Christopher Moore - A Dirty Job

“Uh, let go,” Jane said, pushing him away. “You smell like incense.”

“Oh, Jane, I can’t believe it, she’s so wonderful.”

“He got laid,” Cassandra said.

“You got laid?” Jane said, kissing her brother on the cheek. “I’m so happy for you. Now let me go.”

“Daddy got laid,” Sophie said to the hellhounds, who seemed very happy at hearing the news.

“No, not laid,” Charlie said, and there was a collective sigh of disappointment.

“Well, yes, laid,” and there was a collective sigh of relief, “but that’s not the thing. The thing is she’s wonderful. She’s gorgeous, and kind, and sweet, and—”

“Charlie,” Jane interrupted, “you called us and told us that there was some great danger and we had to go get Sophie and protect her, and you were going on a date?”

“No, no, there was—is danger, at least in the dark, and I did need you to get Sophie, but I met someone.”

“Daddy got laid!” Sophie cheered again.

“Honey, we don’t say that, okay,” Charlie said. “Auntie Jane and Auntie Cassie shouldn’t say that either. It’s not nice.”

“Like ‘kitty’ and ‘not in the butt’?”

“Exactly, honey.”

“Okay, Daddy. So it wasn’t nice?”

“Daddy has to go to our house and get his date book, pumpkin, we’ll talk about this later. Give me a kiss.” Sophie gave him a huge hug and a kiss and Charlie thought that he might cry. For so long she had been his only future, his only joy, and now he had this other joy, and he wanted to share it with her. “I’ll come right back, okay?”

“Okay. Let me down.”

Charlie let her slide to the floor and she ran off to another part of the house.

“So it wasn’t nice?” Jane asked.

“I’m sorry, Jane. This is really crazy. I hate that I put you guys in the middle of it. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Jane thumped him in the arm. “So it was nice?”

“It was really nice,” Charlie said, breaking into a grin. “She’s really nice. She’s so nice I miss Mom.”

“Lost me,” Cassandra said.

“Because I’d like Mom to see that I’m doing okay. That I met someone who’s good for me. Who’s going to be good for Sophie.”

“Whoa, don’t jump the gun, there, tiger,” Jane said. “You just met this woman, you need to slow down—and remember, this comes from someone whose typical second date is moving a woman in.”

“Slut,” Cassie murmured.

“I mean it, Jane. She’s amazing.”

Cassie looked at Jane. “You were right, he really did need to get laid.”

“That’s not it!”

Charlie’s cell rang. “Excuse me, guys.” He flipped it open.

“Asher, what the hell have you done?” It was Lily. She was crying. “What the hell have you let loose?”

“What, Lily? What?”

“It was just here. The front window of the shop is gone. Gone! It just came in, ripped through the shop, and took all of your soul thingies. Loaded them into a bag and flew away. Fuck, Asher. I mean FUCK! This thing was huge, and fucking hideous.”

“Yeah, Lily, are you okay? Is Ray okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Ray didn’t come in. I ran into the back when it came through the window. It wasn’t interested in anything but that shelf. Asher, it was as big as a bull and it fucking flew!”

She sounded like she was on the edge of hysteria. “Hold on, Lily. Stay there and I’ll come to you. Go in the back room and don’t open the door until you hear me, okay.”

“Asher, what the fuck was that thing?”

“I don’t know, Lily.”

The bullheaded Death flew into the culvert and immediately fell to all fours to move through the pipe, dragging the bag of souls behind him. Not for much longer—he would not crawl much longer. The time had come, Orcus could feel it. He could feel them converging on the City—the City where he had staked his territory so many years ago—his city. Still, they would come, and they would try to take what was rightfully his. All of the old gods of death: Yama and Anubis and Mors, Thanatos and Charon and Mahakala, Azrael and Emma-O and Ahkoh, Balor, Erebos, and Nyx—dozens of them, gods born of the energy of Man’s greatest fear, the fear of death—all of them coming to rise as the leader of darkness and the dead, as the Luminatus. But he had come here first, and with Morrigan, he would become the one. But first he had to marshal his forces, heal the Morrigan, and take down the wretched human soul stealers of the City.

The satchel of souls would go a long way toward healing his brides. He marched into the grotto where the great ship was moored and leapt into the air, the beat of his great leathery wings like a war drum, echoing off the grotto walls and sending bats to the wing, swirling around the ship’s masts in great clouds.

The Morrigan, torn and broken, were waiting for him on the deck.

“What did I tell you?” Babd said. “It’s really not that great Above, huh? I, for one, could do without cars altogether.”

Jane drove while Charlie fired out phone calls on his cell, first to Rivera, then to Minty Fresh. Within a half an hour they were all standing in Charlie’s store, or the wreckage that had been Charlie’s store, and uniformed policemen had taped off the sidewalk until someone could get the glass swept up.

“The tourists have to love this,” Nick Cavuto said, gnawing an unlit cigar. “Right on the cable-car line. Perfect.”

Rivera was sitting in the back room interviewing Lily while Charlie, Jane, and Cassandra tried to sort through the mess and put things back on their shelves. Minty Fresh stood by the front door, wearing shades, looking entirely too cool for the destruction that lay strewn around him. Sophie was content to sit in the corner and feed shoes to Alvin and Mohammed.

“So,” Cavuto said to Charlie, “some kind of flying monster came through your window and you thought this would be a good place to bring your kid?”

Charlie turned to the big cop and leaned on the counter. “Tell me, Detective, in your professional opinion, what procedure should I use in dealing with robbery by a flying monster? What the fuck is the SFPD giant-fucking-flying-monster protocol, Detective?”

Cavuto stood staring at Charlie as if he’d had water thrown in his face, not really angry, just very surprised. Finally, he grinned around his cigar, and said, “Mr. Asher, I am going to go outside and smoke, call in to the dispatcher, and have her look that particular protocol up. You have stumped me. Would you tell my partner where I’ve gone?”

“I’ll do that,” Charlie said. He went into the office with Lily and Rivera and said, “Rivera, can I get some police protection here at my apartment—officers with shotguns?”

Rivera nodded, patting Lily on the hand as he looked away. “I can give you two, Charlie, but not for longer than twenty-four hours. You sure you don’t want to get out of town?”

“Upstairs we have the security bars and steel doors, we have the hellhounds and Minty Fresh’s weapons, and besides, they’ve already been here. I have a feeling they got what they came for, but the cops would make me feel better.”

Lily looked at Charlie. She was in total mascara meltdown and had smudged her lipstick halfway across her face. “I’m sorry, I thought I would handle it better than this. It was so scary. It wasn’t mysterious and cool, it was horrible. The eyes and the teeth—I peed, Asher. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, kid. You did fine. I’m glad you had the sense to get out of its way.”

“Asher, if you’re the Luminatus, that thing must be your competition.”

“What? What is that?” Rivera said.

“It’s her weird Gothy stuff, Inspector. Don’t worry about it,” Charlie said. He looked through to the door and saw Minty Fresh standing at the front of the shop, looking at him, shrugging, as if saying, Well? So Charlie asked: “Hey, Lily, are you seeing anyone?”