Chapter 14: The House at the edge of Town (14)
The back door of the diner banged open hard enough to rattle the frame.
Cold night air rushed in first, followed immediately by Lena and Gorchov, both of them tracking dirt, soot, and dried blood across the cracked tile like it was just another Tuesday.
The contrast was jarring enough that the kitchen seemed to hesitate, as if reality itself needed a second to reconcile bone-clad god-dragon with grease-stained linoleum.
The smell hit Lena immediately.
Onions. Coffee. Hot oil. Old steel. Comforting in a way that made her shoulders sag before she could stop herself.
“Damn,” someone muttered. “You two look like hell.”
The speaker was short, aggressively short, built like a compressed brick with a shaved head and a perpetual scowl that looked less like anger and more like professional disappointment.
He stood near the prep counter, arms crossed over a stained white shirt that read STAFF in faded red letters.
Next to him, manning the flat-top grill with unsettling calm, was someone who looked like he’d been carved out of spare meat and bad decisions. Broad shoulders. Thick forearms. Neck like a tree stump.
He flipped burgers with surgical precision, grease popping harmlessly against skin that had probably stopped registering pain years ago.
The boss didn’t even look up.
“Put it with the others,” he said mildly, scraping the grill.
Gorchov, now very much not a dragon, but still towering and unsettling in his human shape, nodded and stepped aside, revealing what he was carrying.
The box was metal.
Dull gray.
Reinforced edges.
A dozen warning sigils scratched into the surface with the same casual care someone might use to label sugar or salt. It hummed faintly, not audibly, but insistently, like something sulking.
Inside it, the entity lay compressed and inert, wrapped in layers of blackened silk that no longer twitched.
The short guy eyed it.
“New one?”
“Uh-huh,” Lena said, already peeling off her jacket. “Tried to eat the foundation of a house.”
“Figures,” the short guy replied. “Tuesday.”
The buff guy slid open a space at the far end of the kitchen, right between a stack of old milk crates and a dented industrial freezer. Gorchov set the box down gently, the hum dampening as it crossed some invisible threshold.
The box settled.
No one paid it any further attention.
“Alright,” the short guy clapped once, sharp and loud. “Boss says you’re both back on rotation.”
Lena stared at him. “We just neutralized an extradimensional anomaly.”
“And now,” he said, deadpan, “you’re behind on fries.”
Gorchov blinked. “I am still bleeding.”
The buff guy glanced over his shoulder, assessed Gorchov’s state in half a second, and shrugged. “Bleeding’s fine. Dripping’s not.”
He slid a rag across the counter without breaking rhythm. Gorchov caught it, dabbed at his side, and sighed.
“This feels punitive.”
“It is,” the short guy said cheerfully. “Sink’s backed up. Lena, you’re on dish. Gorchov-”
He pointed with two fingers.
“-grill.”
Lena opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then sighed. “Of course I am.”
She moved to the sink, rolled up her sleeves, and turned on the water. It came out scalding, as always. She welcomed it, letting it wash grime and dried blood down the drain like it had never mattered.
Stacks of plates towered beside her, caked in grease and syrup and the detritus of a long night.
She started scrubbing.
The mundanity hit her harder than the fight had.
Behind her, Gorchov stepped up to the grill. The buff guy handed him a spatula without ceremony.
“Don’t overflip,” he said. “They get dry.”
Gorchov stared at the spatula.
Then at the grill.
Then at the burgers.
“I once consumed a minor god,” he said thoughtfully.
The buff guy grunted. “Medium heat.”
The short guy moved down the line, clipboard in hand, rattling off orders like a drill sergeant with a caffeine addiction.
“Coffee’s low. Prep station needs restocking. And somebody tell the boss the freezer’s making that noise again.”
The boss, still flipping burgers, didn’t look up. “I know.”
Lena snorted despite herself.
She worked in silence for a while, the clatter of dishes grounding her. Every now and then her gaze flicked to the metal box at the end of the kitchen.
It sat quietly.
No thrumming. No pressure. No existential dread.
Just another thing stored where it wouldn’t get in the way.
“Wild night?” the short guy asked, not looking at her.
“You have no idea,” she replied.
He smirked.
“I’ve got a pretty good one.”
She smiled faintly.
Gorchov flipped a burger.
Too hard.
Grease splattered up, sizzling against his forearm.
He didn’t react.
The buff guy sighed. “Gentler.”
“Right,” Gorchov said. “Gentle.”
He tried again.
This time, it worked.
Lena watched him out of the corner of her eye, this being who had just minutes ago crushed a reality-warping entity like an unruly insect, now concentrating intensely on not burning beef.
It was absurd.
It was perfect.
The boss finally spoke again. “After close, we’ll process it.”
Lena nodded. “Containment holding?”
“For now.”
She scrubbed another plate.
The entity in the box remained still.
Outside, dawn threatened.
Inside, the fryer beeped.
***
The boss flipped a burger, pressed it once, listened to the sizzle like it was telling him a secret, and said, without looking up, “Alright. Brief me.”
Lena, already halfway through the swinging door with two plates balanced on one arm, called back, “Define brief.”
“Define useful,” the boss replied, sliding cheese onto the patty with perfect timing.
Gorchov leaned on the prep counter, spatula in hand, watching grease pop. “It was… eventful.”
The short guy snorted from the fry station. “That’s not a brief. That’s a vibe.”
Lena kicked the door open with her heel and vanished into the dining area.
The bell dinged.
The boss flipped another burger. “Start talking.”
Gorchov cleared his throat. “There was a house.”
“Yes,” the boss said. “There is always a house.”
“It was… thin,” Gorchov continued carefully.
“Everything is thin,” the boss said. “That’s why we have rules.”
Lena burst back through the door, already reaching for another ticket. “Okay- so, house was rural, thin boundary, buried remnant fused to something it shouldn’t have been, tried to eat the foundation.”
She was gone again before anyone could respond.
The bell dinged.
Gorchov nodded solemnly. “Yes. What she said.”
The buff guy slid a basket of fries into oil. “How many limbs?”
Gorchov considered. “Enough to be annoying.”
The boss hummed. “Anchored?”
“Very,” Gorchov said. “Opinionated.”
Lena came back in, slapped empty plates into the sink, grabbed a coffee pot, and poured without slowing. “It cocooned itself. Black silk. Human limbs. Bad attitude.”
“Of course,” the boss said. “Always silk.”
She vanished again.
The bell dinged.
The short guy scribbled something on his clipboard. “Any civilian exposure?”
Gorchov shrugged. “Two. Prepped. Contained. Sleeping.”
“Good,” the short guy said. “We’re low on clean forks.”
The boss slid a burger onto a bun. “Escalation?”
Gorchov nodded once. “Yes.”
Lena burst back in with a stack of receipts. “Escalated fast. Wouldn’t disengage. Boss, it rag-dolled him.”
She pointed at Gorchov without looking.
He lifted the spatula in acknowledgment. “Aggressively.”
She was gone again.
The bell dinged.
The boss sighed.
“You let it rag-doll you again?”
“I was verifying,” Gorchov said. “It was very committed.”
The buff guy glanced over. “You get authorization?”
“Yes,” Gorchov said.
The boss’s spatula paused for exactly half a second. “You used it.”
“Yes.”
Lena slid back in, already soaked up to the elbows. “Dragon.”
The boss resumed flipping. “I assumed.”
“Bone,” Lena added.
“Obviously.”
“Gas breath,” she said.
The boss nodded. “Classic.”
She pointed a finger at him as she backed out the door. “It melted it.”
The bell dinged.
Gorchov smiled faintly. “Very effective.”
The short guy looked up. “Cleanup?”
“Contained,” Gorchov said. “Boxed.”
“Good,” the short guy said. “Health inspector’s been jumpy.”
The boss scraped the grill. “Any secondary breach?”
Lena came back in, hair frizzed, eyes wild. “Almost. Car intervention.”
“Whose car?” the boss asked.
“Mine,” Lena said flatly.
“Again?”
“Yes.”
She left.
The bell dinged.
Gorchov winced sympathetically. “She drove it into the entity.”
The boss nodded. “Resourceful.”
“It removed the engine,” Gorchov added.
The boss sighed. “Wasteful.”
The buff guy laughed. “That’s the third engine this month.”
The boss slid two burgers down the line. “Any anomalies post-neutralization?”
Lena returned, leaned into the doorway just long enough to say, “Something big showed up behind me.”
The boss didn’t look up. “Define big.”
She paused. Thought. “Bigger than the problem.”
The boss nodded. “Noted.”
She vanished.
The bell dinged.
Gorchov coughed politely. “That was… me.”
The short guy stopped writing. “You?”
“Yes.”
“In the dragon way?”
“Yes.”
The short guy resumed writing. “Put it under ‘internal asset deployment.’”
The boss wiped his hands. “Duration?”
“Short,” Gorchov said. “Decisive.”
“Collateral?”
“Localized,” Gorchov said. “Mostly the house.”
The boss nodded. “Houses are replaceable.”
Lena skidded back in, slid a tray onto the counter, and leaned over the sink, breathing hard. “Customers want pie.”
The boss glanced at the clock. “We’re out.”
“They don’t care.”
The boss sighed. “Fine.”
He reached under the counter.
Gorchov watched him pull out a pie that absolutely had not been there before. “Is that-”
“Yes,” the boss said. “Don’t ask.”
Lena grabbed it and went.
The bell dinged.
The buff guy glanced at the box with the entity. “That thing dead?”
“Neutralized,” Gorchov corrected.
“Same difference,” the buff guy said.
The boss finally looked at Gorchov. “Anything else I should know?”
Gorchov thought about it. “It was disrespectful.”
The boss nodded gravely. “Unacceptable.”
Lena returned, wiped her hands on her apron, and leaned against the counter. “Also, it tried to crawl toward me after the breath stopped.”
The boss paused. “And?”
“I glared at it.”
Gorchov nodded. “She did.”
“It stopped,” Lena said.
The boss flipped another burger. “Good. Eye contact helps.”
The short guy checked his watch. “Shift change in ten.”
Lena groaned. “I’m covered in otherworldly ichor.”
“Apron’s on,” the short guy said. “You’re fine.”
The boss slid the last burger onto a plate. “Alright. Sounds like a standard escalation with mild theatrics.”
“Mild?” Lena said.
The boss shrugged. “No paperwork on my end.”
Gorchov smiled. “That’s comforting.”
The bell dinged.
Lena took the plates and headed out again.
As she went, Gorchov leaned closer to the boss and said quietly, “For the record, she did very well.”
The boss nodded, eyes still on the grill. “She always does.”
The fryer beeped.
The box at the end of the kitchen sat quietly.
And somewhere between coffee refills and flipped burgers, the universe filed the incident away as resolved.
