Carnage
     The Carnival sat in a valley, glowing in the dark like the lit flame of a match in a cupped palm. Black Alice Frye parked on the hill above the Carnival and stepped out of her car, cigarette burning in one hand. The wind blew her denim trench coat around her legs. She stood, staring down into the valley, tall and painfully thin, all sharp edges and angles. Her long, muddy-red hair blew around her hawkish face, sharp green eyes studying the Carnival, thin lips pursed.
     The expansive Carnival stretched out below her, parking lots reaching up to it like foot hills to a mountain. The wind brought her the piping sound of the calliope, voices, cheers, and screams. Her gaze swept through the parking lot. There was a fire on the west side, and some sort of commotion. She looked back to the main body of the Carnival, and its glow brightened. Flame licked up the borders of the Carnival, climbing and circling to the center, swirling up through the tents and along the rides, lighting the place like jewels, and for a moment, it was a brilliant treasure chest in the dark. All around it Alice could see othersiders, perched over it, circling it like moths to light, slavering hungrily, drooling, cackling, wanting it, but unable to get to it, their twisted forms writhing with lust and wrath.
     The flame reached the apex of the Carnival, and in flames burned a face, a broad face with twinkling eyes, a goatee, a leering grin. Reddish hair flowed down from under a top hat, over broad shoulders, which melted into the flame. The face surveyed its domain, piercing eyes studying the fracas in the parking lot, and then, turning to Alice. Mighty wings unfurled from the broad shoulders, mantling over the Carnival protectively, as the gaze fixed on her. She was bathed in light, blasting the darkness away, laying her bare. Her shadow stretched back away from her, a primal black tear in the light.
     Her shadow stretched, flexed, stirred, twisting. It unfurled its own leathery, bat-like wings, standing behind and over Alice on backwards-kneed legs, stamping its hooves, dwarfing Alice. Writhing tentacles of shadow slithered out of the main body, stroking over Alice's, holding her as the shadow stamped. A great, dragon-like head craned over Alice's, black shadow teeth glittering in the light. Its mighty, taloned hands came to rest on Alice's tiny shoulders, holding her tight, wings curling down and around Alice as the thing hissed a warning. Its lizard tail flicked sharply back and forth.
     Alice blinked, and the vision faded, an overlay, the mighty gaze receding in power and turning back to the fight in the parking lot. “Damn.” She reached back into the car and pulled out a pair of binoculars, turning to stare down at the fight.
     Two figures fought, blows crashing into each other. It was a flaming – clown? -- and a smoking – cop? -- in a fiery wasteland of ruined cars. Alice blinked rapidly, rubbed her eyes, and looked again. Something was bothering her sight. She squinted, and saw a shambling, massive zombie in clown make-up, and – Junior?
     “Oh, that can't be.” Superimposed over the cop was the image of some cilia-ridden slug-like dog-thing, oozing slime and smoke, puppeting the cop-body. It was way too damn big, and way too damn powerful to be Junior. She couldn't – she squinted harder, glaring through the binoculars down at the scene. She couldn't make it out. She could see the scene just fine, but somewhere along the border of the parking lots, her Sight fuzzed, and she couldn't make out the lines of power.
     If that was Junior . . . “Jesus.” Alice breathed. What had they been feeding that thing, crack? She pitched the binoculars into the back seat and swung back into the car, reaching for her gear. She'd come loaded for bear, but now she was wondering if she'd brought enough firepower. She checked her gun, adding a few more speed loaders to her pockets, grabbed the sawed-off shotgun and jammed it into its back holster. She hooked the coiled whip to her side and grabbed her bag of tricks – an open-mouthed canvas bag – and swung the straps over her head and shoulder, fluffing her hair out and making sure she hadn't blocked her gun or whip draws.
     She twisted the key in the ignition, punching down the clutch, and a god-awful shrieking noise traveled down the side of her car, slamming the door shut.
     “What the fuck?” Alice looked up. Two bodies were flying by the side of her car. She caught a glimpse of two snarling faces with mouthfuls of fangs and handfuls of talons flying by her windows. One of them was wearing clown make-up. Alice decided right on the spot that she hated carnivals. The snarling ball of cat fight clawed and tussled behind her car as she jumped back out, letting the car stall in park.
     All along the side of her car, the paint was scored right down to metal.
     “Son of a bitch.” Alice gave each syllable the full magnitude of her annoyance. She looked over at the cat fight as one assailant kicked the other, separating the two. The clown-faced woman rolled to her feet, full of mad giggles. No, not a clown, a harlequin. No, not a harlequin, another damn zombie. The other woman, a curvaceous little gothette, rolled to her feet, also. No, not a curvaceous little gothette, a goddamn vampire.
     Alice had two seconds to wonder why she hadn't brought her necromancy gear again, and to remember, oh yeah, she hadn't thought she'd need it, and then the zombie clown pointed a taloned hand shot through with a metal spike at her and snarled, “Dana said get you! Ha ha!”
     “Oh, shit.” Alice rolled her eyes and the clown dove at her. She heard the gothette exclaim, “Hey, who's that?” as she jumped up on the hood of the car to avoid the clown. The clown scrabbled up after her, all scratching talons and drooling fangs, and Alice danced up to the roof, bringing one boot heel savagely down into the clown's face to slow it, and then jumping down.
     “Dana sent Tiffany after her?” the gothette exclaimed behind Alice. “Who is she?”
     They named a demon zombie clown Tiffany? What was the gothette's name? Muffy? The gothette grabbed Alice by the shoulder, spinning her. “Hey, who're you?” Alice spun the momentum into a sucker punch, and drilled the vampire in the face. The woman reeled back, more from surprise than the blow. Alice dived aside, and the clown barreled into the vampire.
     Alice reconsidered that. The clown barreled into the vampire. Oh yeah, definitely not getting paid enough for this. She skipped back a few feet for range, going for her whip. It uncoiled with a sound like static snapping.
     The clown carved up the vampiress like a Christmas turkey. The vampiress screamed. The clown whirled back to Alice, who stood there with a disgusted expression. The damn thing was like a Cuisinart in whiteface! And, she was still giggling. ”Want to play?” She clapped her hands. Talons and metal clacked together. “Want to play! Want to play!” She trailed off into fits of giggles. Alice twitched her hand and the whip snapped out.
     The lightening bolt struck the clown and wrapped around her. She jittered and jived and screamed. There was a vague odor of burning grease paint. Alice jerked the whip back and the clown slumped, smoking, but not dead. Well, dead, but not moving. At least she wasn't giggling anymore. The vampiress was getting to her feet, muttering under her breath, holding her guts in with one hand. The intestines were carefully coiling themselves back into the open cavity, skin sealing itself shut.
     Alice took a few more steps back, eyeballing her opponents. The problem with fighting the dead was that you couldn't kill them. If she nailed the vampire a few times, she might be able to wear her out, depending on how well-fed she was, but the clown? Zombies were nothing but a pain in the ass. They didn't wear out, they didn't get tired, and they didn't stop, whereas Alice would eventually do all three.
     The clown was stirring. The vampire had stepped back, also, and was watching Alice warily, quietly, fangs glistening, eyes burning. Alice drew the shotgun and jerked it, racking the pump action. “We really don't have to do this, ladies. I'm not getting paid for you.” She was watching the vampire when she said it. The clown had apparently been sicced on her by some Dana bitch, but the vampire had been fighting the clown a minute ago.
     The clown was pulling herself to her feet. Smoke trailed off her like sweat. She was growling down deep in her throat like a dog. Alice flicked a glance at her. The clown was turning. “Gonna die, “ she said in a sing-song. “Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die . . . “
     Hmm. No reasoning with that, Alice thought.
     The vampire moved, lightening fast. The clown jumped. Pain exploded along the side of Alice's head. The shotgun went off with a violent roar.

* * *

     Violent Clay lay on the ground. He had a headache, and something was hanging in his eyes. He wiped his face, and came away with a handful of brain tissue. Oh, that's what that was. He flung the tissue away, getting to his feet.
     He turned, and saw the monster about to grab some poor, stupid cop, and then saw Brick swing his behandled garage door at the monster's knees, taking about two feet of height off the thing. The monster collapsed. Brick brought his massive scrap iron club down across the creature's back. Gore squittered across the gravel, spraying the stupid cop up to the knees.
     The cop promptly turned and lost the cookies he was holding in.
     “That's enough of that shi --” Brick started to say.
     Greasy smoke boiled out of the crushed head. It swirled up, rounding on Brick. Not good, Clay thought, charging forward as the smoke fell down on Brick. Brick dropped his club, flinging his hands up in front of his face. The smoke engulfed his head. Clay reached the strongman, driving his fist outward and grabbing the ox by the back of his neck like a puppy. With a grunt of effort, Clay flung Brick.
     Brick was aware of a momentary gagging as he choked on the flavor of burning motor oil, blinded by the thick smoke. Then, wind was rushing in his ears and the world was moving. He hit the ground, impacting like an asteroid. All the air rushed out of him in a burst, taking a few remaining wisps of smoke with it. The ground ran away under Brick, and he finally realized he'd been thrown and was sliding along in the gravel, leaving a four inch deep rut behind him. He fetched up against the side of a Greyhound. Half a football field away he could see Violent Clay struggling with the cloud of smoke. He put one hand down to lever himself up, intending to go help the clown, somehow, when his eyes rolled back and the world went dark for a bit.

* * *

     The darkness fell back a bit, and Alice found herself on her back, with the vampiress on top her. Instinct had gotten Alice's hand up and into the vampiress' face, so the woman was savaging the palm of Alice's hand instead of her throat. The whip and the shotgun had gone flying. Marvelous agony ricocheted down Alice's arm. Out of the corner of her eye, Alice saw the zombie harlequin, missing the right side of her body from the ribs down, crawling after the remains of her leg, which had been flung several feet away.
     Alice giggled at the thought. “Several feet away!” She told the vampiress, giddy with pain.
     The woman spat out a chunk of meat, staring, eyebrow up. “What's that?”
     Alice pulled the hand cannon from her hip, and jammed it up under the vampiress' rib cage.
     She pulled the trigger. The world went silent.
     She pulled the trigger. The world filled with flame.
     She pulled the trigger.
     She pulled the trigger. The woman vomited blood.
     She pulled the trigger, and flung the smoking crater off herself. Alice rolled to put herself out. She made her knees, the ground spinning. Her hand was mangled. She was missing her pinkie finger and part of her ring finger, and there was blood everywhere. She was still laughing, a shrill, high-pitched sound that was going to be screams in a minute. She got to her feet, huddling over her gushing hand. She jammed it under her other armpit, the earth swaying and pitching, and staggered towards the clown. She was still clawing her way after her leg. Alice stepped up over the clown, who rolled to look at her. Alice leveled the gun at the clown face. The goddamn thing grinned razor teeth up at her, and Alice pulled the trigger. The face disappeared.
     Alice turned, the world continuing around to the left. She spotted the vampiress, curled up on the ground, glassy eyes staring blindly up into the night. The entire back half of her upper body and head were gone.
     Alice sat, hard, and fell back, staring up at the night sky. The stars twinkled coldly. Alice figured she'd just hang out for a minute or two, catch her breath, that sort of thing. And then the stars faded.

* * *

     How do you fight smoke? Clay wondered as it swirled around him, battering him. It was almost solid, but not quite. Clay kept his mouth closed tight – it didn't seem especially interested in any other orifice. He swung a random punch into the cloud, and the thing battened on his wounded hand, seeping quickly into the wounds.
     “Well, shit!” Clay shook his arm out, like he'd fling it off his arm, but to no good. There was a funny sensation creeping up his arm, something like ice, but so cold it burned. The smoke-creature was getting into him.
     “Goddammit.” Clay snarled with great vexation, seizing his upper arm with his other hand. He twisted and pulled.
     Roger turned from barfing up his guts, just in time to see the demonic clown, bald head glistening with blood from the gaping bullet hole, bulbous red nose wrinkled with effort, seize his upper arm and twist. There was a hideous crunching noise. The clown twisted and pulled. There was a wet ripping noise. Snarling, he twisted and pulled again.
     The clown tore his own arm off.
     Roger turned and hurled some more. Funny, he'd been pretty sure he was out, just a second ago. Weird how much a stomach could hold.
     Clay flung his arm away. Damn shame, too. He'd liked that arm. He surveyed the wreckage, satisfied. A few yards off, the arm was twitching and flopping. Best to get out of here before the arm went to goo and the thing got out again. In the distance, he could see Lady Staceybug and little Ambrosia fluttering around Brick, Staceybug scooping him up and carrying him away. Good enough. Clay lumbered over and snatched up the barfing cop. The man uttered a gagging cry, and Clay dragged him off. He was going to need back up, and despite burning with fundamental rage at the thought, Clay happened to know that the Doctor kept some back up in the trunk of his car. Clay hated the idea like fire, but he was clearly going to need a hand, and with Mary long gone, Tiffany was the next heaviest hitter.
     He tromped past the slat board fence, cop protesting feebly and bumping along behind him, and spotted --
     “Hey.” The clown grinned, eyes glinting. “There's a hand.” He laughed to himself as he spotted the massive arm laying beside the fence. Well, no one was using it. He glanced over his stump shoulder at the saucer-eyed, pasty-faced cop. “Could ya grab that for me, buddy? Thanks.”
     The cop looked over at the severed arm laying in the grass. It was the size of a normal man's leg. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped.
     “Well, fuck.” Said Clay.

* * *

     Up on the hill, Ania blinked. Time had passed. The hill was silent. There was pain, and emptiness.
     She gasped. The air flowed away as quick as it went in. It seemed like . . . her ribs were cold . . .
     “The boss . . . “ Her voice was a tiny whistle.
     “is gonna be . . .
     “so mad . . . “

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