Christopher Moore: Secondhand Souls

“Same way the Morrigan got out, I guess,” said Rivera.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you great dog-headed ninny, what are you waiting for?” said the banshee.

Lemon turned to her and froze her as she backed away with Sophie.

“You too, banshee, when I’m finished,” said Lemon, still in a voice that was very un-Lemony. He raised his arms and began drawing down the ghosts of the bridge again, their light arching toward him. Above, on the steel arch of the bridge, stood a lone figure wearing painter’s coveralls.

“Let him do it,” Audrey said. “Yama is the guardian. He’s bringing on the new order.”

“He’s not Yama, you twit,” said the banshee. “He’s bloody Set, lord of darkness and betrayal and general fuckery, isn’t he? He’s not releasing these souls to become part of the bloody universe, he’s trying to absorb them. They’ll become part of his great twatty ego, and good luck then.”

“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.

The 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.

Crisis 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.”