I would much prefer the former.
I’d like to say Sampson called on me for those cases because I could sniff out bad guys like a mouse sniffs out cheese, but that wouldn’t be quite right. I find the bad guys all right, but usually just seconds before they try to bleed me dry, blow me up, or stake me through the heart. That last one is particularly bad since I am not a vampire. Or a werewolf. I’m just me, Sophie Lawson, sole breather in the Underworld Detection Agency, runner of the Fallen Angels Division, Sub-Par Napper.
I headed down the hall toward Sampson’s office, holding my breath as I passed the break room where the VERM meeting was in full swing, then avoided the sweet, sparkly little pixie who made a cut-throat motion when I glanced up at her.
Pixies can be total bitches.
I went to make my usual shimmy around the hole in the floor where a senile wizard blew himself up—like everyone else, the UDA was low on funds so the hole was last on the fix-it list—but stopped dead, my mouth dropping open.
“What’s this?”
There was actually a piece of “caution” tape up, jerry-rigged to a couple of folding chairs to make a work zone. A guy in a hardhat was up to his knees in the hole, diligently sawing away at one jagged edge.
He looked up and I could see from his gaunt, slightly green face and the hard cleft in his pointed chin that he was a goblin. From what I heard, they were brilliant at precision work.
“We’re fixing the hole,” he told me, his gray-green eyes widening as he took me in. I flushed, sudden embarrassment burning the tops of my ears and, I was certain, turning my pale skin an unattractive lobster red.
“So, it’s true.” The goblin pushed back his hardhat and scratched at the little tuft of hair on his head. “The San Francisco branch really does have a breather on staff.”
The Underworld Detection Agency is like the clearinghouse for everything that goes bump in the night or bursts into flames during the day. We service everyone from Abatwas (teeny, tiny little buggers who could unhinge their jaw and swallow you whole) to zombies (who most often leave a hunk of their jaw while trying to eat a Twix in the lunchroom). What we don’t serve, however, are humans. As a matter of fact, the UDA—and all of its clients—are relatively unknown to the human world. I know what you’re thinking—how do people miss a three-foot troll walking down Market Street? The answer is a thin, mystical veil that prevents humans from registering what they see in terms of the para-not-normal. You see little person, I see troll. You see a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart full of cans, I see zombie pushing a shopping cart full of zombie body parts (seriously, they drop their stuff everywhere).
So what makes me so different? I can see through the veil. And in case you’re thinking I’m some medium or Carol Ann or ghost whisperer, let me tell you that I am not. I’m a one-hundred-percent normal breather who is immune to magic: I can’t do it, it can’t be done to me.
Okay, so maybe I’m only ninety-nine percent normal.
“Ah, Sophie!” Sampson looked up when I walked into his office. He grinned widely, tugging at the collar of his button-down shirt. He’s a werewolf, but only after business hours. Right now he was regular old Sampson, close cropped, salt and pepper hair, sparkling eyes that crinkled at the sides when he smiled, pristine dark suit.
I sat down with a nervous smile pasted on my face.
“You okay?”
I nodded, fairly certain that if I opened my mouth the words, “who’s dead now?” would come springing out.
Sampson went immediately business-y. “So I was going over your third quarter performance review and I have to say—”
I felt my spine go immediately rigid. Vlad was my boss at the office, but I screamed at him to pick up his socks at home. He may be one hundred and thirteen chronologically, but he would always be a sloppy, leaves crap all over the house, sixteen-year old boy in looks and at heart (if he had one). Weren’t teens revenge seekers?
“Uh, sir,” I said, toeing a line in the carpet and working up a viable explanation.
“—I have to say that I am really impressed with your progress. Not just in the community, but in the office, and personally as well.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and every bone in my body seemed to turn to liquid. “Really?” I grinned.
“Of course. You’ve worked on cases diligently and successfully, you’ve got glowing reviews from two of your clients which is especially good because—”
“I know,” I wrinkled my nose. “Because most of our clients give me a wide berth, thinking that I bring death and destruction to creatures of the Underworld.”
I had a very hard time convincing my previous clients that I didn’t bring death so much as it followed me around, like I had some sort of hell-fury GPS tracker shoved in my gut.