Grim Business

Chapter Twenty

Field Training. The words alone made Phoebe very nervous, but even her nerves couldn’t bring her down after the date she’d had with Ethan. She finally understood why people were always obsessed with having a boyfriend—it felt really, really good. Well, boyfriend might be  considered a little strong, but since the date, Ethan had consistently met her at her locker every morning and walked her to her class, grasping her hand.

Dru had cornered her every chance she got and squeezed her for details, wanting to know every little thing. Phoebe told it as best she could, but even her words couldn’t quite capture the magic of the night. “I can’t believe you got Ethan North,” Dru said, “And I’m stuck with this dork.” Dru punched Rambo lightly in the arm, but she was smiling fondly as she did it.

“Hurtful!” Rambo said.

They were sitting in the lunchroom, trying to ignore the bustle and the general chaos that accompanied lunchtime. Honestly, you’d think that the kids never got to do anything other than study and take tests, the way they were acting. Several of the jocks were roughhousing, while the cheerleaders gossiped and stared, obviously judging which of the jocks would win in a fight. The geeks played Magic the Gathering or some other card game, while the anime kids squealed at each other in high-pitched Japanese words. The drama kids, where Ethan was presently though he promised to join her after he’d memorized one of his scenes, were practicing their lines for the Spring musical next to the anime kid table. Basically, everything was normal for the day and it was a pretty good day.

But then Alaina had to go and ruin it. She usually sat in a place of honor with the most popular kids, the ones that were even higher up on the scale than jocks and cheerleaders. Those kids were usually the really rich ones who by all rights should be in a private school but their parents wanted to keep them ‘grounded’ and sent them to public school instead. Really, putting them in private school would be more grounding than public school—in private school, they’d only have to contend with other rich snobs so their merits would have to be top-grade to put them on top of the pyramid. Here, they automatically won; They had all the best clothes, all the best cars, and whenever they said jump, you were supposed to ask how high. Alaina stood from the table, tossing her perfect black hair behind her shoulder as she made her way over to where Dru was sitting with her friends.

“I  see Ethan can’t be bothered to sit with you today,” Alaina simpered as she reached them, cocking her hip aside as she leaned down, placing a perfectly manicured hand on the table.

“Nice nails,” Dru said, unable to help herself.

“Oh, please, you couldn’t afford it if you tried,” Alaina said, “But thanks, doll.”

“Alaina, don’t you have something more important to do than bother me and my friends at lunch?” Phoebe said.

“No, my schedule is all cleared up at the moment. I am all yours.”

“Delightful,” Phoebe deadpanned.

“Besides, you obviously need me.”

“And why is that, doll?” Dru asked, putting emphasis on the word doll to show how annoyed she was with Alaina’s attitude; Phoebe could definitely relate to that sentiment.

“Because you’re making a grave mistake, Phoebe,” Alaina said, examining the nails on her other hand.

“Am I? What mistake, exactly?” Phoebe narrowed her eyes.

“Your little boyfriend over there.” Alaina nodded. “He’s had a good high school career; he’s well-liked, popular, smart and attractive. We wouldn’t want him to lose any of that would we? After all, you know what it’s like being on the bottom of the pecking order. How do you think he’s going to take it? He certainly won’t thank you, that’s for sure. But his little dalliance with you? It could cost him everything.”

“Is that right?” Phoebe said, her voice like shards of ice.

“Hey, I’m only the messenger here. It’s already started to happen. My words…well, they could save him. But I can’t do that if you remain attached to him.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, dear. I’m threatening Ethan. I’m putting the gun in your hands, though.”

Phoebe stood abruptly, her chair making a loud noise that drew the attention of many of the other students there. “Let me set one thing straight, Alaina. You have no power over anyone. Oh, you’re good at setting up that illusion; even I fell for it once upon a time, but not anymore. You know what I think? I think you’re a scared little girl, afraid to lose her last shred of power in a high school hierarchy that won’t fucking matter in a few years. As for Ethan, he’s a big boy—he can choose to date anybody he wants. But do you know who he chose? He chose me. So, before you go threatening anybody, why don’t you take a long look at yourself and see who’s really losing this little battle of ours.”

The silence that fell over the normally bustling lunchroom was deafening. Alaina stared at her as if struck, but she quickly regained her composure and laughed. “You’ll learn your place soon enough, Phoebe Thanatos. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Phoebe watched as she walked back to her friends and shook her head. A moment later, she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Ethan. Even he looked shocked by her newfound boldness, but also extremely pleased.

“You are the most amazing girl I have ever met, Phoebe,” he said and used his grip on her shoulder to turn her around and pull her into a long kiss. Phoebe smiled into it, feeling extremely proud and content at how things had turned out; her luck seemed to finally be evening out a bit. She only hoped she could tackle field training with as much strength as she had shown in that lunchroom.

She met Hel in front of Grim Inc. in Portland. “You’re late,” she said.

“Sorry, I didn’t think a Shadow Portal in the middle of downtown Portland would go over so well. Secrecy and all that,” Phoebe said as she climbed out of the cab and paid the driver.

“You’re going to have to learn how to transport yourself here through a Shadow Portal without being caught. Sometimes, speed is of the utmost importance—even more so than potential secrecy breaches. We have a job to do, Phoebe, and you’d be amazed what people can explain to themselves. Do you remember how to cloak yourself so that the normal can’t see you?”

“Mostly,” Phoebe said, although she wasn’t quite confident in that ability just yet. It took a lot of concentration, and she was worried that the concentration would break in the middle of the fight and they would have a lot of explaining to do.

“Well, do it now. We will begin your Field Training with reaping the souls of the living who are destined to die.”

“What, that’s what we’re starting with? I thought we’d start with fighting the rogue spirits, you know, something that’s not so…”

“Sad? Difficult?” Hel prompted. “I’m sorry Phoebe, but not everything in life is going to be that easy.  You of all people should know this. It’s never easy to take a life, but it is necessary to maintain the balance. It is the most important job of Grim Inc. Best to acquaint yourself with the reality of that situation now rather than later. After you have done that, we can discuss doing more work oriented towards capturing rogue spirits.”

Phoebe stared at her feet, feeling sick. “This isn’t what I wanted,” Phoebe said.

“And yet it is a big part of what is required of you.”

“Where do we begin?” Phoebe asked, wrapping herself in the cloaking spell despite the sick feeling in her stomach. Better to just get it over with, she supposed.

Hel snapped her fingers, and suddenly something dropped into Phoebe’s pocket. “What the hell…?”

“Take it out,” Hel directed and Phoebe did what was asked of her.

It was a list of names. There were five in total. Next to the names was a time and a place, but one name in particular stood out to her and made her heart burst. At the bottom of the list, there was a name she recognized: Alaina Williams, Raven’s Lake in Raven’s Landing, OR at 8:35 PM.