by Nina Post
“Don had the board do this?”
“Here, I took the vial.” He handed her a glass vial encrusted with blue crystals.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” she asked.
“I sent you about a thousand texts.”
“I was out of cell range. I guess the texts haven’t caught up yet. But maybe this explains the strange memo that my contact at CAH just forwarded me.”
Af nervously paced from his living room into the bedroom, checked on Firiel, and paced around his kitchen. The last time Kelly brought him an injured SP, one with a stab wound, Af only had to give him temporary shelter. That SP could heal himself―but Firiel couldn’t. None of the SPs who ate the poisoned Cluck Snack Dry Mix would be able to heal themselves, but Af didn’t know what he could or should do to help them.
In order to calm himself, he started a product photography shoot. He selected a new leather briefcase he liked but never used, and set up the pre-made backdrops of “Ballroom in a Conference Hotel” and “Mansion by the Sea.”
After carefully positioning the briefcase in front of the ballroom, he heard Firiel call out and ran into the bedroom.
“What? What is it?” Did he need to take the SP to a hospital? Which loophole could he use to leave the building? No, a hospital couldn’t do anything for him. Near-panic, he watched as the pale and sweaty angel grasped for his drawing pad. Af put it in front of him.
Firiel drew a building and then a swooping line that wound to and around it.
Af studied the drawing closely, then Firiel reached for the pad again. He drew a horse and a cat, a pigeon with its head exploding, an ocean wave, and a model plane, then collapsed back on the pillow and fell asleep.
Af sighed and stared at the drawings for several minutes. He had no idea what they were supposed to mean or if he was supposed to take action.
“If Kelly were here, she would know how to interpret these,” he murmured.
A knock came from the door, so light he almost didn’t hear it.
He looked out through the peephole. New neighbor? Af unlocked the front door and opened it slowly to a tall, thin, pale, and composed man with bright red hair holding a gift box. Not an angel. But not quite a man, either.
Also, a train took up the entire hallway. A fancy train, with plush seats and ornate details.
“I could have sworn there used to be a hallway there,” Af said.
The red-haired man smiled and handed a bewildered Af the gift box, tied with a green ribbon.
“Is this for Firiel?”
The red-haired man kept the smile and bowed, arm at his waist. He backed up a few steps, turned, and walked farther into the train, which disappeared with a streak of light and a whoosh, changing the air pressure.
Af yawned to make his ears pop. He set the gift basket on the kitchen counter and unwrapped the cellophane. A small card read, in old-fashioned cursive handwriting, Get Well Soon. The Persona.
“The Persona? What―” Af tightened his forehead and took the items out of the basket. A bright blue mushroom. Another vaguely different mushroom. Another startlingly different mushroom. A white mushroom. Moss. And a pineapple.
“Of course. A pineapple.”
Kelly didn’t know how she made it all the way downstairs and into the storage room in the underground level where Archie set up his lab. She had no memory of it.
Dave, the angel in charge of the protection of water insects, watched a rerun of What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi on a flat screen he’d taken from a locker, thanks presumably to door-opening Mefathiel. The other SPs played some kind of shuffleboard game.
“Hey.” Dave turned his head to the side to greet her.
She waved and looked around for Archie, whom she found tucked into the corner, working behind the lab table. She went to him, keeping her hand on the wall to stay upright, and handed him the vial.
“I need an antidote for whatever the hell this is. And more of your mystery flu drink. Maybe a better version.”
“You look as though you were just dredged out of the ocean,” Archie said, alarmed.
“Thanks, you too. The antidote―can you do it?”
“I’m going to make you more of my flu drink while you explain this antidote.” He got out a few beakers of colored liquid and started mixing and boiling.
“It’s for Firiel. The Angel of the Apocalypse―”
“The King of the Demonic Locusts? He’s involved?” Archie looked angry.
“You know him?” She could barely stand and talk, let alone try and connect Archie and Don. They could be married, as far as she knew at the moment.
“I certainly know of him, yes.” Archie continued mixing different-colored liquids and powders in a beaker. “He poisoned Firiel?”
“He―” She had a moment of pure panic, thinking about the SPs. The ones in this room were probably safe, but maybe not, and the ones out on jobs…
“The fallen angels on the board poisoned batches of your Dry Mix at the factory using the liquid in this vial,” she said. “I think Firiel ate something made from the first poisoned batches.”
“Oh dear. That’s terrible. Simply terrible.” Archie looked at the vial under a light. “I’ll test the composition. First I’m going to give you this drink, because you look like sludge scraped off a city tunnel.”
She only had the strength to sigh. He made a tink tink sound with a glass rod and poured the drink into a glass. She drank it in three gulps.
“Don’t you want to know what’s in it?” Archie asked.
“I don’t care if it has tarantula hairs, worm vomit, and Gil’s gear jam, as long as it gets me through this.”
“Oh, it doesn’t contain any of those things.”
“Can I have more?”
Archie frowned. “You don’t want any more than that, believe me.”
“Fine.” She tossed up her hands. “Just make the antidote as fast as possible, please.”
He gave her a sly look. “You can help me, you know. That is, if you want it even faster.”
“Does Amenity Tower have amenities?”
re you going to clean this up?” Stheno asked her boyfriend. He had worked a long day pretending to be Archie Driscoll, president and head nutritionist/flavorist of Clucking Along Holdings, and United Donuts looked like the aftermath of a Godzilla rampage.
He sat at a table, legs sprawled in front of him, hand cupped under his head. “No, I have to get up early.”
“So do I. I make donuts, remember?” Stheno said.
“Technically, I suppose you do.”
“What do you mean, technically?”
“I mean, they’re not great.”
“What’s wrong with them?” She spoke slowly with barbed words.
“They’re not as light and flavorful as your sister’s donuts, that’s all.” He rubbed his eyes.
She blinked and her body quavered with a shimmer, so angry she wondered if she had phased out of time-space.
He quickly backtracked. “They’re even better. When I said ‘not great,’ I meant that they were fantastic. Better than great. And I hate donuts that are too light and flavorful. They’re insubstantial and disappointing, really, because you just want another one immediately.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“But it would be far better to have a United Donuts donut after that, because they’re dense and bland.”
She glared.
“Uh, bland in that perfect vanilla-ice-cream way. You don’t need anything show-offy, flavor-wise. You just need a good, basic, heavy donut, and that’s what you have here.”
Stheno stormed into the kitchen and her boyfriend exhaled in relief. But she turned right back around. “How long are you going to keep up this charade?”
“As long as it takes,” he said.
“To do what?” Stheno asked.
He sounded impatient. “Take over Clucking Along Holdings, buy up all the land in Pothole City, stop production of Cluck Snacks so those angel thing
s die off, and finally, open the portal at Pothole City Donuts.”
Stheno looked at him for a second. “Wait, what?”
“What?”
“That last part.” Stheno held up her hand in a stop gesture. “Open the portal at Pothole City Donuts? What portal?”
“The Super-Fryer. Your sister’s high-end fryer just so happens to be a tool for starting the next apocalypse.” He crossed his arms and smiled, pleased with himself. “And yours truly will rule the Pothole City crime syndicate, which is well-positioned to capture a significant portion of the organized crime market.”
Stheno rolled her eyes. “How is my sister’s fryer a tool?”
“It’s going to let in the underworld.” Her boyfriend snorted out a laugh. “Duh.”
“Demons.” Stheno examined her claws.
“Yep.” He grinned.
“So you’ve been using me.” Her voice was sleety.
“Only to get into Clucking Along Holdings and take Archie Driscoll’s position. I mean, when is the president also the head nutritionist? It’s appalling how they run things over there.”
“And?” She drummed her fingers against her wide belt.
“And what?”
“And you’re also using me to gain access to Medusa’s Super-Fryer.” Why did she ever think dating this guy was a good idea?
He looked at her blankly as though he hadn’t expected that to be a problem. “But you like doing things for me,” he said in a wheedling tone. “It makes you feel validated.”
She didn’t respond.
“C’mon, babe.” He went for her hand and she recoiled. “Let’s go to Pothole City Donuts and open the Super-Fryer portal. It would make your sister so mad.” His eyes brightened.
A smile played on the corners of her red lips as she capitulated, and her snakes writhed and hissed. “It would, wouldn’t it?”
He hopped out of the chair and pressed up against her. “She would finally have to concede that you have the better donuts.” He put his mouth right by her ear and lowered his voice to throaty. “You’ll have the only donut shop in the city, and she’ll have to work for you.”
Stheno closed her eyes and smiled. He breathed right onto the snakes by her ear. He knew that got her every time. “United Donuts will be the only donut shop left standing. You’ll have more business than you can handle, and Medusa will have to move into a basement apartment, maybe even a sewer tunnel, and beg you for financial assistance.”
She did like that idea. Her sister begging her for help.
“She’ll spend her days knitting sweaters for her pet rats using the cheapest yarn.”
“More…”
“She’ll wash out plastic food bags until they fall apart.”
“She does that now.”
“She’ll use jelly jars as drinking glasses.”
“She does that now, too.” Stheno’s posture sagged and she shook her head. She would never get one over on her sister.
“She’ll be completely dependent on you to buy her food or have anything pretty,” he said.
“Mmm, yes…” Stheno grinned. Her snakes opened their jaws and shrieked. “Let’s go open that portal.”
Stheno and her boyfriend held up the manual to the Mark 90 Super-Fryer.
“I know it’s here somewhere.” He leaned over and looked at the control panel with the flashlight. He unfolded his own personal manual and cross-checked it.
“I thought you already knew how to open the portal.” Stheno tapped the toe of her high-heeled shoe.
He put up a hand. “I do, it’s just… this is complicated equipment.”
‘It’s a fryer!”
He whipped his head to the side and snapped, “It may as well be a rocket ship!”
Stheno paced around the dark and scrupulously clean and organized Pothole City Donuts kitchen.
“Found it,” he said.
Stheno came up to stand next to him and pointed at the machine. “That’s it? That unmarked button? How do you know it’s not something else?”
He showed her his personal Super-Fryer manual. “Look. This button”―he tapped the paper and pointed at the button on the fryer control panel―“is clearly marked Apocalyptic Portal. But we should wait and see if anything comes out of it.”
Stheno rolled her eyes. “Just hurry up. Medusa will be here in twenty minutes to open.”
“Really?” His face brightened. “Maybe we can come back after… uh, never mind.” He glanced at her face and cleared his throat. “You look pretty.”
Stheno stormed off.
He made a quick call to his business partner. “It’s done. Should be anytime now. Yes, it’s all coming together. In fact, the first demon is emerging as we speak! Golf on Wednesday? Sounds good.”
Later in the day, Medusa thought pequito, her Super-Fryer, was acting a little off.
She called the support number and scheduled a technician to come look at it. The fryer worked, but she didn’t want to risk any problems.
She placed the finished donuts on their trays in the donut box and served a dozen assorted to her first customer of the morning. The line extended out the door, already too long to see the end of it. The technician couldn’t come soon enough.
Kelly stalked the dimly lit corridors of the Amenity Tower storage room. The door beeped, indicating someone had used their security fob, and Gil rolled in, his screen showing a tornado ripping across a field.
“This is the last thing I need,” she said under her breath.
“Ms. Driscoll.” Gil stopped in front of her, between two rows of wire mesh storage cubbies. “I have looked for you everywhere. I need you at the management office!”
“For what?” Her flu-fog had cleared somewhat. Archie’s drink had stuffed the wolverine back into his bubble wrap cage, and though she still had chills, muscle aches, and a raw throat, she felt almost functional as a human. As soon as Archie finished the antidote for the SPs, she would distribute it to the ones in the storage room and then at Af’s apartment.
“For your job!” Gil said.
Her eyes flared and she leaned into Gil’s space. “I am in that office for the time that Claw & Crutty and I agreed on and no more. You’re the official manager. I shouldn’t even be there at all now. The only reason I stayed this long was because you couldn’t handle things. And in everyone’s opinion, you still can’t.”
Archie made a frustrated sound from the lab area and cursed when a beaker full of liquid clouded.
Gil rolled back and forth with an anxious clicking sound. “A monster is smoking in the stairwell. I cannot figure out which floor and I need to send out a letter to the residents of the ten floors that encompass the problem, but I am not good at writing letters and all communications must be approved in advance by the board president.” Gil’s fan made a wheezing noise, as though on the verge of breaking.
“Also, an elevator has been out of service for two days and the annual fire alarm test is today.” His voice seemed to slow and his screen showed white static with flashes of the tornado he showed earlier.
She kind of felt sorry for him. He was in over his… screen.
“I’ll write it,” she said.
His screen switched to a Golden Retriever running through a sunlit field of daisies. “Really?”
“You can type it, print the flyers, and have Dragomir distribute them.”
“That would be a kindness of you,” Gil said. His fan slowed.
“Sure. It must be hard coming to life as an AI and suddenly have to manage a luxury condominium.”
Gil’s screen turned to a classroom with the words test today written on the chalkboard. “What about the board president? He would hate for management to do anything without his approval.”
“Let me handle Forcas. Give me the details of the smoking problem.” She jotted down what he said, got a piece of paper, and wrote the letter to the residents. When she finished, she inserted the sheet of paper in Gil’s slot and felt dirty.
Archie
barked out a gleeful laugh from the corner lab. “I did it! I’m almost certain this will work.”
He jogged over to Kelly and gave her a bottle of pills. “Those are Cluck Snack Chewable Vitamins: Antidote Edition. Not for Dogs and Ferrets, mind you. Give one to every SP. They should start feeling better within an hour or two.”
Kelly grabbed the bottle. “Thanks, Archie.”
She fed the vitamin to the SPs in the storage room and headed for the door, pausing to look at Gil. He made a series of small, irregular beeps, and she didn’t have time to look at his manual. If he had one.
Kelly waited for a high-rise elevator on the first floor, the bottle of vitamins in her hand. Medusa skidded around the corner on the polished limestone in her orange sneakers and grabbed Kelly’s arm.
“Please, help me―demons are coming through my Super-Fryer!” The Gorgon’s snakes wavered and her emerald eyes widened with fear.
Kelly presumed she didn’t want demon-flavored doughnuts, for one thing.
Dragomir stalked through the door of the management office to the elevator vestibule, metal toolbox in hand as though on his way to vanquish the demons already, though he was probably going to fix a dishwasher.
Two SPs followed, each in a work shirt with their name embroidered over the pocket: Morris, the angel in charge of HVAC, pipe, and duct jobs; and Owen, the angel in charge of small appliances. Owen’s small arms wrapped around a hot-air popper, a bag of Cluck Snack Cheezy Flats (“Not for Chinchillas”) from the automat, and a plush turtle.
Kelly blocked the building engineer in his path. “Dragomir, would you take this bottle of vitamins up to Af’s apartment? It’s urgent.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You look mostly dead.”
“Thanks, so do you. Would you―”
“No time!” Dragomir said. “Short on staff: Jonah, in charge of large appliances, and Fef, in charge of elevators. Many dishwashers to fix, many clogged lines, and high-rise elevator out of order all day. Normally Fef fixes, but now I wait for elevator company. And waiting for elevator company makes me want to crush Gil into tiny model car.”