Secondhand Souls (19 page)

“What are you doing, Darque?” Minty Fresh asked.

“I’m going to check the names in all of your date books against the Emperor’s list. Then I’m going to check as many of the names with the old dates with what I can find on the Web. If they match, we have a list of the unaccounted for.”

“There’s a table in the kitchen where you can spread out,” said Audrey, standing. “And an outlet where you can plug in your laptop.”

As Lily followed Audrey out of the parlor she grumbled, “I feel like the accountant for the Justice League. If someone finds a magical cat or an enchanted stapler or something, I’m calling dibs, you got it?” She looked around the circle as everybody nodded. “Good, give me half an hour.”

While Audrey was out of the room, Minty said to Charlie, “So when do you have to go back to painting the bridge?”

“I don’t. They offered me a disability settlement. Post-traumatic stress. I can take the settlement or they’ll train me for a job that’s not on the bridge. The gardens or the tourist center.”

“Take the settlement, and the time off,” said Fresh. “Get your shop up and running again. You saved the city, gave your life, really.
THE MAN
can help you out for a while.”

“I know,” said Charlie, fidgeting in his chair. “But whenever I used to hear that expression I always thought I was
THE MAN
.”

“No, you’re
A
man,” said Audrey, returning to the room. “Kind of . . .”

Minty Fresh laughed and high-fived Audrey. “I always liked you,” he said.

There came a scratching at the door to the butler’s pantry, just behind where Charlie was sitting. He tapped the door lightly with his palm. “Settle,” he whispered, in a way that made no one at all look away from him. “New puppy,” he explained.

The scratching became more frantic. He reached back and opened the door just a crack.

“Need a cheez,” came a little voice at about shin level.

“Play with your ball. We’re out of cheese.”

“Need a cheez,” said the voice again.

Charlie closed the door, grinned at everyone, embarrassed, as the scratching resumed. “Maybe if you show him your boobs,” he said to Audrey.

Now, Charlie pretty much had everyone’s attention.

“No,” Audrey said, crossing her arms.

“Excuse me,” Charlie said. He got up, moved his chair, then got down on his knees and opened the door again.

“Need a cheez,” said the voice.

Charlie opened the door a couple of inches, reached in, grabbed something, and threw it. “Go play.” They could all hear the distinct sound of a tennis ball bouncing off surfaces and something scurrying after it, then nothing.

“There,” Charlie said, getting back in his seat. “He’ll be fine.”

“I have a basset hound,” said Carrie Lang. “Showing him my boobs doesn’t really have much of an effect on him.”

“Hmm,” Audrey said. “Go figure.” She moved to the center of the floor. “Okay, here’s what I’ve been thinking, about this new order.” She paused a moment, seeing if they would let her out of further explanations about her dog-training methods. Everyone appeared to be letting it go and she felt loving kindness toward all of them.

“The universe seeks balance, order. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right?” Audrey was suddenly grateful that Lily was out of the room. She was feeling somewhat vulnerable to sarcasm as she waded into this concept. Everyone waited.

“So, for every dark, there is a light, the wheels turn, the planets spin, the machine seeks and finds order. But the universe also oscillates, pulses, expands and contracts—and, I’ve lost all of you, haven’t I?”

“Pretty much,” said Charlie. Now that it was out there, everyone agreed.

“Okay, let me come at it this way,
The Book of Living and Dying
, what you call
The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
talks about hundreds of demons and monsters that one will encounter on the journey from life to death and beyond. It describes them in detail, but warns not to be afraid, because they are all illusions, manifestations of human consciousness.”

“Like the Morrigan . . .”

“But, they aren’t an illusion,” said Charlie. “They are very real and deadly.”

“They
become
real,” Audrey said. “The
Big Book
warns not to let souls fall into the hands of those from the Underworld, but at one time, they weren’t in the Underworld, were they? Human souls empower them. They were part of someone’s living religion. So was that bullheaded thing, so was, or is, this elegant Death entity in the Buick, so are you guys, you Death Merchants. The
Big Book
is revised because things change, the rules change, and I don’t think this whole system of moving souls from one life to the next has always been that way. Every supernatural entity is a projection of human consciousness, going back for, well, who knows how long? And any change is going to be countered, always has been.”

She looked around the room. “Nobody?”

“We need to figure out what to do,” said Rivera.

“I don’t think you can solve a problem if you don’t know what it is, Inspector,” said Audrey. “I think that the order the universe found, for a time, anyway, was this ridiculously complex system of souls transferring through objects. Maybe there was a wobble a thousand years ago, and this is the universe trying to correct that, but now there’s another wobble. Maybe when Sophie was born, somehow as the Luminatus, there had to be a balance, so that horned death thing rose, and the hellhounds came to protect Sophie, and the Morrigan appeared to balance that. The whole conflict changed things, and for the last year it’s been seeking a new order. Subtle, like Mr. Baptiste being able to sell souls over the Internet instead of having a shop.”

Charlie said, “But if Sophie was on the light side, and has lost her powers, and this new Death has come, with the Morrigan, doesn’t that mean that everything is out of balance again?”

“Yes,” said Audrey. “It means we’re in a wobble. And there’s way too much on the dark side of the wobble. Something has to balance it out.”

“Some good guys?” said Charlie.

“Not necessarily,” said Audrey. “There’s order and disorder, we may not perceive whatever is balancing the dark as good. I’m just saying there has to be something to balance the dark, and if it’s not Sophie, there’s something else, some other being or force—”

“So,” Charlie said, “you’re saying that every god, throughout history, every supernatural being ever, is a manifestation of the power of the human soul?”

Audrey shrugged.

“The Ghost Thief,” Lily said from the doorway. Everyone looked up at her. “Mike Sullivan said that the ghost on the bridge told him we had to find the Ghost Thief.”

“Which is what?” said Rivera, starting to show some impatience now.

Lily held up the Emperor’s journal. “This is not a list of everyone who has died in the Bay Area, but it
is
a list of a lot of people who have died, most I confirmed. And so are all of your calendars. But none of the names on the Emperor’s list are in any of your calendars, except those in Charlie and Rivera’s calendars, and only Charlie’s from the last year.”

“Which means?”

“It means that if your soul object was retrieved, your name isn’t on the Emperor’s list. And after all those Death Merchants were murdered, the list got a lot longer fast. It means that there are a shit ton of unretrieved souls—souls out of order—floating around or taken by another entity. If what Audrey says actually applies, if they gain their power from human souls, there’s something very big and very scary that’s been taking these souls. I think that’s what Mike’s ghost girl was calling the Ghost Thief.”

“You know this for a fact,” said Charlie.

“No, Asher, I don’t know
anything
for a fact, I’m just putting it together from what we know and what Audrey is saying. I’m saying there’s a big hole in the system right now and I’m calling that hole the Ghost Thief. Could be good, could be bad.”

“So, there,” said Rivera. “What do we do?”

Lily looked to Audrey, “All yours.”

Audrey said, “I think you need to carry on, collecting soul vessels, getting them to new people, keep as many as you can out of the hands of the Underworlders. The cycle of living and dying is the order the universe is seeking.” She paused, scanned faces, got nothing. “I think.”

“Maybe it’s better to do it Mr. Baptiste’s way,” said Minty Fresh. “Not have them in our shops. Put them somewhere out of the way, a vault or something. Sell them remotely over the Internet.”

“My wife and I can sell them,” said Baptiste. “We would just need a photo of each vessel.”

“We could move them all to a vault somewhere,” said Minty Fresh. “Only go there to get the ones you will ship.”

Rivera said, “That might keep the soul vessels out of their hands, but it does ignore the more immediate problem, which is when they come for the souls, they kill us. Does no one else find that a problem?”

“Yeah,” said Minty Fresh. “That’s why I’m suggesting we hide the objects, then we hide. Stay out of our shops. Just go out to retrieve the new vessels. What do
you
want to do about it?”

“Go after them,” said Rivera. “Sure, we try to figure out who this Ghost Thief is, and I’ll use what resources I can to help, but the Morrigan require a little more direct action. We know they can be hurt by weapons, and they only get stronger as they accumulate human souls, so the sooner we go after them, the better chance we have of stopping them.”

He looked at Charlie. “You need to figure out if your little girl still has her powers, because if she doesn’t, her history with them is probably all that’s protecting her, and without her hellhounds, that’s about it. So even if we can’t kill them, we can at least weaken them, slow them down.”

Minty Fresh rubbed his shaved head, as if polishing an idea in there, then looked at Charlie. “How did you find them last time?”

“Bummer found them,” Charlie said. “I sort of wandered around in the sewers with the Squirrel People until we ran into Bummer. He led us to them.”

“They’re definitely going to be out of the light,” Lily said.

“We heard one, the Inspector and I, in a sewer in the Sunset,” said Baptiste.

“That’s my neighborhood,” said Lily. “I’m officially
pro
-fuck-up-the-sewer-harpies’-shit. Now you just have to find them.”

The Emperor held up a hand. “I know where they are.”

“Okay, well, that was easy,” said Lily. “You don’t know where the thousands of souls listed in your book are, do you?”

The old man shook his head dolefully. “I’m sorry.”

B
aptiste thought it was perhaps the strangest meeting he had ever attended, and even when it was over, and they were all leaving, he looked to Minty Fresh and said, “Mr. Fresh, can you tell me please, what happened just now?”

“You know in a horror movie, when the scientist comes in and explains that there’s a zombie virus or there are vampires in the city?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what this was, but instead of a scientist, we had a crazy old man who thinks he’s the Emperor of San Francisco.”

“Oh, I see,” said Baptiste, who really didn’t see.

He stood on the porch of the big Victorian, gathering his thoughts, searching in his messenger bag for his car keys as the others made their way to the street.

“Pssst!”

A noise at his feet, no, below his feet. It was coming from beside the stairs.

“
Monsieur Baptiste
!” An urgent, small whisper.

Baptiste went to the rail and looked over. Below, on the walk, stood a creature about fourteen inches tall with a rotund little body, small hands that looked like those of a raccoon, and the head of a calico cat, wearing what looked like miniature pink hospital scrubs and doll shoes.

“
Monsieur Baptiste,
comment allez-
vous
?” it said in perfect French.

“Not so good,” said Baptiste.

Part Three

Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:

The worst is death, and death will have his day.

—William Shakespeare,
Richard II
, Act III: Scene II

19

Wiggly Charlie’s Adventure

W
iggly Charlie lived in a big house with his friends Audrey and Big Charlie. He liked mozzarella cheese sticks, chasing his tennis ball, and putting his purple wizard hat on his willy and pretending they were friends.

One day, he was playing with his ball in the butler’s pantry (which was a small room where rich people used to keep their prisoners until they needed them to bring them a beverage). When Big Charlie reached in the door, took the ball, and threw it for Wiggly Charlie, it bounced into a vent behind the wastebasket and disappeared.

Wiggly Charlie didn’t even take time to be sad or think how throwing his ball down a vent was kind of a dick move, but instead jumped right into the vent after it. He slid down and down and plopped out on his bottom in the dirt. All around him were little lights in many colors. He stood up and turned all around, looking up at all the pretty colors. He saw that there was a little doorway, just his size, and on the other side he could see his ball.

He went through the doorway and found himself in a passageway made of green glass, so he could still see the colored lights attached to the floor joists of the big house, as well as others that were strung through the glass hallway. He threw his ball and chased it down the hallway, catching it in his mouth just as it was about to roll down some stairs. Then he saw something wonderful.

In front of him was a big round room, like a hole, only nicer, and all around it were little people just like him. He dripped drool on his toes as he looked around in wonder at all the little people, all with different heads and feet, different hands and different clothes, all just about his size. They gathered around a stage in the center of the round room as one of them talked at the others.

“Bring the head for Theeb,” said the little person on the stage. He was wearing a red uniform, had a face that looked like a cat skull, and a very nice black-and-red hat. When he talked, he waved around a spoon that was a fork, or a fork that was a spoon—whatever it was, Wiggly Charlie thought it was very clever.

The little people parted and two of them carried a tray with the head of an animal Wiggley Charlie didn’t recognize down an aisle. (It was the head of an opossum, but the
o
was silent, as often happens with the decapitated.) The red suit guy took the head and put it on a table on the stage.

“Bring the body for Theeb.”

“Bring the body for Theeb,” everyone chanted, and two more little people brought a big piece of meat on a tray and fitted it on the table with the head.

“Bring the legs for Theeb!”

And the legs were brought.

“Bring the voice!”

As each pair of little people brought their pieces, they took tools out of little pouches and sewed the pieces on the body. When the arms were attached, a person with a lizard face wearing a pretty pink dress brought some clothes, and the new body on the stage was dressed. Wiggly Charlie had seen Audrey making clothes just like the ones they fitted onto the body.
These must be Audrey’s secret friends,
thought Wiggly Charlie.

“Bring the soul, so Theeb the Wise may give it life,” said the special fork-spoon guy.

“Bring the soul. Bring the soul. Bring the soul.”

There were many, many little people in the round room now. More than a hundred, but Wiggly Charlie didn’t count very well, so he just thought there were many, many. Each of them had a red light in his or her chest, glowing even through their clothes. Now they opened two doors in the side of the round room, and behind it were many different kinds of objects: shoes, trophies, boxes, tools, bowls, rings, clocks, radios—there were many, many things, and each of them glowed a dull red, just like the little lights each of the little people had in his chest.

“
Bonjour
,” said a voice right next to Wiggly Charlie, and he was so surprised that he dropped his ball. It bounced down the steps and into the crowd of little people. He looked to where the voice had come from and he saw the very pretty face of a calico cat.

“
Soyez la bienvenue
,” she said. She had a pink ribbon around her neck and wore a pink outfit like the ones Audrey made. In the center of her chest a red light glowed very brightly and Wiggly Charlie jumped and clicked his talons because he liked it so much.

“Shhhhh,” said the cat person. She held a finger to her mouth, which Wiggle Charlie knew meant he should be quiet because Audrey and Big Charlie did it all the time. She pointed to the middle of the big room, then patted a spot next to her on the stairs for him to sit next to her. He did, and watched.

“
Je m’appelle Helen
,” said the cat person.

Wiggly Charlie didn’t know what kind of nonsense she was talking about, but she was nice, so he sat down and watched the show going on in the middle of the big round room. “Ball,” he said, pointing to the spot in the crowd where he thought his ball might have rolled.

A radio was brought on the stage and set beside the body they had stitched together. The fellow in red raised his fork-spoon and said:

“Now Theeb the Wise will bring life to one of the People.”

The crowd chanted, “Theeb the Wise. Theeb the Wise. Theeb the Wise.” Not everyone could say the words, and some just growled in rhythm or stamped their feet. “Theeb the Wise! Theeb the Wise! Theeb the Wise!”

Fork-Spoon Guy took papers from his red coat and spread them out on the stage, then started to chant in a different language. Wiggly Charlie had seen pages like that in Audrey’s book room, and he knew that you were not supposed to lick or chew or drool on them, but what he didn’t know was that these were very special pages that had been given to Audrey by the high lama of her monastery in Tibet, and she should have probably not left them lying around like she did with most of her things because she was still not good with having things.

Anyway, the Fork-Spoon Guy chanted and chanted, and before long, the light in the radio moved through the air and settled in the chest of the body they had stitched together, and everyone said “ooooo” and “ahhh,” unless they couldn’t talk then mostly they just hissed or clicked, but when the light had moved the body twitched. It twitched again.

The Spoon-Fork Guy stopped chanting, stood over the body, and said, “He’s alive!”

“Alive!” everyone chanted, and Wiggly Charlie bounced up and down and made his most excited sound and clicked his talons because everything was so wonderful and everyone was just his size.

“Alive!” everyone said. And the body sat up. The new little person looked around.

Wiggly Charley jumped to his feet, and as he chanted with the others he bounced down the stairs, clicking his talons. “Alive! Alive! Alive!”

The Spoon-Fork Guy lowered his spoon-fork and everybody stopped chanting.

“Alive! Alive! Alive!” Wiggly Charlie chanted on. And everyone turned and looked to him, even the new person, so Wiggly Charlie chanted much quieter and stopped on the stairs, halfway down.

“Not one of us,” said the Spoon-Fork Guy, pointing his fork-spoon at Wiggly Charlie.

“Not one of us! Not one of us! Not one of us!” they all chanted, and pointed.

“Not one of us! Not one of us! Not one of us!” chanted Wiggly Charlie, glad that he wasn’t chanting by himself anymore.

The Fork-Spoon Guy came off the stage and the crowd opened up for him as he passed through and came up the stairs until he was standing right in front of Wiggly Charlie.

“Theeb the Wise demands silence!” shouted the Fork-Spoon Guy.

“Not one of us. Not one of us. Not one of us,” chanted Wiggly Charlie, the rest of the crowd leaving him hanging. Finally he trailed off and looked around, hoping someone else had been chanting, but they hadn’t.

“I am Theeb the Wise,” said the Fork-Spoon Guy. He pointed to his red coat with the shiny gold buttons.

“Steve,” said Wiggly Charlie.

“No. Theeb,” said Theeb. “I did not know who I was, but now I have remembered. I am the leader of the People. I am Theeb.”

“Steve,” said Wiggly Charlie.

“Steve! Steve! Steve!” chanted the crowd.

“No!” shouted Theeb. “She put our souls in these vessels, and they gave us false names. I was called Bob, then, but our real names have come back to us. We remember!”

“Steve! Steve! Steve!” chanted the crowd.

“No, you dumbfucks!” shouted Theeb, although he didn’t look as sure of himself as when he had started.

“You are not one of us. You are not one of the People. You are incomplete.” He pointed to the little light in his own chest, then at the enormous pile of things that were red. “You are missing something!”

“Need a cheez,” said Wiggly Charlie.

“Need a cheez! Need a cheez! Need a cheez!” chanted the People.

Theeb bellowed, “She gave us hideous form, and no memory, but
now
we
have
memory.”

“Need a cheez! Need a cheez! Need a cheez!”

“Shut up!” shouted Theeb, and the crowd did.

“She gave us no voices, but the new People have voices!”

“Need a cheez! Need a cheez! Need a cheez!”

“She gave us no lips. But we have grown lips!” said Theeb.

“Lips! Lips! Lips!” the People chanted.

“Lips,” said Wiggly Charlie, handing Theeb his enormous dong, which Theeb the Wise wisely let drop to the ground.

“Sure, you have
that
, because you are her favorite, but you have no soul.”

“Lips,” said Wiggly Charlie.

“We were people, and she trapped us in these hideous creatures, but we have her books, and using them we have become more. There will be more of us. Thousands of us! And the People shall all have voices! All shall have lips! So sayeth Theeb the Wise!”

“Steve the Wise! Steve the Wise! Steve the Wise!” everyone, including Wiggly Charlie, chanted.

Theeb the Wise was not pleased, for he was pretty sure his name as a human had been Theeb, not Steve, but then, Steve really did make quite a bit more sense, didn’t it? Now he was angry.

“Guards!” called Theeb, possibly Steve, previously Bob.

Four of the People, all wearing the new colored cotton outfits that Audrey had sewn, came out from behind all the soul vessels. Each carried a different weapon, a knife, a hatchet, a sickle, and a screwdriver, although not a spork, for the
Spork of Power
was reserved only for Theeb the Wise. Each also wore a little belt, more crudely fashioned than their clothes, and tucked in it were canisters of pepper spray.

“Seize him!” said Theeb.

“Seize him! Seize him! Seize him!” chanted the People.

“You don’t have to chant that!” shouted Theeb, and they pretty much fell silent but for a few stragglers, who were still working the “lips” chant and were behind.

The guards took Wiggly Charlie by the arms and he let them, asking each of them if they might have a mozzarella stick handy, using the traditional “need a cheez” phrase.

“You, her soulless minion, have been sent to us as a sign, Charlie Asher. We will take Audrey’s soul, and put it in your soulless body, so she, too, will know what it is to be trapped in a hideous little creature!” Theeb waved his spork maniacally and laughed.

Wiggly Charlie struggled, and two more guards came and grabbed his feet. Audrey gave him cheezes and had boobies and other parts that made him sleepy. He didn’t want them to hurt her.

“Take him away,” said Theeb. “Tie him up, and prepare to seize the heretic maker, Audrey!”

“Tie him up! Tie him up! Tie him up!” chanted the people, although to be honest, most of them weren’t sure what was going on. The guards dragged Wiggly Charlie out of the big round room.

“Mon Dieu!”
said the cat person called Helen, who was still at the top of the stairs. She hurried off the other way to the passageway that led out under the porch.