6 Chapter 6 Big Work Days

They had to ask directions to the Director of Records, but they finally found his tiny office, shoved back behind several other stores. When they stepped into the clogged entry, the musty smell of old paper assaulted their noses. A small bell tinkled to let the director know they were there.

"Who's there? Hello? I'm back here, somewhere…" a cry came out, from behind a wall of documents and papers.

"Well you're always busy, I can see," said Airow, looking around, kind of stunned.

"Do you need any assistance?" asked Grey.

"Noo…" came a muttered response. Then a few minutes later, a small mousy man appeared from behind the wall, carrying an armful of documents and books. He set them down on a desk, the two hadn't known was there, because of the piles of papers already on it, and turned to look them over.

"I would say you're probably busy, and leave, but this is urgent and from the state of this room, I would guess you might be busy for the next thirty years…" said Airow, amazed at the mess.

"This is only because I was moved from my old office only last week. The demons were coming and we needed to get these documents to a safe location. I'm merely waiting to hear where my new office will be, and then I should have the room I need to properly store all of this. How many I help you?"

"I'm guessing it would be hard to find a specific record?" asked Airow.

"Not at all. I know exactly where everything is. But there is a fee for any record retrieval, due to the difficulties, as you can easily see," explained the director.

Airow glanced at Grey with a sigh.

"What is the fee?" she asked.

"Two silver per document retrieved. I know that is rather steep, but as you can see, it is rather difficult at the moment to locate and retrieve a specific document, even if I do know where it may be located. The mess alone would put me back weeks, if not longer."

"I understand, thank you," she said, as they left.

"How are we going to make some money?" she asked Airow as they moved down the street.

"Perhaps there would be some cleanup tasks we can help with?" mused Airow.

"You're looking for a job to help with the cleanup?" asked a man, overhearing their conversation.

He was wearing filthy clothing, attesting to the hard work he had put in already that morning. A wheelbarrow was set down as he stood up with a grunt.

"I guess you could say we are looking for a job," said Airow.

"We're not from around here, and need a way to make some money," added Grey.

"I can give you a job, but the pay isn't great. The town doesn't have a lot of money left after we've been attacked so much. I'm not sure why the demons keep coming back, but it sure would be nice if those angels that killed and fought them off would help with some of the cleanup, too."

"At least the angels do come and kill the demons," said Grey. She didn't like how everyone seemed annoyed at the angels for not helping more. Didn't they realize how hard it was to keep up with the demon hordes?

"True, we would be in a much harder place if they didn't come and take those demons out. So, do you want the job or not?"

"Could you tell us more about the job? Like what it is and how much the pay is?" asked Airow.

"The fighting tore up a lot of the buildings on this side of town. The town is paying five copper a day to help with moving the debris over by the wall, so they can start repairing it. We don't want the demons to return and just waltz in because we didn't get the wall fixed back up. If you're interested in taking the job, you'll need to see the foreman to get assigned an area. He's over there, watching everyone, looking important." The man pointed to another man, who wore clean clothes and watched everyone else work.

Airow and Grey went over to see the foreman.

"We're looking for work," she said, as the man turned to them.

"I'm not interested in hiring women. Why don't you go down and help the other gals cook us something to eat?" he said, looking Grey up and down, then turning to Airow.

"If you're wanting a job, I can pay you five copper a day, assuming you work the whole day. Interested?"

"Yes, one moment," he said, pulling Grey to the side. "Why don't you see if they are paying the women to help cooking? Every copper piece counts towards our goal."

With a bad feeling in her gut, she nodded and moved off, leaving him to head over to where a group of women were busy.

"Aw, hun, you look lost, needing something to do?" asked one of the women when she reached them.

"I need to find a way to make money," she said, watching as they made bread and stirred a huge pot of stew.

"There's not many jobs for women to make money. The stupid foreman, who was picked by the city to run the cleanup crew, refuses to hire us. You might be able to find something to do, to help the townspeople, but you should be careful. Some men like to take advantage of a lone woman wandering around."

"Is there a shelter where I could help people who have lost their homes?" she asked, trying to think of good things she could do, to help others.

"There's no such place in all the city," said the woman, looking puzzled as if she had never heard of such a thing.

"There should be," she said, knowing what she was going to do.

XxxxX

Airow waited as the next guy stepped up with his wheelbarrow, before he started to pick up the boulders and rocks that had scattered when the building fell during the battle. He noticed holes in the debris, where he had shot bolts of energy at the demons. This debris was probably partially his fault. It was only right he help to clean it, he supposed.

A line of men formed as he loaded their wagons and wheelbarrows, and then they hauled the stones over to the wall, where another group of people were tearing the rocks down to start patching the broken sections.

At the end of the day, when he went to get his pay, his white cloak stood out among the other workers.

"How are you so clean?" asked the foreman, looking at him in disgust. "You must not be working hard enough! I'll pay you today, but if it happens tomorrow, I'm cutting your pay!"

Everyone he had worked with, throughout the day, looked at him in confusion, as they knew he had worked hard, but his white cloak attested to the opposite. Airow would have to do something about that. Being an angel meant he didn't get dirty normally. This could be a problem.