21. Not Just Another Day at the Office
21
Not Just Another Day at the Office
Charlene beamed at me when I walked into Hawthorne & Associates the next morning with Bo.
“Congratulations on not eating anyone.”
I grimaced. “Thanks. I think.”
Samuel had told me I would feel the full moon’s influence for a while yet. Although my skin still felt tight and my bones ached, it wasn’t nearly as bad as yesterday.
The banshee’s smile faltered slightly. “You did resist eating things, right? I mean, living things?”
“If you mean did I kill Thumper or Bambi, the answer is no. I only chased them.”
“Oh.” Charlene looked embarrassed. “Of course.”
“I did murder a steak sandwich afterward though.”
Bo flicked his tail accusingly. “I knew I could smell steak on your breath!”
I’d been forced to spend a good hour last night recounting how my first pack run had gone to my dog and my best friend. Though I’d been careful to omit the gory details of my actual transformation, Bo’s wary look told me he’d guessed it hadn’t been a walk in the park.
“By the way, Caroline and Aunt Lucille want to know the recipe for those protein bars and muffins you made,” I’d told Ellie.
She’d blinked. “They do?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I should open a bakery.” Her face had brightened. “A bakery for werewolves.”
I’d been tempted to remind my best friend that there seemed to be plenty of those in Amberford but hadn’t had the courage to shatter her dreams.
Fred emerged from the back room. His eyes widened at the sight of me. “Oh, hey Abby.” He faltered, his expression turning hopeful. “Can I get your autograph?”
I stared. “Why?”
Fred’s brimstone smell got stronger. “Because you’re a white wolf, of course!”
Charlene nodded enthusiastically and shyly pushed a notepad and a pen my way. I looked from it to them.
“How did you guys find out?” I asked suspiciously.
“The pixie who delivers our morning papers told us,” Fred said. “Her cousins were in the forest last night. It’s all over town.”
I groaned. That explained the occasional faint light trails I’d spotted in the trees last night.
“Ted is never gonna believe this,” Fred added enthusiastically as I reluctantly signed the notepad.
“Ted knows about the supernatural world in Amberford?” I asked carefully.
“My mom accidentally transformed into her demon at a family dinner once,” Fred said. “Almost gave Uncle Herbert a heart attack. Everyone else was cool with it.”
No wonder Ted looked like he could deal with anything a Pennington & Graves employee could throw at him.
A piercing shriek suddenly echoed through the building, making us all jump and sending Bo diving between my legs. Though nowhere near as bad as Charlene’s screech, the sound still felt like it was drilling into my skull.
My newly enhanced hearing was not helping.
The sound died down. I lowered my hands from my ears.
“What the hell was that?!”
Bo emerged from where he’d stuck his head between my knees. “It sounded like an angry ghost.”
Charlene chewed her lip. “That’s because it was an angry ghost.”
“Someone probably used the magic photocopier without Mindy’s permission,” Fred said worriedly.
Another shriek rattled the windows.
“You’d better go up there and see what’s going on,” Fred told me.
He and Charlene watched me expectantly.
I made a face. “Aren’t you supposed to be security?”
“This isn’t a security matter,” Fred glossed over.
Charlene nodded. “It’s a higher-up matter.”
“I just started working here two days ago,” I pointed out. “I’m as low-down as you get.”
Fred and Charlene exchanged a glance.
“Ain’t no one higher up than the Hawthorne luna,” Fred declared confidently.
“You should give up,” Bo told me.
The lobby doors opened before I could come up with a suitable riposte.
A man in an expensive suit walked in. He had the same nose and chin as Kevin from my old workplace. His eyes widened a little when he saw me, his pupils holding a faint ember glow.
Even without the glow, I could tell he was a werewolf from his scent.
“Hi, there. We didn’t get to meet yesterday.” He crossed the floor and offered his hand. “I’m Kevin Mullen, Head of Marketing.”
“Abby West.” I shook his hand cautiously. “Any relation to Kevin from Pennington & Graves by any chance?”
The guy blinked. “Yeah, he’s my second cousin.” He gave me a puzzled look. “How did you know?”
I was wondering whether the other Kevin was also a werewolf when another shriek shook the building.
“Gotta run.” I made for the express elevator with Bo.
“You might want to take the stairs,” Charlene warned.
I stopped and turned. “Why?”
Charlene fidgeted. “Nigel had a moment in it yesterday, after you left. The clean-up crew isn’t here yet.”
“Great,” Kevin muttered.
“Let me guess,” I said warily. “Someone surprised Nigel?”
Charlene grimaced. “Their phone did. Dave downloaded Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as his new ringtone. It went off between the third and fourth floor.”
I digested this for a moment. “Is Dave okay?”
“He’s taking the morning off.”
I trudged toward the stairwell with Bo.
“Your third day at the office isn’t exactly going well either, huh?” Bo said sympathetically.
“I get the feeling it’s going to be like this every day,” I muttered.
“Good thing you fancy the owner.”
I decided not to respond to my dog’s taunt. Luckily for me, my new werewolf stamina meant I wasn’t a breathless hot mess by the time we reached the fifth floor.
The scene that greeted us was not that dissimilar to my first morning.
Papers flew through the air like confetti at a particularly violent party. The lights were flickering alarmingly and the glassware in the office area was vibrating at a frequency that set my teeth on edge and made Bo’s ears flatten.
The main difference was Mindy. She was hovering near the ceiling in the open office area, her school uniform rippling with spectral energy and the knife in her neck glowing ominously.
“That ghost has lost it,” Bo observed warily.
I spotted Nigel behind the water cooler. The boogeyman was trying his best to calm the angry specter, a purple tentacle waving tentatively in the air.
“Now, now, Mindy. I’m sure whoever did this is very sorry?—”
“Sorry isn’t good enough!” Mindy growled, her ghostly form flickering like she’d stuck her fingers in an electric socket. “Do you people know how long it took me to organize the paper trays by color and supernatural species?!”
“Wow.” Bo glanced at me. “And I thought your OCD tendencies were bad.”
Mindy’s glowing eyes found us.
I nudged my dog into silence before he became the accidental victim of supernatural office violence. Gavin appeared at my right elbow with a cup of coffee.
“Organizing by supernatural species?” I asked the dragon newt while one of Nigel’s tentacles materialized and quickly retreated at Mindy’s glare.
“It’s a pretty neat filing system once you get used to it.”
Janet emerged from her office, her eyes still holding an ember glow and her hair somewhat wild. She looked like she’d barely slept last night.
“How about you people pipe down?” she said irritably. “The guys on the fourth floor keep messaging me about the noise.”
Mindy scowled. “They’re probably the ones who messed up the copy machine in the first place.”
“For Christ’s sake, Mindy, it’s not the end of the world!” Janet snapped.
Mindy made an indignant sound.
I studied the shadows under Janet’s eyes and wondered if she was suffering from post-full-moon blues. Ellie had warned me about it last night, after reading up on the phenomenon on a supernatural blog. I hadn’t believed her until I messaged Caroline this morning and she confirmed it was actually a thing.
“Not the end of the world?” Mindy had drawn herself to her full spectral height, which wasn’t that tall considering she’d been five-foot-three while still alive. “ Not the end of the world?! ”
The windows trembled.
“Uh-oh,” Gavin muttered as the ghost started turning an alarming shade of red. “She’s repeating herself. That’s never a good sign.”
Neither was a scarlet ghost.
“Someone used the werewolf paper for vampire forms!” Mindy was bellowing across the way. “ The werewolf paper, Janet! It’s cream colored! Everyone knows vampire documentation requires pure white paper!”
She threw some more files in the air for effect.
A paper landed on Barney’s desk.
He ignored it and carried on typing with nerve-racking slowness. The vampire sensed our stares and looked up.
“What?”
“Know anything about this paper situation, Barnabas?” Janet asked in the tone of someone who was wishing she’d never gotten out of bed that morning.
“I do not,” Barney replied coldly. “I’m not the only vampire in the building.” He sniffed. “Also, everyone knows I don’t dabble in newfangled technology.”
That explained the typewriter.
“He’s got a point,” Mindy said grudgingly.
“He has two in his mouth,” Bo said helpfully.
I hushed him.
A tentacle gestured hesitantly from behind the water cooler. “I can help you reorganize the copy machine.”
Mindy sniffed. “Thanks, Nigel. I’d really like that.”
Nigel’s tentacle blushed and brightened.
I stared before leaning sideways and hissing to Gavin out of the corner of my mouth. “Does Nigel have a thing for Mindy?”
“Yup. Three years and still going strong. We have a betting pool on how many more years it will take before he asks her out.”
I was wondering where a ghost and boogeyman would go on their first date when Didi stuck her head out of the break room. She brightened when she saw me.
“Oh good, you’re here. We need to have a meeting about—” The witch spotted the paperwork strewn across the office. Her mouth pressed to a flat line. “Those had better not be my compliance reports.”
Mindy ducked inside the copy machine.