Tidings of Comfort and Joy by Kristine Grayson

Author:Kristine Grayson [Grayson, Kristine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WMG Publishing Incorporated

Chapter 12

Dallas hated these kinds of meetings. They were the worst part of every single job she had ever taken. Either she had to prove herself or she had to listen to speechifying or she had to correct know-it-alls about what they faced.

She had a hunch she would have to do all three here, and she didn’t want to do any of it.

The old man who had opened the door for her—and he was old—was bent and too thin. He wore a wizarding outfit that could have come out of a bad Harry Potter movie rip-off, all purple and black with gold stars and moons. The old man’s white hair was thinning on the top of his head, revealing a scalp that was oddly pink.

He waved a crabbed hand toward a long conference table, and told her to sit anywhere.

As if she could have. All of the chairs were taken by old men of various shapes and sizes. Only one chair remained open, and it was against the wall.

She wasn’t going to sit there. In circumstances like this, she had learned it was better to stand, just like she did at the office at home.

The conference room itself looked like it had been remodeled in the 1950s. Its walls were paneled with cheap brown wood that matched the conference table, and the pilled carpet beneath her feet. If the one remaining chair was any indication, the chairs matched as well. Only they had vinyl backs and seats, also in that same sad brown color.

If anything, though, the air was just as foul in here as it was in the corridor. Even though there were windows that overlooked…well, something…they were smeared, probably with the same tobacco stains that coated everything else in this place.

The windows hadn’t been opened since the Jurassic Period, and the vents probably hadn’t been cleaned since then either—although, it was possible that what Lo had told her was true: the cleaners in this building (magical or otherwise) also smoked, so they didn’t notice the problem at all.

The old man who sat at the head of the table noticed the look she had given the remaining chair, and probably noted her slight grimace of distaste. He was one of the few men in the room who still had a straight back and perfectly aligned shoulders. His silver hair was swept back, and he wore a grayish-silver suit that glistened, even in the yellowish light.

“Miss Demaris, would you like my seat?” His accent reminded her of the accents of countless 1930s American movie star—not quite East Coast, not quite British, not quite European—but something clipped and snobbish that suggested he was a lot richer and a lot more posh than she could ever be.

She smiled at him and added just a bit extra Texas to her speech. “Thank you, Good Sir, but I’m doing just fine standing.”

She kept her wool coat draped over her arms, although setting it down would probably not be the problem she anticipated. She was

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