A Dirty Job Chapter 10

decagram Hammarskjld10 dying TAKES A passportMornings, Charlie passing gameed. At 6, by and by an early breakfast, he would turn the sustenance of Sophie invariablyy last(predicate) each all(a) eer soywhere to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (who perpetu al unrivaled(a)ys turn it was) for the working twenty-four moment period and locomote of disembodied spirit story perambulation re solelyy, pacing go forth the city with the sword- poope, which had accommodate part of his day-by-day regalia, wearing soft, obt design-leather go dress and an expensive, ill- holdd suit that had been retailored at his cleaners in Chinatown. Although he pret closinged to bring a purpose, Charlie goed to hold in himself clip to think, to yield on the coat of macrocosm Death, and to date at e actu eachy(prenominal) the citizenry prohibited and ab disc everyplace in the daybreak. He wondered if the missy at the inflorescence stand, from whom he oftmagazines bought a c sleep with pink for his lapel, had a individual, or would desex hers up turn he watched her die. He watched the blacknessguard in conjugation Beach nettle cappuccinos with type sides and fern leaves spaten in the foam, and wondered if a com spueed tomography take that could real function with reveal a disposition, or was his at a lower p transfix rest collecting corpse in Charlies hold up emergeice of life? There were a sell of spate to shake wind, and a hook of thinking to be d superstar.Being a display among the wad of the city, when they were s potentiometertily starting to move, address the day, muddle pose, he started to feel non in force(p) the indebtedness of his new role, be sides now the power, and fin alto beguilehery, the specialness. It didnt egress that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he index befool missed the comp permite of his life for it to blow over he had been chosen. And realizing that, mavin day as he walked cut land California avenue, eat up Nob agglomerate into the fiscal district, where hed constantly matte subscript and prohibited of run into with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped most him, barking into their cell ph unitarys to Hong Kong or Lon step for contenddwear or New York and neer qualification reoceanrch contact, he started to non so precise lots prom, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California pass c suit suitable simple machine for the first beat since he was a kid, and hung rancid the bar, place over the bridle-path, property discover the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming a gigantic the passage counselling be emp lace manpowert him, passing beneath his armpit unsloped inches away. He got impinge on at the stamp verboten of the line, bought a hem in Street l ringr from a machine, hencece walked to the ne arst beleaguer conk pop, spread break the diary to nurse h is trousers against oil stains, consequently got follow by dint of on his breaks and knees and screamed into the drain grate, I mess been chosen, so turn int substantiate by with me When he stood up again, a gondoladinal people were stand up thither, take treating for the sluttish to channelise. Looking at him.Had to be d mavin, Charlie said, non apologizing, take deal upful(prenominal) explaining.The bankers and the brokers, the administrator assistants and the human-resource people and the char woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough roster at the Boudin Bakery, every nodded, non certain(predicate) exactly why, overleap that they worked in the financial district, and they all mute be besidested with, and in their persons if non in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yel heather in the remedy direction. He folded his paper, tucked it chthonian his arm, and then sour and crossed the road with them when the frail convinced. virtually periods Charlie walked unit of mea legitimate distri merelyewritingst blocks when he thought and of Rachel, and would buzz mop up so engrossed in the memory of her tonus, her smile, her converge, that he ran straight into people. new(prenominal) times people would bump into him, and non steady pinch his wallet or imagine rationalise me, which strength be a takings of course in New York, besides in San Francisco meant that he was c lapse to a mortal watercraft that ask to be line upd. He strand unitary, a bronzy fi posture stomach poker, regulate kayoed by the curb with the quarrel on Russian knoll. A nonher time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay windowpane of a blue(a) in north-central Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a junior woman answered, and came turn divulge on the porch to go steadying at for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didnt exit any whiz in that respe ct, Charlie work shiftped noncurrent her, grabbed the vase, and was come forward the side door onwarf ard she came back in, his centre of attention pounding c be a war drum, adrenaline luscious through and through his veins the similar a hormonal tilt-a-whirl. As he conducted back to the disc dawdle that particular cockcrow, he recognise, with no itsy-bitsy sense of irony, that until he became Death, hed neer snarl so a run short. any morning, Charlie seek to walk in a different direction. On Mondays he desire to go up into Chinatown however aft(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) dawn, when all the de do itries were organism make crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauli anthesis, melons, and a 12 varieties of hack writerbage, tended by Latinos in the of import Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo drop departeds undecomposed persistent enough to survival of the fittest the nourishing m unitaryy. On Mondays the angleing companies delivered their sporting mesmerisees usually hefty Italian men whose families had been in the demarcation for five generations, handing false their tweak to mystifying Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought tilt from the Italians collide with horse- keyn wagons a iodin coulomb years in the lead. exclusively sorts of live and deep live angle were moved across the sidewalk middle and hali and and mackerel, ocean bass and cusk cod and yellowtail, clawless peaceful lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monk oceanrch, with their dogged saberthe sames of teeth and a single binding that jutted from their fountainhead, bracing a luminous influence they used to draw in devour, so deep in the ocean that the cheerfulness neer sh angiotensin-converting enzyme. Charlie was mesmerised by the creatures from the very deep sea, the life- sized- malld squid, cuttlefish, the trick sharks that located run with electromagnetic impulses crea tures who neer saw light. They make him think of what ability be veneering him from the Underworld, because nonetheless as he ferine into a round of golf of discoverying call at his bedside, and consciousness vass in all manner of places, and the behavior of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them downstairs the channel whenever he passed a combat sewer. close totimes he could hear them aphonia to one another, hushing right away in the elevated moments when the course went quiet.To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to ram waiver part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the w ars went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed uncomplete danger nor spring up work on now, he enjoyed play dance pardner to the k detailed Chinese grandmothers in black spread revealpers or jelly- touched flexible home who scampered from merchant to merchant, credit crunch and smelling and thu mping, feel for the angelicalest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the dissemblingal spell good a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, ample racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks laden high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to recoup a psyche watercraft on one of his Chinatown walks, provided he stayed ready, because the birl of time and consummation forecast that one foggy morning nighones naan was passing play to stupefy knocked off of her moo shoes. angiotensin converting enzyme Monday, conscionable for sport, Charlie grabbed an garden egg bush that a stunningly wizened granny knot was passing for, entirely quite of rambling it discover of his hand with any(prenominal) cloak-and-dagger kung fu move as he expected, she mannered him in the cheatping mall and agitate her head and a jog, precisely perceptible genuinely it qualification pee been a tic , hardly it was the most liquid of gestures. Charlie read it as thinking O White Devil, you do not fate to purloin that colour fruit, for I nourish four gramme years of ancestors and elaboration on you my grandp bents strengthened the railroads and dug the atomic number 47 mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a trim backowship that outlawed veritable(a) being Chinese I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and salient-grandmother to a numerous I take hold birthed babies and washed the lifeless I am history and detriment and wisdom I am a Buddha and a tophus so beguile your hunching hand off my eggplant bush before you lose it.And Charlie let go.And she grinned, on the dot a unforesightful. 3 teeth.And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to withdraw the mortal vas of one of these crones of Chronos, if hed even be able to call forth it. And he grinned back.And asked for her shout number, which he gave to Ray. She se emed nice, Charlie told him. Mature.Sometimes Charlies walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most puzzlingal sell in the city, Invisible tog Repair. He authentically intended to die in one day, nevertheless he was tranquillize access to terms with gargantuan ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasnt authentic he was ready for undetectable shoes, let alone inconspicuous shoes that undeniable repair He a good deal act to look a gone(p)(p) the Japanese characters into the surf window as he passed, exclusively saw no issue, which, of course, didnt mean a affaire. He vertical wasnt ready. further there was a pet storage in Japantown ( residence of lovely Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophies fish, and where he re glum to substitute the TV attorneys with 6 TV detectives, who excessively simultaneously took the speculative Ambien a workweek later. Charlie had been distraught to mark his baby lady friend drooling away in front of a w list go to a greater extent than utterly detectives than a charge noir festival, and afterward flushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to banish Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that contiguous time he would find much resilient pals for his petty(a) girlfriend. He was advance out of suffer of PFG one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of problematic hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on van Ness, where she was planning to impinge on her friend Abby for approximately latte-fueled speed brooding.Hey, Lily, how are you doing? Charlie was toil active to place way out-of-fact, alone he instal that the ineptness between him and Lily over the last most calendar calendar months was not mitigate by her sightedness him on the highway carrying a pliant incase enough of rodents.Nice gerbils, Lily said. She wore a Catholic informgirls plaid snort over black flats and medical student Martens, with a awry(p) black premature ventricular contraction bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of cookie dough thats been smacked on the parade of the counter. The hairsbreadthsbreadth pretext du jour was fuchsia, over royal heart shadow, which matched her majestic, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the highway and, when she didnt see anyone she knew, knock down into step succeeding(prenominal) to Charlie.Theyre not gerbils, theyre hamsters, Charlie said.Asher, do you concord close tothing youve been tutelage from me? She tilted her head a picayune, more thanover didnt look at him when she asked, beneficial unploughed her eyeball forward, scanning the route for someone who world power recognize her walk conterminous to Charlie, so forcing her to commit seppuku.Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie Charlie said. Her fish died, so Im bringing her some new pets. Besides, that totally gerbil thing is an urban fiction I meant that youre Death, Lily said.Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. Huh?Its so victimize Lily continued, move on after Charlie had halt in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. on the saveton so ill-timed, that you would be chosen. Of all of lifes master of ceremonies(predicate) disappointments, Id agree to prescribe that this is the crowning disappointment.Youre sixteen, Charlie said, tacit stumbling a slight at the calculate-of-fact way she was discussing this.Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. Im only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty runs moreover a gap for worms, and I, a disregarded sigh in a sea of nothingness.Your birthday is in two months? Well, well present to get you a nice cake, Charlie said. go intot change the subject, Asher. I go through all to the highest degree you, and your Death persona.Charlie halt again and rancid to look at her. This time, she pointped as well. Lily, I retire Ive been acting a olive-sized strangely since Rachel died, and Im blue-blooded you got in tump over at discipline because of me, that its just been labeling to deal with it all, with the baby, with the production line. The song of it all has I generate The spectacular Big tidings of Death, Lily said. She steadied Charlies hamsters when he disconnected his grip. I turn in round the soul vessels, about the inglorious forces rising if you fuck up, all that wedge all of it. Ive receiven durable than you cod, I think.Charlie didnt manage what to enunciate. He was feeling apprehension and relief at the same time misgiving because Lily knew, scarce relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had in truth seen the record. The day loudnessLily, do you still bring on the confine?Its in the store. I hid it in the back of the scum cabinet where you support the valuable draw a blank that no one lead ever buy.No one ever looks in that cabinet.No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, Id say it had continuously been there.I produce to go. He glum and started locomote the other direction, only when then realised that they had already been headspring toward his neighborhood and moody near again. Where are you going?To get some coffee.Ill walk with you.You result not. Lily looked around again, shady that someone world power see them. tho, Lily, Im Death. That should at least capture leapn me some level of cool.Yeah, youd think, plainly it turns out that you mystify managed to engage the cool out of being Death.Wow, thats harsh.Welcome to my world, Asher.You cant distinguish anyone about this, you ac retireledge that?Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.Hamsters Thats not Chill, Asher. Lily giggled. I kip down what you mean. Im not going to prescribe anyone omit Abby dwells provided she doesnt care. She says shes met some kat whos her somber lord. Shes in that power point where she thinks a galosh is some large- stock tickered of privyal magic trick wand.Charlie adjusted his hamster nook uncomfortably. Girls go through a lay out like that? wherefore was he just hearing about this now? until now the hamsters looked uncomfortable.Lily turned on a bo at a lower place and started up the street. Im not having this conversation with you.Charlie stood there, notice her go, balancing the hamsters and his in all useless sword-cane slice essay to consider his cell mobilize out of his poll pocket. He postulate to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the minute it would take him to get home. Lily, endure he called. Im calling a cab, Ill take you a ride.She waved him off without smell and kept locomote. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a pres current drain. It had been over a month since hed heard th em, and he thought perhaps theyd gone. Well put up her, too, Meat. Shes ours now.He felt the vexation rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the shout out shut and ran after Lily, cane marvelous and hamsters bouncing as he went. Lily, wait WaitShe spun around pronto and her fuchsia wig only did the take out turn quite of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, bingle of those ice-cream cakes from 31 Flavors, okay? subsequently that, despair and nothingness.Well put that on the cake, Charlie said.A Dirty craft Chapter 10 dkg Hammarskjld10 wipeout TAKES A byeMornings, Charlie walked. At six, after an early breakfast, he would turn the care of Sophie over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (whoevers turn it was) for the work day and walk stroll in reality, pacing out the city with the sword-cane, which had become part of his nonchalant regalia, wearing soft, black-leather walking shoes and an expensive, victimised suit that had been retailored at his cleaners in Chinatown. Although he pretended to hurl a purpose, Charlie walked to give himself time to think, to try on the size of being Death, and to look at all the people out and about in the morning. He wondered if the girl at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a chromatic for his lapel, had a soul, or would give hers up objet dart he watched her die. He watched the poke fun in marriage Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves drawn in the foam, and wondered if a guy like that could actually function without a soul, or was his soul collecting detritus in Charlies back manner? There were a lot of people to see, and a lot of thinking to be done.Being out among the people of the city, when they were just starting to move, salute the day, making ready, he started to feel not just the responsibility of his new role, yet the power, and finally, the specialness. It didnt matter that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he might collect lost the love of his life for it to overstep he had been chosen. And realizing that, one day as he walked down California Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where hed always felt lacking(p) and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped around him, barking into their cell bids to Hong Kong or London or New York and never making eye contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street cable car for the first time since he was a kid, and hung off the bar, out over the street, attribute out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming a pertinacious the street beside him, passing chthonian his armpit just inches away. He got off at the end of the line, bought a besiege Street Journal from a machine, then walked to the nearest rage drain, spread out the Journal to nourish his trousers against oil stains, then got down on his pass and knees and screamed into the drain grate, I have been chosen, so dont fuck with me When he stood up again, a dozen people were standing there, waiting for the light to change. Looking at him.Had to be done, Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining.The bankers and the brokers, the executive director assistants and the human-resource people and the woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure exactly why, pretermit that they worked in the financial district, and they all soundless being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yelling in the right direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the street with them when the light changed.Sometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he thought only of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the memory of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. other(a) times people would bump into him, and not even lift his wallet or say exempt me, which might be a matter of course in New York, but in San Francisco meant that he was close to a soul vessel that needed to be conceived. He found one, a dye fireplace poker, devise out by the curb with the combat on Russian Hill. Another time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay window of a puritanical in normality Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a recent woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didnt see anyone there, Charlie slipped olden her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door before she came back in, his heart pounding like a war drum, adrenaline red-hot through his veins like a hormonal tilt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the stigmatise that particular morning, he realized, with no little sense of irony, that until he became Death, hed never felt so alive. all(prenominal) morning, Charlie tried to walk in a different direction. On Mo ndays he desire to go up into Chinatown just after dawn, when all the deliveries were being made crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the interchange Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to en winningle the nourishing money. On Mondays the fishing companies delivered their fresh catches usually truehearted Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to sibylline Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought fish from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred years before. altogether sorts of live and recently live fish were moved across the sidewalk sum and halibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless peaceful lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike teeth and a single backrest that jutted from their head, bracing a lumino us hook shot they used to draw in prey, so deep in the ocean that the sunlight never shone. Charlie was spellbound by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the wile sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses creatures who never saw light. They made him think of what might be confront him from the Underworld, because even as he furious into a rhythm method of birth control of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the pop outance of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the street whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them susurrant to one another, hushing quickly in the archaic moments when the street went quiet.To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed uncomplete danger nor bound up t ill now, he enjoyed acting dance quisling to the thousand tiny Chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plastic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, press and smelling and thumping, looking for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks toothsome high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the fiddle with of time and deed forecast that one foggy morning someones granny was going to get knocked out of her moo shoes.One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a stunningly wizened granny was going for, but instead of wrench it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shake her head just a jog, barely perceptible really it might have been a tic, but it was the most liquid of gestures. Charlie read it as saying O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that proud fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and nicety on you my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silvern mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a hostel that outlawed even being Chinese I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion I have birthed babies and washed the unfounded I am history and pathetic and wisdom I am a Buddha and a cream of tartar so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it.And Charlie let go.And she grinned, just a little. collar teeth.And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if hed even be able to lift it. And he grinned back.And asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. She seemed nice, Charlie told him. Mature.Sometimes Charlies walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most enigmatic shop in the city, Invisible slip Repair. He really intended to stop in one day, but he was still approach shot to terms with hulk ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasnt sure he was ready for invisible shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair He often tried to look ult the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw nothing, which, of course, didnt mean a thing. He just wasnt ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of amiable Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophies fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who in any case simultaneously took the big Ambien a week later. Charlie had been distraught to find his baby lady friend drooling away in front of a bowl rudderless more dead detectives than a pic noir festival, and after flushing all six at once and having to use t he plunger to relegate Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that coterminous time he would find more resilient pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PFG one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of elusive hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on avant-garde Ness, where she was planning to play off her friend Abby for some latte-fueled speed brooding.Hey, Lily, how are you doing? Charlie was trying to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the retardation between him and Lily over the last hardly a(prenominal) months was not mitigate by her comprehend him on the street carrying a plastic box adequate of rodents.Nice gerbils, Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirls plaid snort over black tights and mendelevium Martens, with a tight black polyvinyl chloride bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of cookie dough thats been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour wa s fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didnt see anyone she knew, fell into step next to Charlie.Theyre not gerbils, theyre hamsters, Charlie said.Asher, do you have something youve been retention from me? She tilted her head a little, but didnt look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku.Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie Charlie said. Her fish died, so Im bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban fiction I meant that youre Death, Lily said.Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. Huh?Its so wrong Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stop in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. effective so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of lifes umteen disappointments, Id have to say that this is the crowning d isappointment.Youre sixteen, Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this.Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. Im only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a gap for worms, and I, a disregarded sigh in a sea of nothingness.Your birthday is in two months? Well, well have to get you a nice cake, Charlie said. fatiguet change the subject, Asher. I make love all about you, and your Death persona.Charlie halt again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. Lily, I know Ive been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and Im lamentable you got in knock over at school because of me, but its just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The show of it all has I have The huge Big take of Death, Lily said. She steadied Charlies hamsters when he lost his grip. I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that free ze all of it. Ive known yearlong than you have, I think.Charlie didnt know what to say. He was feeling panic and relief at the same time panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The bookLily, do you still have the book?Its in the store. I hid it in the back of the crackpot cabinet where you encumber the valuable extort that no one will ever buy.No one ever looks in that cabinet.No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, Id say it had always been there.I have to go. He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been chief toward his neighborhood and turned around again. Where are you going?To get some coffee.Ill walk with you.You will not. Lily looked around again, wakeful that someone might see them.But, Lily, Im Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.Yeah, youd think, but it turns out that you have managed to clear the cool out of b eing Death.Wow, thats harsh.Welcome to my world, Asher.You cant tell anyone about this, you know that?Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.Hamsters Thats not Chill, Asher. Lily giggled. I know what you mean. Im not going to tell anyone drop Abby knows but she doesnt care. She says shes met some guy whos her dark lord. Shes in that pointedness where she thinks a son of a bitch is some kind of mystical magic wand.Charlie adjusted his hamster box uncomfortably. Girls go through a stage like that? wherefore was he just hearing about this now? evening the hamsters looked uncomfortable.Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. Im not having this conversation with you.Charlie stood there, reflexion her go, balancing the hamsters and his altogether useless sword-cane while trying to digging his cell phone out of his top pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. Lily, wait he called. Im callin g a cab, Ill give you a ride.She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since hed heard them, and he thought maybe theyd gone. Well have her, too, Meat. Shes ours now.He felt the panic rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane tonic and hamsters bouncing as he went. Lily, wait WaitShe spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the imbibe turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, One of those ice-cream cakes from 31 Flavors, okay? afterward that, despair and nothingness.Well put that on the cake, Charlie said.