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Cringing, Alec dropped his hands to protect his groin. “Great, there go my chances of ever having children.”

“Actually, I think that’s a good thing.” Claudia flashed him a wide grin.

Alec opened his mouth, probably to reply with something totally inappropriate, so I cut in. “There’s nothing more toxic than Nectar, guys,” I reminded them. “In other words, this experience shouldn’t leave you any more infertile than before, Alec.”

Gods, how had we even gotten on this topic?

“But Dr. Harding should check out all of us when we get back to base,” I added. “Especially you, Gin.”

Unlike the rest of us, Gin wasn’t a member of the Legion of Angels. She hadn’t survived the gods’ magic-giving, totally-toxic Nectar. On the other hand, she was a phoenix, which made her pretty much un-killable because if anything happened to her, she just resurrected.

“Ok, enough fun for one day.” I pointed at the rats. “Retrieve the bodies, Alec. I want to have Dr. Harding take a look at them just in case it was something magical that spawned them.”

“Hey, why do I have to swim through that muck?” Alec protested.

“Well, it was you who threw the rats into the muck,” Claudia said, giving him a cheerful slap on the back.

I watched Alec frowning at the rats sinking in the pool like a bunch of potato bits in a very unappetizing sea of soup. And, to be honest, I did feel sorry for him.

So I said, “You do remember you possess the power of telekinesis, don’t you, Captain?” He’d just been promoted a few days ago. “So you can just use your magic to extract them.”

Alec’s eyes lit up. “Oh, right. Thanks for the reminder, boss!” He focused on the churning pool, a look of total concentration etched into his face.

Claudia hovered behind his shoulder, watching as he extracted the rats from the pool. “Just try not to drop the stinky sewer beasts on us, hotshot.”

After our exciting adventure in the sewers, we headed back to the Legion for industrial-grade showers courtesy of Purgatory’s repaired water system.

Then we paid a visit to Dr. Nerissa Harding to drop off the bag of dead rat pieces (she was naturally thrilled about that) and have her check out Alec to make sure he could still have babies.

“Well, today was certainly exciting,” I commented as I walked down the hall with Alec and Claudia after the checkups. Gin had already gone home. “I, the great Leda Pandora, Angel of Chaos and Hero of Earth, was essentially brought in to solve a clogged toilet problem.”

“It was much more than ‘essentially’ a clogged toilet, boss,” Alec replied with a bright smile. “The toilets were actually clogged.”

“And the showers weren’t working,” Claudia added.

“You know, not really making me feel better,” I told them. “I’m supposed to have all these skills and powers…and this is what I’m spending my time and magic on.”

Claudia shrugged. “Everything seems small after saving the world.”

Yeah, wasn’t that the truth?

“Don’t worry,” she told me. “Before you know it, I’m sure some crazy megalomaniac will be swooping in to threaten our very existence.”

Now that did make me feel better. What did that say about me?

“Ok, Claudia, I want you to check in with Nerissa in a few hours to get her report on the sewer rats—and to make sure she remembers to eat dinner,” I told her. “You know how distracted she gets when she’s working.” I turned to Alec. “And you should look over the readings Gin took from the control house. I want to know how that magic barrier got there. Somehow, I doubt the rats were responsible.”

“Sure thing, boss,” he replied.

I paused at the door to my office. “All right, I’ll see you guys later. I’m going to write up my mission report.”

Maybe I’d call it ‘Rats Attack: The Underground Explosion’ or ‘Leda’s Legion: Defeating One Clogged Toilet at a Time’. The First Angel would love that. Though she’d probably just make Nero read my report like she always did.

I stepped into my office, closing the door behind me. I was tempted to order in a pre-dinner pizza, but decided against it. Nero had scolded me more than once about leaving grease stains on my reports. That alone made me want to do it. There were few things I enjoyed more than being scolded by Nero. He always got this adorable little crinkle between his eyes. And his lips curved in this delectable way that made me want to nip them.

Sighing, I sat down behind my desk, suddenly hungry for something very different than pizza. But I jumped up just as quickly, my senses screaming danger. There was an intruder in my office.

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