Fated: Karma Series, Book Three

by Donna Augustine

  I guessed there was an argument to be made for remaining on Earth, never aging, eternally young when you didn’t know what your retirement home might look like. Fate’s guys had chosen it. Lars, Bic, Angus and Cutty—none of them would move on from this world. This was it for them, and that was exactly how they wanted it. Plenty of people would want it.

  But I didn’t. I’d made the choice. I wanted to know what lay beyond this realm, even if only for a short while before I was doomed to forget it all and walk the Earth again as a mortal. As much as I’d been mocked for once being human, there was a value to it that someone who isn’t a transfer couldn’t possibly understand.

  Maybe the day-to-day minutiae of being human didn’t seem appealing to my current co-workers but they couldn’t possibly understand how much joy the simple things can bring. What it felt like to win my first case or go to the movies with a boy for the first time. The human experience was loaded with things that made your endorphins sing. I wanted to experience this place as a human again one day with all that it entailed.

  But it looked like there was going to be a price to pay. This part of Paddy in me, the part that gave me the chance to go on and live another life, it was doing more than just keeping me in touch. I could easily have rationalized the pain away as my body adjusting to a foreign part if I hadn’t felt other things happening. Lying still on the bed, I could feel it spreading through me. It was too crazy to say aloud but I couldn’t shake the feeling.

  Dr. Hamil had been my family’s doctor since I’d been a toddler. I still knew his number. Too bad I couldn’t call it, shoot in for a quick X-ray, get a script and be good to go in a week.

  I closed my eyes, trying to go back to sleep, but I just lay there, trying to think about anything other than what might be going on within me.

  I went into the bathroom, downed what pain medications I had left in the medicine cabinet, and made a mental note to stop at the drug store tomorrow.

  ***

  I rapped my knuckles on the open office door even though I knew Harold was aware of me standing there. He didn’t look up so I kept knocking and knocking. I could’ve walked in and sat in front of him, but somehow, forcing him to acknowledge me and utter an invitation was far more entertaining. My current frustrations needed some sort of outlet.

  After a solid minute of knocking, he finally looked up. “Come. In.” His lips barely moved as he spoke, and I realized perhaps he’d missed his true calling as a ventriloquist. Hell, even his hair—as bright red and bushy as it was—would look perfect on a dummy. I’d never seen such a color occur naturally. There had to be some better career for him other than running this place.

  I bit my tongue, holding back the lyrics from The Heat Miser, but failed somewhat as the melody slipped out in a hum. I smiled in greeting and walked in gingerly, taking the seat in front of his desk. His forehead had become one continuous wave of wrinkles. I should’ve known instinctively he’d recognize that song. They’d probably modeled the character after him.

  Still, somewhere deep down, so far down I wasn’t sure I could find it anymore, I was still a southern girl. There were manners in here somewhere. I really needed to try and shake the dust off them and let them see daylight once in a while. “I think it would be nice if we had a little chat.” Smile, don’t forget the big smile. I put so much umph into it my cheeks hurt.

  “Can I avoid it?” His droll monotone had my face muscles burning in rebellion. Harold was about as far from my side of the Mason-Dixon Line as he could get.

  I’m sorry, Mama, wherever you are right now, but good manners are a total waste on him. I sucked air in through my teeth, most likely ruining the smiling effect but making a dramatic show of considering his question. Hanging on by a single raised pinky, I shrugged and said, “No.”

  The sound of skateboards skidding across linoleum stopped me from continuing. The Jinxes were here and I was probably one of the only people happy about it. But when the shit had hit the fan, they’d been there for me. Were they rude, obnoxious and all sorts of undesirable? Yes. Downright repulsive? On occasion. They were the pariahs of the office and they embraced the position, but they’d become my little pariahs.

  They entered the office seconds later. I held my fist up, knowing them well at this point, and they each cruised by in a line and fist bumped me as they found their places.

  “Why are you three here?” Harold’s voice, always nasal, seemed to be hitting a new whine with the question. “Did she request your presence? Because I didn’t.”

  “We don’t need a request. We’re her posse, douchebag.” The Jinxes were the antithesis of southern but as welcome as sweet tea on a hot summer day.

  Bobby pulled up the chair that had been tucked in the corner, sat down and then kicked his sneakers up onto Harold’s desk. It was reminiscent of a move I myself had made not long ago, except my shoes hadn’t been caked with dirt in the treads, which now fell like sprinkles of love onto Harold’s never-ending paperwork. Oh, the charm of the Jinxes. Three pre-pubescent looking packages with more swagger than James Dean in his prime and more experience on the job than I could claim. I wasn’t sure how old they really were, but looks were deceiving and never more so than with them.

  I tilted my head toward the door and, right on cue, Billy went over and slammed it shut. Buddy remained behind me, his small arms crossed over his chest as if he were my personal bodyguard.

  Harold stared at the dirt on his desk and then me, his eyelids drooping ever so slightly more than usual. “What do you want? Let’s get this shit over with.”

  I crossed my legs, repositioning my summer dress in supremely ladylike fashion. “I informed you not long ago, as have others, that we’ve got a problem.”

  “And what do you want from me?”

  “Something. Anything. The world out there is on the brink of falling apart and you sit here and do nothing.” I folded my hands on my lap, trying to remain composed. I didn’t want to encourage the Jinxes by turning into a raging lunatic. Their social graces were hanging on by the barest thread. One bad example could propel them into a black hole of social uncouthness they might never recover from.

  “You’re being dramatic.” He lowered his head and returned to scribbling away at whatever useless notes he made.

  This had been my last ditch effort to try and recruit Harold to my way of thinking. Hell, the whole office’s way of thinking. It would’ve been nice to have him on board for once but it wasn’t a necessity.

  I stood, applauding myself for not contributing to the further demise of the Jinxes’ downfall in social skills, and walked out of there with the three of them trailing me.

  “Why are we leaving? He ain’t doing nothin’ still,” Bobby complained as we left.

  “It’s called rising above.” Memories of my mother’s voice, telling me a lady rose above the fracas, whispered in my ear like a bittersweet memory. I’d always thought that one day I’d be teaching my own children lessons like that.

  Bobby elbowed Billy with a saucy grin on his face. “I want to rise above some people, just not that dweeb. I think we should sink real low, where it’s nice and comfy, and kick him in the teeth, if you ask me. This manners crap is bullshit. We look like a bunch of pansies letting him disrespect us like that.”

  I looked at the three of them tagging behind me and wondered how many people had decided not to have children after meeting them. “Don’t worry, boys, you haven’t risen very far. I’d say you’re knee level at best.”

  This seemed to uplift their spirits somewhat as they fist pumped each other encouragingly.

  The main office door creaked open, and the room seemed to shrink to half its size as Fate entered. His head turned to me for an infinitesimal moment before he took in the rest of the room. For a while I’d thought I was imaging that he did that, sought me out first, until it happened over and over and over again.

  I kept walking toward my table where he seemed prepared to intersect with me. I’d told him of my pla
ns to approach Harold again, for one last ditch attempt, over dinner last night. He hadn’t said anything; he had simply raised his eyebrows at the mention and taken another bite of his steak.

  I leaned a hip on the table as he came over and he did the same beside me. He didn’t say a word but I told you so was written clearly in the shrug of his shoulder and one raised eyebrow.

  “I felt like it was the right thing to do.”

  He didn’t say anything about it and I didn’t continue with the subject.

  Of course, the Jinxes were there so it wasn’t case closed until they got their say in. “The guy’s a total douche. Not sure what you expected,” Bobby said, his blond locks shimmying with the shaking of his head. The Jinxes were always useful for saying the things most people were thinking but tried to hold back.

  Murphy walked over to where we were gathered and Buddy was all over him as soon as he approached. “Hey, Sloppy Jo, you trip me this morning?”

  Murphy rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you, you’re a klutz. I don’t get the urge with any of our kind.” Murphy took a chair nearby and crossed his legs, looking like someone had plucked him right out of a detective show from the fifties. Trench coat and hat, I could imagine him pulling out a badge at any moment. This morning, he looked like an episode where he’d been on surveillance all night.

  Death, who was only now entering the office, looked closer to a rerun of Mr. Rogers, complete with sweater, and was probably finishing up a grief counseling session. I’d recently learned he charged over three hundred an hour. I guess knowing the deceased personally gave him a certain edge in effectiveness.

  Death saw the group of us and came over. It didn’t take long before almost everyone in the building had made their way to that portion of the office. Of course Lady Luck was there, looking as tousled as ever. Her dry spell, which had coincided with Kitty’s disappearance, had ended the night she found out Kitty was okay. She’d been going strong ever since, trying to make up for lost time and missed pillow talk.

  The Tooth Fairy and his assistants had come by, Santa appeared with some of his elves in tow, Mother brought her gardeners and Jockey popped in; in essence, the whole awkward gang was there.

  The Jinxes were still carrying on with their tirade over Harold’s less than desirable traits. They had got the group so rattled that by time Cupid showed up that no one even made a run for Harold’s office.

  The truth was, Harold was merely a scapegoat for the real problem. We were all alarmed at the turn of events lately and the state of the humans. There wasn’t a day that went by when someone wasn’t walking in and saying, “You’re not going to believe what they did now,” and it took a lot to surprise this group.

  So when Cupid walked in slowly, palms raised, and said, “I won’t do anything, I swear. I just want to know what’s going. Those mortals are getting weirder by the minute,” no one ran. We put aside the past.

  He was nervous, like the rest of us, and no one had the heart to exclude him. Plus, right now we needed the numbers. I turned to Fate. “We’ve got to let him stay.”

  “Agreed.”

  Luck came and stood beside me. “Cupid’s right. It’s getting real strange. I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years on the job.” There was a lot of grunting and agreeing noises after her statement.

  Santa stepped forward and addressed the group. “I just stopped by to let you all know that Mrs. Claus and I have decided to head up to the North Pole for an extended leave. Things are getting too rough around here, and I’m worried for the safety of Mrs. Claus and the elves. We’ll seal up the entrance until things calm down.”

  Santa was leaving? It felt like first grade all over again when I found out from my classmate, Susie Wilkins, that he was made up. All the grief that girl had caused me. I should track her down right now and give her a piece of my mind for spreading such lies.

  It wouldn’t change anything though, as Santa made his goodbyes and his elves handed out candy canes as they left. As I watched his departure, the only thing that repeated over and over in my head was, what if things never did calm down? Screw everything else, what if Santa never came back?

  “How am I getting good cookies now?” Luck asked. “I can’t go back to store-bought. All of this because of that angry guy?”

  Everyone in the office knew Malokin, or Angry Guy, as Luck called him. After Kitty and the hotel incident, Harold’s determined lack of cooperation, and things getting strange and violent, everyone in the know had sat down and decided there was no more hiding. Malokin was a threat to all of us. Everyone deserved to know what was out there.

  Luck took a seat on my table beside us, a pout in full bloom. “I don’t like that angry man.”

  “None of us—” A loud crashing sound, coming from behind Harold’s closed door, interrupted me. The high-pitched sound of his screaming came next. He was plenty loud but I still couldn’t make out what he was saying. There were no other voices. I’d left him in his office alone not more than fifteen minutes ago.

  Maybe he was on the phone? Or—the more interesting possibility—maybe someone had come through the retirement door, the one that had an inch gap underneath that glowed funny light. I’d never seen or heard of anyone using it.

  My eyes scanned the rest of the group, and they, like me, couldn’t stop staring. The only one not paying attention was Fate. He was looking at his phone.

  “What are you doing?” I tried to look over and see what was on the screen.

  “Nothing,” he said as he tilted his phone away from me.

  “Are you playing a game?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Aren’t you concerned?”

  “No.”

  He certainly didn’t seem it.

  The sound of a door slamming echoed through the office, but Harold’s door hadn’t budged, nor any other in view.

  Instead of moving closer, I perched on the table, nudging Luck over slightly. “Maybe we should go in?” I asked but no one was moving forward or doing anything other than making themselves comfortable as they watched Harold’s office for signs of life.

  “It’s fine,” Fate said, distracted, as he sat on the table next to me, squeezing us both over a bit.

  “What if something really bad is happening in there?” I turned around and looked for the chips I’d been snacking on earlier. Luck had already snagged the bag and was sharing them with Murphy, who stood next to her. I reached out a hand and he tilted the bag in my direction.

  “Ugh.” Fate grumbled from beside me and pocketed his phone.

  “Lost?”

  “Don’t worry, I always win in the end,” he answered as he grabbed my wrist and directed the chip in my hand to his mouth, grazing my finger with a nip of his teeth.

  A sensation I’d become all too familiar with churned inside me. What the hell was going on with him these days? His sexual overtures were becoming a daily occurrence and picking up steam.

  Harold might be getting bludgeoned to death as we sat here. Had he no shame? I tried to muster a look of moral disgust but couldn’t. I didn’t know if I cared that much either.

  But still, as dilapidated as the office might be and as dysfunctional as the staff definitely was, we were at work. “Harold could be getting murdered in there,” I said, trying to sound as disapproving as possible and failing pathetically. It didn’t matter at the moment. This had nothing to do with Harold and everything to do with Fate screwing with my head.

  “I can’t help if I’m hungry.” It was the “so sue me” tone he used so often.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Why are you so opposed to sharing a couple of chips?” He shrugged, as if he hadn’t just asked me in a roundabout way why I wouldn’t sleep with him.

  “Maybe I don’t feel like sharing my chips. A girl doesn’t have to share.” I crossed my arms, jostling Luck in the process.

  “It’s not like you’ve never shared before. Why so stingy now?” He reached in front of
me and grabbed a chip from the bag Luck held and made a show of eating one.

  “Maybe I’m just not in the mood to share my chips. I don’t have to share my chips simply because I’ve shared my chips in the past.” I grabbed the bag of chips from Luck and rolled the top closed. “See? Nobody is getting chips.”

  He stared at my hand, bag clinched tightly in my fist and then he gave me that smirk. I had a love/hate relationship with that smirk.

  “I think deep down,” he leaned in slightly closer before he continued, “you want to share your chips.”

  I inhaled sharply. “Are you insinuating I share my chips freely?”

  He squinted. “What I’m saying is, someone might get the foolish notion that once you’ve shared some chips with them, you’d be likely to share chips on a regular basis.”

  “You didn’t even like the chips! Why do you have to have my chips now?”

  “That’s completely misrepresenting how I feel about chips. I wasn’t looking to expand my diet at that moment. It has nothing to do with whether I liked the chips or not. Or whether once I had some chips, I wouldn’t want them in the future.”

  One of the Jinxes groaned loudly where he stood in front of us. “I think I’d rather be in the office with Douchebag, getting beat up.”

  “Why is she getting so crazy about her potato chips? Am I in trouble for eating some?” Murphy whispered to Luck, underestimating my hearing.

  Luck leaned closer to him. “It’s one of those weird talks I was telling you about. They never mean what they mean. It’s not chips, it’s—”

  I kicked her before she could finish.

  “What? What is it?” Murphy pressed.

  Luck paused before blurting out, “Lipstick.”

  “He wants to share her lipstick?” Murphy asked and I saw him peeking over at Fate and me.