Cal didn’t crack Barb’s core, but he did step out of her reach.
The man in the brown suit hurried forward. He was non-descript—sandy brown hair and a plain face. His brown leather wingtips were scuffed and in need of a polish. Cal looked down to see that both their suits and shoes were similar.
This was the same man he’d seen on Mimi’s homeworld during the Omega Audit. This was Bonaventure Brown, who wasn’t in the current leadership. Barb had been wrong.
Bon Brown was a former executive, and he’d been fired for…for what? His files had been purged from the entire system, or they’d been moved into one of the secret archives scattered around the basement.
Cal had experienced so many rogue accountants and betrayals that he had to ask. “Who are you and why are you interfering in official DUDE business?”
The man stopped and smiled. “You’re darn right to be suspicious. I’m Bonaventure Brown, Special Employee ID 762-3SA. Do you guys still have Employee IDs? I think the whole system changed not too long ago. I’m now a special consultant to the executive team. And to you, Cal, we well as a bunch of other promising auditors across the multiverse. You’re special though. All those other accountants are dungeon guardians, and they don’t have your soul. Your Funk Soul, to be precise.”
Cal’s eyes went to his friends. Frozen.
Barb’s face was a mask of hate and fear. Cal’s pie graph still illuminated Barb’s face, showing the hate and fear there.
If he killed her, the one thousand, two hundred, and seventy-three worlds would be safe.
Cal gulped in a Breath. “Our Employee IDs are fairly simply at this point. It’s the first three letters off our first name and the last three letters of our last name. So I’m CAL-ILL. With the hyphen.”
“Cal Ill? That’s one sick ID!” The man in the brown suit laughed. “The name’s Bon Brown. But you knew that. And I think you can put the rest together, can’t you?”
Cal thought back to everything he’d learned about the mysterious consultant. Only, he hadn’t started out working for DUDE. He’d started out in the field. “You graduated from the Shadowcroft Academy, and you did actual dungeon core work. But you weren’t Bonaventure Brown back then. No, you were Magnus Elvis Maverick, a wereguy. Still not sure how that works. Were you a wolf during the day?”
The man smiled. “Well, it’s more of a shifter thing. You see, I come from a planet of werewolves, but we weren’t connected to moons or anything like that. I had a crazy aunt, a real dog lady, who became a dungeon guardian, and yeah, dungeon guardianship is kind of a family tradition with us. Long story short, some cat women raiders from Ferox showed up, killed my aunt, and I swore vengeance. Revenge offers some good motivation, but it comes at a price, as we’ve seen. Anyhoo, I became a wereguy dungeon core because I liked the irony. I did start out as Magnus Maverick, though.”
Cal wasn’t sure how a wereguy worked, but he wasn’t going to ask. then thought of Dave…good ol’ Weavelord. “My boss, Dave, knew all about you. You inspired him to become a dungeon guardian.”
Bon Brown sighed. The smile on his face was heartbreaking. “Good ol’ Weavelord. It was one of the reasons I changed my name. As Magnus Maverick, I wanted all the fame, and I got it, but funny thing about fame, it doesn’t fill the empty spaces. It’s like too many sweets. Fun at first. Sickens you later. But what else?”
Cal was caught flat-footed. He held up Barb’s core gem. “Why stop time like this? I mean, we won. We beat Barb. Why come now?”
Mr. Brown sheepishly drew a hand through his hair. “I would’ve come earlier, but, well, here’s the thing. You know those stories about Triple S class dungeons having godlike powers?”
Cal felt his mouth drop open. “You’re Triple S?”
“Yes, Triple S,” Mr. Brown replied. “I’m the Divine Auditor for this collection of realities. I do have godlike powers, but no one can really prepare you for the big three omnis.”
Cal thought for a minute and listed them off. “Omniscient. Omnipotent. And one more.”
Mr. Brown shot him a finger gun. “Omnipresent. I’m in like five realities right now, saving a bunch of worlds, giving folks like you a leg up. I just started implementing the tipline messages, which I hope were helpful. Sorry I got a little chatty and informal.” The mysterious man’s smile was wide and beautiful. “It’s just…I see how it all ends. And it all ends perfectly, Cal. It all works out so wonderfully. It might not feel like it, because you can’t see the big picture, but I can. And the picture is gorgeous.”
Cal felt the emotion in his throat. “But all this death, Bon. Can I call you Bon? I probably shouldn’t.”
“Bon is fine.” The smile never left the Divine Auditor’s face.
Cal had to swallow down some of the emotion. “Dave is dead. Karl is dead. So many are hurt. I hope Inke is okay. He’s been trapped in a polisher the last couple of days. How can it all work out?”
Mr. Brown thought for a moment. “Did you ever see one of those Aldaleeran tapestries? From the front, they show a beautiful scene, like castles at sunset, or palaces at sunrise, or vice versa. Doesn’t matter. On the front, it’s so pretty. But on the back, it’s just a bunch of knots and long strands of colorful thread. Not pretty. For most of my life, I only saw the day-to-day stuff, and it just looked like a bunch of trouble. But when I ascended, yeah, I can see how all those troubles smooth out to create something beautiful.”
Cal found himself angry. “Wait. Fine. Knots. Trouble. Day-to-day stuff. Okay. But you could’ve fixed all of this, right? You could’ve stepped in, stopped the Arcandor Initiative from using their NUKE to power up Barb, the whole thing. Where were you?”
Mr. Brown shrugged. “Like I said. I’m in like five realities at this point. They are all about to explode. But in each one, I have someone like you, doing fine work, and I help where I can. Oh, and there’s that one reality which I’m literally sustaining through my dungeon core.”
“Where is your dungeon core?” Cal asked.
The Divine Auditor tapped his belly. “Where your typical core is. Right on my surprisingly smooth tummy. In this reality, right now, which is one of the more interesting realities at play. You’ve heard of Logan Murray, haven’t you?”
Cal had heard something about a mushroom dungeon at Shadowcroft, doing important things, but the university system really didn’t interest him much. “Sure, but I have more questions about what happened to us. Barb used the parallelograms to create the Celestial Nodes, didn’t she?”
Mr. Brown opened his hand—he did have strangely hairy knuckles—and the big, important parallelogram leapt off the floor and into his hand. “I think Dave told you how these were used to open those TAP report folders, but actually, Phil Phairy and Melinda Xanderinski created these things to do exactly what Barb did. They were given out to clients and to employees, across the universe, with this in mind. Barb took the central idea but tweaked it to create the five Celestial Nodes to draw the energy in. Phil was only ever going to create one Node, but I have to say, for being evil, he certainly wasn’t very creative. It was why Melinda eventually broke up with him. Helped her live longer. Though I think you know she finally met her end by one of the Arcandor Initiative agents.”
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“You killed Phil Phairy. You were the CFO at the time. That was what Karl said.”
Mr. Brown nodded. “I was. Oh, how the office politics weighed on me. I was coping rather well, but then they found out I’d changed my name a bunch of times, which made things difficult, especially when I was crafting magic items. Don’t worry, I filled out all the paperwork, but I couldn’t stop myself from making jokes on the forms. The puns got me fired in the end, but I retooled my image, and came back as a special consultant. It’s an ideal situation. I don’t pull a salary. Being a god, money isn’t all that important. But time is. So, hey, let’s take care of Barb once and for all.”
Cal winced. “I have to kill her, don’t I?”
“Let’s not be too hasty. Destroying the gem, at this point, is a tricky business. It’s been so juiced with Apothos, it might have unexpected results. And we’re not the Pink Reaper, obsessed with power, Morta, and murder.”
Mr. Brown’s eyes flashed, and a shadowy version of Barb stumbled forward, trying to grab the gem, but the pie graph was still in her face. Cal easily stepped away from her.
She turned on Bon Brown. “Great. Him. He’s the executive that I knew would be trouble. Just another suit who doesn’t have anything better to do than give their employees parking tickets. And destroy their dreams. Can’t forget that!”
Mr. Brown squinted. “You parked your cart in the wrong place, Barb, and you were never going to get your aroma art business off the ground with quote unquote exotic, nostril-grabbing odors. You should’ve started with what people liked naturally and slowly ease them into your more avant-garde aromas. Regardless, there are consequences. Like right now, for instance. You were going to drain Apothos from a bunch of worlds to—”
Cal lifted a finger. “One thousand, two hundred, and seventy-three.”
The Divine Auditor grinned. “Very precise. I can appreciate that. Anway, Barb, Cal and his team beat you and Cardi. And yes, I know, Cardi wasn’t under any kind of spell, and is currently swimming in an alarming amount of creamed corn.”
“Are you going to kill us?” Barb asked, pouting. “Or are you going to lock us up in Dungkaban?”
“Dungkaban isn’t an option for you,” Mr. Brown replied in an even voice. “Your core is too powerful.”
Cal felt it, he felt the weight of the moment, and the weight of Barb’s obsession dragging her down. Power thrummed through Cal’s Funk Soul. For that brief moment, he was A-Class, and he realized his Karmic Korrection had been unlocked.
Then he glanced up, and up there, he saw a vent connected to the HVAK ductwork. Perkle and Harvey had managed to find a way to get one down to the fifth floor, probably during their battle. Perkle opened the vent and waved.
Barb finally sighed. “Can you end the pie graph, Cal? I can’t see a thing.”
He turned off his DBV.
In the light of her scented candles, Barb was pale, her brow furrowed, and her eyes wide with fear. “What are you going to do to me?”
Cal somehow knew the answer. “Do you want to live, Barb? That’s the real choice. Do you want to live and make amends for the trouble you caused.”
“And to atone for your two actual murders as well as the attempted murder of twenty-five point five septillion lives times, which is roughly what you get if you multiply twenty quintillion times one thousand, two hundred, and seventy-three. “Mr. Brown winked at Cal. “I didn’t get fired for lack of precision. I got fired for my puns.”
“I want to live,” Barb said quietly. “Because of my art. I think I can make the universe better with my aroma art. I’m sorry about Weavelord and Karl. I really am.”
Cal wasn’t sure he believed her, and yet, was he capable of cold-blooded murder, however justified?
Cal thought Mr. Brown might look disgusted, but no, he was nodding. “Being forced to work a day job while pursuing your art during your down time isn’t easy. Alas, it’s the reality for most artists. The pressure broke you, Mrs. Starmyst, but that doesn’t justify what you did. Two are dead because of you. If you want to live, then you’ll have to let Cal audit you.”
“With my Karmic Korrection,” Cal said. “I can balance the books. In the end, you might die, I don’t know.”
Barb sighed. “I’ve been dead before, after all, when I became a dungeon guardian in the first place. And I was a good person before I was forced into a life of crime. I’m willing to take my chances.”
Mr. Brown gave her a long look. “Forced is the wrong word. You chose your path. Cast the spell, Cal. This time, I don’t think you’ll have quite the same reaction you did the last time.”
Cal triggered Karmic Korrection, and immediately, Barb’s guardian form vanished. Her gem core glowed as he witnessed her life—the ups and downs, the frustrations, the setbacks, and both the good and evil she’d done. He saw her gifts and her liabilities, listed in a spreadsheet, that he could manipulate at will.
Her actual auditing work was excellent—she gave dungeon guardians very good advice, which helped save tens of thousands of greedy dungeoneers from destroying over a thousand worlds and the dungeon guardians that protected them. That good was laid against her attempt to destroy the very worlds she saved. He saw her planting the parallelograms in the dungeons she audited, the same tchotchkes that would help her embezzle the energy. He saw her two murders. Yes, Cardi was involved, but she’d been following the aromatherapist’s lead.
Harvey spoke from the HVAK vent, “Hey, buddy, you know what to do.”
And strangely enough, Cal did. With his family, back in Mimi’s inner sanctum, he’d swapped his family’s Apothos with the Void Lords. But with Barb, he could do something different. She could make amends by helping DUDE in its very important work.
Cal found Harvey’s core, in a secret space above the circular tiled rooms in the basement and underneath a closet on the main level. The damaged Harvey was willing to help another lost soul like he’d done when he ran his therapy groups in the prison for lost dungeon cores.
Barb’s core gem disappeared as Cal balanced Barb’s sins with her future good works, all because Harvey was willing to help out. There was an intermingling of energies as Harvey accepted Barb. She would work with him to keep the climate of the offices at just the right temperature. She could use her aroma art every day to help soothe and motivate the Department’s hardworking accountants.
She wouldn’t talk—she wouldn’t have to—because she could communicate with scent, which in the end, was better than her annoying voice. If she tried any funny business, Harvey would be there to stop her. He’d worked as a prison guard in Dungkaban. He knew how to handle the hardcases.
Barb would continue to work for the good of the Department, and yes, after a minimum of ten thousand years, she might have earned a retirement. Maybe.
Cal turned to Mr. Brown. “That was surprising. But this is a way for her to balance the books.” He felt his Funk Soul powering down, and he was back to being high B-Class, a newbie Azure Branch cultivator. That was okay. He could embrace the journey. And the journey was bound to be interesting. He was on the Path of the Divine Auditor.
Mr. Brown turned to leave.
Cal stopped him. “Wait. So, in time, I could become an actual Divine Auditor? Is that really a possibility?”
The god of accounting nodded. “Yes, Cal. Most definitely. You’re like me. You love all this—the standard operating procedures, the documentation, balancing books, the truth of numbers, the art of the audit. But not just you, my friend. Gwen, Helga, and Kronke, all of them could find themselves on the same path. You all work very good as a team, and let me tell you, the power of teamwork is just as important as the power of a god. I’ll keep tabs on you and your journey, and I’ll be there with tips. Thanks for committing to the job. You’re a good egg, Cal.”
Cal couldn’t help but get misty. “A good egghead, you mean.”
“Nope. I hate that whole egghead accounting joke that Otis made. Still, you did a good job with him, a good job with Mimi, and you removed Barb as a threat. Keep on keeping on. I’m going to go put an end to Plan C before we all die from creamed corn exposure. Sure, the Celestial Node is gone, but somehow, there is still a whole lotta of Plan C left.”
Mr. Brown took a step forward and faded away. Time started again. Barb’s gem was with Harvey’s cracked core, in that hidden space that Cal would keep a secret. It was what Harvey wanted, and it was a strategic choice. Having a hidden dungeon core had proved to be invaluable. They all would’ve died if it hadn’t been for Harvey.
Gwen, Helga, and Kronke—all huddled together—looked around, mystified.
Barb’s inner sanctum was gone, and only bare stone was left. There wasn’t a pedestal there because it wasn’t a Celestial Node anymore.
The Department now had three extra basements and an additional thirty thousand square feet they could use for filing.
Gwen blinked. “Wait. What happened, Cal? And why does it smell so good?”
Cal sniffed. The place smelled like smoky caramel and bourbon, a sweet and smokey scent. He had to grin. “That’s Barb’s aroma art. Long story short. We won.”