Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

Rivera showed one second of an “are you kidding me” look then gathered his composure and introduced himself to her.

“Inspector Rivera?” she said, shaking his hand. “I’m afraid to ask how you know my daughter.”

“I met her at Charlie Asher’s shop when she worked there.”

“Charlie Asher was a good man.”

“He was,” said Rivera.

“He was good for Lily. She was a wild child, but I think her job at Charlie’s store kept her grounded, at least some of the time. I work so much, it’s just been Lily and me—I’m not even sure she’s over Charlie’s passing; now this.”

Rivera could tell she was feeling responsible for her daughter’s pain and he wanted to tell her just how much this was not her fault. He wanted to put his arm around her and be a decent human being, but he wasn’t finding it easy, because this—the attack on Minty—was murder, and he had a protocol for dealing with the loved ones of the victim. It didn’t seem right.

“Mr. Fresh is a good guy.”

“I don’t know him. Never met him, of course. I worried he was older than her, but she really seems to care for him. I don’t want her to be alone. It sucks to be alone.”

“I know,” he said. “I was going to offer to be here for Lily if you needed to get to work, but I’m guessing you’ll be staying. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“That would be nice, Inspector.”

“Alphonse,” he said.

She nodded. “I’m Elizabeth. Liz.”

“Liz,” he repeated, smiled. “Liz, I’ve know Lily since she was sixteen,” Rivera said. “You had your work cut you for you. She was a spooky kid.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” she said.

“Maybe I do. What do you take in your coffee?”

He was about to head back out the glass doors into the hallway when he saw a familiar doctor walk up to the nurses’ desk, confer with the attending nurse, then look around until he caught Rivera’s eye. Rivera intercepted him at the desk. Dr. Hathaway , Rivera reminded himself.

“How are you doing Inspector?” asked the doctor.

“That depends,” said Rivera.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do for him. We were going to move him to a quiet room where everyone could be with him, but honestly, I don’t think there’s time. His organs are shutting down and I’m surprised he’s even conscious, so if you need to ask him anything, I’d do it right now.”

“Actually, he’s a friend.”

“I’m sorry. Before—”

“It’s okay, Doctor.”

“Code blue, Doctor,” called the nurse. She ran around the desk and into the room where Minty lay.

Without a word the doctor turned and followed her in. Lily came stumbling out of the glass doors, makeup-blackened tears running down her face.

Under the San Francisco Bay, in a maintenance storage room just off a BART service tunnel, the Morrigan pooled among the heavy track-repair and debris-clearing tools. Every few minutes a train would go through the tunnel and they would dig what was left of their claws into the concrete to keep from being sucked out into the greater train tunnel.

“Close the door,” said Babd, “and that won’t keep happening.” It was almost completely dark in the room and their eyes looked like silver disks floating in ink.

“I can’t close the door,” said Nemain. “It’s big and rusty and I can’t pull it loose. I only have one hand.”

“We should go back through the sewers to that house with all the little soul puppets,” said Macha. “Get our strength back.”

“We could get the ones that escaped under the house where we couldn’t fit.”

“Well, we could fit now,” said Babd. She, like her sisters, had barely any dimension now; even her shadow form showed holes and tears from buckshot.

Nemain, who was the most solid of the three, had lost a hand, and as much as she stared at it and cursed at it, it wouldn’t grow back, even in a shadow form. “We should go someplace where there are no guns.”

“Or cars,” said Babd.

“Or Yama.”

“Why is it,” said Macha, “that every time we become strong enough to do something about Yama, someone shoots us up?”

“I feel used,” said Babd. “Do you feel used? I don’t know why we need him.”

“I say we go eat the soul puppets, then flay Yama right away,” said Nemain.

“Take his head,” said Macha, who was always keen on taking heads, it being her specialty.

“I’m in,” said Babd. “Let’s go.”

“Ladies,” came a deep voice out of the dark, which was strange, because they could all see in the dark, and they couldn’t see where the voice was coming from.

“Ladies,” said Lemon. Now he stood there, a palm out, an open flame burning on his palm, illuminating the room. “What are you doing in this shit hole?”

“They came into the other place with guns. Blowed us up,” said Macha.

“Look at us,” said Nemain.

“Don’t look at us,” said Babd.

“We need to go get the rest of the soul puppets, the ones that taste like ham.”

“No, we not going back there, ladies. But I know a place where you can scoop souls out the air like eatin’ cotton candy. Thousands of them. Y’all ain’t seen nothin’ like it. Why, I bet once you done there, you be able to rip souls right out of a human like the old days. Ain’t no gun or car can hurt you, then.”

“Where?” asked Macha.

“Why, when y’all are done, you’ll probably be able to bring the Underworld up anywhere y’all want. Maybe everywhere.”

“Where? Where? Where?” asked Nemain.

“What’s cotton candy?” asked Babd, who was the dimmest in a triad of very dark creatures.

“Well, I’ll show y’all,” said Lemon. “But we going to have wait until it’s dark out. They’s a lot of open ground to cover to get there.”

“Open a door into that place,” said Macha.

“I’ll get y’all close, but you can’t just wade in and scoop them all up. You nibble round the edges, maybe, and before anyone know what happen, they’s one soul in particular you gotta shred. You don’t get that one, you lose the rest.”

“Take us there,” said Nemain.

In the days when the Underworld was in flux with the light, and gods rose and fell like mushrooms in a damp forest, there came into being two brothers, Osiris and Set. Osiris, with his queen, Isis, rose to reign over the kingdom of light, and Set ruled over the dark, the Underworld, with his queen Nephthys, who was fine. Set was jealous of his brother’s land and worshippers, and plotted against him, while Osiris, radiant and self-assured, yearned for a taste of the dark world in Nephthys, and so he did tap that ass. From that union came a son, the dark, dog-headed god, Anubis. (As well as his jackal-headed brother Upuaut, who would be put in a basket and set adrift in the sea, to make his way unguided in a new land, but his is another story. * )

When Set learned of his wife’s affair, he murdered Osiris, and to assure that Osiris would never be reincarnated, Set cut the body into pieces and hid the pieces among the darkest, most distant corners of the Underworld. Isis was overcome with grief and searched in vain for her beloved. But the dutiful dog-headed god, Anubis, Osiris’s son in the Underworld, found the pieces of his father’s body and returned them to Isis. Anubis mummified his father’s body and Isis raised his spirit to rule over the people of the sun. For his service, Anubis was given the realm of the dead in the Underworld, and it was his lot to see that order was kept and justice done to the passing souls of man.

Set was left to seethe with jealousy and wait for chaos to come about, and with it, his opportunity to rise again to power over the kingdoms of light and darkness.