Secondhand Souls (Grim Reaper 2)

His phone buzzed again. There was also a text that had come in during the DeFazio deaths. Pick the fuck up, it said.

Rivera hit talk. “You said we weren’t supposed to talk unless it was an emergency.”

“Where’s your partner?” asked Minty Fresh.

“He’s watching my store while I’m out on a collection. I didn’t hear from you on the Lily girl, so he’s filling in until I find someone.”

“Where are you, not near him?”

“No. In Noe Valley. Looking for a vessel. I found another Death Merchant, and there’s more—­”

“Yeah, we’ll get to that. Y’all might want to sit down, Inspector.”

Nick Cavuto was reading a Raymond Chandler short story called “Red Wind” behind the counter when the banshee stepped out of the stacks.

“AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Cavuto dropped the paperback as he slid off the stool into a crouch, drew a ridiculously large revolver from his shoulder holster, and leveled it at the banshee. One motion.

“I will drop you, raggedy,” he said.

“I come to save your life, you great dolt, and you cast aspersions on me frock?”

Cavuto kept the gun trained on her and looked around it. “Save my life, huh?”

“You need to get out of here before dark, lad. There’s a nasty bit of business heading your way. They’re not strong enough to move in the daylight yet, but they’ll be here soon.”

“Raven women coming to take my soul?” Cavuto lowered the gun to his side. “Stay there.”

“They can’t kill a man for his soul, don’t know why, just the way of things, otherwise you’d all be rotting in the fields. But they will kill you for the sport.” She moved toward him, gestured that she was moving wide of the counter, toward the front door. “Let’s go, love, have a ride in your lovely carriage. I’ll hang me head out the window when I scream.” She smiled, black lips and bluish teeth—­batted her sooty eyelashes.

Cavuto glanced over his shoulder and out the window. The streetlights were on and the little stripe of sky he could see was dying pink.

“There’ll be no screaming.”

“Aye, lad, let’s go, then.” She made a motion as if shooing errant chickens toward the door, the long tatters of her sleeves making trails like smoke.

There was a rumble from behind the shop and they both looked to the single window at the back of the store, high and narrow, four steel bars across it. As they watched, the window, lit yellow from the light in the alley, went black.

“Back door locked, then?” asked the banshee.

Cavuto nodded, not looking away from the window.

“Spendid. We’re off, then. Come along. Go swiftly and stay long, I always say.”

The rear window cracked and the shadow of a thousand birds oozed in between the cracks and down the back wall, spreading, form and light exchanging as it moved, like oily lace woven into the shapes of flying things. The shadow slid down onto the hardwood floor, splashed in waves over the shelves as it approached them. At one narrow, central shelf where Rivera displayed recently acquired books—­soul vessels—­the shadow coalesced, covered the whole shelf like a shroud.

The banshee could see the five souls, glowing dull red, and one by one, as the shadow enveloped them, they started to fade.

“Mad dash, love. Mad dash,” she said.

“You go,” said Cavuto. He trained the .44 Magnum on a spot at the middle of a dark shelf, fifteen feet away.

As the last soul vessel went dark, the shadow

throbbed, gained dimension, split into three distinct masses that then undulated, changed, formed into three female figures, human to a degree, shimmering with fine, blue-­black feathers; talons sprouted from the tips of their fingers, long and hooked like marlin spikes, the silver color of stars.

“Gun,” said one, her voice like gravel swishing in a pan. “I hate guns.”