‘You don’t have any proof that this troll was behind the fire. I thought Jennifer made a deal with McGregor.’
‘She might have, but I’m sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, Rufus is missing and I won’t be able to sleep tonight unless I know he’s safe. We need to go to that agency and find out if they know anything about his disappearance,’ I said, folding my arms together. It was after four and Alexandra wasn’t here yet. I needed Kate to back me up with this plan. We both heard the door.
‘How can I help you?’ asked Kate, looking annoyed that we were interrupted. A potential candidate stood in the door.
‘I’m looking for this lady,’ said a voice I’d heard before.
Chapter eleven
Yeah, after I lit up like a Christmas tree.
I wasn’t mistaken: it was Kelsie and I could hardly recognise her. She had glorious black hair that was completely straight and smooth. Her sparkling brown eyes were glancing around with eagerness. She looked straight from the cover of one of those glossy celebrity magazines: flawless skin, long skinny legs, and stylish clothing. Kate was staring ahead blankly. I rubbed a hand along my jaw, feeling a little insecure wearing my skinny jeans.
‘Kel, what are you doing here?’ I asked a little breathless.
‘I owe you one. I hope you don’t mind that I came over,’ she said, approaching Kate’s table. Even her movements were refined. A couple nights ago I thought she looked like an ordinary woman, but now I was completely gobsmacked.
‘I didn’t expect to see you, that’s all. You left quite fast the other day. How did you know I would be here?’
‘I didn’t. I just took a chance. It stuck when you mentioned that you work for Paranormal Personnel.’
‘Right, sorry. Kate, this is Kel,’ I introduce them both. ‘We met a few days ago.’
Kate was staring at my new acquaintance, chewing her lip; she eyed her up and down, probably wondering how we knew each other.
‘Hey, Kel.’ Kate greeted her and tucked her magic wand behind her ear like it was a completely normal thing to do. Sara emerged from the kitchen a few seconds later, humming an unknown melody. I glanced at my watch and saw Alexandra entering the office.
‘Sorry, Kate, I meant to be here half an hour ago but I missed my bus,’ Alexandra complained. It was time to move to another room. My other co-workers weren’t supposed to be involved with what I wanted to do.
‘Julia, it’s Monday today. Did you mix your shifts?’ asked Sara, realising I was in the office.
‘Kate, shall we leave? I really need to finish this conversation,’ I said, rubbing my hand. Kate rose and started packing her stuff. I turned to Kelsie. ‘Kel, I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of something really important. If you give me your number, we can meet later on.’
‘She can help us,’ Kate whispered in my ear, and I looked at her, bewildered.
‘I just needed to have a chat with Kate,’ I told Sara. Alexandra wasn’t paying much attention to us. She sat down at her desk and started scrolling through her emails. ‘Let’s use the interview room; we need to talk.’
I had no clue why Kate thought that my new friend would help us. Yes, she was attractive, but it wasn’t fair to drag her into what I was planning, although she had an idea about our problems.
Kel didn’t ask any questions, she just followed us. I locked the door from the inside, making sure we weren’t going to be interrupted.
‘Can I smoke here?’ asked Kel, putting her legs on the table.
‘Not really, but carry on,’ I muttered, still not quite believing she was so stunning; no wonder that the guy wanted to rape her. She lit the cigarette, watching me from the corner of her eye.
‘So, what’s up, ladies? I’m intrigued’ she asked, letting out a circle of smoke. First I needed to explain to Kate how I met Kelsie, and then we could discuss my plan, so I started talking. Within ten minutes I went through the events of the night we met, feeling quite nervous about the magic that I was able to produce. Kate was aware I couldn’t control my magic, although we never had a chance to really talk about this. After I finished my story, Kate looked amazed.
‘You knocked out a wizard?’ she repeated after a moment.
Yeah, after I lit up like a Christmas tree.
‘Kind of. I didn’t quite control what I was doing,’ I explained, deflated.
‘Wow, that’s incredible, even for someone who doesn’t know what to do.’ She smiled.
‘Maybe, but we aren’t here to talk about me,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘My plan is simple: I want to sniff around in the rival agency, find out what they are working on. Kate suggested that you could help us, Kel.’
‘Me?’ Kel looked surprised.
‘You could be an easy distraction,’ Kate explained, smiling lightly. ‘I hear that this troll, the head of the other agency, has the reputation of a womanizer.’
Kel laughed, putting away her lighter. I had to agree with Kate—Kelsie was pretty and could work as a distraction. If she would come with us our plan would be so much easier.
‘I guess I can help, I’ve got nothing else to do today anyway,’ she said. ‘What’s the deal with the other agency anyway?’
‘I have a feeling that they might be behind Rufus’ disappearance. We made a ton of money in the past few months and they know that. News spreads fast in this business. Rufus worked with Paranormal Personnel for over ten years, he has a lot of contacts.’
Both Kate and Kel looked at each other, acknowledging what I just said. Maybe it wasn’t fair to get Kelsie involved just yet, but we needed to have a good backup story.
‘Elf, witch, and shapeshifter sounds more realistic. We can pretend that we all worked in an office in West London but we have been made redundant a few weeks ago,’ I said.
‘This would get us through the door, but what’s the point talking to the consultant? We need to talk to the guy in charge,’ Kate observed.
She was right—we had to talk to the branch manager. He was the one that held all the necessary information. I didn’t know his name, but I met him briefly a couple of years ago, so I vaguely remembered his face. My plan was shaky but I was determined to find Rufus.
In the end, we decided to play a new investment company. We were looking to recruit an admin staff and we wanted to start working with an established recruitment agency; we knew someone who worked with them before. Coming from recommendation would be more credible. We all needed each other: in the worst situation I could be useless; Kate was a skilled witch.
Kel was going to use her charm in an attempt to seduce the branch manager. We needed to find out if he was a suspect. He was known for his tastes in beautiful supernatural creatures.
After discussing our options, we went to my apartment and changed. We needed to look convincing; our plan had cracks. There was stiff competition between the agencies and it wasn’t easy to win a business these days, so they could look at us with suspicion. I felt a little guilty getting Kel involved with all this, so I told her that she could just walk away.
‘Chill out, Julia. I’m bored out of my mind. Besides, I like to live on the edge.’ She giggled.
Just after six, we left my flat suited and booted. My legs were shaking when I got into Kel’s Fiat. My stomach went through serious contractions when I thought about the worst-case scenario. Kel had nothing to do with this, and I wanted it to keep it like that.
‘If anything goes wrong, I’ll shift. Trolls are really dumb, but their magic is oddly good,’ Kelsie said.
‘Is this supposed to make me feel better?’
‘Sort of, but if worse comes to worse we would have to kick his butt.’ She grinned.
I rolled my eyes, hoping that it didn’t have to come to that. StaffSpell Recruitment was located in a rougher part of London, although the main street was busy, filled with people from all over the world. I kept flexing my fingers, aware that the magic was rolling through me. Kate looked focused, whereas Kelsie was pulling her
top down so it revealed more of her cleavage.
I wished I’d paid more attention when Rufus was talking about our rivals. Now I needed all the information I could get. I knew they had fewer clients and mainly specialised in construction. I kept biting my lip, ignoring the uncomfortable ache in my stomach. We needed to charm the troll to be able to know if he was telling us the truth.
StaffSpell’s office was modern and well equipped. I spotted two elves staring at us from the corners. One of them, a blonde, got up swiftly from her chair and bounced toward us with a plastic smile on her face.
‘Welcome to StaffSpell, how can I assist you today?’ she squeaked, eyeing us intensely. I opened my mouth to begin, when Kel spoke instead.
‘We need to speak to your boss, right now,’ she ordered, folding her arms together. The woman with the tag name Marcia stepped back, looking away.
‘May I ask what this is regarding?’ she said after a long stiff moment.
‘No, you can’t. We’re here for business and we haven’t got time for chitchat. We need to see the branch manager right now,’ Kelsie continued sharply.
Gee, girl, calm down. You don’t need to be so abrupt.
Then my inner mind laughed out loud.
Look who’s talking!
The girl hesitated for a moment, knowing that her co-workers were staring. She cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes. I kept seeing holes in this stupid plan; we couldn’t possibly pull this off, not with the way Kel was speaking to her. Kate looked like she was going to faint whereas I was panicking already.
‘Let me see what I can do,’ Marcia replied, pursing her lips in annoyance. She walked through the room and vanished around the corner. I could have sworn that Kel could hear my pounding heart, but she was playing her role well, looking annoyed that we had to wait.
The elf came back within a minute, this time she wasn’t trying to impress us.
‘Follow me, please. Our regional manager will see you now.’
As we were passing through, I saw Kelsie giving me thumbs up, but a nagging uneasiness settled in my stomach.
The elf opened a white door and with her perfect manicure she pointed out at the troll who was sitting behind the desk. ‘Mark, these ladies insisted on seeing you.’
‘Very well, Marcia, please close the door behind you,’ the troll barked, but flashed a smile seeing us standing in front of him. Once we were alone I searched for the unpleasant smell, but there was none. The troll in front of us was short, stocky, but he was exceptionally handsome. I was stunned because his smoky black hair and blue eyes didn’t fit the rest of his awkward body.
‘I’m sorry that we demanded to see you Mr...?’
‘Fiorillo,’ the troll quickly replied, looking straight at Kelsie. His eyes darted downward, moving over her long bare legs. He licked his lips, raising his left eyebrow, obviously liking what he was looking at, but Kel pretended she didn’t notice.
‘Yes, Mr. Fiorillo. Time is money so we will get straight to the point,’ said Kel, fanning herself with the booklet that she picked up by the entrance. She looked sexy, aware of the attention that she was getting. ‘Can we sit down?’
‘Of course, where’re my manners? Here.’ Shrugging, Fiorillo pointed at the chairs that suddenly appeared in front of us. I was impressed but tried hard not to show it. One of his parents must’ve been an elf or a fairy. Trolls just didn’t posses pretty genes.
Once we were sitting, and I could breathe again, I wanted to say something before Kelsie got too comfortable in her own role.
‘So, what can I do for you ladies?’
Chapter twelve
He knows; we are truly fucked now!
‘We’re looking to hire a few people. My name is Lisa Watkins and these are my business partners, Veronica Dawson and Teri Ann Morgan. We just opened an investment company for supernaturals that deals with import and export. A friend recommended your agency to us,’ I explained quickly in a steady confident voice.
Fiorillo was still smiling, revealing his pearly Hollywood smile. He clasped his fingers together and cleared his throat like he knew that we were trying to sell him a huge pile of horse poo. Kate tensed next to me and I knew that she was thinking the same thing. We had to be more convincing.
‘So what sort of supernatural beings are you looking to recruit?’ he asked with a hint of amusement in his tone, resting his eyes on Kel again.
‘We don’t mind,’ Kate answered, her voice sounding a little too high. ‘We will be looking for admin and reception staff to cover all the bases. I think we might have slight problems with vampires, due to the opening hours; other than that we will leave the choice of the creatures up to you.’
My palms were damp with sweat and I kept looking at Kelsie, trying to let her know that she should continue distracting him. An odd, cold chill coursed through the air. Fiorillo didn’t seem to notice anything unusual; he was too busy eye fucking Kel, who seemed to have gotten the message. Fiorillo and I had met once briefly, years ago, before I ever considered going into recruitment. I didn’t want to mention this to the girls—I doubted very much that he remembered me.
‘StaffSpell has a great reputation.’ Kel smiled, fluttering her long, black eyelashes. His expression changed slightly. He wasn’t buying our pathetic story, and I didn’t like the way he was staring at us. He shifted on the chair and his crystal blue eyes focused on me. His gaze was penetrating and unnerving, like he knew what I was thinking.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’ he asked.
‘Lisa Watkins,’ I replied, my chest heaving.
‘I’m terribly sorry, but you remind me of someone, Miss. Watkins,’ he muttered. ‘May I ask, have you been in the recruitment business before?’
He knows; we are truly fucked now!
‘What makes you say that, Mr. Fiorillo?’ Kate asked, her pupils dilated. Kel tossed her hair behind her, clearly hoping to catch his attention.
‘Strange, but Miss Watkins here reminds me of a woman that I thought I once knew,’ he replied, smiling. I was slowly beginning to lose my temper, sweating way too much. This conversation wasn’t going as I’d planned. Most trolls I met or knew smelled. They were short and stocky. He was just too good looking to be a pure troll. He wasn’t terribly short but even the way he was talking didn’t reveal that he could carry some stereotypical genes.
I laughed softly, enduring the warmth of the air and the ambiance of the magic. Fiorillo made a growling sound. Suddenly Kate was waving her magic wand way too fast for me to figure out what she was doing. Bright blue light blinded me, lifting me slightly off the floor but only for a split second or so. A long silence fell over the office; I flinched and exhaled sharply, my blouse stuck to my back.
‘C’mon we need to be sitting back in case the girls heard something,’ Kate ordered. A bead of sweat rolled down her face and her cheeks were flushed.
‘Damn, girl, you know how to roll.’ Kelsie smirked, sitting back in the chair. I scanned around and looked back at Fiorillo: his eyes were closed. I had no idea what Kate had done to him, but we had to be quick with our interrogation. As Kate predicted, there was a loud knock and, within that moment, Fiorillo opened his eyes.
‘Is everything all right? I heard an odd noise,’ asked the elf, peering through the door.
‘Everything is fine, Marcia, leave us,’ he ordered.
She hesitated for a split second, looking around for something out of the ordinary, before she closed the door behind her.
My pulse was skyrocketing. ‘What the hell happened, Kate?’ I hissed.
‘I used the grooming spell,’ she explained. ‘Our creepy friend here is under our control. He will tell us everything we need to know, but we’ve only got a few minutes. He is fighting it off, but I’m holding it for now.’
‘Great,’ I muttered.
‘This guy doesn’t stink, he can’t be a real troll,’ Kel whispered, shaking her head.
‘It doesn’t matter. We really haven’t got th
e time for this debate. Julia, start with your questions before I wipe his memory,’ Kate said, keeping her magic wand on alert. Fiorillio’s lids were half closed, his head cocked to the side.
‘Bear in mind that this spell is illegal; if we’re caught, then that’s two years behind bars,’ Kate added nervously.
‘So, why are you telling me this now?’ I hissed, horrified. I could probably ruin my Dad’s career with the police if I got caught. My life would be over.
She shrugged. ‘You didn’t ask before.’
‘Come on, Julia, just get on with this. We haven’t got all day,’ Kel complained, rolling her eyes.
They didn’t pay much attention to the fact that we could have gotten into a lot trouble over this. My father would go mental if he knew what I was doing right now. I sat directly in front of Fiorillo, hoping that he was still charmed.
‘Mr. Fiorillo,’ I began, as his gaze fixated on the wall. I didn’t have to wait long for his response, because he immediately shifted his eyes and looked at me. ‘Tell me what you know about the disappearance of Rufus Humphries.’
‘I arranged a meeting with Rufus Humphries in London a few weeks ago,’ replied Fiorillo.
Suddenly the air left the room and I thought I lost the ability to breathe. I exchanged a nervous look with Kate and then continued with a cracking voice. ‘Tell us why you were supposed to meet Rufus.’
‘He didn’t want to meet me. He kept avoiding my phone calls. He finally answered after a few weeks and agreed to see me. My boss asked to investigate if La Caz would be willing to budge and switch the agency. Paranormal Personnel was making money and we were struggling.’
‘What happened then?’ I asked, feeling that this was exactly what we were looking for, that I was right, the contract with Nathaniel was extremely valuable; it was obvious that StaffSpell was willing to do anything to take over.
‘Rufus and I worked together previously. He knew me well, although he didn’t like me. A few years ago I did something for him; I felt that it was time to return that favour,’ continued the troll.
Paranormal Personnel Saga Box Set - Books 1-3 Page 30
