Page 44 of Wishing Upon a Monster
Someday, those two are going to get together explosively, and I am here for it!
“What has you so excited,min skat?”Olan’s voice whispered in my mind.
“Office drama. Nash and Irene are fighting their destiny, and it’s fabulous and ridiculous all at the same time,”I told him; he had heard me say similar things about them in the past.“But now I’ve got some paperwork to sort through.”
“Hmm, people fighting their destiny, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you,min lille skat?”He teased.
“Hmmm, I am sorry, you are breaking up!”I said, making static noises as I grabbed a stack of reports from the center of the table.
“That’s not how telepathy works,”he chuckled indulgently. With a mental caress, he retreated.
I might just let my Momma plan her over-the-top wedding for that being.
“It’s cute because she doesn’t think we notice when she is talking to him,” Rocio stage whispers to Nash.
“Yeah, like we haven’t witnessed telepathic communication before. Youths.” He sighed with a dramatic eye roll.
“Oh, mermaid's tits! Honestly, y’all!” I rolled my eyes good-naturedly and accepted a pad of paper from Irene, who also looked amused.
“Alright, so this is what we are going to do: write out what sector the event happened in, who was involved, what was involved, and anything notable,” Irene commanded, and we got to work.
It took a few hours, but by charting it out, we were able to identify some of the creatures as absolute distractions. Some of the beings we’d encountered, if properly prepared, could be used for potion ingredients. A few made no sense at all and were dotted around the others, as if attracted to the chaos. We marked a map of the preserve with each disturbance. Once we finished, the map was filled with clusters of incidents, their edges overlapping, except in two areas.
“Columns ‘F’ through ‘H,’ rows one through five, had a singular event, and area ‘A’ through ‘E,’ rows fourteen through sixteen, had absolutely nothing.” Vickie hovered over the table, laying parallel and surveying the pink circles she had placed for us on the map.
“What was the one incident?” Irene asked, leaning over the map, Nash hovering over her shoulder.
“Wasn’t that the O’Shea kid?” He asked.
Isla rummaged through her stack of reports. “Yes, it says here that Cora O’Shea was reported missing, that she had fallen into a troubled crowd.
“Yes, I remember,” Nash said. “Vickie, didn’t her mother and boyfriend, Xander Bishop, I think it was, come by saying that she had been found?”
“Yes, sir, Kenny and I were up front when they came in. She had been on a bender, they said, and she was sleeping it off, but she didn’t want us to worry, so they came right away to tell us...” She scrunched her nose, “I didn’t really think too much about it because it was really not my job and all.”
“No one said you were in any trouble,” Irene soothed, “what did Kenton put in the file, Isla?”
“Nothing much, just that she had been hanging out with some other teens and got mixed up in a bad crowd. Though, honestly, her boyfriend is pretty bad company himself,” Isla said. “I’ve taken him in for dealing Hell Crystals before, on the human side of the preserve, no less.”
“Hell Crystals are pretty expensive,” I said, “don’t usually the high society types buy those?”
“They do,” Nash straightened, giving Irene a little more space, but not much. “Is Xander a lesser demon or a higher demon?”
“I can’t remember if he was wearing a glamor or not, it's been a while since I’ve picked him up. Has anyone else had a run-in with Xander?” She looked around at the table to a chorus of head shakes and nos. “Which is odd. I mean, he could have turned his life around, but statistically…”
“Vickie?” Irene questioned, elbowing Nash for a little more space.
“On it,” she said, sailing her spectral form through the wall.
The door to the conference room opened.
“Olan!” I blushed at my outburst, but I was happy to see him.
“Hello everyone,min skat, did you know it was an hour before the end of your shift?” He raised a non-brow at us all. “You skipped lunch. I could feel the emptiness of your belly from our home. I have brought you all sausage gravy andbiscuits and a potato hashbrown casserole with peppers and onions for the vegetarians among you.”
Olan carried a large basket; a gallon of sweet tea, pinched by the handle between a few of his fingers, dangled beneath it.
Rocio’s stomach rumbled like a disgruntled dragon, and we laughed.
