Unamused Muse (Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Muse Book 2) (13 page)

Chapter 13

Since it was my third week working in the Underworld, I was getting used to the routine. Tuesdays were for going to Tartarus.

Parker didn’t expect me to come in until noon, but I still wandered in around 10:00 AM.

“How’d it go last night?” His brow creased with worry. “You didn’t yell at them again, did you?”

I made a wry face. “No, but I’m leading the discussion at the next meeting.” I snatched up the golf-cart key and the list from his desk. “I’m off. Need anything while I’m out?”

He shook his head slowly. “An explanation, maybe?”

“If I find one while I’m gone, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

The trek across the Underworld seemed like no big deal, now that I’d been doing it for awhile. I glanced up at the sky, noting the lack of actual weather. I squinted. Now that I thought about it, I never actually saw the sun. It was light out, or it was dark.

Maybe we really were underground. I’d have to ask Phyllis or Parker what the deal was.

Hal wasn’t on the boat again. Peter roared up to the dock and helped the newly dead disembark. I waved as I drove past, and he lifted his arm in a vague return wave.

Farther up the road, I watched for the correct bush so I could turn off the road. They all looked the same—gnarled, twisted, and with a few dry leaves. When I’d first driven here, I’d expected everything to look dead. Now, I wondered why. Was it because the light was artificial? Was it the often noxious fumes from the flaming river?

Was it because nothing here was real?

I spotted the bush and pulled off the road and into the hidden entrance to the maintenance tunnels. The huge hallway echoed with the hum of my cart. From time to time, I passed someone carrying a radio or wearing a tool belt.

None of them were Max, which was a huge relief. He hadn’t called after our disastrous date—not that I blamed him. But I hadn’t wanted to go out with him in the first place. And he’d acted so weird. The grinning, suave guy who’d asked me out was not the guy who’d showed up at my door.

Then again, he probably thought he’d invited a graceful flower to his friend’s wedding and got me, covered in chocolate, instead.

I popped out of the tunnel into backstage Hollywood. Two men covered in grey-and-black-striped fur were brawling in the street in front of me. Over the fur, they were both dressed like Musketeers. I tapped the horn on my steering wheel and it made a silly beep. They stopped rolling around on the ground and helped each other up, gave me a wave, and stepped aside.

It was as if the whole thing had been staged. Or maybe a rehearsal for a community theater production of Puss ’n Boots.

I parked my cart and hopped out, taking the stairs two at a time. Roxy greeted me at the desk as if I’d been making the delivery for months. Or years.

“Wynter. Yay! I need your opinion on something.” She moved her body as if nudging out her hip, but I knew she didn’t have hips. She must have undulated her coils. “Have a seat.”

A chair rolled from behind the desk toward me.

I grabbed it and sat. “What’s up?”

She held up two photographs. “Which guy do you think is more appealing?”

The one on the right had green eyes, a cleft in his chin so deep it kind of looked like an ass, and a smarmy look on his face that made me instantly dislike him. The guy on the left was in dire need of a haircut and a shave and looked past the camera as if he wasn’t sure where the lens was.

“Well…” I hesitated. One of them could be her brother or boyfriend. Honesty might not be the best idea, here. “What am I looking for, exactly? Who would I leave my kids with in an emergency? Which one would I put on a magazine cover? Which one should you have dinner with?”

She lowered the photos, eyes wide. “You have kids?”

I snorted. “No. I do not have kids. I’ll reword that. How about, which one would I trust to water my plant?”

She nodded. “Phyllis.”

I frowned. “How do you know my plant’s name?”

“I….” she blinked several times. “I’m sure you mentioned her. Anyway.” She held the pictures up again. “Which one would make a better date?”

“So, you’re not related to either of them?”

“Of course not. Which one?”

“Well….” I pointed at the left one. “That guy would be cute if he cleaned up a bit. Not sure he’d be able to carry his end of the conversation, though.” I pointed to the other. “And this one is attractive, but I think he wouldn’t let you talk at all, unless it was about him.”

She pouted and placed the pictures on her desk. “So, neither?”

“I don’t know, Roxy.” She looked so sad, I felt bad. “It’s hard to tell from a photo. Besides, everybody’s taste is different. And I’m probably not the best judge anyway.”

She nodded. “Okay. We’ll keep trying.” She picked up the phone and hit a button. “Hey, Nemi? Yeah, I asked her. She didn’t like yours or mine.” She listened for a moment. “Alright. I’ll tell her.” She hung up and smiled at me. “Nemi said to tell you she’s sorry we weren’t successful, and maybe we’ll have someone more to your taste next week.”

“What?” Were they trying to set me up? Was
everyone
trying to set me up? “Those guys were for me?”

“Potentially.” She dropped the photos into a drawer. “Also, Nemi’s in a meeting right now, so she said to leave the list with me today.”

“Oh. Alright.” I handed her the list and stood to wait while she signed the receipt and handed me back my copy to file. “I guess I should be going, then.” I wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed, angry, or worried that I’d pissed them off. “See you next week.”

I turned to go and Roxy caught my hand.

“Hey.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, okay?”

I frowned. “About what?”

“Don’t worry about anything. It’s all going to come out fine.” She squeezed my hand and let me go.             

All the way out of the building, I wondered what the hell she was talking about. And when I got to my cart, I found a stuffed bear with a big blue bow around its neck. It was so big it almost looked like a human sitting in the passenger’s seat.

My stalker secret admirer had upped his game.

~*~

I didn’t get far before I had to pull over to avoid being run down by what appeared to be a man with the head of a fish. He was carrying a hatchet in one hand and an eggplant in the other. He smelled like a gym locker room as he sped by, and I held my breath.

I inched along in my cart, trying to get through the crowd of people and other tiny vehicles, but made little progress. Some sort of event must’ve finished, spilling everyone out of one of the nearby buildings. Usually, I had no trouble getting around. Today, it was impossible.

A little red light blinked on my dashboard, grabbing my attention. The battery was nearly drained. I’d been inside for such a short time the cart hadn’t had time to recharge from my trip out there. Being stuck in traffic had further drained it.

As soon as I drew near the next building, I inched the cart to the side, pulled close to a charging station, and plugged in.

“Well, buddy,” I said to the giant stuffed bear in my passenger seat. “Looks like we’ll have to people watch for awhile to occupy our time.”

The bear didn’t respond, and his button eyes didn’t change expression.

I patted his soft tummy. “That’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I’ll carry the conversation.”

Sighing, I sat back against the seat and tried to get comfortable. Out on the street, people bustled about, yelling to each other, waving clipboards, or carrying odd objects—fishbowls filled with dead flowers, baskets of mannequin parts, boxes of plastic penguins—to other locations.

Two women, a blonde and a redhead, each held an end of a rolled-up carpet. After they passed me, I noted two feet sticking out of the back end of the carpet, wiggling their toes. A harried man in a lab coat led a gorilla on a leash in the opposite direction.

If I had to be stuck somewhere while I powered up my cart, this was certainly an entertaining place to do it.

Across the street, a guy in overalls shinnied up a light pole. He unscrewed a bulb, placed it in his tool belt, then screwed in a new one. Someone shouted something up to him and he looked down and behind him.

My breath caught. “Shit.”

From that angle, I could see Max’s profile. He slid down the pole to the ground. Without thinking, I bolted out of the cart and around the corner.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of him, or even all that embarrassed about my chocolate dive. But talking to him right then seemed like a terrible idea. I wasn’t having the greatest morning. Being forced to have an awkward, half-stuttered conversation about why he hadn’t called or how changeless the weather was in the Underworld seemed like it would be torture.

I pressed myself against the stucco wall and peered around the corner. He had a quizzical look on his face and was looking at my cart with the bear sitting shotgun.

Then he crossed the street toward it.

“Sonofabitch,” I muttered under my breath. I stepped behind the building before he could see me. A small door stood a few feet away, and I tried the knob. The door swung open, and I stepped inside.

The inside of the building was nothing like I’d expected it to look, based on the crazy Hollywood backstage feel of the streets outside. It was more like a museum of natural history than anything else. A wide hallway meandered through the building, dotted here and there with what looked like animal habitats. A few people walked past me, unconcerned by my presence. Apparently, I hadn’t sneaked into a high-security building.

The first habitat I came to contained a lovely waterfall pouring into a small pond. A woman stood beneath it, sopping wet, one arm straight out to keep her cigarette dry. As I watched, the waterfall stopped, and the woman leaned toward her outstretched arm, pulling in her hand to take a quick drag. She almost made it. The waterfall began, and she flung her arm out to keep the cigarette dry. She cried out in frustration as water poured down on her head.

The front of the enclosure was a half-wall made of Plexiglas. I ducked down to see what was going on beneath the surface. The water was clear and illuminated by hidden lighting. Both the woman’s ankles were held in place by chains. She couldn’t move an inch.

I stuck my hand in my pocket and felt the object there: my Muse bubbles. A few people strolled over and watched the sequence I’d seen a moment before. The waterfall turned off, the woman tried to take a puff, water poured out and kept her from satisfaction.

A guy from the group watching her shook his head. “Smokers.”

The guy next to him tugged his sleeve. “This building is lame. I heard there’s a guy getting his foot bitten off by an alligator in the Minos building. Let’s head over there.”

The first guy nodded and they turned to go. They noticed me standing nearby and gave that weird chin thrust bros give each other.

“’S’up?” The second guy said. Apparently, he didn’t expect an answer, because they kept walking.

I returned my attention to the woman in the enclosure. Surely she wasn’t in there being punished for smoking. It had to be something else. Eternal torment was for people who committed horrible crimes, not people with unhealthy habits. At least, I hoped not.

If so, I’d probably be stuck forever with a cheeseburger hanging out of reach overhead while people threw fries at my head, forever missing my mouth.

I watched the woman cycle through another round of drowning and denial. The problem wasn’t the chains or the waterfall. It was the need for the cigarette.

I leaned over the wall so she could hear me. “If you drop the cigarette in the water, it won’t tempt you anymore. It would be easy. Just let go.”

She glanced over at me and shook her head. The strain on her face was painful to look at. This was worse than just wanting a cigarette. They’d done something more to her to crank up the addiction. The longing in her eyes was agonizing—almost like looking at someone with a broken heart.

What kind of ridiculously cruel place was this?

The waterfall ran its cycle again. She hung her head while the water gushed over her, but her arm remained rigid, keeping that cigarette safe and dry. When the water stopped, she flipped her soaked hair out of her face and looked across the pond at me. Dark smudges lay beneath her eyes. Her hand shook a little as she tried to take one quick drag before the falls started again. Of course, she didn’t make it.

But she still managed to keep the cigarette dry.

I patted my pocket and felt the reassuring weight. Did I dare pull my bubbles out and use them?

I glanced around the hallway. It must’ve been a slow day at the torture museum, because nobody was around. The fact that the eternal torture of souls in the afterlife was a form of entertainment down there was appalling.

Screw it. I’d tried to tell her to drop the cigarette. I could use the bubbles one last time to be more convincing. Walking away from her now would haunt me forever.

With one last peek around, I pulled the hidden bubbles from my pocket, dipped, and blew.

The bubbles floated toward her, riding a breeze that drifted through the enclosure. They reached the spray from the waterfall and popped several feet before they reached her.