“Yeah, I know.”

“You do?”

“Sure.” The tall man spun another wooden chair around and sat on it reversed, facing Charlie. His knees were up at the level of his elbows and he looked like a great green tree frog, crouched to pounce on an insect. Charlie noticed for the first time that he had golden eyes, stark and striking in contrast to his dark skin. “So am I,” said the evil mint-green frog guy.

“You? You’re Death?”

“A Death, not THE Death. I don’t think there is a THE Death. Not anymore, anyway.”

Charlie couldn’t grasp it, so he struggled and wobbled until the tall man had to reach out and steady him to keep him from toppling over.

“You killed Rachel.”

“I did not.”

“I saw you there.”

“Yes, you did. That’s a problem. Will you please stop thrashing around?” He shook Charlie’s chair. “But I wasn’t instrumental in Rachel’s death. That’s not what we do, not anymore, anyway. Didn’t you even look at the book?”

“What book? You said something about a book on the phone.”

“The Great Big Book of Death. I sent it to your shop. I told a woman at the counter that I was sending it, and I got delivery confirmation, so I know it got there.”

“What woman—Lily? She’s not a woman, she’s a kid.”

“No, this was a woman about your age, with New Wave hair.”

“Jane? No. She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t get any book.”

“Oh, shit. That explains why they’ve been showing up. You didn’t even know.”

“Who? What? They?”

Mint Green Death sighed heavily. “I guess we’re going to be here awhile. I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want some?”

“Sure, try to lull me into a false sense of security, then spring.”

“You’re tied the fuck up, motherfucker, I don’t need to lull you into shit. You’ve been fucking with the fabric of human existence and someone needed to shut your ass down.”

“Oh, sure, go black on me. Play the ethnic card.”

Mint Green climbed to his feet and headed toward the door to the shop. “You want cream?”

“And two sugars, please,” Charlie said.

This is really cool, why are you giving it back?” said Abby Normal. Abby was Lily’s best friend, and they were sitting on the floor in the back room of Asher’s Secondhand, looking through The Great Big Book of Death. Abby’s real name was Alison, but she would no longer tolerate the ignominy of what she called her “daylight-slave name.” Everyone had been much more responsive to calling her by her chosen name than they had been to Lily’s, Darquewillow Elventhing, which you always had to spell for people.

“Turns out it’s Asher, not me,” Lily said. “He’ll be really pissed if he finds out I took it. And he’s Death now, I guess, so I could get in trouble.”

“Are you going to tell him you had the book?” Abby scratched the silver spider stud in her eyebrow; it was a fresh piercing and still healing and she couldn’t stop messing with it. Abby, like Lily, was dressed all in black, boots to hair, the difference being that she had a black-widow’s red hourglass on the front of her black T-shirt and she was thinner and more waiflike in her affected creepiness.

“No. I’ll just say it got misfiled. That happens a lot here.”

“How long did you think it was you?”

“Like a month.”

“What about the dreams and the names and stuff it talks about, you didn’t have any of that, right?”

“I thought I was just growing into my powers. I made a lot of lists of people I wanted gone.”

“Yeah, I do that. And you just found out yesterday that it was Asher?”

“Yeah,” said Lily.

“That sucks,” said Abby.

“Life sucks,” said Lily.

“So, what now?” asked Abby. “Junior college?”

They both nodded, woefully, and looked into the depths of their respective nail polishes to avoid sharing the humiliation of one of them having gone from dark demigod to local loser in an instant. They lived their lives hoping for something grand and dark and supernatural to happen, so when it had, they took it more in stride than was probably healthy. Fear, after all, is a survival mechanism.

“So all these things are soul objects?” asked Abby, as cheerfully as her integrity would allow. She waved to the piles of stuff Charlie had marked with “Do Not Sell” signs. “There’s like a person’s soul in there?”

“According to the book,” said Lily. “Asher says he can see them glow.”

“I like the red Converse All Stars.”

“Take them, they’re yours,” said Lily.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Lily said. She took the All Stars off the shelf and held them out. “He’ll never miss them.”

“Cool. I have the perfect pair of red fishnets I can wear with them.”

“They probably have the soul of some sweaty jock in them,” Lily said.

“He may worship at my feet,” said Abby, doing a pirouette and an arabesque (remnants, along with an eating disorder, of ten years of ballet lessons).

So I’m like a Santa’s Helper of Death?!” Charlie said, waving his coffee cup. The tall man had untied his one arm so he could drink his coffee, and Charlie was baptizing the stockroom floor with French roast with every gesture. Mr. Fresh frowned.

“What in the hell are you talking about, Asher?” Fresh felt bad about hitting Charlie Asher with a cash register and tying him up, and now he was wondering if the blow hadn’t caused some sort of brain damage.

“I’m talking about the Santa at Macy’s, Fresh. When you’re a kid, and you notice that the Santa Claus at Macy’s has a fake beard, and that there are at least six Salvation Army Santas working Union Square, you ask your parents about it and they tell you that the real Santa is in the North Pole, and he’s really busy, so all these other guys are Santa’s helpers, who are out helping him with his work. That’s what you’re saying, that we’re Santa’s helpers to Death?”

Mr. Fresh had been standing by his desk, but now he sat down again across from Charlie so he could look him in the eye. Very softly he said, “Charlie, you know that that’s not true now, right? I mean about Santa’s helpers and all?”

“Of course I know that there’s no Santa Claus. I’m using it as a metaphor, you tool.”

Mr. Fresh took this opportunity to reach out and smack Charlie upside the head. Then immediately regretted it.

“Hey!” Charlie put down his cup and rubbed one of his receding-hairline inlets, which was going red from the blow.

“Rude,” said Mr. Fresh. “Let’s not be rude.”

“So you’re saying that there is a Santa?” Charlie said, cringing in anticipation of another smack. “Oh my God, how deep does this conspiracy go?”

“No, there’s no goddamn Santa. I’m just saying that I don’t know what we are. I don’t know if there is a big Death with a capital D, although the book hints that there used to be. I’m just saying that there are many of us, a dozen that I know of right here in the city—all of us picking up soul vessels and seeing that they get into the right hands.”

“And that’s based on someone randomly coming into your shop and buying a record?” Then Charlie’s eyes went wide as it hit him. “Rachel’s Sarah McLachlan CD. You took it?”

“Yes.” Fresh looked at the floor, not because he was ashamed, but to avoid seeing the pain in Charlie Asher’s eyes.

“Where is it? I want to see it,” said Charlie.

“I sold it.”

“To who? Find it. I want Rachel back.”

“I don’t know. To a woman. I didn’t get her name, but I’m sure it was meant for her. You’ll be able to tell.”

“I will? Why will I?” he asked. “Why me? I don’t want to kill people.”

“We don’t kill people, Mr. Asher. That’s a misconception. We simply facilitate the ascendance of the soul.”

“Well, one guy died because I said something to him, and another had a heart attack because of something I did. A death that results from your actions is basically killing someone, unless you’re a politician, right? So why me? I’m not that highly skilled at bullshit. So why me?”