Under Attack

“Fine,” I said without looking up.

“Sure thing,” she said, sliding the plate in front of me.

Suddenly, I was ravenous. I took one bite of my burger and chewed hungrily, but when I tried to swallow, the meat stuck in my throat. I felt a prick go up the back of my neck, felt the cold sting of sweat as it beaded along my hairline and then blanketed my skin. The whole café dropped into silence; all I could hear was the heaving beat of my heart, the whoosh of my own breath as it filled my lungs. I looked around slowly, my whole body feeling leaden and foreign. I turned a quarter inch to my left and I saw her, perched on a bar stool, her body facing me. Her posture was ramrod straight and her hands were folded daintily in her lap, her knees bolted together, legs crossed at the ankle. Her blond hair was nearly waist length and hung in brilliant waves over one shoulder. She smiled and her lips were full and berry-stained; her chin was defined and defiant. She stared at me with eyes that were an icy, piercing blue.

She was the same woman from the coffee shop, and suddenly I knew without having to ask—she was Ophelia.

It was as though she knew exactly what I was thinking. The second I came to the realization, her lips parted into a smile that was part sweet, part bone-chillingly sly and she raised one hand, arching her fingers into a prim finger wave.

Ice water filled my veins.

Ophelia turned around on her bar stool so she was facing away from me. I turned back to my lunch and the sounds of the café crashed over me. I looked down at my plate and clamped my hand over my mouth. My eyes watered, my stomach heaved.

The top bun of my burger moved slowly, jerkily. My fries were covered with fat, yellow-white maggots writhing, falling off my French fries, dripping onto the table. I poked my burger bun with my fingernail and it fell aside, revealing my hamburger patty, my arched bite mark, and a hundred pulsing bugs.

I let out a howl and stood up, scratching the electric-blue vinyl of the booth as I clawed for my shoulder bag. I knocked over my Diet Coke, heard the clatter of my plate as it crashed to the floor.

“You’ve got to pay for that,” I heard as I ran through the café. “Hey, lady!”

I fished a few bills out of my purse and tossed them onto the counter—right at the empty spot where Ophelia had been sitting a half second ago. I paused and looked over my shoulder at my lunch: my burger bun spilled open, the grilled brown patty lay on the floor in a pool of gelling grease. My fries scattered in a thousand directions. There wasn’t a maggot anywhere.

I pushed out of the café and ran the entire way back to the UDA, my tears making cold, wet tracks down my cheeks. I was heaving and hiccupping by the time I barreled through the doors of the police station, by the time I ran full force into Alex’s chest. He instinctively wrapped his arms around me and I was enveloped in his soothing warmth.

“Whoa, Lawson! Slow down! Hey, sweetie, what’s wrong?” he was saying. “It’s okay, calm down.” He pressed his lips into my hair, and I buried my damp face into the warm skin of his neck, breathing in his familiar, calming scent of cut grass and cocoa. When I was assured that my heart wouldn’t beat out of my chest, I loosened my grip on Alex, sniffed, and looked up at him.

“It was Ophelia,” I said, my voice sounding very small. “And my father. And maggots.”

Alex held me at arm’s length, his eyes going wide. “You saw Ophelia?”

I nodded and began to tremble again as the image of her wry smile blazed in my memory.

“Did she hurt you?”

“No,” I said, breaking away from Alex and running my fingers through my hair. “She didn’t have to.” I flopped into the vinyl waiting-room chair in the police station vestibule and looked up at him. “Alex, I think I’m going crazy. I’m hearing things, seeing things... .” I shrugged miserably, cradling my head in my hands.

Alex sat down next to me, his thigh brushing against mine. “Crazy?” His mouth pushed up into that sweet half-smile. “From the girl who spends forty hours a week with the dead and horned among us?”

I tried not to smile but gave in—slightly. It wasn’t easy to focus on my bizarre upside-down life with Alex sitting so close to me, but I reminded myself that thanks to him—my bizarre life was upside down—and maybe even in danger.

“So, crazy is relative. But seeing maggots? And my father? And Ophelia—all in the same day? Heck, all in the same lunch hour. That’s not weird?”

Alex put his hand on mine, his thumb stroking my skin. “Ophelia is trying to get to you.”

“Well, she did.”

Alex wagged his head, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “This isn’t good. She could have hurt you. Ophelia’s intentions are never good.”

“If she was so into me, why didn’t she attack me just now at the café?”

“She did. Your father, the maggots—she can make you see things. She can get in your head—if you let her.”

I pulled my hand away from Alex’s, squeezing my fingers into fists, feeling my nails digging into my palms. “The maggots, maybe. But my father? You think that was Ophelia playing with my head? That he wasn’t really”—I swallowed a sob that I had no reason to have—“here?”

“No, Lawson, I don’t think your father was really there. I don’t think he was walking down the street in the middle of the day.”

I tried to blink back the sting of tears. “What?”

Alex swallowed; his voice was soft. “You haven’t seen him in more than thirty years—and suddenly you see him walking down the street? I’m not saying it’s impossible, I just think it’s unlikely.”

“But it was him. I know it was. How would Ophelia know what my father looks like?”

“Angels draw strong influence. And with Ophelia—if you let her—she’ll get in your mind and show you anything you want to see. And probably a lot of things you don’t want to see, too.”

I paused, considering. “Why do you keep saying that, ‘if I let her’?”

Alex shrugged. “Relax, Lawson. I’m not trying to attack you.”

“Well, you seem to be pretty sure of your ex-girlfriend’s skill set.”

“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

“No, it kind of is. You think Ophelia is stronger than me.”

Alex inched away from me and drew in a breath. “All I am saying is that the human mind is very easily influenced. You react well to suggestion. It’s not a dig, it’s a fact.”

I stood up. “Easily influenced? React to suggestion? I am not making this up, Alex. I saw what I saw. It wasn’t a suggestion, it was maggots. Fat, creepy, crawly maggots on my plate, on my French fries, everywhere. I don’t see things, remember? I am magically immune.”

Alex bit his lip. “It’s not magic. It’s powers. We have powers. Angels and demons, we’re ... it’s different.”

I shook my head, working to block out Alex’s words “It was my father. I saw him, and I just knew it was him—your angelic superpowers or not.”

“Lawson.” Alex’s voice was low, his eyes scanning the police station, where people had started to notice us, to drop their papers and swing their heads to the girl with the fire-engine-red hair stomping and screaming in the waiting room.

“I don’t know how she did it or why she did it, but your girlfriend”—I spat the word—“tried to poison me. Or freak me out. Or whatever.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “She’s not my girlfriend. And could you keep your voice down?”

I growled, turned on my heel, and jabbed at the elevator’s down button. “I have to get back to work.”

The elevator bell dinged and the heavy metal doors slid open. I jumped inside and kicked the CLOSE DOOR button, Alex’s face with its mix of anger and concern getting narrower and narrower as the doors eeked shut.

When I got downstairs, the UDA was buzzing. Demons stood hoof-to-hoof in long lines, mildly held in place by swooping velvet ropes. I tried to keep my head down and my eyes low, but I wasn’t two feet into the office when Mrs. Henderson—our resident busybody and fire-breathing dragon—stomped over to me, a thick sheaf of papers clutched in her manicured claw.

“Sophie—finally, someone who knows what she’s doing. I tell you, that—that— vampire that you have working behind the counter is completely useless. Has she ever