Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“I didn’t know how to do that when I made them,” said Audrey. She really felt quite bad about it. She’d learned as she’d gone along. Bob and Wiggly Charlie had really been the finest examples of her craft, although there had been some mistakes along the way.

“You have trapped us in these horrible meat creatures, with no voices, with no genitals, except for him.” Two Squirrel People, mostly lizard, pulled Wiggly Charlie through the crowd. His little arms were taped at his sides, his feet bound together, and his enormous willy dragged across the rug.

“Need a cheez,” said Wiggly Charlie.

“Hi, W.C.,” Audrey said. “I’m so sorry.”

“What did you do to him?” asked Bob. “He seems, well, he’s kind of goofy.”

“Head injury,” said Audrey.

“Really, but his soul is gone.”

“He fell really hard. I really should make a helmet for him. I know, I’ll make helmets for you all.”

“No. You have done enough.”

“It’s no bother, really,” Audrey said. “Helmets for everyone!”

“Helmets for everyone! Helmets for everyone! Helmets for everyone!” the little People chanted.

“Good crowd,” Audrey said to Bob under her breath.

“There will be no helmets!” said Bob.

Various moans and murmurs of disappointment sounded around the room.

“That’s on you, buddy,” said Audrey. “Don’t blame me if you take a tumble and end up like him.”

“Need a cheez,” said Wiggly Charlie.

“No! You have made us miserable meat creatures and now you shall be a miserable meat creature. Seize her! Take her to the hall of souls.”

A score of Squirrel People lifted Audrey, which was very uncomfortable, but she didn’t struggle because most of them had sharp claws and she’d already learned that the more she struggled, the more scratched up she got. They carried her through the parlor, into the butler’s pantry, where one of them kicked the wastebasket out of the way while the rest shoved her head into an uncovered vent. Which was all that fit. Just her head. Her shoulders caught on the side.

“She won’t fit,” said a little voice.

“We can’t take her in through outside, she won’t fit though the hall of glass either,” said another voice.

“New plan!” said Theeb.

“New plan! New plan! New plan!” the People chanted.

The Morrigan waited, peering out of the storm sewer at the Buddhist Center until darkness fell, then they flowed across the street like miscast shadows, their edges fringed with the ragged pattern of swarming birds. Babd saw a window cracked open just an inch on the second floor and so flowed up the wall and through the crack. Macha and Nemain flowed around either side of the downstairs walls, looking for an opening, then, finding none, slipped under the back porch, down the passageway made of auto glass, then up through the vent and into the butler’s pantry, not even remotely aware that they were passing just a few yards from the Squirrel People’s cache of soul vessels.

In the parlor, Theeb the Wise stood between Audrey and Wiggly Charlie, who lay trussed up on the floor, and finished reading the p’howa of forceful projection to move Audrey’s soul into W.C.’s body. With a great flourish Theeb finished the reading, enunciating the Sanskrit perfectly with his newly grown lips, then loomed over Wiggly Charlie. “Now you know the suffering that is our lot.”

“Need a cheez,” said W.C.

“He still doesn’t have a soul,” said the duck-faced guy. “No glow.”

“It didn’t work,” said Theeb. He hopped to a spot in front of Audrey’s face. “What happened?”

“The p’howa of forceful projection moves the soul out of a soul vessel , into a new body, like yours. It won’t work from a living human to, uh, you guys.”

“Then from a dead human,” said Theeb.

Audrey said, “That won’t work either—”

“Guards!” Theeb called.

Four Squirrel People carrying weapons, came forward through the crowd.

“Theeb the Wise demands you stab her!” said Theeb, and in doing so, he stepped away from Audrey and next to Wiggly Charlie to give his guards stabbing room.

“No!” shouted Wiggly Charlie, and bit down on Theeb’s leg, engaging a majority of his seventy-eight needle-sharp teeth. Theeb squealed and tried to pull away, but instead ended up sawing his leg against W.C.’s teeth.

The People all moved away from the calamity in the middle of the parlor, those with voices crying out in distress. A lizard-headed musketeer started to scamper up the big open staircase, only to be met by Babd, who was oozing down the staircase, claws first. She caught the musketeer, tore him in half, and bit into the red light of his soul, her head and talons taking on dimension as she fed.

Macha and Nemain slid out of the butler’s pantry, Macha across the ceiling, Nemain across the floor.

“Run!” Audrey screamed. “All of you, run!”

Nemain impaled two of the People on her claws and they screeched piteously as she bit into one’s torso, and the other squirmed on her talon, the light of its soul dimming in an instant. Macha dropped from the ceiling like an inky blanket and fell upon a half dozen of the People, gathering them in a death embrace, crushing them. Bones cracked, splintered, four souls went dark. Macha stood full form in the middle of the parlor, holding one of the People in each hand, gore dripping down her face and chest.

The People scattered, running for every exit, through the dining room, crowding the vent in the butler’s pantry, some scrambling up the stairs, a few skittering through the foyer and trying to get to the front doorknob. Theeb struggled to free himself from Wiggly Charlie’s jaws. Nemain stepped by Wiggly Charlie, and Theeb stuck her in the ankle with his spork.

“Fuck! Ouch!” She kicked Theeb, who was ripped out of W.C.’s mouth and went flying into the butler’s pantry. Wiggly Charlie went spinning across the floor the other way. One of the guards, an iguana-headed fellow in green scrubs brandishing a screwdriver, charged her, and Nemain impaled him in the chest on a single claw and lifted him to her eye level. She turned him in the air, as if she was examining a particularly fascinating hors d’oeuvre. She looked down at Audrey. “Did you make these? They’re delicious.” Nemain closed her eyes, and tilted her head back in ecstasy as the light pumped out of the guard’s soul —absorbed through her claw as if she was filling a syringe.

Across the room, Macha slung the lifeless body of a squirrel ballerina against the wall, then reached for Wiggly Charlie, saw there was no soul light in him, and tossed him aside. She dropped to all fours and crawled up to Audrey until their faces were nearly touching. Audrey squirmed to move away, wiggled a few feet back before encountering a chair leg, her breath coming in little yips, as if each breath had to resist turning into a scream.

Macha said: “I don’t know whether to take your head, or just open your veins and watch your life drain out on the floor.”

“Oh, you have to take her head,” said Nemain, now standing over them both.

“I vote head,” said Babd, moving up behind Nemain, blood dripping from her talons.

“There you have it,” said Macha. She scissored her claws in front of Audrey’s face.

“Hurry,” said Nemain. “All the souls are getting away.”

Macha snarled, reared back. Audrey screamed, tried to tuck her face into her knees.

“That will be enough, ladies,” came a voice from the foyer. They stopped. Lemon filled the parlor doorway. “Go catch you some critters, ladies. I’ma have me a chat with the venerable Rinpoche Audrey.”