Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
H aven considered banging her head on her desk. It’d hurt, but it wouldn’t hurt as bad as taking yet another triage call.
It was barely lunchtime, and she’d already taken twelve calls. Each one was more annoying than the last. In fact, she was considering sending hunters out to a few of them just to share the annoyance. No one liked to be annoyed alone, right? Why not share the wealth?
Oh, and if annoying calls were wealth, she’d be a freakin’ billionaire at this point. She wondered if all the other triage agents in the call center got calls like she was getting, or if she was just supremely unlucky. Or maybe she’d wronged someone in another life and was currently experiencing a karmic bitch slap of epic proportions.
She supposed she should count herself lucky she’d gotten an office instead of being stuck out on the cube farm with the other agents. It was the one kindness she’d been afforded in this new assignment.
Not that the office was anything to brag out. It was more like a roomy prison cell that contained nothing but a cheap, faux-wood desk, a rolling chair with a coffee stain on the lumpy cushion, an empty plywood bookshelf, and a fat procedural manual she absolutely would not be reading.
Oh, and the stupid framed poster of a flower growing through a crack in a concrete sidewalk with the word “determination” printed on it. That had been a gag gift from Benny, her mom’s best friend.
Benny was a halfer—a wererat/vampire combo—and had been in her life for as long as Haven could remember. He was the first to buy her beer on her twenty-first birthday, took her to all the violent movies she wanted to see when she was a kid, and taught her to cheat at cards when she was five. Usually, his sense of humor delighted the hell out of her. In this case? Not so much.
Regardless, she needed out of this chickenshit assignment. She’d planned on staying here for a while, doing a great job, and proving to her parents that she could be put back on active duty. But with the calls she was taking, she wasn’t going to prove anything but her ability to fake being nice when talking to lunatics.
And they were all so rude! The sheer number of times someone had asked to speak to her supervisor today was staggering.
Part of her wanted to transfer the lot of them to her supervisor. It’d serve her mom right. And Harper would probably make the jerks cry before they got off the phone, so it’d be a win-win now that she was thinking about it.
Note to self: transfer the next supernatural Karen to Mom .
Haven let out a pained groan when the phone rang. Again. Jesus, were there any happy paranormal folk in the world? Anyone who didn’t have something they needed to bitch and moan about?
She couldn’t even force a customer service voice this time. She was too tired. “Section 8. How can I help you?”
“Well, aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine.”
Aaaannnddd now her day was officially the worst workday ever. And she’d been dead on the job before, so that was saying a lot.
Haven would know the voice on the other end of her line anywhere because she’d spoken to this horrid woman every damn day, at least twice a day, since she took this stupid, awful, boring job.
“Hello, Margaret,” she said, summoning her most patient tone from the depths of hell. “How can I help you this time?”
Margaret huffed out a harsh breath. “You haven’t helped me yet . Not sure why I’d expect more at this point.”
“Oh, so you’d like to end the call, then?”
Margaret Vassel was over four hundred years old. That was an impressive age, even for a vampire. Unfortunately for Margaret, she looked every bit her age and sounded worse. Haven was pretty sure the old bat had smoked every day of her unnaturally long life, and not even vampiric healing powers could fix that kind of damage.
The real problem, though, was that Margaret was bored. She had no friends because she was a racist, homophobic, ageist jerk who thought things were better back when people died from the common cold, and all her family wanted no contact with her long before any of them died. So, when she needed to berate someone and complain, Margaret called the Section 8 help line.
Which meant that Margaret would not let herself be bullied off a call, no matter how hard Haven might try. And, oh, how she’d tried.
“Child, you can either listen to me and do something about my complaint, or I can go to the TV station. It’s up to you. But something tells me your bosses wouldn’t like that kind of publicity.”
Haven rolled her eyes. Her bosses wouldn’t blame her for anything she might do wrong. If she called either of her parents and said she needed help hiding a body, they’d show up, no questions asked, shovels in hand.
But listening to old lady Vassel whine was her job now. Yay. “What’s wrong today, ma’am? Is your werewolf neighbor listening to his music too loud again? Or did the witch at the coffee shop forget to put the flower design in your latte again?”
Both were examples from actual calls she’d taken from Ms. Vassel earlier in the week. The werewolf in question was on parole, so he was quick to comply with the city noise ordinance. The witch at the coffee shop, however, was unrepentant. She’d left the flower off that latte intentionally because Margaret told the girl her tattoos would make her look like a melted box of crayons when she got old, and she refused to serve her again. Haven didn’t blame her. But thankfully, another coworker agreed to take care of Margaret when she came in going forward, so the tattooed witch wouldn’t ever have to deal with her again.
Haven wished someone was willing to take the Vassel bullet for her, too. But alas…
“You’re sassy,” Margaret said dryly. “No one likes a sassy child.”
She sighed. “I’m not a child. But again, what’s wrong this time, ma’am?”
“Two of my cows were mutilated.”
Haven sat up a little straighter in her chair. Animals were sometimes used in demon rituals. Was it possible that Margaret had finally stumbled upon an actual paranormal problem she could help with? “Mutilated how?”
Margaret huffed out a harsh breath. “Girl, I hope for your sake that you’re pretty, because you are dumber than a box of hair. Mu-til-a-ted , I said. How many ways are there to mutilate a freaking cow?”
Haven decided she’d ignore the box of hair comment. Telling Margaret that what didn’t kill her disappointed everyone around her, or that she’d fail a personality test, or that even Bob Ross would call her a mistake, or that she was a sentient menstrual cramp wouldn’t do either of them any good. And it wasn’t very customer service-y. “I mean ,” she began, calling forth every bit of patience she had left, which admittedly wasn’t much, “do you think it was a shifter? Or was it a ritualistic mutilation?”
“If I knew that, why would I call you?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Deep, calming breath in, deep, calming breath out . “Are the bodies still there, or did you dispose of them?”
“I dragged ‘em into the barn so that the buzzards wouldn’t take ‘em.”
“Good. That’s good,” Haven said, typing some notes into the call log. “I’ll send an investigator out to examine them later today. Does that work for you?”
There was a loaded pause on Margaret’s end of the line. “You mean you’re actually sending someone out?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“You mean to tell me you’re actually concerned about my safety after all this time?”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t. Say. It . “No. But we take the safety of livestock very seriously around here.”
D’oh ! She said it.
Margaret let out a dry snort. “Your parents should be tried at the Hague for how they raised you, you know that?”
Weirdly enough, it wasn’t the first time she’d heard that one. “And you bring joy to every room you exit.”
Margret was silent for a beat, and Haven feared she’d gone too far. Hell, she really might get fired. She had to think the only thing more humiliating than washing out of the hunter program was washing out of the fucking call center. But after a long pause, Margret sniffed delicately and said, “Good one.”
Then she hung up.
Well, if nothing else, she’d at least learned how to get rid of Margret. Apparently, all you had to do was impress her with an insult. Maybe the horrid old bog witch wasn’t so bad after all.
But as Haven was looking through the project management software that would tell her which agents had time to check out Margret’s complaint, she had a thought. Or maybe an epiphany?
She switched her screen to do a quick web search to define epiphany to see if what she was having met the description. Yes. Yes , this was definitely an epiphany.
If she figured out who or what was mutilating old lady Vassel’s cows without any trouble—or, you know, dying this time—her parents would have to admit she was ready to be back in the field and off this damn desk.
It probably wasn’t even a difficult or particularly dangerous investigation. Margret did live in the middle of werewolf country, after all. And the day she couldn’t handle some werewolves was the day she didn’t deserve her old job back.
Hell, she’d been sparring with her uncle Lucas, an alpha (in strength only. He had no interest in actually managing a pack), for as long as she could remember. He’d taught her more about their strengths and weaknesses than anyone outside of pack life should ever know.
If handled properly, this could be a quick, easy way back to real, meaningful work. Except for one thing.
Roan Malek.
The second he realized she was heading into werewolf country by herself, he’d just pop up and teleport her back to safety, as he’d done about a bazillion times since she, well, died and was brought back to life by the miracle of CPR. How he always knew she was in trouble, (or perceived trouble), she had no idea. She had to imagine some serious stalking was involved.
And she had no choice but to imagine it because the stubborn jackass had refused to actually talk to her since…the incident.
She wasn’t going to stew about that now, though. The hurt it caused was damn near debilitating. He’d been such a big part of her life, and losing him like that…
Haven gave herself a sharp mental slap across the face. This wasn’t about Roan. This was about how she was going to keep him from ruining her investigation.
There it was. Another epiphany. Man, she was on fire today!
What she needed now was info, and only Lane would be able to give it to her.
Lane Hunter was as much a sister to Haven as her actual sister, Addy, was. Soul sisters. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time when Lane hadn’t been in her life. And for the time before she could actually remember, there were photos of the two of them sharing a playpen at Harper Hall Investigations while her parents and Lane’s looked on proudly.
It felt weird not telling Lane what she was thinking and what she was going through. But there was no way she was going to cock block (or was it clam jam?) her best friend on her honeymoon with the second hottest man Haven had ever seen.
Sadly, she did think Roan was hotter than Lane’s angel husband, Lucien. Not that she’d ever tell either of them that. What they didn’t know wouldn’t embarrass the shit out of her. That was her motto these days.
But none of that was relevant. What was relevant was that if anyone could help her now, it was Lane. She grabbed her phone and shot off a quick text.
Haven: How do I summon an angel?
She’d, of course, seen it done. That time when the entire wrath of heaven was ready to come down on Lane’s head was etched in her memory for life. But she hadn’t really been paying attention to the whole summoning bit. What she’d learned that day, and tucked away for future reference, was that she had a guardian angel named Carl who was responsible for keeping her alive long enough to fulfill her destiny. Whatever that was.
And even though she wasn’t supposed to talk to him, it wasn’t impossible. If there was anyone capable of stopping a demon from teleporting her around, it had to be an angel, right?
The three little telltale dots popped up on Haven’s phone, and a second later, there was her friend’s reply.
Lane: I’m almost afraid to ask…
Haven: It’s better if you don’t.
Lane: Whatever you’re doing, will you at least try to stay safe and call for backup if necessary?
Haven: Of course! I didn’t intentionally die that day, you know.
Lane: *eye roll emoji* Don’t you dare tell anyone this came from me. If asked, you say you remember it from last year. I will deny helping you. Got it?
Haven: *gif of a cartoon cat and mouse pinky swearing*
Lane typed faster than the speed of light, which meant Haven didn’t have to wait long for the instructions to come through. Which was good, because waiting patiently was not her strong suit.
Looking over the text, Haven started to get even more excited about her plan. This was doable. All of it. Even the oils and herbs she needed were right here in Section 8, and no one would miss them.
Haven: Thanks! I love you. Say hi to your hot angel hubby for me.
Lane: Love you too, babe. And I will. *heart emoji*
Time to summon a guardian angel.
This was going to be epic .
Or a complete and utter clusterfuck. Could go either way, really.