Secondhand Souls (29 page)

“Oops,” said Audrey.

Lemon spun on the banshee and made to strike her, but his hand passed right through her. “
AHHHHHHHIEEEEEEEEEE!”
she shrieked at him.

“The Buick was in the tunnel,” Minty said. “Oh. I see.”

“Yes, love,” said the banshee. “Set has been opening portals into the Underworld to get around, as any proper demigod would. Do you need a diagram?”

“I knew we needed a diagram,” Charlie said. “Thumbtacks and string, right?”

Minty Fresh’s golden eyes began to glow like Lemon’s now and he smiled.

T
he portal opened in the tunnel under Fort Mason Green and the hellhounds emerged. They were creatures of fire and force with the scent of their prey in their noses and they entered the world above at a full run, their paws throwing up bits of burned Buick as they crashed through the wooden barrier at the end of the tunnel in a shower of splinters and they made for Fort Point. There were few people out at that hour, and those who saw them thought them a trick of the light, shadows thrown by a spotlight from Alcatraz perhaps, because nothing real could be moving that fast that far away from the road.

They stayed close to the shore, leaping fences or parked cars when necessary, tearing through hedges like cannonballs through lace curtains. Past the Marina green, where children flew kites and played soccer during the day, past Crissy Field, where thousands gathered to watch fireworks or boat races, past the St. Francis Yacht Club, the old fort warehouses, now businesses, down the old battery trail, their paws kicking back gravel with enough force to chip a windshield. A snowflake flurry pattern spattered in the windscreen of Rivera’s Ford as they raced through the Fort Point parking lot.

They were creatures of spirit and elation and they hadn’t seen him in well over a year, yet they knew his scent, his essence, even though he wore a new body. They came through the fort gates frisking like lambs, slobbering and whining in great doggie joy, bounded up the stairs, and fell upon Charlie, soaking him with hellish dog spit.

“Goggies!” called Sophie, with a little girl yodel of a laugh.

Frozen in place by Lemon’s magic, Charlie endured the great hounds’ affection as best he could, bending here and there as they rubbed their faces on him, licked him, and finally made him the center of an enormous welcome-home double-dog hump, a mighty black pyramid of doggie delight, red rocket dog dinguses thrusting at him like slippery spears.

“The goggies love to dance with Daddy,” Sophie said, offhand, to Lemon, whose eyes had gone wide at the sight of the great hounds. “They missed him.”

“Help!” Charlie called. “Help, I’m being humped to death!”

“Aye, love,” said the banshee. “But it’s a dry hump.”

“Not him,” said Minty Fresh, his voice now filled with the booming resonance of Anubis.

“No, goggies!” called Sophie. “Down! Down!”

The hounds looked over to Sophie, dropped Charlie like a drooly tennis ball, then bounded over to her. Lemon forgot completely what he was doing, forgot he was drawing down the power of thousands of souls, forgot that when he finished he would rule over the realms of light
and
darkness, and turned to run. The stream of ghosts that he had been pulling down to him snapped back to the bridge.

Lemon threw his hands apart as if pushing soapsuds off the surface of a washbasin, and a portal opened in the fortress courtyard—shimmering like a black mirror. He took a step back to gather speed to leap the four floors when Alvin’s jaws clamped down on his arm, jerking him back like a rag doll. His yellow homburg hat fluttered from his head and disappeared into the Underworld.

Alvin shook him twice before Mohammed caught his other arm.

“Hold,” said Minty Fresh, who was Anubis. The hellhounds stopped, held Lemon, and growled like idling Ferraris. Minty stepped from where he’d been frozen in place and stood before Lemon, who was Set, once Egyptian lord of the Underworld.

“Hey, Lemon, how you like the goggies?” Minty spoke in his own voice now.

“I ain’t gonna lie, cuz,” said Lemon. “I do not care for them.”

“You done here. You know that, right?”

Lemon hung limp between the two hounds, defeated for a second, then he grinned. “That was gonna be some big-ass consciousness, though, once I become the Luminatus. Some muthafuckin’ world-burnin’ will.”

“Yeah, that ain’t never going to happen. Here’s what going to happen. These goggies are going to take you to a pit where Ammut has been waiting for your tender ass for thousands of years. Now, I know he can’t end you, but he going to chew you up and shit you out in little pieces. And if you ever get your shit together, because that happens with our peoples, these two hellhounds will be waiting on you, Lemon. You can slow them up, but you can’t stop them. They will follow you to the ends of the world and the ends of the Underworld, they will never give up and they will never die. You can’t control them, and you can’t kill them, and they ain’t but one person can ever call them off, and she standing right there.” Minty pointed.

“ ’Sup?” said Sophie.

“There is no kryptonite for these motherfuckers, Lemon, do you feel me?”

“You a hard man, Minty Fresh,” said Lemon.

“Go!” said Minty.

The hellhounds leapt off the arcade with Lemon between them and fell the four stories into the portal to the Underworld, which closed behind them with the sound of a lightbulb popping.

“Bye, goggies,” said Sophie.

Minty Fresh looked up to the lone figure standing on the bridge above them, amid the maelstrom of ghosts, and waved. Mike Sullivan waved back and disappeared into the flow.

29

So That Happened

C
risis Center, this is Lily. What’s your name?”

“Lily, this is Mike.”

“Mike, what’s going on? Asher said it’s over. What’s over?”

“I found out, Lily. I found out why I listened to all those stories, what I’m doing here. I’m supposed to lead them. I’m the Ghost Thief.”

“That’s great, Mike, I have no idea what that means.”

“I’m supposed to lead them all off the bridge, show them where they’re supposed to go. All the souls stuck here with unresolved lives, they just need to live another life, learn the lesson. That’s what the Ghost Thief was supposed to do. Steal the ghosts from the bridge.”

“Why you?”

“Evidently I’m an ascended soul—or I will be.”

“Which is?”

“It means I’m finished having lives. I move on now.”

“What about Concepción? Did you find her?”

“She’s here, with me now.”

“Well, she might have told you.”

“She didn’t know. She just knew we had to find the Ghost Thief. We didn’t know who it was, what it was. I had to hear the stories of the ghosts of the bridge, become aware of what they were and what we were—what we
are
. She’s an ascended soul, too.”

“How is that possible, she’s been stuck on the bridge, well, in the Golden Gate for what? Two hundred years?”

“She was waiting for me. I guess I had lives to live to catch up to her.”

“Well, really, a smart girl would have been wasted on you.”

“I wanted you to know, Lily. I’m moving on. And after hundreds of years waiting, Concepción is moving on, too. We’re going together.”

“To where? Because I’ve been to Marin and it’s not that great.”

“Can you envision two beings, people, meant for each other, the elation of being in love—completely aware of your connection to that person, like you are part of them, and they are part of you, inseparable?”

“That’s a thing? That’s what you have with Concepción?”

“Yes, but an ascended soul feels that way toward everything, is that way with everything. That’s where we’re going. Sort of everywhere.”

“Well, you’ll want to take a jacket.”

“I wanted to say thanks, Lily.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And good-bye.”

“Bye, Mike. I’ll be here if shit gets weird.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” said Mike.

Then he showed them the way, those souls that had been lost at the Golden Gate for years, decades, centuries, mad as bedbugs, they came to themselves, and those who had lessons to learn, returned to new bodies, new lives, to take a turn on the wheel of life and death once again, and those like Mike and Concepción, who were the compilation of dozens of lives, who had found the way, become aware, ascended together in loving kindness, to hold each other and all things, one with the universe, complete.

R
ivera was leading the Emperor and his men out of the kennel at the department of animal control when she appeared.

“
AHHHHHHHIEEEEEEEEEE!”
cried the banshee.

Rivera didn’t even jump, although Bummer and Lazarus saw to it that the sooty wraith got a good barking-at before the Emperor distracted them with a beef jerky Rivera had brought for just such an emergency.

“So this is going to continue?” Rivera said. He was very tired and still had to get two dogs and a lunatic across town to the utility closet where they lived before he rested.

“No, love. The doom is done. I’m just popping by to ask if I can keep this.” She held up the stun gun and gave it a buzz. “The wee box of lightning adds spice to the task.”

“Sure, keep it,” said Rivera. “What now?”

“I thought I’d go shriek at someone. I quite enjoy that.”

“Yes, you do. Be careful with that thing.”

“Not a worry, I’ll only use it on those who aren’t properly surprised by the shrieking. By the by, love, when you get back to your store, I think you’ll want to have a look in your death book. Surprises, don’t you know.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“Ta,” she said, and in a wisp of smoke, she was gone.

“That’s somewhat disturbing,” said the Emperor. The men frisked at his sides, hopeful eyes searching for another beef jerky.

“She does that,” said Rivera. He led them to the brown Ford and opened the rear door for them. “Did you get your journal?” he asked.

“In the recycle bin,” said the Emperor. “Its purpose has been served. I’m going to turn my attentions to the living citizens of my city. They need me.”

“Of course they do,” said Rivera. The Emperor and his men tumbled into the Ford and Rivera drove them to North Beach, where he installed them in their closet with a large sausage pizza, several bottles of water, and two new wool blankets, before he went home and fell into a sleep as deep as the dead.

R
eligion in Chinatown, as in most places, is based less on a cogent theology and more on a collection of random fears, superstitions, prejudices, forgotten customs, vestigial animism, and social control. Mrs. Ling, while a professed Buddhist of the Pure Land tradition, also kept waving cat charms, lucky coins, and put great faith in the good fortune of the color red. She gave gifts of money on the Chinese New Year, threw
I-Ching
coins for guidance, believed in the comfort of ghost brides for old men who died alone, and was very much in favor of any tradition, superstition, or ritual that involved fireworks, including New Year’s, Independence Day, and the end of the Giants’ season. She followed the Chinese zodiac with a stubborn devotion, and because she was born in the year of the dragon, she thought them the luckiest of all creatures. Which was why her friend Vladlena Korjev found her in the state she did when she returned home from the hospital.

Having not encountered her friend in the hallways after two days home, and hearing strange noises at Mrs. Ling’s door, Mrs. Korjev did as they had agreed (“In case we fall, and break hip, like bear”) and used her key to let herself into Mrs. Ling’s apartment. She found her friend seated at one end of the sofa, watching her stories on the Chinese channel, while at the other end of the sofa sat Wiggly Charlie. Each was joyfully eating a mozzarella stick, and Mrs. Ling, who was mildly lactose intolerant, let fly with a diminutive
“bfffffrat”
of gas every thirty seconds or so, at which both she and Wiggly Charlie would snicker until they wheezed.

“He lucky dlagon,” explained Mrs. Ling. Wiggly Charlie had avoided the braised fate of a prior, and less chatty, Squirrel Person when, after being roughly yanked from his cat carrier by his feet, he asked the petite matron for a cheese, thereby establishing his lucky-magic-dragon-ness. Mrs. Ling agreed that if Mrs. Korjev would keep the secret, she could share in the dragon’s luck, and the three spent many a pleasant afternoon sitting on the sofa, dragon in the middle, grandmother on either end, watching stories, eating cheese sticks, and gleefully giggling at Mrs. Ling’s delicate condition.

Some mornings, Mrs. Ling would put Wiggly Charlie in the cat carrier and take him for a ride around the neighborhood in her cart, feeling very special and blessed among the multitudes in North Beach and Chinatown, for she alone rolled with a dragon. Other mornings Wiggly Charlie spent with Mrs. Korjev, who would stand him on her counter and drill him like a Cossack sergeant major:

“Need a cheez,” Wiggly Charlie would say.

“How you need cheese?” Mrs. Korjev would inquire.

“Like bear,” the lucky dragon would reply.

And thus a cheese would be bestowed upon the long-donged dragon.

The care and feeding of their lucky dragon, as well as the leap in credibility engendered by his very existence, helped the two grandmothers better adjust to the condition of their Sophie, who now had not two, but
three
mommies, and to the fact that the sneaky, usurping drug fiend Mike Sullivan was, in fact, Charlie Asher.

Once you accept you have a miniature talking dragon in your midst, the idea that your former landlord has changed bodies and has taken a Buddhist nun as a bride is a minor leap of faith. Audrey left her resident position at the Buddhist Center and moved in with Charlie despite some objections from Sophie (“Really, Dad, the
shiksa
booty nun?”) and they, with the help of two loving aunties, and the two rental grandmothers, set about raising the little girl who would possibly grow up to be Death.

“Maybe she has always had the powers, but just didn’t want to hurt anyone,” said Audrey.

“So you think my daughter may still be Death, but she’s broken?” Charlie said.

“Not broken,” Audrey said, “just not finished yet.”

“I’m telling you, that child is not normal,” said Minty Fresh, who had seen her through the eyes of Anubis and knew. “For one thing, she got a mouth on her like a sailor.”

“Her auntie Jane is very proud of that,” said Charlie.

After a time, their suspicions about Sophie’s future were confirmed when the hellhounds returned and remained Sophie’s constant companions everywhere but at school, where they waited patiently outside as she instructed until they could escort her home in the afternoon. The goggies were quite happy and fairly well behaved, only occasionally sneaking down to a North Beach sidewalk café where one would eat a comfort dog off the lap of some self-indulgent diner, only to return looking innocent but for the leash hanging out of the corner of his mouth. To atone, Charlie encouraged San Francisco’s animal control people to put the hellhounds down, and at Sophie’s instruction, they would go away in the back of a truck, only to return a few hours later, justice done, somewhat stoned on whatever poison they’d been given, to resume spinning bags of kibble into great steaming spools of stool.

W
hen Inspector Alphonse Rivera returned to his bookstore and opened his copy of the
Great Big Book of Death
, he found the entire text had been changed to the following:

“Congratulations, you were one of the select few chosen to act as Death. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. A new order has been established and your services will no longer be required. Feel free to keep the calendar and the number two pencils for your own personal use. Best of luck in all your future endeavors.”

Rivera called the other Death Merchants that he knew to confirm that their copies of the
Big Book
had changed as well, which they had. For a moment, he considered putting a price tag on his copy of the
Big Book
and offering it for sale in his shop, but after contemplating how sneaky and ever-changing the universe appeared to be, he decided instead to keep it in his personal collection, just for reference, in case things got weird.

He also decided, having served twenty-five years as a policeman and survived the reset of the Wheel of Life and Death still never having shot a human being, nor having been shot, that he would take a second retirement and become a bookseller full-time, despite the precarious prospects of that profession.

On his second day of his second retirement, Rivera called Lily Severo’s mother, Elizabeth, and invited her to join him for coffee. The two found they quite liked each other, and started dating regularly. What began as gratitude for being rescued from loneliness developed into love; they reveled in sharing who they were and how they had come to this place in their lives, and everything was made that much sweeter by how much their relationship annoyed Lily.

Lily, having served nobly as oracle to the bridge, found the specialness she felt by having been chosen remained, even after the ghosts moved on. She comported herself, at least outwardly, with less cynicism and hostility toward the world, and at times, with humility and style, if only because she knew secretly how much it annoyed everyone who had known her before.

“So,” Charlie Asher said to her, “I’m going to reopen the shop. I mean, it was a successful business for my family for thirty years before I became Death, there’s no reason why it can’t be again. And the pizza oven is still in there. So I thought we might go into
business
together.”

“So it would be Asher’s Random Used Crap and Artisanal Pizza?”

“No. Not necessarily. You could put your name on the sign, too.”

“Thanks, Charlie, but I don’t think so. I’m going to stay at the Crisis Center and go back to school. Get a degree in counseling, maybe even become a psychologist.”

“That’s horrifying,” Charlie said. “I mean, I’m happy for you. I’m proud of you, but your poor patients.”

“Hey, blow me, Asher. Those crazy fucks will be lucky to have me.”

“That’s what I meant,” he said.

“I have a knack with the damaged,” Lily said. “It’s my thing. Speaking of which, I’m supposed to go see M.”

T
he Mint One, his duty as a demigod done for now, returned to Fresh Music and resumed his business to great success. Despite the lack of any supernatural stimulus, the current horde of elitist music enthusiasts with money that were infesting the city, each looking for anything more obscure and/or arcane than his contemporaries, had created a booming market for worthless crap that Minty Fresh had long ago relegated to the realm of unsellable, and the buyback market, fueled by their mercurial smartphone-crippled attention spans, was whipped into a light and frothy profit.

He was adding up the day’s receipts, and
Bitches Brew
was playing in the background when Lily came into the shop.

“Look,” she said, “you are not
the
love of my life, but you are definitely
a
love in my life, so if you’re okay with that, I’d love to spend some more time with you, but if I break your heart, I warned you, so it’s fair.”

“I’d like that,” said Minty Fresh. “But you’re not going to break my heart. I am the human presence of an ancient Egyptian god of death, girl.”

“Sure, throw that in my face. But I got my thing, too. And besides, you cried on my voice mail.” She made as if to draw her phone out and play the proof. “You
want
me to break your heart, that’s not healthy.”

“I do not want that. I am not the blues, I am jazz. I want to be present in the moment, not wallow in it. Do you feel me?”