“When next I see April,” said Glenda, “I’ll pass on your apology. Only translated into English as she is commonly spoken, and without reference to male dangly bits.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate that. It’s bad enough having Melody despise me without—”
“Melody? She tells me you’ve made a very promising start.”
Cosmo gaped.
“Really? Melody said that?”
“Pretty much. Of course, it does rather depend on what complexion you put on the words ‘cretinous imbecile’, but on the whole, yes – I’d say she was favourably impressed.”
VI
A week passed, and Cosmo was again sitting in the lamias’ office at the end of his shift, on his own apart from the obligatory mug of tea. Glenda had taken a long-postponed couple of days off. Melody had been held up with a particularly (and ill-advisedly) recalcitrant client, but she’d ordered Cosmo to stick around until she returned, as she wanted to have a one-to-one with him to review his progress – or lack of it – so far. Although this was not a prospect he especially relished, he hoped she’d turn up soon, so that the meeting would be over and she gone by the time April arrived to start the night shift.
He was no longer in April’s bad books. Glenda had so effectively smoothed over any ruffled feathers that the blonde girl was now friendlier than ever, and their long chats at the change of shifts had rapidly become the highlight of his day. He checked his watch – fifteen minutes until the start of the night shift. He tried to telepathically urge Melody to get her finger out.
There was a knock on the office door. It opened and a demon in a brown overall and flat cap stuck his head in.
“You Level Eleven?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Cosmo. “How can I help?”
“I’m from Logistics,” said Flat Cap. “Got a consignment of deaders for you. You can help by taking ‘em off my hands, sunbeam.”
“You want Reception,” Cosmo informed him. “Go left down the corridor and after—”
“Been there, done that,” said Flat Cap. “There’s nobody there. Probably the fault of the staff shortages again, I shouldn’t wonder. This is the first occupied office we’ve come across.”
“Could we fix a time for you to come back later? I’ll make sure Reception’s expecting you.”
“No can do, sunbeam. Me and Ted, we got loads more of ‘em to deliver today. They’re from one of them Earthly contractors – Sathanas & Simpkins, their name is. Only they went bust, see, so we’re having to relocate all their deaders pronto. Our holding cells back at HQ are overflowing as it is. So why don’t I just leave ‘em here until your people at Reception return? They won’t be no bother.”
“I can’t authorise that!” Cosmo squawked.
“You don’t need to authorise nothing, sunbeam,” said Flat Cap reasonably. “You just sign the manifest to acknowledge receipt of goods. Piece of piss – anybody can do it.” He turned around and shouted to someone outside the office. “Okay, Ted – the man says we can leave ‘em here!”
Cosmo’s mouth had gone dry – he was feeling the first stirrings of panic.
“How many of them are there?” he asked.
“Just a handful – twenty-eight.”
“What!”
“Twenty-eight. Should fit in here nice and cosy.”
“Let me call my manager,” Cosmo wittered. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Call whoever you like, sunbeam,” said Flat Cap, “it’s a free country, innit? Ah, here we are.”
As Cosmo desperately punched the numbers of Carnemelleck’s extension into his desk phone, Flat Cap stood aside and a single file of humans began trooping into the office. The first ones to arrive quickly commandeered the available chairs, leaving the rest to shuffle through into any empty space they could find. All the while, Carnemelleck’s ringing phone went unheeded. Cosmo hung up and tried Reception instead, with no more success there.
When the final human had been shepherded into the office by Flat Cap’s identically attired colleague Ted, Flat Cap sauntered over to Cosmo. He indicated a box at the bottom of a form attached to the clipboard in his hand.
“Just stick your scrawl there,” he said. “Here, use my pen.”
Cosmo signed the form, still holding the vainly trilling telephone receiver in his other hand whilst mentally listing every vile name he knew with which to label those criminally negligent skivers at Reception.
Flat Cap tore the top sheet off the form and handed it to Cosmo.
“Pleasure doing business with you, sunbeam,” he said, touching a finger to his cap. Then he turned to his colleague with a hearty “Come on, Ted – no rest for the wicked!” and they left the office.
Cosmo replaced the telephone receiver and looked around with an expression not unlike that of a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. Twenty-eight pairs of eyes stared back at him. He cleared his throat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “may I have your attention, please. As you’ve probably noticed, there has been a slight technical hitch as regards your transfer to Tartarus, where your eternity of pain and humiliation will shortly be resumed. Let me assure you that we are doing everything within our power to minimise any inconvenience. Meanwhile, please make yourselves comfortable here while I go and—”
A stapler sailed through the air and struck Cosmo on the forehead. He staggered back, only to have his feet swept from under him by someone who had crept up from behind. Cosmo fell to the floor, cracking his head on the edge of his desk on the way down. Only the protection provided by his right horn spared him from a nasty injury. As it was, he felt disorientated and groggy.
Someone else kicked him in the stomach. The next thing he knew, his desk was being overturned. Along with a shower of stationery, his computer’s monitor crashed to the floor, the screen shattering and strewing shards of glass in a large circle. Triumphant whoops and crashes from all around told him the other workstations were getting the same treatment.
The office descended into pandemonium, the irony of which term would not have been lost on Cosmo had he thought of it at the time and, having thought of it, had a few leisure moments to reflect on it as well. As it was, the young demon was furious with the way he had allowed himself to be caught off guard. He flipped through his mental catalogue of tried and tested avatars, trying quickly to find the biggest and scariest at his disposal. He’d teach this bunch of hooligans the meaning of fear!
But, as he scrabbled to his feet, it dawned on him that terrorising the rioting humans was the worst thing he could possibly do. If he caused a stampede, they’d be out of the office and into the corridors in seconds, dispersing in all directions. Then there really would be Hell to pay. No – the very first thing he had to do was get to the office door and lock it, before anyone thought of trying to escape.
He stood up and, pushing a rampaging human to one side, took a step towards the door. It opened and April walked into the room. She took one look and yelled at the top of her voice: “Cut that out!”
The hubbub in the office died down somewhat, as most of the humans stopped what they were doing and turned to regard the intruder.
“Now clean this mess up!” the intruder commanded.
“Piss off, girlie,” the human male nearest to April advised her, “if you don’t want to get hurt.”
“And who’s going to hurt me?” April demanded. “A dickless wonder like you?”
The human male was momentarily flummoxed. This bellicose midget was not behaving in a manner consistent with the reality of her situation. In his experience, a small girl faced with a large, aggressive man – and one who could if needs be call on the support of twenty-seven like-minded individuals – generally chose the better part of valour and made herself scarce when invited to do so. She didn’t stand with her hands on her hips and hurl insults at him. It just didn’t square with what he knew of the way the universe worked.
It is entirely possible that April’s antagonist might hav
e gone on wrestling with this conundrum for some considerable length of time. However, one of the other humans present, tiring of his inaction, decided some encouragement was in order. He shouted: “Go on, Kev – give her one!” and Kev realised that, given the uncertainties surrounding the present state of affairs, giving her one was probably as good a course of action as any. He advanced.
Cosmo forgot about locking the door. He had only one aim in life now, and that was to protect the golden-eyed girl at all costs. He readied himself to transform into a ten-foot, fire-breathing grizzly bear with steel teeth and claws.
Then he hesitated as April held up her hands, as if asking for a moment’s silence or signalling her intention to surrender. Kev also halted his advance and stared open-mouthed as the girl’s fingers grew in length, turned yellow and started writhing. They lengthened further, and the tips and nails transformed into tiny snakes’ heads. Tiny forked tongues flicking from tiny mouths, all of the heads now turned to regard Kev, who had started backing away in alarm. Too late.
The ten snakelets growing from April’s hands launched themselves at him, burying their fangs into any exposed part of his body they could find. Kev capsized onto the floor, screaming in pain and horror. The other humans backed away, wanting no part of the proceedings. Unfortunately for them, April had other ideas.
Her T-shirt ballooned outwards, shapes wriggling around underneath. It resembled nothing so much as a paper bag full of hyperactive mice – that’s assuming you are familiar with what that looks like. Then the fabric of the garment ruptured and scores more snakelet heads appeared, fixed on a victim and catapulted across the intervening space to sink their teeth into human flesh. Within moments, everyone in the room apart from Cosmo was rolling on the floor screaming, attached to April by at least five or six fine yellow tentacles. And still more sprang up from her arms and torso; her whole body between her shoulders and the top of her jeans had become a pulsating mass of elongate, barbed worms, weaving around as they searched for a target. As Cosmo watched, fascinated, small bulges appeared in the throats of the snakelets already attached to someone and began travelling back along their filamentous bodies towards their point of origin: April was feeding.
The commotion in the office gradually died down. The human cries were replaced first by groans, then by silence. April’s victims stopped struggling, ceased their futile efforts to detach the snakelets or snap the creatures in two. One by one they settled down and lay still, apart from the occasional twitch.
Cosmo stumbled over to April and shook her by the shoulders to gain her attention.
“You can stop now,” he urged. “They’re all unconscious. You can stop.”
April’s eyes took a little while to focus on him. “Oh,” was all she said.
In an instant, the scores of snakelets dissolved in puffs of yellow smoke. The young lamia who stood before him looked exactly as she had when she’d entered the room – even her T-shirt was intact and spotless. Then she flopped to the floor, buried her face in her hands and moaned.
Cosmo squatted down beside the crumpled girl, marvelling.
“You were incredible!” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. What exactly was it?”
April lifted her face from her hands.
“I’m going to be sick,” she announced.
She sprang to her feet and made a dash for the toilet, leaving Cosmo on his own in the midst of the carnage, wondering what he should do next. At which point a new presence made itself known in the room.
“What the flip’s been going on here?”
The office door slammed shut and Melody descended on Cosmo like a scaly avalanche.
“Is this your doing?” she roared.
“Y-yes,” stammered Cosmo. To his eyes, it looked like the scarred lamia was about to explode with fury. In actuality, Melody was having a battle to conceal her admiration. She hadn’t seen stacks of bodies like these since the last time she played Grand Theft Auto.
“Explain!” she barked.
Cosmo gabbled out a disjointed précis of events, carefully omitting any mention of April’s role in them. Melody snorted.
“There’s only a handful of Earthly contractors doing Level Eleven Hells, and I know them all. I’ve never heard of this Sathanas & Simpkins outfit. Did you have the brains to ask for a copy of the manifest?”
“Yes.” Cosmo searched around the litter on the floor and retrieved the slightly tattered document. Melody’s tail lashed out and snatched it from his hand. She studied it for a moment, swore, turned it around and held it to his face.
“What does it say under ‘Destination’?” she demanded. “Top left corner.”
Cosmo read, “Level Eleven.”
“And what does it say if the ‘X’ in ‘XI’ is actually a clumsily written ‘V’?”
“Oh, shit! They’re Level Six clients – they’re in the wrong place!”
Melody slithered over to her own overturned desk, not bothering to avoid the bodies strewn in her path.
“There’s ropes, handcuffs and assorted bondage gear in the utility cupboard in the kitchen,” she instructed Cosmo. “Get them and start tying these corpses up before they regain consciousness. And when they do, get their names. You have, I trust, been taught how to extract information without causing irreparable damage?”
Cosmo said he had.
“And take this.” Melody took a smartphone out of her inverted desk drawer and threw it at him – he fumbled the catch but managed not to drop it on the floor. “Take their mug shots. I want the name for each with an accompanying photo.”
“Why?”
Before Melody could answer – assuming she had any intention of so doing – the kitchen door opened and a spectrally pale April wafted into the office. She didn’t notice the older lamia, who was just then out of her line of sight, and she called out: “Cosmo, we’ve got to—”
Her message was cut short by the shock of a prehensile tail wrapping itself around her arm and spinning her to face its owner.
“You’re ill,” Melody snapped. “Go home and go to bed.”
“I’m okay,” said April. “We have to—”
Melody shouted her down. “Everything here is under control! Go home, take an aspirin, go to bed. That’s an order! Don’t turn up here unfit for work again.”
She hustled the weakly protesting April towards the door and pushed her out into the corridor.
“Home! Bed! Go!”
She closed the door and turned back to Cosmo.
“Get moving – tie them all up! And don’t forget the names and mug shots. I’ll be on Glenda’s PC – assuming that escaped the devastation – filling out individual reprocessing request forms for each of these stiffs.”
“You’re going to have their memories wiped?” Cosmo gaped. “But that’s only done to clients being sent to a temporary contractor Hell on Earth, so they don’t contact friends and relatives.”
“This lot have seen our back office area and are therefore a security risk,” said Melody. “So we’re wiping their memories and forwarding them to a different Earthly contractor where they can’t get up to any mischief.”
“You can do that?”
Melody favoured him with a crooked, serpentine expression which was halfway to being a smile.
“Learning point for today, sonny,” she said. “With the right forms, you can do anything.”
Cosmo remained dubious.
“It seems an over the top reaction to a very small security breach,” he said. “And these clients are presumably expected in Level Six. Isn’t it much easier just to send them there?”
Melody’s tail shot out again and grabbed Cosmo’s head. She twisted it this way and that, forcing him to survey the body-strewn office.
“Does that look like a Level Six punishment scenario to you?” she bellowed. “This is way, way outside their permitted treatment parameters! If we don’t get their memories wiped, this department could be facing twenty-eight charges of client abus
e! And if that happens, I’ll tell anyone willing to listen that you did it all on your own bloody initiative, which wouldn’t be far from the truth! So, if that prospect doesn’t appeal, start tying the buggers up! Now!”
VII
Two days later April was still off ill. A desperately worried Cosmo kept asking Melody for news, and a terminally exasperated Melody kept responding that the young lamia was fine and would be back tomorrow. Meanwhile they awaited computers to replace the ones that had been demolished in the fracas and queued up to use Glenda’s whenever there were reports to be written or client records to be updated. As for printing, the nearest networked machine was one hundred yards down the corridor in the manticore office, and those pesky beasts would talk the ear off anyone who ventured in there, so it was not an ideal situation.
On the afternoon of the second day, Glenda discreetly called Melody into her office as the latter was about to leave for home. The buxom brown serpent coiled into her chair and studied her computer screen, then her volatile colleague. Then she spoke softly, “I’ve had an odd email from our boss.”
“He’s an odd fellow.” But the grey-and-green lamia looked shifty.
“He was rather hoping I’d be able to tell him what you were doing authorising the reprocessing of twenty-eight Level Six clients.”
Melody exploded: “Why does he pick this of all weeks to stop sitting behind his desk playing with his todger and actually do his job?”
“It’s a mystery,” Glenda agreed. “Now, has this anything to do with the wrecking of our main office, which you told me was done by a passing herd of drunken minotaurs? And, if so, could you please fill me in on what’s really been going on?”
Melody reluctantly explained how Logistics had dumped a bunch of truculent clients on them, how Cosmo had subdued them and how she’d considered them a security risk and sent them away to have their memories erased.
“Well, well,” said Glenda. “Cosmo subdued them? On his own? How?”
Enraptured: A Novelette About Lamias Page 3
