I Clean Gods to Pay the Rent

0006 Level-3 Incident Handler

    This Hidden Trait... so, designated fall guy?

    Staring at that big bold word "fired," Cassius — who'd only just crawled up out of "hell" — gave an involuntary shudder. His first instinct was to rip the badge off, but the feedback that came back was "cannot be removed for now," so he gave up helplessly and switched to praying in silence.

    May the Bells protect us — for these two months before the badge hits bronze, please, PLEASE let nothing big go wrong at the Oddity Cleanup Bureau. His whole family was counting on this job to turn their fortunes around — and then there was his little sister Mira's illness...

    Oh, right! Mira!

    Thinking of his sister, still waiting on a hospital bed for treatment, freshly-hired Cassius hurriedly asked for leave, then rushed out of the Oddity Cleanup Bureau, ready to put his brand-new benefits to work and get Mira better care.

    And after he'd hurried off, the Soot Bishop — which had been watching in silence this whole time — clucked its tongue a couple of times, then grinned at the red-haired woman like a man watching his sworn enemy slip on the ice:

    "Heh! You didn't even want him knowing what the Oddity Cleanup Bureau's work actually involves — meaning you've got no intention of ever sending him on missions, right?

    "What's the story? You saw the kid was out of road, your soft heart flared up again, and now you're fixing to lend him a hand?"

    "No."

    Producing yet another bottle from who knows where, the red-haired woman tipped her head back, took a long swig, wiped the amusement off her face, and said, flat:

    "The more 'truth' we humans touch, the deeper the contamination we take on from the dark side — and the more readily our scent draws in new anomalies.

    "Cassius's talent is genuinely excellent, but the Bureau's stretched thin on hands right now; there's no one to spare to keep guarding him around the clock. I blocked off that stretch of his memory for now precisely so the anomalies wouldn't come looking for him.

    "As for the specifics of the work — once we've found an anomalous object that suits him, it'll hardly be too late to tell him then."

    Give me a break — that kid's got jack shit for talent!

    Not buying the red-haired woman's explanation for one second, the Soot Bishop sneered outright:

    "Spare me! Sure, he held out against yours truly's [Whispers of Ruin], but that doesn't mean his willpower is anything special. The kid just happens to have a reasonably level head, and a moral compass a notch sturdier than most — that's all it is.

    "To hear yours truly tell it, a specimen like that — fighting spirit all but sanded flat, obedience worn in like a sheep's — ranks below even the death-row cons we only keep for cannon fodder. Ten to one he doesn't survive his first mission."

    "He'll survive them."

    Making no mention of the "anomaly" Cassius carried, the red-haired woman took another deep pull of ale and went on, calm as ever:

    "I can walk him through his first few missions myself. Besides, Agnes's job is nearly done — she should be back tonight, give or take.

    "After that, if I've got the time, I'll keep taking him along; if I'm busy, Agnes can fill in for me — until he can hold his own."

    Well, well — this much looking-after? What exactly do you see in this kid?

    "Don't you go doing anything crazy!"

    The Soot Bishop's brow furrowed, displeasure written all over its face:

    "The Bureau's always tallied performance by the number of full members on the books — our House of Buer is currently sitting second from last. Year-end review's two months out, and NOW you pick up a deadweight this size? Worried you won't take dead last?"

    "Stay out of it."

    "Yours truly can't be bothered to care!"

    The Soot Bishop curled its lip:

    "The people you've gotten killed outnumber every soul yours truly has laid eyes on in this life — which is exactly why I've always rather admired you. The one exception is when you start flinging kindness around like it's free.

    "You are the maddest executioner in the entire Oddity Cleanup Bureau — would it kill you to just stick to your own trade? Why play the bleeding-heart saint? Do you have any idea how disgusting you look when you're being kind?"

    "Oh."

    ...

    "Tch... you don't seriously think one helping hand is going to rescue that kid's whole life, do you?"

    Watching the red-haired woman drink with a stone face, clearly too lazy to give it the time of day, the Soot Bishop visibly darkened and couldn't resist a jab:

    "Humans, yours truly knows inside and out. So long as a man keeps struggling down in the dark, he can prop himself up on numbness and call it living. But now you've hauled him up onto the bank and let him see what the world looks like in the sun — and that's a door that doesn't close again.

    "So when the year-end review goes down in flames, the reckoning lands, and he's cleared out along with the rest — feeling that drop from heaven straight back to hell firsthand — the kid could well go clean out of his mind. He might even end up like what's-their-name back then, hating you for ever having pulled him up...

    "Come to think of it — what was it what's-their-name said, back then?"

    Strutting into the dim office and sinking into a sofa piled with thick, soft cushions, the Soot Bishop crossed one leg over the other and — right in front of the wordless red-haired woman — raised a forehoof and launched into its impression, face brimming with theater:

    "I hate you! Hesper Marlowe! I hate you so much!

    "I could have gone on enduring the dark! Why did you have to drag me out into the sun — and show me how a person was meant to live?"

    *Skreek!*

    The Soot Bishop's words had scarcely faded when an ear-grating scrape, a blade drawn across bone, rang through the room.

    As if countless thin, razor-edged blades had just carved it hundreds of times over in a single breath, the Soot Bishop — forehoof still raised — flew apart then and there, assorted parts clattering down across every inch of the floor.

    And yet, strangely, though the Soot Bishop had been reduced to nine holy-relic fragments, not one whiff of blood rose in that office. The woman behind the desk kept her original posture, as if nothing whatsoever had happened, gulping down great mouthfuls of ale.

    Only, that vivid head of red hair had abruptly lost a good deal of its luster — and the slightly curled ends, under-tended as they were, had quietly wicked up a strange, deep crimson.

    "I've warned you any number of times: don't call me by my name."

    Tossing aside the bottle she'd somehow already drained dry, the red-haired woman crooked a finger toward the sofa — and a goat's head with its mouth sewn shut in red thread came drifting over to settle, neat and upright, on her desk.

    Meeting the eye of the Soot Bishop now sitting on her desk — a gaze packed with shock and fury — the red-haired woman named Hesper Marlowe shook her head:

    "It was for that decent showing of yours last time that I let you roam the Bureau at will. But as it stands, I think this look suits you better.

    "Also — sometime soon I intend to make time for a trip to Wales, to have a proper dig into what actually happened back then, and why it is you're so afraid of men born there.

    "Until I'm back, you can stay just like that! And once I've worked out what it is you're so afraid of, I'll let you savor — at length — the price of that sewer mouth of yours!"

    "Mmph? Mmm! MMM!!!"

    ...

    Knowing nothing of what had gone on after he left, Cassius hurried back to the hospital, hurriedly rapped on the respiratory ward's office door, and — catching the chief just as he finished packing up for the day — handed over credentials so new they hadn't even warmed in his pocket.

    The House of Buer? Did the Police Department even have a branch like that under it? And what kind of title was "Level-3 Handler

    Taking the credentials Cassius handed over, the chubby chief flipped through them, half-doubting — and the moment he made out several of the special markings, the suspicion plastered across his face snapped into sober respect.

    The Kingdom's public-service hierarchy ran five levels deep: from top to bottom, the executive level, the administrative level, the clerical level, the assistant level, and the menial level.

    A respiratory-ward chief at a lower-tier hospital like his barely scraped the upper reaches of the menial level; with twenty-some years of string-pulling come retirement, he might just manage to wriggle into the tail end of the assistant level.

    But this dried-stringbean of a young man in a worn old coat was already an assistant-level public servant — with pay scaled straight to the clerical level! Give a man like that three to five years and he'd climb a rung, wedging himself straight into the ranks of clerical-level officeholders.

    Damn! Wouldn't that put him level with our hospital's own director?!

    Looking at this youngster who couldn't have seen twenty yet, the chubby chief couldn't help the thick envy pooling in his eyes — plus one sliver of jealousy, buried very, very deep.

    Cassius Thorne. That surname — the same one the Duke of Boarheart carried — plus an assistant-level post before he'd even turned twenty, and there was no need to ask about the boy's stock: he had to be out of that illustrious great-noble house, and most likely a direct-line scion of the main house, with the very best resources at his disposal.

    He himself had sweated twenty-some years in this hospital, and his wildest hope was to scrape into an assistant-level post before retirement. This kid, still in his teens, was already perched at the top of the assistant level — planted at the exact end point of a lifelong dream, with half a butt-cheek to spare. Where the hell was the justice in that?

    After one inward curse at that goddamned [Clerical Error Hire], and one mental note stamped ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CROSS, the layered rolls of the chubby chief's face blossomed open like a flower; he rubbed his hands together and beamed at Cassius:

    "Mr. Cassius, what seems to be the problem today?"

    "Not me — my sister."

    Cassius had barely gotten through a sketch of Mira's condition — never mind making any requests — before the big-bellied chief volunteered to move her at once into the very best room, dose her with the very best medicines, and, thumping his own chest, swore that he, the chief himself, would personally follow the case, guaranteeing Miss Mira the highest standard of care in all Smoke City.

    A little bowled over by the chief's excessive warmth, Cassius swallowed his discomfort, managed a few strained pleasantries, then — led by a nurse — went on ahead to the ICU and settled onto its soft sofa to wait for the nurses to wheel Mira over.

    Sitting alone in the quiet, spotless room, gazing at the fresh sickbed with its pristine white sheets, Cassius — bolt upright on the sofa — was visited by a strange, everything's-changed-but-me sort of feeling.

    Less than an hour had gone by since he'd charged out of this very hospital, scalpel in fist — and the dead end that had hounded his whole family to the brink was already solved, clean through.

    Not only was there now a way forward for his sister's illness — his family, which mere hours ago had been scrabbling at the very bottom of Smoke City, could now live a decent life off his salary alone. And the price of all this was only...

    Hm? What was the price, again...? Ssss — hot! HOT!!!

    As Cassius racked his brain over what exactly he'd paid, the skin over his chest suddenly flared with searing pain — the Mother Scarab badge of the House of Buer had flashed red-hot like a branding iron, biting him viciously through three layers of clothes.

    [A runaway Contaminated matching your job description has appeared. The Black-Iron badge [Employee, Money-Back Guarantee] has activated. Your work efficiency has received a small boost]