As other worlds went, the Inferno club was a big disappointment. She’d expected something like the bar scene from Star Wars; dozens of weird looking aliens sitting and drinking exotic drinks while making shady business deals in alien tongues.
What she got instead was a bar that on the surface at least looked like a hundred other bars had visited in her life. There was the same familiar bar stools, the same pool table, the same stained bar.
In one corner there was a raised stage and some sort of Karaoke setup, but otherwise the place could have been her mother’s old hangout. Places like this always reminded Lois of her mother; the aura of palpable despair, of failure and lost dreams.
Several men were playing pool; it wasn’t until she looked more closely that Lois realized their faces had the same distinct ridges and the same golden eyes Angelica had. They looked up, and when they saw Lois, they grinned at her.
That grin faltered as they saw Clark staring at them impassively.
In one darkened corner, there was something huge that Lois couldn’t quite make out. There was something odd about the light in that corner, which was darker than any other part of the bar. Whatever was inside was larger than human, and Lois could hear a distinctive crunching sound. She saw a tentacle lash out of the darkness and wrap around what looked like a Buffalo Wing.
At the bar were two men with gray skin and ridges surrounding their eyes. They looked as though they’d been drinking for a while, and were bleary eyed. They were dressed like city sewer workers.
All in all, the place was practically deserted. It was, however, mid-day. It took Lois a moment to realize that Clem was gone.
They hadn’t even had a chance to pay him.
“Um…Clark?” Lois said. She wasn’t sure what to do. For once, Clark misinterpreted her question.
“Not one of them is human,” Clark said. “Even the ones that look like it have organs in the wrong place, and organs I don’t recognize.” He’d slipped his glasses off entirely and was looking around the room. Glancing over at the darkened corner, Clark visibly shuddered and looked away.
Clark could see internal organs? That just seemed wrong somehow.
“Our guide ran off.” Lois said.
Clark glanced behind them, then said, “He’s getting something out of the car.”
Lois took a deep breath. No matter what these things looked like, they were in a bar drinking. That probably meant that they were similar to the other drunks she’d met.
If they weren’t, she and Clark could probably handle anything that came at them.
Lois slid up to the bar, wincing as she realized that the seat was covered in some kind of slime. She quickly changed seats and turned to the bartender, who was another member of the gray faced set with the ridged eyes.
“What’s the house special?” she asked.
“Depends,” he said. He glanced back at a mirror over the bar. “You aren’t a vamp. Neither is your friend. What are you into?”
Lois frowned.
“Blood, exotic protoplasms, spinal secretions from desert lizards?”
“Um…what sort of blood do you have?” Lois asked, feeling somewhat queasy.
“A positive, O negative, Otter, pig, cow and Ibex.” The waiter leaned forward. “I wouldn’t recommend the human stuff, myself. They get it out of the medical waste bins at the hospital, and I understand that the diseases can give it a real tang.”
“Ibex?” Clark asked.
“We’ve got an African supplier who comes up with the primo stuff.”
“I don’t suppose you have Diet Coke,” Lois asked. Glancing around, she said, “Still in the can.”
The waiter smiled slightly. “I guess you folks must be new in town.”
“What clued you in,” Lois asked.
“Most folks don’t bother keeping their human faces in here.” He hesitated. “I can’t quite make out what species either of you are.”
Lois heard the back door open, and Clark staggered in with boxes under both arms. Clark moved to help him, leaving Lois alone with the bartender.
“Slayer,” Lois said quietly.
Apparently, it wasn’t quietly enough, as the vampires at the table immediately headed for a darkened hole in the floor behind the pool table.
“Where does that go?” Lois asked quietly, hoping Clem hadn’t been lying about the reputation of her kind.
He hadn’t.
The gray skin seemed to pale a little. “It goes down to the storm drains and the sewer system. Light sensitive types sometimes take it to get around during the day…”
As, most likely, did the ones too non-human to be seen by daylight.
“I’m looking for a vampire named Angelica Cortez, or one of her crew.”
The bartender shrugged helplessly. “What, you think all demons know each other?” He shook his head and muttered unflattering profanities to himself.
“The guys that just left might know something, but mostly they just leech off the blood bank nearby.” The bartender said, “We don’t get a lot of the really bad sorts around here, except on Karaoke night.”
Clem staggered up to the counter with a box. “Things really start cooking on Karaoke night. Did I hear you were going to have a talent scout tonight?”
“Wolfram and Hart’s new guy is going to be looking for a few good demons to play in a couple of underground pics.”
“Not snuff flicks,” Clem said, looking worried. “I had a cousin who got involved with one of those, and they had to get a shaman to resurrect him. He wasn’t ever the same after that, let me tell you.”
“Nah. They want to save some money on effects and figure a real live demon would be cheaper than paying for a rubber monster. Just show up and look terrifying, and they’ll pay you half of scale.”
“Do you get SAG credit?”
The waiter shrugged and shook his head.
Clem sighed. At Lois’s inquiring look, he said, “You’d be surprised how many demons there are in Hollywood. Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson…”
Pulling several boxes of Buffalo wings and one box of cigarettes from one box, he ambled over to the darkened corner where the thing with the tentacles sat.
He carefully set the boxes on the table, and then backed away slowly.
Several tentacles lashed out, pulling the boxes back into the alcove. A moment later, Lois could see several points of light, and could smell the distinctive smell of several cigarettes.
She shuddered.
**********
“This place is a dead end,” Lois said, sliding into the booth across from Clark. “We’d get more information from kids off the street.”
Clark nodded slowly. “It’s all a little more…mundane than I would have expected.”
“A bunch of drunks at the bar in the middle of the day,” Lois said.
The whole place reminded her so much of her mother that she just wanted to leave.
“You don’t think this talent scout is going to be worth anything?”
“According to the bartender, the place fills up on Karaoke night, which starts in a couple of hours.” Lois sighed. “I get the feeling that he may be exaggerating.”
***********
The bartender hadn’t been exaggerating. When Lois had first entered the bar, she’d hoped for a scene out of Star Wars, with multiple strange species drinking exotic drinks and making deals in foreign tongues.
By six o’clock, Lois had counted thirteen different species of demon, and more were filling in rapidly. Word had apparently gotten out about the talent scout, and apparently, there were some universal constants in Los Angeles.
One was that everyone wanted to be in the movies.
Lois and Clark had found an unobtrusive spot in a booth in the back of the room. Although the more human looking species tended to ignore them, the less human creatures tended to avoid them. Some actually entered the bar, took one look at Clark and turned around to leave.
This earned dirty looks from the bartender.
At seven, the door opened again. A tall demon entered the room, and Lois could see instantly that he was different.
The rest of the demons all wore working class clothing, some with company logos attached. Some of the least humanoid demons didn’t wear clothing at all.
This demon was wearing an Armani suit, which, like his skin was green. He had small red horns on his forehead and red eyes, and he moved like someone who was used to being in the spotlight.
He was given that sort of deference too. Other demons were quick to find him a seat, and a drink was quickly brought to him.
It was something tropical and fruity.
The lights quickly dropped, and the Karaoke began.
Throughout her time at the Inferno bar, Lois had been struck by the similarities between the demon community and that of the humans. As the music began, however, she learned of some important differences.
Apparently demons couldn’t sing.
From the expression on the green demon’s face, he’d been hoping that wasn’t the case. He winced on several occasions, and once he whispered a message to a hanger on. The hanger on delivered the message to the demon on stage, who paled and quit mid song to hurry out of the bar.
It was a pleasant surprise when a female demon with strange spikes coming out of her face actually had a voice that was a pleasant contralto.
Lois found herself smiling at Clark and humming under her breath.
The green demon froze and turned to look at her. He whispered something in the bartender’s ear, and the demon quickly headed for Lois’s table.
“The host asks that you be the next to sing.”
Lois shook her head. Although she had a decent singing voice, she had no intention of making a spectacle of herself in front of these barely human creatures.
Clark grinned at her. “Go ahead. Live a little.”
Lois shook her head again and scowled.
The bartender hesitated. “The Host is a psychic. He gets flashes of people’s future when he hears them sing.”
Frowning, Lois shook her head. She’d learned her lesson with Olaf. She didn’t want anyone else prying around inside her head.
“The Host’s hearing is quite good. When you hummed before, he had a precognitive flash. He said to tell you that your friend Jimmy is in danger.”
************
“What do you mean he never got on the plane?” Lois asked. She was standing outside the club with a finger in one ear and listening intently to her cell phone.
According to Perry, there was no record that Jimmy had ever gone through security.
“He wouldn’t have done this one his own,” Lois said. “Somebody must have coerced him.”
After listening to Perry for a moment more, Lois said, “We’ll do everything we can to find him.”
It was time to sing for the psychic.
**********
Nervously, Lois flipped through the choices in the well worn play list book. She didn’t want to sing, but if the green demon wasn’t yanking her around, she needed to sing something in order to get his help.
There were places in the book that were sticky with spilled alcohol and other fluids Lois didn’t want to think about. Obviously demons weren’t any more careful when drinking than her mother’s friends had been.
Most of the selections were top forty pop songs. Country and western wasn’t as popular, and there were only three religious songs. Blues was surprising well represented. There was an entire section in an alien script. Lois wondered if demons had their own music, with their own artists. She paused as she came across a certain selection. It wasn’t appropriate for the venue, but she’d sung it before, and she knew she could be good at it.
Although she would have preferred another selection, she quickly scribbled down her selection and handed it to the bartender. Jimmy didn’t have time for her to be finicky about what she was singing.
She took the microphone, and waited for the music to start.
With the lights on her, she felt unaccountably nervous. These things in the audience weren’t even human, no matter how well they seemed to have adopted the human lifestyle. There wasn’t any reason for her to care what they thought.
Clark, though…Clark she wanted to impress.
Lois took a deep breath, focused, and sang.
***********
The response wasn’t what she’d expected. Lois felt blood rushing to her face as the audience clapped and wolf whistled at her. Even those who had avoided Clark earlier were appreciative.
Of course, after listening for half the evening to creatures with voices like cheese graters, anyone half decent would have been appreciated.
Clark’s eyes hadn’t left her the entire time she was singing. Lois wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
She liked Clark a great deal. He was the perfect partner. Strong enough to take anything she could dish out, but good enough not to lash out at her, or reject her. He was handsome, but didn’t have the self absorption she usually associated with handsome men.
Working with someone who understood her the way he did wasn’t something that had even occurred to her as being possible. It wasn’t something she was ready to lose.
Given her history with romance, Clark would be gone in a month if she tried to see him romantically.
Unlike the rest of the crowd, the Host wasn’t smiling. He looked disturbed. He whispered something to the bartender, who stood up and said, “The Host is taking a 15 minute break. Please use the time to pass around the play book and look over your selections.”
With a serious look, the green demon headed for a door behind the bar, and beckoned for her to follow.
Clark stood and followed right behind.
By the time Lois managed to squeeze through the crowded tables, the demon was already on the telephone.
“There’s not a decent voice in the lot, but there are a couple who would work for that piece of…whatever that Berman is filming. I’ll get their information and fax it to you in the morning.”
Seeing that she and Clark had finally arrived, the demon said, “Talk to you later, Ciao!”
“Sorry about that folks. I recently sold my soul to the devil, metaphorically speaking, and joined a law firm. Talk about evil!” The demon closed its telephone and slipped it into a pocket.
“My name is Lorne,” the demon said. “I go by the Host out there because a lot of demons like to make Bonanza jokes. Also, I had my own club until certain people decided to blow it up…. ”
At Lois’s blank look, he said “Lorne Green? Cowboys? Hoss, Little John?” He shook his head and sighed. “Humans.”
“Our friend has been kidnapped,” Lois said. “Did you read anything that might help us find him?”
“I read a lot more than that, honey.” Lorne looked disturbed. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
