Anton Strout - Dead Matter

“No?” Jane asked, puzzled.

“Nope,” I said. “I’m more worried about the metric ton of paperwork this is going to generate back at the office.”

We headed back to my SoHo apartment nearby. I’d call the incident in to the Department of Extraordinary Affairs tonight and worry about the paperwork tomorrow. Right now I just wanted to get home and try to enjoy the precious little time off with Jane that I was able to catch these days. Besides, like the woman said, no one messes with Taco Night.

Despite the incident, Taco Night proved a success, but the attack must have drained both of us more than we thought. It was hard to get motivated the next morning, and once we gave up hitting the snooze alarm for the fifteenth time, the two of us stumbled our way up from SoHo to the East Village. By the time Jane and I rounded Second Avenue onto East Eleventh, my eyes finally creaked open as the smell of coffee drifted down the street from inside the Lovecraft Café. Like a blood-hound on a trail, I followed the scent and headed for the café’s familiar red-framed windows and giant oak doors. Once inside the cover for the Department, I felt at home. Well, almost at home. The bohemian coffee shop with its exposed-brick walls thick with old movie posters was only a front for our offices.

The main room was cluttered with a mismatch of sofas and comfy chairs, but the two of us passed through all that and headed straight for the counter along one side of the wall. I had just barely placed our order when my boss barreled out from behind the curtain at the back of the shop. To a casual coffee shop customer, it would appear that he was coming from the old-world movie theater back there, but I knew he was emerging from our secret government office, which was hidden behind the theater.

Inspectre Argyle Quimbley was in his late fifties and, despite being fairly fit, he looked winded. His breath heaved in and out, causing the ends of his walruslike mustache to flip back and forth like they had a life all their own. He wore a tweed jacket and his arms were wrapped around a stack of files. His eyes lit up behind his glasses when he saw me, and he made a beeline toward us.

“Simon,” he said. “Good. You’re here.”

I checked my watch. “I’ve got two minutes to get to my desk. Just thought I’d grab…”

“There’s no time,” he said, his eyes wild and his voice thick with his soft and sophisticated English accent. “There’s simply no time!”

My heart raced at the promise of action. Terrifying as many aspects of my job might be, I also thrilled at the call to arms. The adrenaline rush was just one of the perks of working as a paranormal investigator in Other Division. Ghosts, ghouls, things that go bump in the night…

“I’m on it,” I said. I threw open the left side of the backup coat I’d had to break out after last night’s incident. I patted the holster where my bat sat. “Where do you need me?”

Flustered as he looked, the Inspectre looked down at my bat, then back up at me. He put down his armful of files on the counter and grabbed my lapel, pulling my coat closed. “Not among the norms, my dear boy,” he said, looking around the coffeehouse. As usual in New York, no one was paying attention. He placed his hand on top of the pile of folders he had just put down, tapping them. “Besides, I don’t need you in the field. These are for you.”

“Are all of these new?” I said. “All of this since last night?”

The Inspectre nodded. “I’m afraid so. Some of it is for Connor, but either way, it’s all new material. We’re seeing a lot of ghostly activity right now and eyewitness accounts seem to be at an all-time high in graveyards throughout Manhattan. No one is quite sure why… and with Connor still on vacation…”

“It falls to me,” I said. “I gotcha, sir.”

The Inspectre put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re all burning the midnight oil right now, son,” the Inspectre said. He clapped me on the arm and gave me a beaming smile. “That’s my boy!”

I gave Jane a weak smile while I scooped up the folders in my arms. Jane handed me my iced coffee and rested my bear claw on top of the pile, kissing me on the nose as she did so.

“Isn’t this almost as exciting as last night?” she said.

The Inspectre gave a deep cough, haroomed, and pounded his chest. “I believe that falls into the Too Much Information Department…”

I blushed before I realized what Jane was actually talking about. “No, sir. It’s nothing like that. We were attacked last night… at the grocery store, by this thing… fangs and…”

As I struggled to articulate myself, the Inspectre was already lost in his own thoughts and wandering back toward the curtains and the office proper. “Yes, yes,” he said, distracted. “Write it up in a report and I’ll go over it. Make sure you get to those others as well…”

I sighed as he slipped back through the curtains and was gone. “And I’ll make sure to file an incident report to document that I filed an incident…” I said.

Jane laughed, then grabbed my bear claw and took a bite of it.

“Hey!”

“Do try to have all of it done by seven or so,” she said. “We’ve got tickets to Mamma Mia, and if we’re late, they only seat during a break in the show.”

The Inspectre popped his head out from the curtain, looking every bit like a magician. “Oh,” he said. “I nearly forgot. Ms. Clayton-Forrester, Director Wesker left a message with me for you. He assumed you’d be tethered to Mr. Canderous, and wouldn’t you know, there you are…”

I bristled at the mention of the head of Greater & Lesser Arcana. Thaddeus Wesker had no doubt made the tethered comment, which made him not only Jane’s boss but an ass to boot.

“Yes, sir?” Jane said with great earnestness. Being an ex-cultist meant she had to work twice as hard to earn respect around here.

“Director Wesker is already up at Tome, Sweet Tome,” he said. “Several of the more rambunctious books seem to have been… picking… on a few less rowdy ones. He needs you up there to help straighten things out. He seemed out of sorts that you weren’t already there, but then again, he always seems out of sorts, doesn’t he?”

The Inspectre gave Jane a soft smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him. Then he followed up with a curt nod, and disappeared again, but not before giving me and my pile of folders a get-to-work kind of look.

“That’s me,” Jane said. “Librarian to the Damned.” Jane kissed my cheek, then grabbed her coffee and muffin. “Remember, theater tonight. Be ready or be dead.”

“One’s more likely than the other in my field,” I said, but Jane was already running out the door, heading for the subway over at Astor Place. I hefted my stack of paper and walked to the back of the coffeehouse and through the black velvet curtain hanging there. The Silence of the Lambs was playing in the ornate old theater despite the early hour, but at this time of morning the theater was all but empty. I headed down the main aisle, turned right, heading off toward a short corridor at the end of it on the left. Across from the theater bathrooms was the solid oak door marked H.P. that lead into the secret offices. Without a free hand, I slammed my pocket with my keys in it against the sensor pad next to the door. I prayed my panel humping would set it off and was relieved a few seconds later when I heard the door click open.

Arcane runes decorated the main bull pen of the office. I worked my way past the cubicle-farm part of it, past the myriad doors along the wall that lead off to God knew where. Farther along behind a set of ceiling-length red curtains, I found the next section of the office where Connor and I shared an old partners desk that was covered in far more paper than I had in my arms.