Darkness fell and the streetlights came on, which Gregory found fascinating.
“You humans are so… innovative! You’ve made all sorts of little suns! I love it. How could humans possibly considered bad when you do things like that? So, can we go and talk to some humans now?” Lundon quickly strode back to where Gregory was leaning precariously over the edge of the building.
“Gregory, get back from there. You’ll kill yourself.”
“Sorry, Lundon,” Gregory said in a confused tone. “I was just looking. So can we go and survey some people? I have all sorts of new questions to ask!”
“You know, I don’t think that’s really a good idea.”
“Why not? They’re just over there. They’re not even running, just pushing their carts filled with… you said they had food? Pushing their carts filled with… food. Ha! Food!”
“Well the problem is that your kind have a bad reputation around these parts.”
“My kind? You mean researchers?”
“No, I mean demons. You’re like… supposed to be scary. And you’re big.”
“I’m not scary,” he said, genuinely offended.
“But they don’t know that.”
“Well, I could just tell them that I’m not scary. And then they could answer my survey questions. This is all going to be so much fun!”
“No, that’s probably not the way it would happen. They’d probably see you and run away.”
“Like they do back home?”
“Kind of like that, but with more screaming.”
“Oh, I remember the screaming. That wasn’t so pleasant.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll figure something out. Maybe a nice costume or something. Something that makes you less… demonic.”
“Would I have to wear one of those colourful hats you wore?”
“It’s a possibility, yes.”
“Yuck. I remember that hat. It was all strange in my claws.”
“Yeah, it was woollen. Let’s not get into that. There’s something else we have to do first.”
“What is it?”
“Crime.”
“Again?”
“I promise that this will probably be one of the last times.”
“Okay, just as long as it is.”
The shops in the strip remained annoyingly open, and the 24 hour McDonald’s had a steady stream of cars passing through the drive-thru. Some things never change, Lundon noted to himself, but these people seemed to be still shopping at night. On a weekday, for god’s sake. Didn’t these people have homes to go to? The target of tonight’s crime was on the other side of the strip, and they’d have to negotiate the general populace, which would not be pleasant with a demon in tow. Nevertheless, they had to get moving. Who knew what the demon was thinking of doing. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought there was a little ditty running through Gregory’s head.
They descended the stairs, Gregory with an even tighter grip than he’d had on the way up. Lundon wisely did not offer his hand to guide the demon down.
“Now it’s getting dark and everyone’s gone home to eat,” Lundon said with a confidence he didn’t feel.
“That’s where they put food in their mouths and chew,” Gregory said, helpfully. “But what do you mean by home? Isn’t this their home? Back to their offices?”
“No, this is just where they work.”
“Just? You mean they do more that work? Wow. You humans are so efficient!”
“Yes. Okay. Let’s go with that. Anyway, that means we can go to the bank to get money.”
“Do you have an account?”
“Of course not. I’ve been dead twenty years.”
“But think of the accrued interest if you had! Well, if it hadn’t been totally lost due to account-keeping fees and fines for non-use.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Fees and charges on your accounts. It costs money to keep your account open.”
“That’s ridiculous. They may do that kind of thing in The Afterlife, but not here.”
“Suit yourself,” Gregory said huffily. “You may know more about humans, but I know more about banking systems.”
“Devilish banking systems maybe,” Lundon replied, unwilling to concede the point.
“Well, I suppose you’re right, Lundon. Humans are good after all.” Lundon brought the conversation back, his argument lost.
“We need money. That bank has it.”
Peeking round the edge of the building, Lundon surveyed the street. There were still a disconcertingly large number of people walking up and down, passing within but a few metres of where he stood. Lundon did his best to look casual and not like he was going to knife someone. The suit would surely help with that impression. Muggers did not wear suits.
People just walked the streets. When he’d died, Lundon had thought that perhaps things would have changed, perhaps like he was somehow important. But he learnt the truth when he arrived in The Afterlife. The truth was that life went on without him. It was like going on a holiday and coming back, with everything just falling back into place, an unstoppable consistency that abhorred change. For a moment he wondered if he really had left The Afterlife and he was just stuck in some kind of weird fantasy. Was he mad? If he ran out and danced on the road, would anyone notice, or would they all just keep on moving as if he wasn’t there?
Behind him, Gregory was getting antsy, making little mewing noises. This was not the sort of thing Lundon thought he would have in his fantasies.
“So many subjects, just waiting to be interviewed. And they’re right there! I don’t even have to go downhill to get to them. Why, oh why didn’t I think to bring my chisels?” He ran his talons over the wall. “Surely… surely I could use these walls for my notes.”
“Paper, Greg. Remember we use paper here. There’ll be no chiselling while you’re here.”
“Right, right,” he replied, stroking the wall with just a little reverence. “It’s a bit crumbly anyway. I’m sure there will be other walls that are better.”
“Greg, I need you to keep yourself together now,” he whispered over his shoulder. “There’s going to be a change of plan.”
“No crime?”
“No, there’s still crime. We just have to pretend that it’s not. Calm down, calm down. I know you’re not very good at pretending, but we need money and I really don’t think there’s another way of getting some any other way.”
“Couldn’t we just get jobs? You could work in a call centre and I could deliver mail.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am not going to sit around on a phone waiting for old ladies to call up and ask about health insurance.”
“I was thinking the postal system so, you know, we could work together. Remember I said I’d deliver mail?”
“Gregory, that’s totally not workable. Besides which, we wouldn’t get paid for at least two weeks. You of all demons must know that.”
“I just wanted to do something legal for a change,” he whined.
“There’s no way. It’s this or you wear silly hats and live under bridges with all the other hobos.”
“I’m not a hobo, Lundon.”
“Not yet you aren’t. Okay, now we’re just going to walk out there in the street with the other people. It’s dark, so they probably won’t notice that you’re a huge, red, sary demon quite so much. Just try to stick to the shadows, okay? And whatever happens, like if someone questions what you’re doing, let me do the talking.” The demon jumped from hoof to hoof, his talons clacking together nervously. Lundon stepped out onto the main footpath. Gregory took some small steps forward and peeked out, checking both ways with his short-sighted eyes, before tentatively stepping out.
“That wasn’t so hard.”
“Just don’t stare at your hooves like you’re surprised they can walk. Nobody else has hooves, so you don’t want to be drawing attention to them, okay? Stand closer to the wall and avoid the lights like I told you.”
“Okay, Lundon,” he replied, contritely.
“The bank’s over there,” he said, pointing. “Let’s go.”
They walked up the strip, both tense with nerves; Gregory because he had to employ his meagre skills in stealth and Lundon because there was a demon with meagre skills in stealth clacking beside him. While his demon counterpart skipped from shadow to shadow, Lundon tried to maintain a steady lope, his heart thundering in hist chest whenever they passed another person. While Lundon averted his eyes, he could see that Gregory seemed to be staring openly, turning and shuffling along to watch them. There was no helping it though. Too many instructions might overwhelm his demon brain and he’d run out on the streets crying. They just had to keep moving.
The shops were still open? Why were the shops still open? And not just restaurants. Clothing stores, watchmakers, jewellers, bookstores and even bakeries still had their doors open. When Gregory wasn’t watching the people who passed him he was peering in shop windows, and Lundon had to make insistent sounds to pull him away until they came to the bank. That, at least, didn’t work the insane hours the rest of this place had taken on.
There was a gaggle of young girls in clothes that were far too small for them at the ATM, chattering mindlessly as they withdrew their money. They formed a queue behind the girls, with the demon crouching to try and hide behind Lundon, shivering from either excitement or from the chill of the night and the wind that had started up. The girls shot them coquettish looks, and Lundon smiled and nodded slightly, which only made them giggle more.
“Lundon?” he whispered urgently.
“Quiet, Gregory. We just want to stand here and wait our turn at the machine.”
“Those humans are looking at me.”
“No they’re not. They’re looking at me.”
“But I’m a huge, red, scary demon. You said so! I think they can see me!”
“If they were looking at you they’d be running away. Now just be quiet.”
Finally the girls, all far too young to actually own a bank card, skipped away as they are wont to do. Allowing another couple of people pushing a pram to pass between them and the ATM, Lundon stepped forward with Gregory close behind.
“Okay, here’s where you need to work. I want you to rip this machine out of the wall,” he said, tapping at the ATM.
“Out of the wall?”
“With those massive arms of yours.”
“Well if you say so, Lundon.” Gregory examined the ATM for a little while, peering closely at the screen as it offered him a home loan, before wrapping his talons around the edges of it and, using his prodigious strength and weight, leant back as the wall began to crack around it, and several bolts popped out and shot past him into parked cars. As the machine was freed from the wall, several alarms went off, most notably Gregory screaming in panic, his claws over his ears. The ATM hit the ground, and several electrical cables tore from the back of it and began sparking brightly.
“Pick it up! Pick it up!”
“You pick it up! It’s noisy!”
“Just grab it! We’ve got to go! Now!” At Lundon’s insistent urging, the demon hefted the machine above his head and ran across the road after Lundon. A car braked heavily, skidding to a stop a metre away from the demonic figure cringing, helplessly awaiting impact. When the impact didn’t come, he opened his eyes carefully. The driver, hearing the alarms and glancing across at the sparks being emitted from the hole in the wall where the ATM had been, honked his horn and made angry-looking expressions.
“Lundddon!” he wailed.
“Over here! Over here!” Lundon yelled, waving an arm. Gregory ran after him, the ATM still locked in his claws. “Down here! Quickly!” They ran down a narrow series of alleys whose quality diminished until they came out into what looked like unused scrubland. Heading into some tall grasses, Lundon slipped and fell down the side and into a huge, concrete drain. Moments later Gregory followed him down, the ATM lurching from his grasp and slamming into the concrete not a hand span away from Lundon’s head.
“What the hell, Gregory! You almost killed me with that damn thing. “Watch what you’re doing!”
“Owww!” Gregory moaned. “I hurt my knee! It really hurts!”
“We can’t stay here. We’ve got to keep moving. The cops – the police – will be coming.”
“But my knee-”
“Will be fine. You’re a big boy.”
“And I scraped my arm! That hurts too!”
“Gregory, we don’t have time for this. Break open this machine for me. The money’s inside. Come on, mate. Just break it open and then we’ll go somewhere and see what we can do about your knee. And your scraped arm.” Reluctantly, and with more tears than were warranted, Gregory broke open the ATM’s security box and began pulling out the money. “Careful with that now. It’s windy. It’ll all blow away.”
“It’s… paper.”
“Of course it’s paper. What did you think it was going to be?”
“Gold?”
“Nobody’s used gold in years. Careful! Careful! Don’t let it go! It’s flying away! No! Put it in your pockets already.”
“But it’s just paper.”
“Trust me, Gregory,” he replied, scrambling around as best he could for the notes that had stuck to weeds and the thin trickle of water that ran down the centre of the drain. “All the best things come on paper.”
“You humans are really strange,” Gregory said, emptying the bin of money onto the ground so he could pick the notes up – to Lundon’s howls of protest. “It just doesn’t feel right to use paper. See, look at this. This one’s got 100 written on it. And it tears so easily.”
“No! Gregory, we need that! Don’t tear up the money!”
“But it’s not real money. It’s just these little slivers of material.”
“Yes it is! It is real! It’s real here. Just… just think of it like one of your precious tablets. Remember when I… accidentally broke your treatise on humans when we first met. Just think of these bits of paper like that. It’s really, really important that you don’t just automatically assume that things are going to be like back home. It’s different here.”
“Well, if you say so,” Gregory replied, casually pushing wads of cash into his pockets.
“Can you see any more money lying about the place? No? Well we have to keep moving. We’re too close to the bank still, and that guy in the car definitely got a look at you. They’ll be putting out an APB for a guy in a demon costume at this very instant, and you really can’t just take it off.”
“What’s an APB?” Gregory asked, getting to his hooves.
“I don’t know. Some kind of police thing that says Get him! or something like that.”
“I hope someone has a list of what all those acronyms mean. I think it would be really, really interesting.”
“There probably is, but I’m sure it’s really difficult to find.” Lundon began to limp away, the adrenaline seeping away making him realise he was a little banged up himself and should be whining as much if not more than Gregory had. There was a trickle of blood running down his forehead and over his cheek that he repeatedly wiped away.
“What’s that?”
“It’s bloody painful, that’s what it is. No thanks to you.” Gregory thought better of responding immediately and just locked his talons together contritely.
“Where are we going now?” he asked after a moment.
“Oh, I don’t know exactly. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where we can tell ourselves what a stunningly successful day today’s been.
“I hate this place,” he muttered.