She was sitting primly at the edge of my office chair. Her posture was impeccable, and her long, dark hair hung in a sheet down her back. Her hands were neatly folded in her lap and her outfit—pearls, a baby pink twinset, and a dark pink chintz skirt—stood out cheerily against her decaying gray skin.
“Hello, Bettina.”
Bettina pressed her hands to the sides of her face and her mouth dropped open, ready to let out another earsplitting howl.
“No!” I said, jumping forward and slapping my own hand against her mouth. “Sorry.” I rubbed my palm against my thigh. “You’ll just need not to do that here, please.”
Though my new station as head of the Fallen Angel Division meant that I didn’t work with the general demon population any longer, there were a few members—and demon breeds—I kept tabs on. Either because our staffers had issues (Nina, being non–fire retardant in the face of dragons) or the demons themselves had certain powers that made general fraternization difficult.
Bettina was one of those demons.
You see, Bettina Jacova is a banshee. And though people are generally aware of the banshee yell—as in, “Those kids have been screaming like banshees all day”—they fail to realize the seriousness of it. The banshee scream signifies death.
Generally, yours.
Some demons are immune, but others are not.
The UDA found it prudent not to take the chance after we lost half the finance department to our Romanian intern, who failed to mark the box “banshee—deadly” on her intake form. My magical immunity super power allowed me to work with fire-breathing dragons and Bettina with her murderous screams.
Just another perk of being the only nearly normal at the Underworld Detection Agency.
Lucky me.
I sat down across from Bettina, who eyed me nervously. I offered her my most reassuring smile, praying to Buddha, God, and Oprah that she wouldn’t let loose another scream. It was hard enough to cover our clients when two of our staffers went on vacation simultaneously; should the entire group drop dead from banshee screams, well, then the Underworld Detection Agency would be in deep trouble.
“So, Bettina, how may I help you?”
“Well,” Bettina started to say, kneading her fingers in her lap. “I need help. I mean, I think we all might need help.”
“‘We all,’ as in all the banshees?” I mentally started to scan my inner Rolodex. From my recollection there were only six banshees total in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area. “I suppose we could get some sort of soundproofed bus for—”
“No, not just banshees.” Bettina’s eyes shifted uneasily. “Everyone.” She paused, sucked in a sharp little breath, and cleared her throat. “Ms. Lawson, I was attacked last night.”
I felt my eyebrows rise, and felt the prick of heat wash through my body. “Attacked? By whom—or what?”
Bettina’s eyes started to water; her lower lip trembled. I snatched a few Kleenex from the box and pushed them into Bettina’s hands. “It’s okay, Bettina, you’re safe here. Now, can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“Well, I was leaving my apartment. I live by the ballpark, you know. It’s very loud and”—a twinge of pink bloomed in Bettina’s cheeks—“there’s a lot of general screams, so ...”
“Go on.”
“Well, I was going to get some groceries, and I was walking toward the bus stop. I wasn’t alone, because there was a Giants game going on, so there were tons of breathers.” Bettina blushed and lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I meant there were lots of other people around, at first. Most of them went into the stadium so the street emptied out pretty quickly. Even so, I felt like I was being followed.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“That’s the thing. Before I left, I looked out the window to check the weather. I thought I saw someone on the sidewalk looking up into my window, but then the bus came and I guess he got on. I went downstairs and walked to the bus stop myself, and I got that weird feeling again.”
“Like you were being watched?” I supplied, feeling the hairs on my arms prickle.
Bettina nodded. “I was walking and I looked over my shoulder, and no one was there. Then I turned back and someone hit me. Hard.” Bettina’s graying fingers shakily pushed aside her bangs, showing off an impressive gash just over her left eyebrow.
I sucked in a stunned breath. “Oh my. Bettina, I’m—”
“I was down on the ground, and he kicked me, too, right here.” Bettina gingerly rubbed her lower belly. “I was going to scream—I would have, but he caught me by surprise—and he hit me again.”
“Do you know what he hit you with?”
Bettina wagged her head. “I’m not sure. It looked like some sort of pipe.”
“Like a tire iron, maybe?”
Bettina shrugged. “I’m not really sure what those look like.”
I wasn’t entirely certain, either, but whether Bettina’s assailant was wielding a tire iron or a magic wand made a world of difference. At least it did here, in the Underworld.
“He wasn’t done, either,” Bettina said. “He—he was going to hit me again, in the head, but the game must have let out, because people started to fill the streets. He told me that my kind needed—needed to be erased.”
“Your kind? Did he—did he know you were—”
My saliva went sour and suddenly my skin felt too tight.
Demons walk among us every day. A vampire might be your neighbor; the corner store might be run by a werewolf or a troll. There is a thin veil that masks the demon differences from the human sight. That veil, combined with our human ability to unsee anything that might unsettle us, has allowed the demon race to prosper and blend into the natural world.
That veil doesn’t work on me; and if Bettina’s assailant was human, the veil didn’t work on him, either.
“He looked over his shoulder and ran, once the people started to come.” A single fat tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto her cheery pink skirt.
“I’m so sorry, Bettina.” I patted her shoulder awkwardly and she fell into me, head buried in my shoulder, her small body shaking violently as she cried.
“I’m so scared,” she whimpered. “I’m so scared.”
I patted Bettina’s back and let her cry; then I cocked my head and squinted as her cries gave way to a series of half-muffled screams.
I thought I heard bodies dropping in the lobby.
“Don’t worry, Bettina. We’re going to find out who did this to you, I promise. We’ll keep you safe, too.”
My heart walloped and my mouth went dry. Even as I said the words, I wondered how I was supposed to keep a killer demon safe, and who would keep
I escorted Bettina through the UDA lobby and stepped into the elevator with her while she whimpered, gingerly touching a tissue to her moist eyes. As we neared the first floor, I bit my lip, working out the most diplomatic way to remind Bettina to keep her mouth shut. With someone walking around beating up demons, the last thing the city needed was the entire police department dropping dead.
The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors began to open on the police department.
“Bettina, you know you need to—”
But she already had her lips clamped shut; the edges turned up in a tiny, grateful smile. She pantomimed locking her lips and tossing away the key.
“Thanks.”
“So what was that all about?” Nina inclined her head toward the elevator doors when I came down again,
