Secondhand Souls (Grim Reaper 2)

“No, you’re A man,” said Audrey, returning to the room. “Kind of . . .”

Minty Fresh laughed and high-­fived Audrey. “I always liked you,” he said.

There came a scratching at the door to the butler’s pantry, just behind where Charlie was sitting. He tapped the door lightly with his palm. “Settle,” he whispered, in a way that made no one at all look away from him. “New puppy,” he explained.

The scratching became more frantic. He reached back and opened the door just a crack.

“Need a cheez,” came a little voice at about shin level.

“Play with your ball. We’re out of cheese.”

“Need a cheez,” said the voice again.

Charlie closed the door, grinned at everyone, embarrassed, as the scratching resumed. “Maybe if you show him your boobs,” he said to Audrey.

Now, Charlie pretty much had everyone’s attention.

“No,” Audrey said, crossing her arms.

“Excuse me,” Charlie said. He got up, moved his chair, then got down on his knees and opened the door again.

“Need a cheez,” said the voice.

Charlie opened the door a ­couple of inches, reached in, grabbed something, and threw it. “Go play.” They could all hear the distinct sound of a tennis ball bouncing off surfaces and something scurrying after it, then nothing.

“There,” Charlie said, getting back in his seat. “He’ll be fine.”

“I have a basset hound,” said Carrie Lang. “Showing him my boobs doesn’t really have much of an effect on him.”

“Hmm,” Audrey said. “Go figure.” She moved to the center of the floor. “Okay, here’s what I’ve been thinking, about this new order.” She paused a moment, seeing if they would let her out of further explanations about her dog-­training methods. Everyone appeared to be letting it go and she felt loving kindness toward all of them.

“The universe seeks balance, order. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right?” Audrey was suddenly grateful that Lily was out of the room. She was feeling somewhat vulnerable to sarcasm as she waded into this concept. Everyone waited.

“So, for every dark, there is a light, the wheels turn, the planets spin, the machine seeks and finds order. But the universe also oscillates, pulses, expands and contracts—­and, I’ve lost all of you, haven’t I?”

“Pretty much,” said Charlie. Now that it was out there, everyone agreed.

“Okay, let me come at it this way, The Book of Living and Dying, what you call The Tibetan Book of the Dead, talks about hundreds of demons and monsters that one will encounter on the journey from life to death and beyond. It describes them in detail, but warns not to be afraid, because they are all illusions, manifestations of human consciousness.”

“Like the Morrigan . . .”

“But, they aren’t an illusion,” said Charlie. “They are very real and deadly.”

“They beco

me real,” Audrey said. “The Big Book warns not to let souls fall into the hands of those from the Underworld, but at one time, they weren’t in the Underworld, were they? Human souls empower them. They were part of someone’s living religion. So was that bullheaded thing, so was, or is, this elegant Death entity in the Buick, so are you guys, you Death Merchants. The Big Book is revised because things change, the rules change, and I don’t think this whole system of moving souls from one life to the next has always been that way. Every supernatural entity is a projection of human consciousness, going back for, well, who knows how long? And any change is going to be countered, always has been.”

She looked around the room. “Nobody?”

“We need to figure out what to do,” said Rivera.

“I don’t think you can solve a problem if you don’t know what it is, Inspector,” said Audrey. “I think that the order the universe found, for a time, anyway, was this ridiculously complex system of souls transferring through objects. Maybe there was a wobble a thousand years ago, and this is the universe trying to correct that, but now there’s another wobble. ­Maybe when Sophie was born, somehow as the Luminatus, there had to be a balance, so that horned death thing rose, and the hellhounds came to protect Sophie, and the Morrigan appeared to balance that. The whole conflict changed things, and for the last year it’s been seeking a new order. Subtle, like Mr. Baptiste being able to sell souls over the Internet instead of having a shop.”

Charlie said, “But if Sophie was on the light side, and has lost her powers, and this new Death has come, with the Morrigan, doesn’t that mean that everything is out of balance again?”

“Yes,” said Audrey. “It means we’re in a wobble. And there’s way too much on the dark side of the wobble. Something has to balance it out.”

“Some good guys?” said Charlie.