Enter the Janitor (The Cleaners) (Volume 1) (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Ben almost popped his left shoulder out of joint as he struggled.

Gonna string that boy up like a gutted buzzard. Gonna flip his flapper until he squeals like a side o’ bacon.

The slab refused to rock, no matter how he threw his weight around.

Gonna shove his head into a bucket and make him blow bubbles. Gonna replace his spine with a slinky and kick him downstairs!

The leather straps remained tight, and he only succeeded in exhausting himself and inventing half a dozen more insults by the time the door re-opened.

Two urmoch strode in, hunched beneath their filthy robes. They moved to either side of him, speaking in guttural bursts. Claws ticked over his ribs and dug in under his chin.

Ben bit down on the strap. Had Sydney promised them a meal? The entropy mage’s control over the reptilian creatures baffled him.

One leaned over him, eyes glowing like dull gold coins in the depths of its hood. Its mouth opened, revealing bloodstained fangs. A glob of saliva plopped onto his face and slid down his cheek like a foul tear. A rough tongue licked it off. Fleshy barbs snagged his skin.

“That’s enough,” came Sydney’s voice from the hallway.

The urmoch retreated to the walls with sullen hisses, claws folded within their sleeves. Sydney strode in with less flair than usual, a more set look in his eyes. A touch disintegrated the strap gagging Ben and left fine dust coating his tongue.

“What’dja do with Dani?” he demanded.

“Such concern,” Sydney said. “I’d almost think you were smitten with her.” He put a hand to his throat. “Though the idea disgusts me. To think of your wrinkled, odorous self with such a pristine creature as her …” A shudder. “Fortunate that I came along before you could corrupt her body as much as you tried to with her mind.”

“Get off your high horse. What’s this really about? Revenge? You gonna try and use me to get back into HQ?”

Sydney chuckled. “I could walk in any time I wish and they know it. I prefer to leave them quivering in fear while I turn my attention to more important matters. Now that the fiery little tart is out of the way, you and I can finish what needs to be achieved.”

“Which is …?”

“Still playing the ignorant?” A sigh. “Even if you truly didn’t know before, I refuse to believe your visit to the garbage man was in vain. You know the opportunity we face here.”

Ben chewed the inside of his cheek. Pretending to not know wouldn’t get him freed from these bonds any more than trying to struggle out of them. His biggest chance would be to go along with Sydney as far as he could—as if he had a choice.

“The new member of the Pantheon,” he said.

Sydney punched the air. “Precisely! Like you, I became aware of this being’s existence and determined its dual nature. The implications are astounding. We are going to summon it, and then we’ll—”

“Get ourselves killed tryin’ to control it?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.”

Ben cocked an eyebrow at the mage, dressed in his tuxedo t-shirt and cape.

Sydney shrugged. “Assuming this new being shares the personified characteristics of the other Pantheon members, it will have intelligence. It can be communicated with. I intend to negotiate. I will provide guidance for a wandering soul that has yet to choose its place and purpose in the world.”

“Guidance counselor to the gods,” Ben said. “Not really the career I woulda picked for you.”

“Hush, now.” Sydney gestured, and the urmoch once more positioned themselves beside Ben. A few touches crumbled the rest of Ben’s bonds into nothing. Clawed hands tugged him upright, and he shook his head to fight off a wave of dizziness.

His muscles ached and twitched as he worked feeling back into his limbs. Bloody buckets, he hated being so old. He tried to avoid looking at his exposed right arm, with its black veins and decrepit flesh.

“Come along quietly.” Sydney headed for the door without looking back. “They have orders to slash every tendon in your body if you disobey.”

Ben glanced at his reptilian escorts. Even with his magically reinforced uniform, they’d likely filet him before he could sneeze. So he sloped along after the mage, though still alert for any opportunity. Without his mop or Carl, he could do little to cause a distraction, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t be ready to go after Dani, assuming he could find his way through this warren of tunnels.

And a true maze it proved to be, with featureless walls and random turns that confused his sense of direction within minutes. By the time Sydney stopped at another door, Ben couldn’t guess whether they’d made any progress or just gone in a huge circle.

This new chamber had walls of pure silver, scrubbed to a frosty shine that blurred reflections. No furnishings, no obvious source of light for the soft blue illumination. No markings. Just a big, metal box.

The urmoch pushed Ben to the left and shoved him up against the wall, which pressed cold against his back and arm. Sydney stood in the center of the room, a faint smile on his lips. Finally, he nodded, as if satisfied with the blandness of the place.

“This is neutral ground,” he said. “Cleansed from all traces of either Pantheon.”

Ben’s eyes widened as he realized what this meant. “You handed Dani over to the Cleansers? Don’tcha know what they’re gonna do to her?”

“Of course. Do you think I brought you here by accident? Now she’ll never have to worry about tedious things like controlling her power ever again. She’ll know true freedom.”

“She could burn the city to the ground!”

“And wouldn’t that be such a beautiful thing?”

Ben rubbed his forehead, trying to burrow through the skull and massage the ache in his brain. “I keep forgettin’ how barmy you are.”

Sydney produced a can of red spray paint and sprayed a six-foot-diameter circle on the floor. He filled this with jagged lines, as if someone had thrown a pentacle to the floor and shattered it. In the spaces between the lines, he drew signs of containment and shielding, and then ground his heel over several glyphs, smudging them just so.

He tossed the paint can over one shoulder, where it struck one of the urmoch in the chest before falling and rolling up against a wall. The entropy mage turned, now holding a gleaming knife. With a wave from their master, the urmoch shoved Ben over.

Ben tilted his chin up. “A’ight, then. Quick and clean, if you got the balls.”

Sydney tsked. “While I’d delight in splashing buckets of your vitae across the floor, that might draw the attention of the Primals themselves, and I’d rather not be around when they come to feed. No. A few drops and dribbles will do. What better blood to summon the new Pantheon member than that which mingles Purity and Corruption, hmm?”

After a stinging cut on the meat of each thumb, Sydney yanked Ben’s hands over the edge of the circle and let several drops splatter the floor. Those from his left were bright red, while the issue from his right held a dark purple tint.

Once released, with fists squeezed to clot the cuts as quickly as possible, Ben found himself pulled back against the wall by Sydney’s reptilian comrades.

Sydney raised his arms, the stained knife poised like a morbid orchestra conductor. “To the one born into the center of all things,” he called out. “We invite you into our midst. Bless us with your presence and accept the offering of life I provide.”

“And don’t kill us, eh?” Ben muttered.

A gust blew into the room from another realm. It brought scents of rotting vegetation, and hot oil. Images flashed through Ben’s mind—an infinite golden desert with a sun-bleached skeleton at its center, its tusked and horned skull larger than a cruise ship. A black river pouring over the edge of a cliff and plunging into a green void. A vulture descending, claws and beak aiming for the eyes.

He squinted against the rising wind and banished these glimpses. While Sydney’s talent lay in commanding the force of entropy, one didn’t need any special power to summon a member of the Pantheon. The trick lay in getting their attention, and offering something worth the time and effort it took them to show up. And the more Pure or Corrupt the offering, the likelier it’d be accepted.

Anticipation knotted in his chest, hard and thorny. The few times he’d interacted with the Pantheon before proved harsh and unwelcome. Nothing he wanted to experience again. Now Sydney wanted to conjure this rogue demigod and treat it like a babe to be coddled and manipulated. Even if he succeeded in drawing its presence, there was no telling how it would react.

Sydney stood stiff, his entire focus on sustaining the summoning. The urmoch remained unmoved on either side of Ben, though a white film had slipped into place over their eyes to protect them from the gritty wind. Ben braced himself for a sudden, violent entrance of the being. It might provide the distraction he needed.

The room shuddered and the air in the middle of the circle warped and bulged, as if something enormous sought to shove into their dimension. Then, with a swirl of black wind, a bag lady appeared within the ring.

Ben blinked in surprised recognition.

She wore mismatched high heels, one leopard-spotted, the other red leather—both with heels snapped off—a ragged pair of camouflage canvas pants with one leg shredded to reveal a knobby, scarred knee, and a muddy jeans jacket five sizes too big, with a garbage bag pulled over like a rain poncho. A cascade of Mardi Gras beads hung about her neck, and strands of oily black hair drooped out from underneath a floppy gardening hat. One mold-green eye had mascara smeared around it, and sloppy lipstick made her mouth look twice as thick as it really was.

“Hail to thee, Filth, daughter of Contaminate, consort of Disease,” Sydney said, backing up and bowing. “You honor us.”

Filth spoke with a fake Southern Belle accent belied by a screeching undertone.

“Who has the audacity—!” Her shout cut off into a hacking wheeze as she focused on the men. Once she recovered, she spat at their feet. “Oh. You two. I might have known. Whattya want?”

Sydney and Ben exchanged looks, mutually indignant that the other had such a well-known reputation with the Pantheon.

Filth held out a dirt-encrusted hand, which had a piece of barbed wire twisted around the ring finger. Sydney shuffled forward and pressed his lips to this, careful to not step over the ceremonial border. Blood stained his mouth when he straightened, but he smiled, widening the cuts.

“Beautiful Filth, matron of depravity, it was not my intent to impose myself upon you. This humble servant merely sought to speak with the fledgling member of the Pantheon. We mortals have felt its presence, of which you are no doubt aware. I seek your blessing in rooting out its hiding place before the Cleaners and their ilk discover it first.”

Filth stared at Sydney as she scratched herself under a sagging breast. Then she snorted. “Bugger off. It’s none of your business.”

Sydney flinched and the slightest stammer invaded his voice.

“Mistress, if I’ve offended …” A cough. “Perhaps I didn’t present my intentions clearly enough. Surely you’re aware of the consequences if this unique being is not persuaded to join you as soon as possible.”

“What of it? You think we can’t handle a little competition?” Another snort flicked mucus onto her lips, which she licked off. “The situation is under control.”

Despite being sandwiched between the reptilian servants, Ben thoroughly enjoyed seeing Sydney squirm under Filth’s half-mad gaze. Just so long as she didn’t turn it his way.

“I … ah … don’t doubt at your capability,” said the mage. “However, knowing the Pantheon’s … er … hesitancy in acting directly against one of their own number, I thought to offer myself as a willing servant in tracking down the newcomer and convincing it to see things our … your way.”

Filth pulled her lips back into a snarl, showing crooked, yellow teeth. “And so you offer unwilling blood? That which is sullied by Purity’s stink? You think we’re so easily satisfied?”

Sydney stalked over and shoved Ben down, cracking knees against the floor. His head was yanked back and the sticky blade pressed against his throat. He stared up at Sydney’s flared nostrils while the mage spoke through clenched teeth.

“I will give you his still-beating heart if that’s what it takes.”

Ben grunted. “I ain’t gonna get a say in this, am I?”

“And what do you think I’d do with him?” she asked. “Feed him to my kittens? I’d rather see you reach into the hollow of yourself and give me your own black muscle.”

Sydney’s grip on Ben loosened. “That would rather nullify the point of me living to continue serving you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the price I require for the information you seek.”

Sydney’s fist squeezed around the knife hilt and the blade crumbled away. As he stalked around the circle, the urmoch placed their talons on Ben’s shoulders, keeping him kneeling. Ben tried breathing again, one quivering inhalation at a time. He’d been certain the next thing he’d feel was the heat of his own blood spilling down his chest.

Sydney glared at Filth, who watched his pacing with a smug expression. “I do this for the furthering of our Pantheon,” he shouted. “What reason would you have to keep me from success? I see in your eyes that you have the answer I need. With this newcomer devoted wholly to Corruption, you’d finally have the imbalance necessary to overthrow Purity once and for all.”

Filth’s bag lady appearance shredded and flew apart like paper mache, leaving a black hole with the vague shape of a woman. White eyes blinked out from the void. Blue lips puckered and sucked at Ben’s mind while gray worms wriggled along its edges. Words pounded like shots from a psychic nail gun.

“You do not command me, fleshling. Remember who bestowed your power upon you in the first place. Your request is as foolish and ignorant as your pathetic attempts to bludgeon your way into my favor. Do not think to summon me again without consequences.”

Her human illusion drew back together, hiding the vision that had Ben wanting to surgically remove his stomach so it could never contain food again.

Filth sucked on a crumpled cigarette and toyed with a fish hook that pierced her earlobe. “Was there anything else?” she asked sweetly.