Catchpenny by Charlie Huston

Author:Charlie Huston [Huston, Charlie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

I FOUND SHINGLES at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary, robbing a grave.

She had two familiar faces with her, Wendell Which and Horace Hoo, a married couple of auspicers who had an antiques shop in West Hollywood and worked as groundskeepers at Hollywood Forever on the side. They could be mistaken for any happy couple who shared a penchant for capri pants paired with checked vests and hand-painted silk ties. The only thing that separated them from any other eccentrically stylish shopkeepers was their interest in picking through the coffins of the recently deceased.

“Hey, Sid,” Wendell said, looking up from down in the grave they were excavating.

Horace was clearing earth away from the side of the grave to keep it from tumbling back in.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Hey,” I said, not feeling very conversational after seeing Minerva’s throat sawn through. I coasted the last few feet on the paved path before I dismounted and ditched the scooter.

Shingles was down in the grave with Wendell. She dropped her shovel, boosted herself out, and ran over to me. She threw her arms around me, gave me a tight squeeze.

“You’re okay.”

I tried to shrug, but she was holding me too tightly.

“It was tense, but yeah, I’m okay.”

She pulled away, looked at me.

“What was tense? Is that blood on your face?”

“It’s not mine.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“I had a run-in on my way here. Minerva.”

“Is he after you?”

“Not anymore.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure. I’m gonna sit down.” I perched on the side of a headstone. “It’s been a weird night.”

She hunkered down in front of me and put her hands on my knees. She was wearing gardening gloves so she wouldn’t get blisters while she dug up graves.

“How are you, Sid?”

“I’m fine,” I said. Clearly not fine.

In addition to her gloves, Shingles was wearing denim overalls embroidered with a pattern of lilies, and a straw sun hat with a yellow ribbon tied in a bow around its crown. Shingles, despite working at a suicide crisis line and being a necromancer, is a singularly upbeat and sunny person. The fact that her disposition is largely the product of an especially clever application of mojo is beside the point. Shingles wants to feel good, so she uses mojo to help her feel good. Her relentless good humor is simultaneously infuriating and literally infectious. It is hard to feel bad when you are with her, which is one of the reasons why I sometimes don’t want to be around her. I am suspicious of my emotions when I’m with Shingles. It feels like cheating to have someone else’s good mood lift you up. I’m not saying there is anything healthy about my point of view—I’m just sharing it.

She smiled her irresistibly cheery smile and pulled a bandana from her back pocket, dabbed at the sticky drops of blood on my forehead, and I went inert. The adrenaline that had flooded me when I thought I was going to die in the limo swirled out of my system. I was crashing.

“Why is there so much dying?” I asked her.

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