Maybe others would have balked at the idea of reading stories to a bunch of crystals to stop the God of Death, but Dan's seen so much weird shit in his life hunting ghosts and monsters that he doesn't even second-guess it. He prefers this, actually. He's not near as big a fan of violence as the gun and the baseball bat suggest.

He's not going to share the gun - it's sentimental, and also a bad idea to just hand people guns when you don't know them - but he pulls his baseball bat from the strap on his back and holds it out to Jo. That's all he knows about her: her name. They got assigned together and dropped off here without even having the time to remark on the weather before Chernobyl up there decided to go joyriding.

He definitely notices the gust of wind, wonders if it's magic, Jo or Chimchirree up there or just the atmosphere, but he cups the crystals in his hands, figuring that stories take longer to tell if he's coming up with them off his head, scrambling for the order of things and the pacing, than if he's reciting a few of the many, many poems on audiobook he's memorized in the last few years. In that raspy, hoarse voice: "The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees..."