Moonscorn

Chapter Eleven

The meeting room was as would be expected in any large corporation, even a secret one. A long table with chairs either side, a few of those lamps with hand blown green glass you see in old libraries, a TV screen on one wall, and everything else made of darkened wood. The seats were functional but had the seats deep red. Plush, money, power. When you came in, you knew the guy that resided in here most of the time had the authority to do whatever he wanted.

Persephone was already there when they arrived. She had her laptop open and was flicking through reports and graphs. A folder of papers was beside her at the desk. "Grab drinks from the side," she said without looking up. "I've got a feeling we're going to need them."

Hysteria looked to the table against the wall next to the door they came in through. Coffee, tea, water, biscuits. "Anything stronger?" she asked.

Persephone snorted. "If there had been, there wouldn't be by now."

Her eyes were red and she rubbed her face every thirty seconds and despite her hair being bright and shiny and freshly washed, Hysteria doubted she'd slept all night. She turned to Raven. "This anything to do with you?"

"A bit. I hear you didn't sleep too well last night, either."

"Moon's only just left full. I never sleep well except for about three nights a month. Maybe four if I'm lucky."

She poured black coffee for herself (like my soul, she always said), and a milky white abomination for Raven. "Don't know how you can drink this stuff."

Raven snorted, but nodded his head in thanks. "I don't like coffee, but I need it. At least like this I get rid of some of the taste."

They sat down opposite Persephone, who continued to pour over reports as if they weren't there. Hysteria looked at the top of one of the papers. Raven had signed it.

Raven must have caught her looking, because he said "Saturn will explain," without her opening her mouth.

"So where is the bugger?"

As the phrase went, 'speak of the devil and he shall appear.' Dr Saturn, head of Lycanthropic Development, might not have been the dark lord himself, but he'd had his fair share of dealings with him. As he opened the door, the errant sunlight sneaking into the room caught a pair of jagged scars down the right side of his face so that they looked freshly sliced. His glasses were bigger than the suit he wore, which he needed to contain a well-kept girth. When Hysteria had asked about it, he had said something about deserving to eat well now that he had done his fieldwork. If you were alive after seven years of being out where he had been, you were allowed to put on a few pounds behind a desk.

Not that he wasn't sharper than Sawbones' scalpel. He strode into the room, eyes dead ahead, and called out "Hysteria Scorn, sit up properly." Without wanting to, her body complied by instinct. It was only when he had sat down at the head of the table and opened his folder that she noticed his secretary come in behind and close the door, and when she saw someone else in their private conversation, she realised her back was ramrod straight.

"Close the curtains please, Derek."

The secretary, a man who seemed to have modelled himself on Saturn with the same dress and glasses, but without the gut or sense of sheer presence, pressed a button on the wall and the curtains over the window pulled together like theatre drapes. He poured a black coffee and took it to his boss before seating himself next to Persephone and opening up a laptop.

"Is anyone else joining us?" Hysteria asked. "Court jester, maybe?"

Raven elbowed her in the ribs. Instinctually she turned and bared her fangs. Normally Raven would have flinched, even a little, but he was remarkably composed this morning. There was a slight flicker in his eyes, a flutter of eyelash and a twitch of an eyebrow, but that was it. His mouth was straight and he shook his head.