Dori Gallagher woke with the alarm. Five-thirty, Monday morning in Los Angeles. September and the marine layer had slithered in like a thief, stealing the sunrise and reminding her of gloomy days back east. Ah well, at least she didn’t have to rake leaves, deal with freezing cold rain or warm up her car before heading off to work. The fog would give way to smog by ten and brilliant seventy-five degree sunshine by noon. Same thing, everyday. Everyday.

Unnervingly predictable and lackluster, just like her job. Just like driving the 405 and dealing with traffic that could choke a Trojan horse. Life was what it was and she’d long ago come to grips with it.

Dori was facing forty (in six short years) and not facing it well. She came to California with dreams of becoming a film writer and marrying George Clooney; making millions and living in Bel Air with a view of the canyon, an electric security gate and at least two huge guard dogs. Yeah, that was it. Rich and famous.

What Dori did since moving to Los Angeles was once take a tour of Universal Studios; that’s the closest she ever got to actually writing a movie. She worked as a placement executive for a Los Angeles employment agency. Her claim to fame was becoming employee of the month last year, and that was for showing up on time every day. She lived in a small apartment in Redondo Beach with a nervous, noisy Chihuahua. Not much of a guard dog, but his farts could repel the meanest mailman. Sitting dead still in traffic, watching the sun burn holes in the clouds and already late for work, one could say Dori wasn’t a happy camper. But she wasn’t unhappy enough to leave L.A. either. Something in her soul belonged there.

She’d once written a story for her company newsletter entitled Joyfully Lost and Badly Dressed in Beverly Hills. It pretty much encapsulated her reality. She was the quintessential idealist; always sure that just around the next bend, past the next freeway exit and right after the Goodyear blimp lowered its nose before landing, there was a silver lining. The proverbial pot of gold. It was there, she just knew it. At thirty-four it wasn’t too late to find fame, fortune and love. Right? Right?

As it was, just after the next exit was her office and she put on her game face. Jogging down the alley of cubicles she repeated at each opening, “405 … 405 … fucking 405”. Her first appointment was already waiting so she never got the chance to tell that morning’s gridlock story about how the man talking on the cell phone had swerved into her lane causing her to panic and actually look at the driver next to her who was whacking off in his little red convertible Alpha Romeo. At least the grueling daily drive was never uneventful. It had been a while since she’d seen a naked man beneath the belt. The sad part was, it could be the high point of her day if she wasn’t careful.

She smiled wide and sat at her desk. Reviewing the resume and application of the nervous woman across from her, Dori felt her mind wander. Why did it seem she was always fulfilling other people’s dreams? Last year she convinced a gorgeous Iowa import to talk with a modeling agency before accepting a secretarial position … now that pretty girl was shooting a swimsuit spread in Bali. Two months ago a young computer wiz was crying in her guest chair about losing his low level job with Google. Thanks to her advice, he was now developing investors for his own startup company. She could list literally dozens of clients who had stumbled onto their own known or unknown dreams just by stumbling into Dori’s cubical. It almost made her angry and unwilling to do her job, but Ruffles, the stinky Chihuahua, needed to be neutered before he got at the next door neighbor’s mixed Lab again. Talk about ugly puppies. She had to work just a while longer before she could turn her own corner.

“So,” Dori sighed and glanced down at the name on the application, “Miranda. Can you explain why you were off the job market for eighteen months?”

The woman trembled. “Do I have to?

Oh yes, this was going to be Monday at its best.

“Ms. Gallagher, I just need a job. Any job will do,” said the sad woman.

Dori rolled her shoulders, best get on with it. She did what she always did, looked deeply into Miranda’s eyes. Here we go again. “Tell me something, what’s your real passion? What really floats your boat? Makes you light up inside? Because just any job won’t do. Trust me, I know.”

*

“Again. Explain it again,” Gabriel growled and Crudo sighed exasperation.

“Christ, Gabe. You’re an intelligent man. I’ve repeated all this a dozen times, you got it, trust me.”

“Again.”

The troll rubbed his temples, groaned. “Tell you what, why don’t you just repeat what you understand and I’ll fill in the rest? Okay?” “What do you say? Let’s try it. Tell me what you understand.”

Gabriel chewed it over on his no-longer extended fangs, thought it through. “Okay. I’m dead, really dead, right?”

“Right”

“And I’m … what … stuck here in a warehouse full of other really dead things … in a city filled with living humans? That’s just fucking nuts.”

Crudo rolled his eyes. “Maybe it seems nuts, but it makes sense when you think it through. You’re here, in a kind of holding tank, a holding pattern until a decision is made by a higher being … ah … Gabe, you do believe in a higher being, right?” He waited for and finally received a tentative nod. “Good, good. So anyway … you’re going to be here for as long as it takes, so to make it easier, you’ve been turned into something passable as human. You have a pulse, your heart beats, you breathe. You bleed and can be hurt, so Gabe,” he glared. “I strongly suggest you be careful and above all, stay away from vampires.”

Gabriel blinked. He knew he’d heard this all a few times already, but it still baffled him.

“They may get it in their heads to drink from you, try to kill you or even turn you. Can’t happen and that’s the real rub. They can’t kill or turn you and they can’t know why. This is all a secret, buddy.”

“A secret. How the hell am I supposed to keep all this a secret?”

“Keep your mouth shut and your nose clean. Hell, three years ago I had to get a shape-shifter out of the loony bin. Trust me, no one’s going to believe you if you do talk, and talking won’t help anything. Remember, everything you do counts for or against you; you’re facing judgment every minute, just like you always have been … whether you thought so or not.”

“What am I supposed to do while I wait?” Gabriel’s head was swimming upstream so hard it began to ache. Ahh, something else new. A headache. He rubbed a temple.

“Nothing you used to do, that’s for sure. You know what’s right and what’s wrong. You still have a few of your powers but nothing like before. You can’t extend your fangs, can’t drink blood without getting god-awful sick. You’re still stronger than an average man. Your senses are still pretty sharp, sharper than a human’s. You can’t fly or anything like that anymore. Werewolves can’t change. Fairies can’t alter human events. Leprechauns can’t find the pot of gold.” Crudo snorted. “Can’t get it in their heads that life is the pot of gold, idiots. As for you … you still have a volatile temper, so start now to control that. Maybe you should think about taking anger management classes. Just a suggestion.”

Gabriel scowled.

“Okay, your question was what do you do. You live … sort of. You do what humans do. Get a job, earn some money, maybe get yourself a place.”

“I don’t have to stay here?” His eyes drifted to the open door and the variety of strange misfits out in the lounge.

“No. But you do have to report in twice a week; let me know what you’re doing, how you’re getting along. Get a progress report on your case, if there is one that is. Some freeloaders stick around here, but we’re set up for it. It’s not like Stick Man can be a cashier at Seven-Eleven. We’re always stocked, you can stay in the assigned room if you want but that’s no life for you, Gabe.”

Gabriel sighed. Wasn’t this a pickle? Right out of left field. “Get a job?”

“Yeah. Earn some money so you can get some clothes, things. Oh,” Crudo grunted and reached behind for his jacket. He laid it over his lap and searched his pockets. “Here, someone gave me this while I was waiting for you.” He passed the flyer across his desk.

“City of the Angels Employment Agency,” Gabriel read aloud.

“Why not? Worth a shot, right? But if they don’t find something for you right away, you’ve got a place to stay. Just avoid the others of your kind out there and in here. I have four other vampires; one’s been here since before I arrived. Two of them are seriously bad news. Whatever it takes to keep yourself out of trouble, I suggest you do.”

A rolling rumble resounded from Gabriel’s belly and his eyes widened in shock.

“Oh yeah,” Crudo chuckled, “along with your pseudo human condition comes real human needs. Gotta eat, Gabe.” The troll stood, pulled on his jacket and tucked his tie into a pocket. “I’m kinda hungry too. Come on, I make it a practice to take the newbies to dinner their first night. You like pastrami? Corned beef?”

Gabriel had no clue if he liked pastrami or corned beef. Chances are he’d never tasted either. When he was turned, it was the depths of the Depression. He knew no Irish or Jewish people around his farm and the last meal he clearly remembered actually eating was just days before he joined the ranks of the undead. He was in Indianapolis trying to find paying work. That meal was from a soup kitchen and he could hardly recall what he ate or how it tasted, just how hungry he was and the act of filling his mouth. If he’d known he wouldn’t eat again or taste another thing aside from a host’s blood for over eighty years, he might have paid better attention.

He stood his full six feet and pushed a hand through his wild brown hair with a sigh, reveling in the sensation of his lungs expanding, his body reacting to gravity, emotions flushing beneath his flesh. Whatever had happened was phenomenal and he had no choice but to take the troll’s word for it … for now. Gabriel didn’t even want to imagine what he’d do to Crudo Cushman if he found him to be a bold-faced liar.

 Walking beside the shorter man he kept his eyes ahead, experiencing less trepidation moving through the gathered inmates than when he’d entered. At the door, his nose flared. Sweet. The scent of sugar about to become luscious caramel. A pixie. She was lovely, not too tall or too short, delicate features but a wicked grin that made Gabriel’s breath catch. Her illusive, usually semi-visible gauze-like wings were snipped, gone, not even something he could sense any longer and Gabriel guessed pixies lost their speed as well as their ability to flitter and fly. That must certainly make it harder to escape their mischief.

“Crudo, my man! I was just coming to make my report.” Her words were for the troll, her smile was for Gabriel.

“You’re two days late, Shirley girly. Just leave it on my desk.”

“Who’s the new guy?” She batted her eyes and flipped long golden hair behind her shoulder. “I like the rough and tumble, former bloodsucker types.”

“Yeah,” Crudo grunted. “Gabe, this is Trouble. Let’s go.”

They left her pouting and Gabriel, having never spent a nervous day since 1931, was pretty damn nervous around that pixie. A pixie? Go figure. But with all the new rules, he wasn’t about to tangle with a misbehaving dragonfly. He had bigger problems to deal with; like the issue of heaven or hell. Why him? What had he done, or not done, to make him a candidate for this second chance? Half of him felt the fool for spending his vampire years believing there was no heaven or hell. The other half felt the fool for wanting to believe the troll. He cast his eyes upward, wondering if at any moment someone up there will realize they’d made a mistake and send him pummeling into the fires of hell. The thought shook him more than he was willing to admit, even to himself.

He was still pondering the prospect as they sat at the table outside Johnnie’s Pastrami. Sandwiches were ordered. He wanted a beer, something he’d relished in his human days but the troll vetoed the idea.

“Not quite yet, buddy. Let’s give it some time, okay?”

Waiting for the food, Gabriel looked around at the people. They had no clue. They ate and laughed, joked and watched passersby. He leaned over the table. “Cushman, how am I supposed to just sit here and act like one thing when I’m something else altogether,” he hissed.

Crudo leaned closer. Grinned. “Gabe, everyone in Los Angeles is something else. Meet a waiter and he’ll tell you he’s really an actor. Talk to an accountant and she’ll say she’s really an artist. Hell, the girl who took our order told me she’s really a filmmaker, just waiting for her break. They’re all something other than what they seem. They’re all living the dream, dreaming of being that dream. You, my friend are part of those illusions. Nobody suspects and nobody knows. Don’t worry about it. Oh,” he said, leaning even closer. “And about women.”

“Human women?” This was an entire avenue Gabriel hadn’t even thought about yet. “What about them?”

“I got some damn good advice on that subject. Pay attention. Go on, have your fun but always remember about the judgment. Do good and be nice. Use rubbers … for them, not you. Makes them feel safer. You carry no diseases and shoot blanks. Another thing, have relationships but don’t let them go on too long. A few years and break it off. Otherwise it can get ugly. Marriage is out of the question. They age, you don’t. Hell, they’re alive and you’re … well, you get my drift. Women like security; you don’t have it to give. For all we know, you might move on tomorrow. Then where will she be? Not to mention all the crap about missing persons and cops and shit. Keep it all clean and neat.”

The food arrived. Gabriel imitated Crudo and lifted his massive sandwich. He opened wide and took a bite. The flavor exploded in his mouth, tingled, tantalizing him to the point of arousal. “Holy shit!” he garbled.

Crudo smiled. “Yeah, I can only imagine what it must be like to taste food after so long. Guess you like pastrami.”

Gabriel, nearly inhaled the sandwich, washing it down with a Coke and moaning delight.
The troll laughed. “Take it easy. I don’t want to have to stop for a rest room on the way back. You’ve got brand new working plumbing now, you know.” He pushed his empty plate aside and lit a cigarette, leaned back and watched his new arrival. He sighed. “You going to be all right? I mean, do you have anymore questions?”

“I’ve got a thousand questions. But the answers might be as hard to digest as this sandwich. You’re around a lot, right? I can ask when I need to?”

Crudo nodded.

“Can I have one of those?”

 “These?” Crudo lifted the Marlboro’s pack. “Sure. Your lungs.”