6 Under The Final Moon (13 page)

I was actually
smiling
when I walked into the waiting room. My heart was pounding against my rib cage, but every thud was like an echo—my dad! My dad! My dad!—he
must
have come to see me. He must have missed me.

My
dad.

“Well, don’t you look like the vamp who swallowed the vicar?” Vlad grinned at me, one inky-black eyebrow cocked.

“I believe the expression is the ‘cat that swallowed the canary,’ but yeah, I guess I do have a little bit of swallow—a little bit of—did you want something?”

His blood-flushed lips quirked into a shameless smile. “Not really. I’m just surprised to see you here is all.”

I flushed red, realizing that Sampson must have told the entire staff that I was dismissed. I truly hoped he had said something to the effect of, “because she deserves a vacation!” rather than, “because her being here could possibly kill all of us.”

“Kale called me. Apparently I have, or will have, a visitor shortly.”

Vlad’s eyebrows went up, but I didn’t say anything further.

I rounded the corner and glanced into my office. The lights were off and it was obvious that my visitor hadn’t yet arrived so I took the opportunity to hightail it to the ladies.

Things are going to be okay! Things are going to be okay!

I kept repeating the mantras in my head, something I had learned from a shrink or possibly Oprah or Dr. Phil. However I’d learned them, they kind of helped, and when I felt like my world was about to implode or I’ve been attacked in a public park, I needed all the help I could get. I ducked into the ladies’ room and held my breath, scanning the stalls for pixie feet. They had their own tiny stall, but they were always using the regular and then giving you the death stare if you walked in—even though the bathroom was for all female Underworld employees. Did I mention pixies were absolute bitches? The last thing my ego needed was to be attacked by a six-inch tall sprite with sugar-cookie breath and something to prove.

Finding none, I went into a stall and did my business, when the restroom door kicked open.

“I honestly don’t know how she’s going to manage it.”

I strained, listening over the sound of rushing water and footsteps.

“Come on, is it really that bad, really? She’s always getting into scrapes and she always comes out on top.”

“Sophie on top?”

My stomach dropped. I tried to see who was talking, but they were standing out of my view.

There was a little gale of laughter and I clenched my teeth. “Okay, maybe not on top, but she always survives. I’m just not sure on this one for any of us, but especially for her.”

The other party clucked her tongue. “I wouldn’t care normally, but even Sampson is worried with this one.”

“I know. Did you see his expression during the all-hands meeting? I thought the bulging veins in his neck were going to pop out.”

I felt the sweat bead on my upper lip. There had been an all-hands meeting? Where they had talked about me? I found myself holding my breath, suddenly paralyzed. Why wouldn’t Sampson have at least told me about it? Had he told them—everyone—to steer clear of me? My world was crashing in, and my family—my Underworld Detection Agency family—was having meetings without me and talking about me behind my back.

My thrumming nerves turned into fury and I kicked open the stall door, skulking out. The two women talking were vampires who worked in HR. Their eyes widened when they saw me.

“Note for the future, ladies. You might want to check for feet”—I pointed—“underneath the stalls before you start talking about someone.”

I felt smug and vindicated as the two just stared at me, slightly open mouthed, eyebrows jammed together in an expression of apology or sympathy. I washed my hands and reveled in their stunned silence, then threw my shoulders back and marched for the door.

One of the vampires cleared her throat and I turned, allowing her to make her heartfelt apology.

“You’ve got toilet paper stuck to your shoe, Sophie.”

Even the righteous can’t win them all.

I started when I pushed open Nina’s office door and Kale was waiting for me. “Oh! Geez, Kale, you scared me.”

She clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh my goddess, Sophie, you got my message!”

I nodded curtly. “I came right in after I heard it.”

I clicked the door to Nina’s office shut behind us and swished Kale down the hallway with me.

“Hey,” I said before she could open her mouth. “Was there an all-hands meeting today?”

Her cheeks flushed a wicked red and she looked at her shoes. “Sampson called it. It was nothing big.”

“It was big enough to call in every employee except me.”

“You weren’t there?” Kale said, her acting horrific. “Are you sure? Maybe you just forgot.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Pretty sure I would have remembered going to a meeting with the entire staff.”

There were so many of us that we had to move into the cafeteria for all-hands meetings and, all assembled at the standard-issue tables, we tended to look like rejects from every Halloween parade ever.

I blamed the members of the Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement in their frilly ascots and broaches, Vlad, a combination of Count Chocula and a Wal-Mart Lestat, leading the charge.

“Can you just tell me what Sampson talked about? Did he talk about me? Did he talk about . . .” I circled my arms, my gesture to encompass my spinning, splattering life.

Kale bit her bottom lip, her eyes going up as if she were thinking hard, as if the answer she sought were written on the office ceiling. “Not that I remember. But hey, not to change the subject, that guy that kept calling for you? He just came in. Want me to send him to your office?”

Nerves pricked up along the back of my neck, and my tiny suspicions broke out into a wild fire. This was it. This was the big moment.

“Yes. I mean, no. I’ll get—no, no, yes.” I cleared my throat and tried to look slightly less crazy. “Go ahead and bring him to my office, please.”

Her cheeks bloomed pink. “Okay . . . because I already did.”

My blood ran cold and the temperature in the waiting room seemed to plummet to match it. It was then that I realized that no one was speaking, no keyboards were clacking, no feet, hooves, or claws were slapping down the hallway. It was absolutely silent. The few people in the waiting room were statue still, wide-eyed, staring at me. A sub-demon named Aura snaked a hand out and pulled her tentacled child closer to her. Two Wendigos were holding their breaths, their chests and bellies concave with the effort.

“Did—did he say who he was this time?”

She shook her head, this time a very gentle, tense wag. “He didn’t say his name. He just asked for you. He’s there.” She pointed, as though I needed direction. “Waiting in your office.”

I blew out a sigh in an attempt to look unaffected and confident. “Okay, then I guess I’ll go meet with him.”

I took a few shaky steps, then whipped around, nose to nose with Kale. She stepped back an inch.

“Did he say what he wanted?” I asked.

Another mute head wag.

“And he’s not a client?”

One more.

My throat immediately went dry. I wanted to ask, but the words slid out of my grasp. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to know the answer:
The man in my office
—
is he Lucas Szabo?

I stopped for a millisecond, willing my heart to go back to a regular, non-spastic beat, and talking myself into a happier place.

I started toward my office, then paused. “So, he didn’t say what his name was?”

Kale wagged her head.

“And you didn’t ask?”

Another head wag, this one accompanied by wide eyes. “He creeped me out, Sophie. I just—I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. He made me feel”—she shuddered, her tiny shoulders rattling—“weird.”

I nodded, silently trying to steel myself. I could handle myself. I could handle anything. And even if it was my father, so what? There was nothing he could do to me here, at the Underworld Detection Agency, where I was surrounded with friends who were like family. Friends who were like family who had clandestine meetings without me and, for all intents and purposes, had fired me.

But no, nothing fazed me.

I was
Sophie Lawson: Confidence Girl.

Hot bile burned at the base of my throat. Because I was
Sophie Lawson: Possible Bipolar Basket Case.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” I mumbled under my breath.

Kale caught up and pointed to the man standing at the door to my office.

“There he is, that’s him. He’s—”

I felt the jauntiness ooze right out of my step. “A monk?”

Well, that was different.

Hipster, demon, or undead, I was pretty much used to seeing every kind of fashion that retail and San Francisco could come up with.

But burlap was new. A rope belt, new. The weird pageboy with a bald middle? Super weird.

“Um, hello. I’m Sophie Lawson. And you are—”

“Abelard.”

“A monk.”

He knitted his fingers together, resting his hands in his lap, and looked at me with a serene smile.

“I mean, you’re a monk, right? Is that the right way to refer to you? Or is it father? Brother?” I paused, biting my thumbnail. “Uncle?”

“Abelard is just fine.”

“Okay, Abelard. What is it that I can do for you?”

Abelard—his round face framed by the unfortunate pageboy—blinked. Then his eyes went up to Kale, who was still standing to his left, openly gawking.

“Kale? Can you please give us a moment?”

Kale looked up at me and then back at Abelard. “He didn’t give me his intake form. I can’t start the paperwork without his intake form.”

Have I mentioned that the Underworld Detection Agency works with all the efficiency and modernity of the DMV office on Rural Route 9 in the Kansas backwoods? Because we do. There are forms to fill out. And then forms to fill out about the forms that were just filled out. There is even a form to fill out if you think there are too many forms. We’re trying desperately to catch up with 1986 and, at the very least, get a few things digitized. Which basically means—you guessed it—more forms that get stacked between Hubba Bubba wrappers and
Cosmo
quizzes on Kale’s desk.

Kale was gripping a stack of forms now, her knuckles white as her teeth worked her lower lip.

“Mr.—Abelard—can you excuse us for just one minute?”

The monk nodded—again, fingers knitted, serene smile that I didn’t find off-putting at all—and I stepped around him, grabbing Kale by the elbow and leading her into the hall.

“What the heck was that about?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that.” Kale’s kohl-rimmed eyes darted to the back of the monk’s head, every hair still as he stared at the blank wall directly in front of him. “You have a religious icon in your office. That’s weird.”

“It’s not that weird. I work in the Fallen Angels Division, remember? There are likely to be”—I gestured to Abelard—“those . . . guys.”

“Well, he makes me feel uncomfortable.” She stiffened, using her stack of forms like a shield in front of her breasts.

“Did he touch you or something?”

I thought her eyes were going to bounce right out of her head. “Oh my God, Sophie, that is so gross. I just—people like that don’t usually have a lot of cause to be around people like us.”

People like us.

Except I wasn’t like her.

I was the only living, breathing member of the Underworld Detection Agency. Not to say that I worked alone—far from it. Our office is forever bustling with all manner of demon, deadbeat, or other, and we spent a lot of time recruiting and hiring.

It’s just that all of those employees tend to be dead—or undead.

“Thank you, Kale. I can handle it from here.”

Kale disappeared before I had a chance to finish my sentence. I pushed my hair behind my ears, threw my shoulders back, and pasted on a lovely, Heaven-worthy smile.

“So, Abelard, what is it I can do for you?”

His pale eyes followed me as I scooted around his chair and sank into my own. He seemed to wait until I was settled before leaning forward and dropping his voice. “I know about you.”

My spine shot ramrod straight, and heat clawed at every inch of my skin. “Excuse me?”

Abelard offered that serene smile that had seemed too oblivious and, well,
monkish
, just a few seconds ago. Now I was narrowing my eyes and squinting, working out if there was evil behind his smile, if I could make it to the Taser I kept in my top right desk drawer before he pulled out a mouthful of dragon teeth and swallowed me whole.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Abelard put up his palms. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I blew hot breath out of my nostrils. The last person who’d said he “wouldn’t hurt me” had nearly ripped out my throat with his teeth. Granted, he hadn’t been dressed as a monk, which gave Abelard a modicum more of trustworthiness.

“Why would you want to hurt me?”

“I said I’m not going to hurt you. But I know—I know about you.”

I blinked.

“The Vessel?”

Blink, blink, blink.

“The Vessel of Souls? You’re Sophie Lawson, are you not?”

I nodded, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was possible, but I suddenly suspected that every damn soul that I was hiding in my so-called Vessel had gotten out and was river-dancing in my belly.

“How do you know that?” My voice was a hollow whisper.

Abelard cocked his head and his smile seemed to say, “Really? I’m a monk.”

“Oh.” I gestured toward his burlap robe, toward his stylish rope belt that I thought went out with Jesus sandals and Friar Tuck. “You know ’cause you’re . . .”

“My order are the Vessel Guardians.”

“The Guardians? But I have a Guardian.” I ignored the voice in my head that reminded me that I had nearly gotten Will killed; that taunted I
had
a Guardian
.
“His name is Will. Will Sherman. You can look it up in your—in your monk tome or iPhone if you’re the more modern kind of monk. Why are you here again?”

I knew I was babbling. Everything inside me implored my stupid mouth to stop talking, but it was like my entire being had suddenly been taken over by a vapid Miss America contestant who’d been asked about immigration reform.

“I mean, you’re certainly welcome to be here. We are, of course, a public institution. Not
public
, public, but—”

“There is no need to be nervous, Sophie. May I call you Sophie?”

I sat there, silent, and Abelard went on.

“As you have undoubtedly noticed, there has been some unrest in the world—in this area, particularly—as of late.” His pale eyes went up to me as though I was supposed to agree. “The fires, the murders, the failing structures?”

“Yeah . . . so?”

“There is a great war being waged. The war of dark and light.” His eyes flashed. “Good and evil.”

The anxiety that I had felt—the roiling nerves and general feeling of idiocy—immediately wore off. “That’s nothing new.”

“You’re right—it isn’t. But lately, it’s become much more severe, rising to the surface. It’s been breaking the surface. There has always been evil and it has always been eclipsed, even if just barely, by the good.”

“Uh. So, do you want me to donate money or something?”

I’m not sure if it was just my general discomfort of being in the shadow of a monk or what, but when Abelard pursed his lips and looked at me, I felt like I should immediately break into a series of Hail Marys. And I would have, had I remembered anything past
Hail Mary, full of grace
.

“Sophie, there is a reason so much malaise has bubbled to the surface.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“The darkness has found you, Sophie. The darkness knows about you.”

“Meaning?”

“Evil knows who you are. It knows what you are.”

“Oh!” I swatted at the air, feeling the cold sweat of relief breaking out all over me. “They—it—evil has known for a long time. I mean, there’s always someone trying to kill me or maim me or, you know, shake me by my ankles to get the Vessel out or whatever. Hey, how does that work, by the way? Getting it out? Do I like”—I opened my mouth, tongue wagging, the most elegant way I knew of indicating the act of vomiting—“or something?”

“We need to protect the Vessel of Souls. We need to bring it somewhere more secure.”

“Okay, but I don’t understand, why now? Why all of the sudden?”

Abelard leveled his gaze. “It’s your father, Sophie. He knows and he’s coming for you.”

As a kid, I had always dreamed of the day someone would tell me that my father was coming for me. I would be in some gray, drab, windowless house for some reason, and my grandmother would be leaning down on one knee, buttoning my steel-gray coat and smiling. I would be nervous, but there would be true joy in her eyes as she buttoned the big black buttons over my chest, telling me, “He’s missed you for so long. He was on a secret mission, stuck in some POW camp in a country we didn’t even know we were fighting, but he’s saved the day and now he’s coming for you. He can’t wait to see you.”

The joy would break through me then. I hadn’t been abandoned! I had a mother who’d loved me until her last breath but still looked after me from Heaven—and I had a father who had spent the last years trying to get back to me, clawing against the filthy ground of some horrendous jail cell, the only thing keeping him alive were thoughts of me, his daughter. Of coming back to
me.

This was not how I had imagined it at all: me, sitting in my office at my cheap metal desk, a monk looking at me with a grave expression. Warning me that the world was crashing into a giant hellish vortex of brimstone, fire, and Kardashian babies and it’s all because my father wants me now. Not me, exactly, but what I am. He doesn’t want to know me, his only living daughter—he wants to control the Vessel of Souls.

Save the Vessel, not the girl.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Abelard stood and paced, one hand rubbing over his cleanly shaven chin. “It’s a small ceremony to transfer the Vessel of Souls. It would take my whole order, though, and”—his eyes raked over me sadly—“it might not be the most pleasant of experiences for you.”

“Not pleasant as in ‘it might be a little itchy’ or not pleasant as in ‘my insides will suddenly be on the outside’?”

“Oh, nothing that dramatic, I assure you. You just might not feel like yourself for a few days. A bit like being under the weather, nothing too terrible.” He smiled softly, but my hackles went up.

Nothing about being the Vessel of Souls—hell, nothing about being Sophie Lawson—fell into the “nothing too terrible” category. Likening the removal of the Vessel to fighting a little flu bug didn’t seem to add up.

“A little under the weather?”

Abelard’s shoulders went up to his ears. “And there is, of course, the release of your Guardian then.”

“The release of—you mean Will? Released how?”

“Well, his services will no longer be needed by you.”

I thought of Will lying crumpled in that hospital bed. Well, not so much crumpled as splayed out with his Swiss-cheese chest in the air, but still. He had been stabbed, bandaged, and full of painkillers and antibiotics because of me. He had been beaten up and bowled over because of me. If I were no longer the Vessel of Souls, Will’s life would no longer be hemmed in by me; his life would no longer be a catalog of soccer games and near-death experiences.

“So the Vessel of Souls is removed from me and re-hidden. Then Will and I are . . . safe?” It seemed too simple, too good to be true.

“Well, not exactly, no.”

And of course, there it was.

“Unfortunately, Sophie, you’ll always be imprinted with the energy of the Vessel. Those who seek to possess it will still come after you, searching, thinking that you must know where it has been removed to.”

“Will I? Know, I mean. Are you guys going to tell me?”

Abelard shook his head. “No. For your safety and for ours.”

“So, I go through this, this removal—”

“The ceremony.”

“The ceremony, right, yeah, and the Vessel of Souls is removed and I’m back to my regular old Sophie Lawson self and Will is no longer my Guardian and people are still going to come looking for me? No offense, Abelard, but I’m not seeing the upswing on this one.”

“Do you not seek to release your Guardian?”

His words shot something through my veins. Was he reading my mind? Abelard’s pale eyes were firm on mine, his lips pursed, but there was no animosity there. Nothing that looked like he was quietly poring through the desires of my soul.

“I don’t want him to be in danger because of me anymore.”

“So then?”

“But if it’s not going to do any good . . .”

Abelard pressed the palms of his hands together in front of me. “Perhaps I should clarify. Those who seek the Vessel will always be after you. You are, let’s see, the trailhead, perhaps? But once those learn that you no longer possess the Vessel . . .”

“Sorry, Abe, still not seeing the benefit for me in any of this.”

He blew out a long sigh, and now I could see that the smile on his face was forced. “Your father wants you. He wants the Vessel. He is stronger than all of us, but so far, we have been smarter than him. As long as you possess the Vessel of Souls, it is within his grasp and the world will continue to crumble until he gets what he wants.”

I leaned back in my chair and narrowed my eyes. “But if you took the Vessel and re-hid it, would that stop him?”

“Well, no, not exactly. He will always seek—”

I assumed my bravado and disdain for double-talk and bureaucracy came from shuffling endless papers at the Agency, but I didn’t pause to examine it. “Don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I’m particularly attached to this whole Vessel thing. It’s just that”—I cocked my head—“I’m supposed to just trust you to do this ceremony? Trust you to hide it where my fath—or the evil plane or whatever, can’t get to it?”

I could see the tension pressing the wrinkles out of Abelard’s lips. He eyed me and I locked onto his gaze, crossing my arms in front of my chest. I wasn’t a particularly religious person, but it did feel a little heretical staring down a monk. On the other hand, we were underground at the Underworld Detection Agency—my territor y—and there were two vampires and a teenage witch huddling on the other side of my office door, pretending not to listen.

Abelard cleared his throat. “Frankly, we’re not sure that you have the strength to protect the Vessel of Souls in this particular situation.”

A little prick of anger started at the base of my spine. “You don’t think I have the strength? Do you know what I’ve gone through to protect this thing? It’s not been a complete walk in the park, let me tell you! And I noticed that you didn’t jump up to tell me that you and your little order are totally trustworthy when it comes to moving the Vessel. Do you have some kind of work order I could look at? Can I talk to your superior or something?”