Page 46 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
I walked to the subwaystation and boarded a train on autopilot, numb with fear. Ms.Kettering was gone. I couldn’t pretend to feel bad about that—how many times had I fantasized about her meeting some grisly end in one of her own extraction suites? No, what terrified me was that she’d been an executive, possessed of ancient magicks and incalculable power, and yet the Thing had devoured her like a Pop-Tart. What hope did any of us have?
The disappearances plaguing New York were striking closer and closer to home, perpetrated by something with an unsettling interest in me. Worse, I feared that Ms.Kettering’s devouring was the opening salvo in a war that Dark Enterprises couldn’t win.
Amira was out with her fellow grad students, so I spent the evening trying to reach Eric. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t responding, and my uneasiness grew in leaps and bounds. What if he’d been devoured by the Thing? What if he was gone forever? I tried not to descend into a panic spiral, but it was hard.Call me, PLEASE, I texted him at last.I’m worried.
I was lying in bed, long after most of New York had gone to sleep, when my phone buzzed on my nightstand. It was Eric.
Sorry. Busy day. Call you tomorrow.
I stared at his text, relieved to have heard from him but also betrayed somehow by its brevity. Then I switched off my phone and stared up into the dark, waiting for sunrise.
I don’t know what Iexpected when I arrived at Dark Enterprises the next morning—panic, perhaps, that an executive was missing, or at least an acknowledgment that we were under attack by nefarious forces. I presented Ms.Crenshaw with her coffee, and rather than telling me to break out the heavy weapons, all she said was “We’ve arranged for a face-to-face with Management, so I need you to prepare the communion ritual. Have it ready by ten o’clock.”
“Right, yes, of course.” I paused. “How exactly do I do that?”
Reaching down to the lowest drawer in her desk, she riffled through its contents before plucking out a glossy pamphlet. “Everything you need to know is in here.”
Accepting the pamphlet from her, I studied it for a moment. Across the front in bold lettering, it read:
Communing with Management
We Can’t Wait to Hear from You!
Beneath this improbable statement was a colorful illustration of several black-robed people standing with their arms raised as, presumably, they communed with Management. Everyone seemed tobe having a great time, a piece of artistic license that struck me as distinctly unlikely. Inside, the pamphlet contained a list of components as well as step-by-step instructions for drawing the requisite ritual circle using chalk adulterated with powdered human bone. It looked complicated but doable. “No problem,” I said with something approaching confidence.
“Take one of the interns with you. They can help you carry the ritual components.”
I bustled out of her office and down the corridor, pamphlet clutched in one hand. I didn’t like the idea that Management would be stopping by for a visit. In fact, I was terrified. I’d undone an ancient binding that literally had Their name all over it. What if They knew? What if this face-to-face was really a trap so They could grab me and whisk me away? I didn’t want to be whisked. On the other hand, Management wasn’t exactly known for Their subtlety when it came to disciplining employees. Why concoct an elaborate plan when They were more than capable of destroying my mortal essence anytime They wanted?
Dire possibilities churning through my mind, I stopped at the room where we kept the interns. Unlocking the door, I found almost a dozen of them standing around the cheap furniture, dressed in the poorly fitting business attire you’d expect to see on college students. There were rooms like this on every floor, filled with young, enthusiastic people who did whatever you asked of them but who didn’t have much going on behind the eyes. They were known formally as “disposable assets” and informally as the Red Shirt Brigade, after theStar Trekmeme about those poor, earnest crew members who were always the first to die on away missions. I had no idea if they were grown in vats or abducted and reprogrammed by the company, but there was always one available whenever you wanted a warmbody to fetch lunch or collate documents or activate a sinister artifact that might turn them inside out.
“I need one of you to help me carry some things,” I announced, sparking a brief tussle as they all surged forward. A young Latinx woman reached me first and I herded the rest back into the room before firmly closing the door and locking it again. They tended to wander if you didn’t keep them penned, and then you had smiling interns watching you creepily from the doorway and asking every two minutes if they could help with anything.
I walked briskly to the elevators, the intern hurrying along behind me, and descended to the third floor, home to Supplies and Procurement, a warren of dimly lit corridors that smelled like some really funky potpourri. Once again, this floor was far too big to fit inside the prosaic office tower sitting in Midtown. It seemed to go on forever, one hushed hallway after another, lined with neatly labeled doors leading to storerooms filled with everything from mundane herbs and candles to more exotic substances gathered from various dimensions, realms, and far-flung planes of existence.
The vibes on this floor were definitely not fun, and the longer I spent there, padding uncertainly from one corridor to another, the more certain I became that I would find something horrifying around the next corner. It was like the hotel fromThe Shining, eerily quiet but somehow watchful at the same time. By the time one of the janitorial staff pushed their cart into the corridor ahead of me, my nerves were so frayed that I screamed and clutched at the intern behind me. Fortunately, the custodian didn’t hear me over the Rihanna song hammering through his AirPods. The intern, for her part, smiled blankly and asked if I wanted her to photocopy anything.
Eventually, we reached a door labeledStoreroom C3-12: Executive-Level Ritual Supplies. Bingo. Beyond was a huge room filled withdozens of wooden shelves arrayed in neat rows that stretched away into darkness. The only light came not from the dim fluorescents that illuminated the corridors outside but from torches fixed to the walls by iron brackets, each burning with an eternal, smokeless flame. The wavelengths of light produced by modern fixtures tended to degrade some of the more exotic materials, so the company had gone old-school. Firelight flickered and gleamed from thousands of glass jars, wooden caskets, and metal boxes arranged on those shelves, each carefully labeled, while the corners of the room moved with restless shadows.
Cool. Not creepy at all.
Eyeing those shadows carefully in case any of them decided to attack, I withdrew the folded pamphlet from my pocket. “Okay,” I murmured to myself as I squinted at the list. “Bone chalk. Black hellebore. Ambergris. Raven feathers. Toad bile. And unconsecrated human blood.” I looked up at the ranks upon ranks of shelves, let out a sigh, and started hunting.
It took me close to an hour to find everything I needed, mainly because I couldn’t figure out how things were organized. Why were the freeze-dried bovine viscera next to the salamander eyeballs, which were next to the powdered hematite? As I located each component, I handed them to the intern until her arms were filled with jars and bottles and five blue candles that smelled like yearning.
Once I had everything, we hustled back to the elevators and then descended to the subterranean chill of the Lower Sanctum, the vast chamber carved from solid rock where I’d watched Barney Samuels sacrifice to the Old Ones. Grabbing the bone chalk from the intern, I ordered her to place the rest of the components on the stone floor while I drew the ritual circle. I was finishing up the last of the arcanesigils and shouting at the intern—“No, that candle goesthere! To your left! No, yourotherleft!”—when the ritual participants started to arrive. Pushing my hands through my sweaty hair, I ran around making a few small tweaks to the arrangement of things as Ms.Crenshaw swept into view from the elevators along with Mr.Samuels and Ms.Yamada. The three of them positioned themselves in the center of the circle while I pulled the intern back with me against the rough stone wall, out of the way. Then I started edging toward the elevators. Maybe no one would notice if I quietly left before Management arrived.
One by one, nine acolytes in the hooded robes of middle management began to make a low keening sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up, their voices mingling into an unpleasant, throaty buzz punctuated by unfamiliar words. The illumination in the Sanctum dimmed, plunging us into a crepuscular twilight broken only by the chalk circle, glowing now with a pale, insubstantial fire. The chanting rose to a hoarse crescendo before coming to an abrupt halt. There was a long moment of expectant silence, and then the flames limning the ritual circle rose higher, illuminating the smiling woman who stepped into view as if emerging from behind the air itself. She looked quite ordinary to me, with dark skin and glossy hair pulled back into a simple knot, but my guts churned with sudden, painful nausea in her presence. A shudder, felt rather than seen, went through the assembled acolytes when she appeared. Mr.Samuels drew his shoulders back and Ms.Yamada began smoothing her suit jacket with both hands. Only Ms.Crenshaw remained absolutely still.
“Good morning,” the woman said in a soft voice. She wore a simple blouse and skirt in unrelieved black, and a pair of glasses hungfrom a golden chain around her neck. Her overall vibe was more “friendly librarian” than “member of ruthless sorcerous cabal,” but she feltwrongsomehow. “Thank you for meeting with Us.”
The three executives inclined their heads in unison.
“We have become aware of a series of powerful incursions in New York City. Please explain.”
“We are investigating,” Mr.Samuels said, his normally fulsome tone now a restrained murmur.
“And what have you learned?” the woman inquired, turning her smiling countenance toward him.
