Enter the Janitor (The Cleaners) (Volume 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

unimpressed with his janitor outfit and black rubber boots. He had about a foot on her, but her ferocity more than made up for the difference. He scratched his stubbled chin and figured he might’ve made a better impression if he shaved more than once a week. Or looked forty years younger. No doubt she’d already filed him away as having dentures and wearing diapers. Not too far from the truth.
    “Where am I?” she asked at last. “What’s going on? And why can’t I ******* swear? Did you implant some sort of chip in my brain?”
    “You’ve watched too much sci-fi, princess. Chips in the brain? That’s ridiculous. Naw. There’s a company-wide spell in place. Called a foul-filter. The Board figured it was … what’s the word? Unbefittening?”
    “Unbecoming,” Francis offered from outside.
    Ben snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. Unbecomin’ of us Cleaners to have dirty mouths. Gotta keep the image as sparkly as possible.”
    She poured another helping of gel and worked it between her fingers. “What the **** are you talking about?”
    “It’s a little complicated,” Ben said. “To lay it out plain, you tapped into a latent talent during that little fracas at the library. Francis and I,” he nodded to the Ascendant, who bowed, “brought you back here to recover and to … train.” He forced that last word out through clenched teeth.
    Dani stared at some distant point. “Latent talent?” she echoed, monotone.
    “Yup. Latent talent. Power. Magic. Spellwork. Energy manipulation. Supernatural manifestation of willpower. Mega-weird stuff that sends the common folk freakin’ and spawns a whole lotta tabloid headlines. Whatever you wanna call it.”
    “Magic? That’s impossible. Utter bull****.”
    He cupped a hand around an ear. “Wossat? Couldn’t rightly hear you. Some impossible magic must’ve got in my ear.” He sighed. “For a student, I figured you’d get past this mental roadblock a little faster. ’Specially figurin’ you was the one who just torched and flooded a library.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Am I in trouble? Is that it? You guys are cops?”
    “Not quite.” Ben sat on the edge of the cot, and she pulled back further. “Look, Dani—can I call you Dani?”
    “No.”
    “Thanks. So, Dani, you’re what we call a Catalyst. You trigger natural disasters on a minor scale. It’s one of the most dangerous and rare junctions of power around these days. Plenty of folks, ’specially Scum, are gonna want to use that. You’re lucky we got to you first.”
    She eyed him as if he spoke in a foreign language. Then she shook her hair out and sat up straighter. “I want to call my parents.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    She scowled. “Shut up. If this is some sort of prison, I deserve a phone call.”
    “It ain’t a prison,” he said. “It’s your new home base. At least until you get a handle on that nasty power of yours.”
    “Give me my phone call!”
    Ben looked to Francis, who shrugged and drew a cell phone—white of course—from a jacket pocket. He tossed it to Ben, but Dani snatched it in mid-air. She’d tucked both hands inside their sleeves so she could hold the phone without touching it. As she stabbed at the numbers, Ben walked outside to wait.
    “A’ight. But I warned you.”
    O O O
    Dani barely noticed as the janitor—or whoever he really was—left the cell and a glass panel slid into place behind him. As the line rang, she tried to force her thoughts into a logical order so she could make a coherent plea for help, but nothing made sense. Janitors? Magic? Pipe monsters terrorizing her college? Had someone drugged her coffee?
    The connection clicked, and her mother’s voice bubbled out of the speaker.
    “Hello?”
    “Mom? It’s—”
    “Danielle! I just got your message. So exciting. So wonderful. Of course, I understand you’ll have to miss the family reunion, but such is the price of pursuing your dreams.”
    Dani’s mental equilibrium tilted near to