Graveyard Shift (9 page)

Chapter
11

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle.

I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa

“Run that by me one more time,” Gabriel grumbled over his cup of coffee. His crumpled dress robe lay over the back of his chair. He had slept in it, but now wore his usual cotton pants and stared at me like I had just mutated into a league of demons.

“Maalik and I got some coffee, and he walked me home,” I muttered as I wiped the table down for the third time.

“You brought him here? While I was sleeping on the couch?” He made it sound as if we had snuck in and stood over him to plot his demise.

“Noooo. He walked me to the front door. He didn’t even come upstairs.”

“So, did you blow our cover, or does he think he’s one up on me now, sneaking around with my girl behind my back? The prick.”

“He already knew we weren’t a co
uple. He did his homework.” I laughed at Maalik’s own choice of words.

“Great, now Peter will have som
ething else to torture me over.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about Maalik saying anything to Peter. He’s really not so bad, once you get to know him.”

“Yeah, I hear dying in your sleep isn’t so bad either,” he said and dumped another spoonful of sugar in his coffee.

“Five minutes!” Josie bolted through the door. “You’ve got five minutes to finish getting ready or I’m lea
ving without you.” She had managed to enjoy the ball, but now she was back in reaper mode. Full blown Josie reaper mode.

“I’m ready,” I groaned.

I hadn’t slept well, so I was up on time for a change. After Maalik walked me home, my mind had been sucked back into a pit of despair. I did not want to work with Coreen. The woman was unbearable. There’s only so many times a person can call you a pea-brain before you just snap and slap the shit out of them. I was guessing it would take two days, three tops.

“Wow.” Josie gave me a surprised smile. “You’re really taking this pr
omotion seriously, aren’t you?”

“No, she was just up all night with Maalik,” Gabriel snapped before I had a chance to answer.

Josie’s jaw dropped.

“How would you know what time I got home? You were already passed out drunk on my couch when I got here!”

“I thought you didn’t like Maalik.” Josie grinned at me. “Did you change your mind since he’s on the council now?”

“No! Of course not. He asked to walk me home and we got some coffee on the way. That’s all.”

She shrugged. “Whatever you say. Let’s get going.”

I grabbed my work robe and turned back to Gabriel. He picked up the sugar bowl and scowled at his spoon.

“You wanna meet us at Purgatory tonight and hear all the details of our first day on Coreen’s team?” Maybe he would forgive me for the sake of curiosity.

He looked up and frowned. “Sure.”

“Great. I’ll see you around eight?”

“Yeah.”

I turned to follow Josie out the door, but Gabriel caught my arm. “Hey, be careful out there today. This whole assignment doesn’t feel right. Even though I’m mad at you for going out with that birdbrain, it doesn’t mean I want anything to happen to you.” He gave me a small smile.

“I’ll be careful.” I kissed him on the forehead and left just as Josie’s booming voice echoed down the hall.

“Take your time. You get to explain why the elevator took so long to all the people waiting downstairs. If you’re going to get up early, don’t you think you should make it worthwhile and show up on time?”

She griped the whole ride down, definitely in full blown reaper mode. I changed my mind. Coreen would be lucky if we made it through a whole day t
ogether.

Grim’s conference room wasn’t nearly as decorated as his office. He kept everything simple and sharp, from the straight backed chairs to the shelves of legal books lining the walls. A cup of markers spilled across an atlas as I smashed my knee into a table leg. I grimaced. That was going to leave a bruise.

“California?” I looked up at Coreen.

“What exit method are we working with?” Josie asked. She was trying her best to keep me out of trouble.

Coreen’s snarl subsided
. “He’s scheduled for a car accident around eleven. We’re going to follow him for two hours before.”

“So we have an hour and a half. What kind of prep work do we need to do?” Josie synchronized her watch with the clock in Grim’s conference room.

“It’s San Francisco, so we should probably go over the maps and the most common routes between his hotel and the venue his band is rehearsing at. We can’t pinpoint the actual location of the crash, but we do know it will take place in or near the city.”

“Swell.” I sighed.

Coreen turned to me. I was waiting for the first pea-brain comment of the day, but it never came. Her jaw clenched and then she cleared her throat, before unfolding a map on the conference table.

“You can have the honor, Lana,” she sneered and tossed a handful of markers on top of the map. “Josie, Kevin, I’ve got something else for you two to work on. Fo
llow me.”

They walked out of the room, leaving me with the map and markers.
A sarcastic
swell
was looking more and more like my word for the day.

I picked up a marker and walked around the table to get a better view of San Francisco. Why in
Eternity did we need four reapers to pick up one soul? It just didn’t make sense. I slumped down on one of the swivel chairs and began deciphering all the routes and major intersections. Nearly an hour later, when I had the map covered in jagged lines and circles, the rest of the team joined me again.

“I hope this promotion includes better pay,” I huffed.

Coreen snorted. “We’ll discuss that when and if we get the soul.”

“What do you mean,
if
we get the soul? There are four of us.” I spun the chair around to face her.

I knew there was something more to this job, and it was starting to piss me off that I was responsible for carrying it out without all the details. Josie looked paler than she had before they left the room, not a good sign.

“Please tell me you’re not so dim that you didn’t notice how much Seth disapproves of our kind.” There it was, pea-brain comment number one.

“Yes, I noticed, but what does that h
ave to do with this assignment?” I jammed the cap back on my marker.

“Seth is being closely watched now that he’s on the council, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely cut off from his resources. It’s possible that he has someone spying on us so he can take the soul for himself and find out why it’s so important.”

“Why is it so important?”

“Weren’t you listening at dinner? Grim can use the soul to help solve our problem in the Sea of Eternity.” Coreen cocked a hip and gave me a bewildered look.

I sighed. “Yeah, and Seth heard that version of the story at dinner too. I don’t think I buy it any more than he does.”

Coreen grit
ted her teeth as she pulled a hand up to grasp her hip. “I don’t care if you buy it or not. We have a job to do, and if you don’t want to be a part of this team, then you can tell Grim yourself. He’s in his office right now.”

Maalik had been right. She didn’t have the authority to
give me the boot.

I grinned. “That’s alright. I’ll figure it out sooner or later.” I kicked my feet up on the table and crossed my arms. If she couldn’t fire me, there was no reason to be all prim and proper.

Coreen pressed her lips together, flushing color into her pale cheeks as she tried to contain herself.

“We should really get going,” Josie intervened. 

“Yes, we should.” Coreen ripped her glare away from me and pulled a handful of coins from the pocket of her robe.

Kevin reached for one first, and I just then reme
mbered that this was his first day on the job. For his sake, I hoped everything went according to plan. You always remember your first job and base the success of every job after around it. Today could either make or break his career.

“There’s a record store across the street from the su
bject’s hotel,” Coreen said. “We’ll meet there. Kevin, take my hand. This is your first coin. I want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”

Kevin obeyed without hesitation. No wonder she liked having apprentices. Grim always gave her the best ones.

“See you on the other side,” she said before rolling her coin and disappearing.

Kevin would be fine. He was the best of his gener
ation. Besides, you don’t get to be Coreen Bendura’s apprentice if you score poorly on your L&L, latitude and longitude exam. We’re required to know the global coordinates of every major city and then some before being allowed to use coins for the human realm. Beside reapers, most angels are familiar with coordinates too. That’s why they always show up where they’re supposed to, while rogue demons who manage to get their hands on a coin show up wherever and possess whoever they can, little girl or not.

I flipped my coin once and Josie grabbed my wrist.

“Be careful, Lana,” she whispered. “Coreen had me pack an unhealthy number of arrows. She really thinks something bad could happen. She didn’t want me to tell you because she wants you focused on retrieving the soul. Kevin and I are just backup. I couldn’t let you go out there without telling you first.”

“Thanks.” I found the cold steel of my scythe strapped across my back suddenly comforting. I smiled at Josie and rolled my coin
twice more.

The record store was a dive. A zillion fingerprints covered the dust-caked shelves crammed with second-hand albums. A yellow cat stared at me from its napping spot next to the register, while the clerk was off in his own little world, flipping through a dirty magazine.

Josie scratched the cat’s chin and it rolled its head against her hand
with a pleased purr. The clerk didn’t look up. He wouldn’t have seen anything if he had. Souls are blinded by their human bodies. Animals, however, can see us just fine.

The bell on the door jingled as a young, flannel-clad man hurried in. The clerk stuffed his magazine under the register and stood.

“Hey Mickey! Heard your show sold out for tonight. Congratulations!”

“Yeah, thanks. I was wondering if you
wanted some more of our records to sell. Fans will be crawling the city tonight. Could be good for business,” he added.

“Sure, sure, I’ll take fifty more. Why not?” The clerk laughed and shoved the magazine further under the re
gister.

“Great, I’ll be right back.” Mickey hurried off. The clerk gave a sigh of relief and checked his magazine’s hiding spot one more time.

“That’s our catch!” Coreen shouted.

“He’s coming back in,” I reminded her. And she thought I was a pea-brain.

Not a second later, the man was back with a box. I peeked over his shoulder to see inside. The cover of the record was a loud orange with scratchy blue lettering spelling out Sabotage. A picture of the band showed our catch sitting behind a drum set.

“Anything unusual about him?” Coreen was standing a little too close when I turned around.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Is he different from other souls?”

What had Maalik said? I see in souls what other reapers can’t. Is that why I was here? Is that why Coreen felt so threatened by me? Was there really something I was better at than her?

“Well, he’s still alive, so I can’t exactly see his soul right now,” I a
nswered with an annoyed frown.

She narrowed her eyes at me and stomped out of the store with Kevin trailing behind her like a shadow.

“He’s on the move,” Josie whispered.

Our catch took the check the clerk handed him and skipped out the door.

Outside, the traffic hissed by surprisingly close to the sidewalk. Our drummer boy jumped in front of a taxi, and the cabbie swore at him in a foreign language as he jerked the car around, barely missing him. I wondered if he actually had to be in a vehicle for his death to be categorized as a crash and decided to stick closer.