Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“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.

Rivera 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.

Religion 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.