The Universe's Mixer

The zombies were being hunted down, some destroyed and some “cured”. Walter wanted none of this. He spent too long cultivating a few of these special little bundles of love to give them up entirely. He needed a place to stash them and to set up shop, but where. Fortunately Ka, and the City seemed to readily provide what he needed. He stashed a small cadre of his freshest associates in an alley across the street and approached the building.

“Lady Rhea’s” glowed in garish neon along with an outline of a palm, and a generous offer of 5$ readings. This was going to be more fun that he originally anticipated. Rhea turned out to be a fat faded painted bird. Too much makeup, dripping in pentacles, and wearing more brightly colored silk scarves then a gillie Walter once knew in a piano pub in Midworld. Her perfume reminded Walter of burnt grass, and her affected manner sealed the deal.

Rhea peered at Walter and more importantly Walter’s money across a small round table as the Man in Black settled into his seat. “Read your palm sir? The “sir” came out almost as if it was an unpleasant taste in her mouth. “Cards Sai Rhea, they have always been more kind to me” Walter replied. He did have his limits, and letting this pretentious bag of shit fondle his hand, was just not going to happen.

“Suit yourself sir” She replied and got to the business of weaving a story with her tarot cards. She spoke of wealth, love and luck, how she saw it in his future. Walter tried not to roll his eyes too much listening to the meat bag prattle on. “And this card is your…” She stopped mid-word. It was The Magus. It was impossible, her magician card looked like Merlin from the King Arthur story. The card looked disturbingly like her customer. Her sanity began to split at the seams as the Magus of the card smiled showing too many teeth, and it winked at her.

The fortuneteller began stammering, closing her eyes and furiously trying to blink the image away. The Magus patiently waited, still looking up at her. The image giggled. Walter took the remaining tarot cards from her hand, and began to shuffle them deftly.

“Shhhh” Walter implored. “Relax, have a little tea, and let me.” The teacup wasn’t there before was it? No matter, she was in no condition to argue and swallowed the contents in one steaming gulp. Tremors started in her extremities, as Walter began to deal the cards.

Rhea was struck dumb watching the cards being placed. It was the Tower, and the Tower, and the Tower again. A low keening wail began to escape Rhea, as she shed a droplet of blood from her left eye. She did not hear the bells over her door chime, and the 13 zombies shuffle in.

She felt the teeth and the cold hands on her. It was not long before she felt nothing ever again. One of the zombies knocked over the table, the deck spilling to the floor. Just the Tower and the Magus. Why would there need to be anything else? “Take human bites Vincent! Share with the others.” Walter scolded the undead as they carried the former owner of “Walter’s Warlock Shoppe” into the basement. There were sticky wet sounds, and Walter closed over the door to downstairs.

The Neon Sign blinked off, it relit showing only a red eye, and a small white banner stating “Under new Management!” He would have to do something about the smell of cigarettes, that habit can kill you.

"Oh Hell No." Crowley said through gritted teeth as he cocked a shotgun and aimed it square for the head of a zombie that was making a beeline for his Bentley. No. No way in Hell was he letting something happen to his precious car. Especially not zombies.

The apocalypse had been more than enough to deal with without him having to deal with zombies in this City. He'd already shot three square in the head and was preparing to shoot another. Where he got the shotgun from didn't matter. He was a demon, if he wanted it, he got it.

"Get the Hell away from my car." Aim, Hold steady... Fire.

Bang.

Another one gone, unfortunately this one sprayed on his car. Gross.

What in the name of all things unholy where zombies doing in the City? Was this some kind of cruel joke the City liked to play on its inhabitants. First giant monsters, then zombies. Crowley was beginning to think going back to Hell wouldn't be so bad after all. At least maybe there he'd get to take a sleep without waking up to find the undead were aiming for his car.

"You want a piece of me? I've been to Hell. Bring it on!" Crowley whipped off his sunglasses, showing his eyes for how they really were, exposed his black wings and was ready to go to all out war with these creatures.

Harley paused outside the reptile house, looking around for one of those you-are-here type maps. At the crossroads of the paved paths only a few steps away stood a three sided column with an advertisement lit from within on one side, a coming attraction on another, and on the third side, the very thing she’d been searching for. A map.

Alright, it wasn’t exactly Rand McNally quality, and she was pretty sure that it wasn’t to scale. If it was, they were all in really big trouble from elephants that size. But that’s not what she was looking for. She’d come to the zoo on a very specific mission, and apparently taken a wrong turn in trying to get it done.

Putting her finger on the giant red arrow that actually did say “you are here” next to it, Harley found her position within the maze of animal enclosures. Right there next to the reptile house, just down from the big apes. Alright, so it looked like she’d have to go around the lake, past the rhino barn, bears, giraffes, otters and then…

“Yes!” The exclamation came with a small fist pump as she located exactly what she wanted to find. With a firm direction sorted out, Harley all but skipped off up the path to find the hyenas. If she couldn’t have her babies, at least she could look at some of their cousins.

Look. Yeah, that’s all she was gonna do. Sure. Not like she was gonna swipe a couple to keep her company or anything. It was just a nice day to be at the zoo. A little cartwheel, perfectly executed, was used to punctuate the thought, and she didn’t really care who was looking.

It wasn't so much that Crowley felt the earth quake as much as he noticed his Bentley shift suddenly and unexpectedly on the street. Nor was it so much that he bothered with more than a 'what the?' until it came a second and a third time. By then it had become an annoyance.

Someone was shaking the earth. Or at the very least, shaking The City.

Crowley pulled over, lest he hit someone, opened the door and proceeded to get out and look around. What he saw, as he lifted his sunglasses, didn't please him. Quite the opposite. It filled him with a sort of dread.

Very little surprised him anymore, or so he had thought until he came to The City. His entire transplantation to the City was bizarre enough - leaving him a touch homesick even though he had his flat in perfect order. Then there was the woman who seemed to seek some sort of sexual relations with him, and the girl who called herself a 'scientist' while staring at him as if he were of another world (never mind that he actually was) and now a monster.

But not just any monster. The City had to go an provide itself some large lizard / dinosaur looking thing. Which by large was meant gargantuan.

The first thought that crossed the demon's mind was that he should get in his car and keep moving before the Bentley got destroyed again. The second, and slightly more verbal thought, came out as a stern and disbelieving, "No." Nothing more. Nothing less.

The pale brunette teen could not stop the shaking and it showed. She had been trapped in a youth hostel during the recent murders and she also had to face more than her share of Olaf related flashbacks in the process. But now the young woman known as Violet Baudelaire was trying to reembrace life as she went looking for the junk shop. "But now I can try to unravel my own mystery and the mystery of this place" as she went inside to locate some parts for a current project.

Ducks.

There were ducks swimming near the shore, looking for food both in the water and out. Apparently they were accustomed to receiving treats from people on the shore in much the same way as the ducks in London did. Except that Crowley wasn't in London. He was in some strange City that was nothing at all like London. Crowley stared at the fowl, hands in his pockets, as they moved through the water. So many things had changed, so many things had been undone and then redone and then completely changed again. Didn't he learn that the last time he slept away more than an evening that everything went awry in his absence from consciousness?

Apparently not, since he was now standing in the thick of what appeared to be some City that was neither here nor there. He couldn't place anything to give him even the slightest bit of an idea as to where he was. ( No accents, no signage, nothing. )