Under Attack

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 standstill 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.

“You’re the new girl?” she asked.

“Well, no. Not yet. I just have an interview. Is Elizabeth here?” I looked at my watch. “I was supposed to meet her at—”

“You’re the new girl. I’m Avery. Here,” Avery leaned under the counter and tossed a blue smock at me. “This is yours.”

I glanced up and noticed that underneath the Dead Milkmen, Eat Your TV!, and A is for Anarchy buttons, Avery was wearing a similar smock over her black mesh shirt and just-past-her-butt-length plaid skirt. Her ensemble was completed with over-the-knee striped stockings and shoes with soles the size of loaves of bread. I estimated without them, she’d be about nose-height to me.

“So, I’m hired?” I asked.

Avery blew a bubble and snapped it, shrugged. “Guess so. Elizabeth had to study for a final. She told me to show you the ropes.”

“Oh, okay.”

Avery looked again at the smock in my hands.

“Right,” I said, dropping my briefcase and pulling the hideous thing over my head. Avery leaned forward and clipped a red plastic name tag to my smock. It read TRAINEE in big white letters.

“Excellent,” I muttered under my breath.

“Your breaks will be at ten and two, and you can take lunch from twelve to twelve-thirty. You need to vacate the break room between twelve-thirty and one o’clock because that’s my lunch and I have to meditate.”

Avery tried to pin me with a glare, the brown of her eyes picking up the faint sparkle of her heavy dark eyeliner. “Got it?”

“Sure.” I nodded, my eyes wandering to the hunk of quartz suspended from a leather tie around her neck. She fingered it, tapped it with her black-painted fingernails.

“Do you know about the healing power of crystals?” she asked me in her bored, nasally voice. “They are especially good for keeping away evil. There’s a lot of evil in this town, you know.”

You mean beyond the rows of size-twenty-four flower-printed rayon pants? I wanted to ask. Instead I said, “Evil, right. Noted.” And tried to keep a straight face.

Avery blinked at me. “You seem like someone who is closed to the occult. I can read your disbelief all around you; your aura is white, cloudy. You’re lacking a certain consciousness. You have mistrust. People like me”—she closed her bruised-looking eyelids—“are at one with all beings in all worlds.”

I thought of the hordes of centaurs, demons, vampires, zombies, dragons, and banshees I had processed in my time at the UDA. I thought of the blood bags in the office fridge, of my evenings spent chaining up Mr. Sampson before nightfall. I looked around the swarm of people’s pants, and wanted to cry.