by R. L. Naquin
When I finally made it back to the office, Parker took one look at me and gasped.
“You look like you’ve been through a war zone.” He rushed forward, a concerned expression on his face, and took me by the elbow. “Come sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water.” He guided me to my temporary desk and helped me into my chair, as if I were a fragile flower.
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Do I look that bad?”
He pulled the lever on the water cooler and filled a paper cup. “Your shoes are ruined, there’s mud splattered all over your legs, and you have blood on your cheek.”
“So, yes. I do look that bad.” I touched my cheek, looking for scratches or other wounds that might have left blood, but didn’t find anything.
Parker returned with a cup of water and a wet paper towel. “Drink.” He handed me the cup and wiped whatever he found off my face. “I can’t find a wound.” He frowned and walked around me. “Holy, hell. What happened to the back of your head?”
My hand flew to the sore spot where I’d knocked my skull into the ground. It came away with bits of dirt or possibly dried blood. “I got tackled by a pair of three-headed dogs.”
He cringed. “Bosco and Kevin can be a little rough. Does it hurt?”
I shook my head and realized the shaking made the opposite true. “A little. Not too bad.”
“I’ll get you something for the headache.” He went to the desk across from mine and rummaged in a drawer until he found a bottle of aspirin. The top popped off and he shook a few into his palm. “Here.”
Grateful, I tossed the tablets into my mouth and washed them down with the rest of the water. “Some first day, huh? Think I’ll make it six weeks without becoming a permanent resident?”
“Pff.” Parker dropped into his chair and grinned at me. His perfect white teeth emphasized his dark brown skin and made it appear to glow. “You’re tougher than that. I can tell.” His desk phone rang, and he grabbed it before the first ring had finished. “Underworld LLC, Hades’ office, this is Parker.” His face went from expectant and nervous to calm and a little disappointed. “No, I’m sorry. He’s in a meeting. May I take a message? Absolutely, Mr. Tiberius. I’ll tell him you called.”
Poor Parker. Until Kristyn called to say she was in labor, he’d be a wreck. She was already a week past her due date. No wonder he’d left a few things off the directions he’d given me.
I dabbed at the back of my head with the wet paper towel. “Still nothing from Kristyn, huh?”
He shook his head. “I was calling to check on her every hour or two until she told me to stop.” He ran his palm over his smooth, shaved head. “This baby is never coming out.”
“I’m sure that’s how she’s feeling, too.” I dropped the paper towel in the trashcan at my feet. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He sighed and swung his chair to face me. “It’s your first day. I really only wanted to give you a chance to tour the grounds—get to know the lay of the land. Of course, I didn’t mean for you to get lost doing it, but still.” He grunted and flung his hand out in the direction of my head. “And now you’re hurt. I should just send you to a doctor and then make you go back to your dorm to rest.”
I smiled. “I’m fine, Parker.” The phone on my desk rang. I glanced at Parker and he nodded for me to pick it up. “Hello? Uh, Underworld LLC, Hades’ office. This is Wynter.”
Parker grinned and nodded encouragement.
The voice on the other side of the phone was deep and husky, but feminine. “Let me talk to Hades.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking my cue from Parker’s earlier conversation. “He’s currently in a meeting. May I take a message?”
“Look, sweetheart. I know he isn’t in any meeting. He can’t possibly be in a meeting every single time I call. You tell him Pheme called. Again. I know he’s avoiding me. I want answers. Is he closing down The Orpheus or not? Tell him I won’t stop calling, so he might as well call me back.”
“Ms. Pheme, I’ll be sure to give him your message. Thank you for calling.” I hung up without giving her an opportunity to say anything more.
Parker threw his head back and laughed. “Brilliantly handled! You’re a natural.”
I grinned. “I’ve done this job before—just not for the god of the Underworld. Who was that lady, Pheme?”
Still chuckling, Parker rolled his eyes. “Pheme’s the goddess of rumors, among other things. She’s constantly going on about some new conspiracy theory. We never bother the boss with it. Pheme will forget all about it in a day or two and call about something totally different.”
“Charming. So, what’s The Orpheus?” With the exception of the flaming river and the three-headed dogs, this job was beginning to look like any other admin job I’d done. Maybe I would survive after all.
“The Orpheus is a music hall and community center. It’s been around forever, and it will continue to be around forever. Pheme’s crazy.”
I tore off the sheet of paper I’d been writing the message on. “So, toss this?”
He nodded. “Never bother the boss with anything from Pheme.” He leaned back in his chair with his fingers linked behind his head. “I wasn’t going to ask this of you, since it’s your first day, but you obviously already have the chops for the job. Unless you have major objections, I’m going to send you back to your dorm for the rest of the day and ask you to come in later to handle a midnight meeting.”
I blinked. “They have meetings here at midnight?”
“Hecate is the one who runs them, and she’s kind of eccentric.” He paused. “If you’d rather not jump into the job with both feet like this, I understand.” The look on his face was filled with hope.
“You’re wanting to stay with Kristyn, aren’t you?” I smiled. How could I say no? “Listen, I’m here to cover for her and help you. As long as it’s something you think I can handle, give me all the after-hours stuff. I know you’re anxious, and I imagine she’d rather not be alone. But I don’t have to leave for the day. I’m fine.”
Parker laughed. “You’re not fine. I think you underestimate how terrible you look.”
I made a face. “Thanks.”
“Go shower. Change. Come back before five and I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the meeting tonight.”
I didn’t argue. The back of my head itched, and the dried mud on my leg had formed a hard paste. A shower would be heavenly. Was I allowed to say that in the Underworld? Maybe not. But I could think it.
A shower, a change of clothes, and maybe a nap.
I made my way to the other end of the building where my dorm room was situated. This wing was temporary housing for people like me who weren’t permanent residents. As far as I’d been able to determine, there weren’t any men staying there right now, and only two other women. I’d met them briefly over the weekend when Parker had given me a tour, but hadn’t seen them since.
One of them was a middle-aged hippie-type named Donna. She was a graphic designer working on a re-build of the Underworld LLC website. Nadia was a redhead about my age who was on loan from the personnel department at Mt. Olympus.
Apparently, they were both better at being social than I was because I didn’t see them around much. They were better at cooking, too. I kept finding pans and dishes piled in the kitchen sink, even though I was living mostly on Pop Tarts and cold cereal.
It was only for six weeks. I could stay in my room for that long, right?
On my way to my room, I passed the shared kitchen. It was the middle of the day, but Donna was in there cooking something on the stove. The counter was covered in dirty glasses and food wrappers. She waved as I went past, and I waved back.
“What happened to you?” She eyed my clothes, then flipped what appeared to be a grilled cheese. “You want a sandwich?”
“I fell,” I said. I knew it was an inadequate answer for the amount of mud on me. “I’m just going to shower and take a nap. But thanks!” I wav
ed again and kept moving.
I might not have been the tidiest housekeeper in the world, but I didn’t trust the cleanliness of that kitchen. It was gross.
Besides. I really did need to get cleaned up and take a nap. It was going to be a late, weird night.
~*~
Long before anyone arrived, I finished setting up the meeting room according to Parker’s instructions. I’d gone over everything with him three times in case he was too distracted by the impending birth of his first child to remember everything.
I’d run off copies of the minutes from the previous meeting, as well as the agenda for the current meeting. I brewed coffee, filled carafes with ice water, set out cups, and ordered snacks to be delivered.
So far, I could have been setting up for any meeting in any boardroom in any city. But that wasn’t where it ended.
I replaced the florescent overhead lights with black-light tubes. The cups, water, and even the ink on the pages lit up in neon green, purple, pink, and blue when I turned on the new lights. At the head of the table, where Hecate was to lead the meeting, I placed a glowing yellow gavel. According to Parker, these meetings often grew heated, and the goddess of witches and necromancy would bang the gavel so hard it left marks on the table.
Fifteen minutes before the meeting was to start, two pale, silent men in white showed up from the catering department. They brought in several trays of canapés, a cheese platter, and a tray of what looked suspiciously like worms and eyeballs. They may have been perfectly normal foods made to look disgusting. I truly hoped so. But I was in the Underworld. Worms and eyeballs might be precisely what they appeared to be.
I wrinkled my nose and decided I wouldn’t be stashing any leftovers to take to my room when it came time to clean up.
While I’d been instructed to use the small kitchen around the corner to brew coffee and fill the water carafes, my kitchen didn’t have all the liquid refreshments for the meeting. The caterers also brought in several bottles of both red and white wine and a dozen bulbous wine glasses that glowed pink in the black light.
They placed everything around the table where I told them, then tipped their heads at me and left as silently as they’d come.
I checked the clock. Perfect. Everything was ready with five minutes to spare.
“I do not suck at this,” I said to the empty room.
“Well, the gavel goes on the left. But other than that, it looks pretty good.”
I jumped and turned around. A tall, thin woman in a hot-pink, leopard-print dress, yellow spiked heels, and candy-pink lipstick stood behind me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was here yet.” I moved to the end of the table and moved the gavel to the left. “Better?”
She nodded. A dimple appeared in her right cheek when she smiled. “Perfect.” She patted me on the shoulder. “You must be Wynter, yes? I’m Hecate.” She waited for me to move aside, then took a seat at the head of the table.
I forced my face to remain neutral, despite the urge to gape at her. She was nothing like I’d expected. “Oh. Well. It’s very nice to meet you, ma’am. Is there anything more I can do for you before the meeting starts?”
She glanced around the table, then checked the agenda and minutes in front of her. “Nope. I think we’ve got everything.” She reached into her zebra-striped purse and pulled out a paperback book. The woman on the cover was in a rowboat, one hand skimming the water. She wore a floral sundress and peeped at the camera over her sunglasses with a cheeky expression. The title, written in a sweeping script, said Saving Selena. The author was Atalanta Smythe. Hecate placed the book on the table where I’d had the gavel before I moved it.
“Well, then.” I gave her a polite smile and backed toward the door. “I’ll send people in when they get here. If you need anything during the meeting, I’ll be sitting right outside.”
Two women with severe haircuts and dark circles under their eyes pushed past me. They took seats on the opposite side of the table and each placed a copy of Saving Selena by her napkin. Something slithered from one of the women’s sleeves and disappeared under the table.
“Why isn’t the wine open yet, ladies?” A stubby woman with a shock of inky hair blew by me and grabbed a bottle and a corkscrew.
I left the room and sat behind my desk to watch the parade of strange women walk through to the meeting room. By ten minutes after, they’d all arrived, and someone closed the door.
The Hags of the Underworld book club meeting had begun.
I couldn’t leave until they were done, but there wasn’t anything for me to do, since it was the middle of the night. I sat behind my borrowed desk and opened a book I’d found in one of the drawers. I usually preferred mysteries, but this was more of a medical thriller. It was kind of gross, actually. Maggots were never really my thing.
Plus, I was sitting outside a boardroom filled with various goddesses of scary things. At least one was probably a goddess of decay. I had trouble concentrating on the book when some of the more disgusting things in the book might be crawling around in the next room.
A few chapters in, I shivered and closed the book.
Something made a loud thump against the door, followed by peels of eerie laughter. I was halfway out of my seat before I realized I had been going anywhere.
The black light beneath the door flickered and something cracked. Everything went silent for a few minutes. I eased back into my seat, watching the door with nervous trepidation. I was in charge. Should I go in and check on them? They were supposed to come get me if they needed anything.
Then again, I couldn’t let them trash the meeting room on my first day.
Glass shattered and several voices rose in what sounded like anger. Something thunked against the door again, and someone shrieked.
Okay, technically, it was my second day, since it was after midnight. That made me a seasoned pro.
It occurred to me that I had a magical solution stashed in my room. In the Muse department, we used Transmutational Thought Transference Bubbles to convey encouragement to our clients. Much like the regular soap bubbles for kids, we had a small wand with a hole in it that we used to dip into the thought bubble solution, then we blew through the hole to form the bubbles that carried our inspiration toward the client. The wands were carefully monitored, but I’d accidentally kept a bottle of bubbles before I left the department. Nobody knew I had them—including Phyllis—but I’d brought them into the Underworld with me, tucked inside one of my sneakers. For luck. Or something. I wasn’t really sure why I’d brought them, especially since they were useless without a wand.
But if I’d had them with me now, I could have blown bubbles into the meeting room and convinced all those women to behave themselves. Then again, I wasn’t invisible, like I would have been when doing my official Muse job. All those Underworld goddesses would probably wonder what the hell I was doing.
Maybe it was better for me to handle it on my own.
I pulled myself out of my chair, straightened my shoulders, and marched to the door, throwing it open. If I wanted to convince anyone I had authority in this situation, I had to pretend to have it. I sure as hell didn’t outrank anybody in there, that was for sure.
“Ladies, may I help you?” I stood tall and didn’t flinch, even when a tentacle whipped through the air and disappeared down the back of a tall, thin woman with bloody eyes. “It sounded like you were having difficulties in here.”
They all froze wherever they were and looked at me like they were guilty children. The woman with the shock of dark hair hung from the ceiling by one hand and one foot. She gave me a sheepish look and crawled down the wall to return to her seat.
Hecate cleared her throat. “She’s right, girls. This is a little out of hand.” Then Hecate, goddess of witches and necromancy, put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
This, of course, caused all the others to dissolve into cackles and chortles. One of the women with the dark circles and bowl cut fell out o
f her chair. A wine glass flew past my head and smashed on the opposite wall.
“Enough!” My voice thundered in my ears, and I recoiled. I didn’t know if the glass would come out of my paycheck, but I was already thinking about whether I would need to deal with it before catering came back. Nobody had told me whose job it was to clean up—let alone whether I was responsible for keeping the women in line. Parker had told me to set up, wait for the meeting to be over, then lock up when everybody left.
Gods forbid there should be another meeting scheduled in the boardroom first thing the next day. I had no way of knowing.
Ten women of varying sizes, colors, and styles stood frozen, staring at me with their mouths open as if I’d just done something insane. As if I’d lost my temper and yelled at nearly a dozen goddesses of the Underworld because they were being too rowdy.
Maybe they’d tie me to a rock and have a vulture eat my liver every morning. Screw it. At least I’d lie there knowing I’d done my freaking job. I took a deep breath to gather my composure and stared right back at all those shocked faces.
Hecate threw her head back and cackled. “Girls, this one’s no pushover. We’ll have to watch ourselves.”
The tension in the room broke, and several of them chuckled. The spider lady righted a chair and gathered some scattered papers together. The bowl-cut twins swept a few stray puffed pastries and pieces of cauliflower back on to the silver tray they’d come from. While the room was put right, Hecate sat staring at me with an odd, curious look on her face.
I cleared my throat. “Let me see if I can find a broom to clean up that broken glass.”
“No need.” Hecate waved her golden gavel, and the shards lifted into the air, took the shape of fully formed wine glasses, then deposited themselves on the side table next to the empty bottles.
Once the room was cleaned up, the women wandered out in ones and twos. I remained at the door, and they each acknowledged me on their way out.
“Lovely party, my girl,” a woman with batwings said.