Lorelei And The Whitby Kiss – Samantha Crosby
Read on, my kittlings.....
“Where are we, Lorelei?” asked The Chef.
Scotland had been a wash out and Lorelei had dragged them through and back out of the Astral more times than they cared to remember. The whole time, an accompaniment of chattering baby goat fairies had nearly driven everyone mad.
Lorelei shrugged.
“Yorkshire. Coast. Vampires. Dunno.” And she walked away down the winding cobbled street in the darkness, rain spattering at her heels. The Chef lit a cheroot.
“Well it ain’t Kansas that’s for sure.”
Beside him, Delilah curled a hand around his arm and whispered something.
“Don’t shout darlin’, I hears ya.”
He smiled down at her dark head.
“Whitby is it? Ain’t this the place where that ol’ vampire guy hid out?”
Delilah nodded her head and closed her eyes. The Chef tipped back his hat.
“Only too glad to be of service ma’am,” he muttered as he bent his head towards her..
*****
“I do not like this pile of stones!” Valerie shouted.
“I want a proper home for my children! They need to play and eat, and I need to fu…”
“Funnily enough,” Goat Boy interjected quickly, “I was thinking that same thing. We can’t hide out in a ruin for very long.”
Whitby Abbey stood crumbling and ancient around them. The moon had taken gothic pity on them and come out in sympathy, so that everything was bathed in a gentle yet sinister silvery light.
A small gypsy caravan, painted black, with curtains over every window, housed the myriad baby goat-fairies. Goat Boy was half way through installing sound proofing. His children were very loud.
Valerie pulled at the belt around the waist of her Grecian style, white dress. She had discovered she LOVED clothes, and was usually buried in fashion magazines. Albeit ones from the 1970s.
“I hate this place. It smells of dust.”
The Chef and Delilah walked up the hill to the Abbey and joined Goat Boy and Valerie.
“Where is she?” asked Goat Boy quietly. The Chef shook his head.
“Walked off. I am worried about her. She can’t see past Charlie boy.”
He sighed and cast a glance at Delilah.
“If anythin’ happened to my girl, I don’t know where I would be?”
Goat Boy looked at Valerie.
“Nothing will EVER happen to my girl. She happens to everyone else. But I know what you mean. What can we do? We can’t bring him back.”
Delilah shadowed into their view. She had a habit of doing that.
She said something Goat Boy didn’t catch. Valerie smiled. It seemed Delilah was the only person she DID smile at, other than Goat Boy after a surfeit of pies.
“We can.”
Goat Boy looked at Valerie.
“We can what?”
“We can bring him back. The Clown. The girl with the eyes said so.”
All three of them turned to look at Delilah.
She said something.
Goat Boy swallowed hard. The Chef found an emergency bottle of bourbon.
“We can’t go to Him. We can’t.”
Goat Boy felt dizzy. He had read Delilah’s lips.
“We can, you know. Hic,” replied The Chef.
“Who is this man?” asked Valerie.
The goat and the man looked at each other.
“Honey, he is the God of Thunder,” said the Chef nervously.
“He is badder than Satan himself,” said Goat Boy.
“He will eat us alive. All of us,” said the Chef.
“An’ his tongue is 9 inches long,” said Goat Boy.
Valerie smiled slowly.
“Introduce me. I demand it. And his name?”
Goat Boy and The Chef looked at each other and swallowed . Hard.
The Chef ran a hand around his now sticky collar.
“His name. Well, honey?”
Goat Boy coughed.
“Gene Simmons.”
*****.
They built a small fire and slept uneasily around it, Valerie curled perfectly in Goat Boy’s arms, The Chef and Delilah wrapped in an old horse blanket of Agatha’s. Agatha herself drooped by the caravan. She missed her master. Born in the Astral, she was an ephemeral horse, and she was getting dimmer and dimmer the longer The Other One had been gone. Lorelei had finally come back and was sitting on a gravestone in St Hilda’s churchyard, a way down the hill. Even from this distance they could see she was sobbing quietly.
Valerie slept. Since her children had arrived she did indeed sleep, for which Goat Boy was very grateful. Delilah also slept. The Chef and Goat Boy did not.
“Wen..Chef, we can’t go to Him, we just can’t.”
The Chef snorted softly.
“Don’t see’s how we have much choice, sheep man. Lorelei needs her man back. She is just gonna pine away an’ die.”
Goat Boy nodded. With The Other One gone, he had grown up and fast. He and The Chef had a duty of care now, for Lorelei. She was drowning in sorrow, and she only had them to help her.
“Where do we find this Simmons, then?” asked Goat Boy.
The Chef had cooked a fine mutton curry, which always made Goat Boy nervous.
Delilah said something.
“He has to be summoned. There are rituals to carry out. Like magyk…” replied The Chef through a mouthful of spice and bourbon.
“Then, if you are lucky, he shows up.”
“There’s gotta be some rough kind of payment though?” asked Goat Boy.
The Chef nodded.
“Money. Lotsa money.”
Goat Boy sighed, relieved. At least no one had to kill anyone for a change, or be sacrificed.
“Oh, and a virgin sacrifice,” added The Chef.
Goat Boy sighed again.
“At least Valerie is safe…”
The Chef smiled and looked at Delilah. He blushed.
“Yeah, my darlin’ is safe too.”
“So, we need money. And a virgin…”
The Chef shifted and managed to stand up without disturbing Delilah too much.
He reached a hand inside his long duster coat, bottom right. Then he pulled out a small suitcase. Carefully he laid it on the ground. It was slightly damp and Goat Boy was sure it hiccupped softly....Then The Chef opened the lid and looked inside.
“Round about a coupla million dollars, I think. Now, about that virgin…”
*****
Whitby by night was deserted. Lorelei, unable to sleep, paced the cobbled streets of the old side of town, stopping to peer into shop windows but not really seeing anything. Once or twice she caught sight of her own reflection. The streak of white at each temple was broader, her dark eyes had lost their glitter, she was too thin. She wanted Charlie back. And she felt like wandering into the sea and never coming back out. A small cough beside her drew her attention.
“Hello Wade.”
Wade, the alligator boy, looked up at her.
“How are you, L?”
Lorelei shook her head.
“Lost. Scared. Alone. How the fuck do you think I am?”
Wade frowned sadly.
“Sorry. I was worried about you. The circus is on a break. Thought I’d come visit.”
Lorelei looked at him.
“No, I’m sorry Wade. I didn’t mean to…oh you know. It’s so damn hard.”
Wade nodded.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
And he reached up and took her hand and led her back up the endless steps to the Abbey.
*****
Lorelei managed a couple of hours sleep. She was woken by the smell of frying bacon and mushrooms, and baking bread. Idly she wondered how the hell The Chef managed to bake bread in a ruined Abbey with no oven. The coat, it must be that damn coat. One day she would try it on….She caught her breath. The Chef was staring over at her, a blank gaze in his shark eyes. No, she thought, I won’t EVER try it on.
She managed to eat a little, then felt sick and dizzy and had to stop. Delilah was eating chocolate cake laced with gin. Goat Boy was eating anything in site. Valerie was shouting at her children and trying to get them back into the gypsy caravan.
“Do as I say or I will cut your ears off!”
The chorus of rude words and bahs from the Pauls was very loud indeed.
Delilah smiled to herself through the cake and said something. The Chef handed her a Battenburg. Which she ate in one go.
“So, where are we going to get a virgin from?” asked Lorelei, who had been briefed on the Gene Simmons issue.
She had absolutely zero faith in the plan coming off. Only Dementer could bring Charlie back, and no one knew where he was. Wade had heard rumours he had drowned, been shot, or was living on some far flung island , surrounded by alien bodyguards. All were possible.
The Chef shook his head.
“One of us will have to go and pick up a girl. Not ME,” he added quickly, feeling the glare from Delilah without having to look at her.
Valerie smiled.
“I will do it. How will you know if a girl is a virgin anyway? They all lie.”
“How will YOU know” asked Goat Boy sharply.
Valerie rolled her eyes.
“By smell, stupid goat. And who could resist me?”
She smoothed down the soft green velvet of her long, low cut dress. Lorelei had to admit she had a point. With her long golden hair shining, her 800 watt smile and her tie me to the bed NOW eyes, there were precious few beings who could resist Valerie. Lorelei still remembered that night in Scotland, with Valerie’s cool hand on her thigh. She wouldn’t have turned her down.
“Behave yourself. She has to STAY a virgin, remember?”
“Tch. I am doing this for her,” retorted Valerie, cocking her head at Lorelei. “And I need a night away from the children. They are driving me mad. And when the next arrive?”
“What?” gulped Goat Boy.
“Oh, did I not say? You shall be a father again.”
Goat Boy fainted.
*****
As dusk fell, Valerie shimmered her way down the steps from the Abbey and into Whitby at night. She chose at random a pub called The Elsinore. It was cosy and nautical, and full of Goths. All chatter stopped when Valerie walked in. She had hidden her wings but nothing could stop her glow. She walked to the bar.
“Pint. Strongarm.”
The bar man swallowed hard and poured her a drink.
“On the house.”
He smiled shyly at her. Valerie took the drink and found a seat near the window. She turned her attention to the customers. The most likely candidate was a small, dark haired Goth girl, sitting beside a large man with three cameras hanging from his neck. Valerie sniffed. Virgin. Draining her pint in one go, she stood and walked over to the couple.
“I am Valerie.”
The girl gasped and looked up at her.
“I’m Brenda.”
The man with the cameras held out his hand to Valerie.
“Brenda is my assistant. I’m Neil. Neil Van-Twilight.”
Valerie took his hand in hers and kissed it lightly. She recognised what he was straight away, with one look at his lovely, bright blue eyes.
“Vampire killer.”
Neil smiled slowly.
“Faery.”
Valerie nodded.
“And one that needs a virgin. Urgently.”
“Don’t we all?” said Neil. And he looked at Brenda slyly.
“There won’t be biting, will there?” asked Brenda nervously. “I’m fed up of being bitten, Mr Van-Twilight.”
Neil looked at Valerie.
“I do not know. I suspect you may die,” Valerie said.
Brenda sniffed.
“I already did. I’m one of the bloody undead. It’s a pain in the arse to be honest. As long as there is no biting, I don’t mind being killed again. It’s in my contract of employment.“
Valerie raised an eyebrow.
“Follow me,” she said, and swept out of the pub and off into the night.
*****
When they reached the Abbey, the most delightful aroma of onion soup wafted across the ruins. The Chef was cooking up a storm, and Delilah had her dress on back to front.
“I have brought a virgin,” announced Valerie, unfurling her wings and dragging Goat Boy behind a falling down wall.
Brenda and Neil surveyed The Chef and Delilah , and tried to avoid the swarm of goat faeries that had taken to dive-bombing anyone within three feet of them.
“How lovely!” exclaimed Brenda, as one got stuck in her hair.
“What are you called?” she asked, and the small, flying goat bahhed at her.
Delilah said something.
“Paul,” said The Chef. “They are all called Paul. Don’t ask.”
Neil sat down beside the camp fire and tried not to hear Valerie’s cries of passion.
“So, what’s the deal? Why do you need a virg..what the fuck is THAT?”
He scurried backwards as the damp suitcase full of dollars advanced on him.
“Down boy!” shouted The Chef, and the suitcase sulked and became still again.
“Sorry about him,” he went on. “Ok, Lorelei over there, her man got killed and we need to bring him back to life. We is gonna raise Gene Simmons and get him to reanimate Chas. But Gene needs a lotta money , which we got, and a virgin, which we also now got.”
He looked at Brenda.
“Bit skinny ain’t she?”
Neil nodded.
“She won’t eat much. Says she has to watch her figure.”
He eyed her up and down.
“She’s the only one that DOES watch it. There’s nothing of her.”
“Shut up,” said Lorelei evenly, toying with a shoe of death and narrowing her eyes at Neil.
Neil looked right back at her.
“You know, you remind me of someone. Some guy I met in Amsterdam the other week. Can’t bring him to mind….anyway. So, you do some summoning, Gene appears, you give him the girl and the dosh and then he brings this guy back to life?”
The Chef nodded.
“That’s about it. I don’t think he actually KEEPS the virgin, I think you can have her back when he’s done with unvirginising her.”
“Will you stop talking about me like I am not here,” muttered Brenda.
The Chef shook his head and smiled.
“Sorry honey. Ok, let’s get this done.”
And he began to assemble the required ingredients.
*****
On the stroke of midnight, Lorelei, Valerie, Delilah, Goat Boy and Neil sat in a circle, holding hands. The Chef stood to one side of them, a huge pot of something red and smoking and bubbling in front of him. Brenda stood in the middle of the circle, looking cross. The suitcase was tied to a rock to stop it wandering away.
The Chef looked at the little crowd and cleared his throat.
“Listen up. I am going to have to take my coat off. You might see ..things. Try not to go insane.”
Delilah closed her eyes. Valerie rolled hers.
“How bad can it be?” asked Neil, grinning at Goat Boy. Who also had his eyes closed.
“Don’t look, man, just don’t look.”
The Chef took his coat off. Valerie took a quick glance, swallowed hard and closed her own eyes. Neil saw a flash of smoking shark and something quite dark, moist, with tentacles, and then he fainted.
The world stopped for a moment and was silent.
“Y’all can open your eyes now,” said The Chef, safely back in his coat.
Brenda slapped Neil across the face until he came round.
“Shar..Cthul…shit, that was ..he..stop slapping me, woman!”
Brenda stopped, reluctantly.
“Well?” asked Lorelei.
This whole thing was a waste of time. The rest of her life was a waste of time.
The Chef smiled over her head and she turned. In the distance, walking up the steps to the Abbey, was a very tall man, in stack heeled boots the height of a small child, his black hair tied into a strange knot on the top of his head, white and black makeup turning him into a demon. As he drew nearer he leered at Lorelei, and poked a huge tongue out in her general direction.
“I was made for loving you,” he drawled, blood dripping from his mouth onto his chin.
Lorelei scowled back but kept calm. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a little voice was telling her that this whole crazy plan might actually stand a chance of working.
“There’s your virgin, there’s your money. Now what?”
Gene towered over her.
“Back to my mansion for a few beers and maybe a film or two, and then who knows?”
He reached out a hand and stroked her hair. Lorelei tried not to flinch.
“Lead the way.”
Gene smiled lazily.
“Meet you in the ladies room…”
*****
No one could remember exactly how they arrived at Gene’s mansion. One moment they were standing by the Abbey, the next moment they were drenched in astonishingly hot sunshine outside the hugest, goldest house they had ever seen.
Gene opened the door and motioned for them to follow inside.
Goat Boy gasped . Every wall was covered with pictures and photos of Gene, his name was woven into the carpets, models of him stood on every surface. And there were mirrors EVERYWHERE.
Brenda had gone very quiet and her hands were shaking. Gene had placed an arm around her shoulders and was holding her close.
“You guys go hang out in my den. Me and Brenda here will go and…have some fun. Then we will get down to it.”
And with that Gene picked Brenda up and slung her over his shoulder. He dragged the suitcase behind him with his free hand and they disappeared up the stairs.
“I guess this is the den,” said The Chef, pushing open a pair of ruby study doors. And it was. A den for the richest person in the world.
One side of the room was all tv screen, and lined up in rows were numerous squashy suede chairs.
“It’s a fucking CINEMA!” exclaimed Neil, his cameras knocking excitedly against each other. “What films has he got?”
Valerie sighed and looked at Goat Boy.
“Do not make us watch that Humph film again. I am bored of that.”
Goat Boy raised his eyebrows.
“Humpp. It’s Doctor Humpp. Jesus Val, don’t you ever listen?”
Lorelei sat down on a huge pink sofa in the shape of a pair of lips. And not of the facial variety.
“What do we do now?”
The Chef smiled and sat down beside her.
“Wait I guess. And see if there is anything to drink?”
“You called, Sir?”
The Chef jumped as a smartly dressed waiter appeared from nowhere, holding a tray with lots of glasses of champagne on it. The waiter had a slightly mental look in his eye, and he winked every so often for no reason.
“Erm yeah. Thanks.”
The Chef took a glass and handed it to Lorelei.
“Arse!” shouted the waiter. “Fuck!”
Valerie smirked and opened her mouth.
“Before you say anything, its Tourettes disease,” said Goat Boy. “Not Tardis or tourists or anything else your loony mind throws up.”
“Would the Sirs and Madams like anything to eat?” asked the waiter.
“A hot dog would be nice,” said Neil, taking two glasses of champagne.
“You Cun…”
“You couldn’t make that two hotdogs, could you?” Lorelei interjected quickly. “What’s your name by the way?”
“Manuel, “ said the waiter. “I am from Barcelona. I am sorry about the swearing.”
The Chef smiled.
“Don’t worry, you ain’t crazy, man, Manuel.”
Manuel looked at him.
“I am though, Very. Mr Simmons does not want me here any longer. I need a new job. Would you be looking for a Donkey Knobs! waiter by any chance?”
Valerie was almost hysterical with laughter.
“Please, let us have him. He is a wonder.”
Manuel smiled and bowed slightly.
“Thank you Madam. I will serve you Bollocky Tosser! well.”
*****
They drank champagne and watched Slapshot. Valerie didn’t understand anything about the film, but was happy to leer quietly at Paul Newman throughout. Every so often she glanced at Goat Boy. Unfavourably.
“Where can I find this Mr Newman?” she asked Lorelei quietly.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. What the fuck is Brenda DOING up there?”
Lorelei was getting nervous. The small voice in her head was getting louder, and she was really starting to believe this might just come off. Her stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing Charlie again.
And then the doors banged open and Brenda limped into the room. The smile on her face was Valerific. Behind her Gene swaggered in. Oddly, he had removed his boots but was just as tall as he had been with them on.
“Well?” asked The Chef.
Gene smiled.
“I have my money and I had my virgin.”
Brenda eased herself onto a sofa and winced. She looked at Neil.
“I am going to stay here. Gene needs someone to keep him company. And as I am technically undead, I am still a virgin. And always will be. Several times a night.”
Gene was looking inordinately pleased with himself.
“I kill her and then she comes back to life and it like starts all over again! This is splendid!”
He rubbed his hands together and smiled the biggest shit-eating smile in the whole world.
The Chef grinned right back at him. It was all going to plan for once.
“Ace!” said The Chef.
Gene looked nervously around.
“Where?”
*****
They sat by one of Gene’s seventeen pools. Valerie went swimming. Which caused all the men to cross their legs, as she had no costume with her and so did without.
“What now?” asked The Chef.
“You can go home,” replied Gene.
“I fucking knew it,” spat Lorelei. She was tired and hungry and her hopes of seeing Charlie again were dwindling. All Gene had done for the last four hours was talk about himself, how rich he was, how women loved him. And they had all sat there and drunk in every word, waiting for him to perform his magic and bring Charlie back.
And now he was telling them to go.
“Fuck you, Simmons.”
Suddenly Lorelei was furious.
“We did what you said , we have sat and listened to your crap for hours and hours, and what have you done? Fuck all, that’s what! Come on, we are out of here.”
Lorelei got as far as the mansion doors and stopped. She had no idea how to get back to Whitby, no idea where she was. Everything hurt, physically and mentally and she had finally had enough. She sank to her knees, tears dripping onto the gold plated floor. Instantly The Chef and Goat Boy were at her side.
“It’s ok darlin’, its ok. We will look after you. It’ll be ok, honest.”
The Chef smoothed her hair out of her eyes, Goat Boy held her hand. Valerie kicked Gene, hard. Delilah brought Lorelei a hanky. Even Manuel and Neil looked a bit cross in Gene’s general direction.
He was still lounging on a sunbed, a sliver of towel across his lap. A martini in one hand, Brenda in the other. The suitcase cavorted by his feet. They adored each other.
“I said, you can go home now.”
Blood dripped languorously from his lips and his voice was thunder.
And then they were standing in the dark by the Abbey, St Hilda’s church bells tolling midnight.
Lorelei’s heart broke all over again.
*****
The Chef did the only thing he could think of. He cooked. Mushroom and herb omelettes, with saffron rice and Chianti. With the exception of Lorelei, who was kicking grave stones over, they all managed to eat.
“Shit Sandwiches!”
Manuel had come with them.
Goat Boy sighed heavily.
“What now?”
“Maybe we could find Dementer? He’d bring The Other One back,” replied The Chef.
Neil looked thoughtful. That name was ringing a cacophony of bells with him.
“No idea where ol’ Dev is though.”
“True enough. But we gotta do somethin’. Poor Lorelei is just on the edge…”
Valerie screamed loudly and ran from the gypsy caravan where she had been trying to get the kids to sleep by shouting fairy tales at them.
“Stupid horse! Stupid stupid horse!”
Agatha had suddenly reared up and shaken herself loose from the harness, sending the caravan tipping and disturbing most of the Pauls from their semi sleep.
Agatha was now pawing at the ground and snorting wildly. The Chef could have sworn she was smiling.
Goat Boy went over to her and tried to calm her, but she was too excited, her eyes rolling and her breath rasping in the dark air.
“Lorrie? Lorrie darlin’? Come and help!” shouted The Chef, and Lorelei stalked away from the grave toppling and marched over to Agatha.
“Calm down Aggers, its ok. I’m still here.”
Agatha paused and stilled. She gazed right through Lorelei and shook her gentle head.
“Daft mare,” said Lorelei. “I guess you miss him too. But there…”
She tailed off and closed her eyes. A scent of Hi Karate and candyfloss drifted in from the sea.
“No. No. It can’t be..?”
Goat Boy turned around and then grinned. The Chef raised his eyes to where he assumed Gene’s mansion had been and mouthed a thank you.
The man walking up the steps to the Abbey was limping a little, and for some reason was now wearing glasses, but the Kiss t-shirt and the bow tie and the comedy flower were unmistakeable.
And then Lorelei was running, as fast as ever she had in her life, and she threw herself at The Other One, covering him in tear smeared kisses, whispering his name over and over again.
The Other One took her face in his hands and touched his lips to hers.
“Good to be back, honey. Good to be back.”
*****
Later, much later, the others all sleeping, Lorelei and Charlie sat huddled in a horse blanket on a bench by the sea, whilst he told her what had happened.
“After the harpies, I just felt everything slipping away and then there was nothing. Next thing I knows, suddenly I am again, and I’m lying in the middle of a baking desert and there’s this guy, Morrison or something, Jim Morrison, that’s the dude, and he’s going on about lizards and snakes. And then Gene Simmons turns up! And me with nothing for him to autograph or anything!
Anyways, he says to me, ‘Charlie boy, there’s a lady out there who is missing her love gun. You gotta go back. Jim here’ll take you.’ And Jim leads me across the desert and then there is this door right there in the middle of the desert, and Jim says ‘Go through it.’ Well, there’s no handle on it, and I tells him so, and he looks right at me and says ‘That’s a matter of perception’ and then I looks again and there IS a handle. So I opens it and then I am standing at the bottom of them steps and I can hear Aggy and I can see YOU.”
He held her tighter in his arms. Lorelei clung to him. The sheer warm weight of him beside her made everything secure again.
“I love you, Charlie. Please, don’t be dying again.”
He ruffled her hair and kissed her gently.
“I will try not to…”
“Twatting front bottoms!”
Lorelei looked up.
“This, my love, is Manuel. Manuel, this is the Other One.”
“Pleased to meet you,” managed Manuel. “Mr Van-Twilight. He has some interesting Huge Knockers! News for you and your presence is required at the Abbey.”
Charlie looked at Manuel in wonder.
“Where did you get him from?”
Lorelei smiled.
“Don’t ask.”
And hand in hand they followed Manuel back up to the Abbey.
*****
Neil was drinking bourbon with The Chef, and it was hard to tell who was the drunker. But his eyes were bright and his cameras whirled and clicked.
“I got it! I got who you remind me of!”
He was addressing Lorelei.
“Who?” she asked, quickly apparating bourbon and cigarettes for everyone else.
The Chef fell over.
“’sa man. A manly man. A blokey bloke.”
“Get to the point,” sighed Lorelei.
“Badger Buggery!” coughed Manuel.
“Man! Man with a top hat. Called hisself David. But that’s wrong. He’s not called David.”
“Is he called Paul, by any chance?” sighed Goat Boy.
Neil shook his head.
“No! He’s got her eyes and he’s called Dementer!”
“And where was this?” asked Lorelei levelly, despite the surge of excitement she felt.
Neil looked at her.
“Dunwich.”
.
*****
Cheers once more FM. Have a virtual beer on me.
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Father's Day
Father’s Day – Franklin Marsh
“Shit! Motherfucker!”
Lorelei hurled the newspaper across the room.
Ghote and Cooke looked uneasily at one another.
“Who publishes this rag?”
“Miguel Loco,” supplied Cooke.
“Get him,” said Lorelei.
She opened the wooden box on her desk and removed a large cigar.
Ghote squirmed as she inserted the end into a miniature guillotine. Bad memories. He suppressed a whimper as the blade descended.
“NOW! I’ll be downstairs.”
It was Cooke’s turn to wince as the match that Lorelei had used to pierce the end of the cigar was scraped on the top of the antique rosewood. A plume of cigar smoke followed the two men as they left the office.
*****************
Miguel Loco locked the bathroom door, dropped his trousers and seated himself comfortably. He leaned forward and picked up the laptop. No sense in wasting any time. He could be here a while. Those fajitas were dancing a fandango in his belly.
He signed on and opened his e-mail. The door crashed open and he found himself looking down the barrel of Cooke’s Colt .45 automatic above the screen.
The bowel movement was lot noisier, less fragrant but easier than he’d expected.
Loco knew who they worked for. He’d taken a chance printing that stuff from the unknown source, but he loathed the woman with a passion. He’d asked to interview her a number of times and always been brushed off. Well, it looked like he was about to meet his nemesis, but on her terms.
The black 4 x 4 hummed quietly through the night. Miguel saw the endless black metal fence, the poles topped with gold fleur-de-lys. Huge gates automatically opened, and the car drove through the beautiful gardens. Despite himself, Miguel gasped. Lush green topiary! On the edge of the desert! The flame of his idealism flared up again. The whole area was suffering from drought. 90% of the local population were on the breadline, working for a pittance in the Van Ness factories, manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. And she lived in…
The chateau came into view. Once again. Miguel Loco’s mouth hung open. He’d moved into a parallel world. Chucha! How could she?
The vehicle halted before the giant studded wooden doors.
“Let’s go,” said Ghote, slipping from the car.
He sounds nervous, thought Miguel. Cooke, impassive, gestured with his pistol.
They walked into the massive hall decorated with immense paintings, objets d’art and antiques. The ostentatious display fuelled Miguel’s anger. He knew he should be scared, but this was too much.
Ghote pressed a switch on the wall, and a panel slid aside. The three stepped into a large elevator, and Ghote pressed another button. Miguel felt his stomach lurch as they descended slowly. Incongruous muzak played. It was worse than silence.
The lift halted and the door opened. Ghote led the way into a passage hewn from rock. Artfully lit with red and green spotlights, Miguel found this artifice amusing. The ‘rock’ looked plastic, like a film set. He looked up, and felt a tremor of fear as the ceiling moved. He squinted, and made out a colony of bats roosting.
Keep your cool, Loco, he thought, it’s going to get worse. The passageway opened into a vast, low-ceilinged room. The floor was taken up with a massive pool, full of gently rippling aquamarine water. Beautiful light patterns played around the walls. A black triangular dorsal fin broke the water’s surface, and glided around the pool. Miguel tore his eyes away. They travelled along a white painted, six-inch wide length of wood that crossed the pool, and he saw her.
Puta! She was dressed in a black basque, tiny black g-string, fishnet stockings and black pointed ankle boots with stiletto heels. She lounged on a golden throne with red velvet seat and back, leg thrown over an arm of the throne, her crotch leering obscenely at him. Stroked the red-legged tarantula that crawled along her thigh. Her black hair was swept up in a beehive, thin white streaks decorating either side. She sucked on a large Cuban, puffing smoke at the spider.
Ghote coughed.
“Ah! Miguel!” she beamed. She placed the spider gently on the arm of the chair, and stood up. Plucking a hunk of raw meat from a metal container beside the throne, she marched across the narrow plank of wood and stood still above the middle of the pool, arm holding the meat loft.
The shark leaped gracefully from the water. Lorelei released the meat. The shark seized it, curved elegantly over the wooden beam, and splashed back into the pool.
Lorelei continued on her way, stepping down from the plank directly in front of Miguel Loco.
Watching the display, Miguel had accepted that he was going to die. He launched himself at the woman, screaming his hatred. She slapped his face hard, and he fell toward the pool, grasping the wet wood at the last minute. From the waist down, he lay at the pool side. His hands grasped the beam as tightly as he could. His body and head trembled above the pool.
“Who told you those lies about me?” she asked softly.
“Not lies. You are a murderer, an exploiter, and a whore. You dance on the dead. You are…aieee!”
A stiletto heel pierced the back of his left hand. Miguel understood that sumo wrestlers had the ability to retract their testicles into their bodies. His cojones were doing their best.
“Ma’am?”
Lorelei looked at Cooke. He proffered the Loco laptop. She looked at the e-mail account. Blood dripped from Miguel’s injured hand into the water. He heard the swirl below him.
“So. Last chance, Miguel. What can you tell me about Doc Dot Dem at Hotmail Dot Com?”
“He knows you, Fulana! He told me about you!”
Lorelei stamped on Miguel’s other hand. He screamed, released his grip and plunged into the pool.
She strode onto the beam, oblivious to the churning foam beneath her, white turning red.
Turning to the green-looking Ghote, and the taciturn Cooke, she snarled “Trace that e-mail, where it was sent from. Get Loco’s ‘phone records. Any unusual calls. We’ll meet tomorrow. In the board room.”
Dismissed, the two men hurried from the room, Ghote risking a quick glance back at those superb exposed buttocks
*****
Ghote groaned silently and crossed his legs as the mini guillotine blade descended on the tip of the cigar.
“News?”
“We got a match,” smirked Cooke. “The e-mail was sent from the same location as two ‘phone calls to Loco.”
“Getting careless, Doc Dot Dem,” said Lorelei, in a peculiar sing-song voice. She frowned.
“Unless….Origin?”
“The Middle East.”
No reaction. Cooke swallowed and spoke again.
“Transmission from near the town of Jezreel.”
Lorelei threw back her head and laughed. Then stopped abruptly.
“The bastard.”
She stood up and walked through the door behind her, into a room filled with glass cases. Ghote and Cooke looked at one another, then followed suit.
The first case contained a block of steel from which grew four enormous blades. Lorelei had opened the next, which contained a stained, ragged cloth bundle. They heard a clanking as she reached inside, withdrawing a slim knife, the handle depicting Christ on the cross. She shook her head and replaced it, closing the case. The next case contained an ancient spear. Lorelei spent a long time gazing at it. Cooke harrumphed, and Ghote shifted uneasily. She shook her head again, and moved into the next ante-room. Ghote looked at the small placard in the case. It merely read ‘Longinus’.
Ghote bumped into the stationary Cooke. He saw that his boss and his co-worker were staring in fascination at the sole glass case in the room.
It contained an enormous , ancient fifty calibre machine gun, the armour plating pockmarked with bullet holes and dyed a rusty colour with what Ghote assumed queasily to be dried blood. Were those bone chips embedded in the metal?
“You gotta be fucking joking.”
He realised with a sinking feeling that he’d spoken aloud.
“She’s loaded for bear!” exulted Cooke.
Lorelei turned, eyes shining. One eyebrow raised, she said to Ghote, “This is no fucking joking matter, Ghote-boy.”
She jerked a thumb at the death machine.
“Get John R here loaded on the jet. We’re going on a Doc hunt, in the desert.”
As Ghote and Cooke prepared to move, Lorelei puffed out cigar smoke and mused, “It’s gonna take a while to get there. Any of our guys in the area?”
Cooke clicked his fingers.
“Arboghast and Battenberg are nearby.”
Lorelei’s fists clenched, elbows touched and jerked down.
“Yes! Get on the horn, Cookey. Send in the clowns.”
*******************************
The camels stirred and grumbled uneasily. Hassan moved out of the shade of the entrance to the underground city and peered toward the horizon. A cloud of dust was visible.
Hassan ran down the worn stone steps. Dashing through the underground streets, he reached the excavation site. Professor Richard Leeky looked up in surprise, then smiled.
“Hassan! What’s up?”
Hassan paused, composed himself and spoke slowly and clearly.
“Professor, a vehicle approaches.”
“Excellent, my boy,” roared the professor. “We’ll have you fluent before long.”
He clapped his hands.
“A vehicle, eh? I’m not expecting anyone. Dev?”
The middle-aged man in the khaki bush jacket and shorts looked up, and brushed the long, white hair from his sweating face.
“Not me, Rich.”
The professor looked at the pale pink albino eyes, and once more wondered how his colleague coped so well with the burning sun.
“Well, well. I hope it’s not the gentlemen, or ladies ,of the press. We could without any more interruptions. Come on, Hassan. Let’s go and see what they want.”
As the professor and the arab boy left the site, the other archaeologist hefted the skull he’d been dusting in one hand.
“Alas, poor ... I knew her, Horatio.”
He smiled and crushed the cranium into fine dust.
Leeky and Hassan walked from the shadows out into the sun, the elder man squinting and trying to adjust his sight to the bright sunlight.
The cloud of dust was much nearer. Hassan giggled. The vehicle and its occupants came into focus. Leeky frowned.
Two large, bizarrely dressed men were squeezed into a tiny yellow car. The doors hung off, the wheels wobbled alarmingly. The man clutching the comically small steering wheel was dressed in a suit of huge black and white checks that was umpteen sizes too big for him, as was his shirt and bow tie. A ridiculously small bowler hat with an absurdly large plastic daisy poked into the hat band perched upon his straight brown hair.
The other man was taller and thinner and dressed in a baggy yellow jump suit. His hair was bright red and tightly curled. Like his companion his face was deathly white, and huge red lips were painted around his mouth, upturned. The drivers downturned. Both had identical round red noses.
The car wheezed to a halt. Leeky and Hassan jumped in fright at an enormous backfire. A cloud of green smoke billowed from the back of the little vehicle. As the passenger attempted to leave, his door fell off. The driver parped the bulb horn a couple of times. It, and the steering wheel came off in his hands. He looked at them quizzically, then flung them behind him. His door also fell to the desert floor. Both men stepped from the car.
Hassan, who had steadily kept chuckling during this display, clapped and hooted in delight at the sight of the mens’ two foot long shoes. They looked down in puzzlement, turned to one another, shrugged , then advanced toward the waiting couple.
Leeky watched them nervously. There was something wrong about them. He wasn't in the least amused.
The clown with the checked suit stopped and raised a hand, looking horrified. He flapped back to the car and pulled out a bucket, then ran towards Hassan. Leeky had trouble following him, as his companion had imitated his actions and also hopped back to the dilapidated vehicle, retrieving what looked suspiciously like a custard pie.
The check-suited clown hurled his bucket at Hassan. If it had contained water, Leeky would have been outraged, but the hundreds of shiny little strips that enveloped Hassan put his mind at rest. Until the arab boy started to scream. Leeky looked on in horror, oblivious to the yellow-suited clown creeping up on him, as the shiny strips of metal sliced Hassan to ribbons. Pouring lifeblood onto the thirsty sand from a thousand cuts, Hassan expired with a groan.
Leeky turned, in time to receive the custard pie in the face. It enveloped his head, burning his eyes, oozing into ears, nostrils and mouth. Unable to breathe, let alone scream, Leeky collapsed to the ground, beside the mutilated Hassan.
The yellow-suited clown screwed his fists into his eyes, in mock misery. The check-suited clown shrugged.
They looked at the entrance.
“We goin' in?” growled Battenburg, in yellow.
“Nah. This is the only way in or out. We wait for her,” replied Arboghast, in check.
The two clowns sat in the shade of the entrance. Their make-up had run in the heat giving their faces a melted look. They watched vultures tear Hassan apart. The birds of prey ignored Leeky, his head shrouded by the alien custard.
“Dust,” said Battenberg, pointing. The sleek, black 4 x 4 appeared, towing a canvas-shrouded fifty calibre.
“Jeez, that’s some artillery, Max. What we got into?”
Arboghast squeezed his hand.
“?It’s OK, Marty. She knows what she’s doin’.”
They stood up as the vehicle slid to a halt.
Lorelei slipped out from the behind the wheel and marched toward them. Ghote marvelled at her high heels refraining from sinking into the loose sand. He and Cooke floundered a little.
“Situation?”
“We took care of these two. No-one out, no-one in since.”
“Thanks, Max. OK, guys, listen up. We’re going into the underground city. We’re looking for a guy six foot plus, long white hair, red eyes. You won’t miss him. He’s unique. But watch your backs. He’s tricky. Let’s go.”
She led the way into the shadows. They descended the stone steps to face the underground town. Five roads led away from the base of the stairwell.
“Nice of him to leave the lights on,” observed Cooke, fingering his pump shotgun. Battenberg twirled a Desert Eagle. Arboghast drew a pair of matched Navy .44 Colts from the voluminous pockets of his jacket. He mimed offering the butts to Battenberg, then the pistols whirled in his hands, thumbs clicking back the hammers.
“The Border Roll!? exclaimed Cooke. “I ain’t seen that in…”
“Enough,” said Lorelei. “One street each. Go.”
The clowns let the others set off, exchanged a quick kiss, then ventured into their own alleys. Despite the artificial lighting, the rock hewn buildings remained in deep shadow.
There was silence except for the occasional scrape of shoe leather on stone, or the drip of water. Each member of the team found that, once inside their street, they could not hear the others.
Ghote wanted to scream, to reassure himself there were others out there. Cooke looked penetratingly around him. One trace of white hair and red eyes and kablooie!
Max Arboghast wished Marty Battenberg was with him. Marty wished the same about Max.
Lorelei walked ahead, in a kind of trance. Once or twice her hand would stray to her hair, now loose around her shoulders, and trace one of the white lines. No. Not now, not ever.
She was the first to reach the end of her street and face the wall. Ghote appeared, sweaty and breathless. Then Cooke, leaping melodramatically from the darkness, shotgun wavering.
“Cool it!” hissed Lorelei.
Max Arboghast sauntered from the end of his street. He looked at his companions. Lorelei shook her head. Deceptively casually, he moved to the end of Battenberg’s pathway and glanced down it. He turned back, face impassive, but Colt drawn.
Lorelei moved to the right. The other three stared at the wall. The archaeologists had worked hard. The painting could now be seen in its entirety. Faded, but still powerful. A woman, naked save for a scarlet robe draped around her nether regions, astride a seven headed beast.
“It’s a version of the Whore Of Babylon,” whispered Cooke. “I’ve never seen this one.”
Ghote waited, but Cooke and Arboghast moved on after Lorelei. Lorelei. Was he the only one who saw the similarity? They must have noticed the black snakes she had for hair, with the two white ones adorning her temples. He gulped and followed the others.
Hurrying to catch up, he once again bumped into Cooke’s broad back, and looked at death via shotgun. Cooke turned back, and Ghote followed his gaze.
Marty Battenberg had been crucified upside down. His yellow jumpsuit shredded, his chest soaked in blood. A sob escaped Arboghast’s throat.
“We’ll get him, Max.”
Ghote looked around wildly at Lorelei’s comment.
“Don’t worry, Ghote-boy. He ain’t here any more. He’s playin’ a game with us.”
“I’ll give him game,” growled Arboghast. “How could he get out? We didn’t see…”
Battenberg’s corpse gave him an answer. White make-up spilled onto his suit.
Lorelei walked to a water bag, doused some archaeological papers and wiped Battenberg’s chest. As the blood came off, a series of cuts were revealed.
“It says something!” gasped Cooke. “But in no language I know.”
“It’s upside-down, like poor Marty.” said Lorelei with a sad resignation. “It says Whitby.”
“Who’s Whitby?” asked Arboghast.
“Not who. Where. It’s a town in the North of England.”
Some steel was creeping back into Lorelei’s voice.
“We going there, Mizz Van Ness?” asked the clown.
“You bet your sweet bippy, Max.”
After the desert, the rain, mist and wind of Yorkshire chilled the four to the bones.
“God-damn that sonofabitch, “ cursed Cooke. “This Limey dump. I hate this country! What language are they speaking? It’s different from London.”
“England isn’t just London, Cookey,” smiled Lorelei. “In many ways it’s as diverse as the States, just on a smaller scale.”
She felt happier. Even Max Arboghast seemed to have put Marty’s death behind him, and was tucking into the English delicacy, fish and chips.
Ghote appeared less nervous.
Thanks to her wealth and power, they had managed to remain armed, although her beloved John R remained in the cargo hold of the jet. England was too small a country for that sort of fire power.
Lorelei pondered the Doctor Dementer problem. He was the man behind this. The man who’d killed her father, and was attempting to put himself in that man’s place. Well, it wasn’t going to work, Doc.
The newspaper stories were annoying. She’d been building up to run for the Presidency, seeing as Hillary had failed. A woman in the White House. An image to conjure with. Her finger on the button. The world would take her seriously then.
The damp quartet ascended the 199 steps. They reached the top and walked on past St. Mary’s church.
“Where we goin’, Mizz Van Ness?” asked Arboghast, putting his chip papers in a nearby litter bin. He’d insisted on retaining his clown outfit, make-up re-done. They’d gotten a few strange glances in the town, but Lorelei wasn’t concerned with what others thought of them. The world would applaud if they successfully removed that murdering bastard.
They approached the ruins of the Abbey. Night was falling fast. The darkness was suddenly illuminated as hidden lights were switched on. The huge stone walls were shown in stark relief. The light didn’t quite reach the top of the huge arched facade.
Lorelei strained her eyes. Is that where he was? Silently waiting? What did he hope to gain? Her ruin? Her death? The death of all around her? Isolating her until she had to accept him? It won’t work, Buster. I’m too much like my real Dad. Independent. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. No half-assed quack will rain on my parade.
They walked through the deserted ruins silently, constantly searching the shadows, dark corners, hidden dips.
Having traversed the entire site, Lorelei stopped with a sigh.
“He ain’t here,” she snapped in frustration.
“Where’s Cooke?” asked Ghote in a small voice.
Lorelei and Arboghast whirled this way and that, guns drawn. They were down to three.
“Ghote-boy, you stupid shit! Why didn’t you…”
“I just realised when you stopped. I…”
“Shut up!”
They’d all been so wrapped up in their own thoughts they hadn’t noticed Cooke’s abduction.
“He IS here,” mused Lorelei, suddenly aware of a strange whistling sound.
“Look out!”
Arboghast dived, pulling her to the ground. The body of Cooke slammed into Ghote, sending him flying.
Arboghast’s pistol roared, a .44 round slamming into the spinning body.
“He’s dead, Max,” said Lorelei wearily, picking herself up and dusting herself down.
Max thumbed down the hammer, and watched Cooke’s slowly twirling body. He was suspended from the highest point of the Abbey, a thick noose around his neck, the familiar features blackened, blood smeared around the mouth where the tip of his tongue had been bitten off.
No tie. White shirt stained red. Here we go, thought Lorelei. She smoothed back the blood stained silk. Arboghast produced a line of flags of all nations from one of his pockets, and wiped the abdomen.
They looked at one another.
“Where to now?” whimpered Ghote.
********************************
“More fucking rain. Why can’t that bastard get back to the States?”
“It’s part of the game, Max. We’re on unfamiliar territory.”
Arboghast smiled.
“You’re just itchin’ to turn that fifty cal loose, aincha?”
Lorelei smiled at the clown.
“You bet, Max. And you know who on?”
“You’d have to get past me first.”
“That a challenge.?”
They laughed.
Ghote, a few yards away, scowled. They were all under sentence of death by a madman, and the clown and the bitch were yakkin’ it up. He sighed. No way out now. He just hoped his boss could cope. He’d been alarmed to see the frightened little girl in her so much lately.
Miguel Loco’s outburst. Marty. Cooke. Behind the slap, the language, and the hauteur was someone’s young daughter, caught with her hand in the cookie jar and unable to cope with the expected punishment. Shit. They were all being punished for her mistakes.
He watched the reflection of Mont Blanc shatter as the ferry ploughed its way across Lake Geneva, the huge fountain hissing in the background. He wished Cookey were around. He’d have known where they were going.
The ferry docked, and the businesswoman, the clown and the administrator walked ashore.
They walked along the lakeside, then headed through quiet streets, before halting outside a black gate built into a solid-looking wall.
Lorelei opened the gate and walked through into a neat, large garden. The rain stopped, and the sun peeked out from behind a cloud.
Ghote stared at what looked like a miniature palace.
“What is this place?”
“The Villa Deodati,” answered Lorelei.
She moved toward the front door. Ghote watched Arboghast draw a pistol and follow her. Him or me? He thought. She’ll be left until last. He looked back longingly at the gate.
“Come on!” hissed a voice from the darkened doorway.
He joined his two companions in the spacious hallway. They were looking up the grand staircase.
“Can we not split up? Please?” wailed Ghote. “That’s how he got Marty. And Cookey. Let’s stick together?”
“Calm down,” advised Lorelei.
“That won’t save you.”
Three faces turned upward in surprise. At the head of the stairs stood a tall man dressed in a black tailcoat, white frilled shirt, bootlace tie with cow-skull clasp, black straight jeans, and black cowboy boots. A black top hat was nestling on his head, long white locks flowing from underneath it. Piercing red eyes stared down at them. A playing card was wedged in his hat band. The nine of diamonds.
“Kill him,” whispered Lorelei.
Max Arboghast ran at the stairs, yelling and firing his pistol. The noise was tremendous after the tense silence following the character’s appearance. Bullets thudded into the wall where the figure had appeared, as it dodged upstairs.
“You killed the only man I ever loved,” bawled Arboghast.
Ghote listened to the thudding feet on the stairs as Max disappeared from sight. He turned to Lorelei. Where was she? A sob made him look down. She was lying on the floor.
He knelt beside her. She flinched at his touch, keeled over on to her side and curled into a foetal ball.
“Run, Ghote-boy, run,” she said tearfully.
Ghote was at a loss. He’d never seen her like this, nor expected to.
“Come on, Honey”, he said. “Let’s get out of here and forget this wild-goose…”
“NO!”
The harsh scream took him by surprise, the tremendous slap around the face even more so.
She uncurled and thrust herself upright. Fumbling in her bag, she produced a tiny Uzi submachine gun.
“Motherfucker!” she screamed, and ran upstairs.
Ghote propped himself up against the wall. Run, you idiot, he thought.
A loud rattle of gunfire from upstairs startled him. Then an ominous silence. Had she got him?
He started to walk slowly up the stairway.
“Lorelei? Miss Van Ness? You OK?”
His voice sotto voce, ears ringing from the earlier racket.
He smelt cordite, and saw smoke drifting into a beam of sunlight from an open door on the landing.
He peered around the edge of the door. Lorelei was sat on a small stool in front of a dressing table with a smashed mirror. She clutched her tiny gun, unconsciously pulling the trigger. Harsh clicks. An empty magazine.
Ghote moved into the room. Arboghast was spreadeagled on a four poster bed. Lorelei’s bullets had ripped up his chest. Had she destroyed the next message?
An odd sound plagued him. He realised that thin white wires were rapped around the dead clowns neck. Two tiny earphones had been placed in his ears, but one had fallen out, presumably as a result of Lorelei’s assault. He advanced gingerly and crouched by the bed, putting the little white piece of plastic near his own ear. Elvis Presley bemoaned the fact that there weren’t more than twenty-four hours in a day.
Ghote looked at Lorelei.
“We’re going to Vegas,” she said ,dully.
***********************************
The 4 x 4 with attached trailer pulled up outside the Circus Circus casino. Jacob Panetta came rushing outside, rubbing his hands together nervously.
“Mizz Van Ness!” he gushed insincerely as Lorelei climbed down from the vehicle, “always a pleasure! Your usual suite?”
“If you still want my business, Jake, and don’t want to end up on a meathook, get that fifty cal set up facing the tradesman’s exit at the back.”
“Fifty cal? Fuck, Lorelei, who you at war with?”
“You, if you don’t help. Come on!”
She waved angrily at Ghote.
Panetta waved at a couple of passing clowns.
“You heard the lady.”
Ghote had trouble keeping up with Lorelei, who was striding through the casino at an incredible rate.
“Miss Van Ness? Miss Van Ness? Where are we…oh, shit. No.”
Lorelei stared with hatred at the cordoned off section at the rear of the enormous circus ring. The Hall Of Freaks. With recession looming, the present Government had all but repealed the old Oddity laws. The people needed someone to look down on in times of crisis and with all the race problems, physical deformity was seen as a useful stop-gap. Just until things got better, you understand.
Lorelei clenched her fists. One of her first acts as Mizz President would have been to reinstate the Oddity laws, but go ten steps further. Drive the bastards underground. Wipe them out if necessary. Wherever they were, he would be. She should have realised earlier. Well, this was a gift.
A shifty little man peaked out of the Hall. Lorelei seized his scaled ear and twisted it pulling him out into the open. Passing showgirls giggled nervously.
“Hi, Wade,” she barked. “Where’s the Doc?”
“Owww! Doc?” queried the little man. “There ain’t no Doc here, Ma’am.”
“Sure there is, you little runt. Well, you tell him, I’m here and I’m ready. Get your guys together, and we’ll see you in the car park.”
She released his ear, and as he turned to flee into the safety of the Hall, she kicked him squarely in the rear. With a shriek, he flew into darkness. She smirked and then scowled as she realised that she’d ruined the pointed toe of her shoe. Scaly little bastard..
**********************
The occupants of the Hall Of Freaks had turned to the white-haired man in the top hat.
“What’s goin’ down, Doc?” asked Leopold, the red-haired Lion Man.
The Doc looked around uneasily. He was about to betray and cause the deaths of the best friends he’d ever had, but he had to get to her. He had to.
“Listen, guys…”
“Fire!”
Yellow flames licked at the entrance to the Hall. Clowns threw buckets of water onto them . It wasn’t water. Gasoline!
The Oddities panicked, and began to flock toward the exit.
“Take your guns!” was all the Doc could shout at their backs, as he leapt through the flames, ran past the clowns and headed upstairs.
***************
Outside in the car park, Lorelei crouched behind the stained armour plating of John R.
“There!”
Ghote finished loading the enormous belt of shells into the chamber.
“That’ll…oh my God!”
The rear door of the casino opened, and smoke poured out. Within the smoke were hordes of misshapen figures, coughing, spluttering.
“Christ, Lorelei! Some of ‘em are armed. What the Hell are they?”
More and more Oddities were fleeing the flames. She couldn’t see him, but she couldn’t wait any longer. Using all her strength, she hauled back the bolt.
*********************
Dementer opened the door, to find Jacob Panetta rifling through his safe.
“Hi Jake! Lost your insurance policy? I just need your car keys.”
He leaned over and grabbed the set from Panetta’s desk.
“Hey, you! Who the f…”
In the time it had taken for Panetta to draw his automatic from the shoulder holster, the top-hatted, white haired figure had disappeared.
Smelling smoke, Jake returned to the safe.
****************
Lorelei depressed the trigger mechanism and hung on for dear life. It was like riding a bucking bronco. She gradually wrestled control as John R spat leaden death into the casino car park. First reward was seeing the Alligator Boy’s head explode. The little scaly body ran on for a few feet before collapsing, red syrup pouring from the neck stump. It took three whole rounds to disintegrate the portly bearded lady. She was aware that some of the targets were attempting to shoot back. Spangs and whings echoed from the armour plating, but she was safe behind it. The incredible juddering of the gun was transmitting itself into every fibre of her body. She was exhilarated. Strapped to the world’s biggest vibrator whilst watching your worst fears turn to jelly, paste, dust before your eyes. She began to scream. Unbelievably, orgasm was approaching. Tears welled in her eyes. Splats of red everywhere. Smoke drifted around her. As her state became a higher one, she became aware of Ghote staggering toward her, no jacket, shirt bloodied. A shell took his legs away in a fountain of crimson. He fell and his torso remained upright, balanced on the car park. Her shaking, tear streaked vision was tested to the limit as he raised himself on his arms, and carried on toward her, walking on his hands.
A huge, black Lincoln Continental crashed through concealed garage doors, and roared toward her.
The fifty calibre clicked empty. No! Not now! When she was so close. The limo careered past. She glimpsed white hair and red eyes.
“Motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
She tottered, exhausted from behind John R, the smells of gunsmoke, sex and blood clinging to her.
The half Ghote had given up ten yards away. It was as though he’d been buried in cement in the car park up to his waist.
She knelt before him, and pulled back the stained shirt. Using her powder-burned hands, she smeared the blood on his chest, looking for the clue.
It would be the one word. ‘Salem.’
It wasn’t. It read ‘The Old Franklin Place, Texas.’
You fucking bastard.
She hauled herself over to the 4 x 4, clambered in and drove slowly out of the car park.
*****************************
The journey across country assumed nightmare qualities. She kept going with pills, booze and the occasional injection. Hotels, motels, the Overlook, Bates, Hello (they’d fixed the sign). Half the time she didn’t know where she was. Shocking dreams. Astride John R, raining destruction down on those who’d threaten her. A three-fingered clawed hand resting on her shoulder, a familiar voice whispering in her ear. Congratulations, inducements, sweet nothings. Looking in the rear-view mirror at the white streaks in her hair. No, not him. Never.
She crossed the border into Texas and became more alert, more ready. You’ll never have a better chance, girl, she told herself. It’s just you and him. Once he’s out of the picture, you’re free.
She pulled up beside the wooden shack. It had to be done.
The old man in the checked shirt welcomed her at the door, and led her to the back room. She surveyed the walls, and picked a medium sized model. She wondered what he’d picked. Probably a big one. Guys. Obsessed with size. It didn’t really matter in the end. She walked out back with the oldster and fired it up. It sliced through the logs with ease. It would do. She hoped that it wouldn’t come to that, but…
“Sold many recently?”
“A couple. Business ain’t bad.”
“Any big ones?”
“Nope. Sold one of those yesterday.”
He indicated her model.
“Yeah? To a girl?”
“Nope. A guy. Funny lookin’ feller.”
That was enough for her. She paid and drove on.
The heat was oppressive and her vehicle’s aircon had packed up. She'd turned the radio on and realised that it was a Sunday. The dj's blathered about Dads, Pops, Pappys, and played tunes celebrating them. She enjoyed The Cramps, but when Cliff Richard sang, she switched the radio off. She drove past the dried up waterhole and nosed the car into the field at the rear of the Franklin place. It was still filled with junk cars. Loads of ‘em. She parked at the back of them, picked up her chainsaw, and walked toward the rear of the house.
She stopped. She couldn’t do it. It wasn’t right.
She walked around the side of the house to the front, and positioned herself on the drive, facing the front door. The bench was still there.
The metal door slid open with nerve-jangling screech. He stepped out on to the verandah, and pulled the string. His machine roared into life. Holding it one handed, down by his side he stepped forward.
“Lorelei,” he said.
She pulled her string.
“Let’s get to it,” she shouted, staring him right in those blood-shot red eyes.
She swung the chainsaw out in front of her, reversed it in her grip, and plunged it into her own stomach. The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt. She watched her own torso self-destruct, blood and meat flying out over the parched Texas ground.
She collapsed to her knees, the chainsaw idling within her stomach. She looked over her shoulder and saw the bald man smiling approval.
“Pop,” she said, and lost consciousness, meaning that she didn’t hear the laughter.
Dementer did. He turned off his own chainsaw, and stepped down from the verandah, walking towards the ripped up little rag doll. The laughter rang in his ears. He leaned down and turned off Lorelei’s chainsaw, then examined his red hand. Tears flowed down his cheeks. She’d always been a wilful girl, but…
He’d seen her die before. But knowing what he knew now made it all the more painful. Would she always deny him, no matter how many times they met?
He hadn’t foreseen this outcome. He thought if he could subdue her in battle, she would respect and acknowledge him. He hadn’t expected the man she thought was her father to intervene. More fool him. Sacrificing his friends. For what?
He dropped his chainsaw, and walked down the dusty road.
“Shit! Motherfucker!”
Lorelei hurled the newspaper across the room.
Ghote and Cooke looked uneasily at one another.
“Who publishes this rag?”
“Miguel Loco,” supplied Cooke.
“Get him,” said Lorelei.
She opened the wooden box on her desk and removed a large cigar.
Ghote squirmed as she inserted the end into a miniature guillotine. Bad memories. He suppressed a whimper as the blade descended.
“NOW! I’ll be downstairs.”
It was Cooke’s turn to wince as the match that Lorelei had used to pierce the end of the cigar was scraped on the top of the antique rosewood. A plume of cigar smoke followed the two men as they left the office.
*****************
Miguel Loco locked the bathroom door, dropped his trousers and seated himself comfortably. He leaned forward and picked up the laptop. No sense in wasting any time. He could be here a while. Those fajitas were dancing a fandango in his belly.
He signed on and opened his e-mail. The door crashed open and he found himself looking down the barrel of Cooke’s Colt .45 automatic above the screen.
The bowel movement was lot noisier, less fragrant but easier than he’d expected.
Loco knew who they worked for. He’d taken a chance printing that stuff from the unknown source, but he loathed the woman with a passion. He’d asked to interview her a number of times and always been brushed off. Well, it looked like he was about to meet his nemesis, but on her terms.
The black 4 x 4 hummed quietly through the night. Miguel saw the endless black metal fence, the poles topped with gold fleur-de-lys. Huge gates automatically opened, and the car drove through the beautiful gardens. Despite himself, Miguel gasped. Lush green topiary! On the edge of the desert! The flame of his idealism flared up again. The whole area was suffering from drought. 90% of the local population were on the breadline, working for a pittance in the Van Ness factories, manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. And she lived in…
The chateau came into view. Once again. Miguel Loco’s mouth hung open. He’d moved into a parallel world. Chucha! How could she?
The vehicle halted before the giant studded wooden doors.
“Let’s go,” said Ghote, slipping from the car.
He sounds nervous, thought Miguel. Cooke, impassive, gestured with his pistol.
They walked into the massive hall decorated with immense paintings, objets d’art and antiques. The ostentatious display fuelled Miguel’s anger. He knew he should be scared, but this was too much.
Ghote pressed a switch on the wall, and a panel slid aside. The three stepped into a large elevator, and Ghote pressed another button. Miguel felt his stomach lurch as they descended slowly. Incongruous muzak played. It was worse than silence.
The lift halted and the door opened. Ghote led the way into a passage hewn from rock. Artfully lit with red and green spotlights, Miguel found this artifice amusing. The ‘rock’ looked plastic, like a film set. He looked up, and felt a tremor of fear as the ceiling moved. He squinted, and made out a colony of bats roosting.
Keep your cool, Loco, he thought, it’s going to get worse. The passageway opened into a vast, low-ceilinged room. The floor was taken up with a massive pool, full of gently rippling aquamarine water. Beautiful light patterns played around the walls. A black triangular dorsal fin broke the water’s surface, and glided around the pool. Miguel tore his eyes away. They travelled along a white painted, six-inch wide length of wood that crossed the pool, and he saw her.
Puta! She was dressed in a black basque, tiny black g-string, fishnet stockings and black pointed ankle boots with stiletto heels. She lounged on a golden throne with red velvet seat and back, leg thrown over an arm of the throne, her crotch leering obscenely at him. Stroked the red-legged tarantula that crawled along her thigh. Her black hair was swept up in a beehive, thin white streaks decorating either side. She sucked on a large Cuban, puffing smoke at the spider.
Ghote coughed.
“Ah! Miguel!” she beamed. She placed the spider gently on the arm of the chair, and stood up. Plucking a hunk of raw meat from a metal container beside the throne, she marched across the narrow plank of wood and stood still above the middle of the pool, arm holding the meat loft.
The shark leaped gracefully from the water. Lorelei released the meat. The shark seized it, curved elegantly over the wooden beam, and splashed back into the pool.
Lorelei continued on her way, stepping down from the plank directly in front of Miguel Loco.
Watching the display, Miguel had accepted that he was going to die. He launched himself at the woman, screaming his hatred. She slapped his face hard, and he fell toward the pool, grasping the wet wood at the last minute. From the waist down, he lay at the pool side. His hands grasped the beam as tightly as he could. His body and head trembled above the pool.
“Who told you those lies about me?” she asked softly.
“Not lies. You are a murderer, an exploiter, and a whore. You dance on the dead. You are…aieee!”
A stiletto heel pierced the back of his left hand. Miguel understood that sumo wrestlers had the ability to retract their testicles into their bodies. His cojones were doing their best.
“Ma’am?”
Lorelei looked at Cooke. He proffered the Loco laptop. She looked at the e-mail account. Blood dripped from Miguel’s injured hand into the water. He heard the swirl below him.
“So. Last chance, Miguel. What can you tell me about Doc Dot Dem at Hotmail Dot Com?”
“He knows you, Fulana! He told me about you!”
Lorelei stamped on Miguel’s other hand. He screamed, released his grip and plunged into the pool.
She strode onto the beam, oblivious to the churning foam beneath her, white turning red.
Turning to the green-looking Ghote, and the taciturn Cooke, she snarled “Trace that e-mail, where it was sent from. Get Loco’s ‘phone records. Any unusual calls. We’ll meet tomorrow. In the board room.”
Dismissed, the two men hurried from the room, Ghote risking a quick glance back at those superb exposed buttocks
*****
Ghote groaned silently and crossed his legs as the mini guillotine blade descended on the tip of the cigar.
“News?”
“We got a match,” smirked Cooke. “The e-mail was sent from the same location as two ‘phone calls to Loco.”
“Getting careless, Doc Dot Dem,” said Lorelei, in a peculiar sing-song voice. She frowned.
“Unless….Origin?”
“The Middle East.”
No reaction. Cooke swallowed and spoke again.
“Transmission from near the town of Jezreel.”
Lorelei threw back her head and laughed. Then stopped abruptly.
“The bastard.”
She stood up and walked through the door behind her, into a room filled with glass cases. Ghote and Cooke looked at one another, then followed suit.
The first case contained a block of steel from which grew four enormous blades. Lorelei had opened the next, which contained a stained, ragged cloth bundle. They heard a clanking as she reached inside, withdrawing a slim knife, the handle depicting Christ on the cross. She shook her head and replaced it, closing the case. The next case contained an ancient spear. Lorelei spent a long time gazing at it. Cooke harrumphed, and Ghote shifted uneasily. She shook her head again, and moved into the next ante-room. Ghote looked at the small placard in the case. It merely read ‘Longinus’.
Ghote bumped into the stationary Cooke. He saw that his boss and his co-worker were staring in fascination at the sole glass case in the room.
It contained an enormous , ancient fifty calibre machine gun, the armour plating pockmarked with bullet holes and dyed a rusty colour with what Ghote assumed queasily to be dried blood. Were those bone chips embedded in the metal?
“You gotta be fucking joking.”
He realised with a sinking feeling that he’d spoken aloud.
“She’s loaded for bear!” exulted Cooke.
Lorelei turned, eyes shining. One eyebrow raised, she said to Ghote, “This is no fucking joking matter, Ghote-boy.”
She jerked a thumb at the death machine.
“Get John R here loaded on the jet. We’re going on a Doc hunt, in the desert.”
As Ghote and Cooke prepared to move, Lorelei puffed out cigar smoke and mused, “It’s gonna take a while to get there. Any of our guys in the area?”
Cooke clicked his fingers.
“Arboghast and Battenberg are nearby.”
Lorelei’s fists clenched, elbows touched and jerked down.
“Yes! Get on the horn, Cookey. Send in the clowns.”
*******************************
The camels stirred and grumbled uneasily. Hassan moved out of the shade of the entrance to the underground city and peered toward the horizon. A cloud of dust was visible.
Hassan ran down the worn stone steps. Dashing through the underground streets, he reached the excavation site. Professor Richard Leeky looked up in surprise, then smiled.
“Hassan! What’s up?”
Hassan paused, composed himself and spoke slowly and clearly.
“Professor, a vehicle approaches.”
“Excellent, my boy,” roared the professor. “We’ll have you fluent before long.”
He clapped his hands.
“A vehicle, eh? I’m not expecting anyone. Dev?”
The middle-aged man in the khaki bush jacket and shorts looked up, and brushed the long, white hair from his sweating face.
“Not me, Rich.”
The professor looked at the pale pink albino eyes, and once more wondered how his colleague coped so well with the burning sun.
“Well, well. I hope it’s not the gentlemen, or ladies ,of the press. We could without any more interruptions. Come on, Hassan. Let’s go and see what they want.”
As the professor and the arab boy left the site, the other archaeologist hefted the skull he’d been dusting in one hand.
“Alas, poor ... I knew her, Horatio.”
He smiled and crushed the cranium into fine dust.
Leeky and Hassan walked from the shadows out into the sun, the elder man squinting and trying to adjust his sight to the bright sunlight.
The cloud of dust was much nearer. Hassan giggled. The vehicle and its occupants came into focus. Leeky frowned.
Two large, bizarrely dressed men were squeezed into a tiny yellow car. The doors hung off, the wheels wobbled alarmingly. The man clutching the comically small steering wheel was dressed in a suit of huge black and white checks that was umpteen sizes too big for him, as was his shirt and bow tie. A ridiculously small bowler hat with an absurdly large plastic daisy poked into the hat band perched upon his straight brown hair.
The other man was taller and thinner and dressed in a baggy yellow jump suit. His hair was bright red and tightly curled. Like his companion his face was deathly white, and huge red lips were painted around his mouth, upturned. The drivers downturned. Both had identical round red noses.
The car wheezed to a halt. Leeky and Hassan jumped in fright at an enormous backfire. A cloud of green smoke billowed from the back of the little vehicle. As the passenger attempted to leave, his door fell off. The driver parped the bulb horn a couple of times. It, and the steering wheel came off in his hands. He looked at them quizzically, then flung them behind him. His door also fell to the desert floor. Both men stepped from the car.
Hassan, who had steadily kept chuckling during this display, clapped and hooted in delight at the sight of the mens’ two foot long shoes. They looked down in puzzlement, turned to one another, shrugged , then advanced toward the waiting couple.
Leeky watched them nervously. There was something wrong about them. He wasn't in the least amused.
The clown with the checked suit stopped and raised a hand, looking horrified. He flapped back to the car and pulled out a bucket, then ran towards Hassan. Leeky had trouble following him, as his companion had imitated his actions and also hopped back to the dilapidated vehicle, retrieving what looked suspiciously like a custard pie.
The check-suited clown hurled his bucket at Hassan. If it had contained water, Leeky would have been outraged, but the hundreds of shiny little strips that enveloped Hassan put his mind at rest. Until the arab boy started to scream. Leeky looked on in horror, oblivious to the yellow-suited clown creeping up on him, as the shiny strips of metal sliced Hassan to ribbons. Pouring lifeblood onto the thirsty sand from a thousand cuts, Hassan expired with a groan.
Leeky turned, in time to receive the custard pie in the face. It enveloped his head, burning his eyes, oozing into ears, nostrils and mouth. Unable to breathe, let alone scream, Leeky collapsed to the ground, beside the mutilated Hassan.
The yellow-suited clown screwed his fists into his eyes, in mock misery. The check-suited clown shrugged.
They looked at the entrance.
“We goin' in?” growled Battenburg, in yellow.
“Nah. This is the only way in or out. We wait for her,” replied Arboghast, in check.
The two clowns sat in the shade of the entrance. Their make-up had run in the heat giving their faces a melted look. They watched vultures tear Hassan apart. The birds of prey ignored Leeky, his head shrouded by the alien custard.
“Dust,” said Battenberg, pointing. The sleek, black 4 x 4 appeared, towing a canvas-shrouded fifty calibre.
“Jeez, that’s some artillery, Max. What we got into?”
Arboghast squeezed his hand.
“?It’s OK, Marty. She knows what she’s doin’.”
They stood up as the vehicle slid to a halt.
Lorelei slipped out from the behind the wheel and marched toward them. Ghote marvelled at her high heels refraining from sinking into the loose sand. He and Cooke floundered a little.
“Situation?”
“We took care of these two. No-one out, no-one in since.”
“Thanks, Max. OK, guys, listen up. We’re going into the underground city. We’re looking for a guy six foot plus, long white hair, red eyes. You won’t miss him. He’s unique. But watch your backs. He’s tricky. Let’s go.”
She led the way into the shadows. They descended the stone steps to face the underground town. Five roads led away from the base of the stairwell.
“Nice of him to leave the lights on,” observed Cooke, fingering his pump shotgun. Battenberg twirled a Desert Eagle. Arboghast drew a pair of matched Navy .44 Colts from the voluminous pockets of his jacket. He mimed offering the butts to Battenberg, then the pistols whirled in his hands, thumbs clicking back the hammers.
“The Border Roll!? exclaimed Cooke. “I ain’t seen that in…”
“Enough,” said Lorelei. “One street each. Go.”
The clowns let the others set off, exchanged a quick kiss, then ventured into their own alleys. Despite the artificial lighting, the rock hewn buildings remained in deep shadow.
There was silence except for the occasional scrape of shoe leather on stone, or the drip of water. Each member of the team found that, once inside their street, they could not hear the others.
Ghote wanted to scream, to reassure himself there were others out there. Cooke looked penetratingly around him. One trace of white hair and red eyes and kablooie!
Max Arboghast wished Marty Battenberg was with him. Marty wished the same about Max.
Lorelei walked ahead, in a kind of trance. Once or twice her hand would stray to her hair, now loose around her shoulders, and trace one of the white lines. No. Not now, not ever.
She was the first to reach the end of her street and face the wall. Ghote appeared, sweaty and breathless. Then Cooke, leaping melodramatically from the darkness, shotgun wavering.
“Cool it!” hissed Lorelei.
Max Arboghast sauntered from the end of his street. He looked at his companions. Lorelei shook her head. Deceptively casually, he moved to the end of Battenberg’s pathway and glanced down it. He turned back, face impassive, but Colt drawn.
Lorelei moved to the right. The other three stared at the wall. The archaeologists had worked hard. The painting could now be seen in its entirety. Faded, but still powerful. A woman, naked save for a scarlet robe draped around her nether regions, astride a seven headed beast.
“It’s a version of the Whore Of Babylon,” whispered Cooke. “I’ve never seen this one.”
Ghote waited, but Cooke and Arboghast moved on after Lorelei. Lorelei. Was he the only one who saw the similarity? They must have noticed the black snakes she had for hair, with the two white ones adorning her temples. He gulped and followed the others.
Hurrying to catch up, he once again bumped into Cooke’s broad back, and looked at death via shotgun. Cooke turned back, and Ghote followed his gaze.
Marty Battenberg had been crucified upside down. His yellow jumpsuit shredded, his chest soaked in blood. A sob escaped Arboghast’s throat.
“We’ll get him, Max.”
Ghote looked around wildly at Lorelei’s comment.
“Don’t worry, Ghote-boy. He ain’t here any more. He’s playin’ a game with us.”
“I’ll give him game,” growled Arboghast. “How could he get out? We didn’t see…”
Battenberg’s corpse gave him an answer. White make-up spilled onto his suit.
Lorelei walked to a water bag, doused some archaeological papers and wiped Battenberg’s chest. As the blood came off, a series of cuts were revealed.
“It says something!” gasped Cooke. “But in no language I know.”
“It’s upside-down, like poor Marty.” said Lorelei with a sad resignation. “It says Whitby.”
“Who’s Whitby?” asked Arboghast.
“Not who. Where. It’s a town in the North of England.”
Some steel was creeping back into Lorelei’s voice.
“We going there, Mizz Van Ness?” asked the clown.
“You bet your sweet bippy, Max.”
After the desert, the rain, mist and wind of Yorkshire chilled the four to the bones.
“God-damn that sonofabitch, “ cursed Cooke. “This Limey dump. I hate this country! What language are they speaking? It’s different from London.”
“England isn’t just London, Cookey,” smiled Lorelei. “In many ways it’s as diverse as the States, just on a smaller scale.”
She felt happier. Even Max Arboghast seemed to have put Marty’s death behind him, and was tucking into the English delicacy, fish and chips.
Ghote appeared less nervous.
Thanks to her wealth and power, they had managed to remain armed, although her beloved John R remained in the cargo hold of the jet. England was too small a country for that sort of fire power.
Lorelei pondered the Doctor Dementer problem. He was the man behind this. The man who’d killed her father, and was attempting to put himself in that man’s place. Well, it wasn’t going to work, Doc.
The newspaper stories were annoying. She’d been building up to run for the Presidency, seeing as Hillary had failed. A woman in the White House. An image to conjure with. Her finger on the button. The world would take her seriously then.
The damp quartet ascended the 199 steps. They reached the top and walked on past St. Mary’s church.
“Where we goin’, Mizz Van Ness?” asked Arboghast, putting his chip papers in a nearby litter bin. He’d insisted on retaining his clown outfit, make-up re-done. They’d gotten a few strange glances in the town, but Lorelei wasn’t concerned with what others thought of them. The world would applaud if they successfully removed that murdering bastard.
They approached the ruins of the Abbey. Night was falling fast. The darkness was suddenly illuminated as hidden lights were switched on. The huge stone walls were shown in stark relief. The light didn’t quite reach the top of the huge arched facade.
Lorelei strained her eyes. Is that where he was? Silently waiting? What did he hope to gain? Her ruin? Her death? The death of all around her? Isolating her until she had to accept him? It won’t work, Buster. I’m too much like my real Dad. Independent. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. No half-assed quack will rain on my parade.
They walked through the deserted ruins silently, constantly searching the shadows, dark corners, hidden dips.
Having traversed the entire site, Lorelei stopped with a sigh.
“He ain’t here,” she snapped in frustration.
“Where’s Cooke?” asked Ghote in a small voice.
Lorelei and Arboghast whirled this way and that, guns drawn. They were down to three.
“Ghote-boy, you stupid shit! Why didn’t you…”
“I just realised when you stopped. I…”
“Shut up!”
They’d all been so wrapped up in their own thoughts they hadn’t noticed Cooke’s abduction.
“He IS here,” mused Lorelei, suddenly aware of a strange whistling sound.
“Look out!”
Arboghast dived, pulling her to the ground. The body of Cooke slammed into Ghote, sending him flying.
Arboghast’s pistol roared, a .44 round slamming into the spinning body.
“He’s dead, Max,” said Lorelei wearily, picking herself up and dusting herself down.
Max thumbed down the hammer, and watched Cooke’s slowly twirling body. He was suspended from the highest point of the Abbey, a thick noose around his neck, the familiar features blackened, blood smeared around the mouth where the tip of his tongue had been bitten off.
No tie. White shirt stained red. Here we go, thought Lorelei. She smoothed back the blood stained silk. Arboghast produced a line of flags of all nations from one of his pockets, and wiped the abdomen.
They looked at one another.
“Where to now?” whimpered Ghote.
********************************
“More fucking rain. Why can’t that bastard get back to the States?”
“It’s part of the game, Max. We’re on unfamiliar territory.”
Arboghast smiled.
“You’re just itchin’ to turn that fifty cal loose, aincha?”
Lorelei smiled at the clown.
“You bet, Max. And you know who on?”
“You’d have to get past me first.”
“That a challenge.?”
They laughed.
Ghote, a few yards away, scowled. They were all under sentence of death by a madman, and the clown and the bitch were yakkin’ it up. He sighed. No way out now. He just hoped his boss could cope. He’d been alarmed to see the frightened little girl in her so much lately.
Miguel Loco’s outburst. Marty. Cooke. Behind the slap, the language, and the hauteur was someone’s young daughter, caught with her hand in the cookie jar and unable to cope with the expected punishment. Shit. They were all being punished for her mistakes.
He watched the reflection of Mont Blanc shatter as the ferry ploughed its way across Lake Geneva, the huge fountain hissing in the background. He wished Cookey were around. He’d have known where they were going.
The ferry docked, and the businesswoman, the clown and the administrator walked ashore.
They walked along the lakeside, then headed through quiet streets, before halting outside a black gate built into a solid-looking wall.
Lorelei opened the gate and walked through into a neat, large garden. The rain stopped, and the sun peeked out from behind a cloud.
Ghote stared at what looked like a miniature palace.
“What is this place?”
“The Villa Deodati,” answered Lorelei.
She moved toward the front door. Ghote watched Arboghast draw a pistol and follow her. Him or me? He thought. She’ll be left until last. He looked back longingly at the gate.
“Come on!” hissed a voice from the darkened doorway.
He joined his two companions in the spacious hallway. They were looking up the grand staircase.
“Can we not split up? Please?” wailed Ghote. “That’s how he got Marty. And Cookey. Let’s stick together?”
“Calm down,” advised Lorelei.
“That won’t save you.”
Three faces turned upward in surprise. At the head of the stairs stood a tall man dressed in a black tailcoat, white frilled shirt, bootlace tie with cow-skull clasp, black straight jeans, and black cowboy boots. A black top hat was nestling on his head, long white locks flowing from underneath it. Piercing red eyes stared down at them. A playing card was wedged in his hat band. The nine of diamonds.
“Kill him,” whispered Lorelei.
Max Arboghast ran at the stairs, yelling and firing his pistol. The noise was tremendous after the tense silence following the character’s appearance. Bullets thudded into the wall where the figure had appeared, as it dodged upstairs.
“You killed the only man I ever loved,” bawled Arboghast.
Ghote listened to the thudding feet on the stairs as Max disappeared from sight. He turned to Lorelei. Where was she? A sob made him look down. She was lying on the floor.
He knelt beside her. She flinched at his touch, keeled over on to her side and curled into a foetal ball.
“Run, Ghote-boy, run,” she said tearfully.
Ghote was at a loss. He’d never seen her like this, nor expected to.
“Come on, Honey”, he said. “Let’s get out of here and forget this wild-goose…”
“NO!”
The harsh scream took him by surprise, the tremendous slap around the face even more so.
She uncurled and thrust herself upright. Fumbling in her bag, she produced a tiny Uzi submachine gun.
“Motherfucker!” she screamed, and ran upstairs.
Ghote propped himself up against the wall. Run, you idiot, he thought.
A loud rattle of gunfire from upstairs startled him. Then an ominous silence. Had she got him?
He started to walk slowly up the stairway.
“Lorelei? Miss Van Ness? You OK?”
His voice sotto voce, ears ringing from the earlier racket.
He smelt cordite, and saw smoke drifting into a beam of sunlight from an open door on the landing.
He peered around the edge of the door. Lorelei was sat on a small stool in front of a dressing table with a smashed mirror. She clutched her tiny gun, unconsciously pulling the trigger. Harsh clicks. An empty magazine.
Ghote moved into the room. Arboghast was spreadeagled on a four poster bed. Lorelei’s bullets had ripped up his chest. Had she destroyed the next message?
An odd sound plagued him. He realised that thin white wires were rapped around the dead clowns neck. Two tiny earphones had been placed in his ears, but one had fallen out, presumably as a result of Lorelei’s assault. He advanced gingerly and crouched by the bed, putting the little white piece of plastic near his own ear. Elvis Presley bemoaned the fact that there weren’t more than twenty-four hours in a day.
Ghote looked at Lorelei.
“We’re going to Vegas,” she said ,dully.
***********************************
The 4 x 4 with attached trailer pulled up outside the Circus Circus casino. Jacob Panetta came rushing outside, rubbing his hands together nervously.
“Mizz Van Ness!” he gushed insincerely as Lorelei climbed down from the vehicle, “always a pleasure! Your usual suite?”
“If you still want my business, Jake, and don’t want to end up on a meathook, get that fifty cal set up facing the tradesman’s exit at the back.”
“Fifty cal? Fuck, Lorelei, who you at war with?”
“You, if you don’t help. Come on!”
She waved angrily at Ghote.
Panetta waved at a couple of passing clowns.
“You heard the lady.”
Ghote had trouble keeping up with Lorelei, who was striding through the casino at an incredible rate.
“Miss Van Ness? Miss Van Ness? Where are we…oh, shit. No.”
Lorelei stared with hatred at the cordoned off section at the rear of the enormous circus ring. The Hall Of Freaks. With recession looming, the present Government had all but repealed the old Oddity laws. The people needed someone to look down on in times of crisis and with all the race problems, physical deformity was seen as a useful stop-gap. Just until things got better, you understand.
Lorelei clenched her fists. One of her first acts as Mizz President would have been to reinstate the Oddity laws, but go ten steps further. Drive the bastards underground. Wipe them out if necessary. Wherever they were, he would be. She should have realised earlier. Well, this was a gift.
A shifty little man peaked out of the Hall. Lorelei seized his scaled ear and twisted it pulling him out into the open. Passing showgirls giggled nervously.
“Hi, Wade,” she barked. “Where’s the Doc?”
“Owww! Doc?” queried the little man. “There ain’t no Doc here, Ma’am.”
“Sure there is, you little runt. Well, you tell him, I’m here and I’m ready. Get your guys together, and we’ll see you in the car park.”
She released his ear, and as he turned to flee into the safety of the Hall, she kicked him squarely in the rear. With a shriek, he flew into darkness. She smirked and then scowled as she realised that she’d ruined the pointed toe of her shoe. Scaly little bastard..
**********************
The occupants of the Hall Of Freaks had turned to the white-haired man in the top hat.
“What’s goin’ down, Doc?” asked Leopold, the red-haired Lion Man.
The Doc looked around uneasily. He was about to betray and cause the deaths of the best friends he’d ever had, but he had to get to her. He had to.
“Listen, guys…”
“Fire!”
Yellow flames licked at the entrance to the Hall. Clowns threw buckets of water onto them . It wasn’t water. Gasoline!
The Oddities panicked, and began to flock toward the exit.
“Take your guns!” was all the Doc could shout at their backs, as he leapt through the flames, ran past the clowns and headed upstairs.
***************
Outside in the car park, Lorelei crouched behind the stained armour plating of John R.
“There!”
Ghote finished loading the enormous belt of shells into the chamber.
“That’ll…oh my God!”
The rear door of the casino opened, and smoke poured out. Within the smoke were hordes of misshapen figures, coughing, spluttering.
“Christ, Lorelei! Some of ‘em are armed. What the Hell are they?”
More and more Oddities were fleeing the flames. She couldn’t see him, but she couldn’t wait any longer. Using all her strength, she hauled back the bolt.
*********************
Dementer opened the door, to find Jacob Panetta rifling through his safe.
“Hi Jake! Lost your insurance policy? I just need your car keys.”
He leaned over and grabbed the set from Panetta’s desk.
“Hey, you! Who the f…”
In the time it had taken for Panetta to draw his automatic from the shoulder holster, the top-hatted, white haired figure had disappeared.
Smelling smoke, Jake returned to the safe.
****************
Lorelei depressed the trigger mechanism and hung on for dear life. It was like riding a bucking bronco. She gradually wrestled control as John R spat leaden death into the casino car park. First reward was seeing the Alligator Boy’s head explode. The little scaly body ran on for a few feet before collapsing, red syrup pouring from the neck stump. It took three whole rounds to disintegrate the portly bearded lady. She was aware that some of the targets were attempting to shoot back. Spangs and whings echoed from the armour plating, but she was safe behind it. The incredible juddering of the gun was transmitting itself into every fibre of her body. She was exhilarated. Strapped to the world’s biggest vibrator whilst watching your worst fears turn to jelly, paste, dust before your eyes. She began to scream. Unbelievably, orgasm was approaching. Tears welled in her eyes. Splats of red everywhere. Smoke drifted around her. As her state became a higher one, she became aware of Ghote staggering toward her, no jacket, shirt bloodied. A shell took his legs away in a fountain of crimson. He fell and his torso remained upright, balanced on the car park. Her shaking, tear streaked vision was tested to the limit as he raised himself on his arms, and carried on toward her, walking on his hands.
A huge, black Lincoln Continental crashed through concealed garage doors, and roared toward her.
The fifty calibre clicked empty. No! Not now! When she was so close. The limo careered past. She glimpsed white hair and red eyes.
“Motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
She tottered, exhausted from behind John R, the smells of gunsmoke, sex and blood clinging to her.
The half Ghote had given up ten yards away. It was as though he’d been buried in cement in the car park up to his waist.
She knelt before him, and pulled back the stained shirt. Using her powder-burned hands, she smeared the blood on his chest, looking for the clue.
It would be the one word. ‘Salem.’
It wasn’t. It read ‘The Old Franklin Place, Texas.’
You fucking bastard.
She hauled herself over to the 4 x 4, clambered in and drove slowly out of the car park.
*****************************
The journey across country assumed nightmare qualities. She kept going with pills, booze and the occasional injection. Hotels, motels, the Overlook, Bates, Hello (they’d fixed the sign). Half the time she didn’t know where she was. Shocking dreams. Astride John R, raining destruction down on those who’d threaten her. A three-fingered clawed hand resting on her shoulder, a familiar voice whispering in her ear. Congratulations, inducements, sweet nothings. Looking in the rear-view mirror at the white streaks in her hair. No, not him. Never.
She crossed the border into Texas and became more alert, more ready. You’ll never have a better chance, girl, she told herself. It’s just you and him. Once he’s out of the picture, you’re free.
She pulled up beside the wooden shack. It had to be done.
The old man in the checked shirt welcomed her at the door, and led her to the back room. She surveyed the walls, and picked a medium sized model. She wondered what he’d picked. Probably a big one. Guys. Obsessed with size. It didn’t really matter in the end. She walked out back with the oldster and fired it up. It sliced through the logs with ease. It would do. She hoped that it wouldn’t come to that, but…
“Sold many recently?”
“A couple. Business ain’t bad.”
“Any big ones?”
“Nope. Sold one of those yesterday.”
He indicated her model.
“Yeah? To a girl?”
“Nope. A guy. Funny lookin’ feller.”
That was enough for her. She paid and drove on.
The heat was oppressive and her vehicle’s aircon had packed up. She'd turned the radio on and realised that it was a Sunday. The dj's blathered about Dads, Pops, Pappys, and played tunes celebrating them. She enjoyed The Cramps, but when Cliff Richard sang, she switched the radio off. She drove past the dried up waterhole and nosed the car into the field at the rear of the Franklin place. It was still filled with junk cars. Loads of ‘em. She parked at the back of them, picked up her chainsaw, and walked toward the rear of the house.
She stopped. She couldn’t do it. It wasn’t right.
She walked around the side of the house to the front, and positioned herself on the drive, facing the front door. The bench was still there.
The metal door slid open with nerve-jangling screech. He stepped out on to the verandah, and pulled the string. His machine roared into life. Holding it one handed, down by his side he stepped forward.
“Lorelei,” he said.
She pulled her string.
“Let’s get to it,” she shouted, staring him right in those blood-shot red eyes.
She swung the chainsaw out in front of her, reversed it in her grip, and plunged it into her own stomach. The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt. She watched her own torso self-destruct, blood and meat flying out over the parched Texas ground.
She collapsed to her knees, the chainsaw idling within her stomach. She looked over her shoulder and saw the bald man smiling approval.
“Pop,” she said, and lost consciousness, meaning that she didn’t hear the laughter.
Dementer did. He turned off his own chainsaw, and stepped down from the verandah, walking towards the ripped up little rag doll. The laughter rang in his ears. He leaned down and turned off Lorelei’s chainsaw, then examined his red hand. Tears flowed down his cheeks. She’d always been a wilful girl, but…
He’d seen her die before. But knowing what he knew now made it all the more painful. Would she always deny him, no matter how many times they met?
He hadn’t foreseen this outcome. He thought if he could subdue her in battle, she would respect and acknowledge him. He hadn’t expected the man she thought was her father to intervene. More fool him. Sacrificing his friends. For what?
He dropped his chainsaw, and walked down the dusty road.
Monday, 2 February 2015
Lorelei And The Circus Of Doom
Lorelei And The Circus Of Doom – Samantha Crosby
More mentalness and senslessness.
Off you go...
....................................
Charlie was homesick. Homesick when his home had been a caravan pulled by plodding horses, and he had never stayed more than two weeks in one town. He was homesick for a real life, now he had Lorelei by his side.
After the incident with the Demons, and despite his promises, Dementer just left one evening and never came back. Lorelei didn’t cry, but her face was full of confusion and sadness, and The Other One hated to see her unhappy.
Oh, he hadn’t expected much else from The Doc, but it seemed he and Lorelei had been making up for the absences in her life, for the rough years, for everything. And then he just went. The Other One heard her moaning in her sleep, asking for her mother, but Morag was long dead. At least according to Dementer, and Lorelei seemed to believe him. She hadn’t seen her mother for years and years, torn apart by bitter feuding over the man Lorelei had thought of as her father all those years, Anton Locke.
He sighed and swung his tall body out of bed. Beside him, Lorelei slept, her face creased in anguish. A drink. He’d get a drink and maybe The Chef was about and would cook something delicious and distracting. Although it was 3am, The Chef could usually be relied on to cook something.
He was in luck. Stilton and Guinness pate was being prepared, The Chef happily drinking ten times more Guinness than actually made it into the pate.
“Hey Mr Clown. Wannsome o’ this?”
The Chef held out a ladle. The Other One considered the clown remark and then smelled the pate and decided to keep quiet. It was delicious.
“How’sh Loreiliey..Lor…your woman?” slurred The Chef.
The Other One shook his head.
“She’s very down. She took her daddy leaving bad, though she ain’t saying so.”
He sat down and sighed.
“I wanna take her home but she won’t go. Too many memories for her, none of them good.”
The Chef nodded, and then nodded off, slumped in his Stetson against the cooker. He began to snore. Loudly.
The Other One dipped his finger into the cooling pate and licked it off rapturously. It was very good.
“I am GOING! It’s not my turn but I AM GOING!”
Goat Boy’s voice carried down the corridor and then he was storming into the kitchen.
The Other One raised an eyebrow.
“Kids, huh?”
Goat Boy scowled. He was still all man. Since the arrival of his and Valerie’s 3,056 little goats-with-wings children, his goat portions had taken a back seat. The noise they made, the demands for nectar, the constant buzzing of tiny wings, it was all getting him down. It was only in the last few hours that they had been given names, there were so many of them. They were all called Paul.
“She won’t let me near her. She actually sleeps! But she says when they are grown up a bit, we can have some more. Apparently she is feeling let down because we had so few of the little blighters…,” Goat Boy sighed.
“And now she wants me to go back to Faeryland with her so her mother…”
There was a very loud bang and a spark of lightning in the corner. The Chef fell over. His hat stayed on. He stayed asleep.
The Other One grinned broadly.
In the corner now stood a man. Broad, tall and with a beard that reached his waist. The palest skin this side of Valerie. A battered straw boater on his head. A mane of ginger-fired hair.
“Onanism Potter!” declared The Other One, walking over and clasping the man to his equally tall form.
Onanism smiled, and his clown’s bow tie spun gently.
“Hey, brother. Long time no see!”
******
The Other One and the other The Other One sat at the table, clutching mugs of hot brandy and sharing a plate of bruschetta smeared with pate. There was very little left.
The Chef sat with them, eyes half closed, his handsome face slack in his dozy mien. He had started to make them an emergency chicken salad, but had fallen asleep mid toss.
“Ch…The Other One…something bad is happening back home. The circus is folding badly. Pa is struggling. No one comes anymore.”
Onanism sat back in his chair.
“The audience misses you, C. No one does it like you do.”
The Other One grimaced.
“See, I have Lorelei now. An’ she don’t wann…”
The hand on his shoulder was warm and smelled of home.
“I always did want to see your caravan, love,” said Lorelei.
******
The Chef decided to come along. After all, it was his home place too. Lorelei was pale and stony faced but she took the trip back to America as well as she could. Goat Boy was also along for the ride. Valerie would not be joining them as they could not find anyone brave enough to take on kid sitting duties. They decided to go via the Astral. It was quicker. Riskier but quicker. Almost as risky as the dress Lorelei wore for the journey. The Other One had never seen a tighter bit of leather and lace in his life. How it stayed on he could not imagine. Although he knew it wouldn’t remain in place before the night was out...
*****
Standing at the foot of a grey mountain in the dead lands of the Astral, Lorelei was nervous. There was so much in this world, and beyond it, that was after them that she couldn’t but help feel death was around every corner. The Chef was drinking madly and muttering to himself about a brown eyed girl he had met in a El Paso prison.
“Charlie honey, I’m scared. Just about everything in here is set to kill us. And there are bound to be Angels about. And we have no Valerie this time.”
Lorelei spoke quietly in his hear so the rest of them couldn’t hear his real name.
The Other One smiled down at her.
“I have taken...precautions. I’ve got hired help. We need to wait here for him to arrive.”
Lorelei squeezed his hand, and despite the chill, darkening air of the Astral evening, and the swell of menace from every turn, she trusted The Other One implicitly. He would not let her down.
She walked over to The Chef and kicked him hard with one shoe of death.
“You cookin’? “
“Wassat? Wha…Shit, Lorelei, that HURT!”
Unsteadily he staggered to his feet and began arranging pans. Lorelei wondered how the inside of his coat was bigger than a thousand kitchens. She would never dare ask however.
The Other One suddenly chuckled.
“I think you’re gonna need a bigger pan…”
The hired help loomed on the horizon. As he neared, Lorelei gasped. Goat Boy swelled his chest. The Chef grinned and tipped his hat
“Ladies an’ gents, may I introduce a pal from way back?”
A very muscular man with dark hair and a jaw created by set squares stepped forward.
“My name is John.”
Lorelei extended a quivering hand.
“John what?”
John didn’t smile. Or offer his hand.
“Rambo. John Rambo.”
*****
The trip through the Astral was a breeze. John Rambo shot everything in sight. Nothing got near them. Lorelei managed to not gaze at him too much. Goat Boy and The Chef had long since thrown shame to the wind and were glued to his every move.
When they reached The Circus, it was a dusty flutter of faded, striped big top and empty caravans. The Other One swallowed hard. Onanism went paler than was usual.
“How long’s it been like this?” asked The Other One.
Onanism shook his head.
“Way too long. No one comes around anymo’ .”
“Hey!”
The Other One whirled around, his face breaking into a huge smile.
“Wade!”
A small, scale-covered young man ran towards The Other One and flung himself at him.
“How ARE you, you ol’ alligator?” asked The Other One, shaking Wade’s hand over and over again.
Wade grinned and then looked up into the sky. His face lurched.
“Not good, pal. Not good.”
*****
Wade took them to his caravan. John wouldn’t fit inside the small area so he scowled at the desert and polished his arrows.
Wade poured everyone a tin mug of tea. The Chef poured a shot or four of scotch into his.
“So, Wade. What’s the score?” asked Lorelei. Wade looked shifty and cleared his throat.
Then the door opened and a girl with long brown hair walked into the room. She said something in a voice so low, no one could hear.
“This is Delilah. She’s a psychic,” said Wade.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch what she said,” said Lorelei.
“No one really does,” replied Wade. “We call her She Who Whispers.”
“I heard ya just fine, Delilah darlin’,” said The Chef, who had indeed heard her just fine.
She also had the word “deli” in her name, which he liked. Delilah smiled a lazy smile at him, and all the suns in The Chef’s universe came out to play at once.
“Anyway,” Lorelei went on, “Wade. Spill.”
The tale was not a pretty one. The audiences had kept coming after The Other One left. But every so often, as they left after the show, one or two of them would disappear, never to be seen again. Suspicion pointed its finger at the circus folk, and less and less came. Until there were none at all.
“An’ that’s when we first saw ‘em,” said Wade.
“Them? Them’s big ants, ain’t they?”
Lorelei shot The Chef a withering glance. Delilah shot one right back at her. She had her hand on his shoulder.
“Them.” Wade went on. “Harpies.”
The room was silent.
Finally Lorelei spoke.
“Big blue flying birds with lady faces and talons?”
Wade nodded.
“They is eating this place alive. They come most days now, after sundown. We’s no animals left. We hide in the cages instead of keepin’ the lions there. They always go in the morning.”
“Why don’t you leave?” asked Lorelei.
“We have left. We have left loadsa times. And they just come with us. Least the towns folk don’t come around here no more. We’d be takin’ a plague with us wherever we went.”
Wade looked down.
Delilah idly stroked The Chef’s hair. He tipped back his hat and touched her fingers.
A puff of smoke from his cuff curled delicately around Delilah’s wrist. It was heart shaped.
“What we do is hole up in the hills till nightfall. You folks get yourself in your cages and we’ll come and kill every last harpie,” said Lorelei.
“But… there’s thousands of ‘em,” mumbled Wade.
The Other One cocked his head at John Rambo.
“And we got one of HIM.”
*****
The sun was setting on the Arizona desert basin. The sky scorched into crimson hellfire.
Lorelei, The Other One, The Chef, Goat Boy and John walked five abreast down towards the tattered big top. The circus folk were in their cages, sad parodies of the animals that used to inhabit them.
Lorelei hitched her rifle from her shoulder and pumped it. The Chef swung a machete in each hand. His cuffs were smouldering and his shark teeth gleamed evilly. Goat Boy was back to a man-shaped top half. He was currently a hearty fifteen feet four inches, due to an overdose of The Chef’s special pies. They all kept their eyes on the sky.
When they reached the entrance to the big top, John held up his hand and they all stopped. He turned his head one way and then the other and listened.
“They’re here.”
Lorelei heard the rustling of a hundred dusty, ancient wings. And the harpies arrived.
A cloud of indigo demons, they flew at the small troop, claws primed, ragged teeth dripping slime.
“Inside. Now, “ muttered John, and everyone ran inside.
“Lorelei, you and me, top of the high wire. You. The big sheep. Stand by the cages. Cook boy, you and the clown by the back entrance. Go.”
Lorelei was too pumped up for action to be annoyed that John had taken over. They needed him, and she realised that.
The first harpie threw herself through the big top entrance and battle commenced.
*****
Lorelei hung one handed from the high wire, and tried to aim her rifle. The wire was cutting deep into her palm, blood oozing down her straining arm.
The Other One was pinned back against the cage, surrounded by a gaggle of harpies.
“Wendell! Help him!!”
Direct use of a man’s name was the only way to inspire assistance right now. The Chef whirled around and chopped the heads off two screeching harpies that were descending on him. His coat tails flying, smoke billowing from all orifices, he desperately fought and raged and bit his way to The Other One.
Charlie was semi buried now under a flaying pile of harpies, who were tearing at his flesh with razor sharp claws. Blood flew through the air in shocks of ruby bullets. He was losing the battle.
The Chef shouted and dropped a machete as a harpie flew by, tangled herself in his long, greying hair and went for his throat. He felt rather than heard the thwoosh of an arrow past his ear, an arrow that failed to shift his Stetson but which went clean through the harpie and pinned her to the ground. The Chef looked up. Hanging upside down from the highest ledge of the high wire was John, his large black bow cocked and already primed with another arrow.
“Get back. Over there!” John shouted, gesturing with his eyes.
The Chef backed away, retrieving his fallen machete and swinging the sharp duo around in wild circles. By the time he reached the velvet curtained entrance to back stage, twenty or thirty more harpies lay dead, and The Other One was able to crawl to his hands and knees. Blood dripped from him in rivers, and he was falling back down again, despite the lack of harpie presence.
And then Lorelei was flying. She could no longer hold onto the high wire. Her hand was too badly cut, her shoulder depleted of strength. She was falling. The Chef closed his eyes and started running to where he guessed she would fall. If he could catch her, maybe he could save her?
And then she was thrown backwards and pinned to the wooden column supporting the highwire. A slender but infinitely strong black arrow had been shot clean through her dress, through the leather between her thighs, turning her upside down as she twisted, but keeping her safe there. John Rambo fed another arrow into his bow. The Chef caught his eye and rushed to climb the high wire to get Lorelei down. John was climbing down but all the while shooting harpie after harpie, over his head, sideways, every which way. And his shooting was never loose.
The Chef reached Lorelei and cut the leather of the skirt of her dress as he held onto her. She clasped her arms and legs around him and the dress fell to the floor below. The Chef never wanted that moment to end, but it did.
Lorelei, in her underwear, slipped a narrow, tight blade from beneath the clasp of one lace suspender.
“Let’s get ‘em,” she muttered darkly and the two of them descended.
John had managed to slay the majority of the harpies within the big top. Dark blue body after dark blue body sputtered out of being, lying in wizened, papery heaps. Lorelei wondered where he was getting all his arrows from but decided it was best not to think too hard about that.
The Chef was finishing off the remaining harpies, pondering on whether they were edible or not.
Lorelei ran towards The Other One, who was now hunched almost lifeless, pressed against the bars of the empty lion’s cage. She slid to her knees beside him and turned him over, resting his head in her lap. Her breath stopped. SO much blood, his face so pale, his eyes closed. He was dying. Lorelei threw back her head and screamed.
“DADDY!”
*****
It was silent in the big top. The harpies were all dead, John going around tearing out their throats with his bare hands, just in case.
Lorelei was silently clutching The Other One’s body to her chest.
The Chef, who had let the circus folk out of their cages, was clutching Delilah’s hand and quietly sobbing.
Dementer had not come. And The Other One had died. Quietly and in Lorelei’s arms, but died all the same.
Goat Boy gently placed a hand on Lorelei’s shoulder but she brushed him off.
“Why the fuck could it not be you? Anyone of you? Or me? Why Charlie? Why the fuck Charlie?”
Her voice was torn and raw. Goat Boy again placed his hand on her shoulder and this time she collapsed into his arms.
“Oh I loved him. So much.”
“I know, honey, I know.”
The Chef let go of Delilah’s hand and knelt beside Lorelei, putting his arm around her and Goat Boy.
“It’s ok darlin’. We’ll look after you.”
He could not see for his tears.
John Rambo looked at the trio of broken people and shouldered his bow and arrows.
“So long. You know where to find me.”
And he walked away, out of the big top and away across the desert track.
*****.
They buried The Other One in a quiet spot not far from where the big top had been. Onanism had burned it to the ground. A simple black wooden cross, with a bow tie and plastic flower on the top was all that marked the spot.
Lorelei stood by herself in front of the grave whilst the others hung back.
“What now?”asked Goat Boy.
“Back to Scotland and then who knows…” replied the Chef. “Whatever happens, we stick together.”
Delilah said something.
“Yeah darlin’, of course you are comin’ too. I ain’t never letting you go.”
Delilah smiled at him and said something else. The Chef grinned and tipped his Stetson.
“What she say?” asked Goat Boy.
The Chef looked at him, then at Lorelei in the distance.
“She don’t know it yet, won’t for some time, but she is gonna have herself a baby clown.”
More mentalness and senslessness.
Off you go...
....................................
Charlie was homesick. Homesick when his home had been a caravan pulled by plodding horses, and he had never stayed more than two weeks in one town. He was homesick for a real life, now he had Lorelei by his side.
After the incident with the Demons, and despite his promises, Dementer just left one evening and never came back. Lorelei didn’t cry, but her face was full of confusion and sadness, and The Other One hated to see her unhappy.
Oh, he hadn’t expected much else from The Doc, but it seemed he and Lorelei had been making up for the absences in her life, for the rough years, for everything. And then he just went. The Other One heard her moaning in her sleep, asking for her mother, but Morag was long dead. At least according to Dementer, and Lorelei seemed to believe him. She hadn’t seen her mother for years and years, torn apart by bitter feuding over the man Lorelei had thought of as her father all those years, Anton Locke.
He sighed and swung his tall body out of bed. Beside him, Lorelei slept, her face creased in anguish. A drink. He’d get a drink and maybe The Chef was about and would cook something delicious and distracting. Although it was 3am, The Chef could usually be relied on to cook something.
He was in luck. Stilton and Guinness pate was being prepared, The Chef happily drinking ten times more Guinness than actually made it into the pate.
“Hey Mr Clown. Wannsome o’ this?”
The Chef held out a ladle. The Other One considered the clown remark and then smelled the pate and decided to keep quiet. It was delicious.
“How’sh Loreiliey..Lor…your woman?” slurred The Chef.
The Other One shook his head.
“She’s very down. She took her daddy leaving bad, though she ain’t saying so.”
He sat down and sighed.
“I wanna take her home but she won’t go. Too many memories for her, none of them good.”
The Chef nodded, and then nodded off, slumped in his Stetson against the cooker. He began to snore. Loudly.
The Other One dipped his finger into the cooling pate and licked it off rapturously. It was very good.
“I am GOING! It’s not my turn but I AM GOING!”
Goat Boy’s voice carried down the corridor and then he was storming into the kitchen.
The Other One raised an eyebrow.
“Kids, huh?”
Goat Boy scowled. He was still all man. Since the arrival of his and Valerie’s 3,056 little goats-with-wings children, his goat portions had taken a back seat. The noise they made, the demands for nectar, the constant buzzing of tiny wings, it was all getting him down. It was only in the last few hours that they had been given names, there were so many of them. They were all called Paul.
“She won’t let me near her. She actually sleeps! But she says when they are grown up a bit, we can have some more. Apparently she is feeling let down because we had so few of the little blighters…,” Goat Boy sighed.
“And now she wants me to go back to Faeryland with her so her mother…”
There was a very loud bang and a spark of lightning in the corner. The Chef fell over. His hat stayed on. He stayed asleep.
The Other One grinned broadly.
In the corner now stood a man. Broad, tall and with a beard that reached his waist. The palest skin this side of Valerie. A battered straw boater on his head. A mane of ginger-fired hair.
“Onanism Potter!” declared The Other One, walking over and clasping the man to his equally tall form.
Onanism smiled, and his clown’s bow tie spun gently.
“Hey, brother. Long time no see!”
******
The Other One and the other The Other One sat at the table, clutching mugs of hot brandy and sharing a plate of bruschetta smeared with pate. There was very little left.
The Chef sat with them, eyes half closed, his handsome face slack in his dozy mien. He had started to make them an emergency chicken salad, but had fallen asleep mid toss.
“Ch…The Other One…something bad is happening back home. The circus is folding badly. Pa is struggling. No one comes anymore.”
Onanism sat back in his chair.
“The audience misses you, C. No one does it like you do.”
The Other One grimaced.
“See, I have Lorelei now. An’ she don’t wann…”
The hand on his shoulder was warm and smelled of home.
“I always did want to see your caravan, love,” said Lorelei.
******
The Chef decided to come along. After all, it was his home place too. Lorelei was pale and stony faced but she took the trip back to America as well as she could. Goat Boy was also along for the ride. Valerie would not be joining them as they could not find anyone brave enough to take on kid sitting duties. They decided to go via the Astral. It was quicker. Riskier but quicker. Almost as risky as the dress Lorelei wore for the journey. The Other One had never seen a tighter bit of leather and lace in his life. How it stayed on he could not imagine. Although he knew it wouldn’t remain in place before the night was out...
*****
Standing at the foot of a grey mountain in the dead lands of the Astral, Lorelei was nervous. There was so much in this world, and beyond it, that was after them that she couldn’t but help feel death was around every corner. The Chef was drinking madly and muttering to himself about a brown eyed girl he had met in a El Paso prison.
“Charlie honey, I’m scared. Just about everything in here is set to kill us. And there are bound to be Angels about. And we have no Valerie this time.”
Lorelei spoke quietly in his hear so the rest of them couldn’t hear his real name.
The Other One smiled down at her.
“I have taken...precautions. I’ve got hired help. We need to wait here for him to arrive.”
Lorelei squeezed his hand, and despite the chill, darkening air of the Astral evening, and the swell of menace from every turn, she trusted The Other One implicitly. He would not let her down.
She walked over to The Chef and kicked him hard with one shoe of death.
“You cookin’? “
“Wassat? Wha…Shit, Lorelei, that HURT!”
Unsteadily he staggered to his feet and began arranging pans. Lorelei wondered how the inside of his coat was bigger than a thousand kitchens. She would never dare ask however.
The Other One suddenly chuckled.
“I think you’re gonna need a bigger pan…”
The hired help loomed on the horizon. As he neared, Lorelei gasped. Goat Boy swelled his chest. The Chef grinned and tipped his hat
“Ladies an’ gents, may I introduce a pal from way back?”
A very muscular man with dark hair and a jaw created by set squares stepped forward.
“My name is John.”
Lorelei extended a quivering hand.
“John what?”
John didn’t smile. Or offer his hand.
“Rambo. John Rambo.”
*****
The trip through the Astral was a breeze. John Rambo shot everything in sight. Nothing got near them. Lorelei managed to not gaze at him too much. Goat Boy and The Chef had long since thrown shame to the wind and were glued to his every move.
When they reached The Circus, it was a dusty flutter of faded, striped big top and empty caravans. The Other One swallowed hard. Onanism went paler than was usual.
“How long’s it been like this?” asked The Other One.
Onanism shook his head.
“Way too long. No one comes around anymo’ .”
“Hey!”
The Other One whirled around, his face breaking into a huge smile.
“Wade!”
A small, scale-covered young man ran towards The Other One and flung himself at him.
“How ARE you, you ol’ alligator?” asked The Other One, shaking Wade’s hand over and over again.
Wade grinned and then looked up into the sky. His face lurched.
“Not good, pal. Not good.”
*****
Wade took them to his caravan. John wouldn’t fit inside the small area so he scowled at the desert and polished his arrows.
Wade poured everyone a tin mug of tea. The Chef poured a shot or four of scotch into his.
“So, Wade. What’s the score?” asked Lorelei. Wade looked shifty and cleared his throat.
Then the door opened and a girl with long brown hair walked into the room. She said something in a voice so low, no one could hear.
“This is Delilah. She’s a psychic,” said Wade.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch what she said,” said Lorelei.
“No one really does,” replied Wade. “We call her She Who Whispers.”
“I heard ya just fine, Delilah darlin’,” said The Chef, who had indeed heard her just fine.
She also had the word “deli” in her name, which he liked. Delilah smiled a lazy smile at him, and all the suns in The Chef’s universe came out to play at once.
“Anyway,” Lorelei went on, “Wade. Spill.”
The tale was not a pretty one. The audiences had kept coming after The Other One left. But every so often, as they left after the show, one or two of them would disappear, never to be seen again. Suspicion pointed its finger at the circus folk, and less and less came. Until there were none at all.
“An’ that’s when we first saw ‘em,” said Wade.
“Them? Them’s big ants, ain’t they?”
Lorelei shot The Chef a withering glance. Delilah shot one right back at her. She had her hand on his shoulder.
“Them.” Wade went on. “Harpies.”
The room was silent.
Finally Lorelei spoke.
“Big blue flying birds with lady faces and talons?”
Wade nodded.
“They is eating this place alive. They come most days now, after sundown. We’s no animals left. We hide in the cages instead of keepin’ the lions there. They always go in the morning.”
“Why don’t you leave?” asked Lorelei.
“We have left. We have left loadsa times. And they just come with us. Least the towns folk don’t come around here no more. We’d be takin’ a plague with us wherever we went.”
Wade looked down.
Delilah idly stroked The Chef’s hair. He tipped back his hat and touched her fingers.
A puff of smoke from his cuff curled delicately around Delilah’s wrist. It was heart shaped.
“What we do is hole up in the hills till nightfall. You folks get yourself in your cages and we’ll come and kill every last harpie,” said Lorelei.
“But… there’s thousands of ‘em,” mumbled Wade.
The Other One cocked his head at John Rambo.
“And we got one of HIM.”
*****
The sun was setting on the Arizona desert basin. The sky scorched into crimson hellfire.
Lorelei, The Other One, The Chef, Goat Boy and John walked five abreast down towards the tattered big top. The circus folk were in their cages, sad parodies of the animals that used to inhabit them.
Lorelei hitched her rifle from her shoulder and pumped it. The Chef swung a machete in each hand. His cuffs were smouldering and his shark teeth gleamed evilly. Goat Boy was back to a man-shaped top half. He was currently a hearty fifteen feet four inches, due to an overdose of The Chef’s special pies. They all kept their eyes on the sky.
When they reached the entrance to the big top, John held up his hand and they all stopped. He turned his head one way and then the other and listened.
“They’re here.”
Lorelei heard the rustling of a hundred dusty, ancient wings. And the harpies arrived.
A cloud of indigo demons, they flew at the small troop, claws primed, ragged teeth dripping slime.
“Inside. Now, “ muttered John, and everyone ran inside.
“Lorelei, you and me, top of the high wire. You. The big sheep. Stand by the cages. Cook boy, you and the clown by the back entrance. Go.”
Lorelei was too pumped up for action to be annoyed that John had taken over. They needed him, and she realised that.
The first harpie threw herself through the big top entrance and battle commenced.
*****
Lorelei hung one handed from the high wire, and tried to aim her rifle. The wire was cutting deep into her palm, blood oozing down her straining arm.
The Other One was pinned back against the cage, surrounded by a gaggle of harpies.
“Wendell! Help him!!”
Direct use of a man’s name was the only way to inspire assistance right now. The Chef whirled around and chopped the heads off two screeching harpies that were descending on him. His coat tails flying, smoke billowing from all orifices, he desperately fought and raged and bit his way to The Other One.
Charlie was semi buried now under a flaying pile of harpies, who were tearing at his flesh with razor sharp claws. Blood flew through the air in shocks of ruby bullets. He was losing the battle.
The Chef shouted and dropped a machete as a harpie flew by, tangled herself in his long, greying hair and went for his throat. He felt rather than heard the thwoosh of an arrow past his ear, an arrow that failed to shift his Stetson but which went clean through the harpie and pinned her to the ground. The Chef looked up. Hanging upside down from the highest ledge of the high wire was John, his large black bow cocked and already primed with another arrow.
“Get back. Over there!” John shouted, gesturing with his eyes.
The Chef backed away, retrieving his fallen machete and swinging the sharp duo around in wild circles. By the time he reached the velvet curtained entrance to back stage, twenty or thirty more harpies lay dead, and The Other One was able to crawl to his hands and knees. Blood dripped from him in rivers, and he was falling back down again, despite the lack of harpie presence.
And then Lorelei was flying. She could no longer hold onto the high wire. Her hand was too badly cut, her shoulder depleted of strength. She was falling. The Chef closed his eyes and started running to where he guessed she would fall. If he could catch her, maybe he could save her?
And then she was thrown backwards and pinned to the wooden column supporting the highwire. A slender but infinitely strong black arrow had been shot clean through her dress, through the leather between her thighs, turning her upside down as she twisted, but keeping her safe there. John Rambo fed another arrow into his bow. The Chef caught his eye and rushed to climb the high wire to get Lorelei down. John was climbing down but all the while shooting harpie after harpie, over his head, sideways, every which way. And his shooting was never loose.
The Chef reached Lorelei and cut the leather of the skirt of her dress as he held onto her. She clasped her arms and legs around him and the dress fell to the floor below. The Chef never wanted that moment to end, but it did.
Lorelei, in her underwear, slipped a narrow, tight blade from beneath the clasp of one lace suspender.
“Let’s get ‘em,” she muttered darkly and the two of them descended.
John had managed to slay the majority of the harpies within the big top. Dark blue body after dark blue body sputtered out of being, lying in wizened, papery heaps. Lorelei wondered where he was getting all his arrows from but decided it was best not to think too hard about that.
The Chef was finishing off the remaining harpies, pondering on whether they were edible or not.
Lorelei ran towards The Other One, who was now hunched almost lifeless, pressed against the bars of the empty lion’s cage. She slid to her knees beside him and turned him over, resting his head in her lap. Her breath stopped. SO much blood, his face so pale, his eyes closed. He was dying. Lorelei threw back her head and screamed.
“DADDY!”
*****
It was silent in the big top. The harpies were all dead, John going around tearing out their throats with his bare hands, just in case.
Lorelei was silently clutching The Other One’s body to her chest.
The Chef, who had let the circus folk out of their cages, was clutching Delilah’s hand and quietly sobbing.
Dementer had not come. And The Other One had died. Quietly and in Lorelei’s arms, but died all the same.
Goat Boy gently placed a hand on Lorelei’s shoulder but she brushed him off.
“Why the fuck could it not be you? Anyone of you? Or me? Why Charlie? Why the fuck Charlie?”
Her voice was torn and raw. Goat Boy again placed his hand on her shoulder and this time she collapsed into his arms.
“Oh I loved him. So much.”
“I know, honey, I know.”
The Chef let go of Delilah’s hand and knelt beside Lorelei, putting his arm around her and Goat Boy.
“It’s ok darlin’. We’ll look after you.”
He could not see for his tears.
John Rambo looked at the trio of broken people and shouldered his bow and arrows.
“So long. You know where to find me.”
And he walked away, out of the big top and away across the desert track.
*****.
They buried The Other One in a quiet spot not far from where the big top had been. Onanism had burned it to the ground. A simple black wooden cross, with a bow tie and plastic flower on the top was all that marked the spot.
Lorelei stood by herself in front of the grave whilst the others hung back.
“What now?”asked Goat Boy.
“Back to Scotland and then who knows…” replied the Chef. “Whatever happens, we stick together.”
Delilah said something.
“Yeah darlin’, of course you are comin’ too. I ain’t never letting you go.”
Delilah smiled at him and said something else. The Chef grinned and tipped his Stetson.
“What she say?” asked Goat Boy.
The Chef looked at him, then at Lorelei in the distance.
“She don’t know it yet, won’t for some time, but she is gonna have herself a baby clown.”
Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Showdown
SHOWDOWN – Franklin Marsh
The three elderly men hurried across Main Street, doing their best to avoid the piles of horse manure. The short, stocky figure was first up the stairs to the Marshal’s office, the tall, bald man stumbling and being caught by the ex-actor with the dyed hair.
The shorter man waited impatiently on the wooden sidewalk, then they all burst into the Marshal’s office together.
“The Clintons are coming!” bawled the short man. “What are you gonna do about it, Marshal?”
The grey-haired custodian of the law seated behind the desk wiped up the last of the egg from his plate with a crust of bread, then pushed the soggy mess into his mouth. He sat back in his chair and observed his visitors.
“I said what are you gonna do about it, Marshal?” persisted the short man. “ The whole damn lot of ‘em are comin’, we heard. Not just Big Bill, but that wife of hiss’n. And O’Bama.”
“Fritz Mondale,” croaked the former actor.
The tall bald man tried to say something like Dukakis, but it came out garbled and indecipherable.
“Goddamn it, George! They’re un-American!”
“Easy, fellers.”
The three oldsters turned. To see a tall, lean figure framed in the doorway that led to the two cells, currently empty, in back.
“We’ll take care of it.”
The short man spluttered “You’d better. They say Locke’s with ‘em. The one the Indians call Krow.”.
The tall man thrust his groin forward, twin pearl-handled revolvers jiggling in their holsters.
“Read my hips,” he said, menacingly. “We’ll take care of it.”
The short man harrumphed, then added “And while you’re about it, do somethin’ about that weird sawbones hangin’ round Morag’s place.” He spun on his heel and headed for the door.
His two companions looked at one another, shrugged, tipped their hats to the newcomer and followed their leader.
“McCain’s got a bee in his bonnet,” said the seated Marshal, having swallowed the last of his supper.
“He’s after your job, Son,” drawled the taller lawman. A slight drumming noise invaded the following silence.
The two peace officers glanced at one another, then made for the door.
*****************
McCain glanced to his right as the trio made their way back across the dusty street toward the saloon.
“Shit.” The expletive was appropriate as his highly polished boot entered a heap of droppings. He slipped, but kept his balance.
The three oldies watched the dust cloud approaching town.
“It’s them, “ gasped McCain.
“There’s stacks of ‘em”, said the former actor, in a tone of awe.
The balding gentleman hot-footed it for the saloon batswings, tripping on the steps to the sidewalk, and crashing through the door. The other two were close behind.
?************************
The diner was quiet. Morag watched the Doctor playing patience. He was using an ornately-decorated, very unusual deck of cards, laying them out in a cruciform pattern.
There was the patter of small feet on the stairwell that led to the upper floor.
“Mom! Mom!” A little blonde whirlwind flew into the dining area.
“Riders comin’! Lots of ‘em! I seen Mr McCain and his friends come outta the Marshal’s office and..”
“Hush now, Sam. You should be in bed. Git up them stairs before I tan your hide.”
“Aw, Mom??”
“Come on now, child.”
The red-haired woman rose wearily from her chair and ushered the little girl back to the doorway.
Samantha huffed and puffed and began to stamp her way back upstairs. As Morag returned to her seat, the low drumming sound penetrated the diner.
The Cook had left the kitchen and was gazing anxiously out of the window.
“Lot o’ dust, Mizz Morag.”
Morag followed his gaze.
“Lot of trouble”, she mused.
The Doctor turned over the penultimate card. Depicted upon it was a brick tower, being struck by lightning. He smiled to himself. He knew what the last card would be.
“Morag,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“You know he’ll be with them? And her?”
Morag ignored him.
“Sam know she’s got a half-sister?”
Morag turned, her eyes blazing at the Doctor. She opened her mouth to speak.
“There’s George and his pappy,” said the Cook, sarcastically, watching the two Marshals stroll out into the Main Street from the Law Office. “Don’t know what they think they’re gonna do.”
“Lord, no more killin?”, sighed Morag, turning back to the window..
The Doctor saw the little blonde head peeking through the door, looking at him.
“Morag,” he said. “Your daughter’s still here.”
Morag whirled, in time to see the diminutive figure race up the stairwell.
The Cook walked back toward the kitchen.
“Nice flapjacks, feller,” said the Doc.
“We call ‘em pancakes round here, Mister,” supplied the Cook, as he entered his domain.
Morag watched the dust settle as the posse of riders reined in their mounts. The two Marshals stood stoically in front of them. She turned as the Cook re-entered the dining area, buckling on a gunbelt, a pump-action shotgun tucked under his arm.
“Oh, no, Autie. NO!” She placed a hand on his arm.
The Doctor turned over the final card. Death grinned up at him. He grinned back, sticking the card into the band of his top hat that sat on the clean white tablecloth. He stood up, donning the hat and walked over to where Morag and Autie stood at the window.
**************
“Howdy, George. George, “ smirked Big Bill Clinton around his cigar, nodding at the pair of Marshalls.
“Howdy, Bill. Ma’am.” The elder Marshal touched the brim of his Stetson as he nodded at the wild-eyed blonde woman next to the rancher.
“What brings you to town?”
“Our business”, snapped the woman.
“See your spiritual advisor ain’t with you,” observed the younger lawman. “Where’s Jimmy Peanuts?”
“On a mission,” supplied Bill, still grinning expansively. “He’ll be here before long. How ‘bout your spiritual advisor, boys? How’s that ol’ crook, Nick Dixon?”
“I am not a crook!”
A bizarre figure stumbled from the ever-open door of the small adobe church squatting next to the saloon, the heavy jowls blue with stubble, a virtually empty whiskey bottle in one hand.
“And I’ll thank you to call me Reverend Nixon, Slick Willie.” The last two words were spat out contemptuously.
Clinton laughed emptily, his wife’s hand strayed toward a Colt automatic at her waist..
The Reverend Nixon staggered back into the cool darkness of his church.
There was a crashing sound from the saloon, as if someone had fallen over, then the roar of a gunshot.
“Gerry, you dumb asshole!” wailed McCain.
Clinton’s cigar had disappeared. His face suffused with rage. His henchmen had all drawn their sidearms. The unexpected report had caught the Marshals by surprise, their hands empty.
Hillary Clinton drew a bead on the younger Marshal. She closed one eye and grinned.
“Welcome to Hell, Dubya.”
“Don’t call me…”
The Marshal’s reply was drowned out in the fusillade. Both Peace Officers were torn to shreds and hurled back along Main Street like bloody rags. The trigger happy cow punchers whooped and hollered, their horses bucking and skittering.
“Tear the place down!” screamed Mrs Clinton.
Morag, the Doctor and the Cook stepped back from the window as the Clinton posse began to ride up and down the Main Street firing randomly at buildings.. Little Samantha ran crying to her mother, who swept her up in her arms.
The Cook pumped the action of his shotgun and turned to the Doctor.
“Come on, man. We gotta do something!”
“They’ll come for us,” replied the Doc. “Have a little patience, boy.”
“I ain’t no boy!”
The door of the diner opened, and a man and a girl walked in.
The man wore an ankle-length duster over a black suit. He removed his hat, revealing a bald pate, and grinned at the room’s occupants.
“Morag, Doc, son. Howdy.”
The girl was also dressed in black. A short toreador jacket over a white blouse, and culottes, which allowed her to ride a horse like a man. She removed her wide-brimmed Spanish hat, and shook out her long black hair. Samantha gasped and pointed at the white streak.
“Ah, Samantha,” said the man. “You’ve grown.”
“Who are they, Mom?” queried the little girl.
“Never mind,” growled Morag. “What do you want, Locke?”
It was the girl who spoke.
“I wanted to see my sister.” She smiled, dazzlingly.
“I got a sister?”
“A half-sister,” said the Doc.
Locke barked out a short harsh laugh.
“Come on, Doc. You don’t still believe?” He slapped his thigh and threw his head back, roaring with laughter.
The Doc glanced at Morag. She was helpless under the gaze of the girl with the two-tone hair, who was reaching out for Samantha.
“How about some food, son?” Locke had turned his attention to the Cook.
“Mister, all Hell’s breakin’ loose out there, and you want somethin’ to eat?”
“Sure thing, son. Man gets mighty hungry out there on the trail. Don’t none of you worry ‘bout them Clinton owlhoots. They won’t bother us none.”
The man sat down at a nearby table, hoisting his coat clear of his revolver.
“MORAG!”
The Doc’s shout jerked the red-haired owner of the diner out of her trance.
“Stay away!” she shrieked at the girl in black, clutching Samantha more tightly to her bosom, and backing away.
“You OK, Morag?” asked the Cook.
Locke drew his revolver and shot Autie in the back. Morag and Samantha screamed as the young man flew face forward onto the sawdust covered floor.
The Doc’s arm was a blur. A Navy Colt .44 grew from his fist, spitting yellow flame. Locke grunted and dropped his pistol as a slug from the Doc’s gun shattered his right elbow. The left elbow followed, then both knees. Locke lay helplessly on the ground like an upended beetle, the sawdust around him turning red.
The Doc felt two small metal circles press against his neck.
The girl pushed the derringer deeper into the Doc’s flesh, and cocked the hammer.
“Tell her, Morag,” said the Doc, evenly.
“Lorelei.”
The girl drew breath in sharply.
“Don’t shoot him. He’s…he..he might be your father.”
“Bullshit!” spat Lorelei, venomously. “He just shot my pa!”
“It ain’t that clear cut, daughter,” said Morag, softly, cradling the sobbing Samantha.
Lorelei stared at her in amazement.
“Ma?”
The Doc felt the pressure ease on his neck, as Lorelei moved away, the tiny firearm wavering between himself and Morag.
She glanced down at the recumbent form of Locke. He seemed unconscious.
The Doc holstered his pistol.
“I was with…him”, Morag nodded at Locke, “but I was also seein’ the Doc. When you was conceived I.didn’t know. It could be either.”
“No!” snapped Lorelei. “You must know! It can’t be?”
The Doc stepped forward and punched her sharply on the chin.
“Spare the rod, “ he sighed as she slumped to the floor.
He looked helplessly at Morag.
“You mean you really don’t?”
The gunshot was thunderous in the enclosed space. Morag groaned in agony and fell to the floor, releasing her little girl as she fell.
“The family that slays together, stays together,” croaked Locke, attempting unsteadily to aim Autie’s pistol at the Doc, who pumped his two remaining bullets into the sneering face.
He carried Morag upstairs to her bed, Samantha following him, kicking his legs all the way.
He laid her down and passed his hand over the wound. Samantha couldn’t believe what she saw.
“Stay with her, Sam. She’ll be fine in the morning.”
The Doc trotted down the stairs and glanced into the dining room. Only Autie’s corpse remained.
He walked out of the diner. Although darkness had fallen many buildings were ablaze, giving the town an unearthly quality. A crowd was gathered in front of the saloon where lynchings were about to take place.
The Doc moved on to the livery stable and retrieved his mount.
Three days out from the town, just as night began to fall, he spotted a friendly looking campfire. A small wagon with two horses was nearby. As he walked up, a burly woman wiped her beard and spooned beans onto a tin plate which she handed to him.
“Did you find her, Doc?” said a hirsute, leonine figure clad in sacking.
“I lost her, Leopold,” said the Doc sadly, tucking into his beans.
The three elderly men hurried across Main Street, doing their best to avoid the piles of horse manure. The short, stocky figure was first up the stairs to the Marshal’s office, the tall, bald man stumbling and being caught by the ex-actor with the dyed hair.
The shorter man waited impatiently on the wooden sidewalk, then they all burst into the Marshal’s office together.
“The Clintons are coming!” bawled the short man. “What are you gonna do about it, Marshal?”
The grey-haired custodian of the law seated behind the desk wiped up the last of the egg from his plate with a crust of bread, then pushed the soggy mess into his mouth. He sat back in his chair and observed his visitors.
“I said what are you gonna do about it, Marshal?” persisted the short man. “ The whole damn lot of ‘em are comin’, we heard. Not just Big Bill, but that wife of hiss’n. And O’Bama.”
“Fritz Mondale,” croaked the former actor.
The tall bald man tried to say something like Dukakis, but it came out garbled and indecipherable.
“Goddamn it, George! They’re un-American!”
“Easy, fellers.”
The three oldsters turned. To see a tall, lean figure framed in the doorway that led to the two cells, currently empty, in back.
“We’ll take care of it.”
The short man spluttered “You’d better. They say Locke’s with ‘em. The one the Indians call Krow.”.
The tall man thrust his groin forward, twin pearl-handled revolvers jiggling in their holsters.
“Read my hips,” he said, menacingly. “We’ll take care of it.”
The short man harrumphed, then added “And while you’re about it, do somethin’ about that weird sawbones hangin’ round Morag’s place.” He spun on his heel and headed for the door.
His two companions looked at one another, shrugged, tipped their hats to the newcomer and followed their leader.
“McCain’s got a bee in his bonnet,” said the seated Marshal, having swallowed the last of his supper.
“He’s after your job, Son,” drawled the taller lawman. A slight drumming noise invaded the following silence.
The two peace officers glanced at one another, then made for the door.
*****************
McCain glanced to his right as the trio made their way back across the dusty street toward the saloon.
“Shit.” The expletive was appropriate as his highly polished boot entered a heap of droppings. He slipped, but kept his balance.
The three oldies watched the dust cloud approaching town.
“It’s them, “ gasped McCain.
“There’s stacks of ‘em”, said the former actor, in a tone of awe.
The balding gentleman hot-footed it for the saloon batswings, tripping on the steps to the sidewalk, and crashing through the door. The other two were close behind.
?************************
The diner was quiet. Morag watched the Doctor playing patience. He was using an ornately-decorated, very unusual deck of cards, laying them out in a cruciform pattern.
There was the patter of small feet on the stairwell that led to the upper floor.
“Mom! Mom!” A little blonde whirlwind flew into the dining area.
“Riders comin’! Lots of ‘em! I seen Mr McCain and his friends come outta the Marshal’s office and..”
“Hush now, Sam. You should be in bed. Git up them stairs before I tan your hide.”
“Aw, Mom??”
“Come on now, child.”
The red-haired woman rose wearily from her chair and ushered the little girl back to the doorway.
Samantha huffed and puffed and began to stamp her way back upstairs. As Morag returned to her seat, the low drumming sound penetrated the diner.
The Cook had left the kitchen and was gazing anxiously out of the window.
“Lot o’ dust, Mizz Morag.”
Morag followed his gaze.
“Lot of trouble”, she mused.
The Doctor turned over the penultimate card. Depicted upon it was a brick tower, being struck by lightning. He smiled to himself. He knew what the last card would be.
“Morag,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“You know he’ll be with them? And her?”
Morag ignored him.
“Sam know she’s got a half-sister?”
Morag turned, her eyes blazing at the Doctor. She opened her mouth to speak.
“There’s George and his pappy,” said the Cook, sarcastically, watching the two Marshals stroll out into the Main Street from the Law Office. “Don’t know what they think they’re gonna do.”
“Lord, no more killin?”, sighed Morag, turning back to the window..
The Doctor saw the little blonde head peeking through the door, looking at him.
“Morag,” he said. “Your daughter’s still here.”
Morag whirled, in time to see the diminutive figure race up the stairwell.
The Cook walked back toward the kitchen.
“Nice flapjacks, feller,” said the Doc.
“We call ‘em pancakes round here, Mister,” supplied the Cook, as he entered his domain.
Morag watched the dust settle as the posse of riders reined in their mounts. The two Marshals stood stoically in front of them. She turned as the Cook re-entered the dining area, buckling on a gunbelt, a pump-action shotgun tucked under his arm.
“Oh, no, Autie. NO!” She placed a hand on his arm.
The Doctor turned over the final card. Death grinned up at him. He grinned back, sticking the card into the band of his top hat that sat on the clean white tablecloth. He stood up, donning the hat and walked over to where Morag and Autie stood at the window.
**************
“Howdy, George. George, “ smirked Big Bill Clinton around his cigar, nodding at the pair of Marshalls.
“Howdy, Bill. Ma’am.” The elder Marshal touched the brim of his Stetson as he nodded at the wild-eyed blonde woman next to the rancher.
“What brings you to town?”
“Our business”, snapped the woman.
“See your spiritual advisor ain’t with you,” observed the younger lawman. “Where’s Jimmy Peanuts?”
“On a mission,” supplied Bill, still grinning expansively. “He’ll be here before long. How ‘bout your spiritual advisor, boys? How’s that ol’ crook, Nick Dixon?”
“I am not a crook!”
A bizarre figure stumbled from the ever-open door of the small adobe church squatting next to the saloon, the heavy jowls blue with stubble, a virtually empty whiskey bottle in one hand.
“And I’ll thank you to call me Reverend Nixon, Slick Willie.” The last two words were spat out contemptuously.
Clinton laughed emptily, his wife’s hand strayed toward a Colt automatic at her waist..
The Reverend Nixon staggered back into the cool darkness of his church.
There was a crashing sound from the saloon, as if someone had fallen over, then the roar of a gunshot.
“Gerry, you dumb asshole!” wailed McCain.
Clinton’s cigar had disappeared. His face suffused with rage. His henchmen had all drawn their sidearms. The unexpected report had caught the Marshals by surprise, their hands empty.
Hillary Clinton drew a bead on the younger Marshal. She closed one eye and grinned.
“Welcome to Hell, Dubya.”
“Don’t call me…”
The Marshal’s reply was drowned out in the fusillade. Both Peace Officers were torn to shreds and hurled back along Main Street like bloody rags. The trigger happy cow punchers whooped and hollered, their horses bucking and skittering.
“Tear the place down!” screamed Mrs Clinton.
Morag, the Doctor and the Cook stepped back from the window as the Clinton posse began to ride up and down the Main Street firing randomly at buildings.. Little Samantha ran crying to her mother, who swept her up in her arms.
The Cook pumped the action of his shotgun and turned to the Doctor.
“Come on, man. We gotta do something!”
“They’ll come for us,” replied the Doc. “Have a little patience, boy.”
“I ain’t no boy!”
The door of the diner opened, and a man and a girl walked in.
The man wore an ankle-length duster over a black suit. He removed his hat, revealing a bald pate, and grinned at the room’s occupants.
“Morag, Doc, son. Howdy.”
The girl was also dressed in black. A short toreador jacket over a white blouse, and culottes, which allowed her to ride a horse like a man. She removed her wide-brimmed Spanish hat, and shook out her long black hair. Samantha gasped and pointed at the white streak.
“Ah, Samantha,” said the man. “You’ve grown.”
“Who are they, Mom?” queried the little girl.
“Never mind,” growled Morag. “What do you want, Locke?”
It was the girl who spoke.
“I wanted to see my sister.” She smiled, dazzlingly.
“I got a sister?”
“A half-sister,” said the Doc.
Locke barked out a short harsh laugh.
“Come on, Doc. You don’t still believe?” He slapped his thigh and threw his head back, roaring with laughter.
The Doc glanced at Morag. She was helpless under the gaze of the girl with the two-tone hair, who was reaching out for Samantha.
“How about some food, son?” Locke had turned his attention to the Cook.
“Mister, all Hell’s breakin’ loose out there, and you want somethin’ to eat?”
“Sure thing, son. Man gets mighty hungry out there on the trail. Don’t none of you worry ‘bout them Clinton owlhoots. They won’t bother us none.”
The man sat down at a nearby table, hoisting his coat clear of his revolver.
“MORAG!”
The Doc’s shout jerked the red-haired owner of the diner out of her trance.
“Stay away!” she shrieked at the girl in black, clutching Samantha more tightly to her bosom, and backing away.
“You OK, Morag?” asked the Cook.
Locke drew his revolver and shot Autie in the back. Morag and Samantha screamed as the young man flew face forward onto the sawdust covered floor.
The Doc’s arm was a blur. A Navy Colt .44 grew from his fist, spitting yellow flame. Locke grunted and dropped his pistol as a slug from the Doc’s gun shattered his right elbow. The left elbow followed, then both knees. Locke lay helplessly on the ground like an upended beetle, the sawdust around him turning red.
The Doc felt two small metal circles press against his neck.
The girl pushed the derringer deeper into the Doc’s flesh, and cocked the hammer.
“Tell her, Morag,” said the Doc, evenly.
“Lorelei.”
The girl drew breath in sharply.
“Don’t shoot him. He’s…he..he might be your father.”
“Bullshit!” spat Lorelei, venomously. “He just shot my pa!”
“It ain’t that clear cut, daughter,” said Morag, softly, cradling the sobbing Samantha.
Lorelei stared at her in amazement.
“Ma?”
The Doc felt the pressure ease on his neck, as Lorelei moved away, the tiny firearm wavering between himself and Morag.
She glanced down at the recumbent form of Locke. He seemed unconscious.
The Doc holstered his pistol.
“I was with…him”, Morag nodded at Locke, “but I was also seein’ the Doc. When you was conceived I.didn’t know. It could be either.”
“No!” snapped Lorelei. “You must know! It can’t be?”
The Doc stepped forward and punched her sharply on the chin.
“Spare the rod, “ he sighed as she slumped to the floor.
He looked helplessly at Morag.
“You mean you really don’t?”
The gunshot was thunderous in the enclosed space. Morag groaned in agony and fell to the floor, releasing her little girl as she fell.
“The family that slays together, stays together,” croaked Locke, attempting unsteadily to aim Autie’s pistol at the Doc, who pumped his two remaining bullets into the sneering face.
He carried Morag upstairs to her bed, Samantha following him, kicking his legs all the way.
He laid her down and passed his hand over the wound. Samantha couldn’t believe what she saw.
“Stay with her, Sam. She’ll be fine in the morning.”
The Doc trotted down the stairs and glanced into the dining room. Only Autie’s corpse remained.
He walked out of the diner. Although darkness had fallen many buildings were ablaze, giving the town an unearthly quality. A crowd was gathered in front of the saloon where lynchings were about to take place.
The Doc moved on to the livery stable and retrieved his mount.
Three days out from the town, just as night began to fall, he spotted a friendly looking campfire. A small wagon with two horses was nearby. As he walked up, a burly woman wiped her beard and spooned beans onto a tin plate which she handed to him.
“Did you find her, Doc?” said a hirsute, leonine figure clad in sacking.
“I lost her, Leopold,” said the Doc sadly, tucking into his beans.
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