"I can shoot a gun."
"I’ve seen you on the pistol range. You’re not bad. But ... on a crowded street..." Bullet let the question dangle in the air.
It forced Cynthia to reassess. She was a pretty good shot, but not in the same league as Bullet, but then, nobody was. Not with a handgun, anyway. "Maybe you’re right," Cynthia conceded. "You’re our sniper, girl."
"Damn straight!"
"Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got something for you." Cynthia handed Bullet one of the knives.
Bullet smiled at the knife. "This keeps getting better." Bullet pulled the knife out of its sheath, and wrinkled her nose at it.
"There are other knives."
"It will do." Bullet strapped the fancy knife to her thigh, below the silver-plated fork tucked into her string bikini. Cynthia copied her.
Bullet held the crossbow in one hand and picked the blowtorch up off the floor, and pumped them in the air, "Let’s go demon hunting!"
The side streets leading to Santa Monica Boulevard were busier than ever. No one paid especial attention to Bullet and Cynthia. They were gorgeous, male eyes followed them, picturing them naked; but that was normal. Women turned up their noses and made catty remarks to their girlfriends, but that, too, was normal. It was Halloween and this was Hollywood, and everybody was drinking, nobody thought twice about Bullet’s crossbow. Cynthia suspected they could pack RPGs and nobody would bat a false eyelash, but she didn’t mention it to Bullet, she’d go and get one.
At the intersection Bullet took one step onto Santa Monica Boulevard, and jumped back and flattened herself against a wall. "Witch coming. Hold this." Bullet handed Cynthia her crossbow, and dug into her bag, pulled out a lighter and lit the blowtorch. She peered around the corner, waiting.
With masterful timing, Bullet leaped out and grabbed the handle of the witch’s broom with one hand, and applied the blowtorch. The straw caught on fire. The broom threw itself from side to side, trying to avoid the blowtorch flame, then bucked and reared. Bullet relinquished her hold and the broom shot into the air, out of control. It performed a loop the loop and flew straight into a building. The force of the impact catapulted the witch nose first against a 3rd floor concrete wall, and both she and her broom slid down the wall, trailing smoke.
"That will peel off the warts," Cynthia commented archly.
Bullet studied the blowtorch. "Not as much fun as a gun," she decided, "too quiet." Bullet turned it off.
"Come on, it was hilarious. I want to smoke another witch." Cynthia was bubbling with enthusiasm. She was having fun and making a difference. What could be better?
They heard screaming behind them. "Quick! Give me my bow." Cynthia thrust the crossbow into Bullet’s outstretched hand, and gripped her silver-plated forks. They turned around to look for the source of the screams, and a hugely obese man loomed in front of them, blocking their path. Sweat ran down his face and saliva dribbled from his mouth. Pudgy hands reached feebly for Cynthia, rolls of fat wobbled along his arms, and its eyes bulged, trying to see inward and outward, at the same time. It parted its lips to speak, opening a dark mouth of hell. "The horror," it wheezed.
"Fork it Cynthia."
Cynthia plunged one of her silver-plated fork into the rolls of fat over its man breasts. A thick cloud of black smoke enveloped them, shrouding the street.
Bullet sputtered and coughed. As the smoke cleared she asked: "What was that?"
"Marlon Brando."
* * *
After defeating the demon camera crew and wrecking the camera, because it needed wrecking, Pretty Caddy and Galaxy walked beside a long line-up waiting for restaurant tables. Pretty Caddy tried to focus on searching for demons and cameras, but she couldn’t completely avoid being distracted by the costumes and antics of the partiers.
"Are you sure there are more cameras?" Galaxy asked.
"The demon said ‘cameras,’ plural."
"The roving eye sees all. I’ll look for cameras."
"And demons."
The crowd was raucous and getting louder. Pretty Caddy tried to tune it out. She lost the sense of individual voices and words blurred into meaningless murmurs; a torrent of phonemes churned by rapids. Shrieks and howls rose above the din and fell back into the swelling burble. She felt herself being drawn into it, and an image flashed through her mind: hundreds of monkeys swinging through a primeval forest, chattering, chattering, chattering—"Caddy. Are you all right?"
"Are you all right?" Galaxy repeated when Pretty Caddy didn’t respond. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You haven’t, have you?" Galaxy looked around rapidly, half expecting to see one. She had never believed in ghosts but anything seemed possible tonight.
"I heard the inner voice of the urban jungle. It was frightening, worse than demons." Pretty Caddy said in a faint voice, shaken by the experience.
"I don’t think so." Galaxy gave Caddy a questioning look.
"Maybe you had a contact high," Galaxy suggested, sniffing the air and smiling broadly at Caddy.
"We’ve got a job to do," Pretty Caddy said, brusquely changing the subject.
"Back to bossy, you’re good to go. I spotted another camera. It’s on a light standard, across the street. Not the closest one, the next one down."
Pretty Caddy saw a small object fixed to the lamp standard. "Are you sure it’s a camera?" Galaxy nodded in the affirmative. "I need to get closer. My eyes aren’t as good as yours."
In order to cross the street they had to thread their way through knots of people partying and gawking. Pretty Caddy wanted to get right under the camera, so she could get a good look at it and make sure it wasn’t a security camera or traffic camera, although it was in the middle of the block instead of overlooking an intersection.
Evidence to the contrary, it seemed inconceivable for demons to film the Parade. Pretty Caddy understood creating mayhem and claiming souls, it was what demons did. But why would they film it? She couldn't picture demons relaxing by a lava pit eating popcorn and watching home movies after a hard night of torturing the damned. "Hey Lucifer, did you see the way I turned that guy into a centaur. Petty good spell, huh." "That’s old. Pontius turned an Intel video chip designer into a Pentium II, and recycled him. Ask him to show you how to do it some time." "Who dripped blood in my popcorn? I’ll rip their balls off and dangle them from my horns." It couldn’t be, Caddy thought. It felt wrong. If demons wanted to make a home video they’d film it on their cell phones, same as everybody else. Why bother with a professional camera and crew, even if the camera was bottom of the line.
"It sure looks like a camera to me," Galaxy said.
They were close enough to the light standard now that Pretty Caddy could see it clearly. It was a remote controlled camera transmitting wirelessly over the Internet. Pretty Caddy thought she recognized the model, it wasn’t a cheap webcam but wasn’t a pro model, either. The camera was mounted well above the heads of the crowd and out of their reach. Pretty Caddy instinctively knew it was the Devil’s. "How do we take it down?"
Galaxy snorted delicately, indicating it was a stupid question. She nodded to point out a guy leaning against the light standard, clutching a can of beer. "I’ll ask him to shinny up the pole and take it down. Guys will do anything for me." Galaxy put on a smile and walked toward him.
The guy leaning against the pole looked like he had been partying hard and early. "He’s too drunk," Caddy objected.
Galaxy stopped but decided to give it a try. "I need to get my camera down. Can you help a girl out?" Galaxy asked sweetly. Guys always fell for it.
"You’re not wrecking this camera," the drunk snarled, and transformed into its true form, a scaly entity with horns, a tail, and cloven hooves. "I have other plans for you."
Galaxy retreated to stand by Caddy’s side. The demon ran forward and lunged at them. "Go right," Pretty Caddy cried out, and dodged left. The demon was almost between them. "Now!" Caddy shouted and they both threw water at it, catching
the demon in a holy water crossfire. The holy water bubbled and hissed like acid, and ate holes in its scales. The demon exploded in a puff of sulfurous smoke.
Galaxy covered her nose and turned her head away. "It stinks when they do that."
They retreated and waited for the smoke to clear and the wind to purify the air. "We still need to take down that camera," Pretty Caddy said.
"Not a problem." Galaxy pulled off a shoe, and gauged the distance to the camera. Then put her arm back, took aim, and threw her shoe. She could throw a stiletto heel like a black ops ninja. Her shoe rotated heel over toe over heel, twice, spiked the webcam and knocked it off the light standard.
"Take that Cynthia!" Galaxy exclaimed.
"Are you two still arguing about footwear?"
"Cynthia’s fashion challenged," Galaxy said in a voice of someone delivering final judgment, and limped unevenly on one bare foot and one four-inch heel, to go and look for her shoe.
She found it, and the webcam, in the shrubbery, where everything always lands. Her stiletto heel was impaled in the lens of the camera. Galaxy grinned and held it aloft for Caddy to see. "Bullet’s eye."
Pretty Caddy groaned.
She hated puns.
* * *
Moore slumped behind his editing board holding his face in his hand, oblivious to his deteriorating physical condition. He had just watched the bikini bimbos kill a demon. His film Demons of Hollywood was the first documentary to record demons terrorizing a city. The Devil had granted him exclusive rights and guaranteed its success. Moore had chosen the Halloween Carnival for the location, but those bikini bimbos were ruining his documentary, and giving him bad visuals. They should have been terror stricken.
He glanced at the live feeds on four small monitors, above his editing board. One of the live monitors was dark. Just then a camera got hit by a flying object and a second monitor went out. "There goes another camera!" Moore shouted. He jumped up from behind his editing board. "You’ve got to get me more cameras, Lilith. I’ve lost coverage of half of the Parade."
"Quit whining. You’re already over budget. You still have one camera crew and a remote. I’ll order my demons to concentrate in those areas."
"You’re demons are getting wiped out. Two actors and my narrator were killed. So was a witch." Moore sat down in despair, and was distracted by a new development on one of his two remaining live monitors. "Make that two witches. Another one just crashed in flames."
"What? Not possible." The background singer lost control and reverted to its true form.
"I didn’t see what happened!" Moore said defensively. "The first one crashed in flames while you were away."
"Okay; it’s not your fault. I can accept that." Lilith returned to the form of a slinky background singer wearing a hot red outfit, for its role as the female lead. "What were the Italian politicians doing while I was reporting downstairs?"
"Eating pizza and arguing about old political battles and murders. The lesser demons had to intervene to prevent a civil war."
"Politicians!" The demon sneered. "After 800 years you’d think they’d learn." The singing demon snapped its talons and two demons clad in red flannel pajama hoodies with wide, flared sleeves teleported into the basement. "Build me two crucifixes," Lilith ordered. She snapped her talons again, and whips materialized and cracked over the demons’ hoodies and drove them like donkeys.
"Forget the politicians. Get me more cameras! I’ll need more than two when the demon onslaught terrorizes the Parade, in the climax."
"I told you. You have to sacrifice those bimbos first. Where are they?"
"I lost track of them after they knocked out the remote camera."
"The demon I sent to guard the camera must have captured them. It had orders to do so."
"The bimbos killed it."
Lilith’s face scrunched and her eyes burned. "It was one of my playthings." Flames erupted in a fireball around the demon and shot in every direction, scorching the basement walls and ceiling. Someone on the floor above them screamed. Moore flinched in terror and cowered behind his editing board.
"I’ll take care of those two bimbos myself," hissed a voice reverberating with evil intent, inside the fireball.
The flames subsided and flared out, and the background-singing demon stood in their place. It checked its outfit, making sure the straps were in all the right places and everything was covered that should be covered. "How do I look?" It asked Moore in a silky feminine voice.
Moore peaked over the top of his editing board and nodded vigorously, afraid to say anything.
* * *
The crowd parted and a stunning female demon strolled toward them, tail swishing like a lioness in heat. Galaxy immediately noticed the matching triangular points on the tip of its tail and tines of its trident, and the color coordination with a blood red bikini. Its shoes were to die for. This was a demon that understood fashion. It could model for a glamour magazine. Galaxy was tempted to ask for the name of the designer, but thought better of it; it wasn’t done.
Remembering their mission, Galaxy started to swing her bottle of holy water, but before she could douse it the demon extended a taloned hand and shouted: "Freeze." Galaxy froze in position, still conscious.
Pretty Caddy was incensed. "That’s it, just ‘Freeze.’ No consulting leather tomes or manuscripts on parchment, no long incantations in Latin or Babylonian, no animal parts or ceremony, you just say ‘Freeze.’ "
The demon gave Pretty Caddy a contemptuous look. "Try to keep up. I’m Lilith, the Vice Demon of the underworld and Satan’s concubine. I don’t need reference material, the power is in me. It’s all in the wrists." The demon waggled the hand holding Galaxy in thrall.
"Hold that pose." Pretty Caddy raised her camera and sighted through the viewfinder. "Try to look mysterious and sexy." Pretty Caddy set the flash for maximum brilliance and shot multiple exposures. The lights caused the demon to blink and look away, and its hand dropped, releasing Galaxy from its spell.
Pretty Caddy scrolled through the exposures on the viewer, liking what she saw.
"I know that look. The photos are good. Can I see them?" Pretty Caddy turned her camera so Galaxy could see the digital images. One image stood out, and Pretty Caddy brought it up on the viewer. "It’s a cover photo," Galaxy said immediately.
"That’s what I thought when I saw it."
"Hey! Remember me." The demon struck the pavement with the handle of its pitchfork. The ground shook and a fissure opened and ran across the boulevard, swallowing a party of steam punks. They tooted their whistles all the way down. "That’s more like it. I feel better now," the demon declared, and started walking away.
"We can’t let it get away, it’s a danger to everyone," Pretty Caddy said. They ran after it, determined to douse it with holy water, risks and high heels be damned. But no matter how hard they ran they couldn’t close the gap. The demon just kept walking away from them and maintained the same lead. After sprinting after it for a block and a half they were breathing hard. Galaxy turned an ankle and they had to stop.
"How does it do that?" Galaxy said, gasping for breath.
The demon looked over its shoulder, rolled its eyes and shook its head contemptuously, implying it was contending with hopeless incompetents. "Take as much time as you need girls. I’ve got until midnight."
"What happens then? You turn into a pumpkin?" Galaxy retorted.
"Call it a curfew. I’m topside on a Halloween pass."
"Oh! I so want to scratch its eyes out. Brunettes think they’re so smart."
Before they could react the demon held up its hand and muttered something they couldn’t hear. The pain in Galaxy’s ankle vanished. She looked down at her foot and shot a look at the demon. "All better now?" The demon said smugly. It wasn’t really a question. The demon turned away and walked down the street, pointedly ignoring them.
Galaxy flexed her ankle and tried putting weight on it. "It doesn’t hurt. That’s weird.
"
"Weird doesn’t begin to describe it."
"It is getting away." Galaxy was about to run after the demon.
"Hold on." Pretty Caddy had never fought demons before, but the situation defied all logic, her intuition was ringing fire hall decibel alarms. She needed a moment to think.
She didn’t get it. The demon turned onto a side street. "We’re going to lose it," Galaxy cried, and lit out after it. Pretty Caddy had no choice but to run after her.
Pretty Caddy rounded the corner right behind Galaxy and saw the demon standing at the top of a flight of stairs leading down to a basement level. The demon calmly watched them running toward it. It waited until they had almost caught up to it; then walked casually down the stairs and through a closed door.
Galaxy started to run down the stairs after it. Pretty Caddy grabbed her arm and pulled her back up the stairs. "It smells like a trap to me."
Galaxy shrugged off Pretty Caddy’s grip, in a huff. "You were the one that said we had to go after it."
"We need backup."
Pretty Caddy called Cynthia. "Whatch ya doing girl?"
"Burning witches." Cynthia chuckled like she was having the time of her life.
"Great. You’ve turned Salem. Wicca’s will be picketing our studio. I’ll have to buy spell detectors."
"These are Halloween witches. You know the type: broomsticks, warts, maniacal cackling. Bullet lights their brooms on fire, and they fly out of control and crash into buildings. It’s a hoot."
"I hate to rain on your fireworks, but we need backup."
"What’s up?"
"We chased an A-list demon into a basement. I think it’s a trick, or a trap."
"It is. We chased Marilyn Monroe into an antique store. She hid and attacked us. Where are you?"
"What did you – never mind, we’ll talk." Pretty Caddy read Cynthia the address on the side of the building. Galaxy interrupted her, "Caddy, you have got to see these tacky red flannel pajama hoodies with – oh, oh." Pretty Caddy snapped her head around just as four demons grabbed them and forced them down the stairs. "Demons got us–" Pretty Caddy managed to say before her cell phone was ripped from her ear.
The door opened of its own accord and they were pushed inside. Now that she wasn’t hemmed in by a narrow stairwell and had some room to work with, Pretty Caddy grappled with the demons and Galaxy struggled against her captors. They had lost their holy water in the stairwell, and the demons were impervious to punches, kicks, and knees to the groin. Galaxy and Pretty Caddy fought to stay together, but they were outnumbered and being forced deeper into the basement with each passing moment.