Under Wraps

Chapter Twenty-Five

He had a shock of my hair wrapped around his knuckles, yanking so that my chin rose toward the ceiling and my neck stretched and elongated uncomfortably.

“Please,” I murmured, my eyes traveling to his glistening fangs as they pressed hungrily against the corners of his mouth. “You’re getting soap in my eye.”

Gerard angrily slapped the faucet off and draped a towel over my head; I could hear his sigh from under my pink terry cloth towel.

“All you breathers ever do is complain,” he moaned, wringing my hair in the towel. “Where’s Nina with my lunch?” He eyed my neck again, and I felt myself inch a little farther back in my chair.

Gerard was a recent UDA hire. He had transferred in from our Los Angeles office as part of the new team called in to keep things flowing in Mr. Sampson’s absence. In addition to being the executive assistant to our current UDA head, he was the king of the makeover. Or so Nina had convinced me.

Gerard and I were set up in the UDA bathroom, and today, in addition to running a meeting on how to handle a group of unruly banshees terrorizing the Castro, he was in charge of turning my carrot-colored hair into a lush mane of rich auburn during today’s lunch hour.

“How does it look?” I asked, sliding the towel from my head and beginning to turn toward the mirror.

Gerard’s eyes widened, and if he had had any blood in his undead cheeks, I’m confident it would have drained. He put both his hands on my shoulders and smiled a bright, dazzling smile, fangs bared.

“You can’t look until it’s all finished,” he said. “Stylist’s rules.” He pushed me down hard into the office chair Nina had wheeled in. Gerard chewed his lower lip and cocked his head, using a long, slender finger to brush a lock of pink hair from my shoulder.

A lock of hot pink, finger-in-a-light-socket-frizzy hair from my shoulder.

“What the—?” I sprang up, kicking my chair out from beneath me, and glared in the mirror.

“Holy crap!” Nina exclaimed when she kicked open the bathroom door. I turned around and her pale hands were pressed hard against her mouth, her coal-black eyes wide. She looked desperately from Gerard to me. “You look fabulous!” she finally squeaked, her brow pinched.

I swung back to the mirror, my heart thundering in my chest. “I look like a troll doll. My hair is pink. Hot pink!” I tried to run my fingers through the cotton-candy mess. “And it’s curly.”

“Well,” Nina said, fluffing the mess affectionately around my shoulders, “you said you wanted a change, and it is certainly … different.”

Gerard frowned at the empty tubes of hair color dumped in the sink. “I have no idea what went wrong,” he said. And then, quickly, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Really, you do look smashing. It really brings out your eyes. You know, the red part.” He smiled politely. “I like it.”

I blinked at the pink halo in the mirror. The hot pink mess made my pale cheeks paler, my red eyebrows redder, and the lime Jell-O green of my eyes that much more limey. “I don’t know what I expected,” I sighed, plopping down into my desk chair. “Nothing ever goes my way.”

“Oh no,” Gerard said, carefully brushing a lock of his immortally perfect blond hair from his bony shoulder. “Here we go again—pity party. Nothing works out for Sophie. Sophie was almost killed by the power-crazed chief of police. Sophie fell in love with a dude who turned out to be a fallen angel. Sophie’s the only employee at UDA who actually breathes. Whine, whine, whine, whine.”

So, Gerard was right—kind of. But this wasn’t going to be a pity party.

My lower lip stuck out, and I could feel the moist heat of tears beginning to form. “I’m not having a pity party,” I huffed.

Nina perched herself delicately on the arm of the chair and went to pat my head, thought better of it, and patted my shoulder instead. “I know you’re upset about Alex, Sophie. But it’s not like it would have worked out between you two anyway. He’s a fallen angel and you’re … you. You know, regular.”

I frowned. “You really need to work on your pep talks.”

“Besides,” Nina continued. “I think the pink is very chic. I’m sure your date will love it!”

My stomach dropped. My date.

Generally, there are two things I don’t do: date, and sing in public. But since I had been a little bit hermitlike since the whole Alex Grace/chief-trying-to-kill-me incident, Nina had cajoled—cajoled, pleaded, begged, forced, kicked—me into accepting a date with the sweet, unassuming UCSF resident who had moved in upstairs from us.

It was either that or perform a half-vamp mash-up of “I Will Survive” and “Brick House” at a demon karaoke bar. I chose the lesser of two evils.

“Ahem.”

Gerard, Nina, and I all swung our heads to the open bathroom door as Lorraine poked her head in, her mane of enviable, honey-colored locks swishing smoothly over her shoulder, Costineau circling territorially around her feet.

“Nina, you’re needed up front.” She grinned shyly at Gerard. “Hi, Gerard.” Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed when she saw me. “Oh. Wow. Sophie.”

Nina and Gerard filed quietly past Lorraine, and I rushed toward her, gripping her arms. “Lorraine, can you fix my hair?” I begged. “Please? It’s pink. It’s pink.”

Lorraine stepped in the bathroom, letting the door snap shut behind her. “I don’t do hair,” she said apologetically. “Besides …” She tried to brush a finger through my candy mess, but it stuck. She had to yank to remove it. “It’s really … perky.”

“No.” I wagged my head. “Spell it out! Magic it out! Anything!”

Lorraine raised both her eyebrows, and I slumped down in my chair. “Oh. Right,” I muttered. “Damn magical immunity. Thanks anyway.”

I pulled a hat down low over my forehead and glared out the window. Leave it to the weather gods to open up the rare portal of San Francisco sunshine the one day I actually needed to wear a hat. I was back at my apartment after spending the final three hours of my workday being goggled at by trolls, centaurs, and three Kholog demons and spending another day staring at my phone, pretending I didn’t want it to ring. Pretending that I wasn’t waiting for a phone call from Alex.

“Nice,” Nina said as she walked in the front door, Vlad following sullenly behind her. “I hear the bank robber look is very in this fall.”

Vlad tried to keep up his brooding countenance, but even he couldn’t keep his eyes from widening when he saw the wisps of pink hair poking out of my hat.

I narrowed my eyes at Nina. “This is all your fault.”

“The pink hair or the date?”

“Both.”

She yanked open the refrigerator door and pulled out a blood bag, tossing it to Vlad, who punctured it like a Capri Sun. They both drank and stared me down while I glowered in the corner.

“Couldn’t you just let me be a hermit?” I moaned. “I never make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Nina sucked the last of her blood bag and patted me on the shoulder, heading for the front door when the bell rang. She snatched the hat off my head. “You’ll thank me for this,” she said, pulling open the door and shoving me through.

Eric’s eyes widened as I mashed up against his chest. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Nina, my roommate is—” I looked behind me as Nina slammed the door shut. I pasted on a reassuring smile and turned to Eric. “Are you ready to go?”

Eric Bowers was all California surfer: disheveled, sandy-blond hair, ocean blue eyes, and berry-stained lips set in golden, sun-kissed skin. He was lanky, thin, and wiry, and had no problem filling out the pale blue button-down and pressed chinos he was wearing.

“Wow,” he said, his blue eyes studying my hair.

“Oh, it’s—”

“No, no. I mean, you look great. That’s a nice dress. Why don’t we go?”

I nodded gratefully, and Eric walked me to his car.

As we drove to the restaurant, I squinted into the darkened streets, my heart skipping a beat. I sucked in a sharp breath and bonked my head against the passenger window.

“Are you okay?” Eric asked.

I rubbed my forehead. “That was stupid.” I forced a smile. “I thought I saw … an old friend out there.”

An old friend. Huh.

I thought I saw Alex. Alex Grace, angel: fallen from grace, destined to walk the earth until he made his peace with heaven, buns of steel, lips that made my mouth water just thinking about them. Alex Grace who had walked out of my office and disappeared into thin air.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Eric asked again. “You look a little glazed.”

I hoped the heat radiating through my body wasn’t apparent, and I clamped my knees together. “I’m fine, thank you.”

I glanced over my shoulder out the window again and sighed when the man I thought was Alex turned and grinned a toothless, definitely not-Alex smile.

It had been six months since Alex left San Francisco, and I had been mostly fine until about two days ago. Suddenly, I saw Alex everywhere. He was the barista at the Starbucks on Geary. He was eating a ham sandwich at Mel’s on Lombard. Folding laundry at Wash’n Royal on Fillmore. Walking a three-legged beagle on Chrissie Field.

I turned to Eric and forced a smile. “So, Eric, tell me a little about yourself. We’re neighbors, and other than the fact that you read the New York Times, I don’t know anything about you.”

Eric smiled, and I liked the stern set of his profile. “I get the New York Times,” he said. “I rarely have time to read it. I’m a resident over at UCSF. Um, I’m from Pacifica, on the coast, originally. I like long walks, puppy dogs, and thunder showers turn me on. Now you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Thunder showers, huh?”

He waggled his eyebrows.

“Okay, well, I’m not particularly turned on by weather patterns, but puppies are all right. And I’m originally from”—I pointed toward the red glow of the towers on Twin Peaks out through the front windshield—“over there.”

We drove in uncomfortable silence for a moment until Eric tried again. “So, what is it that you do for a living, Sophie?”

Oh, right.

Well, Eric, I considered saying, I work at a demon detection agency. My boss—recently gone missing—is a werewolf. There’s blood in the office fridge, someone brought eye of newt to the office potluck, and I know, firsthand, that it is nearly impossible to get hobgoblin slobber out of linen.

“Oh,” I said instead, “administrative. But you’re a doctor—that sounds way more interesting. Tell me about that.”

I listened to Eric describe his medical career all the way to the restaurant, and pasted on a smile as he continued while the maitre d’ showed us to our table. I tried to keep my eyes focused on Eric’s shiny, disheveled hair while a guy, who looked very much like Alex Grace, bussed the table over Eric’s left shoulder.

“Could you excuse me for a moment?” I asked Eric, breaking into his breathtaking description of the cyst he had lacerated yesterday.

When Eric nodded, I crumpled my napkin and hurried to the women’s restroom, my stomach in knots, my palms sweating as I rubbed them against the Banana Republic sheath dress I had borrowed from Nina.

“You’re not here, you’re not here, you’re not here,” I muttered as I sank down on the toilet seat, my index fingers making manic circles against my temples. “You’re a figment of my undersexed imagination.” I clamped my eyes shut. “Figment of my imagination …”

“Are you through?”

I opened one eye, and my heart dropped to my knees as figment-Alex, now in the women’s restroom stall with me, raised an eyebrow.

“What?” I stood up, the backs of my calves ramming against the cold toilet, the automatic flusher going crazy. “You’re not here,” I tried, jabbing a shaking finger at figment-Alex. “You’re not here….”

Figment-Alex grinned and took my index finger in his hand, kissing the tip. His lips were warm, moist, and they felt very real.

“Alex?” I asked, my heart starting to thump.

“Hi, Sophie.”

“What are you doing here?” I rose up on tiptoes in a halfhearted effort to look over the stall wall. “You shouldn’t be here. And you really shouldn’t be here, here.”

Alex looked unfazed.

“I have a date out there,” I hissed.

Alex shrugged, looked nonchalantly over his shoulder. “Shall I tell him you’ve been detained?”

“No! No! You can’t tell a guy that I went to the bathroom and never came back. He’ll think I have explosive diarrhea or something.”

Alex leaned an elbow against the stall door. “So tell him you have to end your date because you ran into an ex-boyfriend.”

I could feel my eyes bulge, feel the color rising in my cheeks. “Ex-boyfriend? Look, buddy, you were not my ex-boyfriend, let alone any kind of ex—”

“Buddy,” Alex chuckled, stepping closer to me.

“Boyfriends do not poof! Disappear. And they do not return again in a public restroom. Especially not in the ladies’ room.” I dropped my voice. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“This was the only place I could get your undivided attention.”

I blew out an annoyed sigh. “Not here, here.” I spread out my arms, my fingers banging the stall walls. “Here. In San Francisco. On Earth.”

Alex looked around, the corner of his mouth pushing up in that deliciously annoying half smile of his. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.

I unlocked the stall door, steadied my hands on Alex’s chest, and pushed him out. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh!” A woman pushed through the bathroom door and gaped at Alex and me. “You people are disgusting!” She turned on her heel and sped out of the bathroom, clucking the whole way.

I pointed to the bathroom door as it clapped shut after the disgusted woman. “Isn’t it things like that that are going to keep you out of heaven? Or, wherever it is you’re headed?”

“Sophie, I need your help.”

I glanced at myself in the mirror, frowned at the bright-red blush of my cheeks as the blood surged through. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. You disappeared. Gone—without a trace. Or a phone number.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving the way that I did. I just didn’t think you’d understand. I thought it would be easier if I just … wasn’t there.”

I put both my hands on my hips. “I work in the demon realm. I live in San Francisco. There are very few things that I don’t understand. But, ironically, you disappearing was something that I didn’t understand.”

“I have a chance to go back. To restore my grace.”

“To go back to heaven?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“Heaven?” I said again, one eyebrow raised.

“Can we talk about this, please? Maybe somewhere that isn’t”—Alex looked around the she-she pink powder room—“here?”

I tried my best to stay solid, not to lose myself in the cobalt blue of his eyes, in the firm set of his jaw. “Meet me back at my apartment in about an hour,” I muttered.

Alex grinned. “What about your date?”

“I’ll think of something,” I told him.

Eric was gnawing on a breadstick when I went back to the table.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his mouth full of bread.

“I’m sorry, Eric, but I’m just not feeling very well.”

Eric swallowed, his eyes sympathetic and locked on mine. “Oh.”

“I think I just need to lie down. I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”

Eric stood up, flattened his palm against my belly. “It’s okay,” he said when I flinched. “I’m a doctor.”

“Oh, right.”

“Where does it hurt?”

Eric grinned down at me, and I thought momentarily about how nice it would be to date a doctor. Who breathed. Who came from a place with an actual postal code and who didn’t pouf! into thin air and who wouldn’t (theoretically) sprout wings when all was right with his world again.

“You know what?” I said, sinking down into my chair. “I think it passed. Why don’t we have a drink?”

Eric and I had had two rounds of cocktails and were sharing a crab appetizer when I felt my phone buzzing in my purse. I fished it out, glanced nonchalantly at the readout.

“I’m sorry. It’s my roommate. Do you mind if I grab this? It’ll just be a second.”

Eric wagged his head and I connected.

“Nina?”

“Sophie.”

I lowered my voice, hunching behind my arm. “What do you want? I’m on a date with Eric.”

“I know. Do you know where I am? At home. With an angel. Your angel.”

I dropped my voice. “He is not my angel.”

“Whatever. He’s on my couch. And he said you were coming home to talk to him.”

“I am. Eventually.”

Nina blew out a sigh. “Would eventually be before or after Glee? He might be an angel, but he’s a complete remote-control hog.”

I groaned. “I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

When I got back to my apartment, Nina, Vlad, and Alex were assembled around the kitchen table, staring at each other. I dumped my keys on the counter and walked in, hands on hips. “Okay, Alex, what is so important that you have to pop back into my life and interrupt me on a date?”

Nina swallowed hard, and I sank down into the only empty chair at the table, then slapped my palm against my forehead. “Oh, wait, let me guess—it’s Eric, right? He’s evil? He’s actually Satan or something? Of course. I meet a nice guy who seems to breathe, seems to have regular old blood coursing through his veins, and there is something paranormally wrong with him.”

“No,” Nina said, “he’s a breather.”

“And his blood is fine,” Vlad confirmed.

I grimaced. “Okay, then what is it?”

Alex’s eyes were hard. “It’s Sampson.”

“Pete?” I asked, my voice sounding small. I looked from Alex to Nina. “What about him? Have they found him? Is he okay?”

Nina hung her head, and I felt my lower lip start to quiver, felt the choking lump in my throat. “That’s what you came to tell me?” I whispered. “That Mr. Sampson is dead?”

“Sophie, I’m sorry.”

I stood up so quickly my chair flopped onto the floor behind me. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true. I’m sorry. I hate to be the one to tell you this. You don’t understand how hard it is for me to see you hurt—to make you hurt—again. But I needed to be the one to give you the news.”

Vlad righted my chair, and I sunk down again. “Why? Why did it have to be you? In person?”

Alex opened his coat and pulled a long, thick envelope, folded lengthwise from his pocket. “Because Mr. Sampson wanted to be sure that you got these.” He pushed the envelope across the table toward me, and I just stared at it, until it swirled in front of me, lost in a rush of tears.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s an answer to most of your questions,” Alex said.

My eyes flashed. “So, you saw him? You saw him before he died? Was he okay? What happened to him?”

Alex looked at his lap and wagged his head. “I didn’t see him before he died. This was something I had promised to do long before any of this—even any of this with the chief—ever happened.”

I sniffed and nodded my head, then used my fists to wipe the tears from my cheeks.

“What’s in the envelope, Soph?” Nina asked.

I swallowed heavily, unhooked the latch, and peeled out a tri-folded stack of papers covered in very carefully handwritten script. “It’s from my grandmother,” I said, fingering the paper.

While Alex, Nina, and Vlad looked on, I smoothed the letter against the table, licked my lips, and learned the truth about my life.