“Oh, shit. That explains why they’ve been showing up. You didn’t even know.”
“Who? What? They?”
Mint Green Death sighed heavily. “I guess we’re going to be here awhile. I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want some?”
“Sure, try to lull me into a false sense of security, then spring.”
“You’re tied the fuck up, motherfucker, I don’t need to lull you into shit. You’ve been fucking with the fabric of human existence and someone needed to shut your ass down.”
“Oh, sure, go black on me. Play the ethnic card.”
Mint Green climbed to his feet and headed toward the door to the shop. “You want cream?”
“And two sugars, please,” Charlie said.
This is really cool, why are you giving it back?” said Abby Normal. Abby was Lily’s best friend, and they were sitting on the floor in the back room of Asher’s Secondhand, looking through The Great Big Book of Death. Abby’s real name was Alison, but she would no longer tolerate the ignominy of what she called her “daylight-slave name.” Everyone had been much more responsive to calling her by her chosen name than they had been to Lily’s, Darquewillow Elventhing, which you always had to spell for people.
“Turns out it’s Asher, not me,” Lily said. “He’ll be really pissed if he finds out I took it. And he’s Death now, I guess, so I could get in trouble.”
“Are you going to tell him you had the book?” Abby scratched the silver spider stud in her eyebrow; it was a fresh piercing and still healing and she couldn’t stop messing with it. Abby, like Lily, was dressed all in black, boots to hair, the difference being that she had a black-widow’s red hourglass on the front of her black T-shirt and she was thinner and more waiflike in her affected creepiness.
“No. I’ll just say it got misfiled. That happens a lot here.”
“How long did you think it was you?”
“Like a month.”
“What about the dreams and the names and stuff it talks about, you didn’t have any of that, right?”
“I thought I was just growing into my powers. I made a lot of lists of people I wanted gone.”
“Yeah, I do that. And you just found out yesterday that it was Asher?”
“Yeah,” said Lily.
“That sucks,” said Abby.
“Life sucks,” said Lily.
“So, what now?” asked Abby. “Junior college?”
They both nodded, woefully, and looked into the depths of their respective nail polishes to avoid sharing the humiliation of one of them having gone from dark demigod to local loser in an instant. They lived their lives hoping for something grand and dark and supernatural to happen, so when it had, they took it more in stride than was probably healthy. Fear, after all, is a survival mechanism.
“So all these things are soul objects?” asked Abby, as cheerfully as her integrity would allow. She waved to the piles of stuff Charlie had marked with “Do Not Sell” signs. “There’s like a person’s soul in there?”
“According to the book,” said Lily. “Asher says he can see them glow.”
“I like the red Converse All Stars.”
“Take them, they’re yours,” said Lily.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Lily said. She took the All Stars off the shelf and held them out. “He’ll never miss them.”
“Cool. I have the perfect pair of red fishnets I can wear with them.”
“They probably have the soul of some sweaty jock in them,” Lily said.
“He may worship at my feet,” said Abby, doing a pirouette and an arabesque (remnants, along with an eating disorder, of ten years of ballet lessons).
So I’m like a Santa’s Helper of Death?!” Charlie said, waving his coffee cup. The tall man had untied his one arm so he could drink his coffee, and Charlie was baptizing the stockroom floor with French roast with every gesture. Mr. Fresh frowned.
“What in the hell are you talking about, Asher?” Fresh felt bad about hitting Charlie Asher with a cash register and tying him up, and now he was wondering if the blow hadn’t caused some sort of brain damage.
“I’m talking about the Santa at Macy’s, Fresh. When you’re a kid, and you notice that the Santa Claus at Macy’s has a fake beard, and that there are at least six Salvation Army Santas working Union Square, you ask your parents about it and they tell you that the real Santa is in the North Pole, and he’s really busy, so all these other guys are Santa’s helpers, who are out helping him with his work. That’s what you’re saying, that we’re Santa’s helpers to Death?”
Mr. Fresh had been standing by his desk, but now he sat down again across from Charlie so he could look him in the eye. Very softly he said, “Charlie, you know that that’s not true now, right? I mean about Santa’s helpers and all?”
“Of course I know that there’s no Santa Claus. I’m using it as a metaphor, you tool.”
Mr. Fresh took this opportunity to reach out and smack Charlie upside the head. Then immediately regretted it.
“Hey!” Charlie put down his cup and rubbed one of his receding-hairline inlets, which was going red from the blow.
“Rude,” said Mr. Fresh. “Let’s not be rude.”
“So you’re saying that there is a Santa?” Charlie said, cringing in anticipation of another smack. “Oh my God, how deep does this conspiracy go?”
“No, there’s no goddamn Santa. I’m just saying that I don’t know what we are. I don’t know if there is a big Death with a capital D, although the book hints that there used to be. I’m just saying that there are many of us, a dozen that I know of right here in the city—all of us picking up soul vessels and seeing that they get into the right hands.”
“And that’s based on someone randomly coming into your shop and buying a record?” Then Charlie’s eyes went wide as it hit him. “Rachel’s Sarah McLachlan CD. You took it?”
“Yes.” Fresh looked at the floor, not because he was ashamed, but to avoid seeing the pain in Charlie Asher’s eyes.
“Where is it? I want to see it,” said Charlie.
“I sold it.”
“To who? Find it. I want Rachel back.”
“I don’t know. To a woman. I didn’t get her name, but I’m sure it was meant for her. You’ll be able to tell.”
“I will? Why will I?” he asked. “Why me? I don’t want to kill people.”
“We don’t kill people, Mr. Asher. That’s a misconception. We simply facilitate the ascendance of the soul.”
“Well, one guy died because I said something to him, and another had a heart attack because of something I did. A death that results from your actions is basically killing someone, unless you’re a politician, right? So why me? I’m not that highly skilled at bullshit. So why me?”
Mr. Fresh considered what Charlie was saying, and felt like something sinister had crawled up his spine. In all his years, he didn’t remember ever having his actions directly result in someone’s death, nor had he heard of it happening with the other Death Merchants. Of course you occasionally showed up at the time when the person was passing, but not often, and never as a cause.
“Well?” Charlie said.
Mr. Fresh shrugged. “Because you saw me. Surely you’ve noticed that no one sees you when you’re out to get a soul vessel.”
“I’ve never gone out to get a soul vessel.”
“Yes, you have, and you will, at least you should be. You need to get with the program, Mr. Asher.”
“Yeah, so you said. So you’re—uh—we’re invisible when we’re out getting these soul vessels?”
“Not invisible, so to speak, it’s just that no one sees us. You can go right into people’s homes and they’ll never notice you standing right beside them, but if you speak to someone on the street they’ll see you, waitresses will take your order, cabs will stop for you—well, not me, I’m black, but, you know, they would. It’s sort of a will thing, I think. I’ve tested it. Animals can see us, by the way. You’ll want to watch out for dogs when you’re retrieving a vessel.”