Vespera
At first, it is just labor. Back and forth. Back and forth. The friction of the metal bristles against the stone creates a rhythmic sound that I try to use as an anchor, a way to keep my mind from drifting into the horror of my surroundings. But as the lye hits the dark patches, the room begins to react. The chemicals bubble and hiss, releasing a faint, coppery steam that clouds my visor.
I watch, mesmerized in a trance of pure revulsion, as the dark red begins to break apart. It doesn't just disappear; it dissolves into a grey, frothy foam that looks like the sea during a storm. I lean into the brush, my muscles screaming as I apply the full weight of my body to the task. I have to be thorough. If I leave a single shadow of the past, I am failing the Don. And I know, even without having met Malphas Valerius, that he is not a man who tolerates failure.
As I work, the "Ghost" within me begins to waver. I try to pretend I am cleaning a garage, or perhaps a butcher shop. But a butcher shop doesn't have fingernail marks carved into the walls at waist height. A butcher shop doesn't have the lingering, psychic weight of terror that makes the hair on my arms stand up. The concrete is porous, and over the decades, it has drunk deep of the Valerius family's sins. It is a thirsty floor, and now, it is breathing its history back at me through the chemical steam.
In a crack near the baseboard, my brush snags on something. I stop, my breath hitching. I lean in closer, the light from the caged bulb above reflecting off my visor. It is a small, white fragment. A piece of a tooth. Or perhaps a fragment of a bone.
My stomach lurches violently. I squeeze my eyes shut, the darkness behind my lids feeling safer than the reality in front of me. It isn't a person, I tell myself, the mantra repeating in time with my racing heart. It's just iron. It's just protein. It's just matter.
But the room seems to laugh at my denial. The walls feel as though they are vibrating with the echoes of every scream that has ever been silenced here. I realize then that I am not just a cleaner. I am an accomplice. Every stroke of my brush is an act of erasure, a way of helping the monsters maintain their masks.
"Faster!" Martha's voice boomed, echoing off the cold concrete. "The steam is ready. Move to the next quadrant!"
I stand, my legs trembling. I look down at my gloved hands, covered in the grey, bloody foam of the room's history. I am Vespera Vane, the Evening Star, the light that is supposed to shine at the beginning of the dark. But here, in the bowels of the Valerius estate, I feel my light being swallowed whole.
I move to the next patch of darkness, my movements becoming mechanical, robotic. I have to survive. I have to stay invisible. I am the subterranean ghost, the girl who cleans the killing room, and as I plunge my brush back into the lye, I realize with a sickening clarity that the scent of copper will never, ever truly leave my skin. I am descending into a nightmare that has no bottom, and the master of the house hasn't even come home yet.
I scrub until my vision blurs. I scrub until my hands feel like they are made of lead. I scrub until I forget my own name, becoming nothing more than a tool of the Valerius will. And in the shadows of the corner, I can hear the house itself breathing—a slow, rhythmic thrumming that matches the beating of my own terrified heart. The descent is over. I am here. And the basement is hungry for more than just lye.
I look at the drain—that dark, steel throat in the center of the room. It feels like the epicenter of all the gravity in the world. Everything in this room—the blood, the lye, the screams, and eventually, the people—is meant to disappear down that hole. I wonder how many lives have been washed away into the sewers of this city, labeled as "missing" while their DNA was scrubbed into a grey froth by girls like me.
The chemical steam is getting thicker now, mixing with the cold dampness of the sub-basement. It creates a fog that obscures Martha, leaving me alone in my small circle of jaundiced light. I feel a sudden, irrational urge to rip off the mask, to scream until my lungs burst, just to break the suffocating silence of this place. But I don't. I am a ghost. And ghosts don't scream. They just haunt.
I reach for the high-pressure hose, the metal nozzle cold even through my thick gloves. When I pull the trigger, the roar of the steam is a relief, drowning out the thoughts in my head. I blast the wall, watching as the last of the dark smear is stripped away, leaving the concrete white and raw. For a second, it looks clean. But I know better. I know that under the surface, the stone is saturated with a history that no amount of steam can ever reach.
I am Vespera. I am a cleaner. And today is only the first day of my forever.
I turn the hose toward the drain, flushing the foam away. The sound of the water disappearing into the dark is a lonely, hollow gurgle. I stand there for a long time, watching the water swirl, feeling the weight of the mountain above me, and the weight of the secrets below. I am no longer the girl who walked down those stairs. I am something else now. I am a part of the Killing Room. And as I turn to face the next shadow, I realize with a shudder that the Killing Room is now a part of me.
I can feel the phantom itch of the lye on my skin, even though the rubber protects me. It's the psychological burn of knowing where I am. Every breath I take in this mask feels precious, as if the oxygen is the only thing keeping me from dissolving into the history of this floor. Martha moves past me, her boots splashing in the runoff. She doesn't look at me. She doesn't have to. We are both just shadows moving in the dark, doing the work of a man we've never seen, for reasons we aren't allowed to understand.