your distinctly illegal fireworks, but beyond that, nothing, no."

"Rats," Charlie said, unconsciously raising an eyebrow in a so are you gonna buy that load of horseshit? way. "Hate the rats."

"Uh-huh," Rivera said flatly. "The rats, they used their beak on your arm and evidently you feel that they have a secret desire for cheap animal curios?"

"So that you heard?" Charlie asked.

"Yep."

"That's gotta make you wonder, then, huh?"

"Yep," said the cop. "Nice suit, though. Armani?"

"Canali, actually," Charlie said. "But thanks."

"Not what I'd pick for bombing storm drains, but to each his own." Rivera hadn't moved. He was standing just off the curb, about ten feet away from Charlie, his weapon still at his side. A jogger ran by them and used the opportunity to quicken his pace. Charlie and Rivera both nodded politely as he passed.

"So," Charlie said, "you're a professional, where would you go with this?"

Rivera shrugged. "Not on any prescriptions you might have taken too many of, are you?"

"I wish," Charlie said.

"Up all night drinking, thrown out by the wife, out of your mind with remorse?"

"My wife passed away."

"I'm sorry. How long?"

"Going on a year now."

"Well, that's not going to work," said Rivera. "Do you have any history of mental illness?"

"Nope."

"Well, you do now. Congratulations, Mr. Asher. You can use that next time."

"Do I have to do the perp walk?" Charlie asked, thinking about how he'd explain this to child services. Poor Sophie, her dad an ex con and Death, school was going to be tough. "This jacket is tailored, I don't think I can get it over my head for the perp walk. Am I going to jail?"

"Not with me, you're not. You think this would be any easier for me to explain? I'm an inspector, I don't arrest guys for throwing firecrackers and yelling into storm drains."

"Then why do you have your weapon drawn?"

"Makes me feel more secure."

"I can see that," Charlie said. "I probably appeared a little unstable."

"Ya think?"

"So where's that leave us?"

"That the rest of your stash?" Rivera nodded toward the paper bag of firecrackers under Charlie's arm.

Charlie nodded.

"How about you toss that down the storm drain and we'll call it a day."

"No way. I have no idea what they'll do if they get their hands on fireworks."

Now it was Rivera's turn to raise an eyebrow. "The rats?"

Charlie threw the bag in the storm sewer. He could hear whispering from below, but tried not to show Rivera that he was listening.

Rivera holstered his weapon and shot his lapels. "So, do you take suits like that into your shop very often?" he asked.

"More now than I used to. I've been doing a lot of estate work," Charlie said.

"You still have my card, give me a call if you get a forty long, anything Italian, medium-to lightweight wool, oh, or raw silk, too."

"Yeah, silk's perfect for our weather. Sure, I'll be happy to save you something. By the way, Inspector, how did you happen to be in a back alley, off a side street, in the middle of a Tuesday morning?"

"I don't have to tell you that," said Rivera with a smile.

"You don't?"

"No. You have a nice day, Mr. Asher."

"You, too," said Charlie. So now he was being followed both above and below the street? Why else would a homicide detective be here? Neither the Great Big Book nor Minty Fresh had said a word about the cops. How were you supposed to keep this whole death-dealing thing a secret when a cop was watching you? His elation at having taken the battle to the enemy, something that was deeply against his nature, evaporated. He wasn't sure why, but something was telling him that he had just fucked up.

Below the street the Morrigan looked at one another in amazement.

"He doesn't know," said Macha, examining her claws, which shone like brushed stainless steel in the dim light coming from above. Her body was beginning to show the gunmetal-blue relief of feathers, and her eyes were no longer just silver disks, but now had the full awareness of a predatory bird's. She had once flown over the battlefields of the North, landing on those soldiers who were dying of their wounds, pecking out their souls in her bird form of a hooded crow. The Celts had called the severed heads of their enemies Macha's Acorn Crop, but they had no idea that she cared nothing for their tributes or their tribes, only for their blood and their souls. It had been a thousand years since she had seen her woman claws like this.

"I still can't hear," said her sister Nemain, who groomed the blue-black feather shapes on her own body, hissing with the pleasure as she ran the dagger points over her breasts. She was showing fangs as well, which dented her delicate jet lips. It had been her lot to drip venom on those she would mark for death. There was no fiercer warrior than one who had been touched by the venom of Nemain, for with nothing to lose, he took the field without fear, in a frenzy that gave him the strength of ten, and dragged others to their doom with him.

Babd raked her rediscovered claws across the side of the culvert, cutting deep gouges into the concrete. "I love these. I forgot I even had these. I'll bet we can go Above. Want to go Above? I feel like I could go Above. Tonight we can go Above. We could tear his legs off and watch him drag himself around in his own blood, that would be fun." Babd was the screamer - her shriek on the battlefield said to send armies into retreat - ranks of soldiers a hundred deep would die of fright. She was all that was fierce, furious, and not particularly bright.

"The Meat doesn't know," repeated Macha. "Why would we give away our advantage in an early attack."

"Because it would be fun," said Babd. "Above? Fun? I know, instead of a basket, you can weave a hat from his entrails."

Nemain slung some venom off her claws and it hissed in a steaming line across the concrete. "We should tell Orcus. He'll have a plan."

"About the hat?" asked Babd. "You have to tell him it was my idea. He loves hats."

"We have to tell him that New Meat doesn't know."

The three moved like smoke down the pipes toward the great ship, to share the news that their newest enemy, among other things, did not know what he was, or what he had wrought on the world.