My Patients Are All Mythical Monsters

0028 — Medical Waste

"Iron-Jaw. The bucket."

The cyborg scrambled. He kicked open the pantry door and returned with a galvanized steel pail, the kind used for coal or perhaps mixing cement. It was dented, rusted, and smelled faintly of old gasoline.

"Perfect," Victor said. "Put it down. Back away. Do not breathe through your nose."

In the sink, the black sludge had stopped tapping against the faucet. It was now exploring the drain stopper, testing the metal mesh with a probing tentacle of darkness. It moved with the arrogant sluggishness of crude oil that knew it cost a hundred dollars a barrel.

Valeska took a step forward, her hand tightening on the hilt of her sword. "I shall sever its connection to this plane."

"No!" Victor shouted, holding up a hand. "Physical trauma just makes it multiply. It's kinetic-reactive. You hit it, it splits. You s***h it, you get two angry puddles instead of one."

Victor opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out his emergency kit. It wasn't a holy reliquary. It was a yellow plastic raincoat bought from a fisherman in District 4, a pair of thick rubber dishwashing gloves, and swimming goggles that were missing the strap on the left side.

The coat crinkled loudly in the silence as he shrugged it on. The goggles snapped over his eyes, the broken strap tied in a knot behind his head that pulled at his hair. Then came the pink rubber gloves.

Valeska watched him. She stared at the yellow rain slicker like it was a heresy she hadn't decided to burn yet. She was trying to fit this into her worldview. The Vestments of the Void, she was probably thinking. The Yellow Robe of Containment.

"Iron-Jaw," Victor said, his voice muffled by the high collar. "The shovel."

The cyborg handed him a rusted garden trowel.

"The big shovel," Victor corrected.

He handed him a snow shovel.

"Good."

The shovel blade scraped against the tiles as Victor approached the sink. The sludge sensed movement. It retracted its tentacles and formed a ball, bristling with spikes. It hissed—a sound like bacon hitting a hot pan.

"Listen to me," Victor whispered to the goo. "You are an eviction notice. You are a lease violation. You are leaving."

Metal met porcelain with a screech. He jammed the shovel under the mass.

The sludge screamed.

The sound was like a dial-up modem dying in a microwave. The vibration traveled up the aluminum handle and rattled Victor's teeth. He gritted them and scooped. The stuff was heavy, denser than lead, shifting its weight to throw him off balance.

He lifted the shovel. The sludge fought back. It clung to the porcelain sink with a thousand microscopic hooks. Victor had to brace his foot against the cabinet and heave.

RIIIIIIP.

It came free with the sound of tearing velcro. Victor swung the shovel toward the bucket. The sludge stretched, elastic and stubborn, trying to snap back to the sink. It was like wrestling a sentient rubber band.

"Get in the bucket!" he grunted, shaking the shovel.

The sludge formed a thick, oily limb and slapped his goggles. Thwack. It left a smear of darkness that blocked his left eye.

"It is attacking!" Valeska yelled, drawing her sword.

"Don't!" Victor waved her off blindly. "It's just separation anxiety!"

His gloved hand scraped the sludge off the shovel blade. It felt hot and slimy, pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't his. He shoved it into the pail.

SPLAT.

It hit the bottom and immediately tried to climb back out, forming a ladder of ooze.

"Lid!" Victor yelled.

Iron-Jaw slammed a heavy iron lid onto the bucket. Victor jumped on top of it, his boots skidding on the metal. The bucket shook violently beneath him. It felt like standing on a washing machine during an earthquake.

"Is it... contained?" Valeska asked. She had retreated to the doorway, her sword point lowered but still ready.

"For now," Victor panted, wiping sweat from his forehead. The goggles were fogging up. "But it's exothermic. Feel the heat?"

He pointed to the bucket. The galvanized steel was turning a dull, angry red. The paint was starting to blister. The smell of burning zinc filled the kitchen, mixing with the lemon scent of the steam.

"The sin burns," Valeska murmured, her eyes wide. "It rejects confinement."

"It's radioactive decay," Victor lied, hopping off the bucket and signaling Iron-Jaw to lift it. "Or spiritual decay. Same half-life. We have maybe five minutes before it melts through the bottom and eats the floorboards."

"Where do we take it?" Valeska asked. "The nearest consecrated ground is three miles away."

"We recycle," Victor said. "Follow me."

The journey to the basement was less of a procession and more of a controlled panic.

Iron-Jaw carried the bucket with both hands, his servos whining under the load. Victor walked backward in front of him, shovel raised, ready to bat down any escaping tendrils. Valeska brought up the rear, chanting something in High Gothic that sounded suspiciously like a noise complaint.

The bucket was getting hotter. Steam hissed from the seams.

"It is getting heavier," Iron-Jaw grunted. His voice was a grinding of gears. "My gyroscope is detecting a mass increase of 5% per second. It is denser than the centrifuge readings indicated."

"That's because it was holding onto the drum before," Victor said. "Now it's just dead weight. Like a politician without a podium. Keep moving."

"It is promising me... upgrades," Iron-Jaw said, his red optical sensor flickering. "It says it can make me... lighter."

"It's lying. It's a politician's soul condensed into sludge. Keep moving."

They reached the basement door. It was locked, naturally. Victor fumbled for his keys, dropping them twice because his hands were shaking. The bucket was glowing cherry-red now. A drop of black liquid sizzled through the seam of the lid and landed on the carpet.

The carpet screamed. It wasn't a metaphor. The wool fibers literally shrieked as they dissolved into nothingness.

Valeska stepped forward and kicked the door. The wood splintered. The lock flew across the room and embedded itself in the drywall.

"Efficient," Victor said.

"Hurry," she commanded.

We descended into the dark.

The stairs were narrow and creaky. Iron-Jaw had to walk sideways. The bucket bumped against the wall, singing the wallpaper instantly.

"Careful!" Victor hissed. "If you drop that, we lose the house."

"And our souls," Valeska added helpfully.

They reached the bottom. The basement wasn't a storage area. It was the Manor's root system. The air here was cool, damp, and smelled of wet earth and ancient patience. The walls were lined not with shelves, but with thick, pulsating veins of wood.

This was Yggdrasil's garden. Or his stomach.

The ground was soft, covered in a layer of mulch that felt disturbingly like skin. Above them, the ceiling was a tangle of roots, dripping condensation that tasted like copper.

"Put it there," Victor pointed to a hollow in the center of the dirt floor, where the roots formed a natural bowl.

Iron-Jaw dropped the bucket. It landed with a heavy thud, sinking inches into the soft soil. The metal hissed as it touched the damp earth.

Victor didn't wait. The shovel pried the lid off with a groan of stressed metal.

The pressure release was instant. The lid flew off and embedded itself in the ceiling. The sludge erupted like a geyser, a tower of black hate rising into the darkness. It formed a face—vague, screaming, and mostly mouth.

Valeska raised her sword. "Back, foul—"

"Dinner time!" Victor yelled, kicking the bucket over.

The sludge spilled into the root bowl.

The reaction was immediate. The ground shook. The roots around the bowl didn't recoil; they surged forward. Thick, wooden tendrils lashed out, faster than whips. They didn't strike the sludge; they embraced it.

They wrapped around the black goo, squeezing, absorbing.

The sludge shrieked again, but this time it was a sound of panic. The roots were thirsty. They drank the curse. They sucked the Vantablack stain into their fibers. The wood turned a deep, bruised purple, then black, then a vibrant, healthy green.

A low, satisfied rumble echoed through the basement. It sounded like a tectonic burp.

Valeska lowered her sword. Her eyes were wide. She looked from the empty bucket to the writhing roots, then to Victor.

"You..." she started, her voice trembling slightly. "You feed the Ancient Ones with the essence of corruption?"

Victor pulled off his foggy goggles and rubbed his eyes. "It's nitrogen-rich," he said. "Great for the roses. You'd be amazed what a little existential dread does for the pH balance of the soil."

As if to prove his point, a vine near Valeska's head twitched. A bud formed on the tip. In seconds, it bloomed into a massive, velvety black rose.

It was beautiful.

Then the center of the flower opened, revealing a single, blinking human eye. It looked at Valeska.

Valeska took a sharp step back.

"It likes you," Victor said, leaning on his shovel. "That's rare. Usually, it just spits thorns."

"This place," Valeska whispered, backing toward the stairs. "It is a garden of monstrosities."

"Ecosystem," Victor corrected. "Reduce, reuse, recycle. Now, let's get out of here before it asks for dessert."

The bucket was cool to the touch as Victor picked it up.

"Are we done here?" he asked.

Valeska stared at the eye-flower. The eye blinked back. She nodded, slowly, stiffly.

"The waste is... disposed of," she said. She reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a small, leather-bound citation pad. Her hand was shaking, but she clicked her pen with terrifying muscle memory.

"Unlicensed cultivation of Abyssal flora," she muttered, scribbling furiously without looking down. "Improper disposal of hazardous spiritual materials. Zoning violation, Residential-to-Industrial. Code 44-B."

She tore the slip off and held it out toward the blinking eye-flower.

The eye stared at the paper. It blinked once. A thorn slowly extended from the stem, looking dangerously like a middle finger.

Valeska didn't flinch. She pinned the citation to the nearest root with a dagger she pulled from her boot. "First warning issued."

"Great. Let's go see if your sister has woken up."

Victor walked past her, up the stairs, whistling a tune that was definitely not a hymn. He didn't look back. He didn't want to see if the flower was still watching.

He knew it was.

The basement door clicked shut behind them, locking itself.

On the landing, the relatively clean air of the hallway filled Victor's lungs. His hands were still shaking. His hunger was coming back, a sharp pang in his gut that reminded him he hadn't eaten anything but a stale sandwich in twelve hours.

"Doctor," Valeska said. She was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. Her armor was spotless, but her face was pale.

"Yeah?"

"That... thing down there," she said. "It is bound to the house?"

"It is the house," Victor said. "Or the house is it. I try not to think about the zoning laws."

She nodded, accepting this insanity with the stoicism of a fanatic. "Then the house is also a patient."

"Aren't we all," Victor muttered.

The kitchen was his destination. The hard part was over. Now he just had to deal with a conscious, traumatized vampire and an invoice that needed signing.

Easy.

Right?