Season 2, Episode 6 "Big Town"
"Big Town" synopsis - page two (back to page one)
Zak said he was better at getting through bouncers than through locked doors, but he still found a way for the group to enter the St Columbus Theater that night. He hid out in the ticket booth and the girls went on stage into the wings. Brian and Hube took positions in the boxes, one on either side, where they could watch the whole proceedings. Then they waited.
The bus rumbled up outside and the side door opened. Louis was in full swing. "If you'll just follow me, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the St Columbus Theatre, a grand old theatre and like any grand old theatre it has its ghost. Now the Columbus theatre ghost is a particularly macabre story, and a particularly powerful creature, so keep your sense alert for any rumblings in the spiritual plane…"
Zak fired a text message through to the others, warning them of incoming. Louis was leading a parade of creatures, some obviously demonic, some apparently human. At the rear of the group was Sophie, who settled on a chair to watch the door and have a smoke as Louis took the group into the auditorium.
"I know one of them!" Hube text-messaged Brian. "Ult, troll from Norway!"
"Good or bad? Good or bad?!" Brian replied.
"Now if you'll join me on the stage," Louis said, continuing the story of the theatre ghost.
One of the party, a bespectabled young man, questioned the veracity of the story. "It sounds just like the Albany Theatre ghost in Boston, even the name is the same."
"Yes, a lot of actresses have bad luck," Louis said quickly. "Now, Christine -"
"You said her name was Marie."
"Christine Marie, she proceeded from the stage down to the dressing rooms, and it was there she met her grisly fate… if you'll follow me through the wings…"
As they passed, one of the group, a cat demon like Brisker who they'd met last year, paused and sniffed out Candy from her hiding place. She yanked back the curtain. Candy smiled and waved. "Look here, Louis," the cat drawled. "Seems your ghost isn't as dead as you say…"
"Hi," Zak said, revealing himself. "We met in the service station, remember?"
"Oh, yeah, the kid who lifted that magazine. I remember."
"You'd better be careful."
"You're friends with the Slayer, then? Where is she? Everyone was real interested when I said we'd met."
Back inside, Louis covered madly, introducing Candy as the local girl who was going to retrace the ghosts footsteps on the night she died. He put his arm around her and they went downstairs to a small dressing room. Candy noticed that Louis' arm was scaled - he was a demon too. Cynth sneaked after them. Below, Candy waited as the tourists came in one by one. She spoke to them all, trying to glean information. They included Laysier, the cat woman; Villa, the bespectacled youth; Sid and Ethel, two cranky elderly Florida-living vampires; two ridged demons, who refused to open their mouths; three oriental women in fine clothing; a tall bald human in a trance holding an ornate box with something rustling inside it; Ult, the troll from Norway; and two more vampires who spoke only one word: "rope". (A similar vampire had been a principal servant of the White Lady.)
Satisfied, Louis beckoned them back upstairs, and hissed instructions to Candy: "you stay put in here, little lady, and nothing bad will happen to you. You cause any trouble and I can't be responsible for what might happen. Okay?" Candy nodded, but as soon as he was gone Cynth opened the dressing room door and the two of them headed back up top.
Sophie was waiting for Louis to re-emerge. She called out for her boss, who realised there was more going on here than he realised. As the tourists "soaked in the sinister ghostly atmosphere" on the stage, he leapt off for a "pow-wow" with the Slayers East. Sophie let slip that Candy was a Slayer, and there was an impressed murmur through the tourists, although the vampires all took a step back.
Louis was insistent. "We're not hurting anyone! In fact, we're doing you all a favour. My tour operates on a strict no smoking, no killing policy. I take killers of the streets and give them something to do, take them out of circulation for a while! I give them a hobby! Just let us out of here, we'll go out to the Irie Totems in the middle of nowhere, camp for the day then we'll be gone! No-one'll turn up dead, no problems, you won't even know we were here!"
Ult spotted Hubert and enveloped him in a bearhug - "He defrosted me!" - and dragged him out to the local bar. The others agreed to Louis' terms, and the tourists filed out, stopping to gaze at the slayer. Villa said he loved her work, while Ethel seemed as charmed by the cute wee girl as ever.
Outside, as Sophie readied the bus to move out, Zak spoke to her, warning her that Candy wasn't the only danger in town. "Be careful," he insisted. "If these other people find out about this the whole tour will end up dead." Sophie didn't seem to be perturbed by the concept. She sent Zak on his way, and the bus was loaded up and cleared off.
Candy, Cynth, Zak and Brian drove out to the cave the next morning to check on the situation. Candy managed to raise Hubert on the phone but he sounded quite the worse for wear after a night drinking with Ult. As they approached, they saw Sophie running through the trees towards the bus; seeing them, she changed direction. "You know how no-one was going to get killed? Well, someone got killed."
The group headed to the murder scene. A young man was lying dead with a knife wound to his throat. Cynth and Candy felt ill and backed away. At his feet was a discarded blade, blood-covered and marked with Chinese insignia. Zak peered a little closer and noticed clumps of cat hair scattered around the body, and two sets of vampiric puncture marks on the neck. Sophie was ashen: "I better tell Louis."
Louis called a hasty pow-wow. "Look, this is no problem, we'll just get in our bus and drive away. A daylight trip, it'll be jazzy!"
"Ah, no, I don't think so," Candy replied, and Louis was cowed. Villa sat reading, listening to the exchange intently, then closed his book hurriedly and went around the back of the bus. Louis continued, begging the group not to hassle the Chinese women, they were very powerful sorceresses and it would be his neck…
The group scattered to investigate. Candy followed Villa, put some pressure on him, and he confessed to his involvement. He wanted to be supernatural like the others, so he'd kidnapped someone, and stolen the Chinese sorceress' blade, but he couldn't go through with the ritual. Candy asked what the ritual was for. There was a long silence, until Villa, looking at his shoes, answered: "uh… potency".
Zak recruited Laysier to sniff out clues at the crime scene, and she pointed out that she was shedding, but fur doesn't come off in clumps - she was framed. Moreover, she picked up the distinctive smell of Ethel's overpowering perfume.
Cynth snuck into the cave, and saw the ridged demons, who were eating rocks. Their teeth looked like diamond, explaining why they always kept their mouths shut.
Brian checked things out on the bus. The Chinese ladies were out in a glade, but the vampires were all sleeping in the back of the bus, and the bald servant of the box-monster was sitting on the side, drooling. Louis and Sophie bailed Brian up, concerned about their future. Brian did his best to assuage their concerns.
Zak was able to finger Sid and Ethel as the vampires who'd bit the youth. Louis woke Ethel up and she thanked the tour operator for their treat before bed, a freshly-dead young man they'd found on their walk. Candy commented that they just needed to know the middle of what happened, they had the start and the end. Louis commented something about Knussus the beetle in the box, at which point the box replied "not a beetle!"
The group rounded on Knussus, opening the box and talking to the beetle-like creature. It said its slave was a good slave, and that it was all-powerful, but soon a degree of panic set in and it was asked outright if its slave might have killed someone.
The truth came out. Knussus admitted that his slave, who had been resident in an asylum before becoming a slave, had stumbled upon a trussed up body and a discarded knife and had killed the young man. The slave was a good slave, and Knussus' only friend, so he begged leniency. The slave looked around fearfully, dimly aware of what was transpiring around him.
A decision was made. Everyone else would go, but the slave would stay, and be picked up by police for the murder. Not the perfect solution, but it would have to do.
As Louis rushed everyone on to the bus, Sophie hesitated. She wasn't sure she wanted to go. "You have to come!" Louis insisted. "You owe me!"
"I don't owe you anything. You've never even paid me!"
"Come on, stop being foolish and get on the bus!"
Candy intervened. "Don't go, Sophie. Come stay with us. There's a spare room at Alison's place."
"You'll regret it, Sophie," Louis said. "You'll regret you ever crossed me!"
Sophie, saddened by the loss of life she had witnessed and with a new perspective on her employer, went to join Candy and the others as the bus pulled away, leaving Knussus' slave watching. A tear rolled down his pudgy cheek - and, in the back window of the bus, was that a beetle-limb sadly waving goodbye?
Closing credits roll.