Mel started to laugh. "Well, they'll just have to change it to say some animals are exempt from the law, right?"
Gabi shook her head. "They probably will, but it won't be today. Until they do, we'll be dealing with all the questions."
"Excuse me, ladies," a sleazy voice said.
Don't let it be Luce, Mel prayed. The last thing she needed was for Gabi to positively identify him as Lucifer and throw the office into chaos.
Both Gabi and Mel looked up, eyebrows raised.
"I couldn't help but overhear," the stranger said smoothly, "but is it true that the new legislation is a little, ah, problematic and short-sighted?"
Mel found this smarmy stranger familiar. "Legislation is law. What else it is I'd say is up to the policy makers who have to deal with it." She looked hard at him. "Can I help you?"
"I'm from Channel Six news and I've come to interview your CEO about the new legislation. He's expecting me." He grinned greasily at Mel.
She suppressed a shudder, changing her mind and wishing the man had been Luce instead. This must have been one of the reporters at the press conference where she'd cried. Gabi was already on the phone, nodding as she spoke to Mephi. "You can go on in."
Mel jumped to her feet, hoping to keep Gabi away from Luce for a little longer. "I'll take you up to his office." She led the way to the stairs.
Luce smiled at the sight of her and happily greeted the reporter. The two men shook hands and exchanged greetings as Mel stood in the doorway, wondering what to do next.
"We'll be fine, thank you, Mel. Can you send Mephi in to arrange coffee?" Luce asked. Both his and the reporter's eyes followed Mel as she walked out of the office. She tried to ignore their scrutiny.
Mephi huffed as she stood, having already heard Luce's words, and minced into the meeting to arrange refreshments.
As Mel headed away from the office, she heard the reporter's first question. "So, Mr Iblis, as CEO of HELL Corporation, can you tell us how this new legislation will affect containment of the alien invasion? Are we drafting an army of veterinarians to kill the alien menace?"
Mel almost choked as she headed toward the stairs, hoping to put as much distance between herself and the reporter as possible before she lost it laughing. Sometimes, working for this corporation was funny as Hell.
"This is getting so dull, I think I need a coffee to keep me awake," Gabi muttered. "Cover for me for fifteen minutes while I go get one?"
Mel nodded as she listened to the very long story some woman seemed compelled to tell her – something about a fish in a shop's aquarium that gave her nightmares. Mel still wasn't entirely sure what the caller expected her to do about it. She evidently needed some form of counselling.
Twenty minutes later, she'd managed to end the call, hand over six visitor badges to humans who had meetings with HELL Corporation personnel, and handle two over-the-counter enquiries about payments for various licences that they had the authority to issue. She'd smiled politely three times when people recognised and congratulated her for saving them from aliens.
Longing for a coffee herself and a trip to the toilet, she waited patiently for Gabi to return. Her coffee run sure was taking a long time. Mel hoped Gabi hadn't run into Luce in the lunchroom.
She took a telephone enquiry about rain water tanks and transferred it to the demon who dealt with such things.
Luce appeared with the reporter, who winked at Mel as he handed back his visitor badge. She managed to send him on his way without her home telephone number, despite his insistence that she give it to him. She sighed and closed her eyes.
If only Luce hadn't made her out to be some sort of heroine to the press and then allowed this poorly thought-out legislation to pass, her job would be so much easier.
"Would you give me your phone number, if I asked?"
Mel opened her eyes. Luce hadn't left – he leaned against the door to the rest of the office, grinning at her.
"Sure," she replied. "As long as I'm working here in HELL..." She gave him the switchboard number for Reception – the number it seemed like every crazy human in this city had felt the need to call today.
Luce laughed. "And your personal number? The one for the mobile phone I see you reading so avidly on during your breaks, or the number for the house you take sanctuary in when your work day is done?"
"No," she replied honestly. "I don't want to be worried about work when I'm not here. Especially with this misguided new legislation. It seems everyone has a different question that wasn't considered when whichever cloistered individual wrote it. Was there no public consultation at all?"
Luce shook his head. "Nope. And cloistered individuals sound about right – the pair of angels we got from the agency before you arrived were the ones who wrote it. I don't think those two knew much about humans at all – spent too much time in Heaven, contemplating their own divinity. Holy legislation is what they've given me – in that it's full of holes."
"Angels? You mean Camael and Samael? The ones you poached from the agency? Figures. They're fine debating complicated legal points, but writing the laws in the first place? They're neither experienced nor qualified. I would have thought that your people were better at putting together legally binding agreements. Legislation shouldn't be such a big step; surely you have damned lawyers at your disposal..." Mel paused as she realised Luce was silent. "I'm sorry. It's your corporation. I'm sure you can assign whatever poorly qualified personnel you see fit to the task."
Luce laughed. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. You're not like any other angel I've ever met. Yet I'm incredibly happy we have an angel like you handling all the public enquiries on this mess. No one else could do it. Speaking of which...isn't there meant to be another angel on Reception with you?"
"Yes." Mel sighed. "She said she was getting coffee, but it's been half an hour and she's still not back."
"I'll get you one. The least I can do in exchange for you handling this so well. I know what you like." Luce winked.
Mel couldn't help but laugh. "That would be wonderful."
She waited for one of them to return, hoping it would be soon and not at the same time. If Gabi encountered Luce over the coffee machine, she could do some serious damage with hot water and steamed milk.
Luce was back first, carrying her mug of macchiato alongside his own steaming cup. "Thank you," she said with a smile, raising her cup in salute. "Did you see Gabi in there?"
He cheerfully shook his head. "I should get back to work. I can't be making coffee all day. I have a stack of poorly punctuated reports on my desk to approve." With another wink, he disappeared through the office door.
Mel sighed, sipping her perfect coffee, as she worried about what had happened to Gabi.
The girl herself breezed through the doors. "What kind of city doesn't have a Starbucks?" she demanded. "No one could tell me where I could get a Frappuccino...so I eventually found a place that did flavoured ice coffees with an espresso base. Look, I got a white chocolate and a French vanilla iced latte. Which one do you want?"
They both looked identical to Mel – creamy-coloured milkshakes. She still had a little of her coffee left, but she didn't want to offend Gabi, so she took the one closer to her and offered her thanks for the confection.
Mel tipped the last of her coffee into her mouth and almost choked when Gabi squealed, "How can you drink that? Is that from the demons' coffee machine? You don't know what they put in there! It could be anything...don't drink it, Mel!" She ripped the mug out of Mel's fingers. Too late – it was empty.
"They put coffee beans and milk in it," Mel protested. "Same as anyone else. It's safe, Gabi, honestly."
"But demons use it. How often would they clean a coffee maker? I'd want to disinfect the whole thing, then wash it again to get rid of the stink of corruption. They're demons – there's nothing good about them and everything they touch is tainted by the contact." She looked grim. "I don't know how you've managed to share the office with them for
so long. I can barely put up with the proximity, sitting out here apart from them."
Mel's heart ached for the demons Gabi had denigrated. She knew the coffee machine was impeccably maintained – her colleagues appreciated a quality coffee more than she did. There was nothing tainted or corrupted about her coffee – Luce had made it exactly the way she liked it, as promised. She wondered what Gabi would say if she knew a demon had made the contents of her cup.
"Gabi, they're not that bad. I've met worse humans than some of the demons in this office. They were angels once, too, you know..."
Gabi snorted. "They're demons and everything about them is bad. They can't do anything good. The humans worse than them are destined to be either damned or demons themselves when they die. And they might have been angels once, but they fell for a reason. Don't let them drag you down with them. They'll do it out of sheer mischief – their desire to corrupt anything good. Just focus on what we're here for. We have to find Lucifer, find out what he's up to, and stop him. Then we can get the Hell out of here as fast as possible."
Mel sighed. She knew where he was and what he was doing, but she was happy to let Luce drink his coffee and check reports at his desk. Gabi would surely encounter him in the office soon enough. She was surprised the archangel hadn't met him already. Mel wondered if she'd be as eager to leave as Gabi.
The phone trilled and Mel picked up the receiver. "Hello, HELL Corporation. How may I..."
"They've done it again! There's a pile of dead cane toads at the bottom of the War Memorial this time! I want something done about it! Desecrating our fallen heroes' memories..."
Mel sighed. Maybe there were some things she wouldn't miss.
"Prostitutes have more jargon than I'd realised...do you know what a body slide is? Or how much they charge for one?"
Lili had to repeat her question before Mel realised she was the one being addressed.
"A...a body slide?" Mel swallowed, trying not to imagine it. "Should I know?"
Lili shrugged. "Probably not. You'd go and work in their industry instead, if you knew how much they charged."
Mel found that hard to believe. "Oh, I doubt it. I like it here," she managed to say.
Lili considered this. "Well, I guess you could be a phone sex worker. You have the voice for it. One of my friends did that for a while. She had the funniest stories..."
Mel almost choked, but recovered before Lili noticed. "No, thank you. I'm sure it doesn't pay well, and imagine what they might say!"
"You'd have a script of what to say. I'm sure it would mostly be a matter of what colour underwear to tell them you're wearing today..."
Mel spluttered into silence.
"Anyway, they don't pay us enough here," Lili concluded, to Mel's relief. "I wish some billionaire would marry me and then I wouldn't have to work any more."
Gerry's head popped up from behind a partition. "I think Ginger Rhinestone's available!" He wore a big grin.
"Is she?" Lili asked. "Hmm, I wonder..."
Mel tried to keep her breakfast down. She didn't think that Ginger Rhinestone, a particularly plump, female mining magnate, could ever have enough money to attract her. She found herself wondering how Lili could...she shook herself and hoped she'd dislodged the disturbing image, too.
"Right, they don't pay me enough to keep doing this. Come on, it's time for the Christmas party!" Lili beckoned to Mel, who followed her cautiously to the fancy hotel over the road.
They both accepted glasses of wine from the waiter at the entrance, Mel sipped slowly while Lili knocked hers back quickly so she could seize another.
Lili caught sight of a colleague she wanted to talk to and left Mel standing by the waiter. Mel breathed a sigh of relief and pulled out her phone, thinking about catching up on the story she'd been reading on the train that morning. The girl called Nona sounded nice.
...he knocked her out with what? Mel thought, feeling her face grow red.
"Mel!" Luce's smile looked happy. "Welcome to the HELL Corporation Christmas party! Now, you're not at work, so put your phone away – no working!" He reached for her phone to turn it off.
Mel swiped frantically at the screen, hoping to wipe it of words before Luce saw what had made her blush.
She needn't have worried. He didn't even glance at it.
"I've been meaning to thank you for all your hard work and help – even letting me use your photos for my presentation. They were exactly what I needed!" He beamed at her.
"Ah, no worries," Mel replied uneasily. She slipped her phone back into her pocket.
"Have you checked where you're sitting yet?" he asked, nodding at the noticeboard.
Mel shook her head and leaned closer to look for her name.
"There you are – on my table!" Luce looked pleased, pointing, as Mel's heart sank. She wouldn't be reading anything else about Nona today.
Mel followed him into the hotel function room to their table. Christmas-coloured balloons rose from a weighted, wrapped gift in the centre. Luce insisted that she sit beside him, next to the dance floor, and she reluctantly complied. Lili slid in on her other side, followed by the other executives.
Mel grew steadily paler. She swore not to drink any more wine, lest she make a mistake. She sipped slowly from her glass and set it down.
Looking around at the room, she wondered who most of them were. Gerry and Merih joined a table which was mostly occupied by men. Other staff wandered in, chatting happily as they sat down. With a sinking heart, Mel realised that she was the only angel present.
The food was served quickly and Mel reached for her wine. Inexplicably, the glass had refilled. Another sip and she returned to her steak, careful to carve it into small pieces so she wouldn't make a fool of herself.
Dessert was a slice made of layers of raspberry and dark chocolate mousse that looked obscenely pink, even in the dim light of the function room.
"Oh, this is amazing," Lili moaned, her spoon in her mouth.
Mel looked at her in alarm, but Lili took her spoon to the mousse again with a rapt expression, in no apparent danger.
Luce's voice sounded throaty. "You have to try this."
Moans rose from Merih and Gerry's table.
It sounded like the demons around her were all experiencing the same mass orgasm. Mel didn't know where to look, so she touched the pinkness with her fingertip and thrust it into her mouth. She closed her eyes, the better to focus on the taste without the distraction of the others around her. This pleasure was private and Mel decided she wanted more, opening her eyes and her mouth eagerly. A glance told her Luce had seen her sucking on her finger and found it funny as Hell, so she capitulated and picked up a spoon for the next taste.
She finished her dessert with reluctance, wishing there was more to prolong the pleasure. Mel reached for her wine.
It had refilled itself again, though she was sure it'd been almost empty. She shrugged and drank.
The jukebox by the dance floor increased its volume. The medley from Grease kicked off this party as it had every other one she'd attended since the movie had been released. Mel waited for the next traditional song – where a man declared he'd walk five hundred miles – and was rewarded by the next track. The dance floor started to fill with her more eager colleagues, but Mel remained firmly in her seat.
A dance track began, the Korean lyrics surprising her. Something about a warm girl who liked coffee. The dance floor cleared quickly, leaving only eight women, who began to dance with a synchronicity that spoke of practice.
Mel felt her jaw drop. She was sure she'd never seen a version of Gangnam Style where the girls rode on female horses who evidently enjoyed the experience. It looked like they were all equipped with items she'd seen in that adult shop up the road, too...
"Aren't they brilliant?" Luce shouted in her ear, over the music. He refilled her glass as he spoke.
"I..." Mel swallowed. "Isn't this one of those things that the company calls inappropriate behaviour? I could lose my jo
b if someone from the Human Resources Department finds out I've been looking at this!"
Luce laughed. "I keep forgetting you're not one of my staff and you still work for the agency – if you'd ever had to put in a leave form or ask about a payslip, you'd know that they are the HR Department – the manager is riding the rather well-endowed horse in the middle. I think she'd prefer you just sit down and watch the show, and applaud loudly afterwards."
Mel regarded the dancing demons. It looked like the horses wore some sort of saddle with odd protuberances strapped on to them. She wondered how anyone was supposed to comfortably ride...
Mel groped blindly for her wine glass with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Perhaps if she drank enough, she'd manage to forget what she'd just seen her colleagues do.
"Time for the Christmas party!" Lili sang out. "Computers off – you won't be coming back today!"
Mel stared. "I thought we already had the office Christmas party. The one at the hotel, with the dancers and..."
Please, don't make me sit through another dance interpretation of Gangnam Style, she prayed silently. She still wished she didn't know what a double delight strap-on was for.
"Of course we did. That was the whole office. This is just our unit – we're going down to Matilda Bay with the swans for a barbeque."
"We're eating swan?" Mel asked, horrified. After the exotic dancers from HR, nothing would surprise her about office Christmas parties in HELL.
Lili laughed. "No, but they might try and eat us. Gerry got us some steaks and sausages, Ana and Merih have some salads, Gabi is bringing the rolls and I took care of the drinks. Time to make merry, Mel!"
Mel conceded the point and proceeded to shut down her computer. Sausages, swans and steak. It wasn't that heavenly mousse, but it was still a celebration and she wouldn't miss it. Demons celebrating Christmas – who'd have thought? "How are we getting there?" she asked.
See You in Hell Page 9