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Authors: Hannah Jayne

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BOOK: Under Attack
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Mrs. Henderson's little ones—two ornery, grey-scaled teenaged creatures—were stretched out on our waiting-room chairs, madly texting on their matching iPhones, Juicy Couture sweatpants pushed up over their scaly knees.
I took the papers Mrs. Henderson was waving. “I'll get these approved right away for you, Mrs. Henderson. I'll get this request in by the end of the day and we can send out a gargoyle to serve Mr. Henderson tomorrow morning. Your check should be here by the end of the week.”
Mrs. Henderson clasped her hands. “Oh, Sophie, you're just a lifesaver! I don't care what they say about you—I really think the UDA is lucky to have you.”
“Um, thank you,” I started.
She quickly put her finger to her narrow lips and her eyes took on a more sinister hue as they looked off into the distance. “Make sure you have the gargoyle get there early in the morning. I only wish I could see the look on that little showgirl-breather's face when she opens the door to a gargoyle.” Mrs. Henderson seemed to remember I was there then and smiled kindly at me, big eyelashes batting. “You know, for the children.”
I nodded and Mrs. Henderson turned on her heel, leaving me to skip over her long tail. I stumbled backward and got poked in the shoulder by a pushpin holding up a VERM poster advertising their latest meeting. Then I walked down the hall to find Nina.
“Maggots, ugh!” Nina spit out her pale tongue as she sat across from me at her desk. “That is so gross. I hate when maggots get on my food.” She shuddered while I arched my eyebrows. “That's why I stopped eating leftovers.”
I shut out the image of a half-drained human wrapped in tinfoil that might have once been in Nina's fridge.
“So, I wonder what Ophelia's deal is.”
“I don't know. Just messing with me?”
Nina bit her fingernail. “Yeah, but I thought we were in a fight to the finish for this vase thing. Why would Ophelia be sitting around tossing bugs on stuff when she could be out trapping souls in the Vase of the Lord?”
“It's the Vessel of Souls. And I have no idea. But I know who might.”
Nina looked up at me, interested.
“My father was there, Nina. It was him. I need to find him. I think he might be able to answer some questions, help us out with this Vessel thing.”
“Sophie, are you sure about this?”
I stood up, wringing my hands. “No, but I know that I have to. Everything is just getting so weird—and that's saying a lot in my life. Maybe he can help me put some things together.”
Nina offered a friendly, understanding smile, showing off her fangs, her bloodstained lips. “If you think he could help.”
“I think it might be the only way to find the Vessel. I mean, he was hunting for it. Alex said he was the one who got closest.”
Nina frowned. “I wonder what made him stop searching.”
“I don't know, but hopefully, he can tell me. And maybe get Ophelia out of my life—and my head.”
“Or,” Nina started, aiming her pen at me, “it could open up a universal war between good and evil, with Ophelia picking teams first and us ending up with the pasty kids who spent their school lunch hours playing Dungeons and Dragons.”
I crossed my arms. “So does this mean you're not going to help me?”
Nina stood up, crossed the room and put her arms around me, squeezing me against her ice-cold chest. “Of course I'm going to help you. You're my best friend. Besides, what's a little danger to me? I'm immortal.”
“Thanks. I think. But—for now—this is just between you and me, okay? I don't want Alex to know that I'm looking for Lucas.”
Nina held out her pinkie and I hooked it with mine. “Deal,” she said.
There was a crackle from Nina's desk, and then a smooth, velvety voice came from the intercom. “Nina, may I see you, please?”
Nina dropped my pinkie and rushed to her desk, leaning close to the telephone, seductively pressing her breasts together.
He can't see you,
I mouthed.
“Just one second, Mr. Andrade—I mean, Dixon,” Nina said, her voice a vixenish trill. Nina clicked the intercom off and yanked open her top desk drawer, revealing a three-tiered makeup collection that Lancôme would be jealous of. She puckered her lips and painted them a ravishing red, then powdered her cheeks an even paler shade of pale.
“I thought you were going to show the new UDA management who they're dealing with. Weren't you all about keeping the new guy in line?”
Nina snapped her compact shut and blotted her lips, then unbuttoned another button on her blouse. “Oh, I'm all about letting Dixon know who he's dealing with.”
I rolled my eyes and Nina grabbed my arm, giving it a quick shake. “Oh, come on, Sophie. You have to admit he is a wonderful piece of dead man candy. I mean, those eyes, those lips, those fangs! You know what it means when a vampire has big fangs, don't you?” Nina waggled her eyebrows and I groaned. “Besides, he's got all the traits I adore in a man: He's tall, dark and demonic.” She kicked up a happy leg and sauntered on her sky-high heels out the door, then poked her head back in. “Don't wait up. I have a feeling I'll be working late.”
Chapter Seven
The sun was slipping behind the fog when I got into my car and headed home. I was still annoyed with Alex and the prospect of finding—and facing—my father weighed heavily on me. I tried to erase it from my mind, or to call up images of all those wonderful father-daughter reunions on the
Maury Povich Show
and from Disney movies, but nothing helped. By the time I pulled into my designated parking space I was jumpy and grumpy.
I was reaching for my bag when a gentle tap-tap got my attention.
“Christ, Grandma, you scared the—”
Grandma narrowed her eyes, staring out at me from my rearview mirror. “Language, Sophie.”
“You scared me. What are you doing here?”
“I'm here to talk some sense into you.”
I raised my eyebrows and slumped back into my car seat. “Yeah?” The lady in the mirror was going to talk some sense into me? I didn't know what was more nonsensical: Grandma showing up in my rearview mirror or me holding a conversation with her.
“Word around town is that you're going to go looking for your father.”
“Word around town? Like, word in
Heaven
?” I whistled. “Sheesh, news travels fast up there.”
Grandma shrugged. “You can only play a harp for so many hours each day.”
“I guess.”
“Sophie, dear, don't go looking for your father. It won't help.”
“What do you know about my father?” I asked, feeling a familiar prick up the back of my neck. “If you know something, you should tell me.”
“I know enough about him to know that you should steer clear of him.”
“Grandma ...”
“Look,” Grandma said, “I'm not going to tell you what to do, honey, but listen to me: Don't try to find him. It's not worth it. Trust me on this.”
“So much for not telling me what to do.”
Grandmother's eyes narrowed. “Don't sass me, young lady. Mark my words: Your father is only going to let you down.” Grandma's voice softened, and there was a moist wistfulness in her milky eyes. “Just like he let your mother down.”
“Grandma, don't I deserve to know my father? At the very least, just to know a few things about him? Why would that be such a bad thing?”
Grandma sucked on her teeth and shook her head, her long dangly earrings jangling against her jawbone.
“I just need to know a few things about myself.”
“Like what?” my grandmother huffed. “I can tell you everything you need to know. You learned to ride a bike when you were seven. You're a rubbish card player, you come from good Hungarian stock, and you have a weakness for anything with marshmallow in it.”
I rolled my eyes. “That's not what I meant and you know it.”
Grandma relented, her shoulders noticeably sagging. “If you're going to look for your father, you need to be prepared for what you find.”
I felt my shoulders stiffen. “Like what? What am I going to find out about him? You're not telling me anything about him. No one is!”
“Even if I wanted to tell you about him—which I don't—I couldn't.” Grandma looked around, her eyes checking the corners of my rearview mirror. “It's not something I can just talk about all willy-nilly out here.”
I was getting frustrated. “
What
can't you talk about?”
My grandmother pursed her lips in an expression that tugged at my heart. I had seen it before whenever she was trying to protect me from something she didn't think I could handle.
“I can handle whatever you tell me, Gram. And isn't it better for me to find out things from you rather than on my own?”
“I'm sorry, Sophie,” Grandma said. “I'm sorry, honey, but I just can't.”
“Gram? Gram!” I peered into the mirror, my own squinting eyes reflecting back at me.
I got out of the car feeling deflated, the frustrated, grumpy feeling still around me. I walked the entire way to my walk-up looking behind me and jumping at every little sound.
I pushed open my apartment door and stood in the foyer, looking around anxiously. “Hello?” I called out, reminding myself of every character ever killed in horror movies. “Anybody home?”
When no one answered me, I dumped my shoulder bag onto the couch and then flopped there myself, letting my heartbeat slow to a normal, non-frenetic pace.
I almost swallowed my tongue when I heard the knock on my door.
“Son of a—!” I cursed, rolling off the couch and heading for the door. I popped the chain and inched the door open.
“Sophie Lawson?”
Her eyes were impossibly pale and lined with huge, delicate lashes that cast spiderweb shadows across her ruddy pink cheeks.
“Ophelia,” I whispered, without opening the door any wider.
Ophelia's pink lips split into a delighted sweet smile, and she bobbed her shoulders in that cute, sorority-girl way that I couldn't get away with. The movement left the faint scent of her freesia perfume on the air. “You know me!”
I stood there, dumbfounded, trying to work out a plan in my head: let her in, try and talk? I chanced a quick second glance at her through the two-inch gap in the doorway: tall, blond, primly dressed in a melon-colored twin set and pencil skirt, a strand of glazed pearls demurely wrapped around her neck. She looked more like a PTA mom than a crazed supernatural killer.
Then I thought of Alex, his stern eyes and the hard set of his jawline as he warned about Ophelia. Maybe I should slam the door and take off running? I was seriously considering the latter when there was a splitting smack against my cheek. A piercing heat starburst through my nose, up against my forehead. I reeled backward, stumbling into my living room, my eyes watering from the sting. I blinked rapidly and the tears tumbled down my cheeks as I pressed my fingers against the mashed-in spot where my nose once was. Now it stung and started to tickle as the blood came.
Ophelia's eyes still looked wide and innocent; there wasn't a wrinkle or a shard of splintered wood on her twin set, and her pearls had barely moved.
I gaped at Ophelia as she stood in my foyer, arms crossed in front of her, a delicate purse hanging from her pinkie.
My front door hung limply from its hinges just over her left shoulder. I was
so
not going to get my security deposit back.
“I was going to let you in, you know,” I said, my hand massaging a new hot spot on my cheek.
Ophelia shrugged. “Patience is a virtue.” Her eyes narrowed and sparkled with something that sent a cold chill down my spine. “And I'm not very virtuous. Now come on.” She held out her hand, palm up, fingers beckoning. “I don't have all day. And frankly”—she looked around my apartment distastefully—“your decorating is giving me hives.”
I crossed my own arms in front of my chest and widened my stance, determined to stare her down. I heard a high-pitched giggle reverberate through my head and then Ophelia's rich voice.
Cute
, I heard her say—although her lips stayed pressed together in a pale pink line.
You think you can stand up to me?
“Don't do that,” I said, my teeth gritted.
“Do what?” she asked, batting her eyelashes innocently.
A second tinkle of laughter swept through my head. I wanted to clench my eyes shut, but I knew better than to take my gaze off Ophelia.
“Stop.”
“Then give me what I want.”
“I don't—” Before I could finish my sentence, my
thought
, Ophelia was nose to nose with me and then her hands were on my chest, shoving me hard. I was off balance, reeling backward, groaning when I felt my back make contact with the floor, my head thumping against the carpet. “Oaf !”
“Don't screw with me!” she snarled, advancing toward me.
I yelped when Ophelia's foot made contact with my thigh and a wallop of pain ached through me.
She lunged for me again and I rolled out of her way, but not before her hand grazed the top of my head, her fingernails raking through my hair. I howled and turned instinctively, and was surprised when I felt the back of my hand make contact with Ophelia's cheek. There was a satisfying crack and I retrieved my stinging hand.
We both stood looking at each other in stunned silence—her rubbing her reddening cheek, me rubbing my new bald spot. She lunged for me again, barely missing me as I crab-crawled to the bookshelf and used it to pull myself up, the ache in my leg tightening like a fist. I used the back of my arm to swipe at my nose, and my stomach lurched when I saw the bright red ribbon of blood on my arm. Other people's blood never bothered me that much, but my own was a different story. I felt woozy and Ophelia seemed to know it, her face breaking into a satisfied half-smile.
“This could go so much more smoothly, you know,” she said, picking up a lamp and smashing it on the coffee table Van Damme style. She held the broken shards to me, her baby pink lips distorted into a gruesome snarl. “Give it!”
I shrunk against the bookcase, feeling the wood pressing against my shoulders. Ophelia held the jagged glass edge of the lamp against my neck, pressing the tines in for effect. I winced as I felt them cut my skin.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I wailed, my head feeling tender and raw. “The Vessel. I know you want the Vessel.” I took a deep breath that made my bruised chest scream with pain and carefully, solemnly slid a pale green milk-glass vase from the lower shelf. I discreetly upturned it and brushed away the parade of crumpled gum wrappers that lived inside of it and then turned around, cuddling the dollar-ninety-nine IKEA vase to my chest reverently.
“Okay, Ophelia. You win.” With shaking hands I held the vase out to Ophelia, who stared at it, wide-eyed, wanting. “Here is the Vessel of Souls.”
Ophelia raised one sculpted eyebrow and jabbed at the air in front of her.
“That?”
I nodded. “Yes, this. The angels often charm things so they can be hidden—”
“In plain sight, blah, blah, blah.” Ophelia finished. “Don't forget who you're talking to.”
I licked my dry lips. “Of course. So, here it is. You win, fair and square.”
Ophelia reached out and smacked the vase with the back of her hand, sending it hurtling to the ground, crashing against the hardwood floor. Thick shards of pale green glass splintered in all directions; the one that held the dollar ninety-nine IKEA price tag skidded toward me and landed a quarter-inch from my sneaker.
We heard the gentle
ahhhh
of souls ascending to Heaven.
Ophelia stamped her foot, one hand on her hip. “Stop that!”
I snapped my mouth shut and the wailing
ahhh
stopped. Then Ophelia smiled. A grotesque smile of delight that twisted her normally lovely features into something awful.
You really don't know, do you?
Her voice was in my head again.
“Don't know what?” I snarled out loud. “And stop with the head talk!”
“Sophie!”
I cut my eyes to our front door hanging askew, anchored by a single hinge. Nina flung it open and the bent hinge gave way, the door flopping to the ground.
“You stay the hell away from her!” Nina screamed, her dark eyes fierce and intent on Ophelia.
“Oh, wow.” Ophelia glanced from me to Nina. “And her toothy pal comes to the rescue. If only you knew what you were guarding.”
Nina was between Ophelia and me in a heartbeat, standing nose to nose with Ophelia, the jagged piece of lamp hanging limply at her side. “Don't you have a harp to strum?” Nina spat from between gritted teeth.
Ophelia wrinkled her nose. “A harp, that's cute.” She narrowed her eyes and elbowed Nina hard in the chest, sending her skittering to the ground. Nina landed on her back with a thud. I tried to lunge to Nina, but Ophelia clamped her hand on my shoulder. I heard myself cry out as her fingers dug into my muscle, forming heat against my skin.
A low growl escaped from Nina's chest and she flung herself against Ophelia, who deftly stepped aside, taking me with her.
“Knock, knock!”
We all seemed to freeze, openmouthed and panicked, as we looked at Mr. Matsura, who stood in the doorway, his wrinkled lips turned up in a quizzical smile.
Mr. Matsura lived across the hall in an afghan-festooned apartment that was stuck in 1952. He wore a cardigan sweater over his button-up shirt and neatly pressed slacks with his house slippers when he went out at dawn and at dusk for his daily walks. In the waking hours in between, he ate takeout and watched the game-show channel, the volume turned up to an ungodly level. I credit my ability to correctly guess the prices of a catamaran, a set of Calphalon pans, and an electric skillet to his faulty hearing aid.
BOOK: Under Attack
11.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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