The Last Death Worm of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 3) Read online

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  Until We Find a Real Manager

  elly hated how much Ultra-Amenity Tower had kicked their butt, Christmas-wise.

  The newly completed condo building, nearly twice as tall as Amenity Tower, boasted a tree that glowed like a beacon to all of Pothole City and to the more discerning condo buyer, lured by the siren call of their common-area holiday decorations and the primal scent of amenities.

  She would have thought their tree was procured from the Winter Palace circa 1865 via time machine, whereas Amenity Tower’s tree—decorated by the fallen angels and dimensional monsters who lived in the building—stood a modest six-feet high, and was festooned with hole punchers, sanitizing wipes from the fitness center, and torn-out pages from books in the library.

  She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes until she needed to be in the studio to record the weekly episode of What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi. Even though former Amenity Tower building manager Roger Balbi had ascended to the form of a giant, flying lizard-dragon-thing, the resident demand for his local access show continued unabated. She tried to record a show every couple of weeks, rather than on Roger’s schedule of every Friday afternoon without fail, and still felt like a barely-tolerated guest host.

  On her way to the studio in the management offices, she passed the Jackal having a hushed, heated conversation with Elysia, a tall, jade-green sea slug (she didn’t think that relationship would last much longer; they were always fighting). Dragomir, the chief building engineer, glowered his way through the elevator vestibule, clanging and clicking as he walked.

  She could have sworn the new lobby plant nipped at her, and told her to be authentic to herself and her true values, but maybe she was projecting.

  With a short exhalation of relief, she shut the studio door behind her and checked the schedule on the wall. Since the show played only on the building’s local access channel, about fifty percent of the topics came in from the suggestion box in the mailroom area.

  The knock came when she thought about how to handle the third item on the list: The Feynman Technique. Tom, the giant water scorpion, in his black jacket with Amenity Tower embroidered on the left pocket, opened the door and waved frantically at her. Tom had recently been promoted from unnecessary elevator attendant (which had mostly involved making drinks) to one of the front desk staff.

  He fidgeted all three pairs of limbs in a state of considerable distress. “The show’s been canceled,” he said as though he were the White House Chief of Staff informing the President about a hostage situation. “The woman in your office told me to tell you—”

  Kelly held up a hand. “Wait, what woman in my office?”

  Tom looked down the hall to indicate the manager’s office, which wasn’t exactly illuminating. “There’s a woman in your office. I don’t know what—”

  She ushered him out. “Don’t worry about it, Tom. Thanks.”

  “But the show’s never been canceled before! What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi is the only thing anyone here can rely on. The only thing we have faith in! Aside from you, of course.” He heaved a sigh and put an arm to his face. He used two of his other arms to pull out a Rubik’s Cube and compulsively turned the sides. Another arm squished a stress ball. “This is not good.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said.

  “Not to diminish your effectiveness as manager—”

  “Interim manager,” she corrected.

  “—but this is like the rock that starts the avalanche. This is bad. Who is she? What are we going to do?!”

  She doubted she was one of the only things they could rely on or have faith in.

  Up until recently, she had spent her life doing what came naturally to the only survivor of a murdered family of thieves from a rural Pennsylvania forest: tracking down monsters for bounty and stealing things for money.

  That’s why she came to this building in the first place, and she’d found it hard to leave—not unlike the fallen angels-turned-demons (demons to her, anyway) who were cast down to Amenity Tower and immediately formed a board of directors.

  “I’ll see what I can do, but worst case, I’ll run a repeat.” To make Tom feel a little better, she added, “One of the classic episodes.”

  Roger had been way better at his show than she was, anyway, and better at every possible aspect of building management. Over time, the intensity of the residents’ affection for him and the indelible, omnipresent legacy he left started to make her feel insecure and overshadowed. She wanted to stay, but feared she could never really come into her own as building manager.

  Tom exhaled shakily and did his awkward, erratic walk out of the management office and down the hall.

  She was still only “interim manager” months after Roger ascended, as though the corporate overlords didn’t have enough faith in her to make her legit, like she served as a long-term temp until they found someone actually qualified.

  It made her doubt herself and wonder if she’d ever even been good at what she used to do, and if she could ever be good at managing a building of monsters, despite what Af kept telling her. She had never doubted herself much before. She had focused on doing a job and doing it well, but now…well.

  Only six minutes until taping.

  She stalked off to her office and came to a halt in the doorway. A woman in her early sixties had her feet insouciantly propped up on the desk and flipped through her monthly desk calendar.

  “Who are you, and why are you under the erroneous impression that you can cancel my show?”

  “My name is Charlotte Talbot, and I’m with Claw and Crutty. Are you Roger Balbi?”

  Was that a rhetorical question? Everyone at Claw and Crutty, especially in the region, knew about Roger. Was she wearing a suit more appropriate to a magician? Was she strumming a guitar and singing songs about how she wanted to be their manager and their friend?

  “No,” Kelly said flatly.

  “I didn’t think so.” Charlotte wrinkled her forehead. “Roger Balbi was transferred to Miami.”

  Kelly couldn’t tell if Charlotte actually thought that Roger was transferred to Miami. Maybe “transferred to Miami” was a Claw and Crutty euphemism for when a property manager is promoted and ascends to a radically different form.

  Charlotte tilted her head. “But why are you doing his show, and during work hours?”

  What would you call what Charlotte said, she wondered—Socratic sarcasm? She hadn’t changed the day or time of the show, but she didn’t get to it as often as Roger had.

  Roger never ran into any blowback about doing it during “work hours,” especially considering that as building manager, he kept evening office hours, too.

  “Four-thirty on a Friday isn’t exactly—�
��

  Charlotte cut her off with a dismissive wave. “Regardless, we’re canceling this episode and suspending What Are You Thinking, With Roger Balbi.”

  “‘What’s On Your Mind.’”

  “What’s on my mind is the long-term viability of this condominium building.”

  “It’s the name of the show.” Her patience frayed.

  “There’s no need to use that tone. You’ve been interim manager of Amenity Tower for almost a year, Kelly, and with that attitude, it’s no wonder. To be honest, I’m surprised you’re still here.”

  So am I.

  “Claw and Crutty is concerned about your performance. So, until we find a real manager, I’m here to help you bring those numbers up.”

  A real manager? She was developing some seething dislike for this interloper, but that comment stuck her like a sword point. The residents asked her every day when Roger would come back and if she had heard from him. They weren’t accepting her as manager despite all her hard work, and it had started to wear on her.

  And she had reservations about stepping into Roger’s position. As awesome as being a huge lizard-dragon-thing would be—swooping down on people she didn’t like and freaking them out, the freedom from adult responsibilities, the flying—she had people in her life she cared about.

  Maybe Roger was happier and had been working toward that specific kind of promotion, but she really didn’t want to get promoted if that’s what it meant down the line. Even though she often thought about picking up and leaving, she wanted to know that she was good at her job, and she wanted people to acknowledge that and value her.

  She didn’t want to get into it with this woman; she wanted to go record Roger’s show.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Charlotte, I have a show to record.”

  “Your show has been canceled. Please, sit down. And close the door.”

  “This is my office, and that is my desk, and you can’t cancel my show.”

  “It’s also my office. A new desk is being delivered. And I can cancel your show.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Claw and Crutty gave me carte blanche. I’ll be here for a week. Or much longer.”

  Some days, life seemed like one cosmic joke after the other.

  Charlotte took her feet down and sat straight, stopping short of rolling up her sleeves. “You don’t mind staying late tonight, do you?”

  Kelly often stayed late because she had evening hours and had to attend meetings to provide feedback and reality checks (mostly the latter). Part of her job was to mediate petty power struggles and territorial battles, which were ceaseless, and which Roger had excelled at defusing. But she’d told Af she’d be home right after the show. He was going to come over (using a loophole that allowed him to travel short distances, under five hundred yards) and make her dinner. So for this woman to cancel What’s On Your Mind, stake a claim to her office, and make her stay late on a night when she could have been home early… it made her blood simmer.

  “Actually, I—”

  “Great! Pull up a chair.” Charlotte leaned forward. Kelly almost missed Gil, the telepresence robot that Don, avenging angel of the apocalypse and king of the demonic locusts, had sent her as a practical joke/surveillance tool.

  “Have you seen the new building across the street?”

  No, I’m not aware of the incredibly tall, eye-catching building right across the street with the Christmas tree better suited to the House of Savoy went through her mind, but she said merely, “Yes.”

  “It’s called Ultra-Amenity Tower. Do you know why it’s called that, Kelly?”

  She wished Charlotte would stop using her name. It came off as so condescending, as did the implication that she wouldn’t know anything about the new condo tower across the street.

  But she was merely an interim manager, right? Passing through. If everything told her she didn’t matter and could never be as good as Roger, anyway, maybe she should leave and go back to what she was used to: being on the road, moving from job to job.

  But the SPs—the single-purpose angels each dedicated to one specific thing—were under her care, or at least some of them were. They were family now. And so was Af, and her eccentric scientist father, who tended to lose himself in his work. She hadn’t had a family in a long time. If she went back to chasing monsters for bounty money, what would she do, take them all with her?

  She played Charlotte’s little game. “It’s called that because it offers what developers call ultra-amenities.”

  “That’s right, Kelly,” Charlotte said (condescendingly). “The idea is to offer so many amenities that residents never need to leave the building.”

  Gold star! She doubted Charlotte knew this, but some of the residents of Amenity Tower, like the board of directors, couldn’t physically leave the building, because they were bound to it when they were cast down. Af was bound there, too, but had devoted much of his time to discovering various loopholes, even though the stress of hiding them from Raum, Vassago, Crocell, Imamiah, and Forcas was a burden on him.

  “But I would also like to get the property values up considering our new competition.” Charlotte pushed a stapled printout toward her on the desk and tapped a nail on it. “Claw and Crutty sent out a survey some time ago and determined that the most popular amenity was ‘pet-friendly,’ followed by ‘attended lobby.’ The problem is that amenities such as our indoor pool, our outdoor grills, and our fitness center are the bare minimum in amenities, and Ultra-Amenity Tower is like a new cruise ship. Do you like cruising?”

  “Do I like what?”

  “Cruising. Going on cruise ships.”

  “No.” She didn’t take vacations.

  “I love it.”

  “Great.” Kelly really wanted to get home. Af had already made dinner for her.

  “My point is,” Charlotte said, “we need to create new amenities in order to compete with Ultra-Amenity Tower. We need to think like a cruise ship.”

  “Cruise ships don’t think.”

  Charlotte gave her a warning look. “You know what I mean. Be more like a cruise ship, but with the budget of a child’s lemonade stand. In my previous career with the State Budget Bureau, I…”

  Blabbity blah. Charlotte kept talking about the most boring thing in the world, but Kelly didn’t listen.

  Charlotte could compare Amenity Tower to a lemonade stand all she wanted. Her main concern, after keeping the building from falling apart, was to make sure that one of the many thorns in her side didn’t create another apocalypse.

  The first one started when Don, the avenging angel of the apocalypse, routed all bound angels to Amenity Tower, which created a strong energy field; and a design flaw in the building’s HVAC air handler allowed a kind of highway bypass for monsters from other dimensions, making the building look like a brightly-lit truck stop in the inter-dimensional darkness—until the angel in charge of HVAC systems fixed the vent using Cluck Snack products.

  The second one started when the board rigged the new Super-Fryer in Pothole City Donuts to regurgitate demons—until the angel in charge of donut equipment worked his magic.

  Thinking of new amenities and competing with Ultra-Amenity Tower wasn’t exactly on her list of priorities, but she wouldn’t expect anyone else to understand that.

  Af put foil over his casserole and watched My Life as a Dog in the TV room on the south end of the Special Situations International building, while eating popcorn he’d made from the hot-air popper, with his own blend of flavorings. He paused the movie and went to put a kettle on. Tubiel, the SP in charge of returning small birds to their owners, worked on a craft project on the floor.

  “Swedish adolescents are odd,” Af said. “It’s not just this movie. What are you working on? And why is your jacket on the floor?”

  Tubiel showed him an iron-on patch he’d sewed to the right arm. Af leaned forward to look.

  “Fifty Bowls of Cereal. That’s for your jacket?”

  He smiled and showed
him another patch he’d sewed to the left arm.

  “One-Hundred Warblers. The bowls of cereal, did you return those to their owners also?”

  He shook his head.

  “You ate them?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  “Excellent! But you’ll run out of room at this rate. You might want to consider doing something like ‘five-thousand warblers returned’ at a time with each patch.”

  Tubiel shrugged and returned to his spot on the floor as Kermit, the SP in charge of the three a.m. hour and Firiel, the SP in charge of the protection of fungi, wandered into the kitchen.

  Af checked his phone to see if he’d missed a text from Kelly. He prided himself on his impeccable timing—he could coordinate multiple items to be ready at an exact time, but that wouldn’t matter tonight. The casserole, the salads, the popcorn, the wine—they were all waiting.

  He wanted a nice meal with his girlfriend before he left.

  The kettle went off. “Bitch the pot, would you, Kermit?” Af said while scrolling through his phone.

  Kermit poured the water into the mug with the strainer of loose oolong tea as Af found a text.

  So sorry, horrible C&C bean-counter here, won’t let me go. Will update soon, K.

  Tubiel offered Af a third patch, Two-Hundred Finches Returned.

  “I’ll take this one.” Tubiel handed him the needle, and Af sewed the patch while he waited for another text from Kelly.

  Death Worms Aren’t Allowed in the Lobby

  cruise ship is known for its incredible amenities,” Charlotte said. “We can’t compete with a cruise ship. So I’m putting you in charge of a committee spearheading the creation of more amenities.”

  The last thing Kelly needed or wanted right now was to be involved in more committees, but she wanted to get home so desperately she would probably agree to anything. At this point, she would cheerfully agree to forming and heading a committee on determining which vomit pile was oldest.

  “Sure. I’ll get right on that.”