“Throw some water on them!” Charlie cried. “Down, doggies. Good doggies. Oh, yuck.”

Mrs. Ling was galvanized into action by Charlie’s distress call, and timing her move with the oscillating pyramid of man and dog meat in the doorway, dashed by Charlie, into the hallway, and down the steps.

Lily came up the stairs and skidded to a stop on the hallway carpet when she saw the hellhounds pounding away at Charlie. “Oh, Asher, you sick bastard!”

“Help,” Charlie said.

Lily pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall, dragged it to the doorway, pulled the pin, and proceeded to unload on the bouncing trio. Two minutes later Charlie was collapsed in a frosty heap on the threshold and Alvin and Mohammed were locked in Charlie’s bedroom, where they were joyfully chewing away on the expended fire extinguisher. Lily had lured them in there when they had tried to bite the CO2 stream, seeming to enjoy the freezing novelty of it over the welcome-home humping they were giving Charlie.

“You okay?” Lily said. She was wearing one of her chef coats over a red leather skirt and knee-high platform boots.

“It’s been kind of a rough week,” Charlie said.

She helped him to his feet, trying to avoid touching the damp spots on his shirt. Charlie did a controlled fall toward the couch. Lily helped him land, ending with one arm pinned awkwardly under his back.

“Thanks,” Charlie said. There was still frost in his hair and eyelashes from the fire extinguisher.

“Asher,” Lily said, trying not to look him in the eye. “I’m not comfortable with this, but I think, given the situation, that it’s time I said something.”

“Okay, Lily. You want some coffee?”

“No. Please shut up. Thank you.” She paused and took a deep breath, but did not extricate her arm from behind Charlie’s back. “You have been good to me over the years, and although I would not admit this to anyone else, I probably wouldn’t have finished school or turned out as well as I have if it hadn’t been for your influence.”

Charlie was still trying to see, blinking away ice crystals on his eyelids, thinking that maybe his eyeballs were frostbitten. “It was nothing,” he said.

“Please, please, shut up,” Lily said. Another deep breath. “You have always been decent to me, despite what I would call some of my bitchier moments, and in spite of the fact that you are some dark death dude, and probably had other things to worry about—sorry about your mom, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said.

“Well, given what I’ve heard about your night out before your mom died and whatnot, and what I’ve seen here today, I think—that it’s only right—that I do you.”

“Do me?”

“Yes,” she said, “for the greater good, even though you are a complete tool.”

Charlie squirmed away from her on the couch. He looked at her for a second, trying to figure out if she was putting him on, then, deciding that she wasn’t, he said, “That’s very sweet of you, Lily, and—”

“Nothing weird, Asher. You need to understand that I’m only doing this out of basic human decency and pity. You can just take it to the hoes on Broadway if you need to get your freak on.”

“Lily, I don’t know what—”

“And not in the butt,” Lily added.

There was a high-pitched little-girl giggle from behind the couch. “Hi, Daddy,” Sophie said, popping up behind him. “I missed you.”

Charlie swung her up over the back of the couch and gave her a big kiss. “I missed you, too, sweetie.”

Sophie pushed him away. “How come you have frosting on your hair?”

“Oh, that—Lily had to spray some frost on Alvin and Mohammed to settle them down and it got on me.”

“They missed you, too.”

“I could tell,” Charlie said. “Honey, could you go play in your room for a bit while I talk to Lily about business?”

“Where are the puppies?” Sophie asked.

“They’re having a T.O. in Daddy’s room. Can you go play and we’ll have some Cheese Newts in a little while?”

“Okay,” Sophie said, sliding to the floor. “Bye, Lily.” She waved to Lily.

“Bye, Sophie,” Lily said, looking even more pale than usual.

Sophie marched away in rhythm to her new chant, “Not in the butt—not in the butt—not in the butt.”

Charlie turned to face Lily. “Well, that ought to liven up Mrs. Magnussen’s first-grade class.”

“Sure, it’s embarrassing now,” Lily said, without missing a beat, “but someday she’ll thank me.”

Charlie tried to look at his shirt buttons as if he were deep in thought, but instead started to giggle, tried to stop, and ended up snorting a little. “Jeez, Lily, you’re like a little sister to me, I could never—”

“Oh, fine. I offer you a gift, out of the goodness of my heart, and you—”

“Coffee, Lily,” Charlie said with a sigh. “Could I just get you to make me a cup of coffee instead of doing me—and sit and talk to me while I drink it? You’re the only one who knows what’s going on with Sophie and me, and I need to try to sort things out.”

“Well, that will probably take longer than doing you,” Lily said, looking at her watch. “Let me call down to the store and tell Ray that I’ll be a while.”

“That would be great,” Charlie said.

“I was only going to do you in exchange for information about your Death Merchant thing, anyway,” Lily said, picking up the phone on the breakfast bar.

Charlie sighed again. “That’s what I need to sort out.”

“Either way,” Lily said, “I’m unbending on the butt issue.”

Charlie tried to nod gravely, but started giggling again. Lily chucked the San Francisco Yellow Pages at him.

“This soul smells like ham,” said Nemain, wrinkling her nose at a lump of meat she had impaled on one long claw.

“I want some,” said Babd. “Gimme.” She slashed at the carrion with her own talons, snagging a fist-sized hunk of flesh in the process.

The three were in a forgotten subbasement beneath Chinatown, lounging on timbers that had been burned black in the great fire of 1906. Macha, who was starting to manifest the pearl headdress she wore in her woman form, studied the skull of a small animal by the light of a candle she’d made from the fat of dead babies. (Macha was ever the artsy-craftsy one, and the other two were jealous of her skills.) “I don’t understand why the soul is in the meat, but not in a man.”

“Tastes like ham, too, I think,” Nemain said, spitting glowing red bits of soul when she talked. “Macha, do you remember ham? Do we like it?”

Babd ate her bit of meat and wiped her claws on her breast feathers. “I think ham is new,” she said, “like cell phones.”

“Ham is not new,” Macha said. “It’s smoked pork.”

“No,” said Babd, aghast.

“Yes,” said Macha.

“Not human flesh? Then how is there a soul in it?”

“Thank you,” Macha said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

“I’ve decided that we like ham,” said Nemain.

“There’s something wrong,” Macha said. “It shouldn’t be this easy.”

“Easy?” said Babd. “Easy? It’s taken hundreds—no, thousands of years to get this far. How many thousands of years, Nemain?” Babd looked to the poison sister.

“Many,” said Nemain.

“Many,” said Babd. “Many thousands of years. That’s not easy.”

“Souls coming to us, without bodies, without the soul stealers, that seems too easy.”

“I like it,” Nemain said.

They were quiet for a moment, Nemain nibbled at the glowing soul, Babd preened, and Macha studied the animal skull, turning it over in her talons.

“I think it’s a woodchuck,” Macha said.

“Can you make ham from woodchuck?” Nemain asked.

“Don’t know,” said Macha.

“I don’t remember woodchuck,” Nemain said.

Babd sighed heavily. “Things are going so well. Do you two ever think about when we are Above all the time, and Darkness rules all, about, you know, what then?”