A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper #1) (33 page)

“Easy?” said Babd. “Easy? It’s taken hundreds—no, thousands of years to get this far. How many thousands of years, Nemain?” Babd looked to the poison sister.

“Many,” said Nemain.

“Many,” said Babd. “Many thousands of years. That’s not easy.”

“Souls coming to us, without bodies, without the soul stealers, that seems too easy.”

“I like it,” Nemain said.

They were quiet for a moment, Nemain nibbled at the glowing soul, Babd preened, and Macha studied the animal skull, turning it over in her talons.

“I think it’s a woodchuck,” Macha said.

“Can you make ham from woodchuck?” Nemain asked.

“Don’t know,” said Macha.

“I don’t remember woodchuck,” Nemain said.

Babd sighed heavily. “Things are going so well. Do you two ever think about when we are Above all the time, and Darkness rules all, about, you know, what then?”

“What do you mean, what then?” Macha asked. “We will hold dominion over all souls, and visit death as we wish until we consume all the light of humanity.”

“Yeah, I know,” Babd said, “but then what? I mean, you know, dominion and all that is nice, but will Orcus always have to be around, snorting and growling?”

Macha put down her skull and sat up on a blackened beam. “What’s this about?”

Nemain smiled, her teeth perfectly even, the canines just a little too long. “She’s pining about that skinny soul stealer with the sword.”

“New Meat?” Macha couldn’t believe her ears, which had become visible only a few days ago when the first of the
gift souls
had wandered into their claws, so they hadn’t been tested in a while. “You like New Meat?”

“
Like
is a little strong,” Babd said. “I just think he’s interesting.”

“Interesting in that you’d like to arrange his entrails in interesting patterns in the dirt?” Macha said.

“Well, no, I’m not talented that way like you.”

Macha looked at Nemain, who grinned and shrugged. “We could probably try to kill Orcus once Darkness rises,” Nemain said.

“I am a little tired of his preaching, and he’ll be impossible if the Luminatus doesn’t appear.” Macha shrugged a surrender. “Sure, why not.”

THE EMPEROR

The Emperor of San Francisco was troubled. He sensed that something very wrong was going on in the City, yet he was at a loss as to what to do. He didn’t want to alarm the people unduly, but he did not want them to be unprepared for whatever danger they might face. He believed that a just and benevolent ruler would not use fear to manipulate his people, and until he had some sort of proof that there was an actual threat, it would be criminal to call for any action.

“Sometimes,” he said to Lazarus, the steadfast golden retriever, “a man must muster all of his courage to simply sit still. How much humanity has been spoiled for the confusion of movement with progress, my friend? How much?”

Still, he’d been seeing things, strange things. One late night in Chinatown he’d seen a dragon made of fog snaking through the streets. Then, early one morning, down by the Boudin Bakery at Ghirardelli Square, he saw what looked like a nude woman covered in motor oil crawl out of a storm sewer and grab a tall, half-f latte cup out of the trash, then dive right back in the sewer as a policeman on a bicycle rounded the corner. He knew that he saw these things because he was more sensitive than other people, and because he lived on the streets and could sense the slightest nuance of change there, and largely because he was completely barking-at-the-moon batshit. But none of that relieved him of the responsibility to his people, nor did it ease his mind about the disturbing nature of what he was seeing.

The squirrel in the hoop skirt was really bothering the Emperor, but he couldn’t exactly say why. He liked squirrels—often took the men to Golden Gate Park to chase them, in fact—but a squirrel walking upright and digging through the trash behind the Empanada Emporium while wearing a pink ball gown from the eighteenth century—well—it was off-putting. He was sure that Bummer, who was curled up sleeping in the oversized pocket of his coat, would agree. (Bummer, being a rat dog at heart, had a less than enlightened outlook upon coexistence with any rodent, no less one dressed for the court of Louis XVI.)

“Not to be critical,” said the Emperor, “but shoes would be a welcome complement to the ensemble, don’t you think, Lazarus?”

Lazarus, normally tolerant of all noncookie creatures great and small, growled at the squirrel, who appeared to have the feet of a chicken sticking out from under her skirt, which—you know—was weird.

With the growl, Bummer squirmed awake and emerged from the woolen bedchamber like Grendel from his lair. He immediately erupted into an apoplectic barking fit, as if to say,
You guys, in case you didn’t notice, there’s a squirrel in a ball gown going through the trash over there and you’re just sitting here like a couple of concrete library lions!
The message thus barked, off he went, a furry squirrel-seeking missile, bent on single-minded annihilation of all things rodent.

“Bummer,” called the Emperor. “Wait.”

Too late. The squirrel had tried to take off up the side of the brick building, but snagged her skirt on a gutter and fell back to the alley, just as Bummer was hitting full stride. Then the squirrel snatched up a small board from a broken pallet and swung it at his pursuer, who leapt just in time to miss taking a nail in one of his bug eyes.

Growling ensued.

The Emperor noticed at that point that the squirrel’s hands were reptilian in nature, the fingernails painted a pleasant pink to match her gown.

“You don’t see that every day,” the Emperor said. Lazarus barked in agreement.

The squirrel dropped the board and took off toward the street, moving nicely on her chicken feet, her skirt held up in her lizard hands. Bummer had recovered from the initial shock of a weapon-wielding squirrel (something he had encountered before only in doggie nightmares brought on by the late-night gift of chorizo pizza from a charitable Domino’s guy) and took off after the squirrel, followed closely by the Emperor and Lazarus.

“No, Bummer,” the Emperor called. “She’s not a normal squirrel.”

Lazarus, because he did not know how to say “well, duh,” stopped in his tracks and looked at the Emperor.

The squirrel rocketed out of the alley and took a quick turn down the gutter, falling now to all fours as she went.

Just as he reached the corner, the Emperor saw the trail of the tiny pink dress disappear down a storm sewer, followed closely by the intrepid Bummer. The Emperor could hear the terrier’s bark echoing out of the grate, fading as Bummer pursued his prey into the darkness.

RIVERA

Nick Cavuto sat down across from Rivera with a plate of buffalo stew roughly the size of a garbage-can lid. They were having lunch at Tommy’s Joynt, an old-school eatery on Van Ness that served home-style food like meat loaf, roasted turkey and stuffing, and buffalo stew every day of the year, and featured San Francisco sports teams on the TV over the bar whenever anyone was playing.

“What?” said the big cop, when he saw his partner roll his eyes. “Fucking what?”

“Buffalo almost went extinct once,” Rivera said. “You have ancestors on the Great Plains?”

“Special law enforcement portions—protecting and serving and stuff requires protein.”

“A whole bison?”

“Do I criticize your hobbies?”

Rivera looked at his half a turkey sandwich and cup of bean soup, then at Cavuto’s stew, then at his runt of a sandwich, then at his partner’s colossus of a stew. “My lunch is embarrassed,” he said.

“Serves you right. Revenge for the Italian suits. I love going to every call with people thinking I’m the victim.”

“You could buy a steamer, or I could have my guy find you some nice clothes.”

“Your guy the serial-killing thrift-store owner? No thanks.”

“He’s not a serial killer. He’s got some weird shit going on, but he’s not a killer.”

“Just what we need, more weird shit. What was he really doing when you had that shots-fired report?”

“Just like it said, I was going by and a guy tried to rob him at gunpoint. I drew my weapon and told the perp to halt, he drew down on me, and I fired.”

“Your ass. You never fired eleven shots in your life you didn’t hit the ten X ring with nine of them. The fuck happened?”

Rivera looked down the long table, made sure the three guys sitting down at the other end were engaged in the game showing on the TV over the bar. “I hit her with every shot.”

“Her? Perp was a woman?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Cavuto dropped his spoon. “Partner? Don’t tell me you shot the redhead? I thought that was over.”

“No. This was a new thing—like—Nick, you know me, I’m not going to fire unless it’s justified.”

“Just say what happened. I got your back.”

“It was like this bird woman or something. All black. I mean fucking black as tar. Had claws that looked like—I don’t know, like three-inch-long silver ice picks or something. My shots took chunks out of her—feathers and black goo and shit everywhere. She took nine in the torso and flew away.”

“Flew?”

Rivera sipped his coffee, eyeing his partner’s reaction over the edge of the cup. They had been through some extraordinary things working together, but if the situation had been reversed, he wasn’t sure he’d believe this story either. “Yeah, flew.”

Cavuto nodded. “Okay, I can see why you wouldn’t put that in the report.”

“Yeah.”

“So this bird woman,” Cavuto said, like that was settled, he totally believed it, now what? “She was robbing the Asher guy from the thrift shop?”

“Giving him a hand job.”

Cavuto nodded, picked up his spoon, and took a huge bite of stew and rice, still nodding as he chewed. He looked as if he were going to say something, then quickly took another bite, as if to stop himself. He appeared to be distracted by the game on television, and finished his lunch without another word.

Rivera ate his soup and sandwich in silence as well.

As they were leaving, Cavuto grabbed two toothpicks from the dispenser by the register and gave one to Rivera as they walked out into a beautiful San Francisco day.

“So you were following Asher?”

“I’ve been trying to keep an eye on him. Just in case.”

“And you shot her nine times for giving the guy a hand job,” Cavuto finally asked.

“I guess,” Rivera said.

“You know, Alphonse, that right there is why I don’t hang out with you socially. Your values are fucked up.”

“She wasn’t human, Nick.”

“Still. A hand job? Deadly force? I don’t know—”

“It wasn’t deadly force. I didn’t kill her.”

“Nine to the chest?”

“I saw her—it—last night. On my street. Watching me from a storm sewer.”

“Ever think to ask Asher how he happened to know the flying bulletproof bird woman in the first place?”

“Yeah, I did, but I can’t tell you what he said. It’s too weird.”

Cavuto threw his arms in the air. “Well, sweet Tidy Bowl Jesus skipping on the blue toilet water, we wouldn’t want it to get fucking weird, would we?”

LILY

They were on their second cup of coffee and Charlie had told Lily about not getting the two soul vessels, about the encounter with the sewer harpy, about the shadow coming out of the mountains in Sedona and the other version of
The Great Big Book of Death,
and his suspicions that there was a frightening problem with his little girl, the symptoms of which were two giant dogs and an ability to kill with the word
kitty
. To Charlie’s thinking, Lily was reacting to the wrong story.

“You hooked up with a demon from the Underworld and I’m not good enough for you?”

“It’s not a competition, Lily. Can we not talk about that? I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I’m worried about other stuff.”

“I want details, Asher.”

“Lily, a gentleman doesn’t share the details of his amorous encounters.”

Lily crossed her arms and assumed a pose of disgusted incredulity, an eloquent pose, because before she said it, Charlie knew what was coming: “Bullshit. That cop shot pieces off her, but you’re worried about protecting her honor?”

Charlie smiled wistfully. “You know, we shared a moment—”

“Oh my God, you complete man-whore!”

“Lily, you can’t possibly be hurt by my—by my response to your generous—and let me say right here—extraordinarily tempting offer. Gee whiz.”

“It’s because I’m too perky, isn’t it? Not dark enough for you? You being Mr. Death and all.”

“Lily, the shadow in Sedona was coming for
me
. When I left town, it went away. The sewer harpy came for
me
. The other Death Merchant said that I was different. They never had deaths happen as a result of their presence like I have.”

“Did you just say ‘gee whiz’ to me? What am I, nine? I am a woman—”

“I think I might be the Luminatus, Lily.”