by Wendy Wang
"Is there any reason why she would be taking the book? You know, officially?" Jason asked.
"None that I can think of," Ben said. "Tom? We need that book to cure Charlie, right?"
"Yes, we do. Joy is bringing the other reaper here for the ritual. They should be here any time now."
"What do you want to do?" Jason asked.
"I want to find out what the hell is going on."
"She's your boss, though. I know if this was my office and I found out my boss was doing something questionable, I would need to proceed with caution," Jason said. "But that's just me, man. I don't know what it's like here."
"No, you're right. I definitely need to proceed with caution. If I rush in there and start accusing her, that could be bad for me and my team."
"Maybe you could play it cool," Jason said.
"What do you mean?"
"Go in and let her know you are aware that she has the book. Let her know your situation, that the reaper is coming. Don't make a big deal out of it. She may offer up a good explanation for taking it."
"Right," Tom said. "Give her the benefit of the doubt."
"That might work," Ben said. "Right now, it's our best chance for getting the book back, I guess."
"You need me to go with you?" Jason asked.
"No. But thanks. I do need you, though, Tom."
"Me?" Tom said.
"Him?" Jason said.
"Why?" Tom asked.
"I need an easy way to retrieve it if she's got it in her office. Since we don’t know if it will kill me or not, I don’t want to touch it."
"I can't change into my reaper form here. There seems to be something blocking me."
"Is that the only way you can pick it up?" Ben asked.
"No, of course not. But evidently, my reaper form is very frightening and intimidating. From what Charlie has told me, so is your boss."
Ben chuckled. "Charlie is not wrong. But I think you just being there will be plenty intimidating enough."
"Wonderful. Let's go scare the shit out of your boss," Tom said, and rose from his seat.
Chapter 15
Ben and Tom approached Lauren Coldwater's office and found the door slightly ajar. The hairs on Ben's neck stood up. Lauren was not exactly an open door kind of boss, no matter what she might say. He couldn't remember a time when he didn't have to knock. He reached for his wand hanging from the holster on his belt.
"What is it?" Tom said.
"I don't know yet," Ben said. “Get behind me."
"You do realize I'm immortal?"
"Right," Ben muttered. He took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles hard on the door. It opened a little further. "Lauren?"
Ben waited a beat, listening for any sound. The air conditioner kicked on, and the air whooshed softly overhead. The strong scent of lavender and sage tickled his nose. Ben opened the door and flipped on the light. He held his wand at the ready. His heart thudded in his throat.
"Lauren?" Ben scanned the interior of the corner office. Sunlight poured in through the windows, making the overhead lights unnecessary to illuminate the body of Lauren Coldwater lying on the floor by her desk.
"Dammit."
Ben knelt by her body and pressed his fingers against the side of her throat. A weak beat thrummed against his skin. Warm sticky blood oozed from a gash on her forehead and pooled on the floor around her pale face.
"Oh, thank goddess, she's alive," Ben said. He pulled a red bandana from his front pocket and pressed it against the wound. "Tom, can you help me?"
"Of course." Tom knelt beside him.
"Just press this against her head. Keep the pressure steady." Tom took Ben's place next to Lauren, and Ben stood up and pulled his cell from his back pocket. He made a quick call to the emergency room in the DOL Medical Center and then texted the members of his team to meet him in Lauren's office.
By the time his team arrived, a doctor from the medical center and two orderlies had Lauren loaded onto a gurney. Will, Athena, Marigold, and Sabine stood back with solemn faces when the med-team wheeled Lauren away.
"What the hell happened in here?" Will said as soon as the med-team was far enough away.
"It looks like she was attacked."
"Who would do this?" Athena wrapped her hand around the gold pentacle coin hanging around her neck.
"I don't know. We need to pull the security footage and start watching it. We've got a little luck on our side. We have Charlie's old partner working with us."
"How is Charlie?" Marigold asked.
"She's hanging in there," Tom said, joining the group. "I want to help."
"Tom, don't you have your hands full with the ritual you talked about?"
"Joy and the other…" Tom looked up from beneath his thick eyebrows. "They can handle it without me. If you're fighting a demon, I can help."
"We don't know what we're fighting right now. Until Lauren is conscious and can answer some questions, our best bet is just to treat this like an assault," Ben said.
"Fine," Tom said. His intense stare bore into Ben.
"Why don't you go back downstairs so I can talk to my team?"
Tom's gaze flitted from face to face before he gave Ben a slight nod. "As you wish."
"Athena, why don't you escort Tom--" Ben started.
"No need. I can find my way just fine."
"Great," Ben said. He watched Tom walk down the hall to the elevator, press the button, and then disappear inside once the doors opened. A strange thought flashed through his mind, to call security and have Tom watched. But he shook it off. There was too much to deal with right now, not only with Lauren's assault, but also with the book that she took from the clean room and that now appeared to be missing. Again.
"Okay, we need to go over every inch of this room to see what we can find about Lauren's attacker." He sighed and shifted his feet, wishing there was some easy way to tell them the director of the DOL investigation division might be in league with a demon. "But before we start, there's something else you need to know about Lauren."
"Where's Ben?" Jason asked when Tom sauntered back into the conference room. "And why do you have that look on your face?"
"What look? I don't have a look on my face, lieutenant. You're imagining things."
"Okay. So where is Ben then?"
"He had to stay upstairs to deal with an attack on his boss," Tom said, nonchalantly.
"What? Are you kidding me?" Jason stared Tom in the face, but the reaper wouldn't look at him. "Did you do something to her?"
"What? No. Of course not. I was shocked that she was attacked. But she's in good hands now, and I need your help."
"My help? In case you've forgotten, I'm not a witch."
"I've certainly not forgotten that point," Tom said. He cast a disapproving scowl Jason’s way but kept his tone neutral. "But, you are an investigator, and right now, I need your services."
"For what?"
"It appears that Ben's boss was attacked for that book she removed. When we arrived, we found her knocked out, and the book was gone."
"Knocked out? Not killed?" Jason asked.
"No, she's still alive. For now," Tom said.
"That’s a good sign. At least we’re not dealing with a murder. So what is it exactly you want me to do?"
"I want you to help me find the book."
"Well, that's gonna be pretty hard considering what you just told me. Maybe if I can get a look at her office, and check to see if there were any witnesses. Maybe there’s a security camera in front of her office. Is she conscious? Maybe Ben would like some help interviewing her.”
“I don’t know about any of that. But I do know that they will probably lock this place down very soon, and I don’t want to be trapped inside.”
“Oh yeah? That’s something a guilty man would say.”
“Or a reaper with a mission,” Tom countered.
“What sort of mission?”
“A mission to save my love.” The look on Tom’s face wa
s so pathetic Jason actually found himself feeling sorry for the guy. He didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to Lisa, and even though he sometimes had a hard time relating to Tom, this was one thing he fully understood.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to find that book.”
“And how exactly do we do that?” Jason asked.
“You theorized that someone here is possessed.”
“Yeah,” Jason said.
“We need to eliminate people who had access, and who have left the building.”
“Huh.” Jason stuck his tongue against his back teeth. “That’s not a bad idea. But it’s not proof.”
“No, but it’s a place to start,” Tom said. “Will you help me?”
“Sure. Let’s go down to security. We’ll ask for more footage and see if they have any logs of people coming and going. I signed in at security this morning and they gave me this.” He showed Tom his visitor’s badge.
“Yes, I did too,” Tom said.
“To get on the elevator, you have to swipe it. That data’s being stored somewhere. Let’s go find out where.”
“All right,” Tom said. “Good idea. Do you think we should tell Ben?”
“We will. Eventually,” Jason said. “Right now, he’s got other things to worry about.”
“Right,” Tom said.
Ben stalked down the hallway to the emergency clinic where the medics had taken Lauren. The image of her taking the book played over and over in his head. Had she been possessed, too? If so, he needed to warn the medical staff so they could be on the lookout for signs and do the right thing — exorcise the damn thing and send it packing, or maybe capture it and put it into cold storage.
“Hey, boss,” Will said somewhere behind him. “Hey, wait up.”
Ben didn’t slow down until Will’s hand touched his shoulder. Ben rounded on Will, and they stood toe-to-toe, Will meeting Ben’s eyes.
“What? I’ve got to go interview my boss to see what the hell is going on around here.”
“I know, boss. Let me go with you.”
“You don’t even know her,” Ben said.
“Exactly. I might see something you don’t because of your relationship with her,” Will said. “Even a dolt like me can see how pissed you are. That kind of shit can cloud your judgment. You’re only gonna have one shot at this. I know you, Ben. You’re gonna wanna get this right.”
Ben sighed and let go of some of his frustration. Will was right. The anger boiling inside his chest right now could screw things up if he wasn’t careful.
“Fine, you can come with me. But I’ll be asking the hard questions. Got it?”
“Got it, chief.” Will gave him a little salute. “I’ll stick to asking the easy questions.”
A few minutes later, outside the glassed-in room of the Emergency Center where the nurse had directed them to Lauren, they found the door wide open and a curtain hanging from the ceiling pulled partly around the bed.
“Knock, knock,” Ben said, knocking lightly on the door.
“Come in,” Lauren called from behind the curtain. She hadn’t lost her usual curt manner. Ben peered around the curtain at Lauren, propped up on a mountain of pillows. Her usually perfectly coifed, chestnut hair looked stringy where the blood had dried. Stitches had zippered closed the nasty cut on her forehead, turning the skin around it an angry red. A large knot had begun to swell beneath the cut, and by tomorrow morning, Ben had no doubt it would grow to the size of a goose egg.
Ben sucked air in through his teeth and pointed to her wound. “That looks pretty painful.”
Lauren brushed her fingers above the gash without touching it.
“It’s fine. It… it will be fine. My pride, on the other hand, may take a while to recover.”
Will entered the room and took his place next to Ben at the end of the bed. Lauren shifted her attention to Will.
“You must be the vampire hunter.” Lauren looked him up and down. From the smile on her lips, she seemed to like what she saw.
“Yes ma’am. Mainly vampires. I’ve been known to hunt a demon or two, though.” Will put his hand on the strap of the messenger bag slung across his torso and stared down his nose at Lauren.
Ben watched Lauren carefully for any reaction.
She just nodded and painted on a sly grin. “Good to know.”
She shifted her attention back to Ben. “So, I’m assuming that my best investigator isn’t really here to check on my health.”
Ben moved from the foot of the bed to stand next to Lauren.
“I’m afraid not. I need to ask you some questions.”
“Of course. Ask away.”
“What do you remember?”
“I was in my office. Looking over some expense requests for the herbalism division. I’d gotten up to pull a document from my file drawer, and the next thing I knew, someone slammed my head against the cabinet and threw me to the floor. He kicked me in the gut, and my head, too, I think. That’s when I blacked out.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” Ben asked.
Lauren stared into space, her mouth agape as if she were trying to remember. She shook her head. “I… I remember he was big.”
“Big… ” Will echoed. “Like werewolf big or just regular man big?”
Lauren cleared her throat. “I’m not sure. Dammit.” She squeezed her eyes shut and laid her head back against the pillow behind her. “Why didn’t I look at him?”
“Because our instinct is to look away when we’re attacked,” Ben said.
“Or to run,” Will added.
Ben nodded. “Exactly.”
“Can’t you just pull the security footage from the camera in front of my door?” Lauren asked.
“Absolutely. We’ll take a look at it. Which brings me to a more difficult question.”
Lauren opened her eyes. “What?”
“Why did you take the book we retrieved from the bus station?”
Lauren squirmed and didn’t look at Ben directly. “I… I… don’t—“
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Will said, holding up his hand. “We know you took it. What we don’t know is why.”
“All right.” Lauren straightened up as best she could. “Yes. I took it. After reading Athena’s report, I knew exactly what it was. I also knew that we could only keep it a short time before we would have to return it to its rightful owners.”
“So you knew it was a reaper’s book,” Ben said. “And you wanted it. Why?”
“Reapers’ books have some spells. Some very powerful spells. Up until now, no witch has ever seen them. I wanted to check them out and make sure they weren’t dangerous.” Lauren crossed her arms.
“Right,” Will said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Because the DOL all of a sudden has authority over supernatural creatures that have existed since the dawn of time?”
“That’s not why you took it.” Ben shook his head. “You thought you could beat death. Because all those spells in a reaper’s book — they’re specifically about life and death.”
“No.” Lauren’s mouth twisted into a disgusted frown and she shook her head with each word she spoke. “No. No. That is… ridiculous.”
“Okay, then maybe you should stop lying for one minute and tell me the truth,” Ben said. “Or am I going to have to take this above your head?”
“That’s a very serious threat, Ben. One you may want to reconsider for the sake of your career.” Lauren glared at him, her cheeks flushed.
“Heh,” Will snorted, drawing stares from both Ben and Lauren.
“Do you have something to add, vampire hunter?”
“Yeah, I think I do. Mainly because I can easily go back to hunting vampires. I don’t need you, and I sure as hell don’t give a damn about my career here.” He gestured finger quotes around career. “The way I see it, you think you can threaten your way out of your bad behavior. But here’s what you don’t know about me. I don’t like it when someone
exploits their position for personal gain. You might say it’s a pet peeve of mine.”
Lauren’s features twisted into an angry mask.
“And I will do whatever it takes, to make sure that person is found out and pays for it, whether it’s my boss or a vampire or a witch. Now, Ben asked you a question. I think for the sake of your career you should answer it.”
Lauren sniffed and glanced away. “Geez. You’re both overreacting…”
“No, we’re not,” Ben said. “Now, tell me or I go to the high council.”
“You do that and they could tear apart our whole division.”
Ben scrubbed his chin. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Either way, all I see is a demotion in your future,” Will said.
“Ben, please,” Lauren said.
“Tell us the truth, and I’ll consider not telling the council. Lie to me again, and I will march to the other building right now and call the high council,” Ben said.
“You’ve become such a goody-two-shoes since you started seeing that little kitchen witch.”
“Just answer the damn question,” Will said. “What were you looking for in the reaper’s book?”
“It’s all rumor… ” Lauren said.
“Enlighten us,” Ben said.
“There’s supposedly an immortality spell that not only keeps you from dying, it keeps you young.”
“Oh my god, are you serious?” Will’s tone matched the disgust on his face.
“So, because of your vanity, Charlie Payne’s life is now on the line,” Ben said. “I hope you’re proud of yourself. If she dies, I’m holding you personally responsible.”
“Wait. What?” Lauren said. “Slow down. What happened?”
“Charlie was clipped by a reaper’s blade during our investigation. The investigation you pushed so hard for us to take, by the way. Did you know this book had gone missing before? Is that why you wanted us involved?”
“There might have been some chatter on backchannels about it. I don’t really remember, exactly. Head trauma will do that you know. Mess with your memory.” Lauren gingerly touched the side of her head near the laceration.
“Oh, good lord,” Will muttered. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”