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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.
THE MORRIGAN
"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.
