#ghost's fic

Charles rockets out of bed, kicking away the sheets that tangle around his legs. The woman is still talking, but he can’t hear what she’s saying over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Stumbling into his kitchen, he snatches the phone off the wall in a white-knuckled grip. “Hello?”

“Charles Rowland?” She sounds perfectly calm, like she isn’t calling from the bloody hospital of all places.

“That’s me,” Charles manages to say, even though he feels like his heart is lodged in his throat. His mum promised that things were better with his dad since he retired, that Paul Rowland is a changed man now, but Charles never really believed it. But if his dad has finally landed her in the hospital, Charles… well, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He can’t make her leave the old cunt; he’s tried and failed more times than he can count.

“I’m calling from St. Vincent’s Hospital on behalf of Edwin Payne,” Vera says. “He gave your name as his emergency contact.”

Charles’s half-asleep brain can’t quite comprehend the words, confusion overtaking the previous terror. For a moment, he wonders if he’s dreaming, if his sleeping mind thinks it’s 1993 and that he and Edwin are still best mates. “Edwin? Edwin Payne? Brown hair, green eyes, mole on his chin?”

“Dimples,” he doesn't add. “And beautiful hands and a smile that makes you want to do anything to get another one out of him.”

He can practically feel Vera’s judgment over the line. “Edwin Anthony Payne,” she says slowly. “Date of birth January 18th, 1973.”

Charles remembers Edwin’s twentieth birthday, the last one they celebrated together three and a half years ago. Edwin and Simon had just broken up for what really seemed like the last time, and Charles had been trying to hide how thrilled he was, because Edwin seemed properly miserable. Charles, Crystal, and Niko surprised him with a nice dinner and a lopsided cake that Charles and Niko made from scratch. It’d been a good night and by the end of it, Edwin was smiling, leaning back in his chair with a glass of wine, cheeks flushed and eyes bright.

And then…

Well, it didn’t matter, did it? Apparently, it had never mattered. Edwin and Simon got back together a month later and not long after that, Charles and Edwin had the blowup that ended over five years of friendship in one horrible night.

“He was admitted here this morning.” Vera’s voice cuts through his reverie. “He’s asked for you.”

Finally, it sinks in that it’s a hospital that’s calling about Edwin. Edwin is in the bloody hospital. “What happened?” Charles demands.

“I’m afraid I can’t share many details over the phone,” Vera says. “But there's been an accident and he’s in surgery now.”

An accident. Surgery.Bloody hell, Edwin hates hospitals. He hates fluorescent lights, loud noises, and people he doesn’t know touching him, and all three of those things are unavoidable in hospitals. The thought of him alone there makes Charles’s heart hurt. And he must be alone, because there’s no way he would have asked them to call Charles otherwise.

Maybe he hit his head. Maybe he’s delirious. Maybe he’ll be furious when he gets out of surgery and finds Charles waiting for him. Maybe Charles should tell Vera sorry and hang up, because this isn’t really his problem. Edwin doesn’t want it to be Charles’s problem. But Edwin asked for Charles, and even if he didn’t really mean it, Charles has never been able to say no to him, not since their first day back at St. Hil’s.

“I’ll be right there,” Charles tells Vera.

***

He can see Esther Finch’s towering luxury building, even though he’s still several blocks away. Even though Christmas was two weeks ago, many of the windows still glitter with lights. If Charles is in there…

“Crystal and Niko are on their way,” Edwin continues. “If you cannot wait for me, then I ask that you at least wait for them. You’re the one who always wants them along as backup.”

Another text, this one from Niko. Edwin swipes it away as well. All that matters is getting to Charles right now.

“And I hope you realize we’re going to have another discussion about your impetuous behavior,” he says. “Because, really, Charles—”

The call disconnects as he exceeds the time limit for voicemails. Swearing, Edwin punches his car’s screen to call Charles again.

“This is Charles,” a painfully young-sounding Charles of fourteen years ago, when he recorded his voicemail message while sitting next to Edwin in the St. Hilarion’s dining hall, says. “Leave a message, and I’ll ring you back later.”

“You had better ring me back,” Edwin snarls. “Better yet, you had better be waiting for me outside Esther’s building, safe and sound. If you’re hurt, Charles, I swear to God…” He breathes out hard through his nose. “I love you. I am going to throttle you, but I love you. Be safe.”

He disconnects the call right before he throws his car into park on the curb in front of Esther Finch’s building. He leaps out of the car, craning his neck to look up.

On the top floor of the tower, Esther Finch’s penthouse is lit up, golden light glowing from behind every window. Edwin can just make out a figure standing on the balcony, backlit by the illuminated windows. Seventy stories below, Edwin can’t make out any details of the person, but he doesn’t need to. He just knows.

“Charles!” he shouts.

Charles doesn’t seem to hear him. Of course he doesn’t hear him; Edwin is nothing but a speck on the sidewalk seventy stories below, his voice undoubtedly lost in the sounds of London around him.

“I’m coming,” Edwin whispers to the far-away figure of the man he loves, starting for the front door. He’s sure he’ll have to talk his way past a security guard, but he can throw around the Payne name if necessary.

Above him, the night seems to light up with a percussive boom.

Edwin’s head jerks up as the top floor of the building explodes into flames, glowing against the night sky. The balcony where Charles was just standing is gone, swallowed up by fire.

Edwin screams. He is still screaming when Crystal and Niko get there.

***

It’s the coldest day London has had in nearly a decade when they bury Charles.

Charles never liked the cold. He was always stealing what he called Edwin’s “old man jumpers” or warming his icy feet against Edwin’s calves under the covers. Were he here right now, he would be pressed up against Edwin’s side, like he was thinking of crawling right under Edwin’s winter coat so they could share body heat. Edwin would roll his eyes and remind Charles that he would be far more comfortable if he would just wear a proper coat.

“You saying my coat’s not proper, mate?” he can practically hear Charles demanding, mock outraged, smoothing down the lapels of the pin-studded coat he picked up at a thrift store in Year 11.

But of course, Charles isn’t here.

Niko has her arm linked through Edwin’s; he can feel the warmth of her gloved hand through his coat. Her breath mists in the air in front of her in little gasps as she tries and fails not to cry. Edwin wonders if the tears will freeze right on her lashes. On her other side, Crystal stares at the coffin in front of them like she can will the lid to swing open and Charles to sit up with a rakish smile and an apology for keeping everyone waiting.

Except, all that’s in that coffin is ashes, a cricket bat, Charles’s beloved, battered old jacket, and a few other small keepsakes.

There’s a sparse gathering of mourners around the graveside: some of their old classmates, a handful of Charles’s colleagues, as well as his students and their families, a few neighbors. The Rowlands stand side by side on the other side of the coffin, Mrs. Rowland weeping into her hands and Mr. Rowland looking vaguely annoyed and apathetic, like he’s waiting for a delayed bus. Edwin can’t look at them for long, or the urge to push Charles’s father into the open grave will grow too strong.

He expected more in attendance, given Charles’s effortless way of charming everyone he met. He supposes they were put off by the press gathered behind the police barricades surrounding the Payne family plot, watching the proceedings with the intensity of hawks circling a dying rabbit. Edwin is grateful for the towering statues and mausoleums that mark his relatives’ graves; they offer protection from prying eyes.

Mr. Rowland didn’t want Charles buried here. He’d claimed that it wasn’t right, because Charles and Edwin hadn’t been married yet. Edwin had pointed out that he was paying for the funeral, and if Paul Rowland wanted Charles buried elsewhere, he could by all means be the one to fund the proceedings. It didn’t take long for Charles’s father to have a change of heart, if the miserable bastard even has a heart.

The priest says his last words and the other mourners begin to disperse as the coffin, laden with flowers, is lowered into the ground. Soon all that are left are Edwin, Crystal, Niko, and the Rowlands. None of them speak, their focus on the wooden box that contains all that’s left of the best person Edwin has ever met.

When Crystal touches Edwin’s arm, he startles. She grimaces apologetically and says, “We should go.”

Edwin doesn’t want to go. He belongs here at Charles’s side, just like he always has. But there will be a reception back at Payne Manor, and it wouldn’t do to miss it. He nods silently and lets the girls steer him out of the plot. He was hoping that the press would have left by now, but there are still a few stragglers. One shoves a microphone in Edwin’s face as he passes.

“Do you have any comment on your relationship with the Blue Phantom?” the man asks eagerly. “Did you know your fiance was a vigilante?”

“His name wasn’t the fucking Blue Phantom,” Edwin wants to say. “His name was Charles Paul Rowland, and he was my best friend. He died protecting this city, and the rest of you keep acting like this is some sort of circus act. I wish London would have burned instead of him.”

A hand lands on his back before he can open his mouth. “Mr. Payne has no comment,” Asa Nurse says coolly, steering Edwin through the gathering of journalists like they’re not even there. Edwin expects resistance, but the press parts for her, just like people always do. Charles once joked that Ms. Nurse could convince the tides to stop if she just gave the ocean really stern look.

“Thank you,” Edwin murmurs to her.

Ms. Nurse isn’t one for sentiment; she didn’t even shed a tear when his parents died, though she had worked with them for decades. So he’s surprised to see that her eyes are glistening with unshed tears when she glances back at the Payne family plot. “Of course,” she says, then clears her throat. “It wouldn’t do for you to fisticuffs with a pack of journalists. Not on camera, at least.”

“What about off camera?” Crystal is staring down the pack of journalists like she’s thinking of putting them in the ground along with Charles.

Ms. Nurse shoots her a warning look. “The fervor will die down,” she says. “So long as we don’t give them anything else to write about.”

Edwin wishes he had her certainty.

“Some of us can afford media attention less than others,” Ms. Nurse tells Crystal pointedly.

Behind them, Edwin can hear the reporters talking among themselves. They’re laughing, like this is just another day on the job, like the world hasn’t ended. Edwin wants to scream in their smug faces. He wants to leave them feeling just a fraction of the despair that has weighed him down for the past week.

“Come on,” Niko whispers, squeezing his arm, and Edwin lets her pull him away. He doesn’t look back at the grave, trying not to picture Charles alone in the half-frozen ground.

***

“Well, I think that’s one of our missing ghosts.” Crystal points to a ghost in head-to-toe pink spandex, her hair a poufy cloud of curls. “Tammy, right? The one who died on her way to aerobics class?”

“She does fit the description.” Edwin looks even more unimpressed by the spandex. “It stands to reason that if the other missing people are present, then Charles and Niko surely are as well.”

“Great,” Crystal says. “Now, how do we find them?”

For the past week, they've been looking into a series of disappearances where the missing people seem to have declared their love for someone--a random stranger, a passing acquaintance, a friend they had no interest in before, and on one occasion a sworn enemy--out of the blue, and vanished with their new object of affection. They've had three separate clients come to them with cases, and discovered a half dozen others while investigating. But there are at least fifty people, if not more, crowding the ballroom.

And somewhere, Charles and Niko are here.

They seemed fine the last time Crystal saw them this morning, when they left the office to go talk to a witness from the latest disappearance. It took hours for Edwin and Crystal to realize that something was wrong after they never returned. And when they went to investigate, they found people talking about a strange, white-haired girl who had been going around, giggling and gazing lovingly at thin air. As far as they could tell, Niko and Charles never even made it to the witness’s house to question her.

“So someone is casting love spells on people…and what, luring them to a party at an old castle in the middle of nowhere?” Crystal asks.

“As we've already discussed, love spells aren’t a real thing,” Edwin says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Love is something that can't be—”

“Manufactured, I know.” Crystal thinks Edwin may be a secret romantic, but he'll only get pissy if she tells him that. “Tell them that.”

She points to Tammy, who is nuzzling noses with a ghost who, according to her friend, she can't stand. “And it's not even the fun, sexy type of hate,” Debbie, who had been hit by a bus along with Tammy and was spending an eternity in neon green spandex, told them. “Lionel’s just sort of a chauvinistic twat.”

“Perhaps a lust spell,” Edwin says.

“They’re not dry humping on the dance floor, Edwin. They’re acting sweet. Like you’d act if you were in love with someone.”

Edwin clears his throat and yanks at his bow tie. “Your point, while unnecessarily crass, is a good one. Perhaps, we’re dealing with some kind of altered lust spell.”

“Altered to be a love spell?” Crystal asks archly.

He harrumphs. “The particulars of the spell don’t matter. What matters is finding Charles and Niko, getting them to safety, and figuring out who is doing this and stopping them.”

Crystal can't argue with that. All those empty smiles are starting to freak her out. “We should try talking to her.” She nods to Tammy. “If nothing else, she might have some fashion tips for you.”

Edwin rolls his eyes, but doesn't protest, which may as well be enthusiastic agreement from him. They make their way down the stairs to the ballroom below, weaving their way through starry-eyed couples. Tammy and Lionel are clutching each other's hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, wearing soppy expressions. Remembering how much Debbie insisted that Tammy hates Lionel, it makes Crystal feel a little sick.

“Tammy?” she asks.

Tammy doesn’t even look at her, still smiling at Lionel.

Crystal does something she tried to never do and leans through Lionel so she’s face to face with Tammy. The one time she did that to Edwin, he was as shocked and offended as if she’d just given him a wedgie. Lionel doesn’t even seem to notice. “Tammy?” she tries again.

Tammy blinks, seemingly puzzled to see Crystal’s head sticking out of her beloved’s chest.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Crystal says. “But Debbie sent me.”

Tammy blinks again. “Debbie?” she says slowly, like she doesn’t recognize the name of the woman she’s been haunting a crosswalk with for over forty years.

“Yeah, Debbie, your friend,” Crystal says. “She’s really worried about you. You just took off without saying anything.”

“Worried?”

“Yeah, maybe you could come with us? Just really quick, so Debbie can see that you’re okay.”

That seems to jog her into something resembling awareness. “Oh, but I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” Her gaze goes soppy again. “With Lionel.”

“And how did you arrive here?” Edwin asks from behind Crystal.

Tammy looks confused again. “I… well, I…”

“Did you come of your own volition, or were you brought here?” Edwin asks.

“He brought us here,” Lionel says dreamily. It’s weird to hear him speak while her head is still stuck through his torso, so Crystal retreats.

“Who is he?” she asks.

Lionel is still gazing at Tammy’s face like it’s a work of art. “He brought us together.”

“Yes, we gathered that.” Edwin’s voice only grows more impatient. “But again, who is he?”

“He knew I needed someone,” Tammy says. “He knew I needed Lionel.” For the first time, she turns to look at Crystal and Edwin. “But why are you here?”

Lionel also turns to stare at them, a spark of something that worries Crystal behind his glassy eyes, and she remembers that there isn’t a single pair in the room that isn’t gazing lovingly at each other or kissing sweetly. Not a single pair, except for Edwin and Crystal. And Lionel and Tammy aren’t the only ones who have noticed; other heads are swiveling towards them as more  lovestruck couples start to realize that they don’t belong here. Crystal feels like she just stepped into a horror movie.

Stepping sideways, she links her arm though Edwin’s and gazes up at him with her best impression of Tammy’s soppy smile. “He brought us here too,” she breathes. “We just want to thank him for bringing us together.”

Edwin stares at her with the wide-eyed expression of someone facing down the firing squad.

Crystal steps on his foot. It does nothing, since he’s a ghost, but it seems to get the point across.

Belatedly, he seems to realize what she’s trying to do. “Yes.” He pats her awkwardly on the arm. “We are most grateful. If you could point us to him, we’ll leave you to your…” He waves a hand vaguely at the happy couple.

Tammy’s expression goes back to being dopey and lovesick. “Oh, isn’t it wonderful?”

Edwin flashes a thin-lipped smile. “We couldn’t be happier.”

It may not be the most professional, but Crystal can’t help but fuck with him, just a little. “I’m so happy he brought me to my Eddie-poo.”

Edwin’s eye twitches.

“I haven’t seen him,” Lionel says. “He’s probably getting ready for tonight.”

“Tonight?” Edwin asks.

“Didn’t he tell you? He told us all to wait, because something exciting is coming.”

Well, that’s ominous. Crystal exchanges looks with Edwin. “Thanks,” she tells Tammy and Lionel, but they’re already back to clasping each other’s hands and nuzzling noses, like they need to make up for the two minutes they spent talking to Edwin and Crystal instead of gazing into each other’s eyes.

“Was that really necessary?” Edwin hisses as he and Crystal walk away from the couple.

“Look around you,” Crystal says through gritted teeth, still trying to keep her expression adoring. “We’re the only ones here who aren’t under a love spell, and they totally clocked us. Do you want them to figure out we’re intruders and bring us to him?”

Edwin doesn’t bother arguing with her that love spells don’t exist, which shows how rattled he is. “The Eddie-poo was surely not necessary.”

Crystal bats her lashes. “A good detective does what she must.”

He breathes out hard through his nose. “If you must refer to me as something besides my given name, I will not answer to Eddie-poo.”

“Fair enough.” She giggles and pats his cheek. “Now try to stop looking like you’re constipated.”

“Ghosts do not get—”

“Try to look in love.” Crystal wants to tell him to look at her like he’d look at Charles, but that will just cause an argument. She leans her head on his shoulder, gazing up at him. “Where do you think the guy who brought them here is?”

“He might be out, finding new victims. Or he might be somewhere else in this house.”

“That’s going to take all day to look,” Crystal mutters. “This house is enormous.”

“Indeed,” he says grimly. “So keep an eye out for someone who doesn’t appear entirely besotted.”

“Unless he’s blending in really well.” Crystal scans the crowd, but doesn’t see a single face that isn’t smiling dreamily. Then her eyes fall on a flash of red and she grabs Edwin’s arm. “Charles!”

Edwin whips around, eyes going wide when they fall on Charles and Niko, who stand in the far corner of the room, half-hidden by a statue. Niko is leaning back against the statue, and Crystal can’t see her face, but she can picture the way she’s probably smiling right now, and it makes her stomach twist. Charles is leaning down to whisper in her ear, his face hidden by her hair. Her shoulders shake as she giggles.

Edwin starts to pull away from Crystal, his gaze riveted on Charles and Niko.

“Wait.” Holding onto a ghost takes some work, especially when that ghost doesn’t want to be held onto, but Crystal digs her fingers into Edwin’s arm and manages to hang on. “We can’t just run up to them!”

“Why not?” Edwin asks through gritted teeth.

“Look around you! No one else here gives a shit about anyone except the person they’re in love with. It’s going to be really obvious if you run across the ballroom to get to Charles and Niko!”

For a moment, he looks like he might argue, before he seems to accept that she’s right. He doesn’t admit that, of course, just lets out a defeated huff. “I suppose they don’t appear to be in distress.”

“No.” Crystal darts a quick glance at them. “They look really happy.”

His mouth twists into a complicated shape. “Indeed. If Tammy and her beau are any indication, we may have better luck finding the person who cast this spell and stopping them, rather than trying to convince Charles and Niko to leave.”

Crystal glances back at them, finding Charles smiling down at Niko. Charles smiles a lot and in the nearly a year that she’s known him, she's learned that he seems to have a smile for any situation. But she knows that smile. She’s also never seen it directed at anyone who isn’t Edwin.

“Tammy said she’d been waiting for Lionel,” she says, pieces clicking into place in her head. “But that doesn’t make any sense, since she hated him two days ago.”

“Very little of this makes any sense,” Edwin grouses.

“But remember what Debbie said about Tammy’s husband?” Crystal asks. “Tammy hasn’t moved on yet because her husband visits the place where she died every year on her birthday. She won’t move on until he stops coming. She spends the rest of the year waiting for him. You said love can’t be created through magic, but what if this spell isn’t creating anything? What if it’s just...transferring it. Tammy now loves Lionel in the way she loved her husband. And Charles—”

“Now loves Niko the way he loves you.” Edwin's eyes fill with the gleam of excitement he always gets when they start making progress on a case. “Crystal, that’s brilliant.”

Crystal just manages to resist the urge to roll her eyes, because Edwin’s trying to be nice. Charles's insistence on not telling Edwin outright how he feels—“because what if he's changed his mind, Crystal,” like Edwin Payne ever changes his mind about anything—and Edwin’s insistence on believing that Charles and Crystal are star-crossed lovers, not two people who made out twice before they decided they're better off as friends, got old within a month of leaving Port Townsend. “So I guess we just need to figure out how to break it.”

“It could be as simple a fix as them being confronted with the true object of their affection,” Edwin says.

At least that should be easy enough in Charles’s case, Crystal thinks. But what about Niko? She has no idea who Niko is in love with. She tries not to feel a pang of hurt that Niko hasn’t confided in her about having a crush, because that’s not the point right now. But they’re best friends, aren’t they? They live together! Crystal sort of thought they told each other everything.

Unless, has Niko picked up on Crystal's hopeless crush on her? Is she just trying not to hurt Crystal's feelings, or does she think Crystal would make things weird? Would Crystal make things weird? She made the last guy who rejected her walk into traffic, after all, and she’s trying to be a better person, but little flares of the old Crystal pop up now and again. Fuck, is Niko afraid that Crystal would make her walk into traffic?

“Crystal,” Edwin says impatiently. “If I could have your attention, I was under the impression we were here to solve a case.”

“Sorry.” Crystal drags her attention back to Edwin, trying to look like she’s talking to the man she’s madly in love with.

“I was saying,” Edwin says. “That finding their paramours isn’t a viable solution for all these people. For one, Tammy’s widower is in his eighties, lives in Dover, and as far as we know, is unable to see ghosts, so getting him here would be difficult, if not impossible.”

“Which brings us back to needing to find the fucker who did this.”

Edwin nods, lips twitching into a small smile. “Precisely.”

Crystal returns his smile. It always feels good to be in sync with Edwin, even if she won’t ever admit it. “Time to do some snooping?”

He sniffs. “I prefer the term ‘investigating.’”

“Yeah, and I prefer not to be spending my Saturday sneaking around a creepy party.” When he starts to turn away, she tugs him back. “Remember, we need to act like we’re in love.”

“If we must,” Edwin says in the tone of someone who would prefer to relive those seventy-three years in Hell.

Crystal has to give it to him; Edwin does at least try to look like he’s madly in love with her as they meander around the house. His version of trying to look madly in love mostly seems to be forcing his lips into a thin-lipped, frozen smile and occasionally patting her hand. Crystal tries to channel Charles’s heart eyes as she gazes up at him,  but she doesn’t think anyone could possibly match the level of adoration Charles has for Edwin.

The house doesn’t reveal much, mostly empty rooms with furniture covered in white sheets and more dreamy-eyed couples. They’re up on the third floor—Jesus, how big is this house?—when a door opens at the other end of the hallway. Crystal looks around to see a man step out of a room. He’s alone, and he’s walking right towards them.

There’s no time to hide; the only reason he hasn’t seen them already is that he’s looking at his phone.

“Follow my lead,” Crystal hisses, grabbing Edwin by the front of the shirt and dragging him backwards so that she’s leaning back against the wall, his body between her and the hallway, blocking her from view. Standing up on her tiptoes, she presses her lips against his.

Once, when Crystal was thirteen, her friends dared her to kiss a mannequin in a department store. Kissing Edwin is a lot like kissing that mannequin. He goes completely still against her, his lips pressed into a thin line against hers. Even if she wanted to slip her tongue into his mouth—which ugh—she doubts she could wiggle it between his lips. When she opens her eyes a slit to look up at him, she finds his eyes open, staring at the wall behind her like he’s thinking about phasing right through it and running, or maybe just sinking through the ground to return to Hell.

Footsteps approach. Crystal does her best impression of a dreamy sigh, not that the man walking by even spares them a glance. From over Edwin’s shoulder, Crystal gets a decent glimpse of him—about thirty, tall, fair-haired. The hand gripping his phone sports a ring with a giant blue stone on its middle finger, at odds with his otherwise uninspired clothing. She waits until he’s vanished down the steps before she releases her hold on Edwin’s shirt. Immediately, he steps back.

“Sorry.” Crystal wishes she could walk through walls. “I didn’t want him to realize we weren’t one of the couples he’d kidnapped.”

“It’s quite alright,” he says, even as his lips purse in disgust. “As you said, a good detective does what she must.”

Crystal can’t help but wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, even though ghosts don’t have any spit. She’s going to need so much Listerine when she gets home. “But we’re never telling Charles and Niko about that, right?”

“Heavens no.”

“Great,” she says. “Then let’s go see what he was doing in that room.”

“Capital idea, Crystal.” He turns on his heel and power walks down the hallway towards the room, probably trying to . Crystal doesn’t try to stop him; there’s no one else in the hallway to notice they’re not exactly acting like a happy couple.

They find a study cluttered with books, papers, and shelves filled with vials of colorful liquid. Without exchanging a word, Crystal goes to search one side of the room while Edwin goes to the other. Crystal touches each bottle, trying to get a read on what they are, but only gets brief glimpses of the man from the hallway standing over a stove or chopping up potion ingredients. She’s about to head to the closest bookshelf when Edwin says, “Here.”

Crystal turns to find him standing behind the desk, holding a notebook in his hand, brow furrowed. “What is it?”

Edwin shakes his head. “Utter nonsense.”

“What, is it in some kind of code?”

“I don’t think our culprit is clever enough to come up with a code. This is preposterous.”

“What is?” Crystal can’t keep the impatience out of her voice.

“From what I gather, he’s trying to lure Desire of the Endless by sacrificing all these people and their love for each other.” Every word drips with disdain. “Because he’s lonely and thinks he can trap Desire and force them to make his ex-wife love him again.”

Crystal stares at him. Jesus Christ, and she thought the incels she has to deal with at school were bad. “Hasn’t he ever heard of Tinder?”

“What is Tinder?”

Right, she almost forgot who she’s dealing with. “Okay, so what’s with the love spells? Why not use actual couples who are in love for real?”

“I don’t care to do enough reading to discover his reasoning,” Edwin says with a sniff. “I imagine it’s deeply flawed. But from what I gather, he’s a mildly powerful sorcerer with delusions of grandeur. Any of the Endless would crush him under their boots.”

“If he’s only mildly powerful, that’s a good sign, right?”

“You would think so, but I’ve found that often the ones with only a bit of power are the most dangerous. They’ll do whatever they can to get more.”

“Great.” Crystal comes to lean on the desk. “Then how do we stop him?”

“Our would-be matchmaker carries the key to the love spell on him,” Edwin says. “A ring.”

“I think I saw it on his left hand. It’s got a big blue stone and it’s super ugly.”

“Excellent,” he says with an approving nod. “If we destroy it, the spell should be broken.”

“Now we just need to get close enough to him to destroy it.”

“And how do we do that?”

“You don’t,” Mr. Incel says from the doorway of the study. He looks between Crystal and Edwin, looking more irritated than worried. “Who the fuck are you?”

“We are the Dead Boy Detectives.” Edwin drops the notebook to the desk, showing the least amount of respect for a book that Crystal’s ever seen from him. “And we’re here to stop you from getting yourself killed attempting to summon Desire of the Endless.”

“Actually, we don’t really give a fuck if you get yourself killed,” Crystal says, unable to totally hide the little glow she feels at being called one of the Dead Boy Detectives, even if they still really need to change that name. “But we’re not going to let you hurt all those people down here.”

“Yeah?” The sorcerer’s lip curls in disdain. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Crystal actually has no fucking idea, but it looks like they’re winging it. She reaches into her pocket to slip on the iron knuckles she keeps for the rare occasions she has to punch someone. It doesn’t happen as often as she expected after everything that happened in Port Townsend, especially since Charles is almost always in front of her with a cricket bat. But this asshole took her friends, and she’s not about to let him get away with it.

“Surely, you’ve heard the stories of people who trifle with the Endless.” Edwin’s voice drips with contempt. “It never ends well for them.”

“I’ve been planning this for years!” the sorcerer protests. “Ever since Emily left me. Every detail is planned perfectly.”

Edwin raises an eyebrow with an expression that usually makes Crystal want to throttle him, because it’s usually aimed at her. “Perhaps if you’d put more effort into being a better husband and less into attempting to magically force her love, you would still be married.”

The sorcerer takes a step towards him. “You cannot even comprehend the kind of power you’re dealing with here, you little—”

With his attention solely focused on Edwin, Crystal makes her move. She lunges forward, iron knuckles connecting with the asshole’s jaw with a satisfying crunch. He shouts in pain as his head snaps around, blood spraying from his mouth. Spitting out what she’s pretty sure is a tooth, he turns back to her with an almost offended expression, like he can’t believe anyone would dare interrupt him.

“Sorry.” Crystal draws back her fist for another strike. “Villain monologues get really fucking boring after—”

He flings out his hand and Crystal feels like she’d been hit by a truck. She sails backwards, landing against the wall hard enough to knock all the breath out of her lungs. Gasping, she slides to the ground, landing on her side. As the sorcerer raises his hand again, light glinting on his fingertips, she’s reminded of the spell Esther Finch nearly killed Niko with.

To her surprise, Edwin shouts and runs at the sorcerer, a paperweight from the desk clutched in his hand. Crystal’s only seen Edwin physically throw himself at a threat once, when Esther Finch hit Charles with her iron cane. She doesn’t have time to parse how she feels about that before the sorcerer whirls on him, ugly sapphire ring pointed right at Edwin. Edwin freezes, his entire body jerking.

The sorcerer’s lip curls, exposing a missing incisor. “I didn’t expect a stuffy little priss like you to be so full of love. Look, I’ll do you a favor. I’ll exorcise you before I kill your girlfriend over there.”

Crystal is only about a yard away from the sorcerer. She shifts a little towards him, stretching out her arm. She isn’t sure if it’s just being a misogynistic asshole or that Edwin is just super infuriating, but the sorcerer doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to her.

Despite being frozen by the ring’s power, Edwin rolls his eyes. “I assure you, she is not my girlfriend.”

Crystal rolls her own eyes. Leave it to Edwin to focus on the important things.

“Doesn’t love you back?” The sorcerer almost looks sympathetic. “I know how that is. These bitches never appreciate the nice guys.”

Yeah, Crystal definitely isn’t listening to this villain monologue. Gritting her teeth, she closes her hand around the sorcerer’s ankle.

A blond woman’s furious face. “Miles, how many fucking times do I need to tell you that it’s over? It’s been three years!”

How dare she? Who does she think she is? Does she think anyone will ever love her as much as he does, the stupid cunt?

“Edwin,” Crystal hisses, because if she has to spend too much time in Miles’s head, she’s going to hurl. More images of the blond woman—Emily, she guesses—flash across her vision. None of them are happy memories; they all seem to be of Emily and Miles fighting, or Miles watching Emily from afar as she tries to live her life.

“There.” Edwin’s smug voice cuts through the vision. “That should do it.”

Releasing Miles’s ankle, Crystal blinks, letting her vision clear. She finds herself looking down at the ring, which lies in pieces on the ground, the paperweight discarded on the ground next to it.

“What the fuck did you do?” Miles shouts, whirling on Edwin.

Edwin stands his ground. “You haven’t just abducted humans and ghosts, but vampires, werewolves, a centaur, and at least one Fae that I saw. Every single one of them is free from your magical influence. If I were you, I would be prioritizing escaping before they realize what happened and that you were behind it, rather than taking the time to attack myself and my colleague.”

Miles stares at him, wide-eyed. “They can’t—”

“And if you’re lucky, the Endless haven’t become apprised of your little plot.” Edwin smiles a mean little smile. “I wouldn’t count on being lucky. They’re quite observant.”

Crystal rises to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest and smiling viciously. “This is the part where you run.”

Miles doesn’t need much convincing; he turns and flees for the door.

“Should we actually let him go?” Crystal asks Edwin as soon as he’s vanished from sight. “He’s really obsessed with his ex-wife. I don’t know what he’ll do now that his evil plan didn’t work.”

“As I said, he kidnapped a variety of supernatural creatures,” Edwin says. “I plan on seeking out the Fae in particular to tell them what happened. They aren’t known for their forgiving natures. If he’s lucky, he’ll only be turned into a tree.”

She can’t help but snort with laughter. “You know, you’re fun when you’re being an asshole to other people.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he says, but his smile is softening. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, mostly just my ego’s bruised.” Noticing the way Edwin glances towards the door worriedly, she adds, “Let’s go find them.”

Edwin nods, looking relieved. “Let’s.”

They find Charles and Niko right where they left them. The ballroom is filled with confused shouting as people mill around frantically, trying to figure out what happened. Across the room, Crystal can see Tammy and Lionel shouting at each other. Since neither of them seem to be in danger, she turns her focus to Niko and Charles. Charles has Niko backed up against the wall, his body between her and the chaos. His expression is guarded as he takes in the scene, until his eyes land on Crystal and Edwin and his face breaks into a smile. It’s the same way he was smiling at Niko just a few minutes ago, like he’s looking at the most important thing in the world.

“Figured you were in here somewhere, mate,” Charles says. “What happened?”

“A sorcerer with a fondness for love spells.” Reaching them, Edwin adjusts Charles’s collar fussily.

“Thought love spells don’t exist, yeah?”

“This one was a love transference spell. The details aren’t important. What is important is that Crystal and I took care of it.”

Niko slips past Charles to throw her arms around Crystal.

“Are you okay?” Crystal demands, nuzzling into Niko’s soft hair.

“Yeah!” Niko sounds more confused than distressed. “I don’t really remember what happened. I was walking with Charles, and then someone touched my shoulder and…”

Crystal hugs her a little tighter. “It’s okay now. The asshole who did this is probably going to get killed by the Fae soon.”

“Oh, wow, okay.”

“Trust me, he deserved it.” Crystal meets Edwin’s gaze over her shoulder. He’s still finding items of Charles’s clothing to adjust while Charles makes cow eyes at him.

Edwin nods. “Indeed. We can fill you in on the details back at the office.”

“Right,” Charles says, glancing back at the ballroom. “But first, what do we do about this lot?”

***

“Finally,” Niko breathes, her cheek coming to rest against Crystal’s shoulder as they sink down onto the couch in the office. It took them hours to get back, between reassuring the victims, stopping multiple murders—though Crystal isn’t sure if Tammy could actually murder Lionel again, not that that stopped her from trying—and making sure everyone had a way to get home safe.

But that isn’t what Niko is talking about, Crystal knows. Niko is talking about Edwin and Charles, who are standing in front of the window on the other side of the office, talking in low voices. They seem to have completely forgotten that Crystal and Niko are here. Neither of them are doing anything to disguise their heart eyes, which isn’t new. They're holding hands, which is new.

Niko sighs dreamily. “I guess the love spell worked. Or love transference spell, Edwin said? What does that even mean?”

“It means that the spell made Charles love you the way he loves Edwin,” Crystal says. “And it made Tammy love Lionel the way she loves her husband. I guess everyone Miles took is in love with someone else, and the spell just redirected those feelings.”

Niko is quiet for a moment, before she says, “Oh.”

Crystal waits, hoping Niko will fill the silence. When she doesn’t, Crystal adds, “Edwin thought I was the one Charles was in love with. I’m guessing Charles is correcting him now.”

Charles brings their joined hands to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to Edwin’s palm. Edwin seems to melt.

Crystal snorts. “Jesus, they’re going to be insufferable. We’re going to have to set up a system where they hang a bow tie or something on the door when we shouldn’t go into the office.”

“I think it’s sweet.” Niko giggles as Edwin leans in to kiss Charles.

Crystal doesn’t want to admit it, but she also thinks it’s pretty adorable. Gross, but adorable. “Better late than never, I guess. It only took them thirty-five years. Maybe we should send Miles a fruit basket before he gets turned into a tree.”

Niko giggles again and snuggles closer.

Crystal is starting to feel a bit weird about watching Edwin and Charles make out, so she lets her eyes fall closed and gathers her courage. “So… the spell made you fall in love with Charles.”

“I guess,” Niko says cagily.

“It would have had to transfer the love from someone else.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess. Should we call the Night Nurse to tell her we’re back? She was probably worried about us. Wait, does the Night Nurse have a phone? We should get her a phone.”

“Was it that kelpie from the Case of the Drowned Diva?” Crystal asks, refusing to be distracted. “The one who kept flirting with you?”

“Sam?” Niko lifts her head from Crystal’s shoulder to blink at her. “No, they were really sweet, but they live underwater, and that didn’t seem like it was going to work out. I like swimming, but not that much.”

“Then someone from school? Or from back in Japan?”

“There’s not anyone from school,” Niko says. “Or Japan.”

Crystal knows she should drop it, because it really isn’t any of her business, but dropping things has never really been her strong point. “Look, whoever it is, I’ll totally support you. Unless it’s Edwin, because ew.”

Niko smiles, looking almost shy. “It’s not Edwin. Or Charles.”

“Then—”

Niko leans in and brushes her lips against Crystal’s. It’s a quick kiss, over before Crystal even fully realizes what’s happening.

Crystal feels like she’s been thrown against another wall, all the breath knocked right out of her. She stares at Niko. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Niko smiles shyly, then her eyes widen as she seems to realize what she’s just done. “Unless you don’t like me back? In which case, wow, I think that spell did something to me. I feel sort of fun—”

don’t like me back? In which case, wow, I think that spell did something to me. I feel sort of fun—”

Crystal kisses her again, a real kiss this time. It’s a little clumsy—Niko clearly isn’t a practiced kisser—but nothing matters except the way she can feel Niko’s smile curving against her lips. When she finally has to come up for air, she asks, “How long?”

Niko laughs, sounding breathless. “Since Port Townsend, I think. I knew I really liked you, but I didn’t realize it was love until after the spell broke and I realized what happened.”

Fuck, they really do owe that Miles asshole a fruit basket. Crystal leans her forehead against Niko’s cheek, smiling. “It was Port Townsend for me too. I thought the dandelion sprite lights were love at first sight.”

“Kingham and Litty will love that.”

“Let’s not tell them. They’ll be even worse than usual.”

Charles’s voice, raised in surprise, floats across the office. “Wait, you kissed Crystal?”

Crystal turns to find them still standing in front of the window, Charles staring at her incredulously. “And you kissed Edwin?” he asks her.

Crystal glares at Edwin, who at least has the decency to look shame-faced. “I thought we were taking that to our graves.”

He clears his throat. “My corpse was disintegrated, so I have no grave.”

“Oh no, you can’t get out of this by playing the Hell card.” She jabs a finger at him. “We made a deal.”

“It just slipped out.”

“His tongue was just down your throat! How the fuck did it slip out?”

“Was it at least a good kiss?” Niko asks.

“God no,” Crystal says without hesitation.

“I once had my tongue pulled out with a pair of pliers.” Edwin pauses, considering. “That was only slightly less pleasant.”

Crystal flips him off, but she can’t stop the grin from spreading across her face. God, he’s the worst. She can’t believe he’s one of her best friends.

Edwin sighs. “We had to pretend to be under the effects of the love spell in order to blend in. It was entirely Crystal’s plan.”

“And it worked, right?” Crystal asks. “We didn’t get caught. Well, not until we got to Miles’s office.”

“I suppose not,” Edwin says begrudgingly. “It was a necessary evil.”

“Right, well, you know what that means, Niko?” Charles crosses the office to hold out a hand to Niko, eyes crinkling with mirth. “Guess we need to do the noble thing and step aside, yeah?”

Niko nods solemnly as she lets Charles pull her to her feet. “We can’t get between true love.”

“No, we can’t, mate.” Charles offers her his arm. “Want to go watch sad movies and cry about it?”

She takes his arm with a smile. “I can paint your nails.”

“Sounds brills.”

“They are absurd,” Edwin says as Charles and Niko make their way towards the game closet, which now also holds an old TV and a bunch of DVDs.

“Totally absurd.” Crystal goes to perch on the desk across from Edwin. When he looks at her warily, she says, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you again. I’d rather track Miles down and make out with him.”

“He’s almost certainly a tree right now,” Edwin says, lips curling into a little smile. “But excellent work tonight, Crystal.”

Her lips twitch. “Thanks. You did alright too.”

In the doorway of the game closet, Niko giggles at something Charles said, and turns to beam at Crystal. Something flutters in Crystal’s stomach.

“I suppose we do make an acceptable team,” Edwin says, only a bit grudgingly.

“I guess so,” Crystal says. “Let’s do it again, on one condition.”

He raises an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

“No more kissing,” Crystal tells him. “Like, ever.”

He snorts. “For once, Crystal, you and I are in complete agreement.”

***

“I am an infinite transdimensional being. I cannot be contained by a bloody door!” The Night Nurse kicks the door in question. All it does is give her a sore foot. She resists the urge to swear and clutch at it; she won’t give Edwin the satisfaction.

“You should inform the door of your inability to be contained,” Edwin tells her. “I’m sure it will of course open for you instantly.”

The Night Nurse takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to think. “You could attempt to be helpful. I’m not sure how much time we have until the demon comes back.”

“Ah, yes, helpful.” Disdain drips from the word. “As it was helpful of you to follow me when I specifically told you to stay outside—”

She draws herself up. “I do not take orders from you.”

“Just as helpful as when you interrupted my negotiations with the demon with your shouting—”

“Negotiations?” She sputters, outraged. “It was about to eat you, you ungrateful—”

Edwin pockets his pen with a contemptuous flick of his wrist. He has a knack for turning the most seemingly benign gestures into insults. The Night Nurse has witnessed him fold a newspaper in a manner that felt as disrespectful as if he had spat in her face. “And it was so very helpful when you informed said demon that no amount of ghostly energy would make it powerful enough to open a gate to Hell, but you, as an eternal transdimensional being, have more energy than it can comprehend.”

The Night Nurse’s jaw snaps shut with a click. She can admit—not out loud, of course, but to herself—that that was a bit of a misstep.

“Yes, so very helpful to save me from the demon so I can either be consumed later right beside you, or perhaps I’ll be lucky and I’ll just be the first soul the denizens of Hell encounter once our captor uses your power to open a Gate to the darkest, most vile depths of Lucifer’s pits.” 

It takes the Night Nurse an irritatingly long moment to gather a reply. “Again, do you have anything useful to add, Mr. Payne?”

He raises a supercilious eyebrow. “This cell is layered with so many wards, Death herself probably couldn't get through. We aren’t getting out on our own, so there’s no sense in wasting our energy trying to break out. It won’t take Charles, Crystal, and Niko long to realize something is amiss when we don’t return.”

“That’s your plan?” the Night Nurse asks, incredulous. “Wait for your friends to come rescue you from a demon?”

“I’ve had a high success rate with that plan, yes. Until a better one presents itself, I see no need not to stick to it.”

She plants her hand on her hips and looks down her nose at him—so much as is possible when he’s over a head taller than her. “Well, I am not just going to sit around and wait for three children to rescue me.”

“Then by all means, continue throwing chairs.” Edwin waves a dismissive hand.

She does just that. She batters the chair against the door until all four of the legs have broken, then pounds the walls with her fists until her skin is scraped raw, screaming herself hoarse all the while. She kicks the door several more times, just for good measure. When she’s done, and the door isn’t open, she turns to find Edwin facing the far wall, scribbling in his little notebook once again.

“What on earth are you doing?” the Night Nurse croaks.

“I’ve never seen wards quite like these,” Edwin says. “I’m taking notes.”

“Excellent,” the Night Nurse snaps. “I’m sure your notes will be most interesting after the idiot outside manages to bring about the end of days.”

“Yes. With a gate to Hell open, people will need good wards more than ever.”

***

The Night Nurse paces, and paces some more, the only sounds in the cell her muttering and the scratch of Edwin’s pen. Her feet are starting to ache, but she can’t find it in herself to be still, not when there is a demon on the other side of that door that may be about to bring an end to existence as they all know it.

She doesn’t know how Edwin, who has seen firsthand the horrors of Hell, can be so unbothered by the threat of annihilation hanging over their heads. When she turns to demand just that of him, she finds him staring at the door, expression tense and fear apparent in his eyes. He takes a deep breath, seeming to steady himself as he returns to writing in his notebook. So not entirely unbothered, she supposes. That should make her feel better. It doesn’t.

She intends to say something soothing. What comes out is, “This is taking far too long. We need to figure out a way to escape on our own, as your friends do not seem to be up to the task.”

Edwin scoffs. “I apologize if the rescue isn’t as efficient as you require. Perhaps we can discuss it during our next quarterly review.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she scowls at him. “Finding us here cannot be harder than finding you in Hell. Something has clearly delayed them.”

“Nothing is going to delay Charles when I’m in danger. You’ve been with us nearly a year. You really should know that by now.”

“You escaped Hell!” The words burst out of her.

“Oh, thank you for the reminder. I had forgotten.”

The Night Nurse takes a deep breath. “You are the only human soul in an eternity to have escaped Hell on your own. It should be impossible. It is impossible. You do not need to sit and wait for a boy with a bloody cricket bat to come to your aid.”

Real anger—not just annoyance—flashes across his expression. “If you think that Charles is just a boy with a cricket bat, then you clearly haven’t been paying a bit of attention. Perhaps I should tell the Principal that you’ve been derelict in your duties as our minder.”

They glare fiercely at each other. The Night Nurse doesn’t know why she tolerates this amount of disrespect. No one ever spoke to her like this in the Lost and Found Department. Well, beside the Notary, but the Notary apparently once reprimanded Death herself for faulty paperwork, so that was only to be expected. As soon as they escape from this terrible place, the Night Nurse should go straight to the Principal and demand reassignment. Her superior has certainly made whatever point she was trying to make last year; this has gone on long enough.

“Tell me, what is your plan to escape?” Edwin gestures at the door. “Will you break down the door? Force your way through the wards? Oh, wait, you already tried that, and it appears that superhuman strength isn’t one of your powers. And if we do escape this cell, what do you plan to do when faced with a demon bent on using your energy to open a portal to Hell? Are you in any way equipped to fight it?”

The Night Nurse finds she has no reply.

Edwin nods. “As I suspected. Charles and I have been doing this for thirty-five years and he’s never once failed me. So yes, I’m content to wait for him, because I’ve considered all our other options, and this is our best one. And you’re wrong, by the way.”

“Oh?” The Night Nurse huffs.

“I’m not the only soul to have ever escaped Hell. Charles also escaped Hell, if you remember.”

Once again, he’s made a point she can’t argue with. “You rely on him too much.”

“You think I shouldn’t rely on my partner, my best friend,  my—” Edwin seems to bite back his words. “The boy who walked into Hell to save me? Perhaps you don’t understand what it’s like to have a best friend, but Charles will do anything for me, just as I would for him. So yes, I rely on him, because I trust him, and he’s never given me reason to regret it.”

The Night Nurse isn’t sure why that stings. She hasn’t had time for a best friend, of course, or for friendships at all. She has colleagues that she’s somewhat amicable with, but how could she have time for anything else? There are so many lost children in the world, and so few people looking for them. What is she supposed to do, go out to lunch and gossip while lost souls are wandering the world, creating untold havoc?

She doesn’t remember much about her life before coming to the Lost and Found Department, but sometimes she has brief flashes of chestnut curls and a bubbly laugh. There’s pain in those hints of memory, so she doesn’t examine them. The past is in the past, after all. That friend is surely long-dead; the Night Nurse has been at her post for centuries.

“Fine,” she says, and she hears the snippiness in her own voice. “Then I suppose we’ll wait.”

***

Crystal doesn’t dignify that with an answer, because she doesn’t consider nearly getting Niko Sasaki eaten by a unicorn funny. Though in her defense, who the fuck expects unicorns to be carnivorous? Unicorns are supposed to be all rainbows and sunshine, just like Niko. She thought the biggest risk was that Niko would probably want to keep the thing as a pet, and Crystal would have to fill out a ton of paperwork about a unicorn-napping.

“Relax.” David nudges her. “It’s just a meeting.”

“You’re not the one Nurse has it out for.” Crystal’s mom and Assistant Director Nurse used to be partners, back before Maddy transferred to the International Department and Nurse got promoted. Apparently, they loathed each other, and Crystal is pretty sure Nurse has been looking forward to an excuse to demote her to the mail room for years now.

“Does that old bitch like anyone? Besides Payne, I mean.”

Crystal snorts. “Guess that’s the secret to getting her to like me. Wearing lots of tweed.”

“Don’t forget the stick up your ass,” David says with a smirk.

When they step off the elevator onto the seventh floor, they find one of Nurse’s assistants—Crystal can never tell them apart and doesn’t really try—sitting at her desk and looking worried. Always looking worried seems to be a requirement of working for Assistant Director Nurse. '“They’re waiting for you,” she tells Crystal and David.

Crystal exchanges looks with David, wondering who could be waiting with Nurse, before rapping on the assistant director’s door.

“Come in!” Nurse barks.

Barely containing an eye roll, Crystal pushes open the door. Nurse sits behind her desk, wearing her usual brown pantsuit with her long red hair gathered up in twin victory rolls. She’s no older than her mid-forties, but she always has an air of someone who just stepped out of World War II, which might be why she and Edwin get along so well.

Speaking of…

Edwin Payne stands on the other side of Nurse’s desk. As usual, he’s posed like he should be standing outside of Buckingham Palace in a red coat and a fuzzy black hat: back straight and chin lifted haughtily. In contrast, his partner, Agent Russell, leans against Nurse’s bookcase, looking bored. Russell is a recent transfer from the International Office, a few inches shorter than Edwin and burly with a ruddy complexion and sandy hair.

At the sight of Crystal and David, Edwin looks no happier to see them than Crystal is to see him. They haven’t spoken since he chewed her out after the unicorn incident, and that was fine with her. As far as she’s concerned, the less time she has to spend in a room with Edwin Payne, the better. As for Russell, she doesn’t know him well, but something about him annoys her. He’s a few years away from retirement and he has an air like he’s doing them all a favor just by being there, when he’s an average agent at best.

“Excellent, you two made it,” Nurse says in a tone like she’s been waiting forever, when Crystal and David came as soon as they got the message that she wanted to see them. “Please, join us.”

Reluctantly, Crystal goes to stand next to Edwin, David on her other side. “Is everything okay?”

“For now. Which is why I’ve called the four of you here, as we’d like it to stay that way.” Nurse sits back in her chair and surveys them. “Three days ago, Agents Kahn and Black prevented the murder of a young woman by a cult with aspirations of opening a gate to Hell.”

Crystal has heard Shelby and Irene talking about the case in the break room, but she’s been too busy with the jinn and its master to pay much attention.

“The cult was attempting to use a stone tablet to power the ritual,” Nurse says. “After thorough examination, we’ve determined that the tablet is laden with a great deal of dark magic. We think it may genuinely have the power to open a gate to Hell.”

“Actual Hell?” David sounds incredulous.

“Fortunately for us, Agent Fisher, there’s only one Hell that we know of.” Nurse gives him an annoyed look at the interruption. “And we can’t be certain, as no one has any desire to test it, but it’s better to err on the side of caution. The tablet needs to be transferred to the Vault immediately.”

Crystal bites back a groan as all her plans for the weekend vanish before her eyes. Vault assignments can take days, if not weeks. She’s supposed to get brunch with Bekka on Sunday, and they haven’t seen each other in like six month. This will be the third time in a row Crystal has had to cancel plans, and it’s not like she can tell her friends she keeps missing brunches and birthdays because she’s chasing jinns and demons. They think she has some boring bureaucratic desk job.

“All of you have been on Vault assignments before, but I’ll review the expectations.” Nurse gives David and Crystal a beady-eyed look, like she thinks they in particular need the reminder. “You’ll be given an hour to go home and collect your things. In an hour, you’ll reconvene here, at which point one of you will be chosen at random to be handcuffed to the briefcase containing the tablet. Those handcuffs won’t come off you until you arrive at the final drop off point.”

Crystal rubs at her wrists. Last time she went on a Vault assignment, she was the one who had a briefcase handcuffed to her for over a week, and it sucked.

“As soon as you leave London, you’ll be contacted with a drop-off point,” Nurse continues. “Your destination will almost certainly change several times, so all four of you need to keep your phones on you. You’re only to stop when instructed to for food, petrol, and lodgings. You’re not to tell anyone where you’re going. And most importantly, whoever is handcuffed to the briefcase is not to be left unattended for even a minute.

“If something goes wrong and someone attempts to intercept you, it’s paramount that you make it to the last drop-off point that you were given. Your first priority must be the security of the tablet. If it falls into the wrong hands, it could be disastrous. Does anyone have any questions?”

Next to Crystal, Edwin steps forward. “Assistant Director Nurse, I’m simply wondering if perhaps more… responsible agents would be a better choice for this assignment.”

Nurse arches an eyebrow at him. “And what do you mean by that, Agent Payne?”

“Certain agents have shown remarkably poor judgment as of late.” He doesn't look at Crystal, but he doesn’t have to. “I’m wondering if it’s wise to trust them with something so important.”

“Are you still being pissy about the unicorn?” Crystal snaps.

“The unicorn that nearly killed one of our analysts because of your irresponsibility? Yes.”

“It was a mistake.” And one that Crystal already feels really shitty about and has been raked over the coals by Nurse for. So why does everyone keep bringing it up?

“One that’s been dealt with,” Nurse says, to Crystal’s surprise. She figured Nurse would take the excuse to yell at her for her poor judgment again. “I selected the four of you because I think you’re the best agents for this job. Do you doubt my ability to determine which of my agents are qualified, Agent Payne?”

Edwin has the decency to look chastised. “No, of course not.”

David snorts quietly.

“Very well then,” Nurse says, shooting David a look as if to say “I heard that.” “If that’s all, the four of you should go home and pack. I expect you back here in exactly one hour.”

***

“Great, so who knows how long on we’ll be on the road with Edwin and Russell,” Crystal grumbles as she and David arrive back at the MSI office an hour later, their luggage in tow. “I thought the whole point of this was to stop someone from bringing about Hell on earth.”

David smirks. “We might open the door to Hell ourselves to get away from them.”

“Jesus, David, don’t joke about that here.” Crystal glances around reflexively, even though they’re the only ones on the elevator.

“Cheer up, babe.” David puts his hands on her shoulders, rubbing circles with his thumbs. “You’re so tense.”

Crystal closes her eyes and leans into the touch. “I had to cancel plans with Bekka again.”

David huffs a laugh. “At least you don’t have to spend all morning listening to her bitch about her latest boyfriend.”

She snorts, because he’s not wrong—she’s never met anyone with worse taste in men than her best friend—then immediately feels shitty about it. “She probably thinks I’m an asshole.”

“Do you care? Last time you saw her, you said you two don’t have anything in common anymore.”

“She’s my best friend.” Which may say more about Crystal’s lack of a life outside work than how close she is with Bekka.

“Hey.” He squeezes her shoulders. “It’s not that bad. Weren’t you just saying we should take a vacation?”

“Yeah, some vacation, lugging around a demonic artifact and staying at the shittiest motel the MSI can find.”

“You and I can still manage to have a good time.” His voice dips seductively. “We always do.”

Crystal shrugs him off. “I’m not fucking you in a seedy motel room, especially not right next to something that could open a gate to Hell.”

“Oh, come on—”

The elevator door slides open on the fourth floor and Niko Sasaki steps on, dressed head-to-toe in bubblegum pink and smelling like strawberries. When she sees Crystal, she smiles brightly and Crystal is hit with the full force of her presence. It’s like sinking into a warm bath; she can actually feel some of the tension leaving her.

The thing is that with most people, reading their minds means seeing that whatever’s happening inside doesn’t match what they show the world. It’s grabbing your girlfriend’s hand and realizing that she’s thinking about another girl. It’s hugging your mom and learning that she’d rather be anywhere else than here with you. It’s bumping into a nondescript stranger on the Tube and hearing their vile thoughts about you.

It’s one of the things that drew her to David, that he doesn’t bother with the veneer that everyone else puts on. What he’s thinking is what comes out of his mouth, and in turn, he never expects her to hold back what she’s thinking either. Knowing that he means exactly what he says is a breath of fresh air after a lifetime spent pretending she doesn’t know what everyone around her really thinks of her.

But Niko is one of the rare cases of someone who is just as sweet as she seems, full of optimism, joy, and warm interest that makes Crystal’s insides flutter. It’s downright addicting being around her and knowing that there’s no malice behind the smile she always wears. And for some reason, she actually seems to like Crystal, even after Crystal almost got her eaten by a unicorn.

“Crystal!” Niko says excitedly. “Edwin told me you two were going on a super secret mission.”

“Yeah.” Crystal doesn’t get why Niko is best friends with Edwin fucking Payne, but given that she lights up with happiness whenever Crystal walks into a room, she must just have shit taste in people. Or maybe Edwin is less of a pain in the ass to her than he is to everyone else, but Crystal doubts it.

“It’s less super secret if Payne’s running his mouth to everyone,” David snipes, as if there’s such thing as a real secret around here.

Niko’s smile dims a fraction when she looks at David, as does the bubble of happiness surrounding her. “He just told me. We were going to have dinner tonight, so he wanted me to know why he couldn’t make it.”

“Sorry to deprive you of his company.” David turns a smirk on Crystal, like he’s trying to invite her in on the joke.

Crystal ignores him. She loves David, but he doesn’t know when to quit sometimes. “We should hopefully have him back in a few days. It shouldn’t take long.” Please, fuck, let it not take long. If she has to strangle Edwin, she’ll feel really about about making Niko sad.

“Just be careful,” Niko says. “Edwin told me about the tablet. It sounds scary.”

David guffaws. “It’s like it’s our job to deal with scary.”

Crystal speaks over him. “We’ll be careful. The whole point of the Vault is so it goes somewhere where it can’t hurt anybody.”

The elevator stops on the fourth floor and Niko steps off the elevator, turning to smile at Crystal. “See you when you get back!”

“See you—” The doors slide closed in Crystal’s face, taking the warmth of Niko’s presence. She lets out a long breath as the elevator continues its upward climb.

“You know, she’s cute,” David says slyly. “If you want—”

“No,” Crystal snaps, keeping her face turned away from him. She’s pretty sure David’s picked up on her stupid schoolgirl crush on Niko, even if he hasn’t said anything about it directly. She knows she hasn’t been subtle, gazing moony-eyed at Niko whenever they’re in the same room. It’s only surprising that Niko herself doesn’t seem to have noticed. Surprising and a relief, because Crystal really would have to open up that portal to Hell and throw herself in if Niko caught on.

“Oh, come on.” David’s voice dips. “I think she’d be fun. The sweet ones always surprise you.”

"She’s not going to have a threesome with us, David.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind sitting back and watching.”

Crystal turns to glare at him. “Stop being fucking gross about our coworker.”

David must see she’s serious, because his smile turns apologetic. “Sorry, babe,” he says, throwing an arm around her. “You know I’m just joking.”

“I know,” Crystal says, annoyed, both with herself and with David. She has a boyfriend, and yet she can’t stop thinking about Niko Sasaki with her pretty smile and her smell of strawberries. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with her?

They don’t talk again until they’re walking into Assistant Director Nurse’s seventh floor office and find Edwin and Russell already there. Just one look at Edwin tells Crystal he’s going to be a pain in the ass; his arms are crossed over his chest and he’s tapping his foot irritably. Nurse looks equally unhappy, her eyes narrowing as Crystal and David step through the door.

“You’re late,” she bites out.

A glance at the clock tells Crystal it’s been an hour and three minutes since Nurse dismissed them. She opens her mouth to apologize—even though she really wants to tell Nurse to chill the fuck out—but she breaks off with a gasp as a wave of dark energy hits her. Her eyes fall on the nondescript brown leather briefcase sitting in the middle of Nurse’s desk and she has to resist the urge to back away.

Even without touching it, Crystal can feel the malevolence emanating from whatever’s in that briefcase. It coats the back of her tongue and makes the hair on her arms prickle. Cold sweat beads on the back of her neck and at her hairline. She doesn’t want to get into a car with that thing. She doesn’t even want to be in the same country as it. There isn’t a single doubt in her mind that whatever’s in that briefcase could open a gate to Hell and end the world.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” Agent Russell asks casually. “It makes my skin crawl.”

“Yeah.” Crystal can’t look away from the briefcase, the same way she wouldn’t be able to look away from a carnivorous unicorn about to charge at her. Every single one of her instincts is telling her that she’s in the presence of something that wants her dead.

“So you can see why this is important.” Assistant Director Nurse looks down at the briefcase with trepidation. “This tablet must get to the Vault as soon as possible. I shudder to think what would happen were it to fall into the wrong hands.”

***