A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper 1)

Lily laughed. "Yeah, that's going to happen. Look, I have work and school today, but I'll go do your research for you tomorrow. In the meantime you can try to make friends with them. "

"I don't want to make friends with them. "

Lily looked at the hounds, one of whom Sophie was pounding on with her little fists as she laughed gleefully, then looked back at Charlie. "Yes, you do. "

"Yeah, I guess I do," Charlie said. "Have you ever seen a dog that size before?"

"There are no dogs that size. "

"What do you call those, then?"

"Those aren't dogs, Asher, those are hellhounds. "

"How do you know that?"

"I know that because before I started learning about herbs and reductions and stuff, I spent my free time reading about the dark side, and those guys come up from time to time. "

"If we know that, then what are you going to do research on?"

"I'm going to try to find out what sent them. " She patted his shoulder. "I have to go open the shop. You go make nice with the goggies. "

"What do I feed them?"

"Purina Hellhound Chow. "

"They make that?"

"What do you think?"

"'Kay," Charlie said.

It took a couple of hours, but after Sophie started smelling like diaper surprise, one of the giant dogs nosed her toward Charlie as if to say, Clean her up and bring her back. Charlie could feel them watching him as he changed his daughter, grateful that disposable diapers didn't require pins. If he'd accidentally poked Sophie with a pin, he was sure one of the hellhounds would have bitten his head off. They watched him carefully as he moved her to the breakfast bar, and sat on either side of her high chair as he gave her breakfast.

As an experiment, he made an extra piece of toast and tossed it to one of the hounds. It snapped it out of the air and licked its chops once, eyes now locked on Charlie and the loaf of bread. So Charlie toasted four more slices and the hounds alternately snapped each out of the air so swiftly that Charlie wasn't sure he didn't see some sort of vapor from the pressure of their jaws clamping down.

"So, you're hellish beasts from another dimension, and you like toast. Okay. "

Then, as Charlie started to toast four more slices, he stopped, feeling stupid. "You don't really care if it's toasted, do you?" He flipped a slice of bread to the closest of the dogs, who snapped it out of the air. "Okay, that will speed things up. " Charlie fed them the remainder of the loaf of bread. He spread a few slices with a thick coat of peanut butter, which did nothing whatsoever, then a half dozen more he spread with lemon dishwasher gel, which appeared to have no ill effect except that it made them burp neat, aquamarine-colored bubbles.

"Go walk, Daddy," Sophie said.

"No walk today, sweetie. I think we'll just stay right here in the apartment and try to figure out our new pals. "

Charlie got Sophie out of her chair, wiped the jelly off her face and out of her hair, then sat down with her on the couch to read to her from the Chronicle's classified ads, which was where he plied a large part of his business, other than the Death stuff. But no sooner had he settled into a rhythm than one of the hellhounds came over, took his arm in its mouth, and dragged him into his bedroom, even as he protested, swore, and smacked it in the head with a brass table lamp. The big dog let him go, then stood staring at Charlie's date book like it had been sprayed with beef gravy.

"What?" Charlie said, but then he saw. Somehow, in all the excitement, he hadn't noticed a new name in the book. "Look, the number is thirty. I have a whole month to find this one. Leave me alone. " Charlie also noticed in passing that engraved on the hellhound's great silver collar was the name ALVIN.

"Alvin? That's the stupidest name I've ever heard. "

Charlie went back to the couch, and the dog dragged him back into the bedroom, this time by the foot. As they went through the door Charlie reached for his sword-cane. When Alvin dropped him Charlie leapt to his feet and drew the blade. The big dog rolled over on his back and whimpered. His companion appeared at the door, panting. (Mohammed was the hound's name, according to the plate on the collar. ) Charlie considered his options. He had always felt the sword-cane a pretty formidable weapon, had even been willing to take on the sewer harpies with it, but it occurred to him that these animals had obviously wiped the floor with one of those other creatures of darkness and had no problem sitting down and eating a loaf of soapy toast a couple of hours later. In short, he was out of his league. They wanted him to go retrieve the soul vessel, he would retrieve the soul vessel. But he wasn't leaving his darling daughter alone with them. "Alvin is still a stupid name," he said, sheathing the sword.

When Mrs. Korjev arrived, Charlie had put Sophie down for her nap, and a dark pile of hellhounds was napping by her crib - snoring great clouds of lemony-fresh dog breath into the air. It was probably part of Charlie's rising rascal nature, but he let Mrs. Korjev enter Sophie's room with only the warning that the little girl had a couple of new pets. He suppressed a snicker as the great Cossack grandmother backed out of the room swearing in Russian.

"Is giant dogs in there. "

"Yes, there are. "

"But not like normal giant dog. They are like extra-giant, black animal, they are - "