Page 66 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
Sunil crowded further into my space, pushing me back. “There was an angel in the sky yesterday,” he said softly. His perfect teeth gleamed in a dangerous smile. “And now we know how it got there.”
My back was now pressed firmly against the obsidian wall, thetwo of them mere inches away. I looked desperately to the acolytes sweeping past, but none of them so much as glanced at us.
Tamsin’s long hair rippled as she tilted her head toward Sunil. “Gosh, that’s really serious,” she murmured. “Imagine what Crenshaw will do when she finds out.”
“Maybe we should show this to her right now,” he mused. Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “Or we could bring it to the entire board when they meet.”
Tamsin’s pale eyes shone with spite. “Oh, that’s a much better idea.”
Sunil smiled again, this time with genuine satisfaction. “After the board takes care of whatever is happening to the city, Tamsin and I will ascend to middle management. But you won’t be around to see it. You’re finished, Harris.”
Before I could say anything, the two of them backed away, Tamsin wiggling her fingers in a little wave. Then they strolled off down the hallway.
My hands shook a little as I pushed away from the wall and straightened my cardigan. I had to get out in front of this. One look at that pamphlet, and Ms.Crenshaw would terminate my employment herself while the rest of the board watched. But maybe…maybe I could implicate Sunil and Tamsin. All I needed was twenty minutes. I could run down to Supplies and Procurement, grab something incriminating from the same ritual I’d used to summon Sukariel, and hide it in Sunil’s desk. Then I could accusethemof trying to frameme. It was a desperate gamble, but it might work.
Mind spinning, I hurried to Ms.Crenshaw’s office on wobbly legs. “Good morning, ma’am,” I greeted her breathlessly. “I got here as quickly as I could, and I’m ready to help in any way I can.”
Glancing up from her phone, Ms.Crenshaw studied me expressionlessly. The windows behind her looked out across the still waters of a dark lake, wreathed in mist. “Ready to help?” she repeated.
“Yes, ma’am. You needed me here ASAP, your text said.”
“I needed mycoffeehere ASAP.”
I hesitated, nonplussed. “Oh. Of course. I’ll go right now.”
“There’s no time for that,” she said with a hint of irritation. “The executive board is meeting in”—she checked the slim watch encircling her wrist—“ten minutes.”
I wouldn’t have time to frame Sunil and Tamsin after all. “Of course, ma’am,” I mumbled, trying not to tremble visibly. Working moisture back into my mouth, I then asked, “Why is the board meeting on a Saturday?”
“Recent events require an urgent response,” she replied cryptically. Her phone dinged quietly and she looked down at its screen. “Management is working overtime to redirect global attention from what is happening in New York, but Their efforts can only go so far. If we do not solve our own problem, and soon, They will do so for us. And believe me when I say that none of us want that.”
I swallowed.
Ms.Crenshaw checked her watch again and then stood. “Let’s go.” Helplessly, I was swept along in her wake as she strode purposefully out to the hallway, her three-inch heels tapping out an intimidating rhythm as she scattered interns and acolytes before her.
The executive boardroom on the thirteenth floor was hell on earth, literally. Thanks to sorcery well beyond my comprehension, the long rectangular space sat in one of the more accessible dimensions ruled by the Lords of Sin and Vice. Crossing the threshold for the first time was a daunting experience, though nothing changed that I could sense. The room was as blandly corporate in itsaesthetics as anything else I’d seen in the building, furnished primarily by an imposing table made of black stone that had been polished to a mirrorlike sheen. It was the view, however, that really brought home the fact that we weren’t in Midtown anymore. One wall was made entirely of glass, and beyond it stretched a blasted and barren landscape of shattered rock beneath an angry, bloodred sky. A few stunted trees clawed at the air with skeletal branches, surrounded by uneven ground riddled with cracks that emitted bursts of yellowish steam. Gaunt horrors flapped ponderously through the air on leathery wings while, in the near distance, a mob of naked people was herded along by gray-skinned demons wielding crooked spears of blackened iron.
Staring out at the grotesque scene, I followed Ms.Crenshaw to the head of the table. Waiting there was a single imposing chair upholstered in black leather, and as she sank into it she waved me to a smaller chair that sat behind her, back against the off-white wall. Mr.Samuels and Ms.Yamada were already seated to either side of her, their assistants stationed behind them. Scarred features expressionless, Deborah honed a wicked-looking knife, its blade rasping slowly against the stone in her other hand. Opposite her, Lydia didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands in the absence of obvious blood spatter. She kept touching her skirt and hair and blouse as if surprised to find them clean.
In front of me, Ms.Crenshaw tapped her silver fountain pen against the leather-bound notebook in front of her and stared out the windows at the hellish view. An intern with a wispy, adolescent mustache tried to give me a cup of coffee, but I waved him away absently and he moved on. I heard Deborah ask him if the beans were fair trade or if they’d been gathered by the broken hands of the company’s vanquished foes, and the intern stood there, blinking, while twomore circulated through the boardroom, offering drinks and pastries with their usual smiling, dead-eyed efficiency.
The room filled as people trickled in and took their seats. My chest tightened when Sunil and Tamsin appeared, but rather than look at them, I studied everyone else. There were thirteen chairs around the table, twelve of them intended for the individuals who ran the New York office of Dark Enterprises. Down both sides sat the directors of each department in the building: Janitorial Services, Security, Supplies and Procurement, Personnel, Transportation, Human Resources, Client Services, Research and Development, Analysis and Logistics, the Repository, and Investor Relations. The single remaining chair lurked at the far end of the table from Ms.Crenshaw, an ominous focal point reserved, I assumed, for Management whenever They dropped by.
Sunil had taken a chair behind an unfamiliar Black man in his forties, balding and bearded and smiling blankly at nothing. This was Ms.Kettering’s replacement, I realized. Had he been a middle manager promoted to the board, or did the company have a storage locker filled with spare executives? Sunil noticed me looking and leaned over to Tamsin, seated next to him, whispering to her while casting glances in my direction. How could I stop them from exposing what I’d done?
At the far end of the room, the polished walnut door gently closed by itself and the soft sound of murmured conversations ceased. All eyes turned to the CEO. “Thank you for coming in on a Saturday,” Ms.Crenshaw said crisply as she looked around the room. “You are all aware of the events unfolding outside this building. New York is experiencing a series of incursions from entities unknown. Despite repeated attempts to divine the nature of these entities, we have remained in the dark—and lost a significant portionof our workforce in Analysis and Logistics, I should add.” She nodded to a little man seated halfway down the table whose gaze was curiously unfocused. That was Mr.Ramirez, I assumed, who oversaw the small army of diviners, oracles, and scryers through which Dark Enterprises acquired much of its information. He tilted his head as if listening to something but otherwise continued staring into the middle distance.
No one seemed particularly discomfited by mention of the deaths down on the ninth floor. Burnout in A&L was generally pretty high—your average oracle only had three or four years at most before their mind collapsed under the weight of perceiving an endless series of probabilities. After that, the company released them back into the wild where they became the people shouting at themselves on the sidewalk.
“Early this morning, however, two of our oracles received portents so powerful that they suffered irreversible brain damage.” A small stir went through those gathered around the table. “Before they became unable to communicate, both prophesied a terrible doom falling across the world and the end of everything.”
Silence fell. Outside the windows, in Hell, I could see people screaming as the ground ripped asunder with a great gout of steam and swallowed those who tried to flee.
“ ‘The end of everything,’ ” repeated a handsome white man with slicked-back hair. From the silk dress shirt, pricey cuff links, and three phones arrayed in front of him on the table, I guessed that this was Mr.Mancini, director of Client Services. “What does that mean?”
“I am merely reporting what the oracles foresaw,” Ms.Crenshaw responded calmly.
Mr.Samuels shifted in his chair as he looked down the table atMr.Mancini. “Why our people finally received these portents is not clear, though it may have something to do with the celestial that appeared last night. We don’t know why it arrived, nor why it did so alone, but its extinguishment may have disrupted reality to such an extent that we were able to perceive something at last.”
