Christopher Moore - A Dirty Job

“They’re not gerbils, they’re hamsters,” Charlie said.

“Asher, do you have something you’ve been keeping from me?” She tilted her head a little, but didn’t look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku.

“Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie!” Charlie said. “Her fish died, so I’m bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth—”

“I meant that you’re Death,” Lily said.

Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. “Huh?”

“It’s so wrong—” Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stopped in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. “Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of life’s many disappointments, I’d have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.”

“You’re sixteen,” Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this.

“Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. I’m only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.”

“Your birthday is in two months? Well, we’ll have to get you a nice cake,” Charlie said.

“Don’t change the subject, Asher. I know all about you, and your Death persona.”

Charlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. “Lily, I know I’ve been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and I’m sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but it’s just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has—”

“I have The Great Big Book of Death, ” Lily said. She steadied Charlie’s hamsters when he lost his grip. “I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that stuff—all of it. I’ve known longer than you have, I think.”

Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was feeling panic and relief at the same time—panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The book!

“Lily, do you still have the book?”

“It’s in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.”

“No one ever looks in that cabinet.”

“No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, I’d say it had always been there.”

“I have to go.” He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned around again. “Where are you going?”

“To get some coffee.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“You will not.” Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them.

“But, Lily, I’m Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.”

“Yeah, you’d think, but it turns out that you have managed to suck the cool out of being Death.”

“Wow, that’s harsh.”

“Welcome to my world, Asher.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this, you know that?”

“Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.”

“Hamsters! That’s not—”

“Chill, Asher.” Lily giggled. “I know what you mean. I’m not going to tell anyone—except Abby knows—but she doesn’t care. She says she’s met some guy who’s her dark lord. She’s in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical magic wand.”

Charlie adjusted his hamster box uncomfortably. “Girls go through a stage like that?” Why was he just hearing about this now? Even the hamsters looked uncomfortable.

Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

Charlie stood there, watching her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to dig his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. “Lily, wait!” he called. “I’m calling a cab, I’ll give you a ride.”

She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since he’d heard them, and he thought maybe they’d gone. “We’ll have her, too, Meat. She’s ours now.”

He felt the fear rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane rattling and hamsters bouncing as he went. “Lily, wait! Wait!”

She spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the quarter turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, “One of those ice-cream cakes from Thirty-one Flavors, okay? After that, despair and nothingness.”

“We’ll put that on the cake,” Charlie said.

T he Great Big Book of Death, as it turned out, wasn’t that big, and certainly wasn’t that comprehensive. Charlie read through it a dozen times, took notes, made copies, ran searches trying to find some reference to any of the stuff covered, but all of the material in the twenty-eight lavishly illustrated pages boiled down to this:

1. Congratulations, you have been chosen to act as Death. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. It is your duty to retrieve soul vessels from the dead and dying and see them on to their next body. If you fail, Darkness will cover the world and Chaos will reign.

2. Some time ago, the Luminatus, or the Great Death, who kept balance between light and darkness, ceased to be. Since then, Forces of Darkness have been trying to rise from below. You are all that stands between them and destruction of the collective soul of humanity.

3. In order to hold off the Forces of Darkness, you will need a number two pencil and a calendar, preferably one without pictures of kitties on it.

4. Names and numbers will come to you. The number is how many days you have to retrieve the soul vessel. You will know the vessels by their crimson glow.

5. Don’t tell anyone what you do, or dark forces, etc. etc. etc.

6. People may not see you when you are performing your Death duties, so be careful crossing the street. You are not immortal.

7. Do not seek others. Do not waver in your duties or the Forces of Darkness will destroy all that you care about.

8. You do not cause death, you do not prevent death, you are a servant of Destiny, not its agent. Get over yourself.

9. Do not, under any circumstances, let a soul vessel fall into the hands of those from below—because that would be bad.

A few months passed before Charlie worked the shop again alone with Lily. She asked him, “Well, did you get a number two pencil?”

“No, I got a number one pencil.”

“You rogue! Asher, hello, Forces of Darkness—”

“If the world without this Luminatus is so precariously balanced that my buying a pencil with one-grade-harder lead is going to cast us all into the abyss, then maybe it’s time.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lily chanted like she was trying to bring a spooked horse under control. “It’s one thing for me to be all nihilistic and stuff, for me it’s a fashion statement, I have the outfits for it. You can’t be all horny for the grave wearing your stupid Savile Row suits.”

Charlie was proud of her for recognizing that he was wearing one of his expensive secondhand Savile Rows. She was learning the trade in spite of herself.

“I’m tired of being afraid,” he said. “I’ve dealt with the Forces of Darkness or whatever, Lily, and you know what, we’re one and one.”