They’d never looked right in Aunt Neti’s parlour anyway. For a moment I can smell scones – I shiver – and then the scent’s gone. It’s just sweat du Steve, and the smell of Charon – the guy still smokes the cheapest cigarettes. And the place doesn’t feel all that threatening anymore. ‘You’re safe here for now, until we finish with this. The living and the dead are attacking you because you don’t belong here and you don’t belong there. Kind of like meatballs in a vegan diner.’‘So why am I here at all?’‘Sleight of hand,’ Charon says. ‘But it’s getting more slight as we speak.’ He smiles, all teeth.‘What’s next?’‘You’re not going to like it,’ Charon says. ‘And if there was any other way, I’d … No, I’d still go with this way.’‘What do you mean?’‘This,’ he says. ‘I mean this.’Charon raises one hand, spreads out his long fingers and blows across them. ‘Time, fellas. Time.’ Then he claps that hand down onto my shoulder.
