Home > Hench

Hench
Author: Natalie Zina Walschots

1


WHEN THE TEMP AGENCY CALLED, I WAS STRUGGLING TO MAKE the math work. In one window, I was logged in to my checking account; in the other, I was whittling down my grocery delivery shopping cart into something that would fit into the sliver of overdraft I had available. I kept dragging different configurations of noodles and vegetables in and out of the cart, grimly trying to ward off scurvy until one of several outstanding invoices was paid.

I had my phone right next to me with the ringer on as loud as it would go, so when the call came in it scared the crap out of me. I fumbled to answer, leaving greasy fingerprints on the cracked glass of my phone’s screen.

“Anna Tromedlov,” I croaked.

“Am I speaking with . . . the Palindrome?”

“Fucking hell,” I hissed before I could stop myself.

“Um.”

I coughed. “Sorry, yes. This is she.”

“Do you prefer your civilian name?” There was palpable distaste in the voice on the other end of the call. Some of the recruiters took their work too seriously.

“If you don’t mind.” I tried to sound breezy, but my voice was still hoarse and anxious.

“I’ll make a note of that,” the Temp Agency recruiter lied.

I closed my eyes for a long moment, regretting once again filling in the “aliases” section of my hench profile. Two years later, the rookie mistake haunted me in the form of every recruiter addressing me by a nerd’s idea of what a villain’s name might be. At least the punishment for hubris was on brand.

“Miz Trauma’ed-love, this is a courtesy call to inform you that there is a screening session at the Luthor Street branch of the Temp Agency that includes opportunities that match your skill set. Are you able to attend?”

“When is the screening?” I hunted on my desk for my phone for a moment, to check my schedule, before realizing it was in my hand. I opened a new tab with my calendar.

“Eleven A.M., Miz Trauma’ed-love.”

“Today?” That call time was less than an hour away.

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Not at all, that sounds great.” It didn’t. “I’ll definitely be there.”

I wouldn’t have time to shower. I decided showing up covered in dry shampoo and desperation was better than missing a chance to pick up a contract. It had been a few weeks since I last worked; the villain I was semi-regularly henching for had their largest aquatic base raided, and almost all of the henches working off-site had our contracts canceled to cover the cost of the rebuild. It was nothing unusual, but I had gone just long enough between jobs that I was getting a little uncomfortable. You can only eat so much instant ramen.

“We look forward to seeing you in person, Miz Trauma’ed-love,” the recruiter lied again, before hanging up.

In the tiny tile rectangle of my bathroom, I discovered last night’s winged eyeliner was in decent shape and could be repaired. With a lot of mouthwash, fresh lipstick, and a severe-but-vampy bun, I looked almost presentable. I squeezed myself into my tightest suit (tweed) and called my cab.

Oscar was a new driver. There weren’t a ton of cabbies who would work with us, so it was hard for any villain who couldn’t hire a personal driver to get a ride in the city. It turns out when some asshole in tights picks up the rideshare you’re in and flips it over like a confused tortoise, that’s a one-star review. A few cabbies, though, decided that being able to double their rates was worth the threat of getting their car ripped in half by some costumed dirtbag. I’d had to break up with my last driver when he got a little fond of me and told me I was “too nice for this life.” When they start getting attached, it’s time to move on. Next thing you know they’re developing a savior complex and turning you in “for your own good.” I was already grocery shopping in the middle of the night after the same cashier saw me buying a single bag of Doritos one time too many and started giving me life advice. I’d been emotionally preparing myself to give up my favorite pizza joint if the delivery guy kept being friendly.

Oscar, though, I liked a lot so far. He’d barely spoken a handful of words since I started calling on him. I could count on his curt nod and a quiet ride wherever I was going; I also got to admire the shocking thickness of his eyebrows in the rearview mirror.

Halfway to the Temp Agency, my phone started to vibrate aggressively. It was June.

Feeling lucky?

I hope so because I feel like shit

You on your way?

Could you hurry I’m fucking freezing

Are you getting coffee

I didn’t write back, but instructed Oscar to take a detour through a drive-thru and ordered a pair of too-expensive lattes.

I spotted June a block away from the Temp Agency, tucked around a corner to keep out of the line of sight from anyone in the building; I asked Oscar to drop me off there. Her body was curled against the intense February chill, her face turned toward the brick wall in front of her. Her smart navy blue trench coat was too light for the weather, and the tips of her fingers were shaking from the cold as she held a cigarillo.

June had been henching longer than I had; she’d dipped a toe in the dastardly end of the freelance world for the first time almost three years ago, and had been invaluable when I followed suit. She was the first person to admit to me that she worked as a hench, and surprised me by generously helping me through my Temp Agency application. I was a shaking mess before my first intake interview, expecting a roomful of hardened and battle-scarred evildoers. There was a remarkable lack of black lycra and metal masks when I finally walked through the doors, though, just desperate temps, who looked as likely to have decent typing speeds as demolitions experience. She made fun of me relentlessly for being so scared, and we quickly became inseparable.

She’d hit a rough patch recently, much longer and deeper than my raid-related few weeks out of work. June had powers, and her skill set was extremely specific; that meant she was both expensive and niche, feast-or-famine. There had been too much of the latter, too little of the former. Her shoulders, even hunched against the cold, showed a lot of tension.

I unfolded myself from the cab and strode toward her, clearing my throat so I wouldn’t startle her. She flicked her cigarillo into a small pile of filthy snow and I heard it sizzle. She reached for the coffee with grabby hands.

Her eyes were a little bloodshot. “You look like crap,” she said. She took a sip of the latte, leaving lipstick marks on the plastic top of the to-go mug.

“Probably,” I agreed, too cheerfully.

“They give you any idea what to expect?”

“No, just that something fit my profile. They tell you anything?”

She shook her head. “Same as you.” She took another swallow and flinched. “Drinking this is like eating a vanilla pod’s ass.”

“I told them to go light on the syrup, sorry.”

“It’s fine.” June’s voice seemed especially weary. She had an advanced sense of smell and taste, which sometimes made her valuable as a hench, but usually just made her life miserable, especially in the city. There was a shine right under her nose; she’d spread mint chapstick there, a trick doctors and coroners used beneath surgical masks, to block out some of the odors around her.

“No one tells you how much supersenses hurt,” she explained once. “It’s fucking agony. You know some lucky assholes can’t feel pain? Like, not as an ability. Their pain receptors don’t work, so you get these toddlers breaking toes and chewing off their own tongues before they learn to stop fucking with themselves. Turns out, if you can’t feel pain, you can’t smell anything either. Think about a bad smell, how you recoil from it, like it hurts. It’s like that, all the time.” We’d both been drunk as balls and I babbled about how sorry I was until she threw what was left of her drink at me. She was even worse at feelings than I was. She’d been wearing nose plugs to the bar that night, like a swimmer.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)
» The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash #4)