Chapter 32: Office Hours
The numbers were a beautiful, predictable lie.
Alexandra Hawking—Alex, you have to get used to it—spread the financial statements across the polished mahogany desk. The late afternoon sun slanted through the floor-to-ceiling window, gilding the columns of figures into a taunting tapestry. Ye Ran High School’s endowment fund was massive, a leviathan of capital managed with what appeared, on the surface, to be conservative, almost sleepy diligence. The returns were steady. The allocations were textbook.
And it was all wrong.
Not illegal. Just… inefficient. She traced a line with her finger—a quarterly transfer to a private equity firm specializing in biotech startups. The investment itself was sound. The fee structure was a slaughterhouse. Half a percent more than industry standard, bleeding thousands every quarter into a firm whose address, she’d discovered after twenty minutes of digging, was a postal box in the Caymans.
It was a tiny thing. A droplet. But in an ocean this size, droplets added up to tsunamis of wasted capital.
She leaned back in the plush leather chair, rolling the stiffness from her neck. The office was too quiet. The only sounds were the whisper of the climate control and the distant, muffled shouts from the athletic fields. She’d been at it for three days. Three days of wearing Alexandra’s clothes, signing Alexandra’s name on requisition forms, and feeling Kali’s instincts scream at every squandered opportunity.
She missed the cut and thrust of a boardroom. The palpable tension before a hostile takeover. Here, the only hostility was buried in spreadsheets, masquerading as poor judgment.
Her fingers itched for her phone. Her old phone, the one buried in a Swiss field. She wanted to text Takeo, to ask if he’d found the leak, if Thorne had taken the bait. To hear a familiar, gruff voice tell her to stop worrying. But that line was dead. That Kali was dead.
The new phone Frankenstein had given her was a sleek, sterile thing. It had three contacts: Frankenstein, Muzaka, and the school’s internal extension for catering. It felt less like a communication device and more like a leash.
Sighing, she picked it up anyway. Her thumb hovered over Frankenstein’s name. She could ask for an update. She could demand one. He’d given her a job to keep her busy, but the real work, the dangerous work, was happening somewhere else, without her.
Before she could decide, the door opened.
It wasn’t the tentative tap of a student or the efficient entrance of a staff member. It was a firm, familiar push. Frankenstein stood in the doorway, holding two paper coffee cups. He looked… different. Not disheveled—Frankenstein was incapable of dishevelment—but the usual effortless elegance was pulled taut, like a wire bearing too much weight. There was a tension around his eyes, a tightness to his smile.
“Black, no sugar,” he said, his voice a degree cooler than usual. He placed one cup precisely on a coaster on her desk.
She didn’t reach for it. She watched him. “To what do I owe the caffeinated visit?”
He placed his own cup down, untouched. “You were going to call. Or text. You had that look.”
“What look?”
“The look of someone who’s tired of playing with numbers and wants to play with knives instead.” He met her gaze. “Takeo is on a mission in Osaka. He’s following a lead on the communications breach. You’ll see him Sunday.”
The information, delivered so flatly, was a shock. A relief, followed immediately by a sharp spike of anxiety. Osaka was far. Takeo was away. She was here, in this gilded cage, with a man whose loyalties were so profoundly divided she couldn’t begin to map the fault lines.
“Is he okay?” The question was out before she could stop it, revealing more than she intended.
Frankenstein’s expression softened, just a fraction. “Takeo is more than capable. The lead is promising. It may be the thread that unravels Thorne’s entire network.” He paused, his eyes drifting to the spreadsheets on her desk. “What have you found?”
The shift was jarring, but she latched onto it. Work. She could do work. “Your financial manager is either incompetent or skimming. Probably the former, with a side of laziness.” She tapped the line item. “This fund is charging you vampiric fees. And here,” she pointed to another report, “your currency hedging strategy is from the last decade. You’re leaving six figures on the table every year out of sheer inertia.”
A genuine smile, quick and sharp, touched his lips. “I knew you’d find the rot. Can you fix it?”
“In my sleep. But Frankenstein… this isn’t a quick fix. It’s a systemic overhaul. It’ll cause noise. Internal audits. Questions from the board.”
“Let them ask. I’ll handle the board. You have carte blanche.” He finally picked up his coffee, took a sip, and made a faint face. It was probably cold. “Consider this your first real project. Make the school richer. It will give you legitimate standing here, beyond just my… recommendation.”
It was a smart play. If she could point to tangible, financial improvements, her presence became an asset, not a mystery. Alexandra Hawking would have a career here, a history.
“And my other project?” she asked quietly. “Thorne?”
Frankenstein’s face closed again. “Ongoing. Your safety is the priority. The school’s security is absolute, but your pattern here must be normal, routine. A consultant who works late.” He glanced at the darkening sky. The autumn leaves swirled in violent eddies against the windowpane, thrown by a rising wind. “Which is why you should go back to the residence. Now. Muzaka is waiting.”
“I can walk myself. It’s on the grounds.”
“The grounds are extensive, and it’s getting dark.” His tone didn’t brook argument. It was the voice he probably used on disobedient students. “Muzaka is at the main entrance. Go with him. I have… an appointment.”
He set the coffee down and turned to leave.
“Frankenstein.”
He stopped, hand on the doorframe.
“The coffee. Thank you.”
He didn’t look back. “It’s just coffee, Ms. Hawking. Don’t read into it.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
She sat in the sudden silence, the two coffee cups steaming their faint, dying warmth into the cool air of the office. One touched. One untouched. She picked up hers and drank. It was perfect. Bitter and strong.
Gathering her things, she slid the damning financial reports into a leather portfolio. Her portfolio. Alexandra’s portfolio. She switched off the lamp, plunging the room into the deep blue of twilight. The campus outside was emptying, lights winking on in distant dormitories.
She rode the elevator down, the smooth descent doing nothing to settle the unease in her gut. Frankenstein’s tension was a live wire in the room. Something had happened, or was about to happen. An ‘appointment.’ She doubted it was a parent-teacher conference.
Muzaka was exactly where Frankenstein said he’d be, a massive silhouette against the glowing glass of the school’s main entrance. He saw her and gave a single, slow nod, falling into step beside her as she pushed out into the crisp evening.
The walk across the quad was quiet, their footsteps crunching on the gravel path. The air smelled of damp earth and falling leaves.
“He’s worried,” she said finally, not looking at Muzaka.
The giant man grunted.
“Is it Thorne? Is he closer?”
Another grunt. Then, after a long pause: “Not Thorne.”
“What then?”
Muzaka stopped walking. She turned to face him. In the half-light, his scarred face was grim. “The Master has not left his tower in three days. Frankenstein attends him. He is… troubled.”
The Master. Raizel. The silent, unseen center of everything. Frankenstein’s devotion to him was absolute, a foundational truth. If Raizel was troubled, Frankenstein would be unraveling.
Before she could form another question, Muzaka’s head snapped to the left, toward a copse of ancient oaks that bordered the faculty parking lot. His body went preternaturally still.
“Inside,” he rumbled, his voice low and deadly serious.
“What is it?”
“Go. Now.” He didn’t yell, but the command was iron.
She heard it then—a rustle not from the wind, but too deliberate, too heavy for a squirrel or a bird. A shape detached itself from the deep shadows of the trees. Then another.
They were tall, moving with a liquid, predatory grace that was utterly inhuman. They weren’t Thorne’s men. They moved like creatures from a different story. Her story had bullets and boardrooms. This was something older.
Muzaka stepped in front of her, placing his bulk between her and the approaching figures. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He was the weapon.
“Last chance,” he said to the shadows, his voice a gravelly threat. “You are on forbidden ground.”
One of the figures laughed, a sound like dry bones shaking. “We smell a human. A new one. She doesn’t carry the Master’s scent. She’s… unclaimed.”
“She’s under protection,” Muzaka stated, his stance widening.
“By a werewolf?” The voice dripped with contempt. “The Master’s servant is distracted. Now is the time for… sampling.”
Alex’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was the other world Frankenstein lived in. Not finance and faculty meetings. This. Shadows that spoke, creatures that smelled loyalty like a scent.
Muzaka let out a low, rumbling growl that vibrated in the very ground beneath her feet. “Run,” he said, without looking back at her. “To the main building. Don’t stop.”
She ran. The leather portfolio clutched to her chest, her flat shoes slapping against the path. She didn’t look back. She heard the sickening crunch of impact, a snarl that was more beast than man, and a high-pitched shriek of surprise that cut off abruptly.
She didn’t stop. Light blazed from the school’s entrance ahead. She flung herself toward it, the safety of polished floors and fluorescent lights.
Just as her hand reached for the door handle, a figure melted from the shadows beside the steps.
It was the second one. It had circled around.
It was unnaturally pale, with eyes like smoked glass. It smiled, revealing needle-like teeth. “The little human,” it hissed. “Come. I’ll be quick.”
She froze, her mind racing. The door was right there. Could she get it open before it grabbed her? Her eyes darted, looking for a weapon, anything.
A silken, furious voice cut through the night. “You will not touch her.”
Frankenstein stood at the edge of the path, his coat billowing slightly in the wind. He held no weapon. He didn’t need one. The air around him crackled, a pressure dropping like a physical weight. His eyes were no longer playful or cool. They were utterly, devastatingly cold.
The creature’s smile vanished. “Frankenstein. We meant no—”
It never finished the sentence. There was a blur of motion, too fast for Alex to follow. A sound like a sack of wet gravel being dropped from a height.
And then Frankenstein was just there, standing between her and the steps, his back to her. The pale creature was gone. Vanished. The only evidence was a faint, dark smear on the gravel.
He turned slowly. The terrifying cold was gone from his face, replaced by a mask of mild irritation. He brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
“Ms. Hawking,” he said calmly, as if they’d encountered a mildly disruptive pigeon. “I believe Muzaka instructed you to go inside.”
Behind him, at the tree line, Muzaka walked toward them, wiping his hands on a dark cloth. He gave Frankenstein a curt nod.
It was over. Just like that.
Her legs trembled. She forced a breath into her locked lungs. “What… what were they?”
“Curious fools,” Frankenstein said, his voice now tight with a controlled anger. “They won’t be curious again.” He looked past her, toward the main doors. “This changes nothing. And it changes everything. You saw. You are a part of this now, whether you like it or not. Inside. Now.”
This time, she didn’t argue. She pushed the heavy door open, the warmth of the school engulfing her. She glanced back one last time.
Frankenstein and Muzaka stood on the path, two dark sentinels under the swirling autumn leaves, looking out into the gathering dark. Not at where the creatures had fallen, but at the dark silhouette of the lone, towering building at the center of the campus.
The Master’s tower. A single light burned at its very top.
Frankenstein’s head was bowed, as if in silent conversation, or in prayer.