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“What are we going to do?” her dad asked, his voice pitched high with worry. Eva had never seen him as rattled as he was right now. “This is outrageous, not to mention, dangerous. We could lose everything. I want answers, Hammond.”
Hammond stood. “We’re going to get our people on this right away. We’ll find a solution, I assure you. Eva, you’re needed in the Media Affairs office immediately.”
Eva should have been thrilled. She’d wanted this since she started work at The Aegis. Yet…the news sat there like a burning coal in her belly.
Had she only gotten where she was because of a demon? Did she deserve the job?
More importantly, did she even want it?
The door to Media Affairs was wide open, and as Eva approached, two Elders exited. Deborah Johnson and Anthony Roffalone both offered their congrats on the new job, but Deborah paused in the doorway to murmur, “Stefani is in there, just FYI. She’s pissed that you got the job.”
Great. Just what Eva needed on top of everything else. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem. Welcome back. I’m sorry for what you went through, but DART will pay for starting this fight.”
Deborah patted Eva on the arm and hurried to catch up with Anthony leaving Eva with a growing headache and increasing unease. Obviously, the video had gotten around.
Inside the office, Jennifer was consulting with the press crew and Stefani. She motioned Eva over. Stefani flashed a fake smile as Eva approached.
“Perfect timing,” Jenn said. “We’re getting ready to make an official statement about the video.”
“Already?” Eva couldn’t hide her surprise. And at this point, she didn’t give a crap. “Has it been verified?”
Stefani snorted. “Are you for real?”
“Go to hell, Stefani,” Eva snapped, so not in the mood to deal with her shit. She didn’t give a crap that everyone stared at her. Stefani’s eyes bugging out of her little round doll head was worth it.
Jennifer, too busy with her notes to notice anything outside her bubble, gestured for Eva to follow her to the staging area where they recorded both live and pre-recorded broadcasts when no reporters were present.
“We’re going live in ten minutes. I’ll announce you as my replacement, and then we’ll talk about your traumatic experience at DART. The public will want to know how you escaped and what it’s been like running from a demon who slaughtered three of our colleagues.” She paused and lightly put her hand on Eva’s arm. “I’m sorry, I should have asked if you were all right. It must have been a nightmare.”
Eva laughed. Jennifer was so wrong, talking like the nightmare was in the past. It was still going on.
Jennifer gave her a funny look and shouted at an intern to fix the glare from the overhead lights.
“After we talk, I’ll hand everything over to you, and you can introduce the video. We have a script already loaded.” Jennifer gestured to a doorway on the other side of the room. “Now, let’s get you into hair and makeup.”
Grateful to get away from Jennifer’s frantic energy and Stefani’s bitter glare, Eva made her escape to the converted office where Aliya, a Guardian who doubled as their hair and makeup person, was cleaning makeup brushes in the bathroom/dressing room.
“I’m almost done,” Aliya called out. “Just hop in the chair. I’ll be right with you.”
Eva sank down, every bone in her body suddenly aching. But her brain sparked with energy. Somehow, she had to get to the bottom of the video’s authenticity, and she only had minutes to do it.
Quickly, she pulled the media room’s floating desktop close and started parsing through all the data and correspondence that had come into and out of the media office over the last twenty-four hours.
Several news agencies from around the world had called, texted, or emailed. Stefani and Jennifer had recorded six updates on the situation with DART, and one on the Dome of the Rock blood-rain incident, as well as one about an Aegis team in New Delhi that took down two demons after the hellspawn slaughtered a bus full of tourists.
Aliya came over and tugged a brush through Eva’s beach-blown hair. “Congratulations on the new job. I’m so glad it didn’t go to you know who.”
Eva gave an amused snort and clicked into an internal mail file. “Yeah, me too. My ego couldn’t have handled it.”
Aliya pulled Eva’s hair into a bun in the back. “How are you doing? I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through.”
“It’s been a weird few days,” she said, leaving it there. She was tired of talking about it, but mostly, her attention was fixed on the emails. She opened the most recent one from the Elders, and the video matching Sig’s account popped up, along with a message saying that,under no circumstances are we to acknowledge the video DART sent us. We need to get this one out ASAP.
The video DART sent?
She started clicking the emails, going backward until a video popped up, along with a message:
