“I knew that was you,” said Minty. “I told Asher about you.”

“He did,” Charlie said. “He said you were very attractive.”

“I did not,” Minty said.

“He did. ‘Nice eyes,’ he said,” Charlie said. “Go on.”

“There was no mistaking it, though—the glow in the CD—it was exactly the same presence that I could sense in people who had a soul. Needless to say, I was freaked out.”

“Needless to say,” Charlie said. “I had a similar experience.”

Audrey nodded. “I was going to discuss all of this with my master at the center, you know, come clean about what I had learned in Tibet—turn the scrolls over to someone who perhaps understood what was going on with the souls inside of objects, but after only a few months, word came from Tibet that I had left under suspicious circumstances. I don’t know what details they gave, but I was asked to leave the center.”

“So you formed a posse of spooky animal things and moved to the Mission,” said Minty Fresh. “That’s nice. You can let me loose from this chair now and I’ll be on my way.”

“Fresh, will you please let Audrey finish telling her story. I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent reason that she hangs out with a posse of spooky animal things.”

Audrey pressed on. “I was able to get a job as costumer for a local theater group, and being around theater people, basically a bunch of born show-offs, can put you back into the swing of a life. I tried to forget about my practice in Tibet, and I focused on my work, trying to let my creativity drive me. I couldn’t afford to make full-sized costumes, so I began to create smaller versions. I bought a collection of stuffed squirrels from a secondhand store in the Mission, and used those as my first models. Later I made my models out of other taxi-dermied animal parts—mixing and matching them, but I’d already started calling them my squirrel people. A lot of them have bird feet, chicken and duck, because I could purchase them in Chinatown, along with things like turtle heads and—well, you can buy a lot of dead-animal parts in Chinatown.”

“Tell me about it,” Charlie said. “I live a block from the shark parts store. Never actually tried to build a shark from spare parts, though. Bet that would be fun.”

“Y’all are twisted,” Minty said. “Both of you—you know that, right? Messin’ with dead things and all.”

Charlie and Audrey each raised an eyebrow at him. A creature in a blue kimono with the face of a dog skull gave Minty the critical eye socket and would have raised an eyebrow at him if she’d had one.

“All right, go on,” Minty said, waving Audrey on with his free hand. “You made your point.”

Audrey sighed. “So I started to hit all of the secondhand stores in the City, looking for everything from buttons to hands. And at at least eight stores, I found the soul objects—all grouped together at each store. I realized that I wasn’t the only one who could see them glowing red. Someone was imprisoning these souls in the objects. That’s how I came to know about you gentlemen, whatever you are. I had to get these souls out of your hands. So I bought them. I wanted them to move on to their next rebirth, but I didn’t know how. I thought about using the p’howa of forceful projection, forcing a soul into someone who I could see was soulless, but that process takes time. What would I do, tie them up? And I didn’t even know if it would work. After all, that method was used to force a soul from one person to another, not from an inanimate object.”

Charlie said, “So you tried this forceful-projection thing with one of your squirrel people?”

“Yeah, and it worked. But what I didn’t count on is that they became animated. She started walking around, doing things, intelligent things. Which is how they came to be these little guys you’ve seen today.

“More tea, Mr. Asher?” Audrey smiled and held the teapot out to Charlie.

“Those things have human souls?” Charlie asked. “That’s heinous.”

“Oh yeah, and it’s better that you have the soul imprisoned in an old pair of sneakers in your shop. They’re only in the squirrel people until I can figure how to put their souls into a person. I wanted them saved from you and your kind.”

“We’re not the bad guys. Tell her, Fresh, we’re not the bad guys.”

“We’re not the bad guys,” Minty said. “Can I get some more coffee?”

“We’re Death Merchants,” Charlie said, but it came out much less cheerful-sounding than he’d hoped. He was very desperate for Audrey not to think of him as a bad guy. Like most Beta Males, he didn’t realize that being a good guy was not necessarily an attraction to women.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Audrey said, “I couldn’t just let you guys sell the souls like so much secondhand junk.”

“That’s how they find their next rebirth,” Minty said.

“What?” Audrey looked at Charlie for confirmation.

Charlie nodded. “He’s right. We get the souls when someone dies, and then someone buys them and they get to their next life. I’ve seen it happen.”

“No way,” Audrey said, overpouring Minty’s coffee.

“Yep,” Charlie said. “We can see the red glow, but not in people’s bodies like you. Only in the objects. When someone who needs a soul comes in contact with the object, the glow goes out. The soul moves into them.”

“I thought you’d trapped the souls between lives. You’re not holding these souls prisoner?”

“Nope.”

“It wasn’t us after all,” Minty Fresh said to Charlie. “She was the one that brought all of this on.”

“What on? What?” Audrey said.

“There are Forces of Darkness—we don’t know what they are,” Charlie said. “What we’ve seen are giant ravens, and these demon-like women, we call them sewer harpies because they’ve come out of the storm sewers. They gain strength when they get hold of a soul vessel—and they’re getting really strong. The prophecy says they are going to rise in San Francisco and darkness will cover the world.”

“And they are in the sewers?” Audrey said.

Both Death Merchants nodded.

“Oh no, that’s how the squirrel people get around town without being seen. I’ve sent them to the different stores in the City to get the souls. I must have been sending them right to these creatures. And a lot of them haven’t come home. I thought they just might be lost, or wandering around. They do that. They have the potential of full human consciousness, but something is lost with time out of the body. Sometimes they can get a little goofy.”

“No kidding,” said Charlie. “So is that why iguana boy over there is gnawing on the light cord?”

“Ignatius, get off there! If you electrocute yourself the only place I have to put your soul is that Cornish hen I got at the Safeway. It’s still frozen and I don’t have any pants that will fit it.” She turned to Charlie with an embarrassed smile. “The things you never think you’ll hear yourself say.”

“Yeah, kids, what are you gonna do?” Charlie said, trying to sound easygoing. “You know, one of your squirrel people shot me with a crossbow.”

Audrey looked distraught now. Charlie wanted to comfort her. Give her a hug. Kiss her on the top of the head and tell her that everything was all right. Maybe even get her to untie him.

“They did? Crossbow, oh, that would be Mr. Shelly. He was a spy or something in a former life—had a habit of going off on his own little missions. I sent him to keep an eye on you and report back so I could figure out what you were doing. No one was supposed to get hurt. He never came home. I’m really sorry.”

“Report back?” Charlie said. “They can talk?”

“Well, they don’t talk,” Audrey said. “But some of them can read and write. Mr. Shelly could actually type. I’ve been working on that. I need to get them a voice box that works. I tried one out of a talking doll, but I just ended up with a ferret in a samurai outfit that cried and kept asking if it could go play in the sandbox, it was unnerving. It’s a strange process, as long as there’s organic parts, stuff that was once living, they knit together, they work. Muscles and tendons make their own connections. I’ve been using hams for the torsos, because it gives them a lot of muscle to work with, and they smell better until the process is finished. You know, smoky. But some things are a mystery. They don’t grow voice boxes.”