Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish (10 page)

The question of how the creature planned to have sex crossed the doctor's mind, as obviously, it lacked the correct equipment for the job. But no, he was getting too far ahead of himself. He wandered around the bed a few times, seeing if he'd missed anything. No, he decided, first things first. This all hadto be written down.

Dr. Ranja left the examination room and walked down the hallway.
Oh what a magnificent day this was turning out to be
. It had seemed like such a bad day at first. He woke up to find his wife had not come home again; maybe he was overreacting but taking two weeks to fetch milk was a bit much. Dr. Ranja was currently in denial of the fact that his wife had left him for a Polynesian midget.

Everyone knew, including himself, he just chose not to acknowledge the fact. People would ask him how she was doing, and he'd smile and tell them she was doing great; he'd even begun regaling people with made up stories of things he and his wife hadn't done the night before. At first, the stories amused others, but his denial was quickly becoming disturbing. The doctor did not care; he had just discovered something big, something huge, something of mammoth proportions.

Only he couldn't remember what it was. He remembered going to fetch a pad and pen, he knew that much. And he planned on writing something down, but wasn't sure what. Maybe it was a grocery list? He was running low on milk, as he was still waiting for his wife to bring some back from the store. That must have been it. He strolled back down the hallway, passing an examination room with a tall man dressed in dark robes lying on the table.

Hmm, wonder what this is all about?
Dr. Ranja decided to check out the interesting looking patient.

Thousands of miles away, the cat formerly known as Fuzzbucket, who was now an Earthly vessel for the Prince of Darkness, sat quietly on top of a garbage can and systematically licked himself.

"Urrgghhh," came the sound from the semi-conscious Animal Control agent.

Being a cat proved exhausting; the licking, the sleeping, the licking, the sleeping, the insistent feeling of having to bury his own fecal matter.

"Ermmffgg," said the Animal Control agent as he struggled to regain consciousness.

Lucifer the cat spent a good chunk of the morning interrogating would-be henchmen. The task at hand proved next to impossible for a mere furry feline. He needed some hands, and more than anything, a driver. The underground railway system in London was one of the great mysteries of the world and despite spending an eternity in the depths of Hell, the thought of descending those subway steps sent a shiver down his back, causing him to arch in that cute way that cats did.

He'd interviewed five henchmen so far. The first three were useless, the fourth was worse than useless, and the interview with the fifth suffered a rude interruption by the intervention of an ill-fated Animal Control agent. The fifth candidate weighed close to three-hundred pounds and answered to the name Slim Jim.

Where the
slim
aspect of the moniker came from was lost on pretty much everyone else in the world. Their conversation went something like this.

"So you're the Devil," said Slim Jim, practically out of breath from the effort.

The Devil stared up over the belly of Slim Jim and nodded.

"But you're a cat?"

"Nothing escapes you does it, Slim?" hissed the cat. "In return for your services, I will reward you with an air-conditioned room when you arrive in Hell. It doesn't sound like much now, but believe me, you'll thank me when the time comes."

Slim Jim pondered the cat, pondered the flashing lights coming toward him, and turned and ran, believing the cops were after him. The lights belonged to that of an Animal Control vehicle whose driver was ill fated, only he didn't know it yet. Incidentally, after Slim Jim's encounter with the Devil, he renounced his current life of crime and within four years was appointed to be the High Bishop of York. He was upset to discover that he ended up in Hell anyway, as forging religious documentation passing him off as an appointed member of the Church was a big no-no. As he sat in a particularly hot part of Hell, Slim Jim really wished he had air conditioning.

The Animal Control agent, Cedric by name, had abandoned a promising career as an executive security analyst with Her Majesty's Secret Service to become an Animal Control agent based upon the self-realization that he loved kitties.

Cedric, haphazardly, moved toward the Devil. In one hand, Cedric held a lovely-looking net, in the other hand a bag of cat treats.

The Devil eyed the net and instinctively, at least for a cat, raised the hackles on his back.

"That's a nice kitty, who's a cutie wootie kitty witty," cooed Cedric.

The Devil tried to summon the powers of Hell. A spark of fire appeared in his glassy cat eyes. He felt the residents of Hell far beneath the earth writhing in agony, the torture, the pain, his legions of demons dancing to popular eighties disco music—the spark of fire went out and a small cloud of steam arose from the cat. The demons would end up paying for that one later.

Cedric advanced.

"Do you want a treat, my fuzzy wuzzy little buddy, a little treaty weaty?"

The Devil tried again. He fixed Cedric with the sort of stare that would make Jack the Ripper whimper like a little girl, give up killing, and open a dental practice.

Cedric, oblivious to such things, especially coming from a cat, made ready to swing the net.

"I really don't recommend you do that," said the Devil.

Cedric stopped advancing. This was the first time a cat had spoken to him, and he didn't really know how he felt about it.

The alleyway seemed to be getting darker as the Devil concentrated harder and harder. The outside world shrank away like watercolours flowing down a window as the Devil pushed his little cat-like brain to the very brink. In fact, he pushed it over the brink, so far over the brink he could look behind him and see the brink that he'd just come over. His voice momentarily lost the strained cat effect and contracted a more dark and sinister sort of presence.

Cedric began to feel hot and uncomfortable.

"Now listen to me, you insipid little creature, and listen good." Somewhere off in the distance, an orchestra began to play a tragic and ominous tune backed up by the Czech Republic’s Gregorian Boys Choir. Fumes of sulfur arose from the ground; they always did that when the Czech Republic's Gregorian Boys Choir rehearsed.

"I fell from grace, plummeted through the ether, passed between the Earthly mortality and crashed into the Earth itself. I have dwelt in the fires of Hell next to the lake of fire, sentenced to writhe in agony for all eternity with my only solace being the large number of ignorant, foolish, and evil souls I can drag down to join me."

Cedric wet himself.

The chanting grew louder as the Devil swished his tail.

"If you think for a second that a mere net held by a tiny monkey-like creature, who in my eyes is comparable to the crusty things you have in the corner of your eyes when you wake up, will scare me, then you're dead wrong." The music reached a crescendo and the Czech Republic’s Gregorian Boys Choir came close to screaming their chant.

Cedric passed out.

"Don't you pass out on me, I haven't finished with you yehaacckkoffghhjajajacooffghjjaackk!"

A hairy blob spewed forth from the cat's mouth. The world returned to its normal state, the orchestra stopped playing, and the choir went out for lunch.

"Hairballs," said the Devil, "I hate hairballs." The Devil decided to give himself a quick cleaning and then stalked off to take a nap. A cat's body just wasn't built for Hellish behavior and he was quite exhausted. Henchmen interviews would have to wait for an hour or two.

When Cedric awoke, he was alone in the alleyway wearing a wet pair of pants. He continued his career of animal control agent for another week before having to retire due to a nervous disposition, which caused him to wet himself every time he came across a cat. It was safe to say at this point that Cedric no longer loved kitties.

A severe lack of happy faces greeted Nigel when he entered his police station to check in for the day and let people know that he was actually working. The faces themselves didn't strike him as being all that peculiar. He always thought that they usually looked a bit on the weird side anyway; the fact they looked away from him as he walked by, now, that was strange.

This was not a good sign. He'd seen this happen before, he just couldn't remember where; maybe it was in a movie? He waved to the receptionist as he walked by; she half smiled, glanced around to see if anyone had seen her, and then concentrated on her pen.

Strange.

He continued on through the station, saying
hello
to some,
good morning
to others and all he received in return was a quick
hmph
or a sharp
ehh
followed by a fake-looking smile. The kind of smile that happened because someone was about to act polite but then realized that this was neither the time nor the place so they instantly regretted it and consequently stopped smiling altogether. Everything suddenly hit Nigel all at once. Much like the feeling one experienced when slapped with a fresh herring.

He looked at his normally messy desk and found it to be empty, with everything packed neatly into a cardboard box. He noticed that there was a younger, better-looking-than-himself man sitting at his desk, unpacking his own cardboard box. The young man's name was Colin Baskerville and new to the detective division. Nigel, his mind still in shock, strode up to Colin.

"Colin!" he squeaked. It was meant to come out a little more demanding than that but his voice wasn't quite prepared to speak yet.

Colin spun around and turned a squashy kind of mauve colour, as he always did when placed in a confrontational position.

"I, uhh . . . . Nigel," he stammered.

Nigel leaned in.

"What are you doing at my desk, Colin?"

"Well I uhh, you see . . . well, it's uhh." But words, as they often did, failed him.

"I'm hoping there's going to be some fabulous reason as to why, exactly, you're putting your own stuff into my desk while my stuff sits in this cardboard box. I'm expecting some amazing story involving giants and forgetful wizards, villagers, and toadstools, all topped off with a lovely, great big punch line!"

"Well, I, uhh." Colin's mauve colour turned pale.

Nigel leaned on his desk.

"Yes, that's what I thought you'd say."

Many African tribes believed there were creatures living in the Zambezi. Creatures that were ten feet tall, that had large jagged teeth, a voice like a volcano, and the worst bad breath known to man. What the African tribes didn't know was that a similar creature dwelt in the north end of London, got up of a morning, got dressed, put on his badge, and drove to the police station where he held the title
captain
.

"Reinhardt!"

This creature stood in his office doorway pointing a demeaning finger toward Nigel.

"Get in here!" said the captain most referred to as
Fluffy
, but whose real name was Captain Anthony Jameson Jeeves.