Under Wraps

Chapter One

This was why I didn’t do magic. Well, this and the fact that incidents like this wreaked havoc on my organic cotton-blend wardrobe.

I stood by while Nina perched on her desktop, hands on hips, teeth bared, dodging the singed-hair-smelling puffs of smoke that shot from Mrs. Henderson’s scaled, flared nostrils.

Lorraine, the Gestalt witch and resident UDA Accounts Payable shark, was hopping from foot to foot, muttering a calming spell that made flowers bloom on the desk and then wilt under Mrs. Henderson’s dragon-fire heat.

“Mrs. Henderson,” I said, reaching out to soothe the eight-foot dragon. “I’m sure Nina didn’t mean anything by her comment. If you would just let me help—”

Mrs. Henderson angled a surprisingly well-manicured claw at Nina and jabbed at the air in front of her. “That woman should not be allowed to deal with the public!” she spat, blowing a fireball from between pursed, candy-pink lips.

“Oy!” Lorraine yelped and scampered out the door, patting her smoking scalp while I watched Nina’s small hands ball into fists, her dark eyes agape, glaring at the bowling-ball-sized hole burned into her hand-smocked blouse.

“This was an original!” Nina shrieked.

“Mrs. Henderson,” I tried again.

Mrs. Henderson clapped a claw over her mouth, but I could still see the snaking smile on her thin dragon lips. “Sorry,” she said. “That one really got away from me.”

“If you think that I am going to change my mind, or wear”—Nina wrinkled her nose in disgust—“fire-retardant fabrics to deal with this, this—”

“Client,” I offered.

“Lizard,” Nina spat, “who can’t hold her fire breath …”

I cringed as Mrs. Henderson’s eyes bulged. “Who are you calling a lizard, Nosferatu?”

I ducked just in time to miss a spout of fire that engulfed Nina and fizzled on her cold, marble skin. She sniffed, the charred remains of her singed dress falling off and crackling to the desk, leaving her stark naked, stiletto heeled, and completely bald.

“Why you—”

I watched Nina rise up on her toes, her sharp fangs pressed against her Resolutely Red MAC lip stain.

“Nina!” I stepped in front of her just in time to catch a blast of Mrs. Henderson’s fire. It balled around me, the orange-yellow flames held an inch from my skin. They crackled, white hot, then fizzled out.

Mrs. Henderson frowned, her tail flopping on the floor and upturning my potted spider plant. “I’m sorry about that, Ms. Lawson.” She shrugged, her slick gray-green shoulders hugging her ears. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re immune.”

So, not only do I not do magic, magic can’t really be done to me. So, exit zombie love-slave spells, demonic possession, and Disney princess movies; enter standing in between a stark-naked vampire and an eight-foot dragon on a Tuesday afternoon.

“Mrs. Henderson,” I said, using my most calming tone. “How about if I personally handle all your paperwork from now on?”

Mrs. Henderson eyed Nina and then pinned me with a yellow-eyed glare. “All of it?”

I nodded, holding out my hand. “Every last form. I’m sure we can get this all worked out for you”—I smiled beguilingly at Nina—“with no further problems.”

Mrs. Henderson slapped her paperwork into my open palm. “Okay,” she said, the heat still in her breath. “But expect me to file a formal complaint with Mr. Sampson about her!”

She turned around, sashaying her large, scaled behind out the door, her tail slithering on the floor behind her.

Nina jumped off her desk and shimmied into a lemon yellow sheath dress she yanked out of her handbag. “I swear, that woman!” she muttered.

“Nina—”

Nina raised what remained of her left eyebrow and then rubbed it vigorously until the hair started to grow back. “This is not my fault,” she said. “That woman was smoking. Smoking in my office!”

I sighed. “Mrs. Henderson is a dragon. She can’t really help it.”

“Oh. So I’m just supposed to sit here, breathing all that smoke for minimum wage? Oh, no.” Nina crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Not in this lifetime.”

She wagged her head, enviable locks of glossy black hair sprouting from her scalp, growing until she had a full head of waist-length hair.

I nonchalantly patted my Brillo Pad curls and lowered my voice, trying my best to offer a calming vibe. “Nina, you haven’t breathed in one hundred and sixteen years. You’re a vampire. And we don’t make minimum wage.”

Nina was unmoved. “You breathers are all so literal. Is it lunchtime yet?” She rose up on her toes and peeked over the counter that separated us—non-minimum-wage-making UDA staff—from them—the general demonic public.

“There’s hardly anyone here,” Nina said. “Let’s take a long lunch. Abercrombie is having a sale. And all their male models are topless.” She grinned. “And yummy.”

I looked over the counter and did a sweep of the UDA waiting room. It was crowded, shin to shoulder, with the usual eleven o’clock crowd of minotaurs, gargoyles, Kholog demons, and trolls. I rolled my eyes at Nina, stepped up to the counter, and yelled “Next!”

“Ugh,” Nina said, hopping up onto her stool. “You are no fun.”

By 4 P.M. I had authorized the existence of two immortals, rubbed enough slobber off a hobgoblin’s file to okay his power addition, and de-magicked a Salite witch who was caught trying to torpedo a Carnival cruise after she got salmonella at the captain’s dinner. I glanced at the dwindling line of clients in the waiting room and then out the window, watching the gray of dusk replacing the gray of fall in San Francisco.

“Nina,” I said, leaning over my station. “You’re going to have to grab the rest.” I nodded toward the window. “It’s time to go up.”

Nina blew out a sigh. “Kiss Sampson for me.”

I slid a THIS LANE CLOSED sign across my desk, rummaged through my shoulder bag, and unwrapped a Fruit Roll-Up before heading down the hall toward my boss’s office.

“Just another day in the life,” I muttered under my breath as I skirted the microwave-sized hole in the linoleum where a wizard exploded six weeks ago. Really, could operations be that busy?

Like I said, I don’t do magic. Hell, I don’t even know how to program the DVR. I can’t toss lightning bolts (so very witchy) and my flesh-eating abilities are limited to Popeyes Chicken and the occasional veggie burger. I don’t have superhuman strength or immortality or X-ray vision or even a body that looks all that good in a leather bustier (a requirement for the vampire chicks). I have a goldfish named Tipsy (well, had—there was a run-in with a Llhor demon, but that’s a different story) and an old Honda with a dent in the front. I can type eighty words a minute, make a mean pot of coffee, and chain up a full-grown man in thirty-four seconds flat.

That last one is important, since my boss is a werewolf.

I know what you’re going to say: that werewolves don’t exist. Only, they do. Werewolves, vampires, witches, trolls—pretty much everything you ever feared was under your bed? Yeah, they’re real. But they’re not under your bed. Generally, they’re here: at the Underworld Detection Agency. We’re kind of like the DMV for the demon world—long lines, lots of windows, forms up the wazoo. It’s our job to get all the demons registered, documented, and legal and take care of any Underworld disputes. UDA is pretty forward thinking when it comes to demon life. We’ve got job counseling for the demon who has decided to leave the Underworld careers of terrorizing children and hiding under beds and move to something more permanent and substantial—like working the register at the Pottery Barn on Chestnut Street. We even offer a cutting-edge demon-human immersion program. It usually culminates with an exorcism on the part of the human, but still, it’s a start.

What? You thought that demons were an unorganized bunch? Common mistake. Vampires are obsessive-compulsive. Witches are scatterbrained. Trolls are short tempered (and reek of mold); zombies can’t be trusted for anything and are always losing their forms. Werewolves are organized—which probably explains why my boss, Pete Sampson, is not only the most respected man in the Underworld, but also one of the most respected men up there (that would be the so-called normal world). It also doesn’t hurt that when he’s human he’s got warm, chocolate-brown eyes that crinkle when he smiles, a head full of lush, sandy blond, run-your-fingers-through hair, and a body that holds his Armani suits exceptionally well.

But, I digress.

The Underworld Detection Agency is located thirty-seven floors below the San Francisco Police Department—although most of the SFPD has no idea we’re here. Though the regular world is pretty widely populated by members of the Underworld community, it’s not something either world advertises all that much, lest Hollywood lose its stronghold on the demon-as-horrible-murderous-monster thing. And, there are a whole lot of Underworld inhabitants that solidly frown on dead–undead/human–non-human fraternizing. Something about warm blood and mortality weakening the demon gene pool. Those are the demons that spend most of their time in UDA lines, trying to force legislation that limits crossbreed marriage and touting the benefits of total world demon domination. They’re really pushy.

Demon or not, every morning I pop into the elevator, and when the heavy metal doors open, it’s just another day at the office of the undead.

Down here, amongst the demons, vampires, zombies, and stuff, I’m the anomaly. I’m five-foot-five while standing on a phone book, and I have a shock of red hair that makes me look a little like Kathy Ireland in her pre-K-Mart days or a lot like Carrot Top’s kid sister. My eyes are lime Jell-O green and a little too small—when I was a kid I prayed for the bug-eyed look of a thyroid sufferer with no such luck. The only person in either world with skin paler than mine is my roommate’s and that’s because she’s dead. Well, undead. That’s why I’m the anomaly: short, redheaded, small-eyed, and non-demon. Flesh and blood. Alive. Nina calls us “breathers” or “norms,” and every once in a while a clutch of vampire kids will break away from their sire and bet each other to touch me, shuddering when their cold, dead fingertips brush against my warm arm.

So I know you’re wondering: What’s a nice, redheaded breather like me doing in a place like this? It’s a question I ask myself every day when I’m tucked behind my desk at the UDA, pushing yet another form over to a slobbering hobgoblin who’s eaten the first one.

Well, for starters, my grandmother was a seer. Of the crazy-scarves, crystal-ball, palm-reading type. Which, by the way, made me immensely popular in grade school—as everyone’s favorite kid to pick on. When other kids’ parents were talking new school clothes and soccer uniforms, my grandmother was talking auras and past-life regression. And although I tried my best to distance myself from Gram and wear the stretch pants and BUM sweatshirts of my (fashionably misguided) generation, the giant neon hand with the palm facing out in our front window didn’t exactly scream “regular girl.” So, after growing up in a household where séances were the norm and intuition was gospel, spending forty hours per week with the legion of undead wasn’t exactly a far stretch. Besides, UDA was an equal opportunity (live/dead/undead) employer, and, with vampires making up forty percent of the office staff, dental benefits were amazing.

I was halfway out of my desk when I heard the ding of the elevator and Nina growl, “Well, hello, sailor …”

I turned and stopped dead in my tracks as the elevator doors peeled open and he stepped out. I blinked, taking in every inch of him in slow motion.

He was stunning in a dark blue suit, his shoulders broad, his tie smart and hanging against a trim stomach. His cobalt eyes were scanning the lines of demons, the centaur children milling about the waiting room, the staffers with curious heads poking through their own little glass cutouts. I sighed—then tried to hide it—watching as his dark hair curled sensuously over a strong forehead and licked at the top of small ears, perfect for nibbling. He sucked in a breath, his pink lips puckering gently, and my heart did a wild little tap dance and then sunk deep into the pit of my stomach.

“Hey,” Nina said, strolling toward me. “Check out the norm!” Her ruby lips widened into a salacious smile. “He looks good enough to eat!”

I threw Nina an alarmed look because she’s a vampire and if anyone looks good enough to eat, well, he could be dinner.

“I meant for you,” she breathed, then patted her taut tummy. “I’ve already eaten.”

The guy was tall—at least six feet—and I pegged him as a cop immediately as he assumed the tight stride of an officer on alert. Also, I could see his badge winking on his belt and a gun belt nestled against his waist. (Hey, if my instincts aren’t as honed as they should be, at least my powers of observation are.)

His head was cocked and a U-shaped curl of glossy black hair fell over his forehead. I balled my hands into tight fists as suddenly all I could think about was running my fingers through that luscious head of wavy hair.

The cop’s eyes locked on mine, and I sucked in an excited breath, and felt myself smooth my wild hair—and curse myself for another day of slept-late ponytail style. I straightened the hem on my black pencil skirt and dabbed on some lip gloss before I realized that I was primping.

“You love him,” Nina hissed, her long black hair falling over one angular shoulder. She grinned at me, her eyes coal black and deep set, her mouth open, tongue playing with one razor sharp fang. “You so love him,” she sang, twisting a red pen in her pale, slender fingers.

I rolled my eyes and fought to keep my grin welcoming and professional as the zombie at the front of the line frowned, checking her pockets for her paperwork.

“It was here a moment ago,” she groaned. “I know it was. Ooh!”

“Pardon me,” the cop said, his voice smooth and deep. “May I? I’ll just be a minute.” His dark eyebrows rose up kindly, and it seemed even the zombie went weak-kneed and stepped aside, offering her place in line.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I can’t seem to find my papers anyway. Sometimes I lose my head when it’s not screwed on tight,” she drooled, her milky white eyes locked on him.

“Thank you.” The cop nodded to the zombie and then turned to me. “Hello,” he said, inclining his head of dark curls toward me. “Do you know where I can find Mr. Sampson?”

I had an image of myself climbing up onto my desk, covering the cop’s chiseled jaw and high, rose-colored cheeks with kisses, my fingers tangled in his mass of silky dark curls as my body pressed against his, fitting into the curves of his chest, of his trim, taut stomach, our hearts beating passionately as one….

Instead, I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I smacked it shut, blinking dumbly into the cop’s kind—but confused—face.

Nina shoved me, her bloodless hands cold on my arm. “Sophie works for Mr. Sampson,” she said. “She can take you right to him. She was just going there right now as a matter of fact. Weren’t you, Sophie?”

I tried to glare at Nina, but she was already engrossed with a hobgoblin who was slobbering all over her desk.

“Yes,” I finally forced, “I can take you to see Mr. Sampson.”

I looked up into the cop’s beautiful blue eyes, and although I had no idea what swooning was, I was pretty sure I was doing it. I started to think of the two of us, hands joined, spinning in a meadow somewhere while the theme to Love Story played in the background.

“Miss?” The cop blinked at me, and I felt my face flush.

I did a mental head slap and decided that I really needed a hobby. And a boyfriend.

The cop frowned and leaned closer. “Are you okay?”

That’s the thing about redheads. That’s the thing about having milky-white skin. Every time I blushed or flushed even faintly, I’d go tomato red from my toes to my eyebrows. Think third-degree sunburn. Not exactly the cute, pink-faced tinge of an embarrassed brunette.

“I’m fine,” I whispered.

I took a few deep breaths to steady myself before going to join the cop on the other side of the partition.

“Hi,” he said, offering a hand. The top of my head barely cleared his shoulder and he stooped a little bit.

I took his hand—it was large and cool, his palm rough—and shook. “Um, hello. Hi. I’m Sophie. Sophie Lawson,” I said, pulling out all the stops in my impressive vocabulary.

“Are you Mr. Sampson’s secretary?”

I raised one annoyed eyebrow. “I’m Mr. Sampson’s administrative assistant.”

“Oh”—he raised both palms placatingly—“right, of course.” His sinful eyes traveled to my vacated frontcounter spot.

“I was just filling in,” I said quickly.

“Right,” the cop said. “Not really work for an administrative assistant.” His grin—framed by full lips that made my mouth water—was wide and a little playful and just the tiniest bit smug.

“And you are?” I said, extracting my hand and crossing my arms.

“Hayes. Detective Parker Hayes. Police Chief Oliver”—Hayes’s blue eyes slid skyward—“sent me down here.” He grinned again. “I didn’t even know here existed.”

“Yeah,” I said, turning on my heel, “follow me.”

I tried not to pay attention to the hard set of the detective’s jaw, to the way his dark hair snaked over his collar, to the slight scent of juniper and Ivory soap that surrounded him. I’m so not doing this, I murmured in my head. Not interested at all. And then, when we turned a sharp corner and Detective Hayes’s hand brushed against mine, I thought, Well, maybe just for a second. We can just be friends, right? We should be friends.

I was about to name our firstborn when Detective Hayes fell into stride with me. “So, you work down here all the time?” he started.

I nodded. “Four years now. Forty hours a week.” I grinned. “Give or take.”

“Give” meaning there were always an extra couple of hours tacked on around the full moon when I needed to double-check Mr. Sampson’s chains and drop off a takeout box full of rare—as in raw—filet mignon. “Take” meaning there were always an extra couple of hours taken for lunch when Nina sniffed out yet another designer’s sample sale in China Basin and dragged me down to try on armloads of skinny jeans and boho shirts at ridiculous discounts.

Hayes looked around. “Don’t you find working here kind of … odd?”

“No more strange than any other office job,” I said, nodding to Pierre, a centaur who also did the filing.

Hayes paused. “Okay, like that,” he said, gesturing back to Pierre, his voice lowered. “How does a—a—”

“Centaur,” I supplied.

“How does that get to work in the morning? It’s not like he can hop on BART.”

I snorted. “Of course not. Pierre drives a Chevy.”

Hayes rolled his eyes, and I grabbed his elbow, leading him in a wide berth around a group of fairies and one pixie gathered around the water cooler.

“Just keep walking and don’t make eye contact,” I told him under my breath.

“Okay, wait. I might not know a lot about this stuff, but you’re telling me to avoid them?” He looked back, eyeing the pink-and-pale-green-clad diminutive group, their voices high-pitched and impossibly sweet as they chatted. “You can’t tell me you’re seriously afraid of Tinker Bell over there. What’d they do? Get fairy dust in your eye or something?”

I kept walking but faced Hayes. “Fairies are mean. Everyone knows that.”

Hayes remained unconvinced. “Mean? They’re talking about cookies!”

I stopped dead in my tracks as the fairy chatter died. “Uh-oh,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Fairies are very private. When disturbed by gawkers—”

“I wasn’t gawking!”

“—or intruders, they can react very violently.”

“Them?” Hayes swung around to the tiny, sweet-faced group, their wings twittering, littering the gray, industrial carpet with sparkly crumbles of pixie dust.

I grabbed Hayes by the arm again and yanked, hard. “Run!” I shouted in midstride, as the fairies—eyes narrowed, apple cheeks angry and flushed—flung themselves through the air toward us. Hayes and I ducked into an empty conference room, and he leaned against the door, doubled over, hands on knees. “Fairies are mean,” he said, grinning. “Who knew?”

“They’re a complete HR nightmare. Anyway, you should lock your doors when you leave here. And check your shoes. They can be surprisingly sinister.”

“I can’t believe you don’t find this the least bit weird,” Hayes was muttering as I made sure the coast was clear.

We stepped into the little foyer that housed my desk, a half-dead spider plant, and a red velvet fainting couch that Nina used for the (more than) occasional vamp nap. I gestured toward the closed door to Mr. Sampson’s office.

“Here we are,” I told the detective.

I knocked twice and then clicked open the door, poking my head into Mr. Sampson’s office. “There’s a Detective Hayes to see you, sir.”

Mr. Sampson looked up, his brown eyes velvety and inviting. He raked a large hand through his blond hair and then patted it back in place, cocked his head, and smiled at me, holding one finger up.

“Not a problem,” Mr. Sampson said to no one, his voice throaty, rich. “We’ll get that taken care of right away. Thank you. I’ve got an appointment right now. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to let you go. Yes—” His dark eyebrows rose, his eyes finding mine. “Certainly. I’ll have Sophie look into that.”

A rush of heat washed over me as I watched my name roll off Mr. Sampson’s lips. I clamped my knees together and vowed to give up reading romance novels for good. Really—my hormones had gone into overdrive.

I suddenly had an image of my grandmother shaking a bejeweled finger at me (and they were all real jewels, by the way), saying, “Sophie Lawson, you are completely man hungry.” Which is not entirely true. I’m just a firm believer in appreciating your surroundings. And it doesn’t hurt if your surroundings have chiseled chests and happen to look excellent in an Armani suit … right?

Mr. Sampson looked at Detective Hayes and then tapped the flashing blue earpiece clipped to his ear. “Okay, good-bye,” he said, before pulling the earpiece off and dropping it into a desk drawer. “Detective,” he said, “so sorry about that. Come on in.”

I nodded curtly at the detective and turned on my heel, but Mr. Sampson stopped me before I reached the door. “Sophie, why don’t you stay, too?”

I led Detective Hayes into Mr. Sampson’s office—a huge, groaning room with cinnamon brown walls and soft cigar chairs set around Mr. Sampson’s elegant, enormous desk. The office could house any other upscale male executive—the impeccable, masculine décor, the walls laden with gold-embossed awards and framed degrees, the bookshelves lined with impressive leather-bound books, and the requisite crystal clock with ticking gold innards. Against the back wall there was a set of heavy metal chains, the innocent, brown paint covering a reinforced cement wall with steel rebar the size of bridge supports. Okay, that part might be slightly different from other offices.

Detective Hayes’s eyes went wide as he stared at the chains, and Mr. Sampson followed his gaze, grinned, and shrugged lightly. “Occupational hazard. Why don’t you have a seat, Detective?”

Hayes and I settled into identical plush leather cigar chairs opposite Mr. Sampson. I stifled a delighted Carrie Bradshaw grin and made a mental note to tell Nina about the hot-male sandwich I found myself in: Pete Sampson with his miles-deep, chocolate brown eyes, close-cropped ash blond hair, and GQ model build; and Detective Parker Hayes, rich blue eyes, chiseled jawline sprinkled with stubble, Roman god nose—I’d leave out the part about him being smug.

It’s not that I was particularly man crazy (except for the hormone thing); it was more that when you worked in an office where the general male populace either smells of graveyard dirt or has a horn where no horn should be, it’s rather exciting to be the bologna in a mostly normal hottie sandwich.

I crossed my legs at the ankle and tried to nonchalantly study Detective Hayes’s severe profile as his eyes slowly scanned the office. He didn’t say anything, and a muscle twitched against his well-defined jawline.

“Sorry,” he finally said, tearing his eyes from the chains. “I don’t mean to stare.”

“It’s still daytime,” I told the detective. “You’re fine.”

I watched Detective Hayes force a smile and then paste on what must have been his professional face. “Sorry,” he said again to Mr. Sampson. “All this”—his blue eyes trailed the office, the chains—“just caught me by surprise.”

Mr. Sampson leaned back in his chair, his mouth curling up into one of his seductive, easy grins. “Understandable. Not a lot of people know about us down here. So, what is it that I can help you with? Chief Oliver said there is a case the force could use our assistance with?”

Detective Hayes cleared his throat and set his hat on his knee. “Right. Chief Oliver would have come himself but”—again, his eyes went to the chains—“he’s leading the task force up top. He said you two were close.” It was almost a question, and I knew what Detective Hayes was getting at: How is it that the San Francisco chief of police could buddy up with the sometimes-werewolf head of the Underworld Detection Agency?

“They went to college together,” I blurted.

Detective Hayes blinked at me. “Excuse me?”

Mr. Sampson smiled kindly at me. “Sophie means that Chief Oliver and I went to college together. We were roommates, actually. While our careers generally no longer intersect, it happens occasionally. So, Detective Hayes, exactly how do you and Chief Oliver think UDA can be of service to the police department?”

“Well”—the detective licked his lips, looking from me to Mr. Sampson—“there’s been a murder.”

I yawned and settled into my chair.

“Forgive me,” Mr. Sampson said, his voice smooth and melodic, “but this is San Francisco. Saying there has been a murder is akin to saying there is fog, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Hayes nodded as a blush of pink crawled over his cheeks. I sucked in a hollow breath as my heart thumped.

“But this one is different. A businessman—an attorney, actually. Murdered in his office. And all his blood had been drained.”