“Sophie, Sophie, Sophie!” she said, gathering me up in a scaly-armed hug. “They said you weren’t here anymore. I’m so glad you are.”
“Thanks,” I said breathlessly, feeling the crunch of my ribs against Mrs. Henderson’s heavy chest. I tried to squirm away and Mrs. Henderson gave me one of her wide, toothy grins—then thrust a sheaf of papers at me.
“Could you be a dear and process these? The kids are so impatient.” Her glass-marble eyes shot to two smaller, younger versions of herself slouched in the orange waiting-room chairs, working hard to look disinterested and bored as they played with his-and-hers Nintendo hand-helds. “I have to get Lola to ballet and Sam to baseball.”
I chanced a look at Lola, her slick, green-scaled belly exposed as her belly shirt—imprinted with the word SWEETHEART in tiny rhinestones—rode up. She was wearing a flitty black skirt over pink tights that cut off at the ankle, exposing her wide, flat feet.
As used to demonic life as I was, I had a hard time imagining this kid doing a grande plié.
I handed the sheaf of papers back to Mrs. Henderson.
“I’m sorry, I can’t. Maybe you can get Nina to help you.”
Mrs. Henderson looked horrified. “That vampire?”
“Sorry,” I called over my shoulder, aiming myself toward Dixon’s office. I raced down the hall—remembering to skirt a blown-up witch hole in the linoleum—and only slowed when I approached Dixon’s office. There was a stab of sadness mixed in with my rage; the old wood desk that sat just outside Dixon’s office—where I had spent so many years filing Pete Sampson’s papers and processing demon requests—had been replaced by a slick black metal version. In Dixon’s few days as head of the Underworld Detection Agency he had managed to do away with the standard visitor chairs and nondescript waiting-room couch and replace everything with slick, metal-and-black leather sling chairs and low glass minimalist tables. Even the spider plant that Sampson had nursed back from the dead the three times I almost killed it was replaced by a sleeker version in a square black pot.
“May I help you?”
A blond-haired vampire who hadn’t been there a half-second ago was sitting primly behind the large black desk, with elbows resting on the desktop, fingers laced. He had a pair of half-glasses perched on his long, narrow nose and looked vaguely familiar—one of Dixon’s henchmen, no doubt. The engraved nameplate at the edge of the desk said Anson Hale and I regarded him carefully. He did the same with me.
“I’m here to see Dixon,” I said, puffing out my chest a little bit.
Anson stiffened in his desk chair and then dropped his head, pretending to study a calendar. “Do you have an appointment?”
Anson’s words dropped off behind me as I stormed past him, heading straight for Dixon’s office. I had flung the door open and was staring, openmouthed, at Dixon and Nina when I felt a cold, viselike grip on my shoulder, felt the pinch of Anson’s icy fingers against the flesh at my throat. He yanked me backward and I felt his nose brush up against my chin. Then I realized he was poised to sink his large fangs into my neck. I felt my blood pressure drop and my bladder fill up.
“Anson!” Dixon’s voice was loud and firm. The second the word was out of his mouth Anson’s fingers left my shoulder, and I felt myself slump, my muscles exhausted after clenching so desperately even for those few seconds. My blood slowly restarted to circulate and I panted.
Dixon was still poised and unfazed, but Nina’s eyes were huge and desperately black. What are you doing? she mouthed.
“You must not bite our visitors,” Dixon said as he straightened his cuffs.
Anson’s lip curled angrily. “Well, she wasn’t listening to me.”
Dixon’s eyebrows went up sharply and Anson slumped away. I took the opportunity to look around the office—Pete Sampson’s old office—and stamp back the flood of emotion. The once chocolate-brown walls were now a deep burgundy. The twelve-foot panel of cement and rebar-reinforced back wall that once housed Mr. Sampson’s evening chains was painted over, the holes in the walls patched, the eyebolts replaced by ugly pictures of English foxhunts. I briefly wondered if they were a slight.
“Now, Miss Lawson, please don’t take this the wrong way, but your employment has been terminated.” Dixon turned to Nina, his thin lips pursed. “Did Nina not make that clear?”
“Oh, no, Nina made it very clear. That, and that you don’t think I’m UDA material.”
Nina put down the clipboard she was holding and took a few steps toward me. “Sophie, you have to understand—”
“I understand that you are siding with this—this monster over your best friend. I am not just UDA material—I am UDA!”
Chapter Twelve