by Hannah Jayne
And I was having a hard time getting used to Dungeon Master Count Chocula facilitating my yearly reviews.
“Nice weather we’re having, huh?” I said with a wide, eager grin.
Vlad quirked an eyebrow. “I prefer the fog.”
“Fog’s nice, too. Anyway—” I stepped back and poked at my wrist. “Time is money and my boss is a slave driver. Heh.” Before Vlad had the opportunity to break into my babble, I was in my office, seated at my desk, my heart doing a spastic patter. I grabbed a felt-tipped marker and scrawled the word VACATION-slash-HEART ATTACK over the entire next month in my calendar. Some days working with a Small World collection of the mythical, mystical, and undead is a wonderful, stimulating experience. Sometimes it’s a huge pain in the ass.
I was eventually able to calm myself down with three cups of Splenda-laced herbal tea and one and a half apple fritters, but every time someone passed by my office door or my phone rang, I was challenging my kegel muscles and trying to keep my heart from exploding through my chest. I hunkered down at my desk, and smiled at my clients, doing my best to avoid letting on that I knew anything more than anyone else in the world—like that the hunted, haunted, and left-for-dead werewolf Pete Sampson was currently at my house, stretched out on my hand-me-down chintz couch.
But every time a client cocked his head at me, or looked at me with a questioning eye (or three), I found myself doused in paranoia and re-convinced that someone was reading my mind, or was monitoring my spastic heartbeat, or had found out in some other way that I was hiding one hell of a hairy secret.
Even when I wasn’t saying anything, I couldn’t help but feel like my lies exuded out of my every pore. So when I ran into Lorraine in the bathroom, I tried my best to seem nonchalant and unaffected.
“Hey, Soph,” she said, strolling in.
I forced myself to smile, and the image reflected in the bank of mirrors was me, grinning like an idiot. “Hi, Lorraine. How are things? What are you doing? Is everything good?”
Some people have tells when they lie—tiny eye twitches, averted eyes, a blank expression. I went for babbling idiot.
“Nothing’s going on with me. Just washing my hands.”
Lorraine nodded slowly, her amber-colored eyes studying me. “Are you okay?”
My mind raced and I forced myself to clear it—or to focus on something banal. The last four episodes of Lost flashed in my mind.
Among Lorraine’s many talents—general witchcraft, home Tupperware saleslady of the month (although I don’t think it’s entirely kosher to threaten to turn non-buyers into squid), and finance—was also mind dipping. It was an art that not many witches were able to master—Kale, Lorraine’s protégé, was still trying, though I think her issue is the mind she most often tried to dip into was focused wholly on video games and vampire porn (Vlad—the flowers, remember?). Theoretically, her mind dipping can’t be used on me. Besides being the breathing, blood-filled darling of the Underworld Detection Agency’s Fallen Angel Division and one hundred percent magic free, I am also impervious to other people’s magic. Theoretically. Or . . . generally.
I may have the preternatural ability to walk amongst the demon Underworld, to easily see through the veil that keeps the breather population blissfully unaware of the demon one, and to recite all fifty states in alphabetical order, but the one thing I didn’t have, was grace.
So when Lorraine cocked her head, her eyes unfocused and unblinking, a zing of heat ran up my spine and bloomed red in my cheeks. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
I kicked open the nearest stall door and dry heaved, staring at the toilet water through misty eyes.
“Oh,” I heard Lorraine say, “Sophie, I’m so sorry.”
I heaved again and heard Lorraine turn on the faucet. She stuck her arm into my stall and waved a damp paper towel at me. “I would stay and help you, but I’m a sympathetic vomiter.”
I nodded and opened my mouth, growling as though I were birthing a dinosaur. “That’s okay, Lorraine,” I choked. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
Once Lorraine hightailed it out of the bathroom I turned around, sitting on the toilet, head in hands.
Keeping this secret was going to be harder than I thought.
“Sophie! Soph, are you okay?” Nina pushed in through the bathroom door next and I groaned.
“Can’t a woman get a little privacy?”
Nina crossed her arms in front of her chest, jutting out one hip and taking me in. “Not if you’re going to keep the door open while you sit on the toilet. What’s going on? Lorraine said you had the plague.”
I looked over Nina’s shoulder and grimaced at my red-rimmed eyes, the banana-pudding hue of my face. Strands of hair were already starting to shoot out around my head like intelligence-seeking antennae, and I frowned at my best friend, my eyes scanning her.
“Sounds about right,” I said, trying in earnest to make my wrinkled, pilling twinset look passable.
In addition to using the immense years of her afterlife to brush up on history, name-calling, and general trivia, Nina had also spent her time collecting an incredible array of vintage couture to support her massive fashion habit. She stood before me today in a corset I know she nabbed from a French noblewoman (premaking her a tasty tidbit), a great little blazer, and a pair of jeans so skinny I had mistaken them for a scarf and worn them around my neck all last winter. I had long ago given up the contention that my fashion habits only paled in comparison to hers, as she spun in a drop-dead pair of sparkling silver Louboutins; I knew that my Target shoes and my surprising-as-mushroom-soup wardrobe never stood a chance.
“So,” Nina said, dark eyes raking over me, “should I call in the dead collectors?”
I blew out a sigh and stood up, turning on the tap and splashing cold water onto my burning cheeks. “No. I’m not really sick. I faked it.”
“That’s usually my line.”
I rolled my eyes. “My problem, remember?”
“Right.” Nina leaned against the sink and checked out her impeccable manicure. “So, what exactly is your problem today?”
“Don’t say it like that. I don’t have a problem every day!”
Nina raised her eyebrows and I was out of supporting information. “It’s Sampson,” I said, my voice hushed. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep his coming back a secret. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep a lid on everything until it all gets sorted out.”
“First of all, as he’s lying on our couch, he’s our problem. And second of all, it’s not a problem we’re going to have for very long.”
I patted my face with a paper towel. “Why do you say that?”
Nina leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, he needs to no longer be hunted, right? You know, all returned to glory and stuff?”
I wasn’t sure I knew where she was going. “I’m hoping to find out who’s after him so he can stop running.”
“Potato, po-tah-to. You know who the werewolf hunter is. It’s that Fang, right?”
“Feng.”
“That’s what I said.” Nina bared hers in the mirror. “So, you just go to this Fang person and let her know that you’ve got everything under control. That she can call off the attack of this particular werewolf.”
Nina looked supremely proud of her plan, and even as I remembered the warm and friendly way Feng had welcomed me into her office the first time I met her—by closing her fingers around my neck—it was hard not to be infected by Nina’s grinning self-assurance.
“I guess I could do that. But”—I frowned—“the Du family’s whole existence is based on werewolf hunting. I don’t think she’s going to let one go just because I ask her to. She doesn’t exactly seem the favor-granting type.”
Nina shrugged and whipped a lipstick out of her bra. She puckered her lips. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Besides, Sampson’s been here a whole night and it’s not like the city has gone to rabid dog hell.”
I raised an eyebrow
and Nina rolled her eyes. “That’s a compliment.” She frowned. “Okay, wait. Sampson was running the UDA all on the up-and-up or, you know, down-and-Underworld-y for ages. Why weren’t the Sisters Grimm after him then?”
I frowned myself. “I don’t know exactly. Maybe he was just off their radar?”
“Well, there you go. Either you convince this Feng that Sampson is not the threat she thinks he is, or we make sure to, once again, get him off their radar.” Nina was proud, but I couldn’t even begin to hide my skepticism.
“Fine,” Nina said, wrinkling her nose. “Option number three? You can’t do a job that’s already been done. Tell Feng that Sampson’s already dead.”
I sucked in a shaky breath. For some reason, I felt as though he already was.
I left the bathroom with the damp paper towel clasped against the back of my neck and little droplets of cool water dripping down my blouse. I’m in the clear, I told myself as I zigzagged my way through the Underworld Detection Agency’s hallways. They were crowded with the mid-afternoon rush, buzzing with hushed conversations, and it may have been my imagination, but every conversation seem to get more hushed or stop completely when I walked by. People turned to stare at me, their eyes dark and accusing. I should have been used to being stared at this way, because as far as blending in with my co-workers and surroundings? Well, that always got a big, fat “needs improvement” on the monthly reviews.
Secrets or not, my breath made me suspect to some of the purist Underworld inhabitants. The fact that demons and people tended to drop like flies whenever I was around turned some off and wreaked havoc on my Match.com profile. And surely the fact that I was practically running down the hall, doing my best to look nonchalant, was killing what remained of my minuscule ability to fit in.
My body was humming with nerves, a beacon letting every Underworld demon know that that was something going on and that something was big. My blood pulsed and a few of Vlad’s VERM cronies turned to me. Slate-grey eyes looked through me. I heard nothing but the thunder of my heart, the rush of blood as it coursed through my veins. I walked in slow motion and the VERMers blinked at me. One slowly licked his lips. I knew it was involuntary, the way I salivate over a newly opened package of chocolate marshmallow pinwheels. The sound of blood, the pulse of my heart in its heightened state, was appealing to them. Though eating humans—even the slightest nibble—is strictly against UDA policy, it still skeeved me out to know that at any given time (especially times like this), any number of my coworkers was imagining me on a plate with a parsley garnish.
I needed to get out of the office.
By the time I made it to the elevator my nerves had begun to settle and I realized that I was overreacting, that no one was staring at me or licking their lips. The piped-in Kenny G ballad that struggled to cover the sounds of the aged, groaning elevator was even soothing and I breathed deeply. I was perfectly calm, my heartbeat at a normal pace as the elevator whisked me upward. I swayed a little bit. I whistled along with Kenny G. I was going to bail Sampson out. Everything would be okay. I was going to be the hero for once.
I smiled a little bit, imagining what my superhero costume would look like. Maybe something with flames and that super-shaping spandex. Nothing too showy. I wondered if Spanx made capes?
The elevator dinged and the big steel doors slid open, revealing the fluorescent glow of the San Francisco Police Department vestibule and perfectly framing Alex Grace.
And just like that, my calm, cool countenance turned to quivering jelly.
I really could have used that super-shaping spandex.
I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to pull up some of the cool nonchalance that had been sliding off me all afternoon. But regardless of my intellect or my personal soliloquies, my body tended to have the uncanny ability to spring to hormone-pulsing life whenever Alex Grace was around. Maybe it was his piercing, ice-blue eyes. Maybe it was the chocolate curls that lolled on his perfect head and licked the top of his completely kissable ears. Maybe it was the dual scars just under his shoulder blades—perfect, silver-fleshed reminders of the wings that had once been there.
I fisted my hands, tried to call up my own personal Rocky theme song as I faced down the most perfect specimen of man or angel ever expelled from the heavens.
His eyes flicked over me and he edged his chin in the universally sexy-man way of saying, Hey. Then his voice came out, sinfully smooth. “Hey, Lawson, haven’t seen you in a while.”
My mouth instantly went Mojave dry, my every muscle sucking in on itself. I felt my eyes dart, looking for some tiny wormhole through which I could escape.
It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid Alex per se; I had every intention of talking to him the second I was ready. I just was hoping to be able to select that second of readiness myself, ideally after some lengthy therapy, or at least when the memory of me stepping out of Will’s apartment in the early morning and running into Alex, his face creased with shock and dismay while we stood in an oppressive, awkward silence that seemed to last the span of several lifetimes, was less distinct and raw.
I sucked in a shaky breath and tried to will the hot coil in my stomach to disappear, tried to shake off the guilty prickle that climbed up the back of my neck. Alex and I are broken up, I tried to remind myself. I’m a grown woman, and I can spend the night with whomever I want. I might love Alex, but I’m certainly not in love with him.
Right?
Suddenly, my tryst with Will was feeling less like a lapse in judgment and more like a mammoth mistake.
His grin deepened. “Cat got your tongue?”
Alex Grace was an angel—of the fallen variety. And sometimes I was sure that I had crashed right along with him.
I pasted on my friendliest smile. “Hey,” I roared back.
His eyes widened and my cheeks flushed again in what I was certain was a candy-apple red. Adorable on a bouncy brunette. Positively lobster-ish on a pale-fleshed redhead like myself. “Sorry,” I said, lowering my voice.
There was a beat of awkward silence before Alex put his hand on the elevator door and raised his eyebrows.
“What?” I asked.
“You coming out or were you just taking this puppy for a ride?”
“Right. I was just heading out.” I pointed to the door, in case he was questioning my mode of exit.
“Me, too,” he said.
“But you were waiting for the elevator.”
“Checking up on me?” he said, falling into step beside me.
Maybe he isn’t upset with me, I said, my body suddenly feeling light. Maybe he’s going to ignore what happened and we can go back to being friends! Maybe everything can go back to normal.
Before we hit the glass double doors, a voice called out. The chief of police had tired basset hound eyes that zeroed in on Alex, then flicked quickly to me. “Grace! Oh, hey, Lawson. Hey, man, we just got a call. Sutro Point. Double homicide. Looks pretty bad.”
Oh, yeah. Things were definitely going to be back to normal.
Chapter Two
Alex gave me a gentle push forward.
“See you later, Lawson.”
I flattened myself against the wall as officers surrounded Alex, giving him the lowdown as their shoulder radios squawked and beeped. Alex’s shoulders stiffened, his eyes on the officer in front of me. I took a few tentative steps closer, my head cocked as I tried to listen. My stomach dropped.
“. . . bloodbath,” said one of the officers.
“Double homicide,” another one finished as he shrugged into his coat.
“The area is destroyed. Looks like a tornado hit it.”
The officers filed out into squad cars, kicking on lights and revving engines. Alex went out the door toward his car and I followed, yanking on his arm.
“What’s going on?” I wanted to know.
“None of your business.” He didn’t meet my eyes, but I noticed how the color had drained from his face. His jaw was set hard and that same muscle—the one that
said he wasn’t telling me the whole truth—jumped. I flipped on my heel.
“I’m coming with you.” I had the car door open when Alex turned the engine over.
“No, you’re not.” He kicked the car in reverse and I did a double hop, surprising myself when I flopped down into his passenger’s seat, yanking the door shut behind me. There was a faint smile on Alex’s lips as he looked over his shoulder, backing us out at warp speed and throwing on the flashing lights.
“You really don’t understand the word no, do you?”
I shrugged, hoping he couldn’t hear the wild thump of my heart. “Seems like kind of a waste to learn now. What’s going on, Alex?”
He pinned me with a hard glare. “Why don’t you tell me, Lawson?”
Heat surged over me once again and I jammed my hands under my thighs. “I mean right now. This case.”
He swung back to stare out the windshield, negotiating the midafternoon traffic like the SUV was a pinball. “Double homicide out by Sutro.”
“I thought they said bloodbath.”
Alex’s eyes flashed. “You were listening.”
I nodded. “The place was destroyed? Like a tornado?”
Alex’s eyes stayed fixed on the road in front of us, but I could tell he was thinking, considering how much to tell me. His grip on the wheel, his white knuckles, told me there was a lot to consider. “It’s police business.”
I narrowed my eyes, shooting him a steely glare. I was surprised when my hard look softened him a touch. “Fine. As far as I know, right now it doesn’t look supernatural, but it does look bad. Real bad. Which means you’re going to sit your pretty little ass right here in this car while I go take a look.”