Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“We’re family,” Charlie said.

The nurse looked at him, then at Audrey, and seemed as if she was trying to think of exactly how to answer without seeming horrible and racist, when Rivera said, “They are part of this investigation. I didn’t want to tell the doctor, but this was an assault. Mr. Sullivan is a herpetologist and Ms. Rinpoche is a sketch artist.”

The nurse appeared almost relieved, but did look for Audrey’s sketch pad. Audrey held up Charlie’s smartphone. “All digital now.”

“We gave him something for the pain,” said the nurse.

As the nurse led them into Minty’s room, which was behind a glass wall facing the nurses’ desk, Audrey whispered, “My last name isn’t Rinpoche, that’s a title.”

“You’re not a sketch artist either, are you?” Rivera whispered back. “I couldn’t remember your last name.”

Minty Fresh’s injured leg was bandaged and held in traction so his knee was at a right angle. His hospital bed was propped up about thirty degrees and his other leg jutted a foot and a half out into space. He smiled when they came in. His face was starting to go gray.

“This is some bullshit,” said the Mint One. “I’ma die and my foot is cold.”

Audrey tried to adjust his blanket, but with the one leg propped up she couldn’t make it work without uncovering him to the waist. She whipped off her sweater and wrapped it around his foot. “Until I can get the nurse to bring you another blanket.”

“Thanks,” said the big man.

“How you doing?” said Charlie.

“How was you doing when this happened to you?” Minty looked to Audrey. “Don’t you put me in one of those creepy puppet things like you did him, just let me go, you hear?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Audrey said. She hugged his jutting foot. “I didn’t know. I would have warned you. I watched them get strong, so strong, with each of the Squirrel People they killed. It was so horrible. I didn’t know you were going to go after them. I didn’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

So she told them about the attack on the Buddhist Center, about how the Morrigan had grown, taken form as they slaughtered the Squirrel People. She told them about Yama releasing her, saving her from the Morrigan, and what he had said about trying to establish the new order.

“He just let you go?” Charlie said.

“Who the fuck Yama?” said Minty.

“The man in yellow,” said Audrey. “He’s a Buddhist personification of Death. The legend was that he was a monk who was told if he meditated for fifty years, he would achieve enlightenment, so he went into a cave in the mountains, and he meditated for forty-nine years, three hundred and sixty-four days, and on the last day, some thieves came into the cave, leading a bull they had stolen, and they decapitated it, and when he asked to be spared, they decapitated him, too. He was reincarnated as Yama, a powerful demon-god, and he put the head of the bull on his own body and then killed the thieves and became the prime ruler over Death, the protector of Buddhism. He’s one of the demons we’re told to ignore when we are training to lead people through bardo, from life to death.”

“Yama, huh?” Minty Fresh said.

“Yes, I’m so sorry, I should have told you all.”

“That’s okay. How ’bout you let go my leg.”

Audrey had been hugging his calf and foot through the entire Yama story, now she was embarrassed as well as sorry.

“But you didn’t ignore him, right?” said Charlie.

“Honestly, I didn’t really remember him until now. Does that make sense?”

“It’s all right, Audrey,” Minty said. “He has some kind of gris-gris he put on people. Kid that works for me was all woo-woo with it, too, asking me about where my soul vessels went. I knew something was up with him. Motherfucker been sneaky since we was little.”

“Pardon?” said Charlie.

“Yama my cousin.”

“Wait,” said Audrey. “What?”

“He might be Yama now, but when I knew him, his name was Lemon, and he was my cousin.”

“Lemon Fresh?” asked Charlie. “So that isn’t a nickname you made up?”

Rivera turned aside and tried to hide his smile.

“Don’t you laugh,” said Minty. “Lemon was not an uncommon name in Louisiana in those days. And I’m dying here.”

“He said he’s just trying to establish a new order,” Audrey said, even more distressed now. “And that’s what we thought was happening. That’s part of the cycle, part of the wheel of life and death… Right?”

“Audrey,” Minty Fresh said, his eyelids fluttering a bit now. “I don’t want to rush y’all, but I probably got a limited time to live, so if you could just tell us—”

“I think I told him the lost souls are on the bridge,” Audrey said.

Minty Fresh looked from Charlie to Rivera back to Audrey. “Was anyone going to tell me?”

“I was going to,” said Charlie, “but I only found out yesterday afternoon and things have moved kind of fast since then. Were you going to tell us that the new menace to reality as we know it is your cousin?”

“Don’t sass me, Charlie, I’m dying.”

“You can’t keep playing the death card.”

“I don’t want to keep playing the death card. But the death card been played. Just let me go with a little dignity.” He closed his eyes, took a gasping breath.

“You mean instead of lying like a rug,” said Charlie.

One of Minty Fresh’s eyes popped open, his dignified death having been postponed by being called on his shit. “You know, Asher, just because you have biceps now doesn’t mean you can talk to me like that.”

“Your cousin?”

“He sent me the book, all right? He made me into a Death Merchant twenty some years ago, then he disappeared. Only reason I knew he was in town is he still driving that raggedy old Buick Roadmaster. I would spit but my mouth is dry.”

There was a squeeze bottle of water on the nightstand, Audrey held it for Minty Fresh to have a drink.

“Where my shades? Let me die with a touch of cool.”

Rivera took Minty Fresh’s sunglasses from his jacket pocket, helped fit them on the big man, then they all stood there for a minute, waiting.

“Anybody got any ’Trane on they phone?” asked Minty. “Some Miles?”

Sad shaking of heads.

“Figures,” said Minty Fresh. He lay back as if he was hearing the notes. They all listened to his breathing and watched the cardiac monitor’s jagged line.

The nurse came through the glass door and everyone stood a little straighter and tried to look a little more official, as if she couldn’t have seen them through the glass before she came in.

“Mr. Fresh?”

“What? What? What?” Minty Fresh said, lifting his head up. “It so dark. Why it so dark? Here I go. Here I come, Lemon, you bitch-ass motherfucker—”

“You have your sunglasses on,” said the nurse.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Mr. Fresh, there’s a young woman out here who says she’s your priest.”

“Big titties? Dress like a vampire?”

“Well, I guess,” said the nurse, giving Rivera a nervous look. “She’s kind of dressed more like a Catholic schoolgirl.”

“Yeah, that my priest. Send her in.”

“So, some good pain meds?” Rivera said.

“Fine as frog fur,” said the Mint One. He offered Rivera a pound with his non-IV hand and Rivera returned it.

Charlie Asher frowned. Having never gotten a pound from the big man, he felt slighted.

“Let’s give them some privacy,” said Audrey. They passed Lily on the way out of the room, each giving her a pat on the shoulder.

In the lobby, among the other distressed and waiting, stood a slim woman in her forties with dark hair, wearing a sharp knit suit with military-style gold trim. Charlie recognized her as Lily’s mother, but unless you saw them both side by side without eye makeup (which was a condition in which Charlie had never seen Lily) and saw that they had the same wide, blue eyes, you’d have never guessed they were related. Charlie elbowed Rivera and whispered, “Lily’s mom, Mrs. Severo.”