Under Attack

Chapter Two

I was sprawled on the couch, eating the peanut-butter part of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when I heard the lock tumble and Nina walked in, dropping her shoulder bag in a heap. Vlad loped in behind her, his shoulders slumped in his black velvet sport coat, earbuds securely clipped in his ears, iPod turned up so loud we could hear the white-noise whir of his music.

“Turn that crap down!” Nina snarled.

Vlad rolled his eyes and snatched his laptop from the kitchen table, then slunk off to the fire escape.

Nina wagged her head as she looked after him, then rubbed her temples. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with him.” Though Vlad was technically one hundred and thirteen, he was forever sixteen.

He poked his head back into the living room and eyed Nina and me. “Do we have any of that AB negative left?”

Moody, grunty, hungry sixteen.

“Check the fridge,” Nina said to Vlad without taking her eyes off me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said to me with a frown.

Nina was my coworker, my roommate, and my very best friend. She was ballerina slim and elegantly tall, with waist-length gorgeous black hair that tumbled over her defined shoulders and highlighted her deep, coal-black eyes. She was the kind of friend I could tell anything to, the kind of girl who always took your side, would stay up nights sharing secrets with you.

And also, she was dead.

Well, undead.

Nina was a one hundred and sixty-eight-year-old vampire and had the pale complexion, penchant for type O neg, and the pointed incisors to prove it.

She was born—the first time—in 1842 and as a twenty-nine-year-old party-girl heiress, she climbed out her bedroom window one night to meet a dark-eyed stranger. Three days and two punctured arteries later, she caused the massacre of the Elpistones army. That was a long time ago and her bloodlust had long ago subsided, being replaced by an insatiable urge for high-end couture. Tonight she was wearing a vintage Guy Laroche cocktail dress with a pair of nosebleed-high leather boots, paired with an Old Navy hoodie and a felt cloche hat. She looked like a page out of Vogue; in the same outfit, I would have looked like a college kid on laundry day.

“No ghosts,” I said, still studying my sandwich. “Alex.”

Nina sat down with a start on the coffee table. “Alex Grace?” She whipped her head around. “Where is he? Is he here now? I want to kick that son of a bitch’s—” She paused. “Unless you’re back together, then we should all go out and get drinks.” She grinned, her small fangs pressing against her bloodstained lips.

I clicked off the TV. “He wants my help.”

Nina’s eyebrows shot up. “Another mystery? Ooh, I want in.” She clapped her hands. “What’s going on now? Murder? Mayhem? General mystical unruliness?”

“Heaven stuff.”

“Boo.” Nina cocked her head, considering. “Well, I guess that could be fun. So, where’s Alex now?”

I shrugged. “Wherever angels go when they’re not here. Or, back to the police station. I don’t know.”

Being a fallen angel came with all sorts of otherworld perks, but it didn’t come with a paycheck. To keep himself in cloud pillows and ambrosia (okay, beer and pizza), Alex kept his bank account padded with occasional work with the San Francisco Police Department. To them he was an undercover FBI field agent whose long disappearances were chalked up to hush-hush cases in the field; to me he was just annoyingly undependable.

Currently, San Francisco was Alex’s home base. His paychecks and credit card bills went to an apartment he kept in the Richmond district; I happened to notice the address on a piece of mail that was inadvertently left in my apartment (after it fell out of Alex’s office). When I happened to drive by the Turk Street address, I found it was an empty storefront with newspaper-covered windows and a heap of Target ads and Safeway circulars jammed in the mail slot. I hadn’t gotten around to asking Alex about his fake address—mainly because he never asked me if I’d stolen any of his mail.

“I just don’t know if I want to get involved,” I said.

At one time I had considered Alex and my dead/undead relationship passionate and romantically star-crossed; now I considered it hopelessly dead-end.

Mostly.

There was something about his sexy half-smile, his lush, pink-tinged lips, and my dating drought that made me swoon in a way that brought a blush to my cheeks, a tingle to my nether regions, and made me deeply consider the benefit of one-night stands.

I readjusted myself on the couch and tried to remind myself that losing Alex the first time was gut-wrenchingly, Lifetime-television bad. I didn’t know if I could—or wanted to—go through it again.

Nina cocked her head, picked a glob of jelly off the lapel of my bathrobe. “You mean because you’re so busy here.”

I tried to glare. “I mean I’m not sure if I want to get involved with Alex again. The last year has been so ...” I let the word trail off and tried to avoid Nina’s annoyed stare as self-pity ballooned in my chest.

“The last year has been so what? Ordinary? You may not have been hung up by your ankles lately, but you’ve also managed to watch the entire seven seasons of The Golden Girls multiple times. And”—Nina held up a single index f inger—“you’ve alphabetized our spice rack. Twice. If that’s not a body calling out for a little extracurricular activity, I don’t know what is.”

I remained unconvinced—and gun shy. I had fallen hook, line, and sinker for Alex’s baby blues once, and after a few steamy scenes he disappeared for six months without a word. When I finally got over the heartbreak and stopped listening to mopey love songs, Alex popped back into my life—this time, with bad news.

“It’s not like the relationship is going to go anywhere. He wants to go—” I paused, looking for the right word. “Back.” I sighed miserably. “Last I heard Heaven-to-Earth long-distance relationships didn’t ever pan out too well.”

“So it’s destined to be a dead-end relationship?”

I nodded.

“Even more reason to jump in with both feet and no panties on!”

I licked some peanut butter off my index finger and blew out a tortured sigh. “Why even bother if you know a relationship is doomed from the get-go? It’s just asking for heartbreak.”

“And a few steamy months of hot, sweaty monkey love.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Nina stuck out her tongue. “Oh, come on. All my relationships are doomed. Or damned. Besides, just working with the guy isn’t going to get you all hot and bothered. Is it?”

I avoided Nina’s gaze but couldn’t avoid the telltale blush that crept over my cheeks.

“Slut!” I eyed Nina’s gleeful face and she rolled her eyes. “Really, Sophie. What’s there to be worried about? He’s a lovely specimen of manhood; you’re a museum-quality specimen of undersexed womanhood. Don’t they say—what is it?—better to have gotten a little and lost, than never to have gotten a little at all.”

“Poetic.”

Nina poked her foot in between the couch cushion and wiggled her toes underneath my backside. “Whew. Just checking. Wanted to make sure you and the couch weren’t sharing a bloodline. Ooh, that reminds me, I’m hungry.”

I swatted Nina’s foot away and stood up. “You suck.”

“It’s what we do.” She grinned. “So we’re helping?”

I pursed my lips. “He’s coming over tomorrow night.”

I watched as Nina’s libido-meter went up to her ears. “We’ll have to go to Victoria’s Secret at lunch.”

“It’s purely a business meeting,” I said. And then, with a quick lick of my lips, “For now.”

Nina grinned and socked me in the shoulder. “That’s my slutty friend.”

I rolled my eyes and Nina prattled on. “We need to get all our excitement in while we can. This is just between you and me, but I heard that the new UDA management will be in place soon.”

“Hey! That was supposed to be between me and Lorraine !”

Nina tugged her ear “Vampire perk. It’s not like I can turn off the supersonic hearing.”

I glared and she relented. “Okay, fine. Just between you and me and Lorraine. And Vlad. And the operations staff. And I guess some of the VERMers. Anyway, I’m going to find out everything I can about this new management guy. I have worked too long and too hard to let some new demon come in and tell me how to do my job.”

I grinned, both at Nina’s stern determination and her belief that she worked either long or hard.

The next morning I was out the door before Nina came home from her night out. I hurried to my favorite Philz Coffee and let the scent of roasted beans and caffeine wash over me when I pulled open the door. By the time I got to the front of the line, the warm, comforting feeling of coffee and croissants was replaced by the eerie feeling that I was being watched.

While most women would get the “someone’s watching me” feeling and scan the room for the hot barista or the well-dressed businessman giving her the eye, this was my life, which meant my first reaction was to search for a fire-breathing dragon, homicidal vamp wannabe, or a three-foot-high troll hell-bent on making me his wife. Oddly enough, it was none of the above. The staff and clientele of Philz was above-ground normal—dog walkers with rolls of plastic poop bags sticking out of their pockets, pseudo-exercise gurus in track suits and pristine Coach sneakers, businessmen with slick striped ties and impeccable hair. No one seemed to be paying me any mind, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling. My whole body hummed with an uncomfortable awareness, and when the barista asked again to take my order I jumped, then bit my lip and offered him a shy smile.

“Sorry, I just ...”

The barista seemed far more interested in the blond woman behind me so I forwent the explanation and ordered my coffee, then offered him a crumpled bill. I shuffled to the end of the bar and waited for my drink, the awkward, uncomfortable feeling not waning.

“Customer service is really not his strong point,” the guy beside me said, nudging his head of ash-blond hair toward the barista.

I jumped, and the guy grinned, his smile wide and comforting. “Tell me you’re getting a decaf,” he said, his English accent clipping his words.

I felt a blush creep over my cheeks. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m a little jumpy. And it’s a vanilla latte, full caff, so ...”

“So I guess they’ll be scraping you off the ceiling by lunchtime.” The guy picked up his coffee, gave me a friendly head nod, and zigzagged through the crowded coffeehouse. When he turned, I noticed the back of his well-fitting navy-blue T-shirt had the red and white San Francisco Fire Department logo on it.

When the barista handed over my cup, I took my coffee and pushed out of the shop. I looked over my shoulder hoping for a second glance at the fire guy, but the blond woman who was behind me in line was blocking my line of sight. She was staring at me through the plate-glass window, her face half-obscured by the lid of her takeout cup as she sipped slowly. Finally, she pulled the cup away from her face and grinned at me, a dazzling, beatific smile that shook me right to the bone.

I pushed open the door to Nina’s office and slumped into her visitor’s chair, balancing my Philz cup in my hand.

“So, I just had a weird experience.”

Nina raised her eyebrows, dropping her sparkly Hannah Montana pen. “Demon weird or mortal weird?”

“Mortal, I guess, but you never really can be sure anymore.”

“So you say,” Nina quipped. “What happened?”

I filled Nina in on my non-run-in with the blonde, and how the heebie-jeebie feeling of discomfort was just now beginning to subside. Nina listened intently, drumming her fingers on her desk, then chewing the end of her pen. I winced when her left fang pierced Hannah Montana’s smiling face.

“I have no idea why it bothered me so much, Nina,” I explained. “She just smiled. A friendly, nice smile and it was like I had been hit in the head with a sledgehammer. It was weird.” I shuddered. “Beyond weird.”

Nina dropped her pen, then steepled her fingers psychologist style. “She was probably an old friend from college who recognized you or something. Or, you probably stand in front of her at Philz like, every day and just noticed her now. Or”—Nina waggled her eyebrows salaciously—“she totally has the hots for you and has been stalking you for ages, and is just waiting to bonk you over the head and drag you back to her chick cave.”

I frowned and Nina sighed. “Really, Sophie, you’re being too paranoid, even for you. You act like every time Alex comes into your life, the world becomes full of goblins or gooblygooks all out to get you.”

I rolled my eyes and downed the last of my coffee, tossing the empty into Nina’s trashcan. “Who—or whatever she was, she gave me the heebie-jeebies. And then when I turned around again, she was gone.”

“Ooh, spooky. A woman gets her coffee and then mysteriously leaves the coffee shop afterward. How chillingly bizarre.”

“Remind me again why we’re friends?” I asked.

“Because I pay half the rent and you can’t kill me.” Nina grinned, her fangs pressed against her lower lip. “So what happened after that? Oh, let me guess—you found Excalibur in your blueberry scone?”

“Fine. Then I won’t tell you that I ran into a hot fireman.”

Nina dropped her pen and her eyes went big and round. I thought I saw a bit of drool at the side of her mouth. “A fireman? Really?” Her eyes narrowed. “I love firemen. They taste so smoky and good.”

I sighed. “And that’s why I can’t have breather friends.”

Nina frowned. “You act like I eat everyone I meet.” She brightened. “Now, do you want to hear my news?”

I held up my hands, resigned. “Do I have a choice?”

“Of course not.” She stood up and closed the door softly. I grinned at the 1950s-style strapless satin cocktail dress that she wore over a Smelly Mel’s T-shirt and topped with a beaded black bolero. She walked noiselessly on Manolo Blahnick cutout stilettos that I know cost more than my car. “I heard about the new staff. They’re going to be here later this afternoon.”

I leaned forward in my seat. “There’s a whole staff? I thought it was just one guy.”

Nina shook her head. “Nope. Latest intel says it’s a whole staff.”

“Intel?”

“Pierre overheard it in the restroom.”

“So it’s reliable.”

Nina nodded.

I sat back, considering. “Wow. So, what did you hear?”

Nina sat on the edge of her desk. “Well, first of all, they’re pro-vamp.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah, from what I heard, the new management team is actually all vamp. All men, too, I think.”

“You must be in seventh heaven.”

Nina looked stunned. “Are you kidding? Vamp men can be such control freaks. And they are so twelfth century when it comes to women in the workplace! Mark my words: This new head-honcho guy thinks he’s going to have all the women here wrapped around his bloodless little finger. No way. I’m going to let him think he’s the boss and then show him who’s really in charge here.”

“And I’m guessing that would be you?”

“Of course it’s me!” Nina exploded. “If that vamp thinks I’m going to give him one extra inch”—she held her thumb and forefinger the appropriate distance apart—“well then, he’s got another thing coming.”

“Noted,” I said, pushing open the office door. “Whoa!”

A swarm of UDA employees ambled down the hall outside Nina’s office door. Nina poked her head over my shoulder and frowned. “What’s going on?”

Pierre, our resident centaur/file clerk, paused in front of us. “Didn’t you hear? Staff meeting. They’re introducing the new management.”

Nina and I shared an eyebrows-up glance. “Really? Already?”

I stepped out into the crowd and Nina followed behind me, hiking up the green satin skirt on her evening gown so she showed an extra inch of firm, pale thigh.

“I thought you were against wrapping people and things around fingers.”

Nina grinned salaciously, repositioning her breasts. “I said he couldn’t wrap me around his little finger. I didn’t say anything about what I’d wrap him around.”

I giggled and linked arms with Nina. We stepped into the demon stream, found Lorraine in the crowd, and glommed on to her.

“So, is there a big announcement or just an intro?” I wanted to know.

Lorraine shrugged, her thin shoulders dusting the bottoms of her dangly jade earrings. “I don’t know, but I heard reorg.”

Nina and I gulped.

“I swear, if I get moved to licensing, I am so out of here.” Lorraine’s emerald eyes were wide and defiant—with just a hint of worry.

Licensing was the bane of the UDA employee’s existence. The licensing department handled all new demon breeds, half-breeds, and cross breeds, plus was the dumping ground for newly made vampires, werevamps, and werewolves. Newcomers—licensed or otherwise—had the tendency to fly off the handle, testing their new powers in weird and damaging ways, which was why the licensing department had an unlimited budget for new waiting-room chairs, curtains, and carpets, since they were set on fire, chewed, or torn on a regular basis.

“You’re accounts receivable. There is no way the new management is going to demote you to licensing,” I told her.

“I don’t know,” Lorraine said, hugging herself with crossed arms. “I heard these guys are pretty shrewd. They really like to shake things up.”

“Please,” Nina said, checking her eternally perfect cuticles. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I have been through so many reorgs. Hell, most of these guys have no idea what they’re doing anyway. They’ll bring in a couple of old buddies from their pre-vamp college days, add a few big-busted breather girls for fang candy, and fire the mail guy so it looks like they’re doing something.” Nina yawned as if the whole situation bored her. “We’re probably dealing with some pasty, round, Pillsbury dough-vamp on a power trip. Small penis, big car, everything back to Hell-on-Earth normal in five days, guaranteed.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lorraine said, rubbing her arms.

“Shh,” I hissed. “Here they come.”

The whole of the staff straightened as the back-office doors slid open and the new head of the UDA stepped out, flanked on either side by well-dressed henchmen whose dark eyes scanned the assembled crowd, their faces betraying nothing.

One of the henchmen stepped forward, straightening his impeccable tie. He leaned against the podium, cleared his throat into the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Dixon Andrade.”

There was a smattering of polite applause as Dixon stepped forward, looking all at once politician slick and businessman savvy.

To say Dixon was a commanding presence was an understatement. He was at least six feet tall with strong swimmer’s shoulders and a long, lean body that gave the impression of careful control. His longish brown hair was carefully slicked back from a wide forehead that was punctuated by thick, dark eyebrows that seemed very comfortably formed into a constant V of consternation and distaste. His pale skin was taut and perfect; his square jaw was set hard but offset by ruby red lips that were pressed into a thin line as he surveyed the UDA staff. Suddenly, his lips broke into a welcoming grin, and a slight hint of color washed over his cheeks.

“So this is the San Francisco staff of the Underworld Detection Agency. Nice-looking group of demons.” Dixon nodded slowly, appraisingly, as the crowd hummed, pleased. I just swallowed and did my best to fade into the background.

It’s not that I was any way ashamed of my non-demon status, nor was it much of a secret around the office—I tended to stick out like a sore thumb, as I routinely bypassed the freeze-dried blood in the office vending machine and opted for the Rice Krispies Treats and Kit Kat bars. I just considered that until the new management got to know me, it might be best to blend into the whole of the group—which is not that easy, considering the majority of the group sported horns, fangs, or hooves. I sported a dress with a slobber stain and a Swatch watch.

“Now I know a lot of you might be worried about a so-called shake-up around here. I am here today to put you all at ease. I know my predecessor, Pete Sampson, ran a tight ship around here and you all have the profit margins”—Dixon held a thick stack of documents aloft—“to prove it.”

A whoosh of relief whipped through the crowd and suddenly the UDA employees were showing signs of everyday life: Pierre was shifting from hoof to hoof, bored. Kale, the mega-pierced apprentice witch to Lorraine was batting her eyes at Nina’s nephew Vlad, who was working hard to ignore her. Eliot, a newly hired werevamp was nonchalantly texting on his iPhone.

“Now, now,” Dixon went on, pale palms up to appease the crowd. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be some changes. Nothing drastic, I assure you. But I do want to get a feel for what you all do around here.” Dixon stressed certain words like an overly sincere politician. I didn’t warm to him.

“I want to know you, your job descriptions, what a day in the life is like for you as a UDA employee.” Dixon flashed a brilliant grin, his teeth impossibly white, his incisors sharpened to terrifying points. I felt my eyebrows shoot up and I stole a glance over at Nina.

Her eyebrows were raised, too; her dark eyes were wide as saucers and transfixed—but it wasn’t the surprise of seeing a pair of sharpened fangs.

It was love.

Pure, unadulterated, “I’d follow you anywhere, Dixon Andrade” love.

“Aw, geez,” I muttered under my breath. “Nina!”

She was leaning forward on her toes, her sky-high Manolo Blahniks raising her up four inches already. Her hands were clasped in front of her heart and every inch of her was still, waiting, watching, like a cat ready to pounce.

“He. Is. Beautiful,” she said, her voice coming out high-pitched and breathy.

“I intend to get to know each and every one of you, and to do that”—Dixon’s eyes scanned the crowd—“I am hoping to enlist the help of the Underworld Detection Agency’s human resources staff.”

Nina thrust her chest out with so much pride that I thought her rib cage would come sputtering out of her. She offered a brilliant, toothy grin—her fangs not nearly as spiked as Dixon’s—and raised one thin arm, waving proudly, Nadia Comaneci-winning-the-gold style. I felt myself cringe, and I was vaguely concerned that Nina might explode with a supernatural combination of horniness and joy.

“I am thrilled to be of service, Mr. Andrade,” Nina purred, her voice a sweet, tender pitch that was usually reserved for puppy dogs and enormous favors.

I leaned forward, whispering in Nina’s ear, “I thought he was a useless Pillsbury dough-vamp?”

Nina looked at me incredulously. “Can’t you see? He’s brilliant!” Nina’s eyes went from stunned wonder to naked want. I thought I saw a drop of saliva teeter on her lower lip.

“I will have ...” Dixon frowned, scanned his stack of papers “Nina, is it?”

Nina nodded with all the restraint of a bobblehead on a dashboard.

“Nina will be scheduling one-on-one interviews with me, which will commence immediately. And with that, the Underworld Detection Agency is ready for business. Demons, man your stations!”

The crowd slowly began to dissipate, a low chorus of grumbles with them, but Nina stood perched, erect, her small hands clapping spastically. “Wonderful speech, Mr. Andrade, just—motivating!” she said.

Dixon grinned at her as he stepped down from the podium and patted Nina gingerly on the shoulder. “You can call me Dixon, Nina.”

Again, Nina’s chest puffed and I vaguely wondered how that was possible, given that the woman hadn’t taken a breath in over a hundred years.

Dixon’s brown eyes set on me and I was entranced by the flecks of gold that danced in them. Though my magical immunity rendered me untouchable by the usual glamours that vampires use to mesmerize humans, I wasn’t above falling under the spell of a good-looking man—undead or otherwise.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Dixon said in his satin-sleek voice. He extended a slim, pale hand. “Dixon Andrade. And you are?”

I took his hand, the bloodless cold of his palm going all the way up to my shoulder. “I’m Sophie Lawson,” I said, pumping his arm.

“Sophie Lawson,” Dixon drew out the words, seemed to savor my name on his tongue. A knowing look flitted across his sharp features. “You were Mr. Sampson’s executive assistant, were you not?”

“That’s right.”

“And she was wonderful with Mr. Sampson,” Nina said, butting in between Dixon and me. “He was absolutely crazy about her.”

Dixon raised one black eyebrow and Nina licked her lips. “In a purely professional way.”

Dixon nodded slowly, his eyes still on me. “Good to know. And lovely to meet you, Sophie. I’ll be seeing you around and looking forward to our interview.”

“Likewise,” I said, my voice sounding thin and weak as Dixon nodded to Nina, then turned on his heel, his henchmen following closely behind him.

“Oh. My. God,” Nina said when Dixon was out of earshot. “I thought I was going to explode.”

I stepped back. “Well, don’t do it anywhere near me.”

“Do you not think that Dixon Andrade is downright yummy? I mean, look at him!” Nina gestured wildly as Dixon got smaller and smaller as he headed down one of UDA’s long hallways. “That is some delicious vamp candy!”

I crossed my arms. “I suppose he’s pretty hot. If you’re into that hot, good-looking, brooding type.”

“With a smile that could melt butter!”

And fangs that could cut glass. “I guess he’s okay,” I finished.