"So, what do you think of our organisation?"

Uncle Morbid leaned forward and smiled.

"You were fantastic, by the way."

"Thank-you, I had the best teacher," I answered.

Maise mouthed the words "head girl". I held in a chuckle.

"I think your organisation is incredible," I said. "It's like I belong here."

"I'm pleased to hear you say that, because we think so too," replied Uncle Morbid.

My heart skipped.

"However, there is one matter that I don't think has been discussed yet. We are an exclusive private club providing unique and difficult services, as such our membership subscription is rather high."

Shit.

"You might be wondering how your housemate over there can afford us. Well, the reason is..."

"I have money," Maise interrupted. "My family runs a chain of convenience stores all over the city, as an heiress I have a large share in the business. I'm really sorry I didn't tell you, but everything happened so fast."

It did explain a lot. The bespoke clothes, the wine, the posh school uniform... not what she was doing in our toilet of a shared house, though. We'd have to talk about that later.

Uncle Morbid spoke again.

"Now, I don't want to insult you by presuming you can't afford our subs, but I do want to suggest possibilities. Maise has offered to pay your way, but I thought it was only fair to ask you first."

I was cross with Maise, but she had brought me here and I owed her so much. She was my love, I couldn't possibly lean on her financially.

"You said possibilities, plural."

"Well, the other option, which I hope you'll consider, is that you come and work here."

I was taken aback by this.

"Doing what?"

"I understand you work in admin and from what I've heard on the grapevine you're an efficient but antisocial worker. So come and work in our office. Our official business is renting out studio and location facilities to film and media so that's what you'll be adminning, but we'll also ask you to help at the Masquerade."

"So I'd be an angel?"

"That is one of the duties. But we'll give you regular nights off to come with Maise under an avatar, as one of the perks."

I considered my options. Carry on temping on autopilot for random companies I didn't care about, or take a permanent position somewhere I did care. Carry on blocking inane chat from boring office people (which apparently hadn't gone unnoticed) or have a boss called Uncle Morbid. Gee, what to do...

"When do I start?"

—

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the money thing, I feel terrible," said Maise on the drive home.

"I don't get it. If you're rich, why do you live in an attic room in a shit house stuffed with assholes?"

"I'm not rich, just comfortable", said Maise. "The low rent on the shit house is how I afford other nice things. Like Masquerade membership."

She gave me a quick smile, without taking her eyes off the road.

"It can't be that bad, anyway, it's where I met you. I always knew you'd end up working at the Masquerade. It's where you should be."

"How am I going to get out here? It doesn't look like it's on the bus route."

"I'll bring you, my work involves a lot of driving around anyway. We can treat it like a school run, Head Girl."

First thing Monday morning I rang the agency to tell them I wouldn't be carrying on at the insurance company. That was the entire resignation process. I put on my usual office clothes – smart herringbone trousers, pinstripe blouse, charcoal sweater vest – and we set out together bright and early.

"Have a good first day", said Maise as she dropped me off. "I'll be back six-ish."

On the way in I passed through the main hall where Sofia had met her end this past weekend, after watching a burlesque dancer spread her legs for an oncoming guillotine blade. Now it looked like a church hall.

Uncle Morbid appeared through a side door.

"Good morning, Lexie, it's so great to have you here. Let me take you up to the admin area."

We went up in what I assumed was the same lift I'd been carried to while playing dead as Sofia. It took us to a lightly decorated corridor leading to a small open plan office, where we were met by an auburn haired lady in a green wrap dress.

"This is Susan," said Uncle Morbid. "She'll show you round and put you to work, I'll see you later on in the day."

He disappeared down the corridor. I introduced myself to Susan.
"Pleased to meet you. Thank-you for coming out all this way, you must wonder what we do here."

I looked at her oddly. Surely she must know...

"I have some idea. Studio and media services, right?"

"That's right. We had London's Burning up here the other week. Anyway, let me show you around."

I found out that the public face of the company was called Morior Studios. She showed me the copy room, the break room, the coffee making facilities, where the toilets were... my God, it was like going to the vampire truck stop in From Dusk Till Dawn and finding a Little Chef. When we got back to the office area, a man about my age with dark hair and a light blue shirt was logging into one of the computers. He stood up as he saw us.

"This is Chris," said Susan. "Chris, can you get Lexie logged in to the computer system and show her the bookings spreadsheet? I'll leave you two to get started, I'll be up there in my office."

"We have actually met," said Chris quietly after Susan left. "I was one of the stagehands that got you out of the iron maiden."

I smiled.

"Does Susan know?" I asked.

"She must do, but I think she treats it as none of her business because she just works office hours. She has no active role in the Masquerade that I'm aware of."

He sorted me out with a computer login and showed me round the various admin tasks. It was all straightforward stuff – invoice processing, managing bookings, database admin. It did make a change having someone to talk to in the office that didn't drain life force. I was more or less finished with the work provided by noon.

"You played your role really well on Saturday", said Chris. "And good call on that music, it was incredible."

I thanked him.

"You looked pretty good yourself in that stagehand uniform. Though I can imagine you in one of those cute little skater skirts the angels wear."

"Oh, that was me too," he said casually. "I got killed off in the oil game earlier in the evening, then showered off and got changed for your debut."

"Really? That was you getting dunked?"

"Yes, that was me. I saw you watching," he grinned.

When we stopped for lunch a man in a dusty sweatshirt and jeans met us in the breakroom. He introduced himself as Scott the technician. After we'd spoken for a short while he looked me up and down as if making calculations, then excused himself and left the room.

"Any idea what that was about?" I asked Chris.

"Could be he has a job for you," he replied.

"Could be?"

Chris bit his lip.

"OK, he has a job for you. That's what it is," said Chris.

"What kind of job?"

He wouldn't tell me.

Sure enough, when we went back to the office Susan told us to take a break from admin for the rest of the afternoon.

"Chris, show Lexie around the grounds, give her the full guided tour. Then go see Scott in Hangar 4. I'll see you both back here tomorrow morning."

—-

"All the rooms we use for the Mortal Masquerade, the ancient tomb, the dungeon and so on, are sets on soundstages which we hire out to the film industry when we're not using them," said Chris as we walked together through the main hall. "We also have a few other locations scattered around the grounds which I'll show you as we go. Uncle Morbid made his name as a special effects guy, so we provide effects and gimmicks to go with each set. As far as the public knows, that's our entire business, but our real passion is using those skills to come up with the most interesting and intense fantasy death experiences for our spirits."

We emerged from a side door to an asphalted area flanked with hangars. A path led off into a wooded area straight up ahead.

"Up there is the Jungle. It's out of season right now, but in the summer we run Masquerades outdoors. There's a couple of quicksand pools in there, some fireplay sets and some simple animatronics. As you know, we're miles from anywhere so we don't have to worry about prying eyes or upsetting neighbours."

We turned back around, looking at the hangars.

"This is where we have the bigger, more industrial toys," said Chris.

The furthest hangar was stacked up with an array of logs, planks, conveyer belts and different types of saw, mechanical and otherwise.

"Most of these saws are gimmicked in some way, but not all of them. When we do a sawing we switch between them to add to the experience. I think you've seen this next hangar."

We went through a door into another hangar with a large structure in the corner. I recognised it as the place where I'd seen Maise buried alive on video. The large drum of the cement mixer looked like a religious statue at the head of a temple. I was looking forward to being beneath it myself at some point.

At the end of the tour, we reached a hangar containing a large trailer sat alongside one wall. There were large metal plates coming down off each side like a pair of wings, folding inwards halfway down. At each end of the trailer large hydraulic pistons fed into square, vertical metal plates.

There were a couple of scrap cars lined up next to it. In the middle of the room was a table with TV monitors set up.

I heard an approaching vehicle behind me. Scott came into the hangar driving a forklift loader, pulled up next to us and hopped out.

"Thanks for coming down, Lexie," he said. "I heard about your performance, thought you might be just the person we need. See, what we do here is come up with creative death scenes for the Masquerade, our job is to give the spirits interesting ways to kill their avatars without actually dying themselves. Some get to ask for requests, which sometimes we can do, but others are just impossible."

He looked up at the machine mounted on the trailer.

"We think we've worked out a way to do an impossible one. We'd like you to help us test it."