My Patients Are All Mythical Monsters

0022 — The Authority

The foyer of Blackwood Manor smelled of ozone and expensive perfume. It was a cloying, suffocating scent, like a funeral parlor built inside a thunderstorm.

Carmilla floating three inches above the floorboards. She refused to touch the ground. Her red dress rippled as if submerged in water, defying gravity and logic.

She stared at Iron-Jaw.

The ex-g**g leader was trembling. Sweat beaded on his forehead, rolling down his scarred nose. He wasn't shaking from fear of a g*n or a knife. He was shaking because his biology was screaming at him to run.

"Disgusting," Carmilla whispered. Her voice was soft, melodic, and utterly lethal.

She raised a single, manicured finger.

Steam rose from Iron-Jaw's skin.

"Boss..." Iron-Jaw wheezed. His skin turned a violent shade of red. The blood inside his veins was beginning to boil. "It... burns. Make it stop. Please. I didn't mean to sweat. It's just... hot in here. I think I'm cooked, Boss."

"You're medium-rare at best," Victor muttered, not looking up from his clipboard. "Stop whining. It builds character."

He didn't fight back. He dropped to his knees, head bowed. In the hierarchy of the night, a ghoul does not strike a vampire. A street thug does not challenge a Queen. He accepted his execution as a formality.

Carmilla wrinkled her nose. "This thing is shedding particulate matter. It is leaking fluids. It is... unclean."

She prepared to snap her fingers. The air pressure in the room dropped. The "sterilization" was about to begin.

Clack...

The sound was sharp, plastic, and annoyingly loud.

Victor stepped between the goddess of death and the sweating gangster. No wand. No chant. Just a clipboard and the posture of a man who had reviewed too many spreadsheets.

"Strike one," Victor said. Flat. Bored.

Carmilla paused. The boiling heat around Iron-Jaw faltered. She blinked, crimson eyes focusing on the man in the white coat. "Excuse me?"

"Strike one." Victor tapped his pen against the plastic board—tap, tap, tap. "Attempted destruction of Clinic property. Subsection 4, Paragraph B: Staff Safety Protocols. You are in violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act of the Netherworld."

He finally looked up, meeting her gaze. He didn't look like prey. He looked like a disappointed shift manager finding a rat in the kitchen.

"You're damaging my nurse. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good help these days? The insurance premiums alone are a nightmare. And look at this. You're not even wearing a hairnet. Do you know the fines for shedding supernatural dandruff in a sterile zone?"

The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush a lung.

Iron-Jaw stared at Victor's back, mouth agape. He'd seen men face down SWAT teams. He'd seen cyber-psychos tear apart tanks. But he had never seen anyone lecture a Crimson Ancestor about HR policy. He shifted his weight, wincing as his burns throbbed, but he didn't dare breathe.

Carmilla tilted her head. The air around her shimmered, warping the light. "You speak to me of... property? I am Carmilla of the Crimson Court. I do not follow rules. I write them in blood. My hair does not shed. It is woven from the shadows of the abyss."

"Shadows, dandruff, same code violation. That's a 50 Gold fine." Victor scribbled on the paper. "I'll add it to the invoice."

She floated forward. Shadows in the corners lashed out like whips. The pressure intensified—the Aura of a predator designed to force submission. The temperature plunged. Frost spiderwebbed across the windows.

Victor didn't flinch. He didn't even look up.

"Not here."

He slammed the clipboard shut.

The impact didn't just echo; it shoved. A physical wave of force distorted the air. The house responded.

Deep in the walls, pipes groaned like waking beasts. Floorboards vibrated, shaking dust from the cracks. The shadows Carmilla had summoned froze, then retreated, skittering back as if afraid of something darker living in the foundation. Above, the chandelier rattled, crystals chiming a frantic warning.

Yggdrasil was listening. The Clinic was watching.

Victor took a step forward, invading her personal space.

"This is not your castle, Madam. This is my Clinic. And in this building, the Doctor outranks the God."

He pointed the pen at her chest.

"You are not a Queen here. You are a biological hazard. You are a carrier of a Class-5 magical pathogen. And until you sign the admission forms, you are trespassing."

Carmilla floated back a fraction of an inch. Involuntary. She felt it—the weight of the "Old Law." Not a magical binding she recognized, but something ancient. Bureaucratic. Inescapable.

She lowered her hand. The heat around Iron-Jaw dissipated.

"I..." She hesitated, arrogance cracking. "I require treatment. The stain... it will not wash off."

"We'll get to that," Victor said, dismissing her existential crisis with a wave. He turned to the spot where she had been aiming her magic. "But first, look at this mess."

He pointed to the scorch mark on the air itself, where blood magic had lingered.

"Blood mist? Really?" Victor scoffed. "Do you know how much cross-contamination that causes? You're aerosolizing your own pathogens. It's not hygiene; it's a bio-weapon."

Carmilla looked offended. "It is the Rite of Purity! It burns away all filth!"

"It leaves residue," Victor corrected. "And it smells like copper. Iron-Jaw, the bottle."

Iron-Jaw, still smoking slightly, scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the yellow spray bottle from the cleaning cart and handed it to Victor with trembling hands.

Victor held it up like a holy relic.

"You want to see real purity? Watch."

He aimed the nozzle at the floorboards where a drop of Iron-Jaw's blood had fallen. Squeezed the trigger.

Hiss~

White foam hit the wood. It fizzed violently, eating away the blood, the dirt, and the varnish. The smell of chlorine punched the air—sharp, chemical, and overwhelming.

"Sodium Hypochlorite," Victor announced. "Destroys DNA. Denatures proteins. Kills 99.9% of all known bacteria, viruses, and curses."

Carmilla stared at the bubbling foam. Her expression shattered. She leaned closer, defying her own germophobia to witness the miracle. She could feel the chemical reaction. Ruthless. Efficient. It didn't rely on mana; it relied on chemistry.

"It... erased it," she whispered. She looked at the plastic bottle with genuine awe. "No incantation? No sacrifice? It simply... devoured the impurity."

"Just science," Victor said. "And a little lemon scent. It's a complex polymer chain designed to disrupt cellular membranes on contact. Very advanced. Very expensive."

Carmilla reached out a hand, hovering over the bottle. "Is it... safe? Does it require a containment field?"

"Safe? No. It's bleach." Victor snatched the bottle back before she could sense its lack of aura. "Don't drink it. Don't put it in your eyes. And for God's sake, don't mix it with ammonia unless you want to recreate the trench warfare of 1915."

Carmilla's eyes lit up with dark nostalgia. "Trench warfare... a glorious era. The mustard gas had a delightful texture."

"Not for the lungs, it wasn't." Victor muttered. "Anyway, it handles blood stains. That's all you need to know."

He tossed the bottle to Iron-Jaw. "Wipe that up. Use the sterile pads. And don't use the guest towels. Those are Egyptian cotton."

Iron-Jaw caught the bottle as if it were a grenade. He looked at Victor, eyes wide with a new kind of worship. The Boss had just disarmed a vampire with a spray bottle. He clutched the yellow plastic like a relic blessed by the War God himself. "Yes, Boss. Right away, Boss. No guest towels. Got it."

Victor turned back to Carmilla, ripping a page off his clipboard.

"The Admission Form. Sign it. Bottom line. Initials on page two and three. Note the clause regarding 'Destruction of Load-Bearing Walls' and 'Unauthorized Feeding on Staff'."

"Wait," Victor added, tapping a paragraph. "Subsection C. You need to acknowledge the noise ordinance."

Carmilla narrowed her eyes. "I do not make noise. I glide. I am the silence of the grave."

"Your victims make noise," Victor countered, not looking up. "Screaming is a violation of the quiet hours between 10 PM and 6 AM. We have neighbors. Well, we have trees, but the squirrels are very litigious."

Carmilla looked at him as if he were speaking a dead language. "You wish for me to... silence them faster?"

"I wish for you to not hunt on the premises. But if you must feed, do it quietly. Use a muffler. Or take them to the basement. Soundproofing is better down there."

"I see," Carmilla murmured. "You are a tyrant of small details."

"I am a landlord. Same thing. Initial here."

Carmilla looked at the paper. It was a standard liability waiver he had printed off the internet, but to her, it looked like a soul-binding contract. The ink seemed to pulse with the authority of the House.

"If I sign..." she asked, voice trembling slightly. "Will you use the... Sodium Hypochlorite... on me?"

"If you're lucky," Victor said, tone bored. "And if you follow the protocol. No unauthorized killing. No blood mist indoors. And for the love of sanity, wash your hands. We have a sink. Use it."

Carmilla reached out. She bit her thumb, drawing a drop of glowing red blood. Pressed it onto the paper.

Sizzle.

The paper absorbed the blood, sealing the deal. The air shifted. The pressure lifted. Shadows returned to being just shadows.

"Excellent," Victor said, checking the signature. "Room 202 is prepped. Hermetically sealed window, plastic covers on the furniture. Iron-Jaw will take your bags. Don't eat him, or I'll add a surcharge to your bill. A very steep surcharge."

He turned to walk away. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. He needed his office. He needed a chair before his legs gave out. His hands shook so hard he had to shove them into his pockets.

"Doctor," Carmilla called out.

Victor paused. "Yes?"

She was staring at the yellow bottle in Iron-Jaw's hands. Her gaze was intense, covetous.

"That alchemical compound. The 'Bleach'. I must possess it. I must have the power to erase the world's filth."

Victor looked back over his shoulder. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—the smile of a man realizing he was sitting on a gold mine.

"That's a premium prescription item," he lied smoothly. His mind raced, calculating the risk. Charge too much, she realizes she can just kill me and take it. Charge too little, she thinks it's worthless snake oil. Five hundred. The price of a decent minor artifact. High enough to hurt, low enough to be an impulse buy.

"Imported from the Deep Dimension," he continued aloud. "Highly volatile. Requires a license to operate. It'll cost you an extra 500 Gold per bottle. And that's the family and friends discount. Usually, I charge double for non-members."

Carmilla didn't blink. "I will take ten. And I require a demonstration of its full power. Can it cleanse a soul? Can it erase a sin?"

Victor nodded. "Put it on her tab, Iron-Jaw. And charge her for the paper towels too. And the consultation fee. And the hazard pay."

As he walked into his office and closed the door, Victor slid down the wall until he hit the floor. He exhaled, a long, shaky breath.

"I just sold bleach to a vampire," he whispered to the empty room. "At a five thousand percent markup."

He looked at his hands. They were trembling.

Five thousand Gold. It was a drop in the ocean compared to the ninety-nine million he owed. It wouldn't even cover the interest for the next hour. But that wasn't the point.

He let out a short, breathless laugh. Not hysterical. Just relieved.

"It's not a cure," he muttered, staring at the ceiling. "It's a subscription model."

He was alive. He had a customer. And he had just become the most powerful janitor in the multiverse.