Christopher Moore - A Dirty Job

“Used-book-store owner in the Haight and a junk dealer off lower Fourth Street, right?” Rivera said.

“No,” Charlie said. “I don’t know of anyone like that. Why did you ask?”

“Because both of them are missing,” Rivera said. There was blood all over the walls of the junk dealer’s office. There was a human ear on the floor of the bookstore in the Haight.”

Charlie backed against the wall. “That wasn’t in the paper.”

“We don’t release stuff like that. Both lived alone, no one saw anything, we don’t know that a crime was even committed. But now, with this Fresh guy missing—”

“You think that these other guys were Death Merchants?”

“I’m not saying I believe that, Charlie, it could just be a coincidence, but when Ray Macy called me today about you, that was actually the reason I came to find you. I was going to ask you if you knew them.”

“Ray ratted me out?”

“Let it go. He may have saved your life.”

Charlie thought about Sophie for the hundredth time that night, worried about not being there with her. “Can I call my daughter?”

“Sure,” Rivera said. “But then—”

“Book ’em Danno in the Mission,” Charlie said, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “That can’t be ten minutes away. I think the owner is one of us.”

Sophie was fine, feeding Cheese Newts to the hellhounds with Mrs. Korjev. She asked Charlie if he needed any help and he teared up and had to get control of his voice before he answered.

Seven minutes later they were parked crossways in the middle of Valencia Street, watching fire trucks blasting water into the second story of the building that housed Book ’em Danno. They got out of the car and Rivera showed his badge to the police officer who had been first on the scene.

“Fire crews can’t get in,” the cop said. “There’s a heavy steel fire door in the back and those shutters must be quarter-inch steel or more.”

The security shutters were bowed outward and had thousands of small bumps all over them.

“What happened?” Rivera asked.

“We don’t know yet,” said the cop. “Neighbors reported an explosion and that’s all we know so far. No one lived upstairs. We’ve evacuated all the adjacent buildings.”

“Thanks,” Rivera said. He looked at Charlie, raised an eyebrow.

“The Fillmore,” Charlie said. “A pawnshop at Fulton and Fillmore.”

“Let’s go,” Rivera said, taking Charlie’s arm to help speed-limp him to the car.

“So I’m not a suspect anymore?” Charlie asked.

“We’ll see if you live,” Rivera said, opening the car door.

Once in the car, Charlie called his sister. “Jane, I need you to go get Sophie and the puppies and take them to your place.”

“Sure, Charlie, but we just had the carpets cleaned—Alvin and—”

“ Do not separate Sophie and the hellhounds for one second, Jane, do you understand?”

“Jeez, Charlie. Sure.”

“I mean it. She may be in danger and they’ll protect her.”

“What’s going on? Do you want me to call the cops?”

“I’m with the cops, Jane. Please, go get Sophie right now.”

“I’m leaving now. How am I going to get them all into my Subaru?”

“You’ll figure it out. If you have to, tie Alvin and Mohammed to the bumper and drive slowly.”

“That’s horrible, Charlie.”

“No, it’s not. They’ll be fine.”

“No, I mean they tore my bumper off last time I did that. It cost six hundred bucks to fix.”

“Go get her. I’ll call you in an hour.” Charlie disconnected.

Well, claymores suck, I can tell you that,” said Babd. “I used to like the big sword claymore, but now…now they have to make them all splody and full of—what do you call that stuff, Nemain?”

“Shrapnel.”

“Shrapnel,” said Babd. “I was just starting to feel like my old self—”

“Shut up!” barked Macha.

“But it hurts,” said Babd.

They were flowing along a storm sewer pipe under Sixteenth Street in the Mission. They were barely two-dimensional again, and they looked like tattered black battle flags, threadbare shadows, oozing black goo as they moved up the pipe. One of Nemain’s legs had been completely severed and she had it tucked under her arm while her sisters towed her through the pipe.

“Can you fly, Nemain?” asked Babd. “You’re getting heavy.”

“Not down here, and I’m not going back up there.”

“We have to go back Above,” said Macha. “If you want to heal before a millennium passes.”

As the three death divas came to a wide junction of pipes under Market Street, they heard something splashing in the pipe ahead.

“What’s that?” said Babd. They stopped.

Something pattered by in the pipe they were approaching.

“What was that? What was that?” asked Nemain, who couldn’t see past her sisters.

“Looked like a squirrel in a ball gown,” said Babd. “But I’m weak and could be delusional.”

“And an idiot,” said Macha. “It was a gift soul. Get it! We can heal Nemain’s leg with it.”

Macha and Babd dropped their unidexter sister and surged forward toward the junction, just as the Boston terrier stepped into their path.

The Morrigan backpedaling in the pipe sounded like cats tearing lace. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” chanted Macha, what was left of her claws raking the pipe to back up.

Bummer yapped out a sharp tattoo of threat, then bolted down the pipe after the Morrigan.

“New plan, new plan, new plan,” said Babd.

“I hate dogs,” said Macha.

They snagged their sister as they passed her.

“We, the goddesses of death, who will soon command the all under darkness, are fleeing a tiny dog,” said Nemain.

“So what’s your point, hoppie?” said Macha.

Over in the Fillmore, Carrie Lang had closed her pawnshop for the night and was waiting for some jewelry she’d taken in that day to finish in the ultrasonic cleaner so she could put it in the display case. She wanted to finish and get out of there, go home and have dinner, then maybe go out for a couple of hours. She was thirty-six and single, and felt an obligation to go out, just on the off chance that she might meet a nice guy, even though she’d rather stay home and watch crime shows on TV. She prided herself on not becoming cynical. A pawnbroker, like a bail bondsman, tends to see people at their worst, and every day she fought the idea that the last decent guy had become a drummer or a crackhead.

Lately she didn’t want to go out because of the strange stuff she’d been seeing and hearing out on the street—creatures scurrying in the shadows, whispers coming from the storm drains; staying at home was looking better all the time. She’d even started bringing her five-year-old basset hound, Cheerful, to work with her. He really wasn’t a lot of protection, unless an attacker happened to be less than knee-high, but he had a loud bark, and there was a good chance that he might actually bark at a bad guy, as long he wasn’t carrying a dog biscuit. As it turned out, the creatures who were invading her shop that evening were less than knee-high.

Carrie had been a Death Merchant for nine years, and after adjusting to the initial shock about the whole phenomenon of transference of souls subsided (which only took about four years), she’d taken to it like it was just another part of the business, but she knew from The Great Big Book of Death that something was going on, and it had her spooked.

As she went to the front of the store to crank the security shutters down, she heard something move behind her in the dark, something low, back by the guitars. It brushed a low E-string as it passed and the note vibrated like a warning. Carrie stopped cranking the shutters and checked that she had her keys with her, in case she needed to run through the front door. She unsnapped the holster of her. 38 revolver, then thought, What the hell, I’m not a cop, and drew the weapon, training it on the still-sounding guitar. A cop she had dated years ago had talked her into carrying the Smith & Wesson when she was working the store, and although she’d never had to draw it before, she knew that it had been a deterrent to thieves.