See You in Hell (Mel Goes to Hell Series Book 2) (15 page)

"Ah, no worries," Mel replied uneasily. She slipped her phone back into her pocket.

"Have you checked where you're sitting yet?" he asked, nodding at the noticeboard.

Mel shook her head and leaned closer to look for her name.

"There you are – on my table!" Luce looked pleased, pointing, as Mel's heart sank. She wouldn't be reading anything else about Nona today.

Mel followed him into the hotel function room to their table. Christmas-coloured balloons rose from a weighted, wrapped gift in the centre. Luce insisted that she sit beside him, next to the dance floor, and she reluctantly complied. Lili slid in on her other side, followed by the other executives.

Mel grew steadily paler. She swore not to drink any more wine, lest she make a mistake. She sipped slowly from her glass and set it down.

Looking around at the room, she wondered who most of them were. Gerry and Merih joined a table which was mostly occupied by men. Other staff wandered in, chatting happily as they sat down. With a sinking heart, Mel realised that she was the only angel present.

The food was served quickly and Mel reached for her wine. Inexplicably, the glass had refilled. Another sip and she returned to her steak, careful to carve it into small pieces so she wouldn't make a fool of herself.

Dessert was a slice made of layers of raspberry and dark chocolate mousse that looked obscenely pink, even in the dim light of the function room.

"Oh, this is amazing," Lili moaned, her spoon in her mouth.

Mel looked at her in alarm, but Lili took her spoon to the mousse again with a rapt expression, in no apparent danger.

Luce's voice sounded throaty. "You have to try this."

Moans rose from Merih and Gerry's table.

It sounded like the demons around her were all experiencing the same mass orgasm. Mel didn't know where to look, so she touched the pinkness with her fingertip and thrust it into her mouth. She closed her eyes, the better to focus on the taste without the distraction of the others around her. This pleasure was private and Mel decided she wanted more, opening her eyes and her mouth eagerly. A glance told her Luce had seen her sucking on her finger and found it funny as Hell, so she capitulated and picked up a spoon for the next taste.

She finished her dessert with reluctance, wishing there was more to prolong the pleasure. Mel reached for her wine.

It had refilled itself again, though she was sure it'd been almost empty. She shrugged and drank.

The jukebox by the dance floor increased its volume. The medley from
Grease
kicked off this party as it had every other one she'd attended since the movie had been released. Mel waited for the next traditional song – where a man declared he'd walk five hundred miles – and was rewarded by the next track. The dance floor started to fill with her more eager colleagues, but Mel remained firmly in her seat.

A dance track began, the Korean lyrics surprising her. Something about a warm girl who liked coffee. The dance floor cleared quickly, leaving only eight women, who began to dance with a synchronicity that spoke of practice.

Mel felt her jaw drop. She was sure she'd never seen a version of
Gangnam Style
where the girls rode on female horses who evidently enjoyed the experience. It looked like they were all equipped with items she'd seen in that adult shop up the road, too…

"Aren't they brilliant?" Luce shouted in her ear, over the music. He refilled her glass as he spoke.

"I…" Mel swallowed. "Isn't this one of those things that the company calls inappropriate behaviour? I could lose my job if someone from the Human Resources Department finds out I've been looking at this!"

Luce laughed. "I keep forgetting you're not one of my staff and you still work for the agency – if you'd ever had to put in a leave form or ask about a payslip, you'd know that they are the HR Department – the manager is riding the rather well-endowed horse in the middle. I think she'd prefer you just sit down and watch the show, and applaud loudly afterwards."

Mel regarded the dancing demons. It looked like the horses wore some sort of saddle with odd protuberances strapped on to them. She wondered how anyone was supposed to comfortably ride…

Mel groped blindly for her wine glass with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Perhaps if she drank enough, she'd manage to forget what she'd just seen her colleagues do.

"Time for the Christmas party!" Lili sang out. "Computers off – you won't be coming back today!"

Mel stared. "I thought we already had the office Christmas party. The one at the hotel, with the dancers and…"

Please, don't make me sit through another dance interpretation of
Gangnam Style
, she prayed silently. She still wished she didn't know what a double delight strap-on was for.

"Of course we did. That was the whole office. This is just our unit – we're going down to Matilda Bay with the swans for a barbeque."

"We're eating swan?" Mel asked, horrified. After the exotic dancers from HR, nothing would surprise her about office Christmas parties in HELL.

Lili laughed. "No, but they might try and eat us. Gerry got us some steaks and sausages, Ana and Merih have some salads, Gabi is bringing the rolls and I took care of the drinks. Time to make merry, Mel!"

Mel conceded the point and proceeded to shut down her computer. Sausages, swans and steak. It wasn't that heavenly mousse, but it was still a celebration and she wouldn't miss it. Demons celebrating Christmas – who'd have thought? "How are we getting there?" she asked.

"A few of us are driving over to the foreshore. I can give you a lift, if you like. I have one seat spare in my car."

Mel accepted gracefully and followed Lili to the underground car park, inexplicably burdened with more wine than she could drink. She wondered why a lot of it was bubbly and pink – it didn't seem like normal demonic fare, but who was she to judge? Her shoulders were too heavily burdened to shrug, so she kept her thoughts to herself.

Lili took the bags of bottles from her, loading them into the boot of her tiny two-seater convertible. The shiny red paintwork seemed to glow even in the dimly lit basement. Mel's fingers itched to drive Lili's car herself – it certainly looked like fun. Fleetingly, she wondered why no one else would want the passenger seat in Lili's lovely car.

"C'mon, Mel, hurry up or they'll start without us!" Lili insisted. She'd slid behind the steering wheel while Mel had mused.

Mel yanked open the door and buckled her seatbelt. She'd barely slammed the door behind her before Lili revved the engine and reversed.

Mel's question was answered quickly. Lili drove like…well, a demon, she decided. A demon with a death wish. Clinging to her seat, both feet firmly braced in the footwell as if she was braking with all her weight, she couldn't take her horrified eyes off the traffic whizzing past their erratically guided missile of a Mazda. The third time the seatbelt strained against her chest at Lili's sudden stop, Mel tried to shut the whole experience out, praying it would be over soon.

"Oh good! Merih and Gerry have already claimed us some tables!" Lili said, cracking open her door.

Mel opened her eyes and unclenched her hands from the bottom of her seat, hoping she hadn't clawed any of the upholstery off in her panic. There didn't appear to be anything unusual under her nails so she escaped from the car.

She tried to settle her shaky legs as she stepped across the grass to the table where the food was laid out. Both Merih and Gerry stood at the barbeque, each holding a beer in one hand and tongs in the other. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked.

"Nope!" Gerry grinned. "You just sit and guard the table from the hellspawn swans. Grab a drink, Mel!"

Hellspawn swans? They looked like normal black swans, Mel thought, examining the large birds by the water's edge. Surely a demon wouldn't blink at hellspawn, no matter what shape it took…

Lili pushed a plastic goblet of pink bubbly into her hand. Mel thanked her and approached the table. One swan unfolded its legs and stretched its neck in her direction, but didn't move closer.

Mel tucked her skirt beneath her and perched on the picnic bench, glancing at the food spread across the table's surface. Plenty of salad, alcohol, plates, cutlery…and some of the expensive bakery rolls she couldn't usually afford. Her stomach made its presence known as her eyes focussed on the heavily seeded rolls that were her favourite. One wouldn't hurt, she decided, slipping her fingers into the bakery bag. The top of the roll was hard to the touch, yet it yielded beneath her fingers, telling her it hadn't been sitting in the humid office all day or in a freezer for longer – this was baked fresh today and bought not long before.

"Go on," Gabi said softly, seating herself beside Mel. "I made sure to get the ones you like – and a few extra, just in case. They won't miss a couple of rolls."

Both angels looked over to the barbeque, where it appeared Merih had poured a beer over the hotplate, sending up a mushroom cloud of steam. The loud hissing didn't drown out their raucous laughter.

Mel agreed and the paper bag crackled as she extracted her prize.

Merry Christmas to me, she thought as she bit into the crusty roll, crunching through the seeds in bliss.

A high-pitched honk, like the squeak of a clarinet, drove her eyes open. The swan's red and white beak was level with her knees as he cocked his head so his red-ringed eye could make contact with hers.

"You want some of this roll, too? I don't blame you," Mel told him, breaking off a bite-sized piece and holding it before his beak. The swan took the morsel without touching her fingers. As Mel took another large bite, she almost choked with laughter as the swan lifted his head to look for more. Swallowing, she broke off another bit for the bird.

Together, they finished the roll and the swan seemed as eager as Mel for another. Without taking her eyes off the bird, Mel asked, "Gabi, is there any chance I could have another one?"

Paper crackled and something hard, rough and seedy touched her elbow. Mel reached over to take it and her fingers grazed those wrapped around the roll.

Dark clouds roiled, the sort only seen in a seriously strong storm – or surrounding a severely troubled soul. Yet this storm had an eye, a break through which she could see…

"You're not Gabrielle," Mel stated quietly.

"No, I'm far sexier than the stuck-up angel who was sitting here before," a male voice answered.

"Thank you," Mel continued as if he'd neither spoken nor insulted Gabi. She took a bite and the piece came away bigger than she'd expected – certainly more than she could swallow. The swan stretched up eagerly to help her.

Hellspawn by her side or possible hellspawn at her feet – Mel chose to give her attention to the bright-beaked bird. Acutely aware of the demon watching from the bench beside her, she bowed her head to the swan's level.

"You really shouldn't do that. Those birds will take your fingers off or worse if they get close to your face…"

A careful beak took the bread from her, close enough for her to kiss if Mel felt inclined to do so. Instead, she pulled away and covered her mouth as she laughed. Quickly, she placed another piece between her lips for the swan, which stretched for it. As he took the roll from her, she stroked the soft, dark down at his breast.

"I think this is the first time I've ever been insanely jealous of a bird," Luce said.