Manny looked up from his paperwork. Miss Vale stood there in her jacket and skirt,

  red hair forming a fiery corona, emerald eyes hidden behind emerald glasses. One of

  the functionaries from a midlevel floor stood with her. He sat back in his chair, and

  made a gesture for one of them to start talking.

  “These seven guys,” said the functionary. “We need to get rid of them. They’re

  disrupting business.”

  “Seven guys?,” said Manny. He felt his eyebrows raise up to his forehead, but he

  couldn’t help it. He didn’t know what the demon was talking about.

  “The Stalking Light brothers,” said Miss Vale. “The ghosts.”

  “I thought we told them to stay away from the people doing their service,” said

  Manny. “I’m pretty sure that was the conditions of their staying here until something

  happened to wake them up.”

  “Well, they’re not doing that,” said the functionary. “They’re helping people do their

  Community Service. The jobs are getting done, but the sins are not coming off as

  fast.”

  “I’ll go down and talk to them,” said Manny. “Sooner, or later, someone is going to

  wake them up and they will be back Topside. We can hold on until then but they

  definitely should keep out of the process’s works.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the functionary. “They’re driving my guys crazy keeping an

  eye out, especially the one that barks like a dog.”

  “Barks like a dog?,” said Manny.

  “Wendall,” said Miss Vale. “Are you sure that we have to hang on to them. Can’t we

  just send them back Topside?”

  “I wish,” said Manny. “But the rules of magic have been invoked and it’s up to us to

  make sure things work until we get the high sign.”

  The fact they might not get the high sign for centuries didn’t matter.

  Manny stood while Miss Vale ushered the complainer out of his office. He pulled on

  his sword of office and wished that things could go smoothly. Now he had to deal

  with a guy who barked like a dog so he could make sure his souls completed their

  sentences.

  Didn’t he have enough to do?

  Those seven misfits had appeared in the Pickup area from Topside. All souls

  appeared there for Orientation and Judgement. Sentences and marking numbers were

  handed down. Light sentences got light duty, heavy sentences went to the heavy duty

  construction areas across the Underworld.

  The seven got moved to the Ghost Ward to wait out the conditions of their return to

  the Topside. As long as their bodies remained intact, it should be okay to do that. If

  their bodies were destroyed while they were waiting, then maybe they could move

  through Orientation, to Judgement, to their sentences, and then to Recycled where

  they would get new existences so they could work on their flaws until they could pass

  through from one end of the process to the Big Sky.

  Except these seven figured a way out of the Ward and started raising a ruckus. The

  Underworld had to chase them down and return them to the Ward so they could break

  out to be hunted down to be returned.

  Manny finally called for a meeting and laid down the law to these roughnecks. They

  either stayed in the Ward, or they got sent somewhere a whole heck lot more

  unpleasant until they got recalled.

  He wound up feeding them to a leviathan. They still got loose somehow. Worse, they

  brought the leviathan into the docks and wrecked them for any soul who got

  sentenced to Community Service in the seas of the Underworld.

  That was the last straw.

  After that, they were put on a chain gang in the Pit. That lasted until they tried to lead

  a revolt against the overseers.

  Manny finally gave them a map and told them to start walking. The brothers circled

  through the Underworld for years but they seemed to have never found their way out

  to the living world.

  And now here they were causing trouble again.

  Manny felt a headache coming on as he made his way down from his office to the

  sprawling midlevel complex that housed most of the souls on light duty.

  He spotted one of the brothers helping some old woman soul scrub the floor. The sin

  was moving off her sleeve a little faster than what it should.

  “Hey, you!,” called Manny. “Where’s your brothers?”

  The ghost looked at him and growled. He took off down the corridor.

  “Of course I would get the one who barks,” said Manny. He walked after the brother.

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  Where was the clown going? The Underworld only had one exit, and you couldn’t get

  through it if you had sins to work off. Maybe they had snapped wandering around in

  the dark.

  He wouldn’t be surprised.

  The civilized parts of the Underworld had stopped torturing souls for the fun of it

  generations ago. It just wasn’t practical with the growing number of souls needing

  to be processed and sent to new lives.

  The outer areas still liked to beat a soul now and then.

  Manny found the brothers waiting for him in an atrium leading off to other corridors

  and staircases. They held their weapons ready to use.

  “I thought we had an agreement for you not to come back before we get the signal to

  send you back,” said Manny. He didn’t pull his own sword. It was better to keep

  things as peaceable as he could before he decided that he should throw his weight

  around.

  “We got bored,” said the eldest, Wilson. “So we decided to see if we could backtrack

  ourselves from where we were.”

  “No one Topside has figured out what happened to you yet,” said Manny. “It might

  take centuries.”

  “Centuries?,” said one of the brothers. Manny thought it was Wilson.

  Who named their kids Wayne, William, Wilson, Wendall, Wyatt, Walter, and

  Wesley? Their parents must have liked the sound.

  “It depends on the living,” said Manny. “And I am not going to send someone to

  check things out for you. So find a place to settle and quit harassing the help.”

  “What if we don’t want to stop harassing the help?,” said Walter.

  “There’s two ways this can go,” said Manny. “I’ve tried everything else. You can stop

  trying to interfere in Operations and wait until someone twigs on to what happened

  Topside, or you can go back Topside as you are now and never see your next lives.

  People are cleaning their slates to get a better show next time around. They don’t

  need your help, and it’s ruining their chances.”

  “We need to do something,” said Wayne. “Isn’t there something in this whole place

  we can do to help people?”

  “I don’t know,” said Manny. “I’ll ask around. Maybe I can come up with something.

  Leave the residents alone.”

  “Thank you,” said Wayne. He tucked his axe in his belt. “We just want to belong.”

  “You’re alive,” said Manny. “You belong somewhere you have been banned from at

  the moment. I am sure that someone will free you. Topside is pretty static right now.

  It will be like taking a long nap when you get your bodies back.”

  “Hey, Manny,” said a voice in the air. The speaker vanished a second later.

  “Who was that?,” asked Wilson.

  “Another pain in my keister,” said Manny. “Stay out of trouble until I can work things

  out.”

  “Can you work things out?,” asked Walter.

  “I don’t know yet,” said Manny. “Quit throwing the overseers over the railings, okay?

  Can I at least count on you not to do that?”

  “They like to whip the old people,” said Wilson.

  “The old people have the most sins to work off,” said Manny. “You want to protect

  someone, protect the young. But do it in such a way I don’t have to hear about it until

  you get sent Topside and are out of my hair.”

  The brothers smiled at each other. Wendall let out a small bark.

  “Do not cause any trouble,” said Manny. “You got me? I don’t want to hear any more

  problems. And Community Service has to be done, so don’t think you can just whisk

  the kids out of here on some joy ride so they can shirk off.”

  “We would never do that,” said Wayne. “We’ll abide by your restrictions until you

  have something to say to us.”

  “Thanks,” said Manny. He turned and headed for his office. He grumbled under his

  breath as he walked up the stairs. Why couldn’t they get a lift? Was that too much to

  ask? Topsiders had them. They seemed easy to construct. He put that on the list of the

  next major project he wanted done.

  “Hey, Manny,” said the voice out of the air again. “How’s it going?”

  Stupid living ghost had to show up while he was trying to deal with the brothers.

  What had he done to deserve this?

  “Sorry for the in and out,” said the voice again. “Fighting a horde trying to overrun

  this town. Getting killed a lot.”

  “I imagine,” said Manny. He struggled up the stairs.

  “Why don’t you put in a lift?,” asked the voice.

  “I keep asking myself that all the time,” said Manny.

  “This might be my last death for a while,” said the voice. “Some guys from Riordiana

  just showed up. Tell Miss Vale I miss her.”

  “All right,” said Manny. He shook his head as the words touched the empty air.

  He was an administrator for the dead. Why did he have all these living clowns making

  his life miserable?

  Maybe he had pushed some old lady down the well in a former existence and this was

  his washing of the sins.

  He reached his office and settled behind his desk. He frowned at the sword poking

  into him. He stood and unstrapped it. He put it in a bucket beside his desk.

  If the Stalking Light brothers kept their word, things should quiet down. Then he

  remembered Geoff’s comment about fighting an army. Some of those should be

  processing in.

  Would Orientation and Judgement hold the first few until their comrades joined them,

  or send them through one at a time? It was hard to tell the length of the processing

  with those sloths.

  “It looks like an armed conflict just turned hot,” said Miss Vale. She dropped a small

  stack of papers on her desk.

  “Geoff told me,” said Manny. “He said to give you his love.”

  “Ghosts,” said Miss Vale. “You can’t keep them tied up in the closet.”

  “He said it might be a while before he showed up again,” said Manny. “Some of

  Riordiana’s summoners had showed up on the scene.”

  “Thanks, sir,” said Miss Vale. “Let me get some coffee and see what I can do about

  sorting some of this out.”

  “Do me a favor,” said Manny. “Call down to Engineering and ask them for a lift in

  the tower. Ask them how much effort would have to be taken to put one in.”

  “Tired of walking up and down the steps?,” Miss Vale asked.

  “Yes,” said Manny. “Especially when I have ghosts throwing some of my guys down

  walk ways out of some sense of fair play.”

  “I’ll send a message,” said Miss Vale. “You know Engineering only works for itself.

  It doesn’t care about personal happiness.”

  “Anything is better than the nothing we have right now,” said the demon. “I wonder

  when I lost the ability to fly.”

  “When you earned your desk, I suppose,” said Miss Vale. “You were always a worry

  wart, and the position has made you even more of a worrier.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Manny.

  “You’re going to bring on some more problems with that attitude,” said Miss Vale.

  “Let’s see what we can do about a lift.”

  Manny shook his head. He pulled the papers to him so he could read the sentencing

  and see where he could use his new recruits. Maybe he could turn some of them into

  practice problems for the brothers.

  That might let them work off some steam.