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Authors: Hannah Jayne

BOOK: Under Attack
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“That little troll's got—”
I clamped my hands over my ears and shook my head. “Don't say it! I don't want to hear about anything that Steve has.”
“I was going to say ‘an appointment,' little Miss Mind in the Gutter. So what was so rough about your morning?”
“My grandmother appeared to me. In the bathroom mirror.”
Nina's eyes went wide. “Shut up! You are so Jennifer Love Hewitt ghost whispering right now! Did you lead her to the white light, cross her over?”
“I'm serious!”
Nina thrust out her lower lip and pouted. “Me, too. It's not like I have a whole lot of ghostly experience. What'd she look like? All skeletal and stuff ?”
I glanced at Nina, who looked positively titillated. “I always wished I could talk to dead people,” she said. I held up a finger and Nina grabbed it, glared. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
“She said I was in grave danger.”
“Original. What does she know?”
“She didn't tell me much; basically, you know, ‘hey, how you doing?' and ‘you're in grave danger.'”
Nina's eyes were far away. “And then she crossed over into the light ...”
“No, she went to breakfast. Possibly with Ed McMahon.”
“We can learn so much from the dead.”
I had barely settled into my chair when I blinked up at an impossibly tall vampire in an elegant suit who seemed to materialize in my office doorway. He smiled down at me, a calm, disarming smile, and stayed silent for a moment.
“May I help you?” I asked.
“Ms. Lawson, correct?”
I nodded, scooting forward in my chair, my eyes glancing over my desk calendar, the stack of unopened files in my in-box. “I'm sorry. Did we have an appointment Mr.—”
“Rosenthal,” the man supplied politely. “May I sit?” He did so without me answering. His movements were fluid and he settled in comfortably, his eyes focused on mine, his legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. I chanced a look over his head, one of those “What the hell is going on here?” looks that best friends share, but Nina—who had been standing just outside my office door—had just as silently dematerialized.
“I don't have an appointment. Don't worry, you're not in trouble.” Mr. Rosenthal kept smiling. “I'm just here to observe.”
I gulped. “Observe what?”
“Mr. Andrade would just like to get a better feel for what it is all of his key staff members do.” His smile, meant to be disarming, was starting to give me the creeps.
“Oh. Oh ...'kay.”
“Just go ahead, go about your business. Pretend I'm not even here.”
I took another look at Mr. Rosenthal, who now had a small notebook resting in his lap. He nodded encouragingly. I looked helplessly over his left shoulder, where Vlad was parading his team of VERM supporters down the hall,
TAKE BACK YOUR AFTERLIFE
! signs waving. I wondered if it would reflect poorly on me if I threw a blood bag into the hallway and let Mr. Rosenthal and the VERMers duke it out while I slipped out the back door.
I clicked on my computer and dragged a few files from my in-box closer to me, hearing the deafening pulse of my heart.
I have no reason to be nervous,
I told myself.
I'm good at my job.
I flipped open the file on top of my stack labeled
Active Vamps—Sunset
—and the thick red cover knocked over my teacup, dousing the remaining files and two stacks of Post-it notes with day-old tea. I felt my face flush as I pillaged through a box of Kleenex, dabbing at the mess. Mr. Rosenthal remained silent and smiled serenely as he leaned down and wrote something on his notepad.
I cocked my head, trying to hear Mr. Rosenthal's low murmur. “I'm sorry, I didn't hear you,” I said.
Mr. Rosenthal looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”
“I didn't hear what you were saying.”
“I didn't say anything.”
I heard the murmur again and held up an index finger. “That! Someone must be outside... .” I concentrated, hearing a low snicker.
Mr. Rosenthal's lips eased back into the smile that I thought was serene, but now I was starting to recognize as patronizing. “I assure you, Miss Lawson, no one is speaking.” He tapped his ear. “Supernatural hearing, remember?”
I felt my face flush, felt my blood thicken and rush through my veins. Mr. Rosenthal's smile seemed to take on a more sinister edge.
“I heard
that
,” he said with a thirsty smile.
I gulped; few things were more eerie than a fanged office superior who could hear the blood rushing through your veins.
I sunk back into my seat and tried to continue my work.
By the time Mr. Rosenthal stood up and brushed the imaginary creases from his impeccable suit, I had dropped the passport of a centaur who needed a sticker into the shredder, stapled the corner of my blouse to a deactivation request and mixed up the employment files for a Nichi demon and a Sousan demon. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't send a baby eater to a nursery and a protector demon to a demolition site. Luckily, the mistake was caught before the Nichi demon actually ate any babies, but still, Mr. Rosenthal cocked his head and then wrote something down on his notepad. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't
Nice save!
After Mr. Rosenthal left, I slunk into my coat and buzzed Nina. “I'm leaving for lunch,” I said to her. “I need to end this misery at least for a little while. You coming? We could go by that Italian guy you like so much.”
I could hear the low murmur of voices on Nina's end of the phone, and then she said, “No, thank you. I'm not through just yet.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Nina?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice tight. “This is Nina.”
“What's wrong with you?”
“Mr. Andrade is here in my office right now as a matter of fact. I'll let him know that you bid him good afternoon.”
“I bit him what?”
I heard the clatter of the phone and then the dial tone. “Whatever,” I muttered, slinging my bag over my shoulder and slamming my office door behind me.
I stepped into the hallway and Steve stepped out from the shadows, his small troll legs working hard to keep stride with me. “Sophie doesn't look too happy.”
“Sophie's not in the mood today, Steve.”
“Maybe Sophie would like a massage?” Steve laced his pudgy grey fingers together and stretched his arms over his head, releasing a symphony of pops and cracks and a fresh wave of bleu-cheese odor. “Steve is very good with his hands.”
“Pass,” I said, pausing at the elevator and working the up button. “Besides, what would Sasha say?”
Steve shrugged, his shoulders brushing the bottom of his long, pointed earlobes. “Sasha knows that she cannot hold Steve down.” He pushed out his chest. “Steve is just too much troll for one woman.”
I glanced down at him, his wiry hair just brushing the top of my thigh. “I'll say,” I murmured. “Really, Steve,” I said as the elevator door slid open with aching slowness, “I appreciate the offer, but maybe some other time.”
Steve shrugged his troll shoulders, and dug his hands into his pants pockets. “Suit yourself. But just so you know, Steve won't be around forever.”
If only.
The elevator doors opened on the police station vestibule and I was halfway out the front doors when I heard someone calling my name. I whirled and Alex caught the back of my shirt.
“Hello to you, too.”
Alex smoothed the part of my shirt he had gripped, the gentle touch of his fingers sending shock waves down my spine, making my knees go wonky. I shrugged out of his grip, afraid of dissolving into a pool of quivering Jell-O right there in the police station. “What do you want?”
“Do you like baseball?”
I raised an eyebrow. “That's what you want? To know if I like baseball?”
Alex narrowed his eyes. “Geez, Lawson, can you give a guy a break?” He pulled two orange and black Giants tickets from his shirt pocket. I saw the fat baseball logo and felt my grin go all the way to my ears. I snatched the tickets.
“These are behind home plate!”
Alex looked blank. “And that's good?”
I gaped. “What do you mean, is that good?”
Alex just shrugged.
“You don't like baseball?”
He lowered his voice. “Let's just say it was not the pastime it is now when I was around.”
My mouth formed a small O. “Well, then you have to go with me.”
Alex crossed his arms and grinned. “Is that so? You're inviting me to a game?”
I waggled the tickets. “Behind home plate. You can't miss it.”
He pulled the tickets from my fingers. “And you must have missed that these are still
my
tickets.”
I felt myself flush head to toe. “Oh, right. So, you wanted to know if I like baseball, right?”
Alex nodded, his eyes playful, smile wide.
“Yeah.” I kicked at an invisible speck of dirt on the linoleum. “I could take it or leave it.”
“So you don't mind if I give the tickets to ...” Alex scanned the offices, tickets in hand, and I pummeled him.
“I'll drive. And buy you popcorn. And beer,” I said eagerly.
“Throw in one of those giant foam fingers and you're on.”
“Done!”
Chapter Six
I squinted in the midday sun and followed the crowd of businesspeople down the block toward Loco Legs sandwich shop, skipping a little, working to contain my giddiness. A Giants game—and a date. A date! There may be romantic touching. And kissing. Kissing Alex ...
I felt a low heat start in my belly and spread downward. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from breaking into maniacal giggles and focused on a list of predate activities—shave, pluck, tweeze... . It was somewhere between tweeze and spritz when I glanced across the street while waiting for the light to change and caught the eye of a man standing on the opposite corner. His eyes were small, lime Jell-O green—like mine. He raked a pale, freckled hand across what remained of his red hair—a frazzled mess of unruly curls.
Like mine.
He looked at me from across the street, and I saw him blink, saw his lips tighten, felt the thunderbolt of realization that must have gone through him roil through me.
“Lucas Szabo.” The name settled on my dry lips and I was focused, rushing out into the intersection toward him. I felt someone clawing at my shoulder, felt someone try and grab the back of my jacket.
“Stop, lady!” I heard.
“What's she doing?” someone yelled. “There's a car coming!”
“Idiot,” someone groaned.
The admonishments seemed miles away.
I stumbled into the street, my eyes never leaving Lucas Szabo's, until the raging howl of a Muni bus hurtling toward me gave me pause. I was rooted to the cement, the scream of the bus's horn all around me. I felt the warm puff of smog as the driver yanked the bus to the side and the bus narrowly missed me.
Suddenly everything was really loud. The city came back to life and I was standing in the middle of a San Francisco intersection. Cars whirled by me, honking, drivers glaring at me from their tinted windows. Pedestrians shook their heads at me, chalked my suicidal jaunt into the intersection up to drug use, to being one of those “city crazies.”
Lucas Szabo wasn't on the corner anymore.
He wasn't anywhere.
My saliva tasted metallic; my head felt heavy, as if I had just come out of a drug-induced fog. I rubbed my eyes and ducked into the nearest café, abandoning my plan to eat at Loco Legs.
I didn't want anyone to see me.
I flopped down in the nearest booth and hung my head, my fingertips making small circular motions at my temples.
Am I seeing things now?
No.
He was there. He
had been
there, standing on the street corner, his eyes trained on mine.
My father.
“What can I get you?”
I looked up to see a pierced, pale waitress snapping her gum at me. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, and when she wound her ink-black hair around her index finger, I saw that she had a series of navy-blue stars tattooed on her hand.
“Uh,” I said, “a burger. Cheeseburger, actually. And fries. And a Diet Coke, please.”
The waitress scrawled my order on her pad and snapped her gum. “Coming right up.”
When she was safely out of view I reached into my shoulder bag and took out my cell. I flipped it open to dial, but it shook in my hand. My entire body was quaking. I took several deep breaths and a few calming gulps of ice water. By this time the waitress returned, carrying my lunch.
“Are you okay, hon?” she asked me.
“Fine,” I said without looking up.
“Sure thing,” she said, sliding the plate in front of me.
Suddenly, I was ravenous. I took one bite of my burger and chewed hungrily, but when I tried to swallow, the meat stuck in my throat. I felt a prick go up the back of my neck, felt the cold sting of sweat as it beaded along my hairline and then blanketed my skin. The whole café dropped into silence; all I could hear was the heaving beat of my heart, the whoosh of my own breath as it filled my lungs. I looked around slowly, my whole body feeling leaden and foreign. I turned a quarter inch to my left and I saw her, perched on a bar stool, her body facing me. Her posture was ramrod straight and her hands were folded daintily in her lap, her knees bolted together, legs crossed at the ankle. Her blond hair was nearly waist length and hung in brilliant waves over one shoulder. She smiled and her lips were full and berry-stained; her chin was defined and defiant. She stared at me with eyes that were an icy, piercing blue.
She was the same woman from the coffee shop, and suddenly I knew without having to ask—she was Ophelia.
It was as though she knew exactly what I was thinking. The second I came to the realization, her lips parted into a smile that was part sweet, part bone-chillingly sly and she raised one hand, arching her fingers into a prim finger wave.
Ice water filled my veins.
Ophelia turned around on her bar stool so she was facing away from me. I turned back to my lunch and the sounds of the café crashed over me. I looked down at my plate and clamped my hand over my mouth. My eyes watered, my stomach heaved.
The top bun of my burger moved slowly, jerkily. My fries were covered with fat, yellow-white maggots writhing, falling off my French fries, dripping onto the table. I poked my burger bun with my fingernail and it fell aside, revealing my hamburger patty, my arched bite mark, and a hundred pulsing bugs.
I let out a howl and stood up, scratching the electric-blue vinyl of the booth as I clawed for my shoulder bag. I knocked over my Diet Coke, heard the clatter of my plate as it crashed to the floor.
“You've got to pay for that,” I heard as I ran through the café. “Hey, lady!”
I fished a few bills out of my purse and tossed them onto the counter—right at the empty spot where Ophelia had been sitting a half second ago. I paused and looked over my shoulder at my lunch: my burger bun spilled open, the grilled brown patty lay on the floor in a pool of gelling grease. My fries scattered in a thousand directions. There wasn't a maggot anywhere.
I pushed out of the café and ran the entire way back to the UDA, my tears making cold, wet tracks down my cheeks. I was heaving and hiccupping by the time I barreled through the doors of the police station, by the time I ran full force into Alex's chest. He instinctively wrapped his arms around me and I was enveloped in his soothing warmth.
“Whoa, Lawson! Slow down! Hey, sweetie, what's wrong?” he was saying. “It's okay, calm down.” He pressed his lips into my hair, and I buried my damp face into the warm skin of his neck, breathing in his familiar, calming scent of cut grass and cocoa. When I was assured that my heart wouldn't beat out of my chest, I loosened my grip on Alex, sniffed, and looked up at him.
“It was Ophelia,” I said, my voice sounding very small. “And my father. And maggots.”
Alex held me at arm's length, his eyes going wide. “You saw Ophelia?”
I nodded and began to tremble again as the image of her wry smile blazed in my memory.
“Did she hurt you?”
“No,” I said, breaking away from Alex and running my fingers through my hair. “She didn't have to.” I flopped into the vinyl waiting-room chair in the police station vestibule and looked up at him. “Alex, I think I'm going crazy. I'm hearing things, seeing things... .” I shrugged miserably, cradling my head in my hands.
Alex sat down next to me, his thigh brushing against mine. “Crazy?” His mouth pushed up into that sweet half-smile. “From the girl who spends forty hours a week with the dead and horned among us?”
I tried not to smile but gave in—slightly. It wasn't easy to focus on my bizarre upside-down life with Alex sitting so close to me, but I reminded myself that thanks to him—my bizarre life
was
upside down—and maybe even in danger.
“So, crazy is relative. But seeing maggots? And my father? And Ophelia—all in the same day? Heck, all in the same lunch hour. That's not weird?”
Alex put his hand on mine, his thumb stroking my skin. “Ophelia is trying to get to you.”
“Well, she did.”
Alex wagged his head, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “This isn't good. She could have hurt you. Ophelia's intentions are never good.”
“If she was so into me, why didn't she attack me just now at the café?”
“She did. Your father, the maggots—she can make you see things. She can get in your head—if you let her.”
I pulled my hand away from Alex's, squeezing my fingers into fists, feeling my nails digging into my palms. “The maggots, maybe. But my father? You think that was Ophelia playing with my head? That he wasn't really”—I swallowed a sob that I had no reason to have—“here?”
“No, Lawson, I don't think your father was really there. I don't think he was walking down the street in the middle of the day.”
I tried to blink back the sting of tears. “What?”
Alex swallowed; his voice was soft. “You haven't seen him in more than thirty years—and suddenly you see him walking down the street? I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think it's unlikely.”
“But it was him. I know it was. How would Ophelia know what my father looks like?”
“Angels draw strong influence. And with Ophelia—if you let her—she'll get in your mind and show you anything you want to see. And probably a lot of things you don't want to see, too.”
I paused, considering. “Why do you keep saying that, ‘if I let her'?”
Alex shrugged. “Relax, Lawson. I'm not trying to attack you.”
“Well, you seem to be pretty sure of your ex-girlfriend's skill set.”
“You know that's not what I'm saying.”
“No, it kind of is. You think Ophelia is stronger than me.”
Alex inched away from me and drew in a breath. “All I am saying is that the human mind is very easily influenced. You react well to suggestion. It's not a dig, it's a fact.”
I stood up. “Easily influenced? React to suggestion? I am not making this up, Alex. I saw what I saw. It wasn't a suggestion, it was maggots. Fat, creepy, crawly maggots on my plate, on my French fries, everywhere. I
don't
see things, remember? I am magically immune.”
Alex bit his lip. “It's not magic. It's powers. We have powers. Angels and demons, we're ... it's different.”
I shook my head, working to block out Alex's words “It was my father. I saw him, and I just knew it was him—your angelic superpowers or not.”
“Lawson.” Alex's voice was low, his eyes scanning the police station, where people had started to notice us, to drop their papers and swing their heads to the girl with the fire-engine-red hair stomping and screaming in the waiting room.
“I don't know how she did it or why she did it, but your girlfriend”—I spat the word—“tried to poison me. Or freak me out. Or whatever.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “She's not my girlfriend. And could you keep your voice down?”
I growled, turned on my heel, and jabbed at the elevator's down button. “I have to get back to work.”
The elevator bell dinged and the heavy metal doors slid open. I jumped inside and kicked the
CLOSE DOOR
button, Alex's face with its mix of anger and concern getting narrower and narrower as the doors eeked shut.
When I got downstairs, the UDA was buzzing. Demons stood hoof-to-hoof in long lines, mildly held in place by swooping velvet ropes. I tried to keep my head down and my eyes low, but I wasn't two feet into the office when Mrs. Henderson—our resident busybody and fire-breathing dragon—stomped over to me, a thick sheaf of papers clutched in her manicured claw.
“Sophie—finally, someone who knows what she's doing. I tell you, that—that—
vampire
that you have working behind the counter is completely useless. Has she ever heard of customer service? I don't think so.” Mrs. Henderson turned up her nose, tiny tendrils of black smoke trailing from each nostril. I stepped aside.
“It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Henderson.”
Mrs. Henderson and Nina had a long history of glaring at each other and mild name calling, usually culminating with someone (Nina) being set on fire and someone else (me) coming in to diffuse the situation and sign off on whatever dingbat issue was cheesing Mrs. Henderson off at the moment. Apparently, this afternoon it was Mrs. Henderson's inability to collect alimony from Mr. Henderson, who took up with a showgirl he met on a dragon's weekend in Vegas.
“We've got little ones, you know. How am I supposed to feed them?” Mrs. Henderson clutched at her pashmina scarf with her jeweled hand and batted her eyelashes.
“The UDA was supposed to serve him with the papers and garnish his wages. I know for a fact he's making very good money over there at the Luxor, that louse. I'm just so concerned about my little ones.” She choked a manufactured wailing sob.

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