by Josh Vogt
Dani stared at some distant point. “Latent talent?” she echoed, monotone.
“Yup. Latent talent. Power. Magic. Spellwork. Energy manipulation. Supernatural manifestation of willpower. Mega-weird stuff that sends the common folk freakin’ and spawns a whole lotta tabloid headlines. Whatever you wanna call it.”
“Magic? That’s impossible. Utter bull****.”
He cupped a hand around an ear. “Wossat? Couldn’t rightly hear you. Some impossible magic must’ve got in my ear.” He sighed. “For a student, I figured you’d get past this mental roadblock a little faster. ’Specially figurin’ you was the one who just torched and flooded a library.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Am I in trouble? Is that it? You guys are cops?”
“Not quite.” Ben sat on the edge of the cot, and she pulled back further. “Look, Dani—can I call you Dani?”
“No.”
“Thanks. So, Dani, you’re what we call a Catalyst. You trigger natural disasters on a minor scale. It’s one of the most dangerous and rare junctions of power around these days. Plenty of folks, ’specially Scum, are gonna want to use that. You’re lucky we got to you first.”
She eyed him as if he spoke in a foreign language. Then she shook her hair out and sat up straighter. “I want to call my parents.”
“No, you don’t.”
She scowled. “Shut up. If this is some sort of prison, I deserve a phone call.”
“It ain’t a prison,” he said. “It’s your new home base. At least until you get a handle on that nasty power of yours.”
“Give me my phone call!”
Ben looked to Francis, who shrugged and drew a cell phone—white of course—from a jacket pocket. He tossed it to Ben, but Dani snatched it in mid-air. She’d tucked both hands inside their sleeves so she could hold the phone without touching it. As she stabbed at the numbers, Ben walked outside to wait.
“A’ight. But I warned you.”
O O O
Dani barely noticed as the janitor—or whoever he really was—left the cell and a glass panel slid into place behind him. As the line rang, she tried to force her thoughts into a logical order so she could make a coherent plea for help, but nothing made sense. Janitors? Magic? Pipe monsters terrorizing her college? Had someone drugged her coffee?
The connection clicked, and her mother’s voice bubbled out of the speaker.
“Hello?”
“Mom? It’s—”
“Danielle! I just got your message. So exciting. So wonderful. Of course, I understand you’ll have to miss the family reunion, but such is the price of pursuing your dreams.”
Dani’s mental equilibrium tilted near to capsizing. “Message? Mom, what the **** are you talking about?”
“Oh, don’t tease, silly girl. Now, I’m sad too that we can’t have a going away party, but considering it’s such a rare opportunity, you don’t want them rescinding the offer.”
“Mom, please—stop—just ******* stop and listen.” As with all previous attempts, the curse formed in her head but vanished somewhere between her brainstem and tongue. “Whoever you heard from, it wasn’t me. I’ve been abducted.” She looked over to Ben, who waved and smiled. “They’re talking about magic and … and this guy at the college library died. I mean really died and …”
She swallowed as her mother cooed.
“It is a magical opportunity, isn’t it? I’m sure the other students would kill for the chance to study medicine overseas for a semester. Your message was a bit fuzzy, and I missed exactly where you’ll be. France? Germany?”
“Mom, are you hearing a ******* thing I’m saying?”
“What’s that, dear? I keep getting static on my end.”
Dani ground her teeth. “I’ve been kidnapped. I need help. Police. Lawyers. Something. You’ve got to get me out of here. They can’t do this to me.”
A cluck of disapproval interrupted. “Of course you’re going, young lady. Do not even consider turning this down.”
“Mom, please—”
“No, Danielle. Do not Mom please me. You’re a big girl and don’t need us holding your hand and braiding your pigtails anymore. We have confidence in you. Don’t forget how much we’ve sacrificed for you all these years.”
Dani pulled away from the phone and stared at it as her mother chattered on. Suspicion and horror clumped in the back of her throat, blocking further attempts to speak for a minute. At last she returned the phone to her ear.
“You have no idea what I’m saying, do you?” she asked. “They’ve done something to you. I could talk about flying to the moon on giant grasshoppers and you’d still hear what they want you to.”
“That’s wonderful, Danielle. I’ll let your father know when he gets back from his business trip. I’m very proud of you, and I know he will be too. Just don’t forget to take pictures and write.”
O O O
Ben winced as Dani flung the phone at the window, where it shattered. She returned to sulking on the cot, clutching the gel bottle like a teddy bear. At least it hadn’t been his phone. It would’ve taken weeks to requisition a new one from Supplies.
He remembered his own employee orientation—the gradual realization that his life would no longer be the same. That his dreams no longer mattered in the larger scheme. Better to hit them with the hard truths right off. Stringing recruits along did them no favors. The capable ones adapted to their new existence, while the rest …
He shook his head. At least she didn’t seem the fainting flower type, despite the germ thing. He worked his jaw where she’d slapped him. Nope. Definitely not delicate.
He reopened the door pane and stepped back inside.
Dani turned just enough for one bright green eye to glare out at him. “What kind of sick joke is this? Are my folks in on it too?”
“Wish I could say they was,” he said. “But they, plus all your classmates and any close friends, don’t even think you’re in the country anymore. It’s kind of an insurance policy on our part.”
“What?”
“Aside from bein’ an insufferable ********—” He swung around at the Ascendant. “Oh, c’mon. You even reported that one?”
Francis waved in a silent Get on with it.
Ben glowered as he turned back to Dani. “Aside from bein’ an insufferable picklehead, Francis,” he pointed back at the man with his middle finger, “heads up our scrub-teams. If he’s done his job, your old dorm room is empty, your accounts frozen, and anyone close to you has received a farewell call from someone soundin’ an awful lot like you. I’m bettin’ your school transcript even shows you’ve been transferred to some swanky institution, though no one really knows which one.” He shrugged at her increasingly disturbed look. “It’s the best way. As soon as HQ identifies a new recruit, the scrubbers wipe out any connection to your previous life so we can train employees without worryin’ about inconveniences like friends and family tracking you down.”
She sat up, taking several deep breaths. “Employees? Recruits? What is this place? Who are you people? Some secret government agency?”
“Gettin’ closer. But replace ‘secret government agency’ with ‘supernatural sanitation department.’”
She stared back blankly. “You’re, what, magical garbage men?”
Ben coughed and tried again. It had been way too long since his last apprentice. “We’re inside Cleaner headquarters. It’s the largest and oldest corporation to remain hidden from the rest of the world, and you are the latest employee to grace these fair halls. Though, technically you’re still an intern.”
“Unpaid, of course,” Francis added.
Ben shot him a look. “Not. Helping.”
Dani’s brow scrunched up. “The Cleaners. Right. So you run a paranormal laundromat?”
“That’s one division of our operations, yup.”
“I was joking!”
“Actually, you was bein’ serious without realizin’ it. Happens a lot ’round here. The Cleaners have been the front
line in a battle that’s been going on ever since the Babylonians invented soap.” He held a hand out as she opened her mouth. “Metaphorically speakin’, a’ight? Purity and Corruption—capital P and C, mind you—are the two major players tryin’ to rule this planet. We’re Purity’s footsoldiers. We get the dubious honor of keepin’ the rest of the blissfully ignorant folks safe from Scum, in whatever form they take, such as the nasty bugger that tried to nibble our faces last night.”
Dani’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. She wore the slack expression of someone who’d been cold-cocked by a psychic two-by-four.
“It’s a lot messier than that,” he said, “but you get the idea. Anythin’ you wanna ask right now?”
She nodded slowly. “Who’s going to feed my lizard?”
Of all the questions he’d expected, this one made it his turn for a slow blink. “Is that one of those … waddaya call … euphorisms?”
She tugged at her frazzled hair. “Euphemism. And, no. I have a lizard. Tetris. He’s a bearded dragon. I keep … kept him in my dorm room. If I’m going to be locked up with you all, I need to make sure he’s okay until I get back.”
Ben looked to Francis, who cocked an eyebrow.
“There’s nothing about a lizard in her profile. My team was very thorough.” The Ascendant scanned his clipboard. “All of her possessions from the dormitory are currently stored in locker bay twenty-seven. Had a lizard been processed, I would’ve been notified.”
“Orange and red guy,” said Dani. Her focus remained distant. “Thorny all over, but loves to cuddle. He only eats grubs and crickets.”
“Send someone to check on it,” Ben said. He snorted at the Ascendant’s glare. “The woman wants someone to feed her lizard. I think we can do that to ease her mind, eh?”
Dani massaged her forehead. “I’m expecting to wake up in a straightjacket any second now. This can’t be real. What proof do I have you’re not just some crazy old man?”
“I prefer crazy ol’ coot. Sounds more fun.” Ben hunched to meet her eyes. “Listen, I know it’s tough to believe at first, but I needja to try, for your own good. But if you wanna keep playin’ say-it-ain’t-so, then there’s somethin’ you gotta see. C’mon.” He moved for the exit.
“Wait.” At his glance, she wiggled her toes. “I need shoes. No way am I going barefoot. Do you have any idea how many parasites and germs get stuck on your feet?”
“Princess, you’re in the Cleaners’ headquarters. You could lick this floor all day long and your tongue would come away cleaner for it.”
She grimaced, but eased one foot over the edge of the cot, like a questing antennae. However, she pulled back at the last second.
“I … can’t. I just can’t.”
A pair of white slippers hit the floor beside Ben. He stared back at Francis. Where in tarnation had these come from? Was he planning on visiting the spa later? When the Ascendant offered no comment, Ben nudged the slippers Dani’s way.
She poured more gel into her hands. She first wiped the shoes down, especially spots he’d touched, and then redid her feet before slipping them inside.
Ben squinted at the half-empty bottle. “Ever think you’re a little overeager to slop that stuff around?”
“No. Why?”
“No particular reason.”
Francis snagged his arm as he left the room.
“Where do you think you’re taking her?” the Ascendant asked.
Ben eyed the man’s hand until it was removed. “She wants real,” he said. “I’m gonna show her real. Then she’s joinin’ me on my rounds. Unless Destin is givin’ me paid leave for the rest of the month, I still gotta job to do. ’Sides, ain’t field experience the best way to learn?”
“Don’t take her training lightly. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you both.”
Ben looked over to where Dani stood on wobbly legs. She shuffled toward the exit as if afraid a trapdoor might open at any moment and drop her into a snake pit.
“I’ll treat her like my own daughter,” he said. “Now go check on that lizard.”
***
Chapter Four
Dani hesitated as the janitor shuffled down the hall, acting as if he didn’t care whether she followed or not. For the first time in her life, she felt cut adrift from anything that could help her decide what to do next. The only firm things she had were the bottle he’d given her and the robe she wore.
She checked behind her, making sure the garment didn’t flap open like a hospital gown. When had they switched her into this outfit, anyway? More importantly, who’d done it? She shuddered, thinking of grubby hands pawing all over her. A bath. That would set her mind at ease—or at least keep full-blown panic at bay.
The other man, Francis, watched her from the other side of the sliding glass barrier. His unwavering gaze creeped her out more than the idea of tagging along with Grampa, so she hurried by in pursuit of the janitor.
After catching up to Ben, she went on autopilot while looking every-which-way for an exit. The bland hall continued for a stretch before widening and branching off into a maze of paths. Ben led her through several turns, a large room with shelving stacked with silver buckets, and another glass barrier which slid aside at his touch.
Foot traffic crowded the corridor beyond. Everyone wore either a janitorial jumpsuit or other dirty work getup. They all carried assorted cleaning and maintenance tools, though with eye-catching variations from the normal household implement—such as the duster with fiber optic feathers, or the ladder with runes chiseled into its stone steps.
One woman yelled at a bucket of water she carried past. “You want me to flush you? Huh? You want a one-way trip to the Sewers? Then the next time I give you an order, the only answer I expect to hear is Yes, ma’am. No more backtalk.”
Ben chuckled and patted the bottle hooked onto his belt. “Some people just can’t handle workin’ with partners.”
“What?” Dani asked.
“Wasn’t talkin’ to you, princess.”
“Who, then? Your spray bottle?”
“Yup.”
Dani searched his droopy face for any sign of a joke; seeing none, she shook her head. “***, you must be lonely.”
He led on without retort. Dani cringed as she followed, trying to not touch anyone. With each bump, she squirted a little gel and rubbed it on the spot and her hands.
A few folks nodded to Ben, while others wrinkled their noses as if he’d forgotten to shower. With his grungy odor, it was no wonder. A pair of white-suited women walked by, and Dani looked over her shoulder at their retreating backs. Did they glow softly?
As if in response to her inspection, the women pivoted on their heels and stared back. Dani flushed, but waved to show she’d meant no harm. They continued staring, unblinking, until she edged as close as she dared to the janitor.
“What’re they doing?” she whispered.
Ben glanced back. “The Ascendants? Oh, just readin’ your mind and diggin’ up all your dirty childhood secrets to add to your company file.”
“What?!” Dani clamped a hand over her head.
Ben sighed and continued walking. “Kiddin’. Geez. They’s just curious who the new employee is. Honest to goodness.”
They turned a corner, putting the glowing women out of sight. With Ben keeping a few feet ahead, Dani tried to organize the few facts she possessed into a plan of action.
Should she make a run for it? If this was all a big setup, some huge practical joke, then if she ran long and hard enough, she’d burst out of whatever extravagant movie set they were on and back into the real world.
But what if it isn’t a prank? The traitorous question slipped in.
Ridiculous, she shot back at herself. No such thing as magic. And even if there was, it wouldn’t be wielded by an organization of janitors. In stories, magic belonged to wizards and mages. Powerful individuals who channeled mystical energy through staves and wands—
Like mops, plungers, and toilet brushes?
Who commanded the elements of nature—
Like the water and lightning gramps here whipped around in the library?
Who fought the forces of evil throughout the land—
Like that sink monster that made you piss yourself?
*******, she swore. I will not lose a debate with my own brain.
How else do you explain it, then, smart girl?
Maybe sewage had backed up gas in the bathrooms and caused her to hallucinate. Maybe she’d slipped and whacked her head, and now lingered in a hospital, hooked up to life-support and all this was some allegorical dream-journey to bring her back to the land of the living.
But what if? After all, something had happened in the library.
Finally, Ben turned down a side hall that dead-ended twenty feet later. There, another janitor swept what looked like ashen footprints into a dustpan. He paused and leaned on his broom—which had gold threads spiraling along the handle—and eyed the pair.
“Cleaning up or adding to the heap?” he asked.
“She’s upright, ain’t she?” asked Ben, pointing an elbow Dani’s way.
The sweeper grunted and rested the tip of his broom against the wall behind him. A yellow glow coiled up the handle and flashed into the plaster. Dani stepped back as the wall faded and revealed a gray-bricked room beyond, lined with square insets. Cold blue light lent everything a steely glint.
She followed Ben inside while the sweeper went back to work. A few steps later, she glanced back and twitched when the wall rematerialized and sealed them in.
“Adding to the heap?” She winced as her voice echoed. “What’s that mean?”
Ben scanned the insets. “Just a saying some like to toss around here. Don’t read too much into it.”
“A saying? Like a password?” Dani asked. “Do you have secret handshakes too?”
“If I said we did, would you go along with this nice and quiet-like?”
“No.”
“Then no. No secret handshakes.”
Dani tried to gauge how far the hallway went, but couldn’t see an end. “Where are we?”
