Secondhand Souls (Grim Reaper 2)

“What chemicals?”

“The dangerous imaginary ones,” he said. Rivera looked to Minty Fresh. “You ready?”

Rivera started for the doors, Minty Fresh followed, the bolt cutters in one hand, the shotgun in the other.

Minty Fresh said, “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? Seems like maybe it would make more sense to call in a SWAT team or Special Forces.”

“That won’t work, isn’t Special Forces where everyone gets a hug?” Charlie called.

“That’s the Special Olympics,” Rivera said over his shoulder. To Minty he said, “How are you going to explain this, the Morrigan?”

“Just so we’re clear, then,” said the Mint One, “we’re only doing this because we want to avoid an awkward explanation to other police, right?”

Rivera paused. “No. We’re doing this because they murdered my partner and I don’t think they’re going to come along quietly if I try to arrest them. They’re going to come for us, eventually, and if we wait, it will be on their terms. Now is better.”

“You don’t never be lyin’,” said Minty Fresh. He stopped at the doors and leaned the shotgun against the concrete wall. “Do you smell something burning?

“Oh, hell,” said Rivera. He cringed and braced himself.

“AIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” called the banshee.

Minty Fresh dropped the bolt cutters, snatched up his shotgun, and brought the sight down on the sooty wraith.

“Don’t shoot her, don’t shoot her, don’t shoot her.” Rivera stepped away from the banshee and pushed down the barrel of Minty Fresh’s shotgun.

“What do you think you’re doing, ya ninny?” said the banshee. “Ya can’t go in there.”

“We have to,” said Rivera.

“I tried to warn your great fat friend, and ya know how that turned out. And the harpies are even stronger now than they were then.”

“I know. Thank you,” said Rivera. “But we have to do this.”

“Fine. I’ll nae sing at your funeral, you bloody loony.” The stun gun crackled in the air and she was gone.

“She thinks it’s a box of lightning,” Rivera explained. “She thinks it adds drama to her entrances and exits.”

“Right, ’cause what the bitch need is more drama.”

Because the Morrigan were goddesses of war, they were attracted to the sound of war drums. So when they first rose in the modern world, a pocket of the Underworld opened under the rumbling boom they followed. As it turned out, they had entered the world under a bowling alley, and it was there that they absorbed the dialect of English that they now spoke.

“This sucks,” said Babd. “I don’t know why we have to stay down here now.” She was reclining in the bucket of a skip-­loader, methodically licking the last remnants of some Squirrel Person from her claws.

They were all strong, and lithe, and they shimmered in the dim light of the tunnel like swaths of starry night. Macha leaned against the tunnel wall and preened her breast with her claws, retracted to the length of a cat’s claws.

“We can go into the light,” said Nemain, who was crouched over a wolf spider, dripping venom from her talon as the creature tried to escape, then blocking its path with another sizzling drop as it bolted the other way. “What does Yama know?”

They had flown in their raven forms to the tunnel while it was still dark. Bloated with the power of new souls, moving again as shadows was beyond them, at least for a while.

“We could find the rest of the soul stealers,” said Babd. “Take their souls. Kill them.”

“Yama says if we go into the light we’ll attract the attention of humans,” said Nemain.

“I thought that was the point,” said Macha. “Have our names on their breath as they die. Have them cower when a raven passes over them.”

“Why can’t we just kill everybody?” said Babt, pouting.

An inhuman shriek sounded from the far end of the tunnel.