Chapter One
Dani stared at her palm, waiting for the tornado to arrive. It all depended on this final test. Everything she’d been studying for the last month came to this point.
She hunkered down on an overturned bucket in the middle of the janitor’s closet and concentrated. If she could do this, prove she had control of her power over localized natural disasters then maybe, just maybe, she could get Chapter Two in the Cleaners Employee Handbook to unlock.
The manual for her supernatural sanitation employer sat on the floor before her, a white binder big enough to clobber a raging mammoth unconscious. It lay open to the last page of Chapter One, titled: Janitor, Clean Thyself!
The text on the last page merely read: To pass this test and proceed to Chapter Two, summon a miniature tornado that does not bring harm to anyone or anything.
Dani tugged on her power, trying to stir the elements she needed. A rush of air tousled her short red curls as a black thundercloud puffed into being in front of her. Lightning lit it from within as a tiny bolt zapped her hand.
Hissing, Dani released the energies. She rubbed at the stinging spot and glowered at the manual.
“This is all your fault,” she said.
The letters flowed together and then back out into a new message.
Incorrect. All is too inclusive a word. Are you giving up?
She slapped her cheeks and rolled her shoulders.
“Right. Focus. I want a tornado. Not a thunderstorm. I got this. I got this.”
She jumped up and down to warm up, paced back and forth. The janitor’s closet was no bigger than an alley kitchen—one built for a family of gnomes—but it was lined with metal shelving and stocked with bottles of cleaning chemicals, sponges, stacks of paper towels, rags, mops and brooms, garbage bags, and scrub brushes. Her cart sat in the back, laden with similar tools of her trade, both mundane and magical.
She did a few squats and jumping jacks. That warmed her up quick, what with the tan janitorial jumpsuit she wore, complete with black boots and yellow gloves.
Standing before the handbook again, she held her hand out, readying to summon. Then she paused and eyed the manual.
“Hang on. Why a tornado, anyway?”
I like them. They make me think of washing machines. Round and round.
“You’ve got to be—” Dani sealed her lips before a swear slipped out. “You’re joking.”
I am a book. I do not have a sense of humor. Another swirl of ink. This is your final chance. Fail and you are finished.
The bold text faded away, replaced by normal text.
A Cleaner must demonstrate Pure focus in any situation. They must not let their attention be sullied by any distraction. Only then can they be effective against Scum and serve Purity in all their actions.
From the table of contents, she knew Chapter Two was titled: On Matters of Bathing. Having been a lifelong devotee to the church of self-sanitation, thanks to her antagonistic relationship with germs and dirt, she craved to discover what that topic entailed. A spell for conjuring hot baths and showers whenever she wanted? She swallowed against a Pavlovian urge to drool at the thought.
For Purity’s sake, I’m letting myself get distracted.
Refocusing, she nodded to herself. “I’ve done this before. I can do it again.”
She kept her power mostly contained, activating her Pure energies just enough to draw wisps of air toward her. Directing them … there.
A breeze swirled over her open hand. Barely breathing, Dani shut her eyes and let her elemental vision take over. She fed her senses into the environment, detecting the earth within the concrete and beneath the building’s foundations, and the air wafting through the ventilation ducts. Her power wove out of her like glowing tendrils of energy, latching onto all of this and more.
As a Catalyst—one of the rarest forms of Pure-energy wielders these days—she could churn up an earthquake, crack the water pipes and flood the area, or flare a match into a firestorm.
But she only wanted one tiny tornado, small enough to fit in her pocket. She’d take it home. Call it Swirly. And it would be her Swirly and they would be the best of friends.
If she could just make it work. She needed finesse. To flick the breeze into a miniaturized vortex and stabilize it. Simple. Just break a few laws of physics.
She bit the tip of her tongue and let the barest fragment of her power brush against the still-flowing breeze. A cloudy vortex swirled into being, the tip of it settling on her palm.
Dani giggled. “Tickles.”
A thin, airy voice fluttered in her ears. “Can I help, mistress?”
Dani growled. “As Ben likes to say: Shaddup.”
A whimper, like she’d scolded a child. “I am only trying to help, mistress.”
“No, you’re trying to get a gold star on your report card. I told you I’m not treating any of you any different than the rest. Now leave me alone until I’m actually ready to talk to you.”
“Very well, mistress,” replied Air-Dani
“And don’t call me that. Makes me sound like I should be carrying a whip instead of a mop.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Dani clenched her other fist. The rush of frustration sent a heat wave across her skin, and her power fluctuated in response. In a blink, the tornado doubled in size. A low roar rose and the room trembled as if in the path of an oncoming train.
“Ah, $#@*!”
The Cleaners’ foul-filter spell wiped her dirty word out of existence as quickly as she uttered it. No filthy language for paragons of Purity, no sir.
The tornado spun out of control, growing large enough to rattle the shelves. Dani stood rooted, buffeted by the very winds she’d conjured.
She thrust her hands into the swelling funnel as if she could choke it into submission.
“No! Don’t you #%$&#@@ dare lose control.”
Except the more she focused on grappling the twister, the more her power fed into it. It had no core she could destroy. Her own destructive energies sustained the spell; if it went too far, she’d endanger the whole building and everyone inside.
So Dani whirled about, grabbed the bucket at the end of the cart, and dunked her head into the dirty bleach water. She jerked back out, spluttering and whipping her head around. She felt her energies dissipate, which meant they shouldn’t be sustaining the twister any longer.
She turned back to the tornado. It wobbled like a dreidel on overdrive. Then it shrank slightly. Dani’s gut unclenched. Breaking her focus had worked! She’d stopped it from—
The tornado exploded, gusts blasting out, with her at the epicenter. She went into a crouch, eyes shielded as everything clattered and boomed around her. At last, she dared to survey the wreck of the room. Shelves had been torn clear, spilling gear everywhere. A bag of de-icing salt had torn wide open, and unidentifiable cleaning fluids splattered the walls and floor. Her cart remained upright and clean, but otherwise the place looked like the Mr. Clean had thrown a temper tantrum.
The handbook, of course, remained pristine.
She scowled. “Showoff.”
A flash of light burst from the handbook, blinding her. Her vision cleared just as the binder slapped shut. The thunderclap this produced knocked her back until she caught herself on her janitorial cart.
“Thanks for that,” she said through gritted teeth. “Always wondered what it’d be like to get bullied by a book. I can die happy now.”
A knock sounded on the door and a young man peeked in. “Are you okay? I was walking by and heard—whoa.” His eyes widened. “What happened? Looks like a tornado hit this place.”
Dani hopped over and braced the door before he could enter. “I just tripped.”
“Tripped?” He glanced around doubtfully.
Dani leveled her best glare. “Tripped.”
He coughed. “Okay. Sure. Your mess, not mine.”
After he ducked out, she locked the door and leaned her head against it.
“My mess. Sure is.”
She turned to survey the scene. The binder caught her eye. The front title, which normally read EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK, now said:
We’ll try again tomorrow.
Dani hefted the tome and held it out at arm’s length as if it were a baby that had just dropped a nuclear bomb in its diaper.
“You said that was my final test.”
For the day. Perhaps tomorrow you will not be so distractible.
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault that air elemental wanted to get chatty right then.” Dani frowned. “Hang on a sec. Did you somehow get it to pipe up in my ear?”
Distractions of all sorts come at inopportune times.
“You … little … cheat! I ought to toss you into the nearest industrial shredder.”
I am indestructible.
She narrowed her eyes. “That sounded like a dare.”
You are reading me. Not listening.
Grousing, Dani stuffed the handbook into the backpack strapped to the cart. The book’s weight made the cart sink an inch and the wheels squealed in protest, but the equipment had been chanted to handle far more physical stress than normal sanitation gear.
Fists on hips, she glared at the wrecked closet and sighed. “Janitor, clean thyself up.”
Her radio bleeped. “Hey, janitor lady, there’s been a spill on the second floor, near Room 210. Corpse cleanup.”
Dani didn’t answer right away. She could instinctively tell now which channel it came in on. Not a call from the Cleaners. Just mundane work. She plucked the radio from her belt and thumbed it on. “Again? Was it Martin?”
“Sorry. Don’t know. Just found it. Nobody seems to be around.”
Her skin prickled. Could this be Scum-work? Maybe she could save the day from some corpse-munching Corrupt beast and add another notch to her mop handle.
She grinned. “Be right down.”
She tidied up just enough to clear a path to the door. Hoping nobody needed the closet anytime soon, she wheeled the cart out into the halls of the University of Denver’s School of Medicine. Good thing it was a weekend if Scum were about. Otherwise more students might be around and in danger. The cart trundled down the tiled halls toward the nearest elevator, passing rooms filled with medical diagrams, dark labs with a few screens glowing within, glass-paneled display cases full of preserved organs, and lecture halls.
Nice of the Cleaners to set her up with a work-study that coincided with her pre-med studies and duties as a Cleaner.
She grimaced. Of course, I haven’t told anyone at the company that I’ve taken the semester off.
Dani suspected Chairman Francis knew she’d taken a hiatus from her educational pursuits. Part of her still wanted to work in the medical research field somehow, someday—find a way to protect people from the innumerable diseases and maladies that created so much suffering around the world. Her job as a Cleaner, though, plus her studies with the Employee Handbook took up too much time and energy for her to handle homework and sit through lectures. Not to mention that continued tools training and learning to handle her powers were more immediate priorities.
Besides, I’m still doing the world some good. Maybe even more directly, destroying embodiments of Corruption itself instead of hiding away in a sterile lab.
It gave her a measure of pride, thinking of herself as a guardian of Purity, keeping innocents safe from Corruption in all its mucky machinations. She tried to rein in her anticipation as she wondered what might really be behind the spill she’d been called to handle.
Don’t get your hopes up, Dani. Sometimes a puddle of frat boy vomit is just frat boy vomit.
As the elevator hummed up to the second floor, she eyed the radio on her hip. Hang on. Who had called her again? He hadn’t identified himself, and his voice hadn’t been familiar.
She plucked a squeegee off the cart and held it along one thigh. Best be prepared in case this turned out to be more than just a random muck monster causing trouble.
The doors dinged open and she headed off, senses pinging, power fizzing as she kept it just on the edge of surging free. She turned down the hall … and into a scene out of a B-rated horror flick.
Ten pig cadavers lay in puddles of glop as if someone had been having a water balloon fight with dissection specimens. Adult pigs, too. She fought the urge to sneeze against the pickled reek of formaldehyde. Normally, she enjoyed a good whiff of preservatives—they reminded her of the sanitizer gel she always kept with her—but now she fought against the urge to find something to eat just so she could lose it again.
She blinked. “The #$%^?”
Exactly how could she deal with something like this? She wasn’t about to haul all these pigs into a dumpster. They were school property, and she’d need a good excuse for just chucking them.
Dani checked the area for video surveillance, but didn’t see any. The Cleaners had scoped out the university’s security network for her. Main entrances and rooms containing valuable lab equipment were monitored, but not many of the halls themselves. Of course, whoever was behind this had chosen a section lacking cameras. That meant planning. Maybe a trap.
She tapped the squeegee against her leg. “Okay. Think. What would Ben do?”
She froze. I did not just think that. Because knowing Ben, he’d laugh, grab the nearest dead pig, and tell her to go long for a touchdown pass.
Would the Chairman be pissed if she called for a scrub-team in to get rid of this mess? Would that be abusing company resources?
Oh! Company protocol: quarantine any scene to avoid the spread of contamination.
She grabbed a pair of Caution: Wet Floor signs off the cart and set them on either side of the hall junction. A touch and spark of energy from her activated the wards they’d been chanted with, which would react negatively to any Scum that got too close.
Satisfied, she turned back to decide what to do with the preserved bacon. Maybe if she used her mop to shove them all into one big pile and then set them on fire? She could handle sweeping up ashes.
“Excuse me, miss?”
Dani spun, squeegee at the ready.
Three men in tuxedos stood in the hallway she’d just come from, a few steps on the other side of the Caution signs. All trim guys with slicked hair and jawbones that could double as sledgehammers. They looked like they’d come from a fashion photo shoot. Where had they been hiding? Had they ridden the elevator just after her? She hadn’t heard the doors ding.
The man in the middle held an arm stiff across his chest like a fancy waiter.
“Are you Danielle Hashelheim?” he asked.
Dani slowly reached for her mop handle. “Who’s asking?”
He bowed slightly. “We’re the Momma’s Boys Quartet, and we have a message for you.”
She recounted the trio, making sure they didn’t have a shorter member standing behind them. Quartet? “Message from who?”
“Sydney.”
She aimed her mop like a spear. “If he wants to deliver a message, he can come do it himself.”
The man flashed a gorgeous grin. “He thought you might react that way.”
“What way?”
“Violently. That’s why he sent us as messengers.”
“Yeah? Three of you at once, huh? What’re you going to do? Hold me down and tickle me to death?”
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
He swayed in place, snapping fingers to a beat.
There, in the middle of a splash zone of pig corpses, the men began to dance and sing.