by Nina Post
“Do they have food poisoning, Jonah and Fef?” Kelly asked, gesturing at Medusa behind her to hold on.
“Yes, they throw up like cats.” Dragomir crossed his arms.
“You need to give each of them one of these, or they’ll die.” She held up the bottle.
“Die? I ate bad sandwich last month. Feel like dying, but here I am, pleasuring world with my presence.” He swept open his arms.
“They’ve been poisoned on purpose.” She gave him the bottle. “Give them one of these, then run up to Af’s unit and give him the bottle. One vitamin per SP, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, got it. Not imbecile!”
She ran out with Medusa, hoping he’d do what she asked.
“Three of the demons already came through,” Medusa said. “They ruined hundreds of donuts already, and my insurance doesn’t cover demons!” Her voice raised to a near-wail as they took the interior path from Amenity Tower to Pothole City Donuts.
“Customers are still lined up?” Kelly asked.
“I’ve managed to keep the demons in the kitchen and still make just enough donuts to keep operating. But the line is slow. Ooh, Stheno would love this.” Her claws curled into fists.
Kelly put her hand on the kitchen door. “I’m going in. Try to keep your customers from noticing anything’s wrong, and that includes how you’re acting. I don’t want a panic.”
After she shut the kitchen door behind her and faced the three demons, she realized the donuts were made from Cluck Snack Dry Mix―but the customers were all monsters or fallen angels, and Don created the poison specifically for SPs.
What if the SPs… no. She wouldn’t even consider it as a possibility. She took the thought and, in her mind, gave it to Lou Ferrigno to crush with his bicep.
The Super-Fryer had a center core of what looked like a claddbydhhu, a Gaelic word that meant, as she vaguely recalled, “enormous black mouth”―a word her mother had taught her in the context of school administration.
She ducked back through the door and Medusa shot her a worried look as she placed donuts into a pink, Pothole City Donuts-branded paper bag.
“What did you see?” Medusa said in a whisper as Kelly quickly texted Roger.
“Three demons chowing down on your donuts, and a portal open in the fryer.”
Medusa clamped her hands over her mouth.
“But once those donuts run out”―Kelly raised her hands in a shrug―“They’re going to want the ones your customers already have. I think the opening is getting bigger, so more demons will come through. I hope we find the angel in charge of donut equipment. Hey, can I have one of those?”
Medusa poised her hand over the trays. “P’nut Butt’r Chunks or Krispy Baked B’nana Bitz?”
“Banana. Maybe two. And would you go find Tubiel for me while I check out the kitchen?”
gainst Kelly’s better judgment, and under the influence of a mystery lab drink, she opened the door an inch and peeked in. Ice crystals formed on the walls and surfaces and demons huddled around the Mark 90 Super-Fryer, seemingly waiting for their old roommates and pen pals to emerge from the portal.
Kelly shut the door on the demons, quietly, took out her phone and sent Roger a text message: plz get ascension form to PCD right now, position as RM is on the line. meet me by kitchen doors.
Nothing would motivate Roger more than high stakes for his position as regional manager. He had worked too hard to ascend.
With the face of the saddest donut proprietor in the world, Medusa put one of the flavor-intense donuts in a bag. “What do I do?” Her voice was small.
Tubiel stared at the donut display.
“Nothing now, but whatever you do, don’t go in there,” Kelly said. “Your Super-Fryer is some kind of event horizon for the demonic underworld.”
Stheno burst in through the front door and rudely pushed aside a bear-like customer with a tiny Tarsier head.
“Hey!” the customer said in a squeaky voice.
“Medusa!” Stheno walked quickly to the counter and held up the hinged end to get behind it, where Medusa and Kelly stood. “I have to tell you something.”
“Stheno, you look awful. Even worse than she does.” Medusa tilted her head toward Kelly.
“I have the flu!”
Medusa shook her head. “You’re a stunning woman―who currently looks like you were recently excavated from an ice age sub-lake by archaeologists. No offense.”
Kelly shrugged. “How could I possibly take offense at that?”
“You don’t look so hot yourself,” Stheno told Medusa, and Kelly looked askance at her. Stheno’s shredded brown silk blouse revealed the top and sides of her bra. Her pencil skirt was coated in what looked like wet ash, spray cheese, and grease stains. The three-inch heel on her shoe had broken off. Her legs had black streaks, she reeked of beer, and her snakes wilted.
Kelly stood between them, one hand toward each Gorgon. She looked back and forth at them. “You two need to work together, just this one time. I hate that the fate of Pothole City and maybe the world depends on you two getting along enough to make donuts together, but―”
“Make donuts together?” Stheno spit the words out.
Medusa looked like she had been through this more times than she’d shaved her legs and had to endure it.
“Yes, make donuts together. Medusa, do you have a spare fryer you can use?”
“Mm, yeah, a little countertop model, just in case. It only makes about forty dozen donuts an hour, though.”
“Does the countertop model have demons coming out of it?”
Medusa gently chewed her lip with the tips of her fangs. “No.”
“Then we’ll use that,” Kelly said. “I’m going to try to shut down the Super-Fryer and you are going to work together with Stheno to bake an antidote into the donuts.”
Medusa rolled her eyes. “Easier said than done. Is this an antidote for the SPs? I thought you already gave them the antidote.”
Kelly walked over to the big plate-glass window and watched the street outside Pothole City Donuts. The monsters who had already eaten donuts were getting huge and destructive. The bear with the tarsier head had grown to the size of a giant ground sloth. She took another look. No, that was a giant ground sloth. The bear, however, had grown even bigger than the ground sloth. Good to know.
Other monsters flew around, and a few bumped into the front window.
“That’s what the poison does to those monsters?” Medusa said, marveling.
“Contact the Angel of the Apocalypse with your complaints,” Kelly said, and addressed both of the Gorgon sisters. “As soon as I’ve shut down the Super-Fryer, get the spare fryer ready to fry. I’ll send someone here with the antidote. Also, do you have a tarp?”
She pictured legendary coach Jay Vanner in a visor, squinting on a sunny day, a clipboard secured under his elbow. Kelly, you’ve got the flu and you look like a golem at sunrise, but that’s OK. Just take a step back and consider the big picture. Patience, persistence, and a plan will get you to the win.
She paused with her hand on the cold and quavering kitchen door. Outside, through the kitchen window, re-installed streetlights crashed to the ground and monsters crushed vehicles or threw them in the air.
A twelve-foot iguana flew by and she exhaled with relief. Roger.
Tubiel tapped her on the back. When she turned around, he moved his mirrored aviator sunglasses to the top of his head.
“Is there an SP in charge of that sort of thing?” She gestured to the kitchen door.
Tubiel nodded, took a notebook out of his back pocket, and drew a squat, sloppy-looking guy next to a small machine with donuts on it.
“An SP? In charge of donut equipment?”
Tubel’s smile got wider and he nodded again.
“You’re not making this up? There’s really an SP in charge of donut equipment?”
Tubiel nodded.
“Why should I be surprised at this?” Kelly muttered. “Well, where
is he?”
He shrugged.
“You don’t know where he is.”
Tubiel shook his head.
“Does anyone?”
He smiled, then quickly drew an SP and then Cluck Snack Sweet n’ Savory Breakfast Foam Topp’n next to him.
“Rochel! How stupid I didn’t think of him right away.” She wouldn’t want to admit it, but sometimes she struggled to keep track of every SP and their job and their favorite Cluck Snack product without checking their bracelets. Rochel found lost objects, which could work with finding SPs.
Tubiel tilted his head as though to say “Don’t feel stupid.”
“Thanks, Tube. OK, you find Rochel and have him look for the angel in charge of the protection of donut shops, or donut equipment―whichever he is, he’s close enough―and bring him back here as soon as possible. Take another donut on your way out.”
He beamed at her and ran over to the donut display and carefully selected a donut. He glanced at Kelly for approval, waved the donut at her, and ran out.
She pictured her tasks, step-by-step. And then she went in.
The three demons, black and red beasts with cracked skin, leathery wings, and horns the size of cheer squad megaphones, preoccupied themselves with the Super-Fryer. One adjusted the controls. Another examined the cake donut depositor attachment. A set of claws emerged and clicked against the walls of the fryer as though the demon couldn’t get all the way through.
Kelly walked silently to the double doors that led outside to the trash bins. From there, she knew she could take a door into one of the hallways in Amenity Tower, which would lead to the management office and Roger’s studio.
She opened the doors and Roger, still in his ascension form, shrieked by the trash bins.
“It’s the flu. But I didn’t think I looked that bad.” She propped open the kitchen doors with two rubber door stoppers.
He shrieked again.
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t have time to even out my complexion. Or shower. Can we discuss my appearance later?”
She shot a quick glance at the demons and gestured to Roger, who shrieked loud enough to put any death worm in Amenity Tower to shame.
The demons leaped toward him and out the doors. She grabbed the tarp from the counter and threw it on the Super-Fryer.
“Control panel, control panel,” she muttered, crouching and looking at the area on the fryer where the demons had been fidgeting. “Power button, power button…”
There didn’t seem to be a power button.
“How can this not have a damn power button?” She looked on all sides and in the cabinet. Finally, she pulled the plug from the outlet and peeked under the tarp. Nothing had changed. She would have to move the fryer so Medusa and Stheno could make the donuts.
She kicked up the wheel latch and shoved the fryer out the doors like a frenzied ER doctor pushing a gurney.
She swiped her fob over the access panel and maneuvered the Super-Fryer through the door to Amenity Tower, down the hall, through the management office, and into Roger’s studio. The wonky left wheel made it hard to control.
Once she wheeled it into the studio, she left the tarp on the fryer and closed the door, a teensy bit grateful that she didn’t have time to notice her muscle aches, fever, chills, and sore throat. For the most part, anyway.
Roger opened the door to the management office dressed in his black suit and red dress shirt.
“Where are the demons?”
He gave her a disappointed look. “‘Thank you, Roger, for taking time out of your busy schedule to revert to your human form and distract three demons from the underworld so I could put the gateway to hell in your TV studio.’”
“Thank you, Roger. You’re very helpful.”
“That’s better.” He leaned on the administrative assistant’s desk and smoothed his tie. “By the way, you look like you were hit by volcanic lightning after you spent the night in a dump truck.”
“Thanks. You too.” She ran her fingers through her hair and wished she could take a cold shower. “The demons you distracted. Where are they? In your pocket?”
Roger shrugged. “I thought you just needed me to get them out of the kitchen, not reintegrate them into society or―”
The demons that had just emerged from the Super-Fryer pounded on the small reinforced studio window and the door. She hoped the room would hold them for a while.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on the SPs, and see if the angel in charge of donut equipment has shown up yet. Are you up for a special impromptu episode of What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi?”
“Does Amenity Tower have amenities?” Roger said.
She snorted a laugh as she opened the door of the office, remembering how she had just said the same thing to Archie. “I’ll try to at least brush my hair. Would that get everyone off my back?”
As she headed for the elevators, Roger held the door open and called out, “It’s going to take a lot more than that!”
She put up a hand as she stepped into the working high-rise elevator.
Tom the giant water scorpion offered her a hot towel with a pair of tongs. “You look like you need it.”
“I’m just trying to save Pothole City from total destruction. Again. With the flu.” She put the hot towel over her face and leaned back on the wall.
“Try a little bronzer.” The scorpion mimicked the delicate application of said product.
Af opened the door of his apartment for Kelly, and she saw Dragomir across the room looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at Pothole City.
“Did Dragomir give you the vitamins?”
Af nodded.
“Has Firiel stopped throwing up?”
“Twenty minutes ago. I think the antidote is working.”
“You’re sure Don is responsible for this?”
“He gave Raum the directive, the poison, and the credit card for expenses.”
She sat on the bed and put her hand on the small angel’s forehead and noticed a motivational poster of Roger on the wall. At the bottom, it read, A Competent Manager Will Be Rewarded By the Smiles of His Happy Residents.
Af shrugged. “Roger gave out those posters once. I liked the graphics. You’re a great interim manager, but Gil is pretty incompetent. I should look into getting bound to a different building, if I stay in Pothole City.”
She didn’t want to think about that. Af went out to the kitchen and she joined him. He plugged in the electric kettle and dropped infuser bags of tea into two mugs.
She flipped through the Roger Balbi monthly calendar on the side of the fridge. Each month had a different photo of Roger, at his desk or in his studio or walking through the halls or overseeing vendors sometimes while wearing a hard hat.
Each month offered a different managerial tip. One read, Complaints Are Like Small Fires: Respond Quickly, Before They Spread To Other Units. Another one read, Though Management Works For The Board, Don’t Forget That The Board Is Not Exempt From The Rules and Regulations.
“We didn’t appreciate Roger enough,” she said. “We didn’t know how good he really was. And now he’s ascended.”
The kettle clicked off. Af poured the steaming water in the mugs. “Now we have Gil. And demons coming out of donut equipment, although I guess the Super-Fryer situation wasn’t really something any of us could have foreseen.”
She squinted at the gift basket. Walked over to it. Touched it. “What is this?”
Af looked over his shoulder and laughed. “Oh, that? It’s a get-well gift for Firiel.”
“Who dropped it off?”
Af sipped his tea. “A red-haired man who left in a train. A train that appeared in the hallway. And no, I haven’t been eating those mushrooms.”
“The Persona?”
“That’s what the card said.” He pushed the other mug over to her.
“That was nice of him.” She cupped the mug and took a careful sip, and took the gift basket to the bedroom, where she set i
t by Firiel.
Af showed her Firiel’s drawing pad. “He drew these things, but I don’t know what they mean.” She stared at Firiel’s sketches for a few seconds and dropped the pad on the bed. “They don’t mean anything. He’s delirious.”
“Really?” Af said.
“Yeah, they’re just dream stuff.” She held up the pad again. “Look: the winding path to a building and then around it just means that he’s trying to get somewhere inside but can’t figure out how. The wave indicates emotion. The other stuff is subconscious flotsam.”
“Good.” Af let out a long breath. “I was worried. So, what can I do? Order pizza? Make coffee?”
Kelly thought about it. “I think you would be more useful if you changed into your angel of destruction form and distribute Medusa’s donuts throughout Pothole City, so the monsters don’t get any bigger and more destructive. And maybe you can fend off some of the demons that are still emerging from the portal.”
“Who’s going to watch Firiel?” Af asked.
“Dragomir.”
“I hear you!” Dragomir yelled from the far side of the apartment.
“Wow, he has sharp hearing,” Af said.
“I still hear you!”
“That’s really something,” she said, “considering how much time he spends around gigantic motorized blowers and HVAC equipment.”
“Maybe I have whole conversation about you out here!” Dragomir yelled.
“OK,” Af said. “I was going to take a nap, maybe watch some House Hunters International, but I guess I can become the prince of wrath and distribute donuts to people in the city. I haven’t been exercising enough lately, anyway.”
Firiel touched Kelly’s arm and made a writing motion. She picked up his sketchpad from the bedside table and put it in front of him. He leaned up long enough to make a single line with the pen, and fell back on the pillow, instantly asleep.
“Not so useful,” she murmured, and smoothed his hair back from his clammy, green-tinged forehead.
ave, the SP in charge of the protection of water insects, couriered a special container of the Cluck Snack antidote in Dry Mix form, and some clothes for Stheno, to Pothole City Donuts.