“Just don’t do it again, please, babe.” I pleaded with my eyes.
“But, Fee, he’s a total wanker. He’s always walking through me and licking his lips.” She shuddered.
I grimaced. “Yeah, he is.” Unfortunately, there were no sexual harassment laws to protect the dead, and Fitch was a pervert. “I’ll speak to him, okay?”
Not that I had a clue what I’d say, but this was Cora, my bestie and the sweetest woman I knew.
“Thank you, Fee.” She slid something across the table toward me. “This came for you.”
Cora worked in HR as an administrative assistant to wanker Fitch, and the pink paper she pushed across the table had my heartbeat speeding up.
Pink meant head office. My stomach quivered. Could it be? Taking a deep breath, I unfolded the paper.
Dear Miss Seraphina Dawn,
We are pleased to inform you that your application for promotional transfer to Deadside has been approved.
“Well?” Cora’s brows shot up. “You got what you wanted. You start at the end of the month.”
Which was less than two weeks away. My heartbeat sped up with excitement because this promotion was six months coming. Six months of waiting and hoping, and now it was here. Less than two weeks and I’d be in the Deadside offices. Less than two weeks and I’d see her again.
I looked up and caught the sorrowful twist of Cora’s mouth. We’d been working and living together for the past year. She was my closest friend. It would be weird not working together.
“You gonna miss me?” I teased.
She snorted. “Like a hole in the head.”
“Didn’t you have one of those at one time?” Ouch, me and my mouth. Take it back. Take it back.
Her mouth popped open. “I can’t believe you just made a joke about that?”
I winced. “Sorry.”
She sniffed. “It’s totally bad taste to make fun of the way someone died.”
“Cora, you went camping in a hunting zone and didn’t wear red.”
“I didn’t know it was a hunting zone.” She grinned. “Besides, it was worth it to see Jeremy bawling his eyes out over my dead body. You know, he asked me to live with him after I became a ghost. He didn’t want me to leave.”
Yep, I knew this story.
“Dumb parents and their dumb exorcism,” Cora muttered.
Exorcisms no longer worked like they used to. Back in the day, before the whole world could see ghosts, people believed that demons were responsible for hauntings and possession. Now, we know that the demons are the psychopomps that carry spirits to the other side. Back in the day, all an exorcism did was summon a demon to carry away the errant spirit. When Jeremy’s parents exorcised their son’s dead girlfriend, they simply had her ejected to Necro, the nearest place with Soul Savers. But instead of parking her butt in the waiting room, Cora answered my advert for a housemate and ended up on my doorstep.
Cora was looking decidedly sulky, and my heart went out to her. She’d been in the prime of her life when a shot to the head had ended her. I shouldn’t have brought it up, but my mouth got away with me sometimes.
I took a gulp of my mocha. “Guess who I fired?”
She perked up. “You can’t fire people?” But her eyes gleamed with curiosity.
“I bloody can if they fuck up big time.” I told her about Tripp and her dodgy allocations to purgatory.
“That bitch!” Cora’s eyes flashed. “I’ve got a mind to get stinky Pete to haunt the fuck outta her.”
I stifled a laugh. “Don’t. You’ll just get him into trouble.”
Every spirit had an influence level that determined how they interacted with the living world. Pete’s influence happened to involve body odor that in death was magnified.
We’d allocated him to working in waste disposal for the city, and last I’d checked, he was happy there.
“I’m going to miss you all day,” Cora said softly.
We were back to my promotion. “You could come with me …”
Her expression froze.
Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut? “Cora, I love you, you know that, but I want you to be free.”
“I am free,” she snapped. “Free to make up my mind. If being able to stay on this plane means working for Souls Savers, then I’ll work this job for eternity. It’s better than the alternative.”
“Eternal peace?”
“You don’t know that,” Cora replied. “You have no idea what lies beyond Deadside. Only the reapers know, and they aren’t talking. For all we know, they could simply throw us into eternal darkness. A pit of nothingness. So, thank you very much, but I’ll pass.”
My chest tightened. “I can’t allow myself to believe that.”
“Oh, shit, Fee, I’m sorry. I’m such a twat sometimes.”
I couldn’t blame her. Peace for eternity did sound awfully suspicious, but, “I have to believe there’s something better on the other side.” I had my reasons for needing to believe. I pocketed the memo. “I best get back to work.”
“See you at home?” she asked.
“You’re cooking tonight.”
“Hardly fair, seeing as I don’t eat.”
I grinned at her. “You don’t sleep either, but you demanded a bed.”
I didn’t wait for a response but headed back down to the ground floor. I had a waiting room of ghosts to allocate.
I was halfway down the steps to the third floor when the intercom in the wall blared to life, and Fitch’s nasal-pitched voice filled the stairwell.
“Miss Seraphina Dawn, to Human Resources immediately. Miss Seraphina Dawn, to Human Resources.”
This had to be about Cora.
Oh, saggy bollocks.
Chapter Three
Human resources was an open-plan office with neat little cubicles and obedient worker bees, heads down hard at work. Not surprisingly, most of the staff were petite, brunette women. Fitch recruited his own staff, and Fitch had a type. A type that wasn’t me, thank God. With my silver-blonde hair, blue eyes, and tall, curvy stature, I wasn’t on his pervy radar. Fitch liked his women shorter than him, so they had to look up at him. Me, I could look him right in the eye, and he hated that.
The feeling was mutual, by the way.
Something about the head of human resources had my gag reflex going overtime, but over the years, I’d learned not to make vomit noises in his face. Over the years, I’d accepted that, like every large organization, Soul Savers Inc. had its cockroaches, and the Necro City branch happened to house the largest one.
I strode toward his glass office, and he sat back in his chair, beady eyes fixed on me as I approached. He was a good-looking guy, clean-shaven, hair neatly coiffed, but there was an aura of yuck, a sickness that hovered around him that made my stomach turn.
I knocked on his glass door and entered. “You wanted to see me?”
The room smelled of peppermint spray and coffee, a nauseating combination.
“Take a seat, Miss Dawn.” He indicated the seat opposite him.
I slipped into the plastic chair. “Can we make this quick, please. I have work to do.”
“Yes,” Fitch said. “Work like firing staff?” He arched a neatly plucked brow, waiting for a reaction.
I kept my face neutral.
“Did you fire Miss Tripp?” There was a little edge of doubt in his voice now.
“Yes, I did.”
The doubt melted away. “You don’t have the authority to fire anyone, Miss Dawn.”
“Not directly, but I’ll be filing a report later today that will hold grounds for firing. Listen, Fitch, she erroneously allocated five ghosts to purgatory this month.”
“People make mistakes,” Fitch said. “It’s called human error.”
“I don’t believe they were mistakes. I believe Miss Tripp did it out of spite. I saw her in action today and—”
“Audit cleared her allocations, did they not?” Fitch said.
“Yes, but there’s been a
mistake. I’m going to speak to Justine about it in a—”
“No need,” Fitch snapped. “I’ve done my research. The allocations were justified.”
“What? They can’t have been. Those ghosts have been in the waiting room all month. I would know if I had a purgatory-bound spirit in my waiting room.”
What the hell was he playing at?
Fitch’s jaw tightened. “Miss Dawn, you have your promotion to Deadside. You leave in two weeks. I believe you’ve been waiting for this transfer for a while, am I right?”
What was he getting at?
He smirked. “Transfers get canceled all the time.”
My blood ran cold. “Are you threatening me?”
He blinked innocently at me. “Simply stating facts, Miss Dawn. I suggest you shred your report and get back to work. Miss Tripp will resume her duties in two weeks.”
In two weeks, once I was gone. This was a cover-up. But why was Fitch doing this? “You’re making a mistake, Fitch. That girl has no clue how to treat the dead. She’s rude, unfeeling, and inconsiderate.”
His expression hardened. “You know what your problem is, Miss Dawn? You let your emotions rule you. You care too much. You treat those residues of life as if they have feelings and futures.” He leaned forward with his forearms braced on his desk. “They’re dead, Miss Dawn. Your job is to allocate them, not indulge in chitchat or get to know their stories, not to empathize and build relationships. All you need to do is fill out forms, run the influence test, and allocate.” He pulled up a sheet of paper. “I have your performance for the past month compared with Miss Tripp’s. She’s allocated almost twice as many ghosts as you have.”
“Erroneously, no doubt.”
“All passed through audit, may I add. It’s because she gets the job done. No idle chitchat.”
Anger swelled in my chest. “The dead deserve a little respect and consideration too.”
“No, they deserve to move on, and the quicker we allocate them, the quicker they can do that.” He sat back in his seat. “Take some time off. The next two weeks, to be precise.” He smiled thinly. “Then, you can pick up at Deadside and chitchat to your heart’s content.”
* * *
“He fired you?” Cora said.
“No, he asked me to take time off.” I packed my shit into boxes.
Cora paced my tiny office. “The bastard, the fucking bastard.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. I still get paid.”
“You’re not fine,” Cora said. “You’re pissed off and worried about the ghosts waiting for allocation. You know that Tripp bitch is going to treat them like shit.”
My eyes burned, and I blinked rapidly to quell the tears. Frustration and anger made me want to scream. The fucking impotence of my situation. Of course, I’d planned to leave anyway, but I’d hoped I’d be leaving my job to someone compassionate. Someone who gave a shit.
“I’m going to go back and reason with him.”
Cora blocked me. “If you go back, you’ll end up punching him in the face.”
Fuck, she was right.
“I won’t let you risk your transfer.”
“How can I just leave them like that, to Tripp’s mercy?”
There was a knock on my door, and then Justine walked in. “Fee, I heard what happened.”
“News travels fast.” My tone was bitter.
She chewed her cheek. “There’s something you need to know.”
* * *
I stormed into Fitch’s office and slammed the door closed so hard the glass rattled in its frame.
“Tripp’s your fucking niece?”
He sat up straighter. “So?”
“So? You blackmailed Justine into overlooking the erroneous allocations. She came to you with them, and you threatened to have her fired? What the fuck is wrong with you?” I stepped closer to his desk. “Tell me, I seriously want to know.”
His jaw ticked. “You have no right to come barging into my—”
“Shut it, Fitch. You’re screwed, and you know it. One phone call to head office, and you’re done.”
He visibly paled. “You have no proof, Dawn. The allocations were wiped an hour ago.”
It was my turn to use a smirk. “No. They weren’t. Unlike you, Justine has a conscience. One that doesn’t allow her to put her job above the welfare of all the dead that rely on us.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you want, Dawn?”
What did I want? “You’ll fire your dumb niece, and you’ll give Coraline the allocation job.”
“A ghost can’t be an allocation agent.”
“Says what rule?”
He blinked at me as he searched his memory banks. But he wouldn’t come up with anything. There was no rule against it. Justine and I had checked.
His shoulders sagged, and he nodded. “Very well.”
I left his office with a grin on my face and a lighter heart because leaving would be easy now that I knew that Cora was in charge. Cora would do the job justice.
* * *
Necro was the city of buses and underground trains. Before the event, the city had been the capital of the country, a tourist attraction and home to a beloved monarchy. But the monarchy relocated, and the city was left to the tourists and those of us who worked to run it. Driving in Necro was a bitch, but the underground rail network covered the whole city. There was no need to run a car, although at three in the morning, the roads were practically empty on this side of the city. The crisp night air was almost silent, and the world was truly asleep.
The tube station I needed was a seven-minute walk from the office, a walk that took me past one of the entrances to Deadside. There were three in total, but this was the main one, and every time I passed it, my feet slowed at the wrought iron gates that rose up into the night.
The iron fencing ran all the way around Deadside, reinforced by wards we didn’t understand. Once the largest cemetery in the center of the city, it was now home to a small percentage of the dead. Why these souls were chosen wasn’t common knowledge. But once I was on the other side of those gates, I’d know.
Moonlit headstones and tombs complete with spooky vibes were visible through the gates. They stretched as far as the eye could see. The spirits of the dead laid here had moved on decades ago; now this hallowed ground was home to new spirits. I caught a glimpse of a face, a body moving swiftly. It was all that was visible from this side of the gates. The wards on this place were underworld-issue. The only way to see what truly lay beyond was to be authorized admission. The gates wouldn’t open otherwise.
They’d open to me on the date specified on my transfer memo. After that, I’d be permitted to come and go at will.
A shiver of apprehension ran through me. Not long now.
With a final look at the forbidding gates and the moonlit gravestones beyond, I hoisted my box of stuff higher on my hip and headed toward the tube station.
The empty streets didn’t usually bother me; neither did the silence. It was soothing. But for some reason, there was an edgy feeling in the pit of my stomach this morning. But I wasn’t the only person out and about at this time. A man walked ahead of me, suitcase in hand, steps hurried. He turned down Pembroke Street—technically more of a wide alley—which connected two main streets. It was my regular shortcut to the station. I reached the mouth of the alley just as a surprised bellow hit the night air.
“What? Argh!” the man cried.
The lights were out down the alley, and with the moon stuck behind cloud cover, the route was dark and forbidding. A large, lumpy shadow writhed on the ground, grunting and gurgling.
The man was being attacked. Probably mugged.
“Hey! Hey, stop!” I dropped my box and ran toward the huddle. “Leave him alone.”
I was almost on them, handbag at the ready to hit the attacker, when the moon came out, lighting up the scene.
The man lay on the ground, head twisted at an odd angle, eyes wide with shock, and a thing sat astride him. Th
ing. Not person. Fucking thing. Naked and twisted with corded arms and legs. Its head was pressed to the man’s chest, and sounds—awful, wet, munching, crunching sounds—drifted up into the air.
Every hair on my in-need-of-a-wax body stood up in salute.
Monster.
The word filled my head even as my mind rebelled.
Monsters weren’t real. Monsters were confined to books and video games, but here it was. Eating a man. Blood pounding in my head, bladder squeezing painfully with the need to release. I took a careful step back.
Run. My muscles ached to flee. Oh, God. I wasn’t a fast runner. My ass and thighs loved gravity way too much, but I needed to turn and run. I needed to do it now.
I took another step back, preparing to turn on my heel and make a break for it.
The monster stopped feeding, and I stopped breathing. It slowly raised its bulbous head to look at me with its scream-worthy, empty-your-bladder grotesque face. My scream locked in my throat as its gaping, circular maw pulsed in my direction as if eager to latch on to something else.
Latch on to me.
Run, dammit. Feet, what the fuck?
But my body was in meltdown, unable to move, unable to save itself. The thing inched closer in a jerky marionette way that made my insides curdle. A spine-numbing chittering sound filled the air. My heart pounded so loud in my chest it was ready to smash some ribs because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this thing, whatever it was, meant to eat me too. It intended to put its pulsing, teeth-infested mouth onto my flesh and chomp.
It was going to kill me.
I didn’t want to die.
My paralysis snapped just as it lunged. I smacked it in the head with my bag and then ran. The mouth of the alley grew closer. Almost there. Almost out.
A weight slammed into my back, pitching me forward. No. Fuck this. No. I twisted beneath the monster and brought my fist up to connect with the side of its head, knocking its mouth away.
Reaper Unexpected: Deadside Reapers book 1 Page 2