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Business as usual by Lilachigh
 
Chp 13 Recipe for Disaster
 
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Chapter : Recipe for disaster!



Crash! Agnes was pushed into a room and hurled to the floor. She lay, trembling, embarrassed, knowing her skirt was rucked up round her thighs and that there was a ladder in her only good pair of stockings.

So this was it. Her last few minutes on earth. She wished she’d washed her hair last night. Obviously she was going to die smelling of the meat and onion patties she’d baked for the late night demon truck drivers who’d started using the tearoom as a sort of mid-way halt on their routes.

A clacking of heels on the wooden floor echoed through her head. She opened her eyes to see two bright red, shiny, high-heeled shoes in front of her face. One of the shoes was tapping the floor in irritation.

“What is - this?”

“Great Glorificus, oh Mighty Wonderfulness, oh – “

“Get on with it, Jinx! You know if I have to repeat myself, someone dies!”

“Yes indeed, you of Superior Beauty. Well, this person might know where the Key is hidden.”

The shoe moved forward and Agnes yelped as the toe caught the corner of her mouth.

“Why would it know about the Key?’

“Oh Worthiness most Wonderful, it runs a teashop in the town dump. All sorts of people go there and humans talk around her all the time. I have been there – oh, not to have tea and scones, but just to do your work - and observed what happens. She might have heard where the Key is hidden.”

“Pick it up.”

Agnes felt hard, scaly hands dragging her up by her hair and arms. She winced at the pain and realised both her own shoes had been torn off her feet as she was dragged across the room and thrown into a chair.

Trembling, she pulled her skirt down over her knees and licked a drop of blood off her bottom lip. Her hands were shaking and she was desperate to go to the bathroom. If only she hadn’t had that last cup of tea before these creatures grabbed her.

Suddenly the owner of the shoes was standing in front of her. Agnes forced herself to look up into brilliant, diamond hard eyes – eyes that had not the smallest hint of humanity in them.

She wondered what it was. Not vampire, that was certain. A demon, then. But even the worst she had ever met – and for a couple of seconds she allowed herself the luxury of imagining what her Sweetheart would have done to this thing – had some warmth in their eyes. This woman’s eyes were just bottomless pits of – nothing.

“Does it have a name?”

The weasel-faced creature – which she would never, ever serve in her shop again: it was barred! - muttered, “I think it calls itself Agnes, oh Mighty Magnificent one.”

“Agnes? What an extremely nasty name! So, Agnes – ” a red tipped hand flashed out, grabbed Agnes’ chin and savagely tilted her head back. “What have your dirty little ears heard about my Key?”

“I – I – I’m s…s….sorry, a key, have you lost your keys? I haven’t found any keys and people always hand in lost property, well, they do most of the time, but some demons are a little more casual and – OH!”

She cried out as the sharp red nails pinched her cheeks and suddenly she was back in the girls’ toilets at school, she was twelve years old, being made to sit on the toilet seat with her knickers round her ankles while Brenda Marlow and Jessica Green tormented her about her inability to climb a rope in gym class. Goodness, did this demon woman think she could make her cry, when Brenda and Jessica couldn’t?

Agnes felt her fangs slip out; there was that weird sensation in her eyes – as if the skin was being pulled upwards and she bit the hand across her mouth – hard!

“Ouch! That hurt! Look! Blood! It’s drawn blood! You stupid trolls – it’s a vampire! Don’t you know a vampire when you see one?”

The wrinkled demon threw himself on the floor and grovelled. “Oh Humendous Honey-Tongued Heaven-sent One, kill this poor, unworthy creature, kill me now!”

The girl sucked at the marks on her hand and watched as they vanished. “Oh get up, Jinx. You’re getting dust on my shoes. Who’s going to cook my dinner if I kill you?”

“Kill him,” Agnes said calmly. “I can cook.”

The girl pursed her lips and tilted her golden head to one side. “Mmmm, it’s a good idea, but no. He’s slightly useful in other ways. But a cook? I could do with one of those on my staff. Diet’s very important when you’re trying to keep yourself looking good. Don’t you think so?”

Agnes hesitated. She didn’t know what this thing was, but it was beautiful, vain and female. She’d been dealing with women like that all her life.

“Diet is important but not dieting,” she said firmly. “A person such as yourself, does not, of course, need to loose an ounce of weight, but some people get carried away.”

“Great Glory, the vampire woman is quite correct. Your body is perfect as it is and – “

“Yes, yes, I know all that.” Glory waved an impatient hand at Jinx and stared down again at Agnes, a small frown marring her beautiful face.
“Jinx usually cooks hot dogs and chicken wings,” she said.

Agnes couldn’t help it; she was appalled. “Well, if that’s all you’re eating, your complexion will be the first to suffer!”

Then she winced, shut her eyes tight and waited patiently for the blow to fall. When nothing happened, she opened them slightly and squinted to see what weapon was going to end her existence. To her surprise, the creature called Glory was sitting on her bed, gazing at her face in a silver backed hand mirror.

“You’re right, vampire. Look! Look, Jinx, you scaly excuse for a servant, look at the skin on my chin. I can see – a blemish!”

Jinx peered over her shoulder at her reflection and was thrown across the room for his trouble.

Agnes opened her eyes completely. The immediate threat to her life seemed to have subsided somewhat, but she still didn’t have any great hopes of leaving the room without being swept out in a dustpan.

She wished Spike knew where she was; although perhaps, on reflection, it was better that he had no idea. If he came to her rescue, he would run the risk of meeting Glory. And Spike might well know more than Agnes did about this key the demon girl had lost and who had found it.

She risked standing up. No one paid any attention. Glory was moaning at her reflection and demanding a rose petal rinse from the terrified minion.

“Glorificus of the most Astounding Beauty, I’m not sure roses in the quantity you require would be obtainable at this time of night.”

Agnes edged slowly towards the door –

“And where do you think you’re going, Vampire?”

She froze. “Oh, nowhere. Just – “ Agnes glanced around in desperation. She was quite aware that this demon could squash her like a bug at any time. “Honey and oatmeal! That’s what you need for your face, young lady.”

Glory spun round suspiciously. “Honey and what?”

“Oatmeal – its very good for cleaning and nourishing and – ”

“Jinx, get oatmeal!”

“At the speed of light, immediately, Glorificus, oh wondrous one of Superb Beauty – “

“And honey – lots of honey!”

“I will scour the world for the purest honey made by bees that have supped on the nectar of the rarest plants found in the Highest Himalayas – “

“I have a jar in my shopping bag,” Agnes interrupted in helpfully. “I was going to make honey fudge squares for my stall, but of course, if it you want it – ”

Twenty minutes later, Glory was lying back on a red silk sofa, her hair tied back from her beautiful face, glaring up as Agnes hovered anxiously next to her, a basin full of face mask in her hands.

“You do realise what will happen to you if this doesn’t work, don’t you, Vampire?”

Agnes peered down at the mixture, wondering if perhaps she had made it a tad too strong. And should she have added some other ingredient? She couldn’t remember. Oatmeal could set in a very solid fashion if there wasn’t enough honey in it. She only ever used plain soap and water on her face herself. But she was sure this was the recipe her grandmother had used. But then some people had called Granny Pringle a witch. Oatmeal could set in a very solid fashion if there wasn’t enough honey in it.

“I am sure it will help,” she said nervously and began to dab the concoction on the girl’s apparently perfect porcelain skin. “You need to sleep for ten minutes and let the potion work, then wash it all off. You’ll be amazed at the results.”

Two brilliant cold eyes flashed open from the midst of the yellow porridge now covering her face. “You’re a very odd vampire, Agnes.
You seem to know a lot of different things. Are you certain you don’t know where my Key is?”

Agnes paused, honey mixture dripping down her skirt; then she began rubbing the mixture across the skin in soothing movements. “No, but I’ll certainly keep my eyes open for it. What sort of key is it? Large, small, ornate? Where did you last see it?”
“Not for a long, long time.” Glory sighed and relaxed a little. “My life has been just one long problem for years. You can have no idea what troubles I have to deal with. And losing the Key has been traumatic. I’m surprised I haven’t gone grey over night.”

The eyes flashed open again. “I’m not going grey, am I?”

“No, no,” Agnes said hastily. “Your hair is quite perfect.”

The eyes shut again. “So, keep a look out for my key, Agnes. Listen to what your customers talk about. I don’t know what it looks like now, but it used to be green and glowing. A beautiful shiny emerald colour. If you help me find it, you can name your own reward. And I can give you anything you want. Anything in the whole world!”

Agnes’ fingers kept working automatically, plastering the gooey mess across the girl’s face. A green, glowing object. Now, where had she heard about something green and glowing quite recently?

Her fingers stilled as she recalled Spike leaving the young teenager, Dawn, in her room. The girl who’d told her she had once been a ball of green energy before she was given human form!

Yes! She could tell Glory she knew where she could find her Key. She would be safe from any attack, probably given a reward, although Agnes was pragmatic enough to think it would not be as wonderful as Glory said. But still, her unlife could be completely different. Why, she might even get enough to buy a plane ticket home to England, back to her little teashop in Winchester.

Tears filled her eyes and a great rush of homesickness flooded through her. She wanted her little house and garden so much. Longed to push open the bedroom window and lean out to smell the tiny yellow roses that clustered round the sill.

But, of course, she would never push open a window in daylight again.

“Why I - !” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, then she swallowed the rest of the sentence because no matter what the reward, there was no way she would give away Dawn’s secret. Glory was a bully and bullies should never prosper “ – will certainly watch out for anything suspicious. Only too happy to serve,” she finished weakly. But luckily the girl was dozing, soothed by Agnes’s massage.

Agnes waited until she was fully asleep, then carefully wiped her fingers on a towel and examined her work. The mask was drying very fast and she had the nasty feeling it was going to be unpleasantly tight in another ten minutes or so. It would probably be prudent not to be around when Glory woke up!

Jinx and the other weasel creatures had vanished. There was no one to stop her leaving. Dawn was breaking as she got outside and she knew she would have to hurry to get home before the sun came up. She sighed, wearily. Another morning, sleeping in the little room behind Willy’s Bar. Another afternoon spent baking, eking out her money, living in fear and poverty. And it could all have been so different. Just a hint, a pointer in the right direction. No one would ever have known.

Except herself.

But Agnes was humming happily to herself as she scurried through the dark Sunnydale streets. In some strange way, she realised that after all these years, she felt she had at last defeated pretty, little Brenda Marlow and her piggy-faced friend, Jessica Green. And that feeling was wonderful.

tbc
























 
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