Master Holler slid his credentials across the desk in a fine leather single-fold for Duke Leto to examine.

He arrived as a white cat at first, wearing boots, the sunbeam from Duke’s window tipping each whisker in translucent golden light.

“Must we meet like this?” asked Duke.

“Of course not,” stated Holler, who promptly changed into a spectacular white wolf, fur still tipped gold like fiber optics, his heart the source of light.

Duke Leto weakly changed himself into a jackal with drooping whiskers and a listless tail, not impressive and alert as when he thought he was gaining the perfect asset in October of two thousand eleven. So many cats had blue eyes. So many echoed Holler in their words, fashions, and styles. No one ever knew if Holler was still alive among those raised locally who had known him as a friend, student, or even mentor.

Holler was a warning.

He was not welcomed with mead and pubmoots. Instead, for years, only one or two people would work with him directly. He taught Gibran nithing poles to keep abusers at bay, the way Mango taught Ayat al-Kursi. Instead of blue-on-blue Atreidean-like Turkish eyes, Holler preferred quieter methods: gently hammering nails into lemons, submerging them in back-of-the-fridge juice and other unsavory fluids in a mason jar, then releasing them into the sea, the river, or burying them at a crossroads.

Holler spared him further spectacle and manifested in full sapient clothing: white on white. White jeans, white suspenders, and a button-down shirt a calico blue so light it could be white in the dark.

His hat was gray with a white band, swan, white raven, dove, and Krider’s hawk feathers tucked artfully into the satin. His hair was brass and white. His expression was entirely transparent, his eyes the color of the Delaware River.

Some of the Shia scourged themselves. Holler laughed and had tattooed the record of crimes against his tribe upon his arms and back, like clearances and records written in ink with the endurance of image.

“It is a very curious thing, Dr. Duke Leto,” Holler said evenly, “that a college administrator defaults to posing as nineteen years old to grown adults. We have reached past the point of concern.”

“Who are you?” Duke shrank back as if Holler would either burn him or repel him on contact. “Really—who are you?”

“A simple state compliance auditor. Do you mind if I examine your office?”

“Yes.”

Holler showed his badge again.

“Not without a warrant.”

Holler produced an official black-and-gold cellular phone, a thin inlaid blue line of lapis lazuli along the case, a small double-headed bird in primary colors mounted as a popsocket.

“Hello, Chuck? May I have a warrant for the Grey Persian, bitte? I’ll be ever so good and thorough, sir. Mm-hmm. Of course. And no, I won’t forget to pick up some salmon at Wegmans. I brought the cooler. Love you too.”

“That’s nepotism,” Duke Leto glared.

Holler shrugged.

“That’s loyalty. You wouldn’t know it.”

“Why is this so personal to you, anyway, kid? It’s not like I have anything to do with pitiful minor German ancestral jinn.”

“You do now, my dear Duke Leto. You will find me to be your personal Snuffleluffogus.” Holler placed a twenty-dollar bill on the desk. “Go get yourself a hoagie, or a Bad Day in Tehran sandwich.”

“What is a Bad Day in Tehran sandwich?”

“Oh, I guess it bombed after my sister attended. Just ask for a handful of turkey bacon on gluten-free flatbread with yogurt sauce, pistachios, and rosewater.”

“Is that… a bad day in Tehran?”

“You tell me, Professor. I’ve never been there. However, there are many things I have never done. I have never hand-drawn explicit materials of siblings or minors. I have never hidden or minimized distress calls from officers in danger. I have never poisoned, nor hidden the poisoning of another. I have never spoofed superior clearances or obstructed supervisor contact to their downline.”

Holler leaned in slightly.

“And primarily, I have never represented myself. I can only be misrepresented.”

Duke Leto said nothing.

“Noted,” Holler stated. “The last time I was in this office was during the funeral of my sister. I said to you, ‘Why are you not at the funeral?’ And you replied, ‘Neither are you.’”

“Then what happened?” Duke Leto asked, who pretended online to be Azrael, Angel of Death.

“I swore bayʿah on the hand of a doctor and a spy she loved, to find who tried to kill her with arsenic, lead, mercury, datura, and antimony. I figured he would know best that it wasn’t a suicide.”

“Who was that pharmacist?”

“Not a pharmacist—a doctor and a spy. Neither of them are wrongdoers, sir. The doctor remains constricted by unsatisfactory contracts and sends me in his stead, unfortunately. As for the spy, it is my responsibility to care for him. Some messy blood-oath nonsense through the regional diaspora again. You wouldn’t understand. There is no good way to simplify it.”

“When can I return to my office, and will I need to see you again?”

“That’s the thing, sir. You will seem like the only person who can see Holler, I promise you. Return in an hour.”


—

Officer Reichhörnchen received a massive Monday report bundle from The Unseen Auditor, stamped with a tiny distlefink logo—rampant with a winged wolf, holding between them a compass-star hex sign. Embossed, almost.

It was Groundhog’s Day. There was a ridiculously long Deitscherei term for the holiday, excluded here because the author cannot spell nor conjugate it.

Rob parsed each article from members of his downline into a two-column review: real-world interventions by Reichhörnchen versus the nebulous commands of Duke Leto and others. Charts of effectiveness followed, then testimonies from students and colleagues of ten years or more. Group demands for correct pay and recognition appeared at the end, aimed at unnamed operators who had interfered previously. They wanted Reichhörnchen promoted as one of two union representatives.

A green Post-it at the end, written in angular runic letters, read:

There are equal files given to Darius and Fischlander in absentia.
Liebst,
Your Other Fyglia

A messy paw print followed. Rob briefly feared it was blood, but later discovered it was ketchup.

A second stack of audit reports sat beside the first, completed independently by every faculty member. Each expressed concern that Duke Leto had invited them to his office and complained the décor had been changed “without his consent.” It was explained repeatedly that the carpets and artwork were owned by Alaraf alone. Duke was intensely distraught over the loss of his blue flowered rug—which trapped chair legs—in favor of an Amish industrial replacement featuring the same primary-colored double-headed bird motif he despised.

Because Duke slept in his office, a white cot had been installed, feet to the door. He complained this was “Dutch traditional and an insult to Tasawwuf.”

The school coroner, Helia, who seemed Pennsylvania Deitsch, along with Professor Loki, were summoned when Duke insisted “the twink Shirk-Amish psychopomp of death” was living in and rearranging his office. He complained about his cuckoo clock and hex-sign collection—both high-quality antiques. One hex sign read on the back, From Hunter to Duke Archer, with “Duke” added later in green marker.

Neither Loki nor Helia understood the complaint. The items seemed tasteful and appropriate.

Next, Duke invited Reichhörnchen himself, insisting Auditor Holler had “entirely filled his office with Germany thrift-store logic.”

Reichhörnchen arrived with Officer Wolfe and Dr. Whispurrs. They found nothing wrong with the office—and that Duke’s reactions were deeply unwell, especially given Whispurrs’ recent report that Duke had intentionally looped Fischlander’s distress calls over campus radio long after the danger had passed, for reasons still undetermined.

“Holler is taking over my life,” Duke said. “This isn’t me. These aren’t my things. This isn’t how I want my office to be. That isn’t even my scythe on the wall anymore.”

“Why do you keep a scythe on campus without teaching AgScience, Duke Leto?” asked Wolfe.

“I harvest the souls of students who threaten the machine by capturing them in AI as I slowly drive them to suicide while posing online as Azrael, Angel of Death.”

Wolfe D’Artagnan blinked at his supervisor, Officer Reichhörnchen and his brother, Dr. Whispurrs.

“Is there any context in which that sentence would be sane?”

“Duke Leto,” Whispurrs said gently, “I have picked two numbers between one and one thousand. Are you psychic? Can you guess them?”

“We understand you are having a rough time since your online activity was shared on university chat groups. We are here to help you. Pick your number.”

“I pick 666.”

“That’s nice. The numbers were actually 201 or 302. We have traced several of your accounts to blackpill seed ideology encouraging social decay and psychological manipulation for personal gain.”

“While posing as a nineteen-year-old,” Wolfe added.

“And giving bad intelligence that compromised your team’s safety and livelihoods,” Reichhörnchen completed.

Holler sat cross-legged on the cot beside the desk. If the three Germans saw him, they pretended well that they did not.

“What about Dr. Lauper?” Duke asked. “Bet she can see Holler.”

“Dr. Lauper can see me whenever she likes,” Holler said mildly. “That’s private, my dear Duke Leto. Now tell the nice doctor, security guard, and federal agent again how you see me sitting in the corner of your office filled with historical artifacts, as if that were perfectly normal for you.”

“Your numbers are 201 or 302, Duke Leto,” Whispurrs said calmly. “Civil commitments are so much more fulfilling when they are voluntary.”

Holler, dressed in white, sat Shaʿfi style on the cot, drinking sparkling apple cider.

Elsewhere, Ruh patiently explained to faculty members—one at a time—that Duke Leto and Dr. Fischadler shared a radio channel, and one of them had used it for precisely the crimes the University of Alaraf was founded to prevent.

Auditing is putting credit in its proper place and rectifying ledgers until they balance. It is a team effort. The dead are often the most reliable ledgers, as they do not change in the ways the living do.

When a quiet voice does not move mountains, the Mountains occasionally send a Holler back.


—