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The Emperor smiled. "That's very kind of you, but we will be perfectly safe. For now I need to free my charge from his galvanized prison. " The big man tipped the garbage can and Bummer emerged snorting and tossing his head as if ready to tear the ass out of any man or beast foolhardy enough to cross him (and he would have, as long as they were knee-high or shorter).
Charlie was still having trouble with the key. He knew he should have had the lock replaced, but it worked, if you finessed it a little, so he'd never made it a priority. Who the hell thought you'd ever have to get in quick to escape a giant bird? Then he heard a screech and turned to see not one, but two huge ravens coming over the roof and diving into the alley. The dogs arfed a frantic barking salvo at the avian intruders and Charlie put so much body English into wiggling the key in the lock that he felt an atrophied dancing muscle tear in his hip.
"They're back. Cover me. " Charlie threw the cane to the Emperor and braced himself for the impact, but as soon as the cane touched the old man's hand the birds were gone. You could almost hear the pop of the air replacing the space they had taken up. The dogs caught themselves in mid-ruff; Bummer whimpered.
"What?" the Emperor said. "What?"
"They're gone. "
The Emperor looked at the sky. "You're sure?"
"For now. "
"I saw two shadows. Really saw them this time," the Emperor said.
"Yes, there were two this time. "
"What are they?"
"I have no idea, but when you took the cane they - well, they disappeared. You really saw them?"
"I'm sure of it. Like smoke with a purpose. "
Finally the key turned in the lock and the door to Asher's back room swung open. "You should come in. Rest. I'll order something to eat. "
"No, no, the men and I must be on our rounds. I've decided to make a proclamation this morning and we need to see the printer. You'll be needing this. " The Emperor presented the cane to Charlie like he was turning over a sword of the realm.
Charlie started to take it, then thought better of it. "Your Majesty, I think you'd better keep that. It looks as if you might be able to use it. " Charlie nodded toward the Emperor's creaky knee.
The Emperor held the cane steady. "I am not a worshiper of the material, you know?"
"I understand that. "
"I am a firm believer that desire is the source of most of human suffering, you're aware, and no culprit is more heinous than desire for material gain. "
"I run my business based on those very principles. Still, I insist you keep the cane - as a favor to me, if you would?"
Charlie found himself affecting the Emperor's formal speech patterns, as if somehow he had been transported to a royal court where a nobleman was distinguished by bread crumbs in his beard and the royal guard were not above licking their balls.
"Well, as a favor, I will accept. It is a fine piece of craftsmanship. "
"But more importantly, it will permit you to make your rounds in good time. "
The Emperor now betrayed the desire in his heart as he let fly a wide grin and hugged the cane to his chest. "It is fine, indeed. Charlie, I must confess something to you, but I ask you to grant me the credulity due a man who has just shared witness, with a friend, of two giant, raven-shaped shades. "
"Of course. " Charlie smiled, when
even a moment before he would have thought his smile lost somewhere in the months past.
"I hope you won't think me base, but the second I touched this, I felt as if I had been waiting for it my whole life. "
Then, for no reason that he could think of, Charlie said, "I know. "
A few minutes before, inside the store, Lily had been brooding. It wasn't her general brood, the reaction to a world where everyone was stupid and life was meaningless and the mere act of living was futile, especially if your mother forgot to get coffee at the store. This one was a more specific brood, that had started out when she arrived at work and Ray had pointed out that it was her turn to wear the vacuuming tiara, and insisted that if she wore the tiara, she actually vacuum the store. (In fact, she liked wearing the rhinestone tiara that Charlie, in a move of blatant bourgeois sneakiness, had designated be worn by whoever did the vacuuming and sweeping each day, and no other time. It was the vacuuming and sweeping she objected to. She felt manipulated, used, and generally taken advantage of, and not in the fun way. ) But today, after she'd put the tiara and the vacuum away and had finally gotten a couple of cups of coffee in her system, the brooding had gone on, building to full-scale angst, when it began to dawn on her that she was going to have to figure out this college-career thing, because despite what The Great Big Book of Death said, she had not been chosen as a dark minion of destruction. Fuck!
She stood in the back room looking at all the items that Charlie had piled there the day before: shoes, lamps, umbrellas, porcelain figures, toys, a couple of books, and an old black-and-white television and a painting of a clown on black velvet.
"He said this stuff was glowing?" she asked Ray, who stood in the doorway to the store.
