Like I said, the Underworld Detection Agency is housed in the same building as the San Francisco Police Department, but nestled a cool thirty-five floors below. The thin veil that separates the “breathers” (anyone with a beating heart and the breath of life) and the Underworld inhabitants allows our elevators to go straight on down, while theirs sticks to Lower Lobby and above. Hence, the San Francisco Police Department doesn’t even know we’re here.
But not many breathers do.
My hand closed around the door handle and a shiver went through me—this one had nothing to do with Sampson, nothing to do with my promise. This one was all about Alex Grace.
His face flashed in my mind: that cocky half smile, those sweet cherry lips—the surprised look on his face when I walked out of another man’s apartment clad in little more than an oversized soccer jersey and a handful of last night’s clothing.
We’re not together; we had “the talk,” I reminded myself. I didn’t do anything wrong.
But deep down in my gut, I was sure that I had.
I prayed that Alex would already be in his back office, head down, working away—oblivious to the fact that I, Sophie Lawson, traitorous woman, walked among him and his law-and-order associates.
Nina and I slipped into the police station vestibule and I kept my eyes firmly focused on the prehistoric linoleum in front of me. I counted the cracks and the curled edges, tapping my foot and willing the elevator to move at a slightly more acceptable pace.
“I can hear your blood rushing from here,” Nina said. “Calm down.”
When the big steel doors opened and I was still undiscovered, my heart did a joyful double beat and I sent out a blanket thank-you to the universe and the Otis elevator people.
I stepped inside the elevator, a myriad of feeling pummeling me. I was hoping for another quiet day lining up Post-It notes and changing my outgoing message—“Hi, you’ve reached Sophie Lawson, director of the Fallen Angel Division of the Underworld Detection Agency. If you would like this message to continue in English, please press one.” I didn’t speak any other languages so the message generally ended there.
Thankfully, the UDA waiting room seemed to be in full-swing, business-as-usual mode. A few ex-clients of mine—my client list had quickly dwindled once I found my first dead dragon—looked over their shoulders at me, then looked at the floor suddenly, as if nappy industrial grade carpet were the most fascinating thing in the underworld.
Nina linked her arm through mine, her cool, bare arms making gooseflesh rise up on mine immediately. “Don’t worry about it, Soph. Everything is going to go back to normal soon enough, and you’ll be swimming in intake forms and slobber like the rest of us.”
She smiled, her small fangs even more visible in the overhead light, and though I was up to my ears in nervous twitters, I had to smile back. Nina is my best friend, my roommate, and by far the wisest person I know.
I was convinced that coming back from the dead must make you super smart.
She is tall and lanky to my short and square, with perennially perfect black hair that swims over her shoulders and nips at her tiny waist. I like to believe that I have the same lustrous hair just in a deep, radiant auburn. I also like to believe that I look like a kick-ass warrior woman in black leather pants and skimpy tops that crisscross my stair-step abs. But in actuality, my curls have a mind of their own, auburn equals a red not found in nature, and the one and only time I wore leather pants they chafed so badly I had to see a doctor. I do have a decent chest—not remarkable, but passable, especially compared to Nina’s—and strong arms, generally from carrying around loads of Granny-inspired cantaloupe (long story). Nina has a padded bra and jaws that can rip a grown man’s throat out, so I guess she wins again.
She was born (the first time ’round) in nineteenth-century France and still holds on to the poised countenance of a noblewoman. While I tend to be on the loud and falling-down-a-lot side, Nina tends to glide, to bat her mile-long lashes and purse her heart-shape lips and the world’s population falls at her feet. And if they don’t, she’ll bite them. Luckily for you, centuries of roaming the Earth and a signed-and-sealed contract with the Underworld Detection Agency mean that Nina kept her fangs to herself and breathers like us never have to worry about becoming a vamp snack.