To the Devil - a Diva!

by Paul Magrs

  ‘Lance?’ Colin called again. ‘You’ll never guess. That daft mare Vicki chucked herself in the canal! Raf’s gone off in the ambulance with her! Lance!’

  Lance held his face very close to Karla’s. He shouted: ‘We’re out here.’

  He heard Colin and Sally talking. Then the french windows shushed open and he knew they would see him in the full glare of the living room lights. Lance Randall, star of the famous porno soap, dangling Karla Sorenson, ageing lesbian vampire queen, over the very edge of the terrace wall of his meditation garden.

  Karla was trying to shout through his hand. She made mmmpphing noises and she still had some fight in her. He imagined her fangs ripping through the tender flesh of his palm. But no, she didn’t have fangs. Not really. She was just a pathetic old woman who happened to be possessed.

  ‘Lance!’ Colin shouted, shocked to see them locked together against the wall.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Sally was asking and they came stumbling warily across the concrete and pebbles of the rooftop garden.

  ‘She’s admitted it,’ Lance said thickly. He was struggling not to let his emotions take over. ‘She’s admitted that she’s in league with Satan. And that she always has been.’

  Colin froze, staring in horror at Karla, perched on the wall, feebly struggling, and at Lance, tall and implacable, holding her tight with one fist and gagging her with the other.

  He had gone bonkers, Colin knew it. Oh, great, he thought.

  ‘Lance,’ he said. ‘Let her go. Put her down. She isn’t worth it.’

  Sally was inching forward. ‘Don’t do it, Lance,’ she said coaxingly. ‘If you do, they’ll bang you away for good. You’ve got your whole life to live. You’re young. You’ve only just found Colin. Don’t chuck it away on the likes of her.’

  Lance’s whole body was shuddering as the tumult of his feelings started to overwhelm him. ‘But she told me. She told me what I always thought was true. I knew it. She told me I was right.’

  ‘What?’ Sally asked. ‘What’s she said now?’

  ‘She killed her!’ Lance moaned. ‘She cursed Sammi. Sammi Randall died because of her.’ He sobbed bitterly and Karla almost went over the edge then. But he took the lapels of her suit jacket in both hands and yelled into her face: ‘She murdered my mother!’

  Colin and his gran stared and found they couldn’t move.

  Lance was crying hard and they were scared he would lose his grip on Karla.

  But, weirdly, Karla didn’t look at all concerned any more. She balanced there easily on the precarious ledge and now that Lance’s hand was away from her face they could see that she was smiling. It was a horrible smile.

  ‘I murdered your mother?’ she said gently. ‘Oh, Lance. You’ve got it wrong. You see, dear, I am your mother.’

  And that came as a shock to all of them.

  It was too much for Lance. He tried to push her over the edge right then and there. Colin darted forward and there was a flailing, struggling mass of limbs for a moment as he found himself wrestling with his new boyfriend to save Karla’s life. For a split second she was a goner, but he managed to wrench them all back. All three of them clattered to the ground, panting and tangled and, luckily, on the safer side of the terrace wall.

  Karla was on top, screeching still. ‘It’s true! You weren’t hers! You never were! She stole you from me! You are mine, Lance! You’ve always belonged to me! You’ve always been a mother-fucker!’

  Then she gave a terrible scream. It was right in Colin’s ears, because he was trapped where he’d fallen, underneath Lance and Karla’s thrashing bodies. So Colin was deaf for a minute or so and he was confused as to why Karla had stopped using human language. It was like she was speaking in tongues. Or screaming.

  Colin looked up to see his gran, silhouetted against the glossy night sky and the soft french windows. She was holding the silver ceremonial dagger aloft and it was dripping and gleaming in front of her face. Colin whipped his head back round and only then could he see that his gran had stabbed the bitch, right through the heart.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Jesus,’ said Dennis the milkman, who was watching a gaggle of over-excited queens. They’d watched the ambulance come and go and now they were speculating about all the noise from one of the rooftop gardens. ‘You always see something different down here, don’t you?’

  Dennis the milkman had turned to say this to his neighbour, at the next aluminium table under the trees, outside Eden. Of course, the milkman wasn’t dressed as a milkman tonight. He’d come out dressed as a lesbian vampire.

  His neighbour was nodding in agreement. They had watched the various Canal Street palavers: the half-drowned duck woman, her skinny friend and the bouncers climbing aboard the ambulance and then they had tried to figure out what was going on above their heads. For a while they had thought someone was going to jump. Now Dennis the milkman’s neighbour at the next table was gazing appreciatively at Dennis’s stocking tops. I should be home by now, the milkman thought. Early start tomorrow. I shouldn’t be out at all on a Monday night. But something grabbed hold of me and made me want to be out tonight. Something turned me into a lesbian vampire and that’s always worth doing. And at least I saw someone nearly drown in the canal. That was worth seeing and it’s something I can tell my regulars when I take them their milk tomorrow. Lance will laugh at the story when I bring him his gold top. And then I can find out what all the noise was from his terrace tonight.

  The milkman glanced up at the top studio flat by Slag! It was quiet now. No one had flung themselves off the terrace. The lights were on and the blinds were drawn. Well, I’ll see him tomorrow and hear the tale and tell mine. And I should be going soon but, in the meantime, the bloke at the next table is still staring at me as the blood-hungry crowd disperses and there’s nothing more to see here, everyone go home, it’s all over now.

  ‘Hi,’ said the bloke at the next table. Slick-looking bloke in an Armani suit. Public school accent, pointy little teeth. Not bad. ‘It’s funny,’ he went on. ‘The way you’re dressed tonight …’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ smiled Dennis the milkman who, to be truthful, looked quite burly and bizarre in his vampire lady costume.

  ‘You look exactly like the new star of my TV show. I work in TV. I’m Adrian.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dennis. ‘I’m a milkman.’

  Adrian was still looking him up and down, slightly disappointed that Dennis wasn’t more impressed by his working in TV. ‘Do you fancy a shag, mate?’

  Dennis the milkman shrugged. ‘I’ve got an early shift. Delivering everything they need up and down these streets, first thing tomorrow. All my regulars. But, yeah, go on.’ He finished the last of his alcopop. And Adrian the producer stood up and took his hand and shook it, and was pleased at the firmness of the milkman’s grip. Must be strong and dextrous from carrying all those bottles, he thought.

  They walked off purposefully through the Village. ‘So you work on Menswear, then?’ the milkman asked. ‘I know Lance Randall in real life, as it happens.’

  Adrian grinned. ‘I’m his producer.’

  ‘Great,’ said Dennis. They were dodging past the late crowd at the New Union. ‘So,’ he said. ‘This Karla Sorenson. Is she really as big a cunt as they say she is?’

  Adrian laughed out loud over the noise of the buses, the squabbles, the laughter, the karaoke. He looked back at the softly glowing windows of Lance’s studio flat. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘She’s lovely. It’s all an act. That’s just showbiz. You ask Lance.’

  ‘I don’t think Lance is keen on working with her.’

  ‘Really? I’m surprised. You should have seen them at the photo shoot this morning. They were delighted to be together. I think it’ll all work out just fine. You’ll see the pictures in tomorrow’s papers.’ Adrian stood in the road, hailing a taxi, watching it veer gently towards them.

  ‘I usually take Lance his paper in the morning,’ Dennis the milkman said. ‘That’s when I hear all his news a
s well.’

  ‘Sounds cosy.’ They climbed in, and Adrian gave the driver his address, somewhere in Castlefield. Another studio flat.

  ‘I suppose I’ll hear all about it in the morning,’ Dennis said. ‘All the dramas.’

  ‘I guess you will,’ the producer said as they drove off and he reached across the seat to Dennis. He laughed. ‘That Lance. There’s always dramas with him. Sometimes he’s murder to work with. Bit of a diva, don’t you think?’

  EPILOGUE

  One of those Travel Lodges

  Somewhere near the Lake District

  On the motorway, Friday

  My Dear Effie, You’ll never guess.

  Actually, that’s very true. You never WOULD guess what’s been going on, and why I’ve ran away and disappeared. I expect you might be quite shocked. But didn’t we say our lives had gone too small and quiet? Didn’t we say we lacked excitement?

  I know you won’t approve. In fact, if I told you everything I’m quite certain you wouldn’t. You always WERE a bit more proper than me. So I won’t tell you the whole story. Just in case you’re tempted to take this letter to the police. I know they’ll be after us. We’ve seen the front of the tabloids. How Karla and Lance are supposed to have vanished, and everyone thought at first they’d done a moonlight flit together. Well, as if!

  But then the police found the signs of struggle in Lance’s flat and the blood-stained knife and all that shocking, Agatha Christie-style stuff.

  And, I admit, Effie, all of that IS a bit melodramatic, and I’m sorry for any upset that’s caused you since the weekend. But there wasn’t time to warn you. We all had to vanish, pronto.

  We had to get rid of the body. Karla’s body.

  See? You’ve got me confessing allsorts – in writing! – and this was only meant to be a note to ask you to forward some clean underwear, my passport and some Steradent in a Jiffy envelope.

  You see, I think we’re going to be on the run for a little while yet. All hell has broken loose.

  You wouldn’t believe half of it, Effie, because it involves black magic and what Lance calls the necromantic powers of the Brethren who had Karla under their wicked spell … all her life!

  What we are doing is attempting to find a way back. A way back from those dark and magical woods that me and Karla strayed into, all those many years ago.

  It’s why we’re up in the wilds again. Me and Lance and Colin. Oh, if you could only see the two of them together, Effie. They seem so suited. It seems that adventures and adversity have really brought them together. Lance seems like part of our little family now.

  Anyway – we’ve got Karla with us.

  In powder form.

  This is the really shocking bit, Effie – so just hang onto your hat.

  You remember how evil she was becoming on Monday night. Well, after you’d gone she got worse and worse and I was getting more and more worked up. And we were all convinced – quite correctly, it turns out – that she was under Satan or somebody’s influence.

  And when I stabbed her (All right! There’s my confession! It’s true! But don’t condemn me out of hand! No one condemns Van Helsing, do they? He stabs Dracula and the evil’s over and the credits roll up dead quick – and we never see Van Helsing dealing with the consequences do we? No, the story’s finished. Good has triumphed, hasn’t it?)

  So … when I stabbed her, up in Lance’s patio garden – well, blow me down if she doesn’t go and explode in a great big puff of black coal dust!

  We stood staring for a moment and then, quick-thinking Lance ran off for a dust pan and shovel and Colin found some Tupperware under the kitchen sink.

  Only her handbag was left of her. Inside we found her mobile phone. Lit up with a message in old Gothic letters:

  Daughter? Are U there? Have U succeeded with Randall?

  Lance texted them back. He is with us now, masters.

  And, almost immediately, the phone went bleep-bleep and:

  Then bring him 2 Kendal. 4 the ceremony. Bring him 2 the dark, dark woods.

  Lance had gone right pale by then. ‘I’m going,’ he said. ‘And I’m taking Karla to them.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Colin said. Lovely moment then – when they smiled at each other. Bonded in unholy peril! Well, I was buggered if I was going to be left out.

  So off we went.

  And last night we bore Karla’s remains into the dark, dark woods. Into the heart of my own private darkness. And we found the Brethren up to their daemonic malarkey and we took the granulated Karla to them.

  It all got a bit confusing from them on – but rest assured, Effie, the three of us managed to get away safely in the end. There was quite a lot of noise and shouting, and a bit of a punch-up, but we’re safe. For now. We delivered Karla to them and then we pelted for it.

  So we’re hiding out in this motel thing. Now I think on, you probably can’t send me my pants and sundries in the post, because I don’t think we’re going to be in one place long enough to have an address. We’re fugitives! As Lance says, the Brethren can be quite nasty and we’ve gone and poked a very pointy stick straight in Beelzebub’s eye.

  And there’s the other thing, as well. The fact that they took those ashes in the Tupperware container and the way that the robed grand master with the golden peacock mask tossed them into the sacrificial pyre.

  Well, Lance and Colin and me – we stood there staring for a second or two – along with all the other revelling Brethren. And, just before we high-tailed it out of there – we saw her again! In the flames, Effie! All young once more and vigorous! Shrieking out for revenge!

  They have brought her back to life!

  Don’t fret too much, though. These things have a habit of sorting themselves out. And, with Colin and Lance to look after me, I don’t even feel all that scared. Not even with all the screaming hordes of hell and the resurrected Karla Sorenson at my back. I’d better sign off now, Effie, because we’re off to have a bite to eat in the Little Chef now, and then it’ll be time to get on the road again.

  So … don’t expect to see us any time soon.

  With much love from your old friend,

  Sally.

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  About the Author

  PAUL MAGRS was a lecturer in English and Creative Writing before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of the Brenda and Effie series and has written a number of novels and audio book scripts for the Doctor Who universe.

  www.paulmagrs.com

  By the Same Author

  Modern Love

  All the Rage

  Aisles

  To the Devil - A Diva!

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  13 Charlotte Mews

  London W1T 4EJ

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  Copyright © 2004 by PAUL MAGRS

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Trade paperback in Great Britain in 2004. Published in paperback in 2011.

  This ebook edition first published in 2011.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–4069–7