Under Attack

Chapter Eight

When I woke up, my bedroom was blanketed in a warm canary yellow. It was comforting, until I realized it was a Post-it note stuck to my forehead. I peeled it off and read Nina’s loopy, bubbled script: Put some Mercurochrome on that scratch. I can smell you from the living room! xoxo Neens.

Did I mention that living with a vampire took some getting used to?

I rolled out of bed and trudged, still half asleep, to the kitchen, where I flicked on the coffeemaker and repeated the slow plod to the bathroom.

“Ahem!”

I glanced into the mirror and sighed. “Grandma, I’m really not in the mood.”

My grandmother’s bushy white brows raised, then furrowed. “What happened to your face?”

“Alex and I got mugged last night.”

Grandma’s milky blue eyes widened and she pursed her bright red lips, the stain of the lipstick sinking into her wrinkles. “What is that city coming to? Used to be a girl and her beau—” Grandma’s eyes flicked back to me. “He is your beau, isn’t he?” I didn’t answer and she prattled on, oblivious. “Could spend a night out without fear of being attacked by some animal. Or some dope-head or some criminal all hopped up on—on marijuana.”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. This”—I pointed to the purpling mask of bruises under my right eye—“is actually from a different incident.”

Another tsking sigh.

I rolled up on my toes and gripped the sides of the sink. “Hey, Gram, can I ask you something?”

“Of course you can, honey. You can ask me anything.”

“Why didn’t you ever get married?”

Grandma’s shoulders stiffened and I could tell that I had caught her off guard. “What are you getting at?”

“Nothing, I just—I don’t remember there ever being ... someone ... in your life ... that way. And Mom and Dad didn’t work out and ...”

Grandma raised her brows. “And?”

I sunk back onto the souls of my feet. “And never mind. I have to get ready for work.”

I didn’t remember dressing myself in charcoal-grey slacks and a black cowl-necked sweater. I didn’t remember driving to work or the six hours that passed between getting there and processing the last demon request—a notice of intention to cease terror—offered up by a fanged creature with an unfortunate underbite.

“You understand that by giving up your right to terrify, you are also giving up all under-bed, dark-corner, and closet access?” I mumbled.

“I just don’t want to be the boogeyman anymore. I’m hoping to get this underbite worked on and I can’t get a dentist to even look at me without the cease notice.”

I stamped his form and sent him to the next line over, then hung my head and rubbed my temples.

Suddenly, I had a pounding headache and the fat velvet ropes that held our daily demons in orderly lines were bulging, and everyone was talking at once—a cacophony of groans, growls, and wailing howls. My blood started to pulse in my veins and my heart sped up to a feverish, sickening pace. My hairline started to prick with little beads of sweat.

“I’ve got to get out of here.”

I slid the closed sign across my window and pressed out of my chair so quickly that I left it spinning behind me. I was making my way toward the elevator when I stopped, taking in a lungful of freesia-scented air.

Ophelia.

Every muscle in my body tightened into a painful spasm and I looked around, panicked. I spotted a snatch of blond hair between two tall centaurs. Her elegant, sun-bronzed shoulder standing out against the stark whiteness of a vampire in line. Her laugh, tinkling in my ear. I shook my head and clamped my eyes shut.

“You’re not here, you’re not here,” I whispered.

I flinched when I felt a cold hand encircle my arm. “Sophie?”

Nina was still gripping even as I tried to flail. She was holding a paper cup filled with water and looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Ophelia,” I managed, my lips dry. “She’s here.”

“Drink this.”

Nina handed me the cup and I stared down into it and then blinked up at Nina. Is it Nina? Even my own hand circling the cup looked foreign to me and I dropped it, feeling the water splash against my ankles as I sped for the elevator. I mashed the CLOSE DOOR button and hung my head as the concerned and confused eyes of the demon Underworld bore into me.

I tore out of the elevator and ran with my head down through the police station vestibule, not wanting to be stopped. When I pushed outside the damp air caught in my throat and dripped down my cheeks. It was then I realized that I was crying.

I’m going crazy.

I doubled over and stared at the blacktop while I took in huge gulps of air. I was hiccupping and shivering, and I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I stumbled until Alex reached out and steadied me.

“Hey, Lawson, are you all right? You took off like a shot from the elevator. Didn’t even stop when I called. Hey, are you crying?”

I sniffled, feeling the itch of my runny nose, and then threw myself against Alex’s chest, letting out a day’s worth of heaving cries. I felt him stiffen and then soften, his arms encircling me, one hand gingerly holding the back of my head, the other patting my back softly.

“Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this.”

I snorted. “I don’t even know what this is. First you show up, and then Ophelia shows up. And then there’s maggots and my door and the mugging and you get stabbed, but you still look like”—I gestured to Alex’s perfectly sculpted chest and broad shoulders—“that and I look like, like crap.” I sniffled and used the back of my hand to wipe at my eyes, then winced when a starburst of pain set off through the bruise. “Ow!”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I dragged you into this.”

“I just”—hiccup, sniff—“want to be”—sniff, sniff—“normal. Or not normal. But not this in-between, my-butt-gets-kicked-and-stays-kicked human. And I want her out of my head.”

Alex pulled me forward, his lips laying feathery kisses across my forehead. “I am so, so sorry, Lawson. I’m going to do everything I can to make it up to you.”

I cried myself to exhaustion in Alex’s office while he dialed Nina at the UDA and asked her to bring up my things. She rushed in, my coat and purse clutched in her pale hands.

“What happened? Are you okay? Did she come after you again?”

“I’m fine,” I whimpered. “My life is just a toilet bowl of despair and I look like a battered wife, but I’m fine. I just want to go home and take a nap.”

Nina smiled sympathetically. “Can I drive you?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. But can you cover for me?”

Nina’s sweet smile turned salacious and she popped a button on her blouse. “You mean distract Dixon until closing? You bet.”

I squeezed her hand. “I can always depend on you to be slutty when it counts.”

Nina gave me a military salute and sped back downstairs.

“You sure you’re okay to drive?”

I nodded again and Alex walked me to the parking lot. “I’m just going to wrap up a few things and then I’ll come over. I’ll pick up dinner and we can figure this out. Don’t answer the door to anyone and don’t answer the phone unless it’s me or Nina.”

I nodded robotically and started to turn, my head a heavy, foggy mess.

“Hey.” Alex took my hand, and I turned to stare at him, my eyes feeling like blank saucers. He kissed my palm and looked at me with kind eyes. “Be safe.”

I had just finished watching my third hour of Discovery Health and had diagnosed myself with sarcoidosis, Morton’s neuroma, and a mild case of dwarfism when there was a quick rap on the door, followed by someone trying the knob. My heart dropped into my stomach and my blood felt warm as I crept—keeping low to the ground—to the door. “Who is it?” I hissed, keeping my distance.

“It’s Alex.”

I raised one eyebrow and my hand hovered over the knob. “Are you sure?”

“Look, Lawson, I’m glad you’re taking my advice with the whole don’t-open-the-door thing, but it’s late and the grease from this takeout bag is eating through my sleeve.

“You brought Bambino’s?”

“Open the door.”

I pushed the door open a few inches and poked my nose toward the opening, sniffing cautiously. The overwhelming scent of garlic and oregano floated up to greet me and my mouth watered. I reached out and snatched the bag, examining it from every angle and sniffing like a patrolling bloodhound.

“Are you satisfied?” Alex asked, coming in and shutting the door behind him. “It’s dinner.”

I examined the dinner-plate-sized grease stain on the side of the bag. “It certainly looks like Bambino’s.”

“Lawson ...”

I put down the bag and put my fists on my hips. “Look, you’re the one who told me to be careful. I think you once even said, ‘You never can be too careful.’ Or maybe that was on Court TV, but either way, I think it’s good advice.”

Alex cocked his head, a half-smile playing on his full, tasty lips. “You’re cute when you’re belligerent.”

“I’m not belligerent.”

Alex opened the bag, removing tinned boxes of marinara-stained takeout. “I’m glad you’re being extra careful, but you know you can trust me.”

Do I? The thought lodged in my cerebral before I even had a chance to challenge it. I tried to shrug it off, to ply it with hunks of cheese-covered bread, but the nagging thought remained.

Alex pointed at me with a handful of plastic utensils. “Here, sit.”

I did as I was told and Alex helped himself to the two plates I owned plus a heap of paper napkins.

“Mangia.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are—were—you Italian?”

It occurred to me then that beyond the cut-glass blue of his eyes and his dark chocolaty hair, beyond his chiseled chest and a light introduction to his supernatural history, I didn’t know much about Alex Grace.

He nodded as he chewed. “Half. On my mother’s side.”

“And your father?”

Alex shrugged, reaching for a fork. “American mutt, I think.”

“Didn’t you know him well?”

Alex put down his fork. “I don’t remember.”

I swallowed. “It’s been that long?”

“When—when you die and come to grace, the events of your death are erased. You don’t remember. The longer you’re in grace, the less you remember about your Earthly life.”

“Well, that seems kind of lousy—having no memories?”

“You have no bad memories. You don’t miss anyone. You just ... are.”

I frowned. “So, how do you know about your parents?”

Alex and I reached for a piece of garlic bread at the same time, our hands touching. He pulled back, then pushed the plate closer to me. “The longer you’re fallen or earthbound, the more you start to remember.”

I nibbled the edge of my bread. “Isn’t that good?”

Alex swung his head. “No. The memories that start to come back—they’re the worst ones. You remember the pain, the hate—the miserable way people treated you.”

I shuddered. “That’s awful.”

“It’s a powerful way to bring people to the dark side. They can’t remember anything good—can’t remember ever being at peace. They get angry, violent.”

“Like Ophelia.”

“Yeah. That’s how he persuades you to take the dark path.”

“He? He like ...”

“The devil.”

I felt a cold shiver—like a shot of ice water—speed through my veins, piercing my heart. “That sounds awful.”

We ate in silence for the next few minutes. I steered clear of the spaghetti—images of maggots kept coming back—but went headfirst into the meat lasagna. I was crunching through my third slice of the ultra-buttery garlic-bread goodness when Nina pushed through the front door, Vlad in tow.

Nina rushed over toward me and threw her arms across my shoulders, tugging me to her marble-cold chest. “Poor thing! Are you doing okay? You looked horrible at the office. Like, like—” I peeled myself away from Nina, wiping my greasy lips on a napkin. “Like that,” she finished.

“Thank you for your concern,” I said, patting her arm softly.

“What happened?” Vlad asked, keeping his distance from the dinner table.

“Sophie was attacked. And mugged!”

Vlad’s eyes widened, and I could see the rise and fall of his paisley silk ascot as he swallowed slowly. “By whom?”

Nina pointed a well-manicured finger in Alex’s direction. “His ex-girlfriend attacked her. But we don’t know who mugged her.”

Alex put down his fork. “We’re working on it.”

Nina crossed her arms, jutting out a single bony hip. “How are you working on it? Because it looks an awful lot like you’re sitting here, stuffing your face, wining and dining my roommate, not out trolling the clouds or galaxies or wherever you angels go when you’re not breaking our pottery.”

“It was an IKEA vase,” I protested.

“How can you just sit there, eating?”

Vlad’s nostrils flared. “Is that garlic?”

Nina pierced him with any icy stare. “Go get the donation clothes. The grown-ups are talking.”

“Oh whatever!” Vlad moaned, stomping all the way to Nina’s room.

I took another bite of garlic bread. “What else do you expect us to do?”

Nina stomped her foot.

Vlad poked his head out of Nina’s room. “Uh, Auntie?”

Nina held up a silencing hand and glared at Alex and me. “We need to be doing something.”

“We’re eating.”

Vlad stepped out of Nina’s room, his arms weighed down with a monster-sized heap of Nina’s discarded couture. “Nina?”

Nina shot him another glare, then focused back on us. “Sophie was practically useless at work today. Can’t you see how this is tearing her apart?”

Vlad stepped out and dumped the load of clothes on the living-room floor. He produced an iPod from his pocket and popped in the earbuds, then disappeared back into Nina’s room, shutting the door with a slam behind him.

I swallowed while Alex fished around in the Bambino’s bag, extracting a handful of red-pepper packets. “We’re going to get to it, but first we have to eat. Not all of us are—you know, dead.”

I poked at the remains of my lasagna and Caesar salad while Alex and Nina bickered.

“We’re close,” Alex was saying. “I know we’re close to finding the Vessel.”

“Yeah, but Ophelia actually has that going-out-and-looking-for-it thing going on. What have we done? Nothing. Nothing!”

“We’re researching,” Alex said, the muscle flicking in his jaw—the way it does when he is desperately trying to remain calm.

There was the faintest giggle—gentle, like the sound of tinkling bells—trilling in my head. They can’t help you, Ophelia’s voice intoned. They don’t even know where to begin. Your little friends have no idea how to deal with people like us. Us, Sophie ... you and I are one and the same.

“I am not dead!” I stood up, my fork clattering to my plate, my chair flopping onto the ground behind me. Nina and Alex’s faces swung toward me.

“Um, Sophie?” Nina asked, her dark eyes wide with alarm.

I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my temples. “It’s Ophelia,” I said, “I can hear her.”

Alex stood up. “Where? Is she here?”

“Here?” Nina scrambled up on the kitchen table, eek-a-mouse style. “As in here?” She crouched down fighter style and clenched her fists. “I’ll kill her.”

“No,” I wailed, pushing my palms against my head. “She’s in my head. I can—I can hear her in there, talking to me. Taunting me. She’s driving me crazy.”

That’s good. Tell them you’re hearing voices. That’s just another nail in the nutty-mortal-girl coffin. They’re not going to save you, Sophie. Not when they think you’re already going crazy.

Nina pointed at me and angrily stared at Alex. “See what I mean?”

“I’m not crazy!” I yelled, feeling the red flush of blood as it rushed to my cheeks. “You’re the crazy one, Ophelia !”

Alex swallowed hard, his eyes intent and holding mine. “She’s in your mind?”

I felt the tears welling in my eyes. “I’m not crazy,” I said, my voice small. “I can hear her.”

“I know,” Alex said, taking my hand in his. “I know.”

I stepped back, shaking my hand from Alex’s. “You have to tell me everything,” I snapped, “everything that fallen angels can do. I need to know what I’m up against with Ophelia.”

Alex sighed. “I already told you.”

“You told me mind reading. Now she’s in my mind.” I crossed my arms. “What else?”

“Well ... we can manipulate your thoughts.”

I stepped back, looked Alex up and down, then leaned close, examining the curve of his chest, the muscular swell of his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I used my index finger to poke his firm stomach. “How do I know you’re not manipulating my reality right now? For all I know you could be some eighty-year-old bald guy with gold teeth and liver spots.”

Alex grabbed my outstretched index finger and pulled me against him, my breasts pressing against his chiseled chest. We were hip bone to hip bone and I could hear—and feel—the rhythmic beat of his heart. Alex’s lips brushed the tip of my ear and I gave a slight, involuntary shiver, relishing the delicious feeling of his closeness, of his breath on my neck. All the pain and fear of Ophelia’s visit was melting away.

“Are you willing to give me the benefit of the doubt?”

I shoved away from him. “Don’t be sexy when I’m seriously trying to be mad at you.”

“Or when your roommate might seriously be in jeopardy of losing her lunch,” Nina moaned.

I steeled myself, gazing at Alex. “Anything else I should know?”

Alex sucked in a breath. “Yes. I guess so.”

I gave him the universal “Spit it out!” look.

“But it’s not about Ophelia. It’s about your father.”

Nina looked up. “Is he dead? You said you didn’t know if he was dead.”

“Is he?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not about that.”

“Okay ...” I said.

Alex avoided my gaze, looked at his hands. “Have you ever considered why you are the way that you are?”

I used the heels of my hands to wipe the last of my tears. “Neurotic? I can think of a few reasons.”

Alex raised his eyes. “No, your ‘power.’”

“Power?”

“Okay, your lack of power. Both your mother and your grandmother had real powers.”

“And I can’t do anything.”

“Not true,” Nina said, finger raised. “I’ve seen you make a pizza disappear. Ba-dump cha!” She held up her palms, played to an imaginary crowd. “Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week ... starting in an hour.” Then she disappeared into her room.

“Not that you can’t do anything—it’s that nothing can be done to you. Magical immunity.”

I shrugged. “So? What of it?”

“Look, you get your traits from both parents, right? Red hair, green eyes.”

I nodded. “Excellent use of high school biology, thanks.”

Alex rolled his eyes.

“Okay, sure, fine, whatever—family traits. But I didn’t get mind-reading abilities. So, what’s your point?”

I didn’t think it was possible for Alex to look even more exasperated, but he did.

“My point is that your father might also be magically immune.”

I wagged my head. “No, my father was one hundred percent grade-A normal.”

“You think. You look pretty grade-A normal and yet you’re magically immune.”

“Okay, so how does knowing my father might be magically immune help us? I mean, it’s not like it’s going to show up on his medical records or on a Google search. And, what does my family tree have to do with finding the Vessel of Souls? Or getting rid of Ophelia?”

Alex looked at the floor and then up at me. “You might want to sit down for this.”

I snorted. “I’m talking to an angel about the father that left me four days after I was born, in my apartment where I saw the image of my dead grandmother in the bathroom mirror. And got beaten up by a fallen angel in a sweater set. I really don’t think there is anything I need to sit down for.”

Alex shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I stared at him. “Well?”

“Lawson, there is only one other known person who is magically immune.”

“And that would be ... ?”

“Satan.”

I sat down with a thud on the couch. “What? Satan? Like the Satan? Are you saying that I could be related to Satan?” I sprang up, went nose to nose with Alex. “Are you saying Satan could be my father?”

“I told you you might want to sit down.”

“Oh, Lord, I need to sit down.” I flopped onto the couch, letting my head sink into the pillows.

“What’s wrong with Sophie?” Nina asked, coming out of her room.

“Her dad might be Satan,” Alex answered.

“Oh. Bummer. Are we out of O neg?”

I sat up and pointed to Nina, who was rooting around in our refrigerator, frowning at a plastic bag of blood. “And that is not the weirdest thing that happened to me today,” I said. “Geez.”

“Hey, Soph, it’s okay.” Alex was crouching down, his muscular thighs flexed, his palm on my knee.

“Totally,” Nina said, tearing open her snack. “There are worse things than being the spawn of Satan.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

Nina and Alex exchanged a panicked glance. “Like, uh, you could be ... help me out here, angel,” Nina murmured out of the side of her mouth.

Alex held up his palms. “Hey, you’re on your own with this one, Nina. I was going to go with the ‘there, there’ form of sympathy. Clean, neat, no promises.” Alex turned back to me, patting my knee and smiling softly. “There, there,” he said.

“At least you know who your father is,” Nina said helpfully.

“Might be. We’re not sure yet.” I looked from Nina to Alex. “Right?”

Alex remained silent and I felt my blood pressure rise. I looked at Alex, aghast. “You knew about this, didn’t you? You know that only Satan had the magical immunity thing going on and that I might have some kind of a connection.”

Alex stepped back, putting up his hands in case I decided to swing at him. “Look, I’ll admit I thought about it—a little. But frankly, it’s really hard to consider that your girlfriend might be Satan’s kid.”

I paused, feeling a tiny prick in my heart. “Girlfriend ?”

Alex immediately pinkened and my heart did a double-thump. “I mean ...”

“No, that’s okay.” I imagined Alex and me pressed up against each other, stealing kisses, holding hands—doing the things that couples did. I imagined my engagement ring and sparkly veil—and my father, Satan, walking me down the aisle.

“Crap,” I muttered. “Still, what does this have to do with the Vessel?”

Nina’s eyes widened. “He’s the other big cheese that wants the Vessel, right?”

Alex nodded slowly and I felt the blood pulsing in my cheeks. “Oh, great. So, not only does Ophelia want to kill me because she thinks I know where this stupid thing is, but now my father, who may or may not be Satan, may or may not want to kill me to get a hold of this thing that I have no idea about.” I put my fists on my hips. “You’re sure there’s not an unsolved murder that we could team up on? You know, maybe work up to this whole fate-of-humanity thing?”

Alex patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.”

I wasn’t so sure. My stomach started to churn and I felt as though my whole world—my whole, Sophie Lawson, demonically normal world—was slipping away. I didn’t know my father, I couldn’t know my mother. My grandmother was gone and I was alone in the world—and now, somehow, I might not be.

I wondered whether it would be better to be an orphan or the daughter of the dark king.

I stood up, surprised my shaky legs could hold me. “I’ll be right back.”

I clicked the bathroom door shut behind me and went to the sink, turning the faucet on. I splashed cold water on my face and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Green eyes gone glassy and cold. Miniscule lashes flecked with tiny droplets of water. Pale white cheeks pockmarked with angry red blotches. The face that I had recognized and scrutinized my whole life through—flesh and blood—and now some of that blood belonged to the devil. Maybe.

The tears started involuntarily. The weight of knowing heaved against my chest, seeming to squeeze out every last inch of air.

I thought of all the images of Satan that I had seen in the past—a sinister, red-faced man with a cleanly cut beard, a prominent widow’s peak, and jet-black hair pushed back. I thought of the cloven feet, the pointed tail, the two sharp horns sprouting on his head. Images of evil, of tortured souls writhing in a fiery hell while Satan gleefully watched on. Satan.

My father, the devil.

My round face and bushy brows were courtesy of my mother. Ditto for my diminutive stature, my stubby toes, and what my doctor politely referred to as “childbearing” hips. What had my father given me?

I bared my teeth—straight, Crest white, supremely human, fang free. I checked my nails—half a manicure, each nail that wasn’t chipped or bitten filed into a neat square. No claws. I wiggled my toes—all ten of them. No cloven hooves.

I had no physical traits of my father—in devil form—so I supposed that was good. And I didn’t consider myself a sadist or anyone who took pleasure in the pain of others except for the occasional schaudenfraude.

So what did it mean to be Satan’s kid?

I glanced back up into the mirror and sucked in a shaky breath, using my index finger to tap the glass.

“Grandma?” My voice sounded small, foreign, and tinny. No one appeared; the only person looking out was me, with red-rimmed eyes and a clutch of fire-red hair. I lifted my hand to knock again, but the thought that my grandmother may have known this weighed on me.

There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door.

I peeled the door open and slipped out, trying to avoid the quiet stares.

Nina looked at me, her eyes registering concern. “We’ve got to do something. Look at you, Soph, you’re upset. This is not okay.”

Nina looked from me to Alex and then widened her stance, slamming her fist into her flat-open palm. “We’re going to do something. We have to do more than just read books. Sophie, I’m going to find Ophelia and we’re going to find out if you’re the spawn of Satan if it kills me. Again.” She nodded her head definitively, crossed her arms in front of her DUDE, WHERE’S MY COUTURE? shirt and stared both Alex and me down with her black eyes.

“The spawn of Satan?” I repeated meekly.

“Oh.” Nina pressed her reverse-French manicured fingers against her mouth. “Satan’s kin. Is that better?”

Frankly, with my working in the demon Underworld and sharing a bathroom with a card-carrying member of the soulless undead, I’d always considered myself more Hell-adjacent, rather than directly in line with anything from the actual dark side. Yet here I was, in my living room, being told that daddy dearest might actually be devil dearest.

“Aw, crap,” I muttered again, massaging my aching forehead.

“Come on, Soph. You’re okay.” Nina shrugged toward Alex. “He’s an angel, I’m a vampire, and you’re—”

I held up a silencing hand and Alex leaned in. “You’re Sophie Lawson, regular girl.”

I smiled softly in spite of myself, relishing the feeling of delicious warmth as it spread through my body. I didn’t even pause to consider that my life was crashing down around me, my father might be responsible for every bad thing that happened in the world, and I was becoming a knock-kneed schoolgirl because a cute boy was being nice to me. “You really think I’m regular?”

Alex cocked his head with that sexy half-smile. “Actually, I think you’re way better than regular.”

I sat up a little straighter, feeling a lump rise in my throat. But whether it was from my newfound family tree or the sweet, earnest expression of my friends, I wasn’t sure.

Nina’s head swayed back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. “Did we really just have a Hallmark moment right now? Sophie might very well be in the clutches of world-ending evil and you’re acting like a couple of eighth graders!”

I shrugged, and Nina used her index finger and thumb to pinch the bridge of her nose and blow out an exasperated sigh. “Am I the only one in the room who isn’t thinking with her genitals?”

“Sorry, Nina. What do you suggest we do?”

“There has to be someone who knows something; there has to be some way to find out more,” said Nina.

“There is. I think I know where to find help,” Alex said solemnly.

“Where?” Nina asked.

“Heaven.”