Under Attack tudac-2

by Hannah Jayne

  I put both hands on my hips. “Getting my job back.”

  He strode closer to me. “They’re giving you your job back? That’s great!” His smile was wide and genuine.

  “Not exactly. But I’m taking it back.”

  The smile fell from his lips. “You don’t have the stun gun on you, do you?”

  I raised an annoyed eyebrow. “I’m not going to Taser him! Unless he really pisses me off.”

  Alex looked alarmed.

  “I’m kidding. I’m just going to tell Dixon that he made a mistake in letting me go. The UDA needs me. I do good work. And once he reinstates me there will be no hard feelings.”

  Alex crossed his arms in front of his chest. “So you promise you won’t use the stun gun on him? Not that I care if you want to do a little vamp-shock; I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Why does everyone think I’m going to fly off the handle all the time? I’m a completely rational, calm human being who just happens to want to reclaim her rightful position among San Francisco’s undead.”

  I stopped when I noticed the police station had dropped into silence, all heads turned toward me. I rolled up on my tiptoes and peeked over Alex’s shoulder, catching the wary eye of Chief Dugan. I went flat-footed again and shook my finger in Alex’s face. “That was your fault. I am calm and rational.” The elevator dinged and I jumped inside, watching the door slide shut on the San Francisco Police Department, its clutch of officers and alleged felons staring at me like I was the crazy one.

  The closer the elevator dropped to UDA, the farther my heart dropped into my belly. I practiced a few deep-breathing exercises I had learned on a late-night infomercial and went through my speech in my head. When the doors sprang open on the bustling UDA, I was shaking my finger at no one and had worked my anger back up to a frothy lather.

  The purple velvet ropes were bulging as all manner of the demon Underworld hopped from foot to foot—or hoof to hoof—waiting for their turn at the windows. Most clutched their paperwork, some passed the time by texting or flipping through the long-expired waiting-room magazines. Mrs. Henderson spun when she saw me, trotting over, her thick dragon tail thumping along behind her.

  “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie!” she said, gathering me up in a scaly-armed hug. “They said you weren’t here anymore. I’m so glad you are.”

  “Thanks,” I said breathlessly, feeling the crunch of my ribs against Mrs. Henderson’s heavy chest. I tried to squirm away and Mrs. Henderson gave me one of her wide, toothy grins—then thrust a sheaf of papers at me.

  “Could you be a dear and process these? The kids are so impatient.” Her glass-marble eyes shot to two smaller, younger versions of herself slouched in the orange waiting-room chairs, working hard to look disinterested and bored as they played with his-and-hers Nintendo hand-helds. “I have to get Lola to ballet and Sam to baseball.”

  I chanced a look at Lola, her slick, green-scaled belly exposed as her belly shirt—imprinted with the word SWEETHEART in tiny rhinestones—rode up. She was wearing a flitty black skirt over pink tights that cut off at the ankle, exposing her wide, flat feet.

  As used to demonic life as I was, I had a hard time imagining this kid doing a grande plié.

  I handed the sheaf of papers back to Mrs. Henderson.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. Maybe you can get Nina to help you.”

  Mrs. Henderson looked horrified. “That vampire?”

  “Sorry,” I called over my shoulder, aiming myself toward Dixon’s office. I raced down the hall—remembering to skirt a blown-up witch hole in the linoleum—and only slowed when I approached Dixon’s office. There was a stab of sadness mixed in with my rage; the old wood desk that sat just outside Dixon’s office—where I had spent so many years filing Pete Sampson’s papers and processing demon requests—had been replaced by a slick black metal version. In Dixon’s few days as head of the Underworld Detection Agency he had managed to do away with the standard visitor chairs and nondescript waiting-room couch and replace everything with slick, metal-and-black leather sling chairs and low glass minimalist tables. Even the spider plant that Sampson had nursed back from the dead the three times I almost killed it was replaced by a sleeker version in a square black pot.

  “May I help you?”

  A blond-haired vampire who hadn’t been there a half-second ago was sitting primly behind the large black desk, with elbows resting on the desktop, fingers laced. He had a pair of half-glasses perched on his long, narrow nose and looked vaguely familiar—one of Dixon’s henchmen, no doubt. The engraved nameplate at the edge of the desk said Anson Hale and I regarded him carefully. He did the same with me.

  “I’m here to see Dixon,” I said, puffing out my chest a little bit.

  Anson stiffened in his desk chair and then dropped his head, pretending to study a calendar. “Do you have an appointment?”

  Anson’s words dropped off behind me as I stormed past him, heading straight for Dixon’s office. I had flung the door open and was staring, openmouthed, at Dixon and Nina when I felt a cold, viselike grip on my shoulder, felt the pinch of Anson’s icy fingers against the flesh at my throat. He yanked me backward and I felt his nose brush up against my chin. Then I realized he was poised to sink his large fangs into my neck. I felt my blood pressure drop and my bladder fill up.

  “Anson!” Dixon’s voice was loud and firm. The second the word was out of his mouth Anson’s fingers left my shoulder, and I felt myself slump, my muscles exhausted after clenching so desperately even for those few seconds. My blood slowly restarted to circulate and I panted.

  Dixon was still poised and unfazed, but Nina’s eyes were huge and desperately black. What are you doing? she mouthed.

  “You must not bite our visitors,” Dixon said as he straightened his cuffs.

  Anson’s lip curled angrily. “Well, she wasn’t listening to me.”

  Dixon’s eyebrows went up sharply and Anson slumped away. I took the opportunity to look around the office—Pete Sampson’s old office—and stamp back the flood of emotion. The once chocolate-brown walls were now a deep burgundy. The twelve-foot panel of cement and rebar-reinforced back wall that once housed Mr. Sampson’s evening chains was painted over, the holes in the walls patched, the eyebolts replaced by ugly pictures of English foxhunts. I briefly wondered if they were a slight.

  “Now, Miss Lawson, please don’t take this the wrong way, but your employment has been terminated.” Dixon turned to Nina, his thin lips pursed. “Did Nina not make that clear?”

  “Oh, no, Nina made it very clear. That, and that you don’t think I’m UDA material.”

  Nina put down the clipboard she was holding and took a few steps toward me. “Sophie, you have to understand—”

  “I understand that you are siding with this—this monster over your best friend. I am not just UDA material—I am UDA!”

  Chapter Twelve

  This seemed to amuse Dixon and he crossed his long arms in front of his chest. “You may have been back when Pete Sampson was alive. This is a whole new era for the Underworld Detection Agency, Sophie. Times are changing.” He cocked his head patronizingly. “You understand, don’t you, dear?”

  I felt a snarl of anger as I looked from Dixon to Nina. “No, I don’t understand.” My teeth were clenched. My fists were clenched. And suddenly I had no idea what I planned to say to Dixon. All the expletives and polysyllabic words flew out of my head. “You can’t fire me,” I started.

  Dixon’s lips and eyebrows resettled to a look somewhere between amusement and surprise.

  “The UDA won’t run without me.”

  At that moment Anson came slinking back in, dropping a thick file of demon transfer forms onto Dixon’s desktop. Both our eyes skimmed the bulging file.

  “You were saying?”

  Nina stepped forward and put her hands on my crossed arms. “Sophie,” she said, her voice uselessly low, “don’t do this.”

  I shrugged off her cold hands and felt the anger glitter
in my narrowed eyes. “Traitor,” I spat.

  I spun on my heel and sped through the door, leaving a stunned—or amused, I wasn’t sure—Dixon and Nina in my wake. I was huffing and my eyes were watering by the time I hit the main hallway and ran into Lorraine, Kale skittering behind her. Lorraine threw her arms around me.

  “Sophie! We miss you so much! Are you back?”

  I sniffed into Lorraine’s shoulder and she pushed me away delicately. “Oh, honey, what happened?”

  “I hate that stupid vampire!” I huffed, wiping my eyes on my shirtsleeve. I looked around at the smattering of demon faces and gave Lorraine a quick squeeze and peck on the cheek. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Are you coming back?” I heard Lorraine ask the back of my head.

  I wagged my head in defeat, and mashed the elevator’s up button.

  I alternated between tearful rage and tearful defeat as the elevator heaved up floor by floor. When the doors opened on the police office vestibule I was back to hopping mad and I made a beeline for Alex’s office.

  “I need a job!” I yelled, once I found him at his desk.

  He looked up with a sly grin. “And what are your qualifications?”

  I flopped down in his visitor’s chair and glared at him. He held his hands up, seeming to shrink behind them. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk about—”

  The snarl that I felt roil through me must have been audible because Alex dropped his hands and used one of them to rake through his dark curls.

  “Okay, okay; what’s going on?”

  I frowned. “Dixon fired me.”

  “Again?”

  I felt my eyes tear up again. “Not again. He just wouldn’t give me my job back.”

  Alex sucked in a slow breath and I crossed my arms. “What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

  “Ophelia.”

  I felt the anger flail again. “Ophelia? I don’t want to talk about Ophelia!”

  “I think she has something up her sleeve. I’m worried that she’s coming up with something big.”

  I snorted. “Something big? Look, Alex, I know you’re all ghostly pale about your ex-girlfriend’s supposed powers, but so far all she’s done is throw around a few bugs and kick in my door. If she were really the murderous beast you tell me she is, wouldn’t she have done a little more than the hamburger flea circus?”

  Alex came around his desk and sat on the arm of my chair, patting my shoulder gingerly. “Look, Lawson, you’re pretty worked up. Why don’t you just go on home and get yourself together—”

  I couldn’t hear the rest of what Alex said for the steam blowing out of my ears. “Are you seriously going to patronize me right now?” I stood up, grabbing my shoulder bag and sending Alex wobbling to maintain his balance.

  “I swear, you guys are all the same. It’s like one giant dead boys’ club around here and I can’t stand it!” I tore out through Alex’s office doorway. “I swear to God I’m going to strangle somebody!”

  It was just after lunchtime by the time I got back to my apartment, cried, stomped on Nina’s leather jacket, and finished an entire box of Easter chocolates in an egg-shaped box.

  Once the nuts-and-chews sugar rush subsided I decided to be proactive and got online. An hour later I had trolled the Internet and applied for jobs anywhere from Highly Organized Executive Assistant Needed to Food Tester Wanted. It wasn’t exactly that I lived paycheck to paycheck; it was more that paycheck to paycheck didn’t even begin to cover the bills. I huffed out a sigh and rummaged through the cupboards and fridge, hoping to find a leftover Santa-shaped box of chocolates. Finding none, I pulled a half cantaloupe and a carton of cottage cheese out of the fridge. I frowned when I heard someone clear her throat.

  “Nina?” I called. “Are you back to stomp on my heart? Maybe you’d like to eat my new puppy?”

  “Sophie! Down here!”

  ChaCha looked up at the counter, shrieked, and ran out of the room. The last I saw of her was her tiny, rug-rat butt sliding under the couch. I looked down at my cantaloupe and let out an annoyed groan.

  “Seriously, Grandma? In my lunch?”

  “It’s not like I have a lot of options, dear. You really should clean up around here. Trying to find a shiny surface where I can catch your attention is a feat. When was the last time you dusted?”

  I assumed that any other person would be thrilled to see the image of a departed loved one wherever she might manifest herself. I, however, preferred my otherworld manifestations to show up after I’d had enough coffee. Or scotch. That, and I wasn’t too keen on having my housekeeping judged by a woman in a cantaloupe.

  “Do you have more news for me?” I asked, pouring myself a mug of coffee.

  “It’s good to see you, too, darling,” Grandma said haughtily.

  I smiled into my cantaloupe. “You, too, Gram. Really. I’m sorry. It’s just that this whole thing is horrendous bordering on ridiculous. I got fired, people are trying to kill me... .”

  “You’ve been fired?”

  Good to see Grandma was concerned with what counted: my employment status over my still-alive status.

  “Yup. Apparently I’m not UDA material.” I scooped a heap of cottage cheese into my mouth and licked the spoon.

  Grandma harrumphed. “Well, I wish I had better news. I’ve been poking around to try and find some information on this Ophelia character, but everyone is just so—so pious here. It’s hard to get anyone to shovel any dirt.”

  “I appreciate you trying, Gram.”

  “Now about that Alex ...”

  I put my spoon down, could feel the flutter of my stomach. “You have information on Alex?”

  “No. I was hoping you could give me some.” Grandma grinned, her grey-white eyebrows raised.

  I rolled my eyes. “No. But how was your bingo game with Ed McMahon?”

  Grandma waved her hand dismissively. “Not everything I thought it would be.”

  Just then the phone rang and Grandmother gave me a finger wave before disappearing. I eyed the cantaloupe half and then rolled it into the sink, my stomach souring at the thought of chewing on my grandmother’s face. I slurped another spoonful of cottage cheese and chewed while I answered the phone.

  “’Lo?”

  “Sophie Lawson, please.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “My name is Elizabeth Wells. We received your online application this morning and we’re hoping you could come in for an interview. This afternoon. I know it’s rather short notice... .”

  “No,” I said, swallowing quickly, “not at all. I would love to. What firm did you say you were from?” My mind reeled, counting back over the heap of applications I had filled out this morning. The law firm? The accounting place? The San Francisco Chronicle?

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m calling from People’s Pants.”

  My heart sank. People’s Pants was a discount clothing store in China Basin; it was one of the last applications I filled out after I had done the math in my head and realized that my savings account would last me for a good, solid twenty minutes of unemployment.

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

  The city of San Francisco is technically seven square miles from borders to bay. That means, of course, that it takes a good thirty minutes to get just about anywhere in the city, depending on bus schedules, traffic, weather conditions, and the Earth’s magnetic pull. I climbed into my car with a printed Google map in hand and pulled out into traffic, negotiating my way between Muni buses, wide-eyed tourists, and the occasional gruff man in a collar and leash being walked by a dominatrix. My little Honda heaved its way up steep grades, and I bit the inside of my cheek as I hit a stoplight at the top of a straight-up hill, saying a quick prayer and taking the leap of faith that the road would continue as I veered over the edge. I let out my breath and watched the hulking mansions of Pacific Heights slide by, then edged my way around the stands
till traffic of cars with out-of-state license plates lined up to traverse the red-bricked switchbacks of Lombard Street. I was enjoying the quiet quaintness of Chestnut Street when I glanced back at my directions and cursed up a blue streak, realizing I had spent the last twenty minutes going in the exact opposite direction of People’s Pants.

  “Freudian slip?” I murmured to the empty car. I double-checked the address again and aimed toward China Basin, dreading my destination even as my car crept closer.

  China Basin is built on a landfill, and People’s Pants seemed to be stocked with garments suitable for said landfill. I wound my way through racks and racks of polyester pants with permanent pleats, stretch pants in colors never found in nature, and heaps of velour track suits in cotton-candy colors, my heart sinking with each gruesome discovery. Though I had given myself a reasonably peppy self-talk in the car, I felt the betraying sting of tears starting to form behind my eyes as I approached the register. I clutched my briefcase a little harder and convinced myself that People’s Pants was a mere stepping stone. I might start as a floor manager or some kind of junior buyer, but before long the People’s Pants Corporation was bound to applaud my moxie, admire my swift organizational and people skills, and move me up to a position that I wouldn’t have to lie about at parties.

  By the time I found the cash register, I was feeling quite good about eventually taking over as People’s Pants’ first female CEO. I put my hands on the counter and beamed at the young woman who was slouching behind it, picking at her cuticles. Her brilliant blue hair was done up in Medusa braids and her pale face was pierced everywhere that wasn’t covered with deathly white pancake makeup.

  When she didn’t look up, I cleared my throat and repasted on my newly acquired corporate-friendly smile.

  “Everything with a green label is two-for-one. Higher-priced item prevails,” Medusa braids said without looking up.

  “Oh, no, I’m not a shopper.” I stood up a little straighter, held my briefcase close to my crisp white shirt. “I’m here for an interview. With Elizabeth?”

  The human pincushion looked up slowly, revealing flat brown eyes lined with thick black pencil, making her look both whorish and sleep-deprived.