Secondhand Souls (Grim Reaper 2)

“Hmmm. Seemed longer.” Charlie looked at the doctor. “No autopsy.”

The doctor seemed surprised. This was not the reaction he was accustomed to getting from ­people who had just received the news of the passing of a loved one.

“In cases of a crime,” said the doctor, “it’s the law . . .”

“No autopsy,” Charlie said to Rivera. “No embalming, no autopsy. It’s important.”

Rivera said, “Doctor, if we could hold off on the autopsy, I’d appreciate it.”

The doctor nodded. “It will be up to the coroner after I sign off,” said the doctor.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Rivera.

“I’m very sorry,” said the doctor. He turned and went back through the doors.

Once the doctor was gone, Charlie went to Lily. “Hey,” he whispered in her ear. Lily’s mother looked up. Lily nodded to her that it was okay to let this stranger close.

“Kid, come here,” Charlie said. He put his arm around Lily’s shoulder and walked her away from h

er mother, away from the others.

“He told me to go to work,” Lily said. “Those were his last words, ‘Go to work, Darque.’ ”

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Charlie whispered. “You probably need to go to work.”

“Fuck you, Asher. I’m grief-­stricken. And I’m not even being overly dramatic.”

He didn’t want to tell her that with the black eye makeup smeared down her cheeks like a sad clown, she was overly dramatic without saying a word, but in her hour of grief, he let it go. “Yeah, I know, and I know that’s a first, but you need to have your mom take you to work, because you need to stay busy, and keep your mind off of this. And when I tell you this next thing, you can’t overreact. Promise me.”

Lily looked at him with the familiar “could you be any more annoying?” look that she reserved for him, and he knew he could plunge on.

“Promise?”

“Okay, fine, I promise. What?”

“He’s not dead.”

She stared. Just stared. Stunned.

“He’s coming back,” Charlie said. “Don’t scream.”

She didn’t move. She stopped breathing, then started again, in short, halting gasps.

“I don’t know when, but soon. I just saw him in the Underworld. There’s a god called Anubis—­”

“Asher, if you are fucking with me—­”

“I’m not! Really, I’m not.”

Now she was catching her breath. She leaned in. “He told me once that an Indian guy in Montana told him he was, like, the chosen of Anubis. That’s why he had—­has golden eyes.”

“Yeah, apparently that’s true.”

She put her fingers to her lips as if she were holding in a laugh and bounced on her toes in a circle like an overjoyed little girl.

“You’re going to need to stop that.”

“Right,” she said, stopping that. “Sorry.”