I’ve been the Drain Doctor for twelve years. I’ve pulled out tree roots that looked like alien octopi, retrieved a wedding ring from a grease trap, and once found a live possum living happily in a storm drain under Courtenay Place. But something about Mrs. Holloway’s voice made me grab the heavy-duty auger—the one I call “The Exorcist”—instead of the standard snake.

“Inspected?” She laughed a brittle laugh. “The house was built in 1888. I don’t think they’ve been inspected since McKinley was president.”

I fed the camera snake down the drain first. The screen on my monitor flickered to life—a green-tinted tunnel of old terracotta pipe, cracked in places, with roots dangling like cobwebs. I pushed the camera forward. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty.

Her address was a narrow Victorian on Aro Street, the kind with iron lacework and a cellar door that looked like a mouth leading into the earth. She was waiting on the porch, a tiny woman in a floral dress, wringing her hands. The rain had already turned the gutters into streams.

“All good,” I said, packing up my gear. “Just an old blockage. I’ll send you the invoice.”

The call came in at 7:14 PM on a Friday, just as the rain started to drill against the asphalt like a million tiny nails.

“Thank God,” she whispered. “It started this morning. Just a gurgle in the laundry tub. Then… the smell.”

“When did you last have the drains inspected?” I asked, kneeling down.