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  ‘Positive. I’ve taken her image from Jimmy’s mind. She’s a bit taller and broader than you, but Jimmy won’t notice. And I’ll make your clothes fit.’

  o0o

  Stripping down to her underwear in a bank full of strangers had only featured once in Brenda’s rich tapestry of fantasies, and then it hadn’t involved swapping clothes with a bank robber’s masked middle-aged mother. She gritted her teeth, thanked God she’d put on clean underwear that morning, and wondered if Brian’s powers stretched to magical liposuction – she could do with losing an inch or two.

  A fact not lost on a few of the female hostages who considered themselves unfairly passed over for the role of Bank Robber Babe.

  “She is SO fat,” said a horrified teenager in spray-on jeans.

  “You talkin’ outta you skinny white ass, girl. She not fat enough. No cop gonna believe she some bad ass bank robber.”

  Then Brian stripped off.

  “Whoa! Now that’s one bad ass bank robber. They’s prison tats?”

  Brenda could barely look. There were folds and bulges and tattoos of pirates. And God knows what those parrots were supposed to be doing...

  She threw him the thought. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m having to use my imagination. Jimmy hasn’t seen his mother in her underwear for years.’

  Lucky Jimmy.

  But, at least, people had stopped staring at Brenda.

  She grabbed the sweat pants and baggy top and pulled them on, turning away so she didn’t have to look at Brian’s bank-robber-mom-from-Hell squeezing into her new jeans and top.

  “Okay,” said Jimmy. “You five put your masks on and line up over by the door.”

  “No,” said Brian. “Not yet. We’ve got to tell the cops first so they don’t start shooting. And we’ve got to give them our guns.”

  Jimmy shook his head and tightened his grip on his weapon. “No. We keep the guns.”

  He looked so young. Late teens, early twenties. Stripped of the mask and the anonymous black uniform he suddenly looked ... human. And vulnerable.

  “We can’t, son,” said Brian. “We’ve got to walk out as hostages. And the cops have got to see five shotguns thrown onto the sidewalk to know we’re giving ourselves up.”

  “Okay, but we’re not giving them loaded weapons.”

  He ejected the magazine and the chambered cartridge. The others did the same.

  Brian collected them and handed them to Brenda and the other volunteers. Brenda took the gun gingerly. Knowing Brian, he could have done anything to them. Reloaded them with blanks, or converted them to water pistols.

  Now came the dangerous part. Pretending to be an armed robber walking out of a bank surrounded by SWAT teams and nervous deputies. While accompanied by four excited, armed wannabes who each thought they were appearing on a TV reality show.

  ‘You’re going to throw some kind of protective shield around me, right?’ she framed the thought and sent it to Brian, who smiled.

  ‘You don’t need a protective shield. You’ve got your wits.’

  Brenda preferred the protective shield. ‘Do the cops have any idea of what’s been going on in here?’ she asked. ‘I mean, did they hear the gunshots?’

  And was a SWAT team massing for an assault this very second?

  ‘Don’t worry. I soundproofed the bank. They didn’t hear the gunshots and we couldn’t hear their loudspeakers.’

  One problem eliminated, only another thousand to go.

  “Come on,” said Brian, switching effortlessly back into the voice of Jimmy’s mother. “Time to go. Tell them you’re coming out and do what the cops tell you.”

  Five masked and armed hostages started to walk towards the door. Slowly at first, excited and nervous...

  And then competitive. Their pace quickened, there was jostling, grabbing and the occasional flying elbow. I should be first, I’m Jimmy! No you’re not. Let go! You let go...

  Brenda jostled back. She was the only one who had to be first. Someone could get killed. If these four ran out the building waving guns and showing off for the cameras there’d be a blood bath. She had to prevent that.

  Up ahead, the doors beckoned, the view through the glass panels growing. She could see police cars on the other side of the street. Helmeted officers peering from cover. Real guns, nervous trigger fingers.

  She broke into a run. So did everyone else and they were faster. Someone grabbed for the door handle and tugged, but the door was still locked. And everyone else piled into the back of them.

  “Wait,’ said Brenda, but no one was listening. She was helpless as the key was turned. Three pairs of hands reached for the handles, tugged, both doors opened inward an inch before hitting feet and forearms as everyone pressed forward, trying to push their way through.

  “Wait!” shouted Brenda. “We’ve got to do this properly. There’ll be agents and producers out there. If we run out like a rabble it’ll ruin our chances.”

  “She’s right,” said one of the men. “I’m Jimmy and I should be first.”

  “No! It’s not about being first. It’s about being good. Anyone can show off in front of a camera. What they want to see is talent.”

  “Talent?”

  “Yes, they want to see people who can think themselves into a role. Who walk out that door as real bank robbers. Who look like real bank robbers and act like real bank robbers. Not a bunch of kids showing off for their friends.”

  “Should we try and shoot our way out?”

  “Yeah, like Butch Cassidy!”

  “No! The script says we’re going out to surrender so we open the door slowly, tell them we’re coming out, then do as we’re told. The director’s out there. He’ll be looking for people who can follow direction and have a good profile. So get the masks off and move slowly so the cameras can pan in for a close up.”

  “Right,” said one, nodding. “That make sense.” The others agreed. A close up was far better than a masked blur.

  Thank God, thought Brenda. Now all I have to do is open the door and hope no one’s trigger happy out there.

  She opened one of the doors.

  “We’re coming out!” she shouted.

  “Throw your guns onto the sidewalk.”

  She threw hers and stood back for the others to comply.

  “Now come out, one at a time, with your hands above your head.”

  Brenda stood back. “You go first, Jimmy. And remember – walk slow and keep your head up so the camera can zoom in on your face.”

  ‘Jimmy’ walked out. The others followed at one-second intervals. Brenda took a deep breath and walked out last.

  “Down on the ground! Slow! On your stomachs. Arms and legs spread.”

  Another of Brenda’s fantasies ruined for all time. Though the SWAT uniform might be a keeper.

  Police swarmed in from all directions. Brenda was prodded and patted and began to relax. Her part was over. But what had Brian planned?

  o0o

  Brian nodded to himself as Brenda left the bank. She was a big improvement on the last one. Tonya had been a mistake. And he’d told her far too much. But Brenda...

  She had potential. She was quick. She was fun, and she didn’t ask too many questions.

  “Okay,” said Brian, addressing the remaining hostages. “We’re going to walk to the door. No running! You’re going to walk outside and when you reach the edge of the sidewalk you’re going to run – as fast as you can – across the road, along the street, wherever you want. Remember, you’re hostages who’ve just been released and you want to rush over and see your friends and family.”

  He turned to Jimmy and whispered. “We’ll walk out last. The cops’ll be too distracted by that lot to pay us any attention.”

  The hostages milled around the door then, on Brian’s signal, spilled outside. The gang followed, each carrying a bear. Brian held the door for them and made a point of touching each of them, lightly, on the shoulder. “Make for the car,” he said
. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Brian stayed behind the door, out of sight and, a second later, out of the physical world.

  o0o

  Brenda watched the first wave of hostages rush across the street. They made enough noise for fifty hostages. Fifty stage-struck hostages in search of a camera. There was screaming, there were histrionics, there was overacting. And a fight.

  Get outta my face, you dumb skinny ho! Stop blocking the camera, you fat bitch! Who you callin’...

  At the back, keeping quiet and clutching their bears, walked the four young robbers.

  Then Brenda heard a hiss from one of the SWAT officer’s radios, followed by a voice. “It’s a set up! The five who surrendered are hostages. I repeat, the five who surrendered are hostages. The real gang are the ones with the bears. The money’s inside the teddies!”

  Brian must have cut into the police feed. Heads were turning. Suddenly no one was interested in the spread-eagled hostages on the ground. Guns were being drawn again, faces were being scanned. Where were those bears?

  And it wasn’t just the police. Behind the barriers at the far end of the street the press erupted. Brian must have tipped them off as well. The cameras swung from the hostages in the road to the four men walking along the sidewalk towards them.

  “Freeze! Drop the teddies!” Probably the first time that line had been used in law enforcement circles outside of a bachelor party.

  The gang froze. They dropped the bears, raised their hands and – on live TV, right in front of the cameras – four pairs of trousers dropped in unison to reveal ... four matching pairs of brightly colored underpants – all bearing a striking teddy bear motif.

  A strange hush descended upon the scene. Then cameras clicked and flashed and hardened crime reporters giggled. Those hostages who didn’t have a handful of someone else’s hair in their hands, applauded. The Teddy Bear Gang had been apprehended.

  Brenda drifted to the back of the crowd and ducked under the police tape when it was safe. Where was Brian? Wasn’t it about time he whisked her back home? And returned her clothes.

  ‘What’s the point in having a partner if you can’t swap clothes?’ said a familiar voice in her head.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the alley to your right.’

  She found the alley and ducked down it. The moment she did, the alley fled away from her – all the dumpsters and brick walls whooshing down a long bizarre tunnel into the distance. Brenda shot after them, picked up and blurring through several counties until the familiar surroundings of her living room materialized around her.

  Brian was still wearing her clothes. But not as a woman. Thankfully not as the Pope either. He’d returned to his own form – or what Brenda assumed was his own form – that of an unassuming fortysomething male.

  Brenda made a mental note that here was one top and pair of jeans that she wouldn’t be wearing for some time. “Can I have my clothes back?”

  “You want me to take my trousers off? Is this what crime fighting does to you, Brenda? Turns you into a raving sex maniac?”

  Brenda closed her eyes. What had happened to her quiet, uneventful life?

  She trudged upstairs to the bathroom – bliss – then returned to find Brian watching television.

  “Come and have a look at our reviews.”

  A smirking news anchor was reporting on the events at the bank. Apparently there was still some confusion. Was it a bank robbery, or a hoax? The police were adamant it was a robbery. The hostages were convinced otherwise. No gang could be that dumb.

  “See,” said Brian. “That’s where we score over the justice system. The courts would send them to prison and in a few years they’d be back on the streets. A little bit meaner and a little bit craftier. Me, I look at the long term. They’re not bad boys – well, apart from Jimmy. The others just fell into the wrong company. So, let’s deprive them of that company. Who’ll team up with a gang of incompetents who wear matching underpants to a bank heist, can’t keep their trousers on, and whose hostages laugh at them? They’ll be forced to find other employment.”

  Brenda hoped he was right, but it sounded too simplistic.

  “Not everything has to be complicated, Brenda.”

  “Hah! You can talk. You could have ended that robbery in a second, disabled the gang and freed everyone. And still made them look stupid.”

  Brian shook his head. “You’re using hindsight. When we went in, we had no idea what we’d find. Sometimes you can use humor, sometimes you have to use fear, or trickery, or force. Each job’s different, and the skill is in selecting the right approach.

  “Plus you’ve got to have fun. Can you imagine doing this for hundreds of years if all you did was turn up, catch the bad guy, then go home? You’d die of boredom. Anyway, look at what we did. We foiled a bank robbery, no one got killed, a gang of criminals were brought to justice, and we turned what could have been a traumatic situation for the hostages into one they’ll all look back on with happy memories. They had a great time.”

  And they still were. Queues of them were lined up giving interviews to anyone with a microphone.

  “Does it bother you, never getting the credit?” she asked.

  Brian shrugged. “It used to. But think of the alternative. I go public and everyone will want to know why I didn’t save their family. Humans are fickle.”

  The news anchor turned to the mystery of the missing gang member. Somehow she’d got clean away. But not for long, said a police spokesperson. They knew she was the mother of one of the gang.

  Brenda suddenly saw a huge flaw in Brian’s plan. Jimmy’s mother was innocent. And yet twenty witnesses would swear they saw her in the bank.

  “They’re going to arrest her, aren’t they?” she said. “She’s not going to have a chance.”

  “Perhaps she needs a scare. It might make her take more interest in what her children are up to.”

  Brenda was surprised. “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “I’m a demon, not a social worker. But ... if she’s truly an innocent, I can always sabotage the case against her. And she’ll probably have an alibi anyway, so it’ll be a matter of which witnesses the jury believe.”

  The news switched from the police spokesperson to a replay of the gang’s arrest. Jimmy, a whistling Mikey, and their two friends were walking nonchalantly along the sidewalk holding their bears. The news station had added a soundtrack. The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.

  “Now why didn’t I think of that?” said Brian. “I could have taken over a loudspeaker and had that playing as they dropped their trousers.”

  And then, as the trousers dropped, Brian began to sing along. “If you go down to the bank today you’re sure of a big surprise....”

  Chapter Six

  “Wait! If we’re going to be partners, there’s a lot more I need to know.”

  For a second Brenda thought he was going to ignore her and teleport off into the distance.

  “Such as?” he asked, still standing in the middle of the living room, his hands slightly raised, looking like a male version of Wonder Woman about to spin into her costume.

  “Such as are there any other demons are out there? Am I going to be in danger from them as well as serial killing humans?”

  He smiled. “Do you know, I haven’t met a single demon on this planet for years. I think they find it boring.”

  Brenda was surprised. “But you don’t?”

  “Not at all. But then I’m an atypical demon. I was always the odd one out at school.”

  “You went to school?”

  He placed his hand over his heart – or at least the place his heart would have been if he’d been human.

  “Hades High, class of 1317. While all the other kids were out tormenting minor civilizations, I preferred to stay at home and read a good mind.”

  She waited for him to smile. Or waggle his eyebrows. But he did neither.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “High School i
s never a joke, Brenda. It’s hell. Literally in my case. All those demons flexing their adolescent powers, all vying with each other to catch the recruiters’ eye.”

  “Recruiters?”

  “Demon Lords, Magical Universities, Demonic corporations. Microsoft.”

  She laughed. “You are so full of bullshit.”

  “Okay, so perhaps not Microsoft – not back in 1317 – but I’m painting a picture for you here. The universe is a huge place, millions of civilizations and you humans–” He grimaced apologetically. “You’re not that much of a challenge for the modern demon. There are some frighteningly rational civilizations out there which require a lot of skill to manipulate. But you lot ... I could fly downtown and magically etch a face in a pizza and within minutes half the town would be venerating it. All hail the wondrous pizza face! And don’t get me started on vegetables that look like Elvis.”

  She didn’t have to, he was already well away.

  “I mean,” he continued. “You’ve got to be a pretty messed up god to communicate with your congregation via vegetables and pizza topping. Me, I’d go for the colossal head and shoulder shot over the skies of New York. Big booming voice, easy to understand message.”

  He rose up on tiptoe, cupped his hands around his mouth and strained his voice into a toned-down yell towards the carpet. “Stop killing your neighbors. Be nice to everybody and learn to get along.” He removed his hands and winked at Brenda. “Simple isn’t it? But then I’m a demon. We’re practical.”

  “Could you really do that? Appear over New York and make an announcement?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not that powerful. And besides, the immortal sphere is heavily unionized. If a demon started to dabble in god work there’d be a galaxy-wide demarcation dispute.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “I wish I were. You wouldn’t believe how petty those minor gods can be. It’s one of the reasons we cast them out of Hell. Always on the picket line. And that Kali can hold a lot of placards.”

  Brenda had to smile. She was reminded of the Harriet Vane quote about Lord Peter Wimsey. If anybody does marry you, Peter, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle.