Page 4

Calisto

“This is nice,” I said with a bright smile to my two colleagues. “All of us at work together. I can’t remember the last time we were all in the office at the same time.”

“You and me have been here lots of times,” John said in his usual acerbic fashion. He jerked his head toward Griffin. “It’s just Mr. Pickle His Liver that needed a compass and a map to locate the building.”

The Griffin of old would have torn a strip off John for a comment like that. The new loved up one simply gave a crooked smile, nothing seeming to bother him all that much now Ben was back in his life. Or if it did, all it took was a question about his police detective husband and he turned to goo. It was sweet, and I wasn’t at all jealous. Well, maybe a bit. I was happy for him, though. I was happy both of them had met their other halves.

Meeting their fated mates had softened them in different ways. Griffin was sober and calmer, and while John still made spiky comments, they were a lot less barbed and focused on people outside our little collective. Our trio plus partners had grown a lot closer in the past month while we’d waited for O’Reilly to make a move that had never come. Perhaps she’d given up. After all, there were only so many times you could attempt to use nefarious means to bring your daughter back to life before it felt like banging your head against a wall.

John’s phone beeped, and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the message, the huge smile on his face giving away who it was without him needing to spell it out. “Bellamy’s booked us a table for dinner,” he said. “Which means I’m going to love you and leave you.”

He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, Baxter unashamedly checking out John’s arse from where he sat cross-legged in the middle of Griffin’s desk. “So peachy,” he said dreamily. “Bellamy’s a lucky man. I bet he spends a lot of time squeezing it.”

I ignored him, taking my usual care to not look in his direction. Much to Baxter’s disdain, it was a skill I’d perfected over the years. He didn’t give a damn about societal expectations when it meant he could only talk at someone rather than to them.

“I should go too,” Griffin said once the lift doors had closed on John to leave us alone.

“Let me guess, you’ve got dinner plans as well?”

He shook his head. “Nothing so fun. Ben’s parents are visiting to talk about all things”—he held his hands up and made quotes with an expression on his face that said he was taking the piss—“proper wedding.”

“ Proper wedding?” I questioned.

He sighed. “Apparently, a registry office doesn’t count. Not in their eyes, anyway. They were not happy when Ben broke the news to them we’d done it on the sly. They’ve made it clear that in order to make it up to them, he needs to involve them in organizing this one. And when I say involved, I mean they want a say in everything from the flavor of the cake to the music for our first dance. Ben’s mum has put together a folder of suggestions for us to go through tonight.”

“That’s sweet,” I said.

Griffin laughed drily. “You would say that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He reached over and ruffled my hair, the gesture making Baxter tip his head to one side, flutter his eyelashes, and say “aww.”

“Nothing bad. Just that you see the best in people. Even when you got stuck with me and John. I’m not as bad as him, obviously. Not any more. But still…”

“You both used to have your moments,” I admitted. “But it’s been nice recently with us all getting on. We’ve become like a little family.” One a lot less stressful than my actual family.

“Yeah…” Griffin said it like he thought it might not last. He gave me a long look. “Are you going to be okay here on your own?”

I smiled at the concern from the older man. “This is not my first night shift. It’s not even my thirtieth. You know how it goes… Either it’ll be as silent as a church, and I’ll spend most of the night napping and wishing I’d done something else with my life. Or I’ll have two calls on opposite sides of London, and I won’t get so much as a second to regret my life’s choices. There’s never any inbetween.”

Griffin nodded. “That’s true. Well… don’t feel you can’t pull me away from the folder of wedding monstrosities if anything comes up you can’t handle. In fact, please do that.” He backed off a couple of steps toward the door. “You’re invited, by the way.”

“To look at the folder?”

Baxter shot me his best you’re-a-dumb-fuck look.

Griffin’s look was more measured. “To the wedding.” He gave something of an embarrassed shrug. “Ben has insisted we invite everyone from here. We’ll understand if you have better things to do.”

“I’d love to come,” I said with a genuine smile.

“Great! Well… Ben’s mum hasn’t picked the invitations yet, but when she does, you’ll get one. You can bring a plus one.”

“If you can find one,” Baxter piped up. “Hey, I heard a rumor that the new spa near the Chinese takeaway is actually a front for a massage parlor. Maybe you could hire someone from there.”

It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep my gaze trained on Griffin and to keep smiling instead of shooting Baxter the death glare I wanted to. And the git knew exactly what he was doing, the wide smile on his face evidence of that.

“Or you can come on your own,” Griffin said with a slight frown. “That’s not a problem either.” Great. Now there were two people who thought I was incapable of getting a date. I could. I just didn’t want to most of the time. “We’ll see,” I said. “I guess it depends if I’m seeing anyone.”

Griffin nodded. “Course. Well… I’ll leave you to it. Call me if you need anything. And I mean anything .”

“I will.”

I waited for the lift doors to close before rounding on Baxter. “A massage parlor?”

He jumped off the desk with impressive athleticism for someone who had been dead for nearly two decades. “There’s nothing wrong with a massage parlor. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I was just trying to think of where you could get a date from.”

“And you think I need to pay for it?”

He shrugged, the gesture very much saying ‘if the cap fits.’ I took a seat at my desk and fired up my computer, determined to ignore Baxter. Sometimes if he got bored enough, he’d go away. For a while, anyway.

While I concentrated on typing up a report for my last resurrection, which conveniently left any mention of Baxter and his help out of the equation, the building settled into the unnatural stillness that told me I was the only one left in it. Well, me and Baxter, my friend not having taken the hint and still wandering round the office. Occasionally, he made a noise designed to make me pay attention to him, a small sigh or a cough, but I remained steadfast in my resolve to pretend he didn’t exist.

After an hour, my bladder protested. I pushed my chair away from the desk and made my way to the restroom. There were no urinals in here, the space designed to be unisex, even though female necromancers were as rare as hare’s teeth. It was fine with me; I preferred the privacy of a stall. I’d just unzipped my trousers and let loose a stream of urine when the voice came from right behind me.

“I shouldn’t have said you need to pay for sex,” Baxter said.

I took a fortifying breath. “How many times have I told you there are places you don’t need to be? I should at least be able to piss alone.”

Rather than leaving me to it—when had he ever?—Baxter moved to stand at the side of the toilet, his gaze flitting downwards. “I’ve seen it all before hundreds of times.”

“Yet you always seem keen on getting another look.”

His expression said I needed to get over myself. “You’re not my type. Anyway, I was trying to apologize, so you stop ignoring me.”

“Right.” I tucked myself away and flushed the toilet, the sound almost drowning out the single word I’d given in response.

“It was a joke.”

“Jokes are funny. Do you see me laughing?”

He followed me out of the cubicle and watched as I washed my hands, falling into step beside me as I left the restroom and made my way back to my desk. Once there, he propped himself against it, arms crossed. “How come you’re so sweet and nice to everyone else, and I get grumpy Calisto?”

I sat back and studied him. “Because I’ve known you most of my life. You should know what I find funny and what I don’t.”

“Fine,” he grudgingly admitted. “I took it too far. I’m sorry. I hate it when you refuse to talk to me when we’re the only ones here.” He waited a beat. “Am I forgiven?”

“I…” I didn’t get any further before a piercing siren filled the office, complete with a flashing red light. I jumped to my feet, my heart hammering in my chest.

“What the fuck is that?” Baxter asked, his eyes wide.

“Security breach,” I said, recalling it from the orientation booklet I’d received on my first day working here. I’d paid little attention, safe in the knowledge that Cade had done his homework, and the building was sewn up tight. “It’s probably a false alarm. Some sort of malfunction.”

Baxter nodded. “I’ll go look.”

“Be careful!” We both laughed at my needless warning. If nobody could see Baxter, he wasn’t in any danger, no matter what was going on. Besides, like I’d said, it’d be a mistake. Despite believing he’d return in a few minutes with news of nothing more exciting going on in reception than the flashing lights and the siren, I picked up the phone.

No dial tone.

This was quickly morphing into a bad horror film.

I moved closer to the door so I could see the stairwell, half expecting a black-cloaked figure with a scary mask and a sharp knife to come bursting out. They didn’t, because this was real life, and I wasn’t a blonde babysitter who’d run a few steps before tripping over my own feet and letting the bad guy catch me.

Pulling my mobile out of my pocket, I called Cade, swearing when it rang and rang before going to voicemail. Trust him not to be around when I needed him. No doubt he was schmoozing important people at a fancy restaurant, Cade’s social life very different from mine.

I contemplated the rest of my address book while I waited for Baxter’s return. Griffin had told me to call him if there were any issues, but what was he going to do, apart from telling me not to be so wet? And it wasn’t like I could admit to sending a dead man no one else could see downstairs to check what was going on. No, it was better to wait until Baxter came back with news of everything being fine. The phone was probably just a coincidence. Or maybe it was the same malfunction that had triggered the alarm. An electrical fault of some description.

I paced, the siren giving me a headache, the minutes of waiting feeling like an eternity. When Baxter ran in, I whirled around. Had I ever seen him run? I couldn’t recall a time. “Men,” he said breathlessly. “Lots. Heading this way. They’ve got guns. You need to get out.”