Chapter Three
Dani gawked as the performers moved in choreography, stepping carefully across the slick floor. The leader winked at her. In surprisingly honeyed tones, he launched into song while the other two hummed an a cappella soundtrack.
You promised me a chance to change.
I’ve fought hard to make you proud.
Let’s unite as we arranged.
I promise to be true.
Meet me for just one evening.
I’ll show my world to you.
As he crooned the last word, they bowed in unison, each with an outstretched hand.
Dani lowered her mop. Sydney had sent a singing telegram to ask her out? Well, okay. Kind of sweet of him, though with plenty of self-preservation undertones. Definitely Sydney’s style. And she had promised him a date a while back, in order to secure his help in saving the life of a newborn demigod. She owed him. But she’d ignored several of his ongoing attempts to contact her, including notes left in her van and even a perfumed letter somehow delivered to her quarters in HQ. This new approach certainly caught her attention, but she remained leery of spending any time alone with the Cleaner-turned-Scum.
“That’s nice,” she said, “but I’m really busy these days. He’ll understand. You guys will still get paid, right? I mean, it was a nice performance and—”
The lead singer struck a saucy pose and clapped once.
“All right, guys,” he said. “Same song, second verse. A little bit hotter, a little more perverse.”
In a swift motion, he tore his shirt off, revealing a sculpted, tanned torso. The other men started bumping and grinding the air, making their hips and shoulders move in impossibly fluid ways. Their self-generated music took on a thumping tempo, making Dani think of techno music.
She backed up as they advanced. “What … what’re you …”
The leader started singing again, but in a huskier voice. He threw in heated glances along with his swiveling hips.
I knew you’d say no. I knew you’d resist.
I wanted to be honorable. I truly tried my best.
But I realized there’s only one way to succeed.
Dani, will you go out with me? They won’t stop until you accede.
The men danced toward her, a more horrifying sight than the dead pigs littering the floor around them. They spread out, still gyrating in disturbing ways as they moved in.
Dani opened her mouth, but only a squeak of dismay escaped.
Not a singing telegram.
Sydney had sent a strip-o-gram.
As they neared, Dani retreated, gorge rising at the thought of them actually rubbing up against her. She choked down a swell of nausea, trying to think up a way to keep the strippers back without hurting them. No good triggering an earthquake or windstorm, or conjuring lightning from the nearby electrical sockets.
She had a brief thought of squirting sani-gel all over them to ward them off. Oh $&%, no! That’d just make things worse.
She settled for thrusting the mop out again, making the nearest stripper jump back to avoid being hit in his chiseled chest.
“Stay back.”
Their leader tried to shuffle closer, but she jabbed the mop at him, flicking water at his face. “Please, lady. We have to do this.”
“Or what?” she asked.
“Or we get punished.” His lusty façade cracked, exposing hints of panic. “Please. Just accept the invitation and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Punished?” She lowered the mop slightly. “Sydney threatened you? With what?” When the men hesitated, she planted the mop by her side. “Look, I know what he can do, but it’s okay. I’ll protect you. You don’t need to do this.”
“You …” The singer hung his head. “You don’t know what that monster is capable of. What he’ll do if we don’t follow his orders.”
She squeezed the mop handle, imagining her fingers around Sydney’s neck. “Let me guess. He turned things to dust and said he’d do the same to you if you didn’t come here and try to grind all up on me.”
“Not all of us,” he said. “Just certain parts of us.”
“Parts?” she echoed.
He grinned sheepishly and did a little bump-and-thrust with his hips. “Ones that’d make it difficult to keep doing this sort of work.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh!” She shuddered, but gathered her composure a moment later. “Listen, I can handle Sydney just fine. You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore. All your … parts … will stay put, I promise.”
The singer’s voice wavered. “Oh, thank god.” Looking ready to cry, he rushed her, arms raised for a hug.
She snapped the mop out, handle in both hands to push him back just in time. “Whoa! Back off, Perky!”
He blinked, tears welling in his eyes. “But you said …”
“Oh, &$%, you’re not actually going to cry, are you?” Dani contained another shudder, thankful she’d invested in the extra-thick cleaning gloves. “What kind of protection means you’ve got to rub your epidermis all over mine? Don’t you know how many diseases are exchanged by physical contact?”
“Um …”
Dani sighed. “Sydney and I have an … an arrangement. As of now, you all are officially under my protection, so if he tries to anything, he’s going to have to deal with me first.”
A low chuckle caught her ear.
“My, my, Dani. Don’t tell me you’re still in the habit of adopting any strays you come across.”
She turned to see Sydney watching from down a side hall. He leaned against a wall, smirking, arms crossed. He looked both thinner and paler than usual, with his light blond hair now streaked with platinum. His shabby T-shirt read: If You Can Read This, Your Life is Still Meaningless.
He straightened and clapped black-gloved hands. “Oh, do give them a round of applause, m’dear. I think they performed rather admirably, don’t you?”
She glowered at the ex-handyman. “How long have you been there?”
He walked toward her and stopped just on the other side of the chanted cleaning signs she’d set up. “Long enough to enjoy the spectacle. I wondered how you might react to their little routine.”
Dani snarled softly. “How did you think I’d react? Take them all on in a hallway orgy?”
The strippers stepped back as one, looking more afraid of this suggestion than they had of her threatening to impale them with her mop.
Sydney shrugged. “Who knows what dark desires lurk in the hearts of others? Could be that you would’ve found the combination of formaldehyde and male musk to be quite the aphrodisiac. But it’s lovely to see you’re saving yourself for me.” As she tried to splutter an outraged response, he waved at the men. “Gentlemen, if you could give the lady and me a bit of privacy, I will consider our bargain concluded. Your companion is waiting for you.”
After the strippers raced each other out the nearest doors, Dani shot Sydney a look. “Companion?” she asked.
He nodded. “You did notice they numbered three, yet called themselves a quartet?”
“I wondered.”
“Well, some people need persuading to do a job well. I simply kept one of them indisposed so the others would be motivated to do their best to woo you my way.”
“Woo me? Yeah, I’m feeling totally wooed. It’s every woman’s dream to be asked out with the help of hostages, dead pigs, and strippers.” She glared. “What did you do to their fourth member? You better not have aged him or anything.”
He fluttered his hands. “Nonsense. After they retrieved the porcine specimens, I simply left one of them in the laboratory freezers and dissolved the lock. It’ll take them a bit of time to reopen the door, but he should be perfectly fine, if a little frosty.”
She pressed fingertips to the bridge of her nose. “Sydney, this is all a bit vile, even for you. How could you scare those poor men like that?”
“Quite easily,” he said. “You simply have to know what a person values most and threaten to take it away.” He nodded at the warded signs she’d set up in the hall. “Would you mind removing those?”
“I would, actually.” She went to stand just across from him. “Why? They make you uncomfortable?”
“I’ll admit they do raise my hackles a bit.”
“You have hackles now?”
“Droll as ever. But I’d rather not forcibly remove them. The clash of energies might gain us unwanted attention, and I’m not in the mood to flex my metaphorical muscles at the moment when I could, instead, be spending time with a gorgeous and scintillating specimen of the female sex.”
“She sounds like such a lucky lady.”
“The rarest of sorts.” He flourished theatrically. “One worthy of my time and attention.”
Dani snorted. “Golly, gee. Now you’ve got me all a-flutter. How can I refuse?”
“I’d rather you not do anything of the sort.” He inched closer to the warded boundary. The air crackled, and Dani’s ears popped. “Truly, Dani, I am here simply in the hopes that you’ll honor our agreement. A single date. A chance to get to know each other better. Presenting myself like this, putting myself at risk to appear here is … well …” He looked aside. “A bit grating on the ego, I must admit. I’ll not grovel, but merely appeal to your sense of decency, courtesy, and unspoken desire for myself.”
Dani studied him for a minute, filtering through his little speech. Shifting aside his penchant for the dramatic and the overestimation of just how much she wanted to bake him pies and have his babies, she sensed a subtext to his act. He’d stopped just shy of admitting being nervous; that he, in fact, feared being rejected by her. More, he was also worried that poking his head out of whatever hole he’d crawled into put him in danger of being targeted by the Cleaners once more.
Sydney admitting to being antsy? The only other time he’d done so was when they’d taken an emergency shortcut into a realm known as the Gutters to avoid being mashed into a homogenous paste. With the Gutters existing outside of normal reality, certain laws of physics—like the second law of thermodynamics—didn’t apply, robbing him of his entropic powers and leaving him practically helpless.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been duking it out with his older brother, Destin, the former Chairman of the Cleaners—before the revelation of Destin’s nasty affair with a member of the Corrupt Pantheon, resulting in the birth of a godling with both Pure and Corrupt powers. Once the Cleaners had trapped the kid, Sydney had wanted to put him down like a rabid dog, citing the boy’s unnatural manifestation and the likelihood of him putting the whole world at risk.
Only Dani’s offer of a date had convinced him to spare the boy. Sydney had then fled in the ensuing chaos when Destin tried to slaughter his own offspring. She’d made a devilish deal and always knew she’d have to see it through sooner or later. But she’d always hoped it’d end up being much, much later. Sometime around the heat death of the universe, preferably.
“Why now?” she asked.
His smile returned, a shade relieved, perhaps, that she hadn’t given an outright no. “Why not? You’ve been unresponsive to all my other overtures and it’s been too long since we’ve enjoyed each other’s sparkling company. I thought it’d be lovely for the both of us to enjoy a bit of downtime.”
Dani glanced over to her cart and the backpack hanging heavily off the side. An evening out would mean time lost that she could spend getting through the next Employee Handbook test. She’d also have to explain to her coworkers what she was up to. Francis and Ben knew of the arrangement, and the Chairman would have to approve her taking the evening shift off.
“I’ve been busy,” she said. “The job takes up a lot of my time.”
His expression clouded over. “You remember I warned you of that, yes? The Cleaners will take advantage of your every spare moment, every last ounce of energy until you are drained and left as ashes to be swept under the rug. What’s the worth of work if you don’t take the chance to enjoy life outside the corporate environs from time to time? All work and no play would make Dani very dull indeed.”
“Since when do you enjoy life?” she asked. “What happened to the Sydney who lectured me about how pointless everything is?”
“Perhaps his perspective has shifted.” He held a palm up. “Perhaps he’s still capable of learning and caring for certain aspects of life more than you might have expected of him.”
Or perhaps he’s being a sly little shyster like before. Once an evil mucker, always an evil mucker? Or can murderous Scum really have a change of heart?
Dani wondered at this. While she’d heard plenty of stories about Cleaners falling to Corruption and going Scum-wise, she realized she’d never asked if the reverse ever occurred. Could a servant of decay and destruction turn Pure? Could a handyman-turned-entropy mage regain his healing and constructive talents? If so, would her denying Sydney send him spiraling down even deeper into the murk his mind and soul wallowed in? If she did give him the pleasure of her company and they had a decent evening, could it convince him to come back to the side of the … well … not angels, but the clean and shiny?
“Rules,” she said.
His eyebrows rose. “Rules?”
“Rules. We need some.”
“Ah. Such as leaving room for Jesus between us at all times?”
“Sure, if he wants to chaperone.”
“I suppose boundaries would be wise,” he said. “Wouldn’t do to spoil every surprise on our very first date.”
Nice try implying there’ll be more than one. Dani raised a finger. “Rule number one: No trying to convert me. If I get even a hint of you trying to get me to switch teams, we’re done, then and there.”
He nodded. “Understood, and I’ll submit a rule of my own: Neither of us will wield any of our powers. We’ll remain entirely mundane and simply enjoy a night without supernatural interference.”
“I can live with that. You also don’t get to bring any Scum friends along.”
“Nor do any of your coworkers get to turn this party into a crowd.”
“Fine. Wouldn’t want any of them to see me with you anyway.”
He flashed a grin. “Excellent. Privacy with the lovely lady, at last.”
“And there’s a time limit.”
“Such as Cinderella dashing off before midnight lest she reveal her origins as a bumpkin?” He tapped his nose in thought. “Actually, that’s not the most horrendous idea. What if we set a definitive end at, say, breakfast?”
She glared. “You get three hours of my time. After that, you don’t stop me from leaving.”
He glanced up, thinking. “Very well. I’d hate for you to get bored. Tomorrow night then. Eight o’clock. We’ll meet downtown by the clock tower.”
Dani’s stomach tightened, as did her grip on the mop. She shifted her boots, planting them more firmly to keep from dashing off as the first nervous quivers waved hello. Was she really going through with this? It’d been years since her last real date. Not that she viewed his advances as anything nearing real romance, but the last time she got involved with a guy, it ended in so many showers she’d nearly drowned. Admittedly, this all occurred before she’d discovered her ability to wreck everything around her—but Sydney’s own abilities kind of canceled that out.
“One last condition,” she said.
“Yes?”
She gestured with her mop. “Get rid of the pigs.”
Sydney grimaced. “Surely you jest.”
“Surely I am not getting paid enough to deal with your &%^$. And do you want me wasting hours cleaning this up or do you want me getting ready for our date?” She leaned her mop against the cart and picked up the cleaning signs, dispelling the ward energies she’d invested in them. Stepping aside, she nodded at the pigs. “Well? Are you going to put on your big boy panties or what?”
Sighing, Sydney tugged his gloves off and walked around to each of the carcasses. When he bent over to touch one, a purple aura flared around his hands. Yet when he touched the pig, it merely rippled and sagged like a deflated football. Sydney frowned and his face creased in concentration. The auras darkened and, at last, the pig popped like a fleshy bubble, reduced to dust in moments. He repeated this with all the others until the hall stood empty but for the two of them and several smelly puddles.
“Much better,” Dani said.
Sydney wiped his hands on his jeans, even though his powers could leave his skin entirely sterile, should he wish it. “So glad you approve. I shall now take my leave in anticipation of a heavenly evening, devoid of distractions other than our own simmering desire.” He headed down the hall he’d appeared from, but paused after a few steps to look back. “Oh. I’d remind you that you did promise to wear a dress. I’d prefer a gown rather than, say, a frilly French maid skirt, but I’ll leave that up to you.”
He blew her a kiss and strode off.
Once he’d gone around a corner, Dani clutched the front of her jumpsuit in horrified realization.
Oh, &$#@. That means I have to take off my uniform …