Oh shit.
Ian Byrne was about six foot three with a body you couldn’t get in a gym, lean muscles coiled and ready for violence, cropped dark hair, cheekbones you could cut yourself on, and steel-blue eyes set on pissed and aimed at me. An instant later, pissed was replaced by professional. If I’d blinked, I’d have just seen professional. I hadn’t blinked, so I’d gotten the full treatment.
I stuck out my hand without looking away from those eyes. He shook my hand with a firm grip and released it. No smile, no warmth, no welcome to the company. I’d heard what the boss had told him and his response. He knew that I’d heard. Somehow I didn’t see a friendly invite to after-work drinks in my future. Ever.
This was awkward.
“Unfortunately, Agent Fraser, there is no time for further orientation or training,” Vivienne Sagadraco said. “We require your presence in the field tonight. We have a politically embarrassing situation that, left unresolved, could result in the failure of the banking system of the entire supernatural world.” She glanced at an elegant diamond watch. Dragons liked their sparklies. “In ten minutes there will be a briefing in the main conference room.” Her sharp eyes locked on mine. “I would rather the situation not be this critical on your first mission; but unfortunately, we cannot choose the timing of our crises. I am certain our faith in your abilities has not been misplaced.” The narrowing of those eyes told me loud and clear they’d better not be.
I went for a smile; it probably looked like a grimace. “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
AND the awkwardness just kept on coming.
My first assignment was to locate the aforementioned “five horny leprechauns” that had vanished while in a strip club.
I recognized the five agents from the conference room, and judging by the less than friendly stares, they remembered me seeing and hearing their butts getting handed to them by their ogre manager, who had gotten a handle on his temper and was now the very picture of professional middle management, albeit with beady, yellow eyes.
Ian Byrne plus these guys equaled six SPI agents who were less than thrilled that I’d joined their ranks. I’d managed to gain half a dozen intensely resentful coworkers in less than an hour on the job, probably setting some kind of company record.
And I didn’t have to jump far to land on the conclusion that the five agents resented me because not only had I witnessed their humiliation; but as a seer, I was equipped to fix on my first night on the job what had landed them in trouble. Like any corporate newbie, I wanted to prove myself; but at the same time, I didn’t want to be that employee, the one who was followed by snide and resentful whispers wherever they went.
Vivienne Sagadraco had made it clear that failure was not an option. And being the sole employee who could see through any glamour those leprechauns could come up with, any further failure would be all mine, to have and to hold from this day forward. I wanted to keep my shiny new job. A human boss would deliver a tongue lashing, and write up an incident report for their personnel file. I wondered if vampires and dragons had a more fangs-and claws-on management style, resulting in the offending employee becoming the blue-plate special in the executive cafeteria. I knew I didn’t want to find out. And key to not finding out was to not disappoint the boss—or my manager.
The main conference room at SPI headquarters resembled a scaled-down version of the Security Council Chamber at the UN. I’d taken a tour when I’d first come to town and had decided to get the tourist stuff out of the way. That way when I got a call from back home, I could say “Been there, seen that.”
A massive U-shaped table dominated the room, with the light from a pair of projectors—one mounted in the ceiling, the other in the floor—coming together to form a hologram of SPI’s company logo, a stylized monster eye with a slit pupil. The eye slowly spun, a placeholder for whatever visuals were going to be used in the meeting. Plush and pricey executive office chairs were spaced every few feet around the table.