As usual, Wesker’s eyes were hidden behind his mirrored frames, and even up close, I still couldn’t see the hint of his eyes behind them. He shot me a smug smile.

“Out of my way,” I said, hearing the waver of false bravado in my voice. Wesker just folded his arms defiantly across the expanse of his chest with the book now tucked neatly beneath them.

“I don’t think so, newbie,” he said, then sniffed. “What’s the horrendous odor?”

“That would be me,” I said, holding up my ichor-covered bat. He gave it the same dirty look he usually reserved for my face.

“Rumor has it that you caused a little ruckus over at Tome, Sweet Tome.”

“Word travels fast around here,” I said, attempting to push back most of the edge in my voice. I reminded myself that I should keep myself in check around the divisional directors. Thaddeus Wesker was, after all, still the head of not one buttwo divisions, and he aspired to even greater posts than that. Not to mention that although I was in the safety of our own office, I still thought he might hit me.

Wesker unfolded his arms and dug his fingers into my right shoulder. “When the owner of one of the premiere occult bookshops in the country calls my department to report an assault against some of his rare books and even rarer creatures, I do have a problem,” he said. “One that I’ll be bringing up with the Enchancellors, I assure you.”

The mere thought of my name even being on the lips of our governing board worried me. I was happiest when I flew under the radar, learning my way through the ins and out of the D.E.A without the nervousness that came with constant attention. I had enough to worry myself over as it stood. Controlling my powers and reining them in were my priority, and that alone took up most of my concentration. I raised my slime-covered bat slowly and moved it toward the hand that was gripping me. Quickly Wesker released me.

“Do what you have to do, Director Wesker,” I said wearily. “I don’t care. Right now, as a member of Other Division, I answer to the Inspectre. I suppose he’ll reprimand me if I’ve earned it. All I know is that we were paying customers in that store, renting time in the Stacks, when this…bookcasething… tried to kill me. Seems I’m the only one who was wronged there,sir.”

I couldn’t see why anyone from the D.E.A., even Wesker, would side with a complaint filed by Cyrus Mandalay. Who really cared what an occult bookstore owner complained about? Wesker finally moved to one side. With a flourish, he gestured toward the rest of the office. He waved his hand in a shoo-ing motion.

“By all means then,” he said bitterly, “don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you have some paperwork to catch up on or office supplies to steal.”

The reminder of my waiting paperwork stung hard, and as I walked past Wesker, I couldn’t resist a parting shot.

“It’s not my fault the F.O.G.ies won’t accept you,” I muttered.

“What was that?” he growled from behind me.

I picked up my pace now that I was past him.

“Nothing!” I shouted cheerfully. It was a small dig, but regardless of its size, it still tasted of victory.

At this time of evening, the offices were all but deserted. I washed my bat in the bathroom sink, collapsed it into its sheath, and then wound my way down the main aisle until I reached our desks. I sat down and wearily filled out the eight forms that an interdepartmental zombie exterminating excursion invariably generated, made three photocopies of each, and then dropped them in the right in-boxes. It was pointless not to do them right away-the director of Things That Go Bump in the Night was a real stickler for prompt paperwork, and he’d have his assistant harassing me at home if I wasn’t careful. I returned to my desk. The tower of paper sitting in my in-box had doubled since earlier in the day, but I ignored it once again and started gathering reference material to go over at home that I thought might prove helpful to Irene’s case. I grabbed a copy ofThe Complete Riddles of the Sphinx and a pamphlet entitledUnderstanding the Fates and stuffed them into my bag. That would count as my light reading for the evening. I was headed for the door, free and clear, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye and stopped. Irene was sitting in the chair next to my desk staring at me like a lost kitten. I don’t know how I had missed her, except for being totally distracted in my hurry to get the hell out of there. Anxiety filled her deep, blue eyes.

“Hello,” she said, hope spreading with a shy smile across her face. “Any luck today?”

“Some,” I said, setting my bag back down. “We’re pretty sure we found your last name…Ms. Blatt.”

Irene scrunched her face up in exactly the same manner Connor had.

“Really?” She seemed disappointed. I couldn’t blame her.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

She sat there in silence, shifted in her chair, and crossed her legs. Not knowing what to say, I made busy with my paperwork again. But something struck me. I let the papers fall to the desk. “Irene…have you been sitting here all day?”

She nodded.

“Hasn’t anyone talked to you…helped you out at all?”

“Other than Inspectre Quimbley?” she asked. “No.”

Irene had fallen through the cracks, lost among the red tape and bureaucracy that passed as business here at the D.E.A. There was too big a caseload for most of the agents here, and no one picked up the slack on walk-ins like Irene. So just leave it for Other Division. It made me furious.

“Is there somewhere I can stay?” she asked. “If it’s not too much trouble…”

I shook my head. “They’re not really set up to deal with otherworldly accommodations of this sort, only for detaining troublesome spirits. The D.E.A. doesn’t really function as a paranormal hostel.”

Irene looked crestfallen. I made a note to talk to Inspectre Quimbley in the morning. We needed to have a policy in place for these exceptions. If I didn’t put the wheels in motion, City Hall would delay us in setting it up for years to come with meetings and permits and permits to have meetings.

In the meantime, though, it made me feel terrible that Irene had been sitting here waiting patiently the whole day without another soul to talk to. I couldn’t just leave her. Members of the graveyard shift were arriving through the movie house entrance, but I wasn’t going to pass her off onto people she didn’t know. There was only one course of action that felt right.

“Listen, Irene. I don’t think you’ll want to hang around my desk all night. Heck, it’s my desk and I don’t want to be stuck at it all that long. And since I haven’t really made any headway other than finding out your name and address, I feel the least I could do is offer to put you up at my apartment tonight.”

“That’s really too kind of you to offer,” Irene said. If moderately corporeal ghosts could be said to blush, her face reddened and she broke into a wicked smile. “Are you sure?”

I glanced away, feeling a bit self-conscious about having made the offer and stuffed a random handful of papers into my bag. I didn’t know how the Inspectre or Connor would react to such a thing, but what other options did I have? “No, it’s no trouble at all. Like I said, the Department isn’t really equipped to host you for the evening.”

“Really?” Irene asked as she rose. “I should think they’d be used to this sort of thing.”

I couldn’t stop futzing with papers or rummaging around inside my bag. Why was I feeling so uncomfortable? Hadn’t I been told there would be situations stranger than this when I had signed on with the Department? If Connor had been around to consult, I would have felt more at ease, but he had left. That was a small part of my nervousness, but it also had to do with the fact that this would be the first woman in my apartment since the Tamara debacle. Well, ex-woman. I knew if Irene was to have any peace there, though, my answering machine would have to stay muffled in the drawer.