Lorelei's Revenge

Lorelei’s Revenge – Samantha Crosby

Lorelei’s head ached where the hunchback had hit her with the hammer. She ran a finger over the lump and winced. The bastard. When she got out of here and found the Doc again, his AND the hunchback’s lives would not be worth living. Not when her father found out what they had done to her. Times had been hard recently but her father wasn’t the kind of man to be messed around with. There would be a whole lot of ignored pleas for mercy when he was done with them.

She tried to stretch her legs but they didn’t go too far because she was chained to a crocodile. She knew it was a crocodile because she had heard its jaw clack, and felt its scaly skin. As far as she could tell it was sleeping. It yawned hugely every so often, and shifted its slithery bulk, but it left her alone. Her ankle was cooling where it touched the crocodile’s ankle. Did crocodiles have ankles? Whatever it was, she was tied tight to it with a thin metal chain. Incongruously a string of sausages lay across its tail.

Lorelei wished Goat Boy were there. He’d save her. But he was off somewhere with his dark cohorts, slaying angels and eating the Chef’s strange food, cooked over fires made with the bones of children and other terrible creatures. She had eaten the Chef’s food on more than one occasion and although her throat ached with the memory of its fire, the rest of her cried out for more. The Chef, Goat Boy and the Other One crossed planes travelled, both Astral and physical, by Lorelei every so often, and although they pleaded with her to join their merry band for good she always refused. Independence was all. But she more than happy to fight alongside them when called for. They were always there for her at any rate.

The crocodile shifted once more and was still. It was snoring.

“Excuse me, ” said Lorelei.

The crocodile didn’t stir.

She pushed it with her other foot. Ah. They had left her shoe on. Reaching down, she slipped the shiny, black killer stiletto heel off and readied it in her hand. Swiftly she raised it high above her head and brought it down quick and very, very hard so that the sharp heel pierced the crocodile’s sleeping eye and went down into its brain, killing it instantly. Black blood dribbled out through the hole as Lorelei withdrew her footwear of death. She remembered the first day she wore them. Goat Boy was practically a puddle of worship over them, running a tongue over them and murmuring incoherently.

“I do believe,” Lorelei muttered to the dead crocodile “that he was half right. At least, they are certainly fuck-YOU-shoes.”

But she was still chained to a dead crocodile in a dark somewhere or other and this was not good. They, whoever they were, had taken her coat and her bag, and one killer shoe wasn’t a great deal of use.

“Satan?”

Nothing.

“Satan??”

Somewhere in the dark a mouse cried and was silent. There was a low mew.

“Thank goodness! Please, detach me from this reptile!”

A sleek black cat strolled over to Lorelei, swishing its fluffy tail and smirking.

“Yes, I am chained to a dead crocodile. In my defence, I did kill it.”

Satan glanced at the chain, which disappeared in an instant.

“Yes, yes. I owe you. Thank you.”

Lorelei rubbed her freed ankle. When she looked up Satan was gone. She knew she would be seeing him again very soon though, when he had decided to call in his favour. Difficult creatures, demons going around insisting they were really cats. A bit screwed up in fact, she thought.

She got to her feet, holding the shoe of death in her left hand. With her right she made a few motions in the air and suddenly she was holding a silver zippo lighter. She didn’t have much magic herself, unlike her father, but she could conjure up the essentials, like lighters, Jack Daniels and the odd cigarette or two. Flicking it into life, she gazed around. She was in a cave, one dripping with water and bunched with seaweed. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the sea. Now that she was concentrating, she could also hear the faint cries of children, fairground music…

“The bloody seaside! Ace!”

Looking around, the cave appeared to have no entrance and no exit. She turned her attention upwards. Ah. There was a rusted iron ladder descending from a hatch in the ceiling, ending about two feet above her head. She was remembering a little more now. The hunchback and the policeman had grabbed her, as she stood eating ice cream and watching a woman in a tank pretending to be a mermaid. She had been waiting for The Chef to arrive. He had a...pie or two for her. His special pies. When he hadn’t showed, she had made to leave and suddenly a policeman had taken her arm.

“Madam?”

She had turned.

“Miss, thank you. It’s Miss.”

And the hunchback had raised his hammer, reached up and knocked her out with one swift blow.

They must have bundled her down into this cave and chained her to the crocodile. And now she had to get out. Then find them. Before she killed them she might even ask them WHY they had chained her to a crocodile.

She pushed her long black hair out of her eyes. The two streaks of white which defined each side of her parting glowed sliver in the dim light. There was sand and blood on her tight black dress. Damn.

She placed the heel of her killer shoe between her teeth. There was no way she was going out there unarmed. She looked at the hatch in the ceiling.

Lorelei was tall, even without her shoes, and she took a jump and grabbed the bottom rung of the rusty ladder. Hauling herself up she managed to get one foot, then two onto the ladder and then she was climbing up towards the hatch. She expected it to be shut when she pushed it, but it wasn’t.

I don’t expect they thought I would manage to get up here with a crocodile, she mused.

Pushing the hatch back, where it fell with a musty flump onto a sandy floor, she cautiously stuck her head and shoulders out and had a look around. It was another cave, albeit one with lanterns on the walls, and a path of sorts disappearing into the distance. She heaved herself into the new cave and dusted herself down. She couldn’t be that far from the surface because the sea was quite loud and the fairground sounds and the children’s voices were quite clear.

“That’s the way to do it!”

Lorelei whirled around, shoe in hand, but there was no one there.

Shit. Not him. Please not him. She began walking, fast, down the path and away from the voice.

Finally she came to a door, a wooden door painted red and white, bleached pale with age and sea and wind. I don’t like this at all, she decided. She wasn’t scared. She was more angry than anything. Angry that the Doc had done this. Angry that he had sold her to…to…she couldn’t think of that right now. She had to get out. Get away. She tried the handle on the door. It was locked.

“It’s behind you,” hissed a voice and she whirled around, raising the shoe over her head and then just as quickly lowering it and letting it drop from her fingers as she ran forwards to throw herself into the arms of the being that stood there.

“Goat Boy at your service Miss,” growled the half man-half goat, and fortunately today he had decided the top half was man and the bottom half goat, so he could enfold her in his arms. It was…difficult… when he was the other way around.

“You came to save me!”

She paused.

“You could have come earlier. I owe Satan a favour now. The bastard.”

“Sorry. I’ve lost the Chef. You know how half-cocked I am without his...pies. It took a while. I had to walk!”

“We have to get out of here. Now.”

“It’s just a cave. There’s nothing scary about a cave, Miss.”

“Oh lovely baby, nice baby, where's the baby, Judy?”

Goat Boy and Lorelei looked at each other. Goat Boy aimed a hefty-hooved kick at the red and white door, which flew open, and they ran through it.

“What the hell is all this?” cried Lorelei, trying to fight her way through faded red and white sheets that hung in tatters from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around their bodies, trying to hold them fast.

“Mmmmph fmmmmpp” Goat Boy replied, spitting ragged bits of material from his mouth.

Then

“I don’t know, Miss. All I know is I don’t like it. Where the hell is the Chef? He promised he’d be here and I couldn’t find him.”

Lorelei continued to shove her way through the hanging garments of Babylon. She was really worried now. It was looking very likely that the Doc HAD sold her to ‘him’ and from what she had heard, once HE owned you then you were pretty unlikely to get away. Even if you hung out with demons and half-goats, crazed Chefs and the Other One. And having a so-called black sorcerer for a father was no help either. This was OLD magic she was up against.

Finally the sheets grew tattier and thinner and then they were through. The room in which they stood was small in terms of width, but so , so high that she couldn’t see the ceiling. Up one side ran yet another rusty ladder.

Goat Boy was staring at her feet.

“No shoes?”

He crouched on all fours, ready to pounce on her. Lorelei sighed.

“We haven’t got time for this you idiot. Get up that ladder.”

Goat Boy stood, reluctantly, and with his tongue lolling outside of his mouth he leapt onto the ladder and started to climb. Lorelei followed behind, trying not to get too close to his goat shaped rump. Although she was used to the somewhat feral smell he had when he got overexcited, it still stirred something in her. Disgust usually.

She was so busy contemplating his odour that she failed to realise he had stopped and she banged her head against his rear end.

“What the..?”

“Head down, Miss! Now!”
She pressed herself harder against him, putting one hand over her head, and felt something whoosh past her at speed, glancing off her shoulder as it passed. A drawn out cry of Wahhhhhhhhhhh accompanied the falling object. Goat Boy was shaking slightly.

“Naughty, naughty, naughty baby!”

“Climb! Quick!”

Lorelei and Goat Boy scrabbled their way up the ladder as fast as they could. The baby hit the ground with a squelch, although it continued to wail and cry where it lay.

“It’s HIM, isn’t it?” asked Goat Boy breathlessly. Lorelei didn’t reply. She put a lot of store in naming names, and she was keeping this one back for when she needed it most. Which would be very soon.

Eventually the ladder gave way to another hatch. Goat Boy flipped it open and they were in a wooden room, again lit by lanterns, with a large shuttered window at the top.

They were both surprised to see the Chef lying in a corner, covered in bloody flour and clutching his Stetson.

Lorelei rushed over to him and knelt beside his prone form. Gently she brushed the long strands of grey hair from his cheek and bent to whisper his name in his ear. It never failed to rouse him. Goat Boy looked away in disgust.

“Whispering a man’s name in his own ear. You oughtta be ashamed, Miss.”

Lorelei ignored him.

“Wasssssat? Hmmm?”

“What took you so long?” asked Lorelei, as the Chef opened his chocolate brown eyes and gazed up at her.

“Head. Saucepan. Contact. Ow.”

He struggled to sit up and then, brushing flour from his Stetson, he jammed it down over his long, long hair and smiled.

“Hell, those guys were good. Didn’t see ‘em coming. Well, there was this stall selling all kindsa things I ain’t seen in years. Pixie saffron. Eel hearts. Carp tongues. Liquorice bootlaces. They come up behind and wham! With my best pan an’ all.”

“They got me too,” said Lorelei.

“And then I had to get a favour from Satan. Next, Goat Boy showed up and here we all are.”

She paused to push Goat Boy off her left foot, over which he was drooling.

“Except the Other one.”
“Well, we gotta get out. Now. I think its HIM?”

Lorelei put a finger to the Chef’s lips and nodded.

“No names. Not yet.”

Goat Boy helped the Chef to his feet, and looked expectantly at him. The Chef reached into a voluminous pocket and brought out a steaming pie.

“Asparagus and…something.”

In one moment the pie was eaten and Goat Boy grew a few feet until his head was touching the ceiling.

“NOW we are in business!” he declared, and Lorelei suddenly regretted pushing him off her foot. There wasn’t a man alive that could handle her, but a half man-half goat in full possession of his correct size…well…another matter entirely.

“What’s on the other side of that shutter?”she asked, and Goat Boy lifted the catch and opened it wide.

“Nothing. There’s no glass or anything. It’s…well it’s like a little stage. With the curtains shut. Like we are on the inside of a stage looking out.”

“Thank you, Judy, for your kisses!”


“Where the fuck are you?!!?” screamed Lorelei, and frantically looked about her, shoe in hand.

The Chef drew a steak knife from another pocket and Goat Boy growled low and rumbling, returning to his former size. They formed a tight circle, their backs together, each of them automatically returning to the positions they had fought in so well, many, many, times across the earth. And below it.

The little wooden room was silent, save for their breathing.

Then, above them, the curtains began to draw apart, and daylight pierced the room. The shouts of children, the noise of the fair grew louder and louder until it was a thunderstorm.

“Poor Judy. What-a-pity what-a-pity!”

And Lorelei knew he was in the room with them. A wooden tapping began, regular and sharp, and a shadow rippled from one corner, spiralling upwards towards the little stage.

And then HE was there, above them, looking down at them from blank blue painted eyes. His hooked nose was shabby, his red hat worn and tired. His ruff was grimy and torn. Around his neck was a leather cord, and hanging from this was little Toby Dog’s head.

“Poor Judy Judy. All mine now. All mine.”
Goat Boy and The Chef tried to move so they were shielding Lorelei, but HE waved a skeletal finger at them, and they were frozen. Lorelei dropped her shoe and moved away from them.

She tried to say HIS name but the words wouldn’t come. Her lips sucked his name right back in as soon as she attempted to form it.

HE extended his arms, and they were growing and waving and advancing down on her. A cold, pale finger reached her hair and began to stroke it, moving down to touch her cheek, drawing blood where the razor sharp nail touched. Lorelei thought, this is it. All the things I have done. All the things I could have done. And this is it. She wasn’t frightened. She was sad.

“Hello, Mr Punch. Good morning and Merry Christmas.”

The finger left her cheek and the arm pulled itself back. Lorelei held her breath. The Other One stood beside her.

“Sorry about that.. I tied one on last night. Got a headache.”

Above her Mr Punch was shaking.

“Go ‘way! Go ‘way!”

The Other One glanced up at him. Lorelei could see he had indeed tied one on last night. His greasepaint was smeared. He’d lost half his red nose. And his bow tie was circling slowly and dripping rusty water from the plastic water pistol flower at its centre.

“Don’t believe in ghosts!” screamed Mr Punch, as The Other One took the knife from The Chef’s hand and deftly threw it at Mr Punch. It severed his head with one stroke. And the head bounced down from the little stage and fell at Lorelei’s feet, grey slime oozing from his neck.

“That’s the fucking way to do it,” breathed Lorelei, taking the Other One’s large and white-gloved hand in hers and bringing it to her lips to kiss. He smiled back at her and then looked down at what was left of Mr Punch.

“Time to say good bye to the boys and girls, fucker..”

And with one crunch of his oversized shoe, Mr Punch was crushed into the floor. Whatever it was he had been was gone.

Goat Boy looked puzzled.

“You aren’t a ghost though,” he said, glancing at the Other One.

The Chef laughed.

“Course he ain’t. He’s better and older and way more powerful than all that. Carny folk always is.”

The Other One smiled and looked at Lorelei.

“Any chance of some Jack Daniels for this ol’ Clown?”