Page 2 of Semi-Reckless

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Who knew life after death could suck so hard?

CHAPTER 2

Haven considered banging her head on her desk. It’d hurt, but it wouldn’t hurt as bad as taking yet another triage call.

It was barely lunchtime, and she’d already taken twelve calls. Each one was more annoying than the last. In fact, she was considering sending hunters out to a few of them just to share the annoyance. No one liked to be annoyed alone, right? Why not share the wealth?

Oh, and if annoying calls were wealth, she’d be a freakin’ billionaire at this point. She wondered if all the other triage agents in the call center got calls like she was getting, or if she was just supremely unlucky. Or maybe she’d wronged someone in another life and was currently experiencing a karmic bitch slap of epic proportions.

She supposed she should count herself lucky she’d gotten an office instead of being stuck out on the cube farm with the other agents. It was the one kindness she’d been afforded in this new assignment.

Not that the office was anything to brag out. It was more like a roomy prison cell that contained nothing but a cheap, faux-wood desk, a rolling chair with a coffee stain on the lumpy cushion, an empty plywood bookshelf, and a fat procedural manual she absolutely would not be reading.

Oh, and the stupid framed poster of a flower growing through a crack in a concrete sidewalk with the word “determination” printed on it. That had been a gag gift from Benny, her mom’s best friend.

Benny was a halfer—a wererat/vampire combo—and had been in her life for as long as Haven could remember. He was the first to buy her beer on her twenty-first birthday, took her to all the violent movies she wanted to see when she was a kid, and taught her to cheat at cards when she was five. Usually, his sense of humor delighted the hell out of her. In this case? Not so much.

Regardless, she needed out of this chickenshit assignment. She’d planned on staying here for a while, doing a great job, and proving to her parents that she could be put back on active duty. But with the calls she was taking, she wasn’t going to prove anything but her ability to fake being nice when talking to lunatics.

And they were all so rude! The sheer number of times someone had asked to speak to her supervisor today was staggering.

Part of her wanted to transfer the lot of them to her supervisor. It’d serve her mom right. And Harper would probably make the jerks cry before they got off the phone, so it’d be a win-win now that she was thinking about it.

Note to self: transfer the next supernatural Karen to Mom.

Haven let out a pained groan when the phone rang. Again. Jesus, were there any happy paranormal folk in the world? Anyone who didn’t have something they needed to bitch and moan about?

She couldn’t even force a customer service voice this time. She was too tired. “Section 8. How can I help you?”

“Well, aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine.”

Aaaannnddd now her day was officially the worst workday ever. And she’d been dead on the job before, so that was saying a lot.

Haven would know the voice on the other end of her line anywhere because she’d spoken to this horrid woman every damn day, at least twice a day, since she took this stupid, awful, boring job.

“Hello, Margaret,” she said, summoning her most patient tone from the depths of hell. “How can I help you this time?”

Margaret huffed out a harsh breath. “You haven’t helped me yet. Not sure why I’d expect more at this point.”

“Oh, so you’d like to end the call, then?”

Margaret Vassel was over four hundred years old. That was an impressive age, even for a vampire. Unfortunately for Margaret, she looked every bit her age and sounded worse. Haven was pretty sure the old bat had smoked every day of her unnaturally long life, and not even vampiric healing powers could fix that kind of damage.

The real problem, though, was that Margaret was bored. She had no friends because she was a racist, homophobic, ageist jerk who thought things were better back when people died from the common cold, and all her family wanted no contact with her long before any of them died. So, when she needed to berate someone and complain, Margaret called the Section 8 help line.

Which meant that Margaret would not let herself be bullied off a call, no matter how hard Haven might try. And, oh, how she’d tried.

“Child, you can either listen to me and do something about my complaint, or I can go to the TV station. It’s up to you. But something tells me your bosses wouldn’t like that kind of publicity.”

Haven rolled her eyes. Her bosses wouldn’t blame her for anything she might do wrong. If she called either of her parents and said she needed help hiding a body, they’d show up, no questions asked, shovels in hand.

But listening to old lady Vassel whine was her job now. Yay. “What’s wrong today, ma’am? Is your werewolf neighbor listening to his music too loud again? Or did the witch at the coffee shop forget to put the flower design in your latte again?”

Both were examples from actual calls she’d taken from Ms. Vassel earlier in the week. The werewolf in question was on parole, so he was quick to comply with the city noise ordinance. The witch at the coffee shop, however, was unrepentant. She’d left the flower off that latte intentionally because Margaret told the girl her tattoos would make her look like a melted box of crayons when she got old, and she refused to serve her again. Haven didn’t blame her. But thankfully, another coworker agreed to take care of Margaret when she came in going forward, so the tattooed witch wouldn’t ever have to deal with her again.

Haven wished someone was willing to take the Vassel bullet for her, too. But alas…

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