“Morrigan,” Anton said, with no particular note of fear in his voice. He set his book down, but didn’t bother to mark the page. He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his flannel shirt, then put them back on so as not to miss any detail. Just now they were only blue-black highlights moving among the deep shadows in the store, but he could see them. They stopped when he spoke. One of them hissed—not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone—more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams.
“I thought something might be happening,” Anton said, a little anxious now. “With all the signs, and the prophecy about the Luminatus, I knew something was happening, but I didn’t think it would be you—in person—so to speak. This is very exciting.”
“A devotee?” said Nemain.
“A fan,” said Babd.
“A sacrifice,” said Macha.
They moved around him, just outside his circle of light.
“I moved the soul vessels,” Anton said. “I guessed that something had happened to the others.”
“Aw, are you disappointed because you’re not the first?” said Babd.
“It will be just like the first time, pumpkin,” said Nemain. “For you, anyway.” She giggled.
Anton reached under his counter and pushed a button. Steel shutters began to roll in the front of the store over the windows and door.
“You afraid we’ll get away, turtle man,” said Macha. “Don’t you think he looks like a turtle?”
“Oh, I know the shutters won’t keep you in, that’s not what they’re for. The books say that you’re immortal, but I suspect that that’s not exactly true. Too many tales of warriors injuring you and watching you heal yourself on the battlefield.”
“We will be here ten thousand years after your death, which starts pretty soon, I might add,” said Nemain. “The souls, turtle man. Where did you put them?” She extended her claws and reached out so they caught the light from Anton’s reading lamp. Venom dripped from their tips and sizzled when it hit the floor.
“You’d be Nemain, then,” Anton said. The Morrigan smiled, he could just see her teeth in the dark.
Anton felt a strange peace fall over him. For thirty years he had, in some way or another, been preparing for this moment. What was it that the Buddhists said? Only by being prepared for your death can you ever truly live. If collecting souls and seeing people pass for thirty years didn’t prepare you, what would? Under the counter he carefully unscrewed a stainless-steel cap that concealed a red button.
“I installed those four speakers at the back of the store a few months ago. I’m sure you can see them, even if I can’t,” Anton said.
“The souls!” Macha barked. “Where?”
“Of course I didn’t know it would be you. I thought it might be those little creatures I’ve seen wandering the neighborhood. But I think you’ll enjoy the music, nonetheless.”
The Morrigan looked at each other.
Macha growled. “Who says things like ‘nonetheless’?”
“He’s babbling,” said Babd. “Let’s torture him. Take his eyes, Nemain.”
“Do you remember what a claymore looks like?” Anton asked.
“A great, two-handed broadsword,” said Nemain. “Good for the taking of heads.”
“I knew that, I knew that,” said Babd. “She’s just showing off.”
“Well, in this time, a claymore means something else,” Anton said. “You acquire the most interesting things working in the secondhand business for three decades.” He closed his eyes and pushed the button. He hoped that his soul would end up in a book, preferably his first edition of Cannery Row, which was safely stored away.
The curved claymore antipersonnel mines that he had installed in speaker cabinets at the rear of the store exploded, sending twenty-eight hundred ball bearings hurtling toward the steel shutters at just under the speed of sound, shredding Anton and everything else in their path.
Ray followed the love of his life a block up Mason Street, where she hopped on a cable car and rode it the rest of the way up the hill into Chinatown. The problem was that while it was pretty easy to figure out where a cable car was going, they only came along about every ten minutes, so Ray couldn’t wait for the next one, jump on, and shout, “Follow that antiquated but quaint public conveyance, and step on it!” And there were no cabs in sight.
It turned out that jogging up a steep city hill on a hot summer day in street clothes was somewhat different from jogging on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym behind a row of taut fuck puppets, and by the time he got to California Street, Ray was drenched in sweat, and not only hated the city of San Francisco and everyone in it, he was pretty much ready to call it quits with Audrey and go back to the relative desperation of Ukrainian Girls Loving Him from afar.
He caught a break at the Powell Street exchange, where the cable cars pick up in Chinatown, and was actually able to jump on the car behind Audrey’s and continue the breathtaking, seven-mile-per-hour chase, ten more blocks to Market Street.
Audrey hopped off the cable car, walked directly out to the island on Market, and stepped onto one of the antique streetcars, which left before Ray even got to the island. She was like some kind of diabolical rail-transit supervixen, Ray thought. The way the trains just seemed to be there when she needed them, then gone when he got there. She was master of some sort of evil, streetcar mojo, no doubt about that. (In matters of the heart, the Beta Male imagination can turn quickly on a floundering suitor, and at that point, Ray’s was beginning to consume what little confidence he had mustered.)
It was Market Street, however, the busiest street in the City, and Ray was able to quickly grab a cab and follow Audrey all the way into the Mission district, and even kept the cab for a few blocks when she was on foot again.
Ray stayed a block away, following Audrey to a big jade-green Queen Anne Victorian building off Seventeenth Street, which had a small plaque on the column by the porch that read THREE JEWELS BUDDHIST CENTER. Ray had his breath and his composure back, and was able to watch comfortably from behind a light post across the street as Audrey climbed the steps of the center. As she got to the top step, the leaded-glass door flew open and two old ladies came rushing out, frantic, it seemed, to tell Audrey something, but entirely out of control. The old ladies looked familiar. Ray stopped breathing and dug into the back pocket of his jeans. He came up with the photocopies he’d kept of the driver’s-license photos of the women Charlie had asked him to find. It was them: Esther Johnson and Irena Posokovanovich, standing there with the future Mrs. Macy. Then, just as Ray was trying to get his head around the connection, the door of the Buddhist center opened again and out charged what looked like a river otter in a sequined minidress and go-go boots, bent on attacking Audrey’s ankles with a pair of scissors.