I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover of my life, and that's saying something.
It was actually the cold air that woke me, blowing in through the shattered windows and whipping the curtains around. Seattle had mild winters, but it was still November. I shape-shifted on a heavy sweater and then noticed that Sol's blood had not disappeared from my skin during last night's transformation, the blood had dried to fine, glittering red crystals on me and everything else. I picked up his discarded silk shirt and discovered it did a pretty good job at wiping them off.
The previous night was a blur, and I had trouble remembering the fine details. I supposed I could blame whatever mystery liquid I'd drank for that. Looking around at the wreckage brought a lot of the events back to me, and the rest I pieced together. Not wanting to linger in this place, I found my cell phone and called for a cab.
As I rode back into Seattle, I decided I wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep some more. My shift didn't start until later; Doug was opening. Wait. No, he wasn't. Doug was in a hospital bed. Sighing, I directed the driver to take me to the bookstore.
Three voice-mail messages waited for me when I arrived in the office. One was from the author we had doing a signing that night, E. J. Putnam. All was in order with his flight; he expected to be here as scheduled. The second message was Beth calling in sick. Jesus. Couldn't anyone stay healthy anymore? That put us down two people now. Warren wrapped up the messages, saying he'd be back from Florida later today and would stop in tonight. I decided to be mad at him out of sheer principle. I'd spent the last week dealing with chaos; he'd been golfing in eighty degree weather.
I got the store running and then staked out a register. Short-staffing will keep a person busy, at least. It gave me little time to reflect on last night's events. Or Doug. Or the fact that Seth hadn't come in today. Or my fight with Bastien.
"Are you Georgina?"
I looked up into the face of a pretty Japanese-American woman. Her face and build just barely crossed over into plumpness, and she wore her black hair in a high ponytail. Something about her smile seemed familiar.
"I'm Maddie Sato," she explained, extending a hand. "Doug's sister."
I shook her hand, astonished. "I didn't know Doug had a sister. "
Her smile quirked a little. "Lots of them, actually. We're kind of spread out around the country. We all sort of do our own thing."
"So you came to...see Doug?" I hesitated to bring up such a delicate subject, but why else would she be here?
She nodded. "I've been with him this morning. He's doing great and said to tell you hello."
That was the best news I could have received. "He woke up."
"Yes. He's grumpy and punchy but otherwise fine. He said he has some CDs in your office he wants. He asked if I could pick them up."
"Sure, I'll show you," I said, leading her toward the back. Wow. Doug's sister. "How'd you find out about Doug?"
"Seth Mortensen called me."
I stumbled and nearly walked into a display of gardening books. "How do you know Seth?"
"I write for Womanspeak magazine. Seth had some questions about a feminist organization that he needed answered for his book, and Doug gave him my e-mail address about a month ago. So, we've been in touch a couple times. When Doug...got sick, Seth tracked down my number in Salem and called last night. "
Part of me felt a little jealous that Seth had an e-mail correspondence with her that I hadn't known about, but I immediately quashed such feelings. What he'd done had been terribly considerate. And typical of him. Quietly efficient and kind. I led Maddie into the office and found the CDs in a drawer.
"Did you drive up last night or this morning?"
She shook her head. "Actually Seth picked me up."
"I...what? In Salem? That's, like, four hours away."
"I know. It was really nice. I don't have a car, so he drove right down after he called, got me in the middle of the night, and then brought me to Doug."
My God. Seth had made an eight-hour round-trip last night. No wonder he wasn't here; he'd gone home to crash. That also meant he hadn't necessarily taken off from the hospital to get away from me. He'd done it to help Doug. A pleasant flutter spread through me at this, half of it relief, half of it a response to still more evidence of Seth's continuing decency and consideration of others.
Maddie left me her cell phone number and promised to send my good wishes to Doug. As she was leaving my office, Janice entered it.
"Hey Georgina, Lorelei Biljan's here."
"Oh, okay. Wait." I did a double take. "You mean E. J. Putnam. "
"No. It's definitely Lorelei. E. J.'s a guy."
"I know that," I said. "But her signing's a week from today. Putnam's is today. I had a message about it and everything."
"I don't know. I just know she's here."
A horrible sinking feeling built up in me. I followed Janice out and shook hands with a small, solidly built middle-aged woman. I'd seen Lorelei Biljan's pictures in her books. Everything was the same from her brown pixie haircut to her characteristic black clothing.
"I'm going to see some sights today but wanted to check in first," she told me.
"Oh. Okay. Great." I smiled thinly, willing myself to keep breathing.
We chatted a little bit more, and as soon as she was gone, I tore back to Paige's office and ransacked her desk. Sure enough, her schedules showed both authors coming in today. On the master staff calendar, however, she'd put them on separate days. Our own in-store posters also had them on separate days, but checking newspaper ads, I saw them again scheduled for the same day. Our website declared both appeared today, which meant we'd have fans of both here tonight.
Good grief. This was like some bad, clich¨¦d sitcom. We had two dates for the dance.
I sat at Paige's desk and rubbed my temples. How had this happened? How had perfect, efficient Paige messed up? I quickly answered my own questions: because she had other things on her mind. She had an increasingly complicated pregnancy on her hands, one that had kept her out for almost three weeks now. A distraction like that would let anyone make mistakes. Unfortunately, I had to deal with them.
Andy stuck his head inside. "Oh, hey, there you are. Bruce said to ask you if any of us can help in the caf¨¦. They're short. And Seth just called the store's main line. Said to tell you he can't do the thing tomorrow. "
"Seth called?" I asked stupidly. So he wasn't asleep. And the "thing" tomorrow had been a date to see a local Celtic band play at a pub. But he was cancelling. The noble reasons I had attributed to him for keeping away from me suddenly seemed less altruistic. "Okay. Thanks."
I stared into space. My world was falling apart around me. I wasn't speaking to the two men I cared about the most. I was in charge of a bookstore that didn't have enough people to run it. Two authors were coming tonight, each expecting to have center stage to promote their books. We didn't have room for that. And to top it all off, I felt like shit. The residual effects of that drug had left me with a wicked headache, and I hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep. Killing a god will really wear you out.
I had too much to do and not enough energy or willpower to do it. Let alone the means. I needed a miracle. Divine intervention. And as feasible as that might seem in my line of work, it probably wasn't going to happen. Unless...
Divine intervention?
I found my purse and pulled out one of the packets of ambrosia. Those weird crystals pulsed out at me as I stared at them. What would happen? Nocturnal Admission had risen to stardom in a short time on these. Could I survive one hellish day at work? Would these give me the stamina and know-how to get through it? Or would I just turn into a slobbering sex kitten? I no longer believed Sol had given these to me last night. That had indeed been a date-rape drug. But these...these might be able to offer me some sort of inspiration to get out of this mess.
Of course, there was the whole dangerous addiction and withdrawal problem. But this was my first time. Even mortals had to go through a couple doses before things got nasty, and Carter had said it would take even longer for me to hit the downside. I was probably safe, so long as I didn't get too into whatever it was I was about to become.
Maybe it was the fatigue, but I didn't hesitate further. Don't overthink it, just act. I ordered a white-chocolate mocha from the caf¨¦ and dumped the crystals in once I was back in my office. "Bottoms up," I muttered, just before knocking it all back.
When I'd finished, I rested my head on the desk and waited for something to happen. Anything. Mostly I still felt sleepy. I yawned. When did this stuff kick in? How would I know? And good grief, what would I do if this turned into a disaster too? What if it made my day worse? I mean, not that it could get worse. I had two authors booked for tonight. The jealousy Tammi had once joked about could very well occur. Two was a bad number. Two led to rivalry. Add more, and it becomes a friendly group matter, not a one-on-one competition for space and spotlight. I'd been to big events where lots of authors spoke and read. Sometimes they sat on a panel and answered questions together about writing, inspiration, and publishing. Getting those perspectives was neat. It was a cool opportunity for fans of all the writers, and then later, said fans could have books signed by multiple authors. Those events were big deals. They took a lot of planning and a lot of advertising, not to mention a lot of staff.
I sat up a couple minutes later, realizing I'd long since jolted to alertness. I didn't have time to note when that had happened or what it meant. I had too many things to do. My mind raced. In a flash, I was out on the main floor, hunting down Andy. I handed him a staff roster.
"I need you to call every person who's not working today - except for the sick ones. See if they'll come in. Preferably for the rest of the day. If not, we'll take what we can get. Then ask everyone here who's not closing if they can close. Tell them they'll get time-and-a-half."
Andy stared as though he'd never seen me before, but I didn't give him time to question me. I went back to my office, paged Maria, and called Maddie Sato while I waited. When Maddie answered, I explained to her what I hoped she could do for me. She sounded surprised by my request, but she agreed nonetheless. She also promised to make another phone call for me that I wasn't too keen on making myself.
Maria appeared just as Maddie and I hung up. Maria worked part-time and was shy and quiet. She preferred to avoid the registers if she could, being much happier lost in the shelves. She was also an amazing artist.
I handed her a piece of poster board from our supply cabinet. "I need you to make a poster for tonight's event."
"The signing?" she asked. "Er, signings?" Everyone had heard about the double booking by now.
"Not just a signing. It's a literary extravaganza. It's..." I came up with and then promptly rejected several possibilities. "It's the Emerald Lit Fest." Boring, but straightforward. Sometimes that was better than a gimmick.
"Yes. The first annual one. And put on here that these authors will be there." I handed her a list I'd already made up. "Mention that they'll autograph books. And that we'll have drawings for prizes." I thought some more, making it up as I went along. The ideas just leapt off my tongue. "And that 10 percent of all sales will be donated to the Puget Sound's Literacy Project."
"Wow," she said. "I didn't know all this was going on."
"Yeah," I agreed briskly. "Me either. Draw it, type it, cut and paste, whatever. Just do it. I need it in twenty minutes. And it needs to look good. "
She blinked and then immediately set to work. While she did, I made phone calls. Print ads were a no-go, but almost everyone had a website. I called the big papers and the small artsy ones. I also called the local writers' groups and convinced them to e-mail their members. Finally, I called radio stations. They were less willing to do anything on short notice, but they were my best bet at immediate advertising. I could have the DJs mention us without a formal commercial. That took a bit of finagling, but we had an account with most of them already that guaranteed payment, and the charitable angle was hard to resist. Okay, I was hard to resist. Even over the phone, I could hear myself wooing and persuading with an unholy skill. Maria stopped working at one point to stare at me with an almost hypnotized look. Shaking her head, she returned to her poster.
Andy popped in with the annotated roster. We hadn't roped in quite as many as I would have liked, but we'd definitely increased our numbers. And most of the current staff was staying.
Maria finished her poster just then, and it did look good. I drove to the print shop that usually handled our business and turned the poster over to them.
"No," the manager told me flatly, making my manic flurry of activity come to a screeching halt. "I can't do all that in under an hour. Three hours maybe. "
"Hour and a half?" I cajoled. "It's for charity. An emergency situation just came up."
She frowned. "An emergency literacy situation?"
"Literacy is always an emergency. Do you know how many children in the Puget Sound area struggle with reading due to lack of resources and education?"
Fortunately, being in the book business, I knew all the grim stats. By the time I was done with her, that battle-axe was nearly in tears. She'd do my order, she promised, and she'd do it in my original hour.
While those were being printed, I traveled over to Foster's Books. Locally owned, that store wasn't as big as Emerald City, but it had the same sort of reputation as a local landmark. Technically, we were rivals.
Garrett Foster, the owner, looked up when I entered. "Looking for a job?"
"I've got one for you," I told him sweetly, leaning on his counter. "I need you to get in touch with Abel Warshawski for me."
Abel Warshawski was a reclusive local author who wrote wildly popular books about the Pacific Northwest. He and Garrett were longtime friends, so Abel only did appearances at Foster's.
Garrett arched a grizzled eyebrow. "Abel only comes here. You know that. "
"I do. Which is why I didn't ask for his number."
I laid into Garrett then about how half of Emerald City's staff were in dire health. I talked about charity and literacy statistics. I pointed out that we weren't technically rivals anyway, since he was in Capitol Hill and I was in Queen Anne. Besides, the book industry was like a family. We all had the same goals.
"My God, woman," he murmured when I finished. I didn't think I'd taken a breath during my entire spiel. "Are you sure you don't want a new job?"
"I just want Abel for the night."
He bit his lip. "Think we could get Mortensen over here for a signing some time?"
"Hmm." I considered this. Bartering was in my blood. "That depends. You guys close a few hours earlier than us, right? Think we could get a few of you to help us out tonight? Paid, of course."
"You've got some balls," he muttered. He stared at me, still thinking, but I knew I had him. He couldn't resist. "Okay, but only if we get Mortensen during a hot time - around his next release."
"Done." I didn't like sharing Seth, but lots of big authors made multiple Seattle appearances when a new book came out. I hoped Seth didn't mind being whored out. Oh, well. That was for later.
Before I left, I bought all of Foster's American Mystery and Womanspeak magazines. He hesitated a moment as he rang them up. "Hey..." He looked me over. "I don't suppose you read that story Mortensen wrote..."