The Shambling Guide to New York City (7 page)

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Zoë said, standing and holding her hand out. “I am in fact the human. Zoë.”

The woman grinned broadly and shook her hand. “Hello, Zoë the human. I’m Morgen the water sprite.” She looked at Phil. “I like her!”

“I’m sure you do,” he said dryly. “Hiring her would add to the chaos you seem to enjoy. Would you leave me with her?”

“Sure thing, boss. See you later, Zoë!” She stepped lightly from the room, barely touching the ground.

“I was expecting a call,” he said as Zoë sat down again.

Zoë snorted. “And I was expecting you guys to be human. Life is full of disappointments.” Phil didn’t react. “Anyway, I have a lot of questions for you. Are you prepared to answer? Or should I just leave now?”

Phil’s eyes narrowed at the challenging tone to her voice. “I will answer what I can.”

She crossed her arms. “What happened last night? After I figured things out?”

“You fainted. I had to explain to Sylvia that I hadn’t brought you there to eat you. We talked a bit when you woke up. I paid for the wine and blood, looked at your résumé to find out your address, and took you home.”

“And did you enthrall me?”

Phil dropped his eyes. “I tried. You’re somewhat resistant.”

She pulled
Dracula
from her satchel. “I read about it.”

Phil took a look at the book and laughed out loud. “You’re getting your vampire information from
Dracula
?”

Zoë frowned. “What, did you want me to just walk blindly into working with you without doing any research beyond what you told me last night—while I was hypnotized by you? That’s real smart, there. So I got some books. But then I thought you could probably tell me more about monsters than I need to know, right?”

“Coterie.”

Zoë blinked. “What?”

“ ‘Monsters’ is pejorative. Nonhumans go by the term ‘coterie.’ ”

“OK, sure, whatever. You can tell me about coterie, then?”

He extended his hands. “Indeed.”

“So I can research who I’d be writing for here.”

He nodded.

She swallowed but tried not to let her nervousness show. “These coterie, they eat humans, right?”

“Many do, yes.”

“How am I going to survive? Isn’t that like a chicken working with foxes?”

Phil paused for a moment. “Field research may be difficult. I
can’t guarantee your safety that way. But you will have a chaperone on most assignments, likely one who doesn’t eat humans. And you can always delegate the field research.” He paused. “I can guarantee your safety in the office, though. No one under my employ will touch you.”

“How can you guarantee it?”

Phil looked at her for a moment, then smiled, his incisors elongating and his eyes becoming bloodshot. Zoë gritted her teeth against the intense desire to turn and run. When he spoke again, his voice was deeper. “Coterie businesses have a different and more… primal management structure than human ones. If I guarantee your safety, you know you will be safe. The staff know what will happen to them if they disobey.”

And in an instant, he became the pleasant Phil again, although his eyes still looked as if he’d been up all night in a smoky club. “Besides, they’re a good crew, I think you’ll like them. As long as you can, as you mentioned, be accepting of their ‘alternative lifestyles.’ ”

“So you’re really offering me this job.”

Phil nodded. “You were right: we need someone who knows travel book writing. I know book publishing and distribution and advertising in coterie circles, but when it comes to the writing, I need someone who knows what she’s doing. I have some very passionate writers on staff, but you’re the only one with the experience I need. I figure I’ll have you research some history and details on your audience, and then come in and outline the book, get to know the staff. Then you can set the book assignments. Even though you’ll be managing editor, I’ll want you in the field with some of the writers to get to understand the world we live in.”

Zoë held up her hand. “This is too weird.”

Phil continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “About your compensation;
coterie have a different monetary system than humans. We deal in hell notes, blood tokens, or occult favors. Sometimes all three. But no one could exist in a world with humans without some currency, so there is an exchange rate to dollars—money changers are in Chinatown, and the World Bank is in New Orleans. I will offer you a straight human salary to start off with, but in three months we can renegotiate. I think once you learn more about our world, you will want the monetary ability to participate in it.”

“How can I pay my rent with occult favors or that other stuff?”

“Occult favors can get you things like a windfall of cash from unexpected places, or cause your landlord to assume you’ve already paid. And while no, you likely wouldn’t want blood tokens as they’re usually best spent at restaurants and blood banks, don’t discount hell notes till you see how they’re spent.”

Zoë mentally filed this information away under Freak Out About This Later. “OK, and what about benefits?”

“Sad to say we do not offer benefits, as the normal life insurance, health insurance, et cetera don’t apply in our world. But I am prepared to make sure your salary is high enough that you could cover that on your own.”

Zoë forced herself to say, “So I guess a 401(k) is too much to hope for?”

Phil grinned. “I think you’ll want to invest in an IRA.”

“And why did you just assume I’d take the job?” she asked.

Phil leaned back and put his arms behind his head, the casual power pose. “I can read people. I know a sure thing when I see it. You’re scared, but you’re also unemployed, you know it’s a good job, and you’re burning with curiosity about it. You will take the job.”

“I don’t think—”

“And besides,” he interrupted. “I don’t take no for an answer very well.”

The actual negotiations were brief. The salary nearly made her choke, but she remembered she’d be paying for her own health insurance. Phil ran through some other details, such as that if she got attacked in the field and turned into a coterie—zombie, vampire, et cetera—she could retain her job. Then he pulled out his phone and called Koi in operations to tell her the company was getting a new employee.

And it was done. She was employed. In the strangest job she’d ever had.

Zoë stared out the window of the train as she rode back to Brooklyn and thought about her situation.

Phil had not introduced her to anyone, but did say she’d be working with vampires, zombies, Morgen the water sprite, a Japanese fox spirit (a
kitsune
, he’d called her), a death goddess, a succubus, and an incubus. He had told her about some websites and books that he promised would give her more reliable information than Bram Stoker.

Stoker was a wannabe, according to Phil, and no self-respecting vampire would turn him. H. P. Lovecraft had been a frightened chronicler of current events, and Mary Shelley had been the first zoëtist to write down her methods.

“Read
Frankenstein
,” Phil had said. “Carefully.”

“Zoëtist? Like my name?” Zoë had asked.

He grinned. “Yes, ‘Zoë’ means life. ‘Zoëtist’ is what we call those who create life—in ways other than procreation, that is. Anyone from voodoo practitioners who raise zombies to rabbis
who work with the ancient golem creation techniques are zoëtists. And they’re almost always humans—one of the rare human coterie you’ll encounter.”

As he wrote down the book titles for her, he added, “Most of the existing books in our society are poorly written and outdated. You’re going to have to trudge through some dense stuff to find out what makes some zombies mindless, ravenous husks and others intelligent and functioning undead.”

Zoë frowned. “I don’t suppose you can tell me?”

He shook his head. “You will learn more if you read it yourself.”

“Thanks, Dad. And I guess there’s no handy
Human’s Guide to the Coterie in New York City
?”

Phil paused, then smiled slightly. “No, there’s not. That might be a good idea for a limited-run book. And now I know that it was a good idea to hire you.”

“Yeah, hope you keep that opinion after I get through all of this.”

This was not her world. She was not the target demographic.

Later that afternoon, Zoë poured two glasses of wine and lined them up on her coffee table. She needed liquid fortitude. She sat in her large comfy blue chair and pulled her knees to her chin. Her hands were sweaty as she dialed her cell phone. Sometimes the admin assistant answered the phone, but often—

“Godfrey Sullivan.” The voice on the other end was buttery and rich. The voice that had once made her stomach turn over and disregard her better common sense.

But now it seemed far away, without power.

“It’s Zoë Norris. I got a job in New York but I need to talk to you to extend COBRA benefits for three months.”

There was a pause, then he said, “And you didn’t even need a recommendation! That’s just great, Jenny.”

She wanted to correct him; his use of her middle name no longer felt secret and intimate; now it felt like an intrusion, something he wasn’t allowed to do anymore. “It’s Zoë, please. Yeah, I got a job, so can you connect me to HR? I need to talk about some benefits stuff.”

“Hang on a second, Jenny,” Godfrey said. “It’s good to talk to you.”

“Yeah?” She was surprised to realize she didn’t agree. The knot in her chest loosened a little.

Godfrey’s voice dropped. “Do you… ever think about me?”

“Yeah, I thought about you today when I was relieved that I was going to have a boss who wouldn’t seduce me.”

Silence on the other end.

“So how
is
Lucy?” she asked, driving the knife home.

His voice lost the sultry tones. “I’ll connect you to Tony in HR.”

“You do that.”

She found herself smiling as Tony, the HR guy, answered the phone. As they discussed how long she could continue to pay for her health insurance under COBRA, she was amazed that she no longer ached for Godfrey. Maybe she was finally growing up.

Her mind went to the night Lucy, Godfrey’s wife, who, by the way, was a fucking
police officer
, had arrived at her apartment. The enraged cop had stood outside her first-floor window, screaming and throwing rocks. When the glass shattered, Zoë had called 911, but once she identified herself, the connection was cut and the police never showed. Of course not; the police were already there, screaming at her. She broke down the door and Zoë hid in the empty chest at the foot of her bed. Heavy footsteps trudged through her house; she couldn’t even tell how
many people were with Lucy, but none of them found her, and they finally left.

Zoë stayed in the chest for the rest of the night, tasting sour bile in her mouth and wondering how she had gotten into this mess. Godfrey wore no ring and brought no one to company events.

The next day she called into work and talked to Tony in HR, who had already spoken with Godfrey and prepared a severance package. Tony told her that resigning would be her safest avenue, and before she could let the word “lawsuit” leave her lips, he named the amount that Misconceptions would pay her for her agreeable and quiet exit. It was a large number.

Very large.

At that moment, Zoë realized that she had a price. And perhaps Raleigh wasn’t the place for her.

She asked Tony if he would pack up her desk, and he paused, then said that Lucy had been there and, ah, had made packing her desk largely unnecessary. He mentioned that part of the dollar amount was the estimated cost of her broken decorations, torn books, and destroyed plants. Tony would pack what had survived, along with copies of the books she had worked on to ensure her future employment.

She rented a hotel room for the next two days, staying in pajamas and remaining stunned. She couldn’t hold food down, and despite frequent showers, her body odor took on a tangy, metallic odor, the scent of her own anxiety. She called a packing company, a repairman, and a real estate agent, and gave them as much information as they’d need to finalize her affairs. She didn’t want to return to her house. Ever.

On the third day, when her Misconceptions severance was deposited directly into her account, Zoë packed her emergency backpack full of books and underwear and got online to buy a one-way ticket home to New York City.

Unlike Raleigh, which had always felt a bit hostile, even before the Lucy incident, New York seemed to welcome her with open arms. And it was in New York that she got the job with the monster publishing company.

No, sorry, the
coterie
publishing company.

She couldn’t deny feeling trepidation—or outright fear—when she thought of her first day at Underground Publishing. And yet facing real supernatural beings who literally ate humans seemed less stressful than facing Godfrey—or Lucy—ever again. Phil at least guaranteed her safety. Godfrey had not been able to do that.

Zoë sighed and stretched, feeling a hundred pounds lighter. She sipped her second glass of wine and pulled out one of the books Phil had told her about. She had two weeks before her first day, on November 2.

While many coterie find visiting human crypts and graveyards relaxing, the Statue of Liberty is not such a crypt. Coterie visit her island with solemn reverence. “Lady Liberty” is the sarcophagus of the great French demon Chandal L’énorme, and she stands forever at Liberty Island as a reminder to coterie everywhere that once only humans were welcome in America. While that is no longer true, the humans celebrate the poor demon’s crypt as a symbol of freedom, a truly ironic interpretation.