Lean Management Solve Bank Dhofar Proplems Information Technology Essay

Lean Management Solve Bank Dhofar Proplems Information Technology Essay Number of Banks and financial institution in the word and spicily in Oman implement such management standard of lean to achieve best business process; going through transition need more of banks secured. That strength comes from, speed of operation activities, reduce the cost, good product and increase customer knowledge. A leading bank in Oman called Bank Dhofar involve in many IT activities and steps to improve customer satisfaction. Report will go through the finding and gives recommendations. Key words: ATM Automatic Teller Machine SDM Smart Deposit Machine HSP High Payment Systems WISAL- One of Call Center service- customer inquires ISO International Organization for Standardization IT Information Technology EMV Europay / MasterCard/ Visa 1.0 Introduction Bank Dhofar is moving forward to offer many services effectively. Excellent service may not achieve or reach unless bank successfully implements such activities to provide the quality in best way of Bank service offered. To satisfying Bank customer through providing high service it will improved the out come in productivity side and will increase Operation value. It is hard to achieve this delivery of services because it request basic background in the organization. On the same hand Bank Dhofar need to offer fast, best and high quality services more to their customers. It needs to be reliable when such services lunch because it needs to succeed the organization. ISO 9001 has defined the service as leaning activities (Noor Aida Idris. 2008). Bank Dhofar is offering many kind of service to his customer and prefers the IT channel. TI services are high technology of Bank process, tool and information offered by Bank to their staff as well as customers. Focusing on profitability is the main objective for any commercial organization such as Bank dhofer to achieve maximum profits and improve shareholder return. Globule banks specially the large of them believes that if e-banking delivery channel such as ATMs, SMS banking, internet, deposit machines (CDM) and call center if deployed in good manner will deliver to reduce the cost of operation activates which tend to enhance the bank profitability. According to Nsouli Schaechter (2002) in 1996 a survey published by Booz-Allen Hamiltoan addressed e-banking come out with the estimated cost of daily transitions in united state of full branch service is 1.07 US dollar per transaction, while telephone banking cost 54 cent, ATM 27 cent and internet banking 1.5 cent. Forester (2003) has come out with research cover most largest bank in Europe state that the cost of any simple transaction that branch teller made is more costly by 14 times if we comber it with online transaction cost. This rese arch found that if customer made transaction in bank branch will cost them about 1 dollar cumbering with 60 cent if he made it through telephone call, while using the same transaction online will reduce it to 0.02 cent. Moreover improving e-channel will develop customer relationship by providing 24/7 online excess of banking services on time and whenever he need. E-banking has direct benefit and indirect. Direct benefit through reducing operation cost, overhead cost, faster transactions, less work loading, reduce customer waiting queues and allow staff more free time which may used for marketing purpose. Here are some good examples of Bank Dhofar e-banking channels 2.0 ATM Bank Dhofar is increasing dependent on use of information technology (IT) in carrying out business operations. The management of IT function has become very critical (Okunoye et al, 2007) due to implementation of IT based banking and ATM system as rapid use of advanced communication net work for connecting multiple location across the country. The latest of last century was the age of processing engineering (D.Dilijonas D. Zavrid, 2008). The growing dependence on technology for managing business also exposes the organization to substantial IT security risks. 2.1 Before ATM ATM is net work Technology offer high speed (T.Pham, 1998). Before ATM invented all commercial Banks and spicily Bank Dhofar were facing allot of difficulty those problems brought a headache to all Bank staff spicily cashier when salaries has been credited in customers accounts a long queue of customer stretching in front of cashier window waiting for their salaries and they feel uncomfortable with Bank services. Also cahier in trouble he/ she should work faster than he could which made him makes mistakes, this mistakes either shortages or access, it need a lot of time to discover it and some time cashier pay that deference. Some time customer need to know their account balance, have statement or small inquire about their account situation they should reach the Bank or any branches. In the same time if customer needs an urgent liquidity when Bank close, there is no way to have it and this problem become bigger if the next day is holyday, which may make a big loss to that customer. But after ATM is coming up every thing has change to good a lot of problems disappear and customer served will, cost reduced, quality of service improved and money reachable for 24 hours / 7 days a week only it need to insert your ATM cards. 2.2 Objectives The ATMs and SDMs play an important role in the Banks retail and corporate banking strategy by: Providing a 24 hours / 365 days a year (S.Yoshizawa J.Makiwo, 2001) automate service comprising cash deposits withdrawal, cheque deposits, utility bill payment, credit card payment, transfer of funds, mini statement, cheque request, etc. Reliving pressure at the cash counters and ensuring that all transitions are processed online, real time so no further back end processing is required. Reducing the risk of forged currency notes being deposited, since SDMs are programmed to detect counterfeit notes. Enabling the Bank to protect both its retail and corporate customer base. Offering customer the convenience of choice of locations from which they can carry out their basic banking activities. Displaying to the public a progressive image of the Bank. Although set up primarily to provide a vital customer service, cost effectiveness of ATMs and SDMs improves progressively in proportion to their utilization. The aim must therefore be: To make every personal accountholder a debit cardholder and, To direct all corporate customer to the CDMs for their cash / cheque deposit. 2.3 Challenges One of the most challenges that effect ATMs as will as CDMs is security. The global problem of ATMs / CDMs fraud is constantly evolving word wide, while the industry is trying to battle in all fronts. Fraudsters have been innovative and evolve new techniques starting from a simple card trapping, cash swap to sophisticated techniques like skimming, card trapping, cash tapping etc. and brute force attacks. Fraudsters have been moving to markets which are considered less non-EMV or non-CHIP markets. The card associations, ATM Vendors, financial institution all have been working together to combat this fraud. By taking a few measures Bank Dhofar could do a bit in combating this menace and improve customer confidence in the popular ATMs / CDMs channel. 3.0 HPS Power Card 3.1 Introduction One of the main things that Bank Dhofar is trying to achieve is improving the existing product and this we can find it clear when Bank Dhofar introduce the Power Card. Power Card is an ATM Switch and Debit Management System supplied by High Tech Payment Systems (HPS), Morocco. It will replace the existing legacy system call Sparrow from CR2. Power CARD can be accessed using Internet Explorer. It will be initially accessible Card Center, Operation Department, Call Centre, Retail Banking, IT and branches. 3.2 What are the primary objectives of this project and implementation? Improving customer service at Card / Call Center, improved operations and MIS such as SMS alerts for ATM customers, new services like EMV acquiring, EMV issuing, Balance Enquiry on international ATMs outside GCC, enabling of debit cards on Internet, security and compliance with International Payment Network mandates. The new system is already certified for EMV (Europay / MasterCard/Visa) which would enable Bank Dhofar to issue CHIP based debit card and also accept CHIP based international VISA Card on our ATMs. A Debit / Credit Cared is a bank card used to make electronic withdrawal of cash through Automated Teller Machines (ATM) or pay for goods and services at point-of sales terminal or on the world- Wide web (internet) or obtain cash advances from ATM, up to- agreed credit limits. 4.0 New Call Center Service WISAL The field of relation design has increased its concentrate to know how systems of technology-based products are implemented (Forlizzi, J. 2007). Life become fast and Bank Dhofar focus on that by offer new service that helps his customers to reach the Bank and finish his need on faster way, so they introduce new service all Wisal. Wisal is a toll free service offered by Bank Dhofar Call Center it allows the customer to contact Call Center using special identification number to request some services It is a latest offering comes in line with the banks strategy to move closer to its clients and provide convenient, fast and customer friendly services. WISAL is backed by state of the technology to enable it to become an efficient and effective touch point and deliver channel. The staffs of WISAL are highly trained to deliver the kind of quality services that hopefully will help bank to gain more customers and retain existing ones. WISAL Services will include: General Inquiries Loan Inquiries Chaque Book Request Product Service Information Credit Card Balance Other Related Inquiries Complaint Handling Resolution Money Transfer ATM Transaction Inquires And moreà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. 5.0 Internet Banking Bank Dhofar is one of a leading banks in Oman that introduce Internet banking to reduce the transaction cost and improve customers satisfaction, where there is combined relationship between customer and internet banking affecting the bank achievement. Bank Dhofar and other banks in Oman introduce internet banking to fulfill customers different requests specially when technology allow that aiming to enhance customer satisfaction, attracting those new customers and bring back existing ones. Majority of world banks and local especially in Oman like bank Dhofar are provide their customers by variety internet free service in order to promote the customer to transfer to electronic method rather than using the traditional one. In 2002 a research on Internet bankers shone that 37% of online banking services directive to 18 % of European peoples. Research also expected the number will reach the double bringing new generation of self services while such research was absent in my country. Bank Dhofar online services have design to satisfy customers by offering Varity of services like:- Paying utility bills Order cheque book Have account statement Check the balance account Check payment and receiving See the bank product Recently, bank dhofar tend to educate his customers by deploying his staff across Oman to satisfy them and meet bank expectation. 6.0 Self Service Module of Helps Desk The bank has installed IT Help Desk Software in the IT division (ITD) to track and control the software, ATM, Network and hardware related support request received by IT Department from branches and head office departments. This will further improve the quality of service from ITD to IT users in the bank. The IT Help Desk system is an internal software application used to track all support calls / request received by ITD in a centralized, searchable database for easy reference by IT staff, enabling quick resolution to issues and simplifying the tracking of issues. The staff branches and head office will be able to input their support call / requests using Web based system. As the request is input by the user staff, the system generate a work order history for future reference. 7.0 Finding Many financial institution may facing some technical problems in designing new systems or product that enhance operation activities but Bank Dhofar has achieve good performance in introducing new IT technology to serve his customer very will, offer new and chosen product and concentrate on IT Technology aiming to provide better service, reduce the cost, improve productivities and satisfied the customers. As a branch manager with 14 years in banking sector I observed that e-channel especially like ATM has played most important role to improved customer satisfaction, display e-banking knowledge and develop customer attitude from banking services. Recently customer has improved his knowledge about bank product and services through understanding the important of e-channel and how it make easy of banking transaction to save customer time meanwhile, bank dhofar has deployed ATM and other e-channel in Oman to satisfied itself through reducing bank expenses on transaction and satisfied his customer by reduce waiting time in branches. 8.0 Conclusion Report has focused on Bank Dhofar experience in implementing the successful of one operation management aspect Lean Management and how it solve many operational problem which lead to enhance the Bank productivity and achieve customer satisfactions. 9.0 Recommendation One of good thing that Bank Dhofar planned to achieve is introduce new IT technology to maximize the benefits and meet new business challenges, this true but during this investigation I find that Bank Dhofar still need to focus on the technology of this century Like using internet banking to provide faster communication that enhances Bank success. Because its the latest technology that occupied the country last deceit and number of using internet is expanded daily.

How to Perform Rhetorical Analysis :: Rhetorical Analysis Essays

How to Perform Rhetorical Analysis Becoming a critical reader means learning to recognize audiences, writers, points of view and purposes, and to evaluate arguments. In addition to the rhetorical triangle, structure of an argument, and rhetorical appeals, you should look at the following devices used by authors when performing critical analysis. Keep in mind too that these are only some of the devices, and that authors may use other rhetorical devices as well. Word choice Denotative language. Words that relate directly to the knowledge and experience of the audience. Includes specialized, precise or familiar words that speak to logic. Specialized terminology from medicine or law speaks to doctors or lawyers. Precise language that shuns emotional coloration appeals to people who use logic and reason, regardless of profession. Connotative language: Words that relate to deeper, symbolic levels of meaning. It includes social meanings acquired through use and emotional associations. It can also reflect social, racial, political, or religious stereotypes. For example, a writer who refers to liberals as â€Å"bleeding hearts† communicates not only her or his own bias, but an expectation that the audience shares this bias. Tone: can be characterized as the author’s attitude toward the reader or toward the topic. Formal: Creates a distance between the writer and audience by removing most I’s and you’s, and by using elevated, specialized language. Formal tone suggests a serious, high-minded, probably well-educated audience. Informal: Introduces the personal. When a writer is informal, the kinds of stories she relates, the way she presents herself, even the words she uses suggest audience attributes by indicating what she expects them to accept. Irony: Points to discrepancies between what exists and what ought to be. It is a subtle tactic that assumes an audience of careful readers. It implies some sort of discrepancy or incongruity, and it counts on the readers’ ability to understand this discrepancy. Sarcasm: Also points to discrepancies between what exists and what ought to be. A writer using sarcasm often attacks an argument by saying the opposite of what he means. Humor: Tactic that plays on social group bias. When we laugh at something, we join with people who are of like minds to laugh at the other—the distorted, the unusual, or the exaggerated. Point of View Objective: the writer seems removed from what she writes about. Objective writing uses concrete, unemotional words that relate facts, events, and data. It leads readers to action by appealing to logos and ethos.

Essay --

The Band and Its Placement in American Music The Band has come to be known as one of the top one hundred greatest group of performers in the twentieth century. At the height of their popularity in the late 1960s, America was drawing a harsh divide between generations, races, genders, and political ideologies. Rock and Roll at this point had become a defining feature of the counterculture (the younger generations were disillusioned with the then upheld principles of American society) and as such was seen as a menace which often voiced harsh criticisms against figures and institutions of authority really long sentence. Amidst the chaos between music and society, a humbly talented group of performers released what some have called the purest most honest music of the generation. The Band had its influences rooted in the country, rock’ n’ roll, and rhythm and blues music of the early 1950s. To more than a few members of the group, performers such as Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis inspired them to pursue music with the passionate zeal that usually accompanies talented musicians. The members: Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel were all multi-instrumentalists and as such got their start as musicians from early ages, Levon Helm for example started playing guitar at the age of nine. In 1958, Helm began touring with an established band known as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks throughout Ontario, Canada. This pre-incarnation of the Band earned fame throughout Canada before finally deciding to settle in Toronto where their most profitable gigs occurred at. Homesickness, however prevented the Hawks from remaining together for very long. As members of ... ... seems to highlight all of the genres that the group was influenced by and in turn showcases their progressive sound. Not only does the song recant a folk-tale in the form of a ballad but also shows the complexities of characters as archetypes of mankind and alludes to the biblical wanderings of the disciples. The song was also featured in the 1978 documentary of The Band, The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese. As a final hoorah, the Band concluded their touring in 1976 with a cadre of other influential artists such as Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and others. The film the Last Waltz has also lived on as an inspiration to current artists and has been acclaimed as a must see for musicians. The film not only captures the performances of The Band but also presents them in the context of the culture, amidst famous aspects of rock and roll.

Contemporary Culture Seen Thru Post-War British Films

The British cinema of the Second World War has typically been exemplified in terms of its depiction of ‘the people's war’. The films which have attracted most crucial consideration are those which offered a picture of the British people at war, united regardless of class differences, and where the chronicles of individuals, heroic though they may be, were inspired into the greater story of the whole nation pulling together at a time of national crisis. Curran and Porter (1983) have identified, for the first time in British feature films, a genuine, true-to-life image of ordinary men and women.Roger Manvell (1947)considered that films such as Millions Like Us, San Demetrio, London, Nine Men, The Way Ahead, Waterloo Road and The Way to the Stars ‘showed pe ople in whom we could trust and whose experience was as genuine as our own’. The reason for this pristine realism, according to Aldgate and Richards (2002) is usually clarified through the impact of the docu mentary movement, the progressive left-wing sector of the British film industry, on the mainstream feature film producers. The British film industry endeavoured to open out overseas. J.Arthur Rank, of the Rank Organization, extended his world-wide distribution. The Associated British Picture Corporation or ABPC joined Warner Brothers to institute distribution in the United States. Perry (1988) noted that Alexander Korda acquired London Films and British Lion, the former from MGM. Korda's London Films had in 1933 created The Private Lives of Henry VIII. He established circulation of his films in the United States through Twentieth Century Fox. Green (1983) illustrates that unlike the aspirations of the highly financed studios, Ealing Studios focused its labours on a series of modest comic films.Teams of writer/directors made a series of remarkable films. The Boulting brothers, John and Roy, interchanged as director and producer of a series of films, including Brighton Rock (1947), Th e Magic Box (1951), Lucky Jim (1957), and I'm All Right, Jack (1959). The team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, operating under the label of the Archers and supported by J. Arthur Rank, made two specials, The Red Shoes (1948) and Tales of Hoffman (1951). The first popularised ballet while the second popularised opera.Powell and Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven (also called A Matter of Life and Death, 1945) was the make-believe tale of a pilot who is mistakenly called to heaven so soon. One of the folklores that cropped up from war-weary Britain was a faith in the unity and equality of the community. The myth persisted for a brief time after the war, stimulated by expectations for the Labour government's experiment, when recuperating English society felt the likelihood of progressing the unity experienced in the â€Å"people's war† to decipher the nation's massive social problems.The myth, in which all elements of society, even those not normally associating with one another, pull together, played out in a number of films, such as the Ealing films of Hue and Cry, Whiskey Galore, Passport to Pimlico, and The Blue Lamp. Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios produced these films as â€Å"fantastic escape. † The fantasy created was of a sense of community prompted by the world war. The distraction was in fancy and departure from actuality. Hue and Cry was the first of what have become known as the Ealing comedies and it started the fantasy foundation of community.The setting in south London, an area devastated by the German blitz, was scheduled for enormous restoration in the years 1945-1953. In Hue and Cry, writer T. E. B. Clarke fixed on a London community of youths living and playing around a bombsite, who come together to overpower a gang of criminals. The young hero, Joe Kirby, spends time reading escapist pulp detective comics. Through a series of imaginary and strange encounters, Joe ascertains a criminal syndicate of black market operators using comic books as a code. Joe, with the help of the community of boys, suppresses the criminals, led by the evil Nightingale.Manvell (1947) said that at the end of the war, British film was trapped in a struggle between its realist, documentary tradition and a pull toward the fantastic and expressionism. The anthology film Dead of Night (1945), co-directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton and Basil Dearden, caught some of this resistance. The film modifies from the factual to the Gothic. It makes use of expressionist techniques, such as a powerful mirror scene. Landy (1991) described that realism was a primary trait of British cinema during the war.Realism was acknowledged with black and white, straight-forward narrative and characters. It was profoundly influenced by Britain's documentary tradition. However, many post-war films were answers to realism. Of course, realism comes in many forms. Some films used realism seemingly to expand the story line, as in Michael Anderson's The Dam-Busters (1954), the Boulting brothers' Seven Days to Noon (1950) or Michael Powell's The Small Back Room (1949). The Boulting film involved a reconstruction of the evacuation of London when the city is endangered by a scientist with an atomic device.Powell's film integrated a long episode of the dismantling of a bomb. Ealing comedies, such as Hue and Cry and Passport to Pimlico, used realism as a framework for stories that were essentially non-realistic. In other films, such as Carol Reed's The Third Man or Odd Man Out, realism is used to heighten the drama and suspense. Other films used a documentary-style reconstruction, such as Charles Frend's Scott of the Antarctic (1948). The documentary-style opening of The Blue Lamp was an intentional device, although the story propagated the fantasy of community.The documentary opening and closing of Whiskey Galore were essentially significant to the film's satire. Realism, as a predominant style, resurfaced in the late Fifties, leading to â€Å"new cinema† or social realism. Dickinson and Street (1985) said that expressionism, rather than realism, dominated many of the British productions. Most of the literary were highly yet successfully stylized, including Lean's adaptations from Dickens, Olivier's Shakespearean films, and Dickinson's The Queen of Spades. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffman are examples of the stylization.The films represent the nexus of several strands of film and literary tradition, including German expressionism of the 1920's, romanticism, Gothic, the combination of the arts, and the reaction of realism. The Red Shoes was a story by Hans Christian Anderson, derived from a story by E. T. A. Hoffman (1776-1822), a German romanticist, and influenced by life of Russian ballet director Diaghilev and dancer Nijinsky. It is the story of a ballerina torn between the control of two men — her director, Lermontov, and her husban d, Julian, a conductor.Her husband wrote the score for a ballet just for her — â€Å"The Red Shoes. † Lermontov directed her in it. Although Vicki is tough at the start, able to return â€Å"the gaze† of Lermontov, she soon loses her capability to endure either man. The men, primarily Lermontov, are puppet masters, using manipulation to restrain the female to the male's domination. Geraghty (1985) stresses that the battle of the masters is carried out on several levels. At the core of the struggle are the highly stylized ballet scenes, using images of Julian conducting, Lermontov directing and Vicki soaring on stage and in the air.The shoe maker in the ballet is, likewise, a puppeteer. The expressionistic ballet, a combination of music, art, dance and film, is surrounded by the narrative, in which the dancer shifts loyalties between herself, Lermontov and Julian. Lermontov manipulates both dancer and conductor. Vicki finally escapes by injuring herself and endin g forever her ability to dance. Lermontov continues the final performance of the ballet without a dancer in the lead role. Green (1983) said that The Tales of Hoffman was based on an opera of the German expressionist Jacques Offenbach.It comprises film with little dialog. It recollects the universal visual language of the silent film. The various characters of the opera, which challenge and defy Hoffman, a nobleman/poet, include an array of manipulators — an eye glass maker, a master of souls, and a demonic doctor. The filmed opera originally had four episodes, though one episode, hence another manipulator, was cut from the film. The film represents creator as monster and tormentor as well as tormented victim. This theme, said to cast Hoffman as a metaphor for Powell, recalls Lermontov and his tries to gets in touch with Vicki.Both films utilise expressionist techniques such as the metaphors of the gaze and the mirror to symbolize and accentuate the struggle, which Werner Fas sbinder has called sadism in the creative act and creation in destruction. Williams (1991) describes Both Powell and Pressburger films aim to create what Richard Wagner hoped to do with opera — the total art by combining the visual with the aural. The Red Shoes mediates ballet cinematically. It interprets ballet into film rather than record ballet on film. The Tales of Hoffman interprets opera into film rather than record opera on film.Adding to their stature, the creative collaboration of Powell and Pressburger combined the art tradition of European film and the technical advances of American film. Their films experimented with the new Technicolor technology. Low (1985) reports that the anti-realism traits of German expressionism, Gothic and fantasy even appeared in the Ealing comedies. At least twice in Hue and Cry — when the hero and his friend climbed the stairs to the writer's apartment, and in the final fight with the criminal master-mind in the bombed building à ¢â‚¬â€ the camera angles and shadows evoked images of German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari. The expressionistic device of the mirror appears in a number of films, such as Dead of Night, and The Blue Lamp. Likewise, the technique of â€Å"the gaze† appears in several films, including The Blue Lamp. Williams (1991) described the behaviour of the writer and the Victorian clutter of his apartment, and the passage of the children through the London sewers, both in Hue and Cry, evoked images of Gothic horror. Likewise, the Hammer horror films were a reaction to realism. Fantasy appeared in a variety of films, especially the Ealing comedies, including the fanciful idea of a sovereign Pimlico or Hue and Cry's children against crime.These communities were rooted in fantasy not reality. They were no more than a daydream. British cinema after the Second World War can be distinguished by a number of features. The films were generally comedies, melodramas, litera ry or horror films. Among the features coming out through these films were 1) attempts to preserve the nostalgic values, such as community of wartime Britain, and 2) the denunciation of the realism and documentary style of the World War II films, particularly through expressionism and stylization. Britain today is a richly mixed society and culture.Its residents typify a wide variety of national, cultural, racial and religious backgrounds and mixtures. That diversity is an outcome of a history, which has incorporated invasion, expansion, empire and Commonwealth, and Britain’s role as a retreat for people of all races. Murphy (2000) describes the British governments have taken measures to undertake problems of discrimination and disadvantage through pioneering such things as race relations legislation which makes racial discrimination an objectionable, and illegal practice, and through strategy to remedy disadvantage.Britain’s ethnic diversity, with its range of and uni que mix of cultural identities and heritages, describes and puts in worth to contemporary Britain. For instance, the Muslim society in Britain make a crucial and lively input to every facet of life from sports and the arts to business and even politics. This paper shall look into at least three film features created after the Second World War. First is Notting Hill which stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. The film was a certified box-office hit not only in the United Kingdom but the world over.Next is Four Weddings and a Funeral written by the same writer of Notting Hill. The last movie is Chariots of Fire. Britain’s contemporary cultural diversity is being studied through these film features. Notting Hill Notting Hill has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area popular for its attractive terraces of large Victorian townhouses and high-class shopping and restaurants. Residents are symbolised as young and affluent and many people who conform to such stereotypes are o ften referred to as â€Å"The Notting Hill Set†, â€Å"The Notting Hillbillies†, and â€Å"Trustafarians†.The area came to international attention with the release of the successful Hollywood movie of the same name. Notting Hill (1999) stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant use the characteristic features of the area as a backdrop to the action, including the Portobello Road antiques market and enclosed square gardens. Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy film set in the Notting Hill district of London,. The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis who also wrote the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. In Western culture, we are fixated by the notion of celebrity.This may be easily viewed with the enormous number of paparazzis everywhere that descend on public figures when they make appearances, or the popularity of gossip magazines and TV shows. Celebrities are treated like royalty – fascinating and untouchable, they become objects of unreasonable adoration . Perhaps one of the most common fantasies entertained by an average man or woman is what would happen if someone famous fell in love with them. And therein lies the premise of Notting Hill. Hugh Grant plays William Thacker, the owner of a small bookstore in London's Notting Hill.Grant’s character is just an average Joe – when he's not working, he spends time with his friends and his wacky Welsh flat-mate, Spike played by Rhys Ifans, but has no romantic life to speak of. One day, however, the foundation of his way of life changes when Anna Scott, played by Julia Roberts, a famous actress, walks through the door to his little shop. In London to publicize her new film, she's taking a break from the press and Notting Hill seems like a good place to lose them. Later, William literally runs into her in the street, spilling orange juice all over her. Annoyed and humiliated, he requests her to his place to clean up.Much to his surprise, she accepts his offer, and, after chang ing outfits, she gives him a lingering kiss on the lips. William is immediately smitten and so, apparently, is Anna. Thus begins a turbulent relationship that asks whether a star can live happily ever after with somebody who has never had his face in the papers. Although Notting Hill is a pleasant enough motion picture, it isn't much more than that. It's a domesticated movie that takes few chances. Even the casting of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts is an example of playing it safe, since both are proven box office draws.The comedy, while sporadically funny, occasionally feels forced and unnatural, as if screenwriter Richard Curtis was forced to ratchet up the level of humour at the cost of characters' integrity. Spike is a case in point. As portrayed by Rhys Ifans he's the constant butt of jokes but he achieves little purpose beyond that. He's a pure misrepresentation of a lewd lazy bone, and, whenever he comes on screen, he actually becomes a disturbance. Another problem with the fil m is that the romance is half-hearted. While there's a feeling of sociability and even affection between William and Anna, there was no passion felt between the two.They appear more like brother and sister than lovers broken up by an army of publicists and photographers. The plot pursues the ordinary beat of a traditional romantic comedy: boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy and girl get to know each other, then complications interfere. In this case, those complications come in the form of Anna's off-again/on-again boyfriend and the media. Notting Hill is not without its enjoyable moments. The relationship between two of William's friends, Max and Bella, is touching. There's an exciting conversation between William and Anna about why men are attracted to breasts.And there's an appealing shot of William walking down a street in Notting Hill as the seasons change around him. The movie shows us how Britain has achieved tremendous changes after the war era. It is an attempt to penetrate the western movie market and this proved to be quite a difficult task at first. Four Weddings and a Funeral The simplest and most honest articulation of praise that can be presented to this Mike Newell's movie is that it epitomises two hours of solid movie magic. Four Weddings and a Funeral enjoys the extraordinary power to make an audience laugh and cry without ever apparent scheming or going desperately over-the-top.Another Hugh grant movie who plays Charles is a serial monogamist or someone who moves from girlfriend to girlfriend without ever falling in love. His friends have started down the matrimonial road, but not Charles. Feelings of spending the rest of his life with someone never went through his mind, until one day at a wedding when he encounters Carrie played by Andie MacDowell, an American fashion editor. And, although the two enjoy a brief rendezvous at an inn, Charles' typical British uncommunicativeness comes in, and Carrie is on her way back to America before he rec ognizes he should have said something.Here’s another movie that showcases cultural diversity in Britain were two individuals from different cultural backgrounds may have the possibility of ending up together despite their cultural diversity. Four Weddings and a Funeral is about four weddings and a funeral. While the central story of this delightful motion picture is somewhat common romantic comedy fare, it is structured by a plot packed with little twists and turns, lots of laughs, and a frothy, fascinating atmosphere. Mike Newell, whose recent directing credits include Enchanted April and Into the West, maintains to display a clever hand when it comes to good, escapist fun.Newell's direction is unassuming — he allows his actors and the script to carry the film, which results in an enjoyable mix of cheerful comedy with a dash of misery. Screenwriter Richard Curtis is fast to let the humour starts flowing, and once it starts, it never stops. The scenes most likely to ca use irrepressible laughter happen during the second wedding and centre on Rowan Atkinson as a somewhat confused priest. It's not a shock that Atkinson feels at home with a Curtis script, since the two have teamed up on the British TV show Blackadder.Four Weddings and a Funeral is a modern comedy with a very time-honoured theme. It mixes upright breeding and bad language; laughter and tears; and marriage and friendship into a thoroughly enjoyable whole. This movie showcases how Britain has become one of the world’s best movie producers. It was so popular across the globe which highlighted the greatness of Britain. Chariots of Fire Sporting events today have become vicious, angry affairs where the slogan, more frequently than not, is â€Å"win at all costs. † Demonstrations of good sportsmanship are about as rare as altruism.Everyone is out for themselves, and the displays of athletes like Albert Belle, John McEnroe, and Dennis Rodman can sit in the stomach like a large piece of heavy matter. So it's invigorating to look back at an era when triumph didn't command seclusion, resentment, and disgust of one's rivals. Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning 1981 film, delights us to the 1924 Olympics, and, in the process, highlights such laudable qualities as loyalty, determination, and fraternity. That's not to say that winning isn't important to the competitors in Hugh Hudson's film.On the other hand, for British track stars Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Lidell (Ian Charleson), it's a principal anxiety, but neither is so fixated by their ambition that they lose sight of the larger picture. Eric is a devout Christian who runs because he considers it venerates God. Harold is a Jew who struggles as a way of establishing his worth. Both are driven by an internal fire, and have nothing but reverence for their competitors. Chariots of Fire tells the story of the British triumphs at the 1924 Olympics, where the UK representatives took a number of medals over the heavily-favoured Americans.With Abrahams and Lidell leading the way, the British track team had one of their best-ever showings. This film outlines the two principal athletes' paths to the Paris games, where their on-field victories form a astoundingly low-key climax. Chariots of Fire doesn't depend on worn-out sports film cliches; it's more fascinated in enthusiasm and character improvement. Yes, it's essential to know that Abrahams and Lidell win, but the real essence of the story is enclosed in what leads up to the races.Like in Sylvester Stallone's first Rocky, it's probable to claim victory before the competition begins — Lidell because he has holds fast to his beliefs and Abrahams because gives all he has to give. At the time when Chariots of Fire was first released, many of the major cast members, including Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nigel Havers, and Alice Krige, were relative unheard of. All give strong presentations, and each was remunerated with future part s in other productions. Some identifiable faces fill supporting roles, including Sir John Gielgud as the Master of Trinity College and Ian Holm as Abraham's mentor, Sam Mussabini.There's barely a trace of exaggerated scenes in Chariots of Fire, which makes the film-watching experience all the more effective — director Hugh Hudson shows respect for the veracity of his material and the cleverness of his audience. The deficiency of maudlin moments supplies the storyline with an authentic quality that supports its factual background. Not only do we care about the characters, but we admit that they really existed. In fact, the entire production declares that same sense of atmosphere. Most sports movies counts on melancholy and adrenaline — Chariots of Fire stands up on strong writing, direction, and acting.Approval of this picture doesn't require a love of sports, simply an understanding of human nature. Conclusion Immigrant, ethnic minority, asylum-seeker – slivers of intimation divide the meanings of each term in contemporary Britain. Ethnic minority, black and Asian, cultural diversity – clouds of confusion have distinguished contemporary arts in Britain over the past 30 years. Cook (1981) declares that notably, every liberal political measure undertaken so far to correct injustices – the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry into institutional racism being only the most recent – has proven ineffectual.Racism is not an intellectual failure that can be corrected by a greater dose of education. It is a moral value, however much one may abhor such a morality. It is an imaginative construct and so the engineers of the imagination – artists – find themselves in the frontline, their weapons being the pen or the hand or the body or the voice. Gilette (2003) discloses Post-war British film was both a response to the world war and a reaction to the film styles of the war and post-war periods. As a response to the war, post-war f ilms adopted a style of pseudo-realism to construct a post-war fantasy world.This fantasy, sometimes captured as a daydream, attempted to preserve the spirit of the war years, including the values of community and egalitarianism. This daydream or fantasy world also served as an escape from the memory of the war and the disappointment over the failure of a new society in post-war Britain. As a reaction to the war, post-war films revolted against the realism of the war-period films. They utilized and integrated strands of romanticism, expressionism, and the Gothic. References: Aldgate, A. and Richards, J. 2nd Edition. 1994. Britain Can Take it: British Cinema in the Second World War.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Barr, Charles; Ed. 1986. All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema. London: British Film Institute Aldgate, A. and Richards, J. 2002. Best of British: Cinema and Society from 1930 to the Present. London: I. B. Tauris Barr, C. Ealing Studios (London: Cameron & Tayl or, 1977). Cook, D. A History of Narrative Film (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981). Curran, J. and Porter, V. ; Eds. 1983. British Cinema History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson Dickinson, M. and Street, S. 1985. Cinema and the State: The Film industry and the British Government, 1927-84.London: BFI Friedman, Lester; Ed. 1992. British Cinema and Thatcherism. London: UCL Press Geraghty, Christine. 2000. British Cinema in the Fifties: Gender Genre and the New Look. London Routledge Gillett, P. 2003. The British Working Class in Postwar Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press Green, I. â€Å"Ealing in the Comedy Frame,† in British Cinema History, eds. , James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1983). Landy, M. 1991. British Genres: Cinema and Society, 1930-1960. Princeton University Press Low, R. 1985. Film Making in 1930s Britain.London: George, Allen and Unwin Rotha, Paul. 1973. Documentary diary; an informal history of the British docum entary film, 1928-1939, New York: Hill and Wang Swann, Paul. 2003. The British Documentary Film Movement, 1926-1946. Cambridge University Press Manvell, R. ‘The British Feature Film from 1925 to 1945’, in Twenty Years of British Film 1925–1945, eds M. Balcon, E. Lindgren, F. Hardy and R. Manvell (London, The Falcon Press, 1947), p. 85. Murphy, Robert. 2000. British Cinema and the Second World War. London: Continuum Murphy, R; Ed. 1996. Sixties British Cinema. London: BFIOrwell, G. â€Å"England, Your England† (1941), in A Collection of Essays (New York: Doubleday, 1954). Perry, G. 1988. The Great British Picture Show. Little Brown, 1988. Porter, V. â€Å"The Context of Creativity: Ealing Studios and Hammer,† in British Cinema History, eds. , James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1983). Powell, Pressburger and Others (British Film Institute, 1978). Shaw, T. 2001. British Cinema and the Cold War. London: I. B. Tauris Willi ams, T. various lectures, The Survey of Film History, fall semester, 1991, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Travelling For Education

Due to the miserable situations of Lebanese students and their long years of suffering from the bad educating services and due to the absence of responsibility toward university students and the difficulty of finding jobs. The researcher in this paper shows the attention to this problem. Traveling For Education It was become a fashion trend that more and more people choose to go abroad to study. Some people think it is great experience while on the country , some others think it is not good at all!Despite of the importance of studying abroad and the presence of scientist that have raised Lebanon's name abroad , there are still oppositions to the views of this idea that prefer to stay in Lebanon despite of all its problems that they suffer from . Students in Lebanon should study outside for many reasons. General atmosphere is not suitable to study in Lebanon on all levels. The lack of raw materials in Lebanon led to the weakness of electricity and this case does not fit college studen t who needs a convenient means for study and research. In addition to the electricity obstacle we  notice the non-existence of laboratories, libraries and research centers, the state does not give an adequate attention to this deficiency, which leads for big effort toward the college student.For example , there is only one public library that opened new in Nabtieh † centre de lecture et d'animation culturelle † beside the red cross and it does not have the media support to be a know place to come to it. In addition to all problems that Lebanese students face we have an initial problem by students that is the lack of comfort in government universities , and when they resort  Ã‚  to private universities that are more comfortable with all they need for studying they will be shocked by the high cost that they can't afford which lead them to depression , and we will not forget the non-support for the best students that government must appreciate and have a look for them. Going abroad to study means far more than learning. The book† Intercultural journeys from study to residence abroad † ( Jackson , 1954) talk about this issue.This book focuses on the actual experiences of college students who travelled from their homes to foreign lands, the author  explores the linkage between intercultural awareness and sensitivity, language development , and identity reconstruction in young adult college learners. Generally, the first thing you need to do is to survive in a foreign nation. Where to find a place to live? How to deal with transportation? How to cook food? All these are the things you have to think and depend on yourself.Students who study abroad have to take care of themselves, and these questions are used the Lebanese students who don't want to travel abroad. Without parents, you can learn how to arrange their  own issues and do everything by yourself better. This is what we call independent awareness. Studying abroad cultivate your independent awareness and capability of taking care yourself. It is   always a tough time when living in a country that is totally new to you and facing all kinds problems. One you overcome them , you get the ability to live on your own. This is great, when the people of your age still enjoying their lives under the protection of their families, you begin to experience life.We take this factor as the most important advantage as it teaches you the basic ability to live your life. No one but yourself can teach you this! Everyone needs to be enriched with more experience and be more mature. Studying abroad means you set yourself into a circumstance that is totally different to you. You can enjoy a new culture all by yourself: people's thoughts and behaviors and the way people live are the first-hand to you , is not this great ? Cultural differences are more than just differences in language, food, appearances, culture and personal habits.A person's reflects very deep perceptions, be liefs, and values that influence his or her way of life and the way that he or she views the world. Students who experience cultural differences personally can come to truly understand where other cultures are coming from.You can greatly increase your adaptability to what we call the † Global Village† in your potential career ( Dixon , 2009 ) . Only knowing cultural difference is not enough, studying abroad has a lot more to explore! seeing the beautiful sceneries of a nation, volunteering   in social work and communicating with local people are all up to you. By studying abroad you know more about the world, no matter academically or physically. Knowing more a and experiencing more help you think rationally and behave maturely. The things above are the most important and valuable advantages we can think of. And of course there are much more that hat we mentioned , learning and mastering a new manage or having the chance to travel may also be the advantages that attrac t you. Do not hesitate, going abroad to study do offer you great improvement!

How to Build Online Business Trust in the Philippines

Trust is probably the single most important factor in running an online business. Although the volume of online transactions are increasing, most customers are hesitant to use their credit cards due to the many scams, frauds and other fly-by-night operations plaguing the Internet. Studies show that nearly 70 percent of online shoppers have terminated an order in the middle of processing because they did not feel â€Å"safe† enough. But without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, how can you communicate trust to your online clients? Invest in design. The form, look and feel of your website is the first thing that can make your visitors feel at home. Viewer friendly layouts and customized content will help persuade customers to make that purchase. * Have great customer service. Many developers tend to forget that an offline presence is essential in beefing up your online business. Place telephone numbers and other vital contact information on your homepage. This will assure clients that there are flesh-and-blood people behind every transaction. Use an effective secure payment system. Secure payment gateways like Paypal up your credibility, especially when paired with SSL/PCI scanning seals and other forms of security verification. * Have a Trust Mark Seal on your website. A Trust Mark Seal Certification is probably the easiest and most effective way of building trust in your business. Rampant online fraud has taught shoppers to value third-party trust marks, resulting in significantly larger conversion rates on websites with these certifications.However, there are different kinds of Trust Mark. SSL and PCI Scanning Certifications protect data encryption, but they will not assure your clients that you are a legitimate legal entity, or help you stand out from the competition. Business Verification Trust Marks, on the other hand, certify your credentials and help showcase your company advantages. Having a Business Verification Trustmark will tell your cl ients that you are a serious company that cares about ethics, security and reliability.Localized service is key to choosing a Trust Mark. For Philippine firms, Sure Seal is the first service to offer this verification. So invest in design, customer service, payment security and Trust Mark business certifications. It may sound simple, but these four basic steps will go a long way in building trust in your online business. Qartas Corp. , recently launched the first Online Business Verification Service in the country through â€Å"SureSeal. ph†, with JobsDB. com, IslandRose.Net, Pinoydelikasi. com and Load. PH as one of their first featured members. With the SureSeal Trust Mark on your website, your can: * Differentiate your businesses from competitors, imitators and fraudsters. * Convert visitors into consumers. * Be part of a community of Filipino online businesses with the highest legal and ethical standards. Showcase your legitimacy and credentials as veri? ed by a trusted t hird party specializing in Philippine-based clients. SureSeal? localized service assures thorough investigation of client credentials relevant to customers.Firms certi? ed with the Sure Seal Trust Mark will be included in a searchable online database. This will allow potential customers to identify quality businesses, therefore helping minimize fraud on the Internet. The fees to acquire the seal and undergo the verification process, from what i heard, ranges from Php15k to Php20k.. visit www. sureseal. ph for further details. This service is targetted to Philippine registered companies only.

A Dirty Job Chapter 27

â€Å"So, checking your appointments?† she said. â€Å"You must be feeling optimistic about how things will go.† He shook his head. â€Å"Not really.† Lily was smitten. He was beautiful and morose – like a great brown man-gift from the gods. â€Å"How bad can it be?† Lily said, pulling the appointment book out of his hand and flipping through the pages. She stopped on today’s date. â€Å"Why is Asher’s name in here?† she asked. Minty hung his head. â€Å"He said you’ve known all about us for a while.† â€Å"Yeah, but – † She looked at the name again and the realization of what she was seeing was like a punch in the chest. â€Å"This is that book? This is your date book for that?† Minty nodded slowly, not looking at her. â€Å"When did this name show up?† Lily asked. â€Å"It wasn’t there an hour ago.† â€Å"Well, fucksocks,† she said, sitting down on the bar stool next to the big man. â€Å"Yeah,† said Minty Fresh. He put his arm around her shoulders. With Charlie pulling on the legs of the bobcat guy (who was doing some impressive screaming considering he had prototype vocal cords) and the squirrel people dog-piling onto the Boston terrier, they were eventually able to extricate their lieutenant from the jaws of the bug-eyed fury with only a few snags in his Beefeater’s costume. â€Å"Down, Bummer,† Charlie said. â€Å"Just chill.† He didn’t know if chill was an official dog command, but it should be. Bummer snorted and backed away from the surrounding crowd of squirrel people. â€Å"Not one of us,† said the bobcat guy, pointing at Bummer. â€Å"Not one of us.† â€Å"You shut up,† Charlie said. He pulled a beef jerky from his pocket that he’d brought for emergency rations, tore off a hunk, and held it out to Bummer. â€Å"Come on, buddy. I told the Emperor I’d look out for you.† Bummer trotted over to Charlie and took the beef jerky from him, then turned to face down the squirrel people as he chewed. The squirrel people made clicking noises and brandished their weapons. â€Å"Not one of us. Not one of us,† chanted Bob. â€Å"Stop that,† Charlie said. â€Å"You can’t get a mob chant going, Bob, you’re the only one with a voice box.† â€Å"Oh yeah.† Bob let his chanting trail off. â€Å"Well, he’s not one of us,† he added in his defense. â€Å"He is now,† Charlie said. To Bummer he said, â€Å"Can you lead us to the Underworld?† Bummer looked up at Charlie as if he knew exactly what was being asked of him, but if he was going to find the strength to carry on, he was going to need the other half of that beef jerky. Charlie gave it to him and Bummer immediately jumped up to a higher, four-foot pipe, stopped, barked, then took off down the pipe. â€Å"Follow him,† Charlie said. After an hour following Bummer through the sewers, the pipes gave way to tunnels that got bigger as they moved along. Soon they were moving in caves, with high ceilings and stalactites in the ceiling that glowed in various colors, illuminating their way with a dull, shadowy light. Charlie had read enough about the geology of the area to know that these caves were not natural to the city. He guessed that they were somewhere under the financial district, which was mostly built on Gold Rush landfill, so there would be nothing as old-looking or as solid as these caves. Bummer kept on, leading them down one fork or another without the slightest hesitation, until suddenly the cave opened up into a massive grotto. The chamber was so large that it simply swallowed up Charlie’s flashlight and headlamp beams, but the ceiling, which was several hundred feet high, was lined with the luminous stalactites that reflected red, green, and purple in a mirror-smooth black lake. In the middle of the lake, probably two hundred yards away, stood a great black sailing ship – tall-masted like a Spanish galleon – red, pulsating light coming from the cabin windows in the rear, a single lantern lighting the deck. Charlie had heard that whole ships had been buried in the debris during the Gold Rush, but they wouldn’t have been left preserved like this. Things had changed, these caves were all the result of the Underworld rising – and he realized that this was just a hint of what was going to happen to the City if the Underworlders took o ver. Bummer barked and the sharp report echoed around the grotto, sending a cloud of bats into the air. Charlie saw movement on the deck of the ship, the blue-black outline of a woman, and he knew that Bummer had led them to the right place. Charlie handed his flashlight to Bob and set his sword-cane on the cave floor. He drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster, checked that there was a round in the chamber, cocked the hammer, then reset the safety and reholstered the pistol. â€Å"We’re going to need a boat,† Charlie said to Bob. â€Å"See if you guys can find something we can make a raft from.† The bobcat guy started down the shore with Charlie’s flashlight, scanning the rocks for useful flotsam. Bummer growled, tossed his head like he had ear mites or perhaps to indicate that he thought Charlie was insane, and ran out into the lake. Fifty yards away he was still only in water up to his shoulder. Charlie looked at the black ship and realized that it was sitting way, way too high out of the water – that, in fact, it was sitting with its hull on the bottom in only about six inches of water. â€Å"Uh, Bob,† Charlie said. â€Å"Forget the boat. We’re walking. Everyone quiet.† He unsheathed his sword and sloshed onward. As they approached the ship they could make out details in its construction. The railings were fashioned from leg bones lashed together, the mooring cleats were human pelvises. The lantern on the deck was, in fact, a human skull. Charlie wasn’t exactly sure how his powers as Luminatus were going to manifest themselves, but as they reached the hull of the ship he found himself very much wishing it would happen soon, and that levitation would be one of the powers. â€Å"We’re fucked,† said Bob, looking up at the black hull curving above them. â€Å"We’re not fucked,† Charlie said. â€Å"We just need someone to climb up there and throw us a rope.† There was some milling around amid the squirrel people, then a lone figure stepped out of the little crowd – this one appeared to be a nineteenth-century French dandy with the head of a monitor lizard. His outfit – the ruffles and the coat – actually reminded Charlie of pictures that Lily had shown him of Charles Baudelaire. â€Å"You can do it?† Charlie asked the lizard guy. He held out his hands and lifted one foot out of the water. Squirrel paws. Charlie lifted the lizard guy as high as he could up to the hull, and the little creature caught ahold in the black wood, then scurried up the side of the ship and over the gunwale. Minutes passed, and Charlie found himself listening hard for some hint as to what was going on above. When the thick rope splashed down next to him, he leapt two feet in the air and barely contained blasting out a full-blown man-scream. â€Å"Nice,† said Bob. â€Å"You first, then,† Charlie said, testing the rope to see if it would hold his weight. He waited until the bobcat guy was about three feet over his head before he tucked the sword-cane down inside the Lexan plate strapped over his back and started the climb himself. By the time he was three-quarters of the way up the rope, he felt as if his biceps were going to pop like water balloons and he entwined his motocross boot into the rope to rest. As if being granted a second wind by the gods, his biceps relaxed and when he resumed climbing he felt as if he might really be gaining his power as the Luminatus. When he reached the railing, he grabbed one of the bone mooring cleats and swung himself up until he sat straddling the rail. He swung around and his headlamp caught the black shine in her eyes. She was holding the bobcat guy like an ear of corn, her claw driven through his skull, pinning his jaw shut. There was flesh and goo glowing dull red, running down her face and over her breasts as she tore another bite out of the Beefeater. â€Å"Want some, lover?† she said. â€Å"Tastes like ham.† At the breakfast bar in Charlie’s apartment, Lily said, â€Å"Shouldn’t we tell them?† â€Å"They don’t all know about us. About this.† Minty held the date book. â€Å"Just Audrey.† â€Å"Then shouldn’t we tell her?† Minty looked at Audrey, who was sitting on the couch entwined in a sleepy pile with Charlie’s sister and one of the hellhounds, looking very content. â€Å"No, I don’t think that would serve any purpose right now.† â€Å"He’s a good guy,† Lily said. She snatched a paper towel off the roll on the counter and dabbed her eyes before her mascara went raccoon on her again. â€Å"I know,† Minty said. â€Å"He’s my friend.† As he said it, he felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down to where Sophie was staring up at him. â€Å"Hey, do you have a car?† she asked. â€Å"Yes, I do, Sophie.† â€Å"Can we go for a ride?† Without any hesitation, Charlie whipped the sword-cane out of his back and snapped it down on the Morrigan’s wrist. She lost her grip on the bobcat guy, who bolted, screaming, across the deck and over the opposite railing. The Morrigan grabbed the sword-cane and tried to wrench it from Charlie’s grasp. He let her – pulled the sword free, then drove it into her solar plexus so hard that his fist connected with her ribs and the blade came out her back, sinking into the wooden hull of the lifeboat she was reclining against. For a split second his face was an inch from hers. â€Å"Miss me?† she asked. He rolled away just as she slashed at him. He got his forearm up just in time to deflect the blow away from his face, the thick Lexan plate on his forearm stopping the claws from taking off his hand. She lunged for him, but the sword kept her pinned to the boat. Charlie ran down the deck away from her as she screeched in anger. He saw light coming from a door that must have led to the cabin at the aft of the ship – that same red glow – and he realized that it had to be coming from the soul vessels. Rachel’s soul could still be in there. He was only a step from the hatch when the giant raven dropped in front of him and spread her wings out across the deck, as if trying to block the whole end of the ship. He backpedaled and drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster. He tried to hold it steady as he clicked off the safety. The Raven snapped at him and he leapt back. The beak then pulled back, changed, bubbled into the face of a woman – but the wings and talons remained in bird form. â€Å"New Meat,† said Macha. â€Å"How brave of you to come here.† Charlie pulled the trigger. Flame shot a foot out of the barrel and he felt as if someone had hit him in the palm with a hammer. He thought he had aimed right between her eyes, but the bullet had ripped through her neck, taking half of the black flesh with it. Her head lolled to the side and the raven body flailed its wings at him. Charlie fell backward onto the deck, but pulled the pistol up and fired again as the raven was coming down on him. This one caught her in the center of the chest and sent her flying backward, up onto the cabin roof. The ringing in his ears felt like someone had driven tuning forks into his head and hit them with drumsticks – a long, painful, high-pitched wail. He barely heard the shriek from his left as another Morrigan dropped out of the rigging behind him. He rolled to the railing and brought the gun up just as she slashed at his face. The gun and his forearm pad absorbed most of the blow, but the Desert Eagle was knocked from his grasp and slid down the deck. Charlie did a somersault to his feet and ran after the gun. Nemain flicked her claws at his back and he heard the sizzle as the poison strafed the Lexan pad down his spine and burned onto the deck on either side of him. He dove for the pistol and tried to roll and come up with it pointed at his attacker, but he misjudged and came up with the back of his knees against the bone railing. She leapt, claws first, and hit him in the chest just as he fired the Desert Eagle and he was driven backward over the railing. He hit flat on the water. The air exploded from his body and he felt like he’d been hit by a bus. He couldn’t breathe, but he could see, he could feel his limbs, and after a couple of seconds of gasping, he finally caught a breath. â€Å"So, how’s it going so far?† asked the bobcat guy, about two feet from Charlie’s head. â€Å"Good,† Charlie said. â€Å"They’re running scared.† There was a big chunk bitten out of the middle of Bob’s torso, and his Beefeater uniform was in tatters, but otherwise he seemed in good spirits. He was holding the Desert Eagle cradled in his arms like a baby. â€Å"You’ll likely need this. That last shot connected, by the way. You took off about half of her skull.† â€Å"Good,† Charlie said, still having a little trouble catching his breath. He felt a searing pain in his chest and thought he might have broken a rib. He sat up and looked at his chest plate. The Morrigan’s claws had raked the front of it, but in one spot he could see where a claw had slipped under the plate and into his chest. He wasn’t bleeding badly, but he was bleeding, and it hurt like hell. â€Å"Are they still coming?† â€Å"Not the two you shot. We don’t know where the one you stuck with your sword went.† â€Å"I don’t know if I can make it up that rope again,† Charlie said. â€Å"That may not be a _roblem,† Bob said. He was looking up to the ceiling of the grotto, where a whirlwind of squeaking bats was spiraling around the mast, but above them was beating the wings of another creature altogether. Charlie took the pistol from Bob and climbed to his feet, nearly fell, then steadied himself and backed away from the hull of the ship. The squirrel people scattered around him. Bummer let loose with a fusillade of angry yapping. The demon hit the water about thirty feet away. Charlie felt a scream rising in his throat but fought it down. The thing was nearly ten feet tall, with a wingspan of thirty feet. Its head was as big as a beer keg, and it appeared to have the shape and horns of a bull, except for the jaws, which were predatory, lined with teeth, like a cross between a shark and a lion. Its eyes were gleaming green. â€Å"Soul stealer,† it growled. It folded its wings into two high points behind its back, and stepped toward Charlie. â€Å"Well, that would be you, wouldn’t it?† Charlie said, a little breathless still. â€Å"I’m the Luminatus.† The demon stopped. Charlie took the hesitation to bring up the pistol and fire. The shot took the demon high in the shoulder and spun him to the side. He turned back and roared. Charlie could smell the creature’s breath, like rotting meat, wash over him. He backed up and fired again, his hand numb now from the recoil of the big pistol. The shot knocked the demon back a step. There was shrill cheering from above. Charlie fired again and again. The slugs opened craters in the demon’s chest. He wavered, then fell to his knees. Charlie aimed and pulled the trigger again. The gun clicked. Charlie backed up a few more steps and tried to remember what Minty had shown him about reloading. He managed to hit a button that released the clip from the pistol, which plopped into the water. Then he unsnapped one of the pouches under his arm to retrieve an extra clip. It slipped out and fell into the lake as well. Bob and a couple of the squirrel people splashed forward and started diving beneath the water, looking for the clip. The demon roared again, unfurled his wings, and, in one great flap, pulled himself to his feet. Charlie unsnapped the second clip and, with his hands shaking, managed to fit it into the bottom of the Desert Eagle. The demon crouched, as if to leap. Charlie jacked a shell into the chamber and fired at the same time. The demon fell forward as the huge slug took a chunk out of his thigh. â€Å"Well done, Meat!† came a female voice from above. Charlie looked up quickly, but then back to the bullheaded demon, who was on his feet again. Then he braced his wrist and fired, and again, walking forward, pumping bullets into the demon’s chest with each step, feeling any second as if his wrist would just shatter into pieces from the recoil, until the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He stopped, just five feet away from the demon when it fell over, facefirst into the water. Charlie dropped the Desert Eagle and fell to his knees. The grotto seemed to be tilting before him, his vision tunneling down. The Morrigan landed on three sides of him. Each had a glowing soul vessel in her claw and was rubbing it on her wounds. â€Å"That was excellent, lover,† said the raven woman standing closest to the fallen demon. Charlie recognized her from the alley. The stab wound his sword had made in her stomach healed over as he watched. She kicked the bullheaded demon’s body. â€Å"See, I told you that guns suck.† â€Å"That was well done, Meat,† said the one to Charlie’s right. Her neck was still knitting back together. She was the one he’d blasted up onto the cabin roof. â€Å"You guys do bounce back with a certain Wile E. Coyote charm,† Charlie said. He grinned, feeling drunk now, like he was watching all this from another place. â€Å"He’s so sweet,† said the hand-job harpy. â€Å"I could just eat him up.† â€Å"Sounds good to me,† said the Morrigan to his left, whose head was still a little lopsided. Charlie saw the venom dripping from her claws, then looked to the wound below his chest plate. â€Å"Yes, darling,† said hand job, â€Å"I’m afraid Nemain did nick you. You really are quite the warrior to have lasted this long.† â€Å"I’m the Luminatus,† Charlie said. The Morrigan laughed, the one in front of Charlie did a little dance step. As she did, the bullheaded demon lifted his head from the water. â€Å"I’m the Luminatus,† said the demon, black goo and water running between his teeth as he spoke. The Morrigan stopped dancing, grabbed one of the demon’s horns, then pulled his head back. â€Å"You think?† she said. Then she plunged her claws into the demon’s throat. He rolled and threw her off, sending her sailing twenty feet in the air to smash into the hull of the ship. The Morrigan behind Charlie patted his head as she passed. â€Å"We’ll be right with you, darling. I’m Macha, by the way, and we are the Luminatus – or we will be in a minute.† The Morrigan fell on the bullheaded demon, taking great chunks of flesh and bone off his body with each slash of their talons. Two took to the air and swept in, taking swipes at the demon, who flailed at them, sometimes connecting, but too weakened from the gunshots to fight effectively. In two minutes it was finished, and most of the flesh had been flayed from it. Macha held his head by the horns like she was holding the handlebars of a motorcycle, even as the demon’s jaws continued to snap at the air. â€Å"Your turn, soul stealer,† Macha said. â€Å"Yeah, your turn,† said Nemain, baring her claws. Macha held the demon head out in front of her, driving it at Charlie. He backed away as the teeth snapped inches from his face. â€Å"Wait a minute,† said Babd. The other two stopped and turned to their sister, who stood over what was left of the demon’s corpse. â€Å"We never got to finish.† She took one step before something hit her like a ball of darkness, knocking her out of sight. Charlie looked at the demon head coming at him, then there was a loud smack and Macha was yanked to the side as if she’d had a bungee cord attached to her ankle. The screeching started again and Charlie could see the Morrigan being whipped around in the darkness, splashing, and chaos – he couldn’t follow what was happening. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He looked to Nemain, who was now coming at him with her claws dripping venom. A small hand appeared at the edge of his vision and the Morrigan’s head exploded into what looked like a thousand stars. Charlie looked to where the hand had appeared before his eyes. â€Å"Hi, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"Hi, baby,† Charlie said. Now he could see what was happening – the hellhounds were tearing at the Morrigan. One of them broke, jumped into the air and unfurled her wings, then dove at Sophie, screeching. Sophie raised her hand as if she was waving bye-bye and the Morrigan vaporized into a spray of black goo. The souls, thousands of them, that she had consumed over the millennia, floated into the air, red lights that circled the grotto, making the whole huge chamber appear to have been frozen in the middle of a fireworks display. â€Å"You shouldn’t be here, honey,† Charlie said. â€Å"Yes, I should,† Sophie said. â€Å"I had to fix this, send them all back. I’m the Luminatus.† â€Å"You†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Yeah,† she said matter-of-factly, in that Master of All Death and Darkness voice that is so irritating in a six-year-old. The hellhounds were both on the remaining Morrigan now, tearing her in half as Charlie watched. â€Å"No, honey,† Charlie said. Sophie raised her hand and Babd was vaporized like the others – the captured souls rose like embers from a bonfire. â€Å"Let’s go home, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"No,† Charlie said, barely able to hold up his head. â€Å"We have something we have to get.† He lurched forward and one of the hellhounds was there to brace him. The whole army of squirrel people was coming around the bow of the ship, each carrying a glowing soul vessel he’d retrieved from the ship’s cabin. â€Å"Is this it?† Sophie said. She took a CD from Bob and handed it to Charlie. He turned it in his hands and hugged it to his chest. â€Å"You know what this is, honey?† â€Å"Yeah. Let’s go home, Daddy.† Charlie fell over the back of Alvin. Sophie and the squirrel people steadied him until they were out of the Underworld. Minty Fresh carried Charlie to the car. A doctor had come and gone. When Charlie came to he was on his bed at home and Audrey was wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. â€Å"Hi,† he said. â€Å"Hi,† Audrey said. â€Å"Did Sophie tell you?† â€Å"Yeah.† â€Å"They grow up so fast,† Charlie said. â€Å"Yeah.† Audrey smiled. â€Å"I got this.† He reached behind his chest plate and pulled out the Sarah McLachlan CD that pulsated with red light. Audrey nodded and reached out for the disc. â€Å"Let’s put that over here where you can keep an eye on it.† As soon as her fingers touched the plastic case the light went out and Audrey shuddered. â€Å"Oh my,† she said. â€Å"Audrey.† Charlie tried to sit up, but was forced back down by the pain. â€Å"Ouch. Audrey, what happened? Did they get it? Did they take her soul?† She was looking at her chest, then looked up at Charlie, tears in her eyes. â€Å"No, Charlie, it’s me,† she said. â€Å"But you had touched that before, that night in the pantry. Why didn’t it happen then?† â€Å"I guess I wasn’t ready then.† Charlie took her hand and squeezed it, then squeezed it much harder than he intended as a wave of pain washed through him. â€Å"Goddammit,† he said. He was panting now, breathing like he might hyperventilate. â€Å"I thought it was all dark, Audrey. All the spiritual stuff was spooky. You made me see.† â€Å"I’m glad,† Audrey said. â€Å"Makes me think I should have slept with a poet so I could have understood the way the world can be distilled into words.† â€Å"Yes. I think you have the soul of a poet, Charlie.† â€Å"I should have made love with a painter, too, so I could feel the wave of a brushstroke, so I could absorb her colors and textures and really see.† â€Å"Yes,† Audrey said, brushing at his hair with her fingers. â€Å"You have such a wonderful imagination.† â€Å"I think,† said Charlie, his voice going higher as he breathed harder, â€Å"I should have bedded a scientist so I would understand the mechanics of the world, felt them right down to my spine.† â€Å"Yes, so you could feel the world,† Audrey said. â€Å"With big tits,† Charlie added, his back arching in pain. â€Å"Of course, baby,† Audrey said. â€Å"I love you, Audrey.† â€Å"I know, Charlie. I love you, too.† Then Charlie Asher, Beta Male, husband to Rachel, brother to Jane, father to Sophie (the Luminatus, who held dominion over Death), beloved of Audrey, Death Merchant and purveyor of fine vintage clothing and accessories, took his last breath, and died. Audrey looked up to see Sophie come into the room. â€Å"He’s gone, Sophie.† Sophie put her hand on Charlie’s forehead. â€Å"Bye, Daddy,† she said. EPILOGUE THE GIRLS Things settled in the City of Two Bridges, and all the dark gods that had been rising to erupt out over the world remembered their place and returned to their domains deep in the Underworld. Jane and Cassie were married in a civil ceremony that was dissolved and sanctioned a half-dozen times over the years. Nevertheless, they were happy and there was always laughter in their home. Sophie went home to live with her Aunties Jane and Cassandra. She would grow to be a tall and beautiful woman, and eventually take her place as the Luminatus, but until then, she went to school and played with her puppies and had a fairly wonderful time as she waited for her daddy to come get her. THE SHOPKEEPERS While Minty Fresh had believed in the adage that in every moment there is a crisis, his belief had been somewhat academic until he started seeing Lily Severo, when it became very practical indeed. Life jumped up several steps for him on the interesting scale, to the point where the Death Merchant part of his existence became the more prosaic of his pursuits. They became renowned around town, the giant in pastels always in company with the short, Gothic chef, but the City really stood up and took notice when they opened up the Jazz and Gourmet Pizza Place in North Beach in the building that had once housed Asher’s Secondhand. As for Ray Macy, Inspector Rivera set him up with a lady pawnbroker from the Fillmore named Carrie Lang, and they hit it off almost immediately, having in common a love of detective movies and handguns, as well as a deep mistrust for most of humanity. Ray fell deeply in love, and true to his Beta Male nature, was doggedly loyal to her, although he always secretly suspected her of being a serial killer. RIVERA Inspector Alphonse Rivera has spent most of his life trying to change his life. He’d worked in a half-dozen different police departments, in a dozen different capacities, and although he was very good at being a cop, he always seemed to be trying to get out. After the debacle with the Death Merchants and the strange, unexplainable things that had gone on around it, he was simply exhausted. There had been a brief time when he’d been able to leave police work and open a rare-book store, and he felt as if that might have been the only time he had ever truly been happy. Now, at age forty-nine, he was ready to try it again: take an early retirement and just read and live in a calm, unevent-filled world of books. So he was somewhat pleased when, two weeks after the death of Charlie Asher, he went to his mailbox to find a substantial envelope that could only be a book. It was like an omen, he thought as he sat down at his kitchen table to open the package. It was a book – what looked like a very rare and bizarre children’s book. He opened it and turned to the first chapter. So Now You’re Death: Here’s What You’ll Need. THE EMPEROR The Emperor enjoyed a happy reunion with his troops and went on to rule benevolently over San Francisco to the end of his days. For leading Charlie into the Underworld, and for his boundless courage, the Luminatus gave Bummer the strength and durability of a hellhound. It would fall to the Emperor to explain how his now all-black companion – while he never weighed more than seven pounds soaking wet – could outrun a cheetah and chew the tires off a Toyota. AUDREY Audrey continued her work at the Buddhist center and did costuming for a local theater group, but she also took a volunteer job with hospice, where she helped people to the other side as she had done for so long in Tibet. The hospice position also, however, gave her access to bodies that had been recently vacated by their souls, and she used these opportunities to cycle the squirrel people back into the human flow of birth and rebirth. And for a while, there were remarkable instances of people recovering from terminal illness in the City, as she exercised the p’howa of undying. She didn’t give up her work with the squirrel people altogether, however, as it was a skill she had come to over a long time and a lot of work, and it could still be extraordinarily rewarding. At least that’s how she was feeling as she looked over her latest masterpiece in the meditation room of the Three Jewels Buddhist Center. He had the face of a crocodile – sixty-eight spiked teeth, and eyes that gleamed like black glass beads. His hands were the claws of a raptor, the wicked black nails encrusted with dried blood. His feet were webbed like those of a waterbird, with claws for digging prey from the mud. He wore a purple silk robe, trimmed in sable, and a matching hat with a wizard’s star embroidered on it in gold thread. â€Å"It’s only temporary, until we find someone,† Audrey said. â€Å"But take my word for it, you look great.† â€Å"No, I don’t. I’m only fourteen inches tall.† â€Å"Yeah, but I gave you a ten-inch schlong.† He opened his robe and looked down. â€Å"Wow, would you look at that,† Charlie said. â€Å"Nice.† A Dirty Job Chapter 27 â€Å"So, checking your appointments?† she said. â€Å"You must be feeling optimistic about how things will go.† He shook his head. â€Å"Not really.† Lily was smitten. He was beautiful and morose – like a great brown man-gift from the gods. â€Å"How bad can it be?† Lily said, pulling the appointment book out of his hand and flipping through the pages. She stopped on today’s date. â€Å"Why is Asher’s name in here?† she asked. Minty hung his head. â€Å"He said you’ve known all about us for a while.† â€Å"Yeah, but – † She looked at the name again and the realization of what she was seeing was like a punch in the chest. â€Å"This is that book? This is your date book for that?† Minty nodded slowly, not looking at her. â€Å"When did this name show up?† Lily asked. â€Å"It wasn’t there an hour ago.† â€Å"Well, fucksocks,† she said, sitting down on the bar stool next to the big man. â€Å"Yeah,† said Minty Fresh. He put his arm around her shoulders. With Charlie pulling on the legs of the bobcat guy (who was doing some impressive screaming considering he had prototype vocal cords) and the squirrel people dog-piling onto the Boston terrier, they were eventually able to extricate their lieutenant from the jaws of the bug-eyed fury with only a few snags in his Beefeater’s costume. â€Å"Down, Bummer,† Charlie said. â€Å"Just chill.† He didn’t know if chill was an official dog command, but it should be. Bummer snorted and backed away from the surrounding crowd of squirrel people. â€Å"Not one of us,† said the bobcat guy, pointing at Bummer. â€Å"Not one of us.† â€Å"You shut up,† Charlie said. He pulled a beef jerky from his pocket that he’d brought for emergency rations, tore off a hunk, and held it out to Bummer. â€Å"Come on, buddy. I told the Emperor I’d look out for you.† Bummer trotted over to Charlie and took the beef jerky from him, then turned to face down the squirrel people as he chewed. The squirrel people made clicking noises and brandished their weapons. â€Å"Not one of us. Not one of us,† chanted Bob. â€Å"Stop that,† Charlie said. â€Å"You can’t get a mob chant going, Bob, you’re the only one with a voice box.† â€Å"Oh yeah.† Bob let his chanting trail off. â€Å"Well, he’s not one of us,† he added in his defense. â€Å"He is now,† Charlie said. To Bummer he said, â€Å"Can you lead us to the Underworld?† Bummer looked up at Charlie as if he knew exactly what was being asked of him, but if he was going to find the strength to carry on, he was going to need the other half of that beef jerky. Charlie gave it to him and Bummer immediately jumped up to a higher, four-foot pipe, stopped, barked, then took off down the pipe. â€Å"Follow him,† Charlie said. After an hour following Bummer through the sewers, the pipes gave way to tunnels that got bigger as they moved along. Soon they were moving in caves, with high ceilings and stalactites in the ceiling that glowed in various colors, illuminating their way with a dull, shadowy light. Charlie had read enough about the geology of the area to know that these caves were not natural to the city. He guessed that they were somewhere under the financial district, which was mostly built on Gold Rush landfill, so there would be nothing as old-looking or as solid as these caves. Bummer kept on, leading them down one fork or another without the slightest hesitation, until suddenly the cave opened up into a massive grotto. The chamber was so large that it simply swallowed up Charlie’s flashlight and headlamp beams, but the ceiling, which was several hundred feet high, was lined with the luminous stalactites that reflected red, green, and purple in a mirror-smooth black lake. In the middle of the lake, probably two hundred yards away, stood a great black sailing ship – tall-masted like a Spanish galleon – red, pulsating light coming from the cabin windows in the rear, a single lantern lighting the deck. Charlie had heard that whole ships had been buried in the debris during the Gold Rush, but they wouldn’t have been left preserved like this. Things had changed, these caves were all the result of the Underworld rising – and he realized that this was just a hint of what was going to happen to the City if the Underworlders took o ver. Bummer barked and the sharp report echoed around the grotto, sending a cloud of bats into the air. Charlie saw movement on the deck of the ship, the blue-black outline of a woman, and he knew that Bummer had led them to the right place. Charlie handed his flashlight to Bob and set his sword-cane on the cave floor. He drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster, checked that there was a round in the chamber, cocked the hammer, then reset the safety and reholstered the pistol. â€Å"We’re going to need a boat,† Charlie said to Bob. â€Å"See if you guys can find something we can make a raft from.† The bobcat guy started down the shore with Charlie’s flashlight, scanning the rocks for useful flotsam. Bummer growled, tossed his head like he had ear mites or perhaps to indicate that he thought Charlie was insane, and ran out into the lake. Fifty yards away he was still only in water up to his shoulder. Charlie looked at the black ship and realized that it was sitting way, way too high out of the water – that, in fact, it was sitting with its hull on the bottom in only about six inches of water. â€Å"Uh, Bob,† Charlie said. â€Å"Forget the boat. We’re walking. Everyone quiet.† He unsheathed his sword and sloshed onward. As they approached the ship they could make out details in its construction. The railings were fashioned from leg bones lashed together, the mooring cleats were human pelvises. The lantern on the deck was, in fact, a human skull. Charlie wasn’t exactly sure how his powers as Luminatus were going to manifest themselves, but as they reached the hull of the ship he found himself very much wishing it would happen soon, and that levitation would be one of the powers. â€Å"We’re fucked,† said Bob, looking up at the black hull curving above them. â€Å"We’re not fucked,† Charlie said. â€Å"We just need someone to climb up there and throw us a rope.† There was some milling around amid the squirrel people, then a lone figure stepped out of the little crowd – this one appeared to be a nineteenth-century French dandy with the head of a monitor lizard. His outfit – the ruffles and the coat – actually reminded Charlie of pictures that Lily had shown him of Charles Baudelaire. â€Å"You can do it?† Charlie asked the lizard guy. He held out his hands and lifted one foot out of the water. Squirrel paws. Charlie lifted the lizard guy as high as he could up to the hull, and the little creature caught ahold in the black wood, then scurried up the side of the ship and over the gunwale. Minutes passed, and Charlie found himself listening hard for some hint as to what was going on above. When the thick rope splashed down next to him, he leapt two feet in the air and barely contained blasting out a full-blown man-scream. â€Å"Nice,† said Bob. â€Å"You first, then,† Charlie said, testing the rope to see if it would hold his weight. He waited until the bobcat guy was about three feet over his head before he tucked the sword-cane down inside the Lexan plate strapped over his back and started the climb himself. By the time he was three-quarters of the way up the rope, he felt as if his biceps were going to pop like water balloons and he entwined his motocross boot into the rope to rest. As if being granted a second wind by the gods, his biceps relaxed and when he resumed climbing he felt as if he might really be gaining his power as the Luminatus. When he reached the railing, he grabbed one of the bone mooring cleats and swung himself up until he sat straddling the rail. He swung around and his headlamp caught the black shine in her eyes. She was holding the bobcat guy like an ear of corn, her claw driven through his skull, pinning his jaw shut. There was flesh and goo glowing dull red, running down her face and over her breasts as she tore another bite out of the Beefeater. â€Å"Want some, lover?† she said. â€Å"Tastes like ham.† At the breakfast bar in Charlie’s apartment, Lily said, â€Å"Shouldn’t we tell them?† â€Å"They don’t all know about us. About this.† Minty held the date book. â€Å"Just Audrey.† â€Å"Then shouldn’t we tell her?† Minty looked at Audrey, who was sitting on the couch entwined in a sleepy pile with Charlie’s sister and one of the hellhounds, looking very content. â€Å"No, I don’t think that would serve any purpose right now.† â€Å"He’s a good guy,† Lily said. She snatched a paper towel off the roll on the counter and dabbed her eyes before her mascara went raccoon on her again. â€Å"I know,† Minty said. â€Å"He’s my friend.† As he said it, he felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down to where Sophie was staring up at him. â€Å"Hey, do you have a car?† she asked. â€Å"Yes, I do, Sophie.† â€Å"Can we go for a ride?† Without any hesitation, Charlie whipped the sword-cane out of his back and snapped it down on the Morrigan’s wrist. She lost her grip on the bobcat guy, who bolted, screaming, across the deck and over the opposite railing. The Morrigan grabbed the sword-cane and tried to wrench it from Charlie’s grasp. He let her – pulled the sword free, then drove it into her solar plexus so hard that his fist connected with her ribs and the blade came out her back, sinking into the wooden hull of the lifeboat she was reclining against. For a split second his face was an inch from hers. â€Å"Miss me?† she asked. He rolled away just as she slashed at him. He got his forearm up just in time to deflect the blow away from his face, the thick Lexan plate on his forearm stopping the claws from taking off his hand. She lunged for him, but the sword kept her pinned to the boat. Charlie ran down the deck away from her as she screeched in anger. He saw light coming from a door that must have led to the cabin at the aft of the ship – that same red glow – and he realized that it had to be coming from the soul vessels. Rachel’s soul could still be in there. He was only a step from the hatch when the giant raven dropped in front of him and spread her wings out across the deck, as if trying to block the whole end of the ship. He backpedaled and drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster. He tried to hold it steady as he clicked off the safety. The Raven snapped at him and he leapt back. The beak then pulled back, changed, bubbled into the face of a woman – but the wings and talons remained in bird form. â€Å"New Meat,† said Macha. â€Å"How brave of you to come here.† Charlie pulled the trigger. Flame shot a foot out of the barrel and he felt as if someone had hit him in the palm with a hammer. He thought he had aimed right between her eyes, but the bullet had ripped through her neck, taking half of the black flesh with it. Her head lolled to the side and the raven body flailed its wings at him. Charlie fell backward onto the deck, but pulled the pistol up and fired again as the raven was coming down on him. This one caught her in the center of the chest and sent her flying backward, up onto the cabin roof. The ringing in his ears felt like someone had driven tuning forks into his head and hit them with drumsticks – a long, painful, high-pitched wail. He barely heard the shriek from his left as another Morrigan dropped out of the rigging behind him. He rolled to the railing and brought the gun up just as she slashed at his face. The gun and his forearm pad absorbed most of the blow, but the Desert Eagle was knocked from his grasp and slid down the deck. Charlie did a somersault to his feet and ran after the gun. Nemain flicked her claws at his back and he heard the sizzle as the poison strafed the Lexan pad down his spine and burned onto the deck on either side of him. He dove for the pistol and tried to roll and come up with it pointed at his attacker, but he misjudged and came up with the back of his knees against the bone railing. She leapt, claws first, and hit him in the chest just as he fired the Desert Eagle and he was driven backward over the railing. He hit flat on the water. The air exploded from his body and he felt like he’d been hit by a bus. He couldn’t breathe, but he could see, he could feel his limbs, and after a couple of seconds of gasping, he finally caught a breath. â€Å"So, how’s it going so far?† asked the bobcat guy, about two feet from Charlie’s head. â€Å"Good,† Charlie said. â€Å"They’re running scared.† There was a big chunk bitten out of the middle of Bob’s torso, and his Beefeater uniform was in tatters, but otherwise he seemed in good spirits. He was holding the Desert Eagle cradled in his arms like a baby. â€Å"You’ll likely need this. That last shot connected, by the way. You took off about half of her skull.† â€Å"Good,† Charlie said, still having a little trouble catching his breath. He felt a searing pain in his chest and thought he might have broken a rib. He sat up and looked at his chest plate. The Morrigan’s claws had raked the front of it, but in one spot he could see where a claw had slipped under the plate and into his chest. He wasn’t bleeding badly, but he was bleeding, and it hurt like hell. â€Å"Are they still coming?† â€Å"Not the two you shot. We don’t know where the one you stuck with your sword went.† â€Å"I don’t know if I can make it up that rope again,† Charlie said. â€Å"That may not be a _roblem,† Bob said. He was looking up to the ceiling of the grotto, where a whirlwind of squeaking bats was spiraling around the mast, but above them was beating the wings of another creature altogether. Charlie took the pistol from Bob and climbed to his feet, nearly fell, then steadied himself and backed away from the hull of the ship. The squirrel people scattered around him. Bummer let loose with a fusillade of angry yapping. The demon hit the water about thirty feet away. Charlie felt a scream rising in his throat but fought it down. The thing was nearly ten feet tall, with a wingspan of thirty feet. Its head was as big as a beer keg, and it appeared to have the shape and horns of a bull, except for the jaws, which were predatory, lined with teeth, like a cross between a shark and a lion. Its eyes were gleaming green. â€Å"Soul stealer,† it growled. It folded its wings into two high points behind its back, and stepped toward Charlie. â€Å"Well, that would be you, wouldn’t it?† Charlie said, a little breathless still. â€Å"I’m the Luminatus.† The demon stopped. Charlie took the hesitation to bring up the pistol and fire. The shot took the demon high in the shoulder and spun him to the side. He turned back and roared. Charlie could smell the creature’s breath, like rotting meat, wash over him. He backed up and fired again, his hand numb now from the recoil of the big pistol. The shot knocked the demon back a step. There was shrill cheering from above. Charlie fired again and again. The slugs opened craters in the demon’s chest. He wavered, then fell to his knees. Charlie aimed and pulled the trigger again. The gun clicked. Charlie backed up a few more steps and tried to remember what Minty had shown him about reloading. He managed to hit a button that released the clip from the pistol, which plopped into the water. Then he unsnapped one of the pouches under his arm to retrieve an extra clip. It slipped out and fell into the lake as well. Bob and a couple of the squirrel people splashed forward and started diving beneath the water, looking for the clip. The demon roared again, unfurled his wings, and, in one great flap, pulled himself to his feet. Charlie unsnapped the second clip and, with his hands shaking, managed to fit it into the bottom of the Desert Eagle. The demon crouched, as if to leap. Charlie jacked a shell into the chamber and fired at the same time. The demon fell forward as the huge slug took a chunk out of his thigh. â€Å"Well done, Meat!† came a female voice from above. Charlie looked up quickly, but then back to the bullheaded demon, who was on his feet again. Then he braced his wrist and fired, and again, walking forward, pumping bullets into the demon’s chest with each step, feeling any second as if his wrist would just shatter into pieces from the recoil, until the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He stopped, just five feet away from the demon when it fell over, facefirst into the water. Charlie dropped the Desert Eagle and fell to his knees. The grotto seemed to be tilting before him, his vision tunneling down. The Morrigan landed on three sides of him. Each had a glowing soul vessel in her claw and was rubbing it on her wounds. â€Å"That was excellent, lover,† said the raven woman standing closest to the fallen demon. Charlie recognized her from the alley. The stab wound his sword had made in her stomach healed over as he watched. She kicked the bullheaded demon’s body. â€Å"See, I told you that guns suck.† â€Å"That was well done, Meat,† said the one to Charlie’s right. Her neck was still knitting back together. She was the one he’d blasted up onto the cabin roof. â€Å"You guys do bounce back with a certain Wile E. Coyote charm,† Charlie said. He grinned, feeling drunk now, like he was watching all this from another place. â€Å"He’s so sweet,† said the hand-job harpy. â€Å"I could just eat him up.† â€Å"Sounds good to me,† said the Morrigan to his left, whose head was still a little lopsided. Charlie saw the venom dripping from her claws, then looked to the wound below his chest plate. â€Å"Yes, darling,† said hand job, â€Å"I’m afraid Nemain did nick you. You really are quite the warrior to have lasted this long.† â€Å"I’m the Luminatus,† Charlie said. The Morrigan laughed, the one in front of Charlie did a little dance step. As she did, the bullheaded demon lifted his head from the water. â€Å"I’m the Luminatus,† said the demon, black goo and water running between his teeth as he spoke. The Morrigan stopped dancing, grabbed one of the demon’s horns, then pulled his head back. â€Å"You think?† she said. Then she plunged her claws into the demon’s throat. He rolled and threw her off, sending her sailing twenty feet in the air to smash into the hull of the ship. The Morrigan behind Charlie patted his head as she passed. â€Å"We’ll be right with you, darling. I’m Macha, by the way, and we are the Luminatus – or we will be in a minute.† The Morrigan fell on the bullheaded demon, taking great chunks of flesh and bone off his body with each slash of their talons. Two took to the air and swept in, taking swipes at the demon, who flailed at them, sometimes connecting, but too weakened from the gunshots to fight effectively. In two minutes it was finished, and most of the flesh had been flayed from it. Macha held his head by the horns like she was holding the handlebars of a motorcycle, even as the demon’s jaws continued to snap at the air. â€Å"Your turn, soul stealer,† Macha said. â€Å"Yeah, your turn,† said Nemain, baring her claws. Macha held the demon head out in front of her, driving it at Charlie. He backed away as the teeth snapped inches from his face. â€Å"Wait a minute,† said Babd. The other two stopped and turned to their sister, who stood over what was left of the demon’s corpse. â€Å"We never got to finish.† She took one step before something hit her like a ball of darkness, knocking her out of sight. Charlie looked at the demon head coming at him, then there was a loud smack and Macha was yanked to the side as if she’d had a bungee cord attached to her ankle. The screeching started again and Charlie could see the Morrigan being whipped around in the darkness, splashing, and chaos – he couldn’t follow what was happening. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He looked to Nemain, who was now coming at him with her claws dripping venom. A small hand appeared at the edge of his vision and the Morrigan’s head exploded into what looked like a thousand stars. Charlie looked to where the hand had appeared before his eyes. â€Å"Hi, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"Hi, baby,† Charlie said. Now he could see what was happening – the hellhounds were tearing at the Morrigan. One of them broke, jumped into the air and unfurled her wings, then dove at Sophie, screeching. Sophie raised her hand as if she was waving bye-bye and the Morrigan vaporized into a spray of black goo. The souls, thousands of them, that she had consumed over the millennia, floated into the air, red lights that circled the grotto, making the whole huge chamber appear to have been frozen in the middle of a fireworks display. â€Å"You shouldn’t be here, honey,† Charlie said. â€Å"Yes, I should,† Sophie said. â€Å"I had to fix this, send them all back. I’m the Luminatus.† â€Å"You†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Yeah,† she said matter-of-factly, in that Master of All Death and Darkness voice that is so irritating in a six-year-old. The hellhounds were both on the remaining Morrigan now, tearing her in half as Charlie watched. â€Å"No, honey,† Charlie said. Sophie raised her hand and Babd was vaporized like the others – the captured souls rose like embers from a bonfire. â€Å"Let’s go home, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"No,† Charlie said, barely able to hold up his head. â€Å"We have something we have to get.† He lurched forward and one of the hellhounds was there to brace him. The whole army of squirrel people was coming around the bow of the ship, each carrying a glowing soul vessel he’d retrieved from the ship’s cabin. â€Å"Is this it?† Sophie said. She took a CD from Bob and handed it to Charlie. He turned it in his hands and hugged it to his chest. â€Å"You know what this is, honey?† â€Å"Yeah. Let’s go home, Daddy.† Charlie fell over the back of Alvin. Sophie and the squirrel people steadied him until they were out of the Underworld. Minty Fresh carried Charlie to the car. A doctor had come and gone. When Charlie came to he was on his bed at home and Audrey was wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. â€Å"Hi,† he said. â€Å"Hi,† Audrey said. â€Å"Did Sophie tell you?† â€Å"Yeah.† â€Å"They grow up so fast,† Charlie said. â€Å"Yeah.† Audrey smiled. â€Å"I got this.† He reached behind his chest plate and pulled out the Sarah McLachlan CD that pulsated with red light. Audrey nodded and reached out for the disc. â€Å"Let’s put that over here where you can keep an eye on it.† As soon as her fingers touched the plastic case the light went out and Audrey shuddered. â€Å"Oh my,† she said. â€Å"Audrey.† Charlie tried to sit up, but was forced back down by the pain. â€Å"Ouch. Audrey, what happened? Did they get it? Did they take her soul?† She was looking at her chest, then looked up at Charlie, tears in her eyes. â€Å"No, Charlie, it’s me,† she said. â€Å"But you had touched that before, that night in the pantry. Why didn’t it happen then?† â€Å"I guess I wasn’t ready then.† Charlie took her hand and squeezed it, then squeezed it much harder than he intended as a wave of pain washed through him. â€Å"Goddammit,† he said. He was panting now, breathing like he might hyperventilate. â€Å"I thought it was all dark, Audrey. All the spiritual stuff was spooky. You made me see.† â€Å"I’m glad,† Audrey said. â€Å"Makes me think I should have slept with a poet so I could have understood the way the world can be distilled into words.† â€Å"Yes. I think you have the soul of a poet, Charlie.† â€Å"I should have made love with a painter, too, so I could feel the wave of a brushstroke, so I could absorb her colors and textures and really see.† â€Å"Yes,† Audrey said, brushing at his hair with her fingers. â€Å"You have such a wonderful imagination.† â€Å"I think,† said Charlie, his voice going higher as he breathed harder, â€Å"I should have bedded a scientist so I would understand the mechanics of the world, felt them right down to my spine.† â€Å"Yes, so you could feel the world,† Audrey said. â€Å"With big tits,† Charlie added, his back arching in pain. â€Å"Of course, baby,† Audrey said. â€Å"I love you, Audrey.† â€Å"I know, Charlie. I love you, too.† Then Charlie Asher, Beta Male, husband to Rachel, brother to Jane, father to Sophie (the Luminatus, who held dominion over Death), beloved of Audrey, Death Merchant and purveyor of fine vintage clothing and accessories, took his last breath, and died. Audrey looked up to see Sophie come into the room. â€Å"He’s gone, Sophie.† Sophie put her hand on Charlie’s forehead. â€Å"Bye, Daddy,† she said. EPILOGUE THE GIRLS Things settled in the City of Two Bridges, and all the dark gods that had been rising to erupt out over the world remembered their place and returned to their domains deep in the Underworld. Jane and Cassie were married in a civil ceremony that was dissolved and sanctioned a half-dozen times over the years. Nevertheless, they were happy and there was always laughter in their home. Sophie went home to live with her Aunties Jane and Cassandra. She would grow to be a tall and beautiful woman, and eventually take her place as the Luminatus, but until then, she went to school and played with her puppies and had a fairly wonderful time as she waited for her daddy to come get her. THE SHOPKEEPERS While Minty Fresh had believed in the adage that in every moment there is a crisis, his belief had been somewhat academic until he started seeing Lily Severo, when it became very practical indeed. Life jumped up several steps for him on the interesting scale, to the point where the Death Merchant part of his existence became the more prosaic of his pursuits. They became renowned around town, the giant in pastels always in company with the short, Gothic chef, but the City really stood up and took notice when they opened up the Jazz and Gourmet Pizza Place in North Beach in the building that had once housed Asher’s Secondhand. As for Ray Macy, Inspector Rivera set him up with a lady pawnbroker from the Fillmore named Carrie Lang, and they hit it off almost immediately, having in common a love of detective movies and handguns, as well as a deep mistrust for most of humanity. Ray fell deeply in love, and true to his Beta Male nature, was doggedly loyal to her, although he always secretly suspected her of being a serial killer. RIVERA Inspector Alphonse Rivera has spent most of his life trying to change his life. He’d worked in a half-dozen different police departments, in a dozen different capacities, and although he was very good at being a cop, he always seemed to be trying to get out. After the debacle with the Death Merchants and the strange, unexplainable things that had gone on around it, he was simply exhausted. There had been a brief time when he’d been able to leave police work and open a rare-book store, and he felt as if that might have been the only time he had ever truly been happy. Now, at age forty-nine, he was ready to try it again: take an early retirement and just read and live in a calm, unevent-filled world of books. So he was somewhat pleased when, two weeks after the death of Charlie Asher, he went to his mailbox to find a substantial envelope that could only be a book. It was like an omen, he thought as he sat down at his kitchen table to open the package. It was a book – what looked like a very rare and bizarre children’s book. He opened it and turned to the first chapter. So Now You’re Death: Here’s What You’ll Need. THE EMPEROR The Emperor enjoyed a happy reunion with his troops and went on to rule benevolently over San Francisco to the end of his days. For leading Charlie into the Underworld, and for his boundless courage, the Luminatus gave Bummer the strength and durability of a hellhound. It would fall to the Emperor to explain how his now all-black companion – while he never weighed more than seven pounds soaking wet – could outrun a cheetah and chew the tires off a Toyota. AUDREY Audrey continued her work at the Buddhist center and did costuming for a local theater group, but she also took a volunteer job with hospice, where she helped people to the other side as she had done for so long in Tibet. The hospice position also, however, gave her access to bodies that had been recently vacated by their souls, and she used these opportunities to cycle the squirrel people back into the human flow of birth and rebirth. And for a while, there were remarkable instances of people recovering from terminal illness in the City, as she exercised the p’howa of undying. She didn’t give up her work with the squirrel people altogether, however, as it was a skill she had come to over a long time and a lot of work, and it could still be extraordinarily rewarding. At least that’s how she was feeling as she looked over her latest masterpiece in the meditation room of the Three Jewels Buddhist Center. He had the face of a crocodile – sixty-eight spiked teeth, and eyes that gleamed like black glass beads. His hands were the claws of a raptor, the wicked black nails encrusted with dried blood. His feet were webbed like those of a waterbird, with claws for digging prey from the mud. He wore a purple silk robe, trimmed in sable, and a matching hat with a wizard’s star embroidered on it in gold thread. â€Å"It’s only temporary, until we find someone,† Audrey said. â€Å"But take my word for it, you look great.† â€Å"No, I don’t. I’m only fourteen inches tall.† â€Å"Yeah, but I gave you a ten-inch schlong.† He opened his robe and looked down. â€Å"Wow, would you look at that,† Charlie said. â€Å"Nice.†