A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper 1)

"What did he throw?"

"Move, I can't - "

Charlie put his fingers in his ears. The M-80s exploded and Charlie grinned. He sheathed the sword in the cane, gathered up his stuff, and sprinted for the other drain. Inside an enclosed space the noise would be punishing, brutal even. He kept grinning.

He could hear a chorus of screaming and cursing, in half a dozen dead languages, some of them running over others, like someone was spinning the dial on a shortwave radio that spanned both time and space. He dropped to his knees and listened at the drain, careful to stay an arm's length away. He could hear them coming, tracking him under the street. He hoped he was right that they couldn't

come out, but even if they did, he had the sword, and the sunlight was his turf. He lit four more M-80s, these with longer fuses, and tossed them one by one into the drain.

"Who's New Meat now?" he said.

"What? What did he say?" said a sewer voice.

"I can't hear shit. "

Charlie waved the porcelain bear in front of the drain. "You want this?" He tossed in another M-80.

"You like that, do you?" Charlie shouted, throwing in the third firecracker. "That'll teach you to use your beak on my arm, you fucking harpies!"

"Mr. Asher," came a voice from behind him.

Charlie looked around to see Alphonse Rivera, the police inspector, standing over him.

"Oh, hi," Charlie said, then realizing that he was holding a lit M-80, he said, "Excuse me a second. " He tossed the firecracker in the drain. At that moment they all started going off.

Rivera had retreated a few steps and had his hand in his jacket, presumably on his gun. Charlie put the porcelain bear in his satchel and climbed to his feet. He could hear the voices shrieking at him, cursing.

"You fucking loser," screeched one of the dark ones. "I'll weave a basket of your guts and carry your severed head in it. "

"Yeah," said another voice. "A basket. "

"I think you threatened that already," said a third.

"I did not," said the first.

"Shut the fuck up!" Charlie yelled at the drain, then he looked at Rivera, who had drawn his weapon and was holding it at his side.

"So," Rivera said, "problems with, uh, someone in the drain?"

Charlie grinned. "You can't hear that, can you?" The cursing was ongoing, but now in some language that sounded as if it required a lot of mucus to speak properly, Gaelic or German or something.

"I can hear a distinct ringing in my ears, Mr. Asher, from the report of your distinctly illegal fireworks, but beyond that, nothing, no. "

"Rats," Charlie said, unconsciously raising an eyebrow in a so are you gonna buy that load of horseshit? way. "Hate the rats. "

"Uh-huh," Rivera said flatly. "The rats, they used their beak on your arm and evidently you feel that they have a secret desire for cheap animal curios?"

"So that you heard?" Charlie asked.

"Yep. "

"That's gotta make you wonder, then, huh?"

"Yep," said the cop. "Nice suit, though. Armani?"

"Canali, actually," Charlie said. "But thanks. "

"Not what I'd pick for bombing storm drains, but to each his own. " Rivera hadn't moved. He was standing just off the curb, about ten feet away from Charlie, his weapon still at his side. A jogger ran by them and used the opportunity to quicken his pace. Charlie and Rivera both nodded politely as he passed.