The Chay Ong Casefiles, Volume One: Always Chasing Rainbows.

Chapter 5: A Spider Approaches (and finding a place to crash)

Hell is filled with an innumerable amount of nameless and random faces. Sinners great and small. Those who had been major deals in life, but reduced to mere mooks in death. Those who had been petty crooks when they breathed their last, but had managed to carve out significant empires in the infernos of Hell's society.

All of them came and faded, disappearing into memory as they were either cleansed, or simply faded into the aether, until they too were erased at the point of an Exterminator's spear.

So many Sinners, Imps and others who came and went, never to be recognized.

But everybody knew Angel Dust.

The white spider-demon was leaning against a light pole, smoking a cigarette like he had just stepped out of an American noir movie (or one of the innumerable porn parodies of such, which he probably starred in at least once.). He was wearing a pink and white striped shirt with a hot pink collar, a black and purple bowtie, a black choker, a pair of ass-hugging shorts above a pair of thigh-high boots, and two pairs of hot pink gloves over his (four?) hands. One of his eyes was completely black. He also had a gold tooth (kind of like his boss). And also just like Valentino, Angel Dust towered over her, although he was quite a bit shorter than his boss, only standing at about nine feet (perhaps less without the boots).

- And did he have....boobs?

"So I'mma guess yer Chay, yeah? The chick my boss hired to find Shakie?" He bent down to get a look at her.

-Whoa... He's kinda cute...

"Hellooooooo, Earth to Miss Bones! You tweaking or somethin?"

- Oh, right. This is supposed to be a conversation.

She cleared her throat. "Ahem, yes. My name is Chay Ong, private investigator. Your employer just hired me."

"Yeah, yeah....perfect." He looked back at the Porn Studios, then bent down to her ear-level.

"Has he still got that tacky-looking throne in there?", he whispered. "I haven't been back in his office in a few months."

-Wait....he hadn't been there?

"Wait a second, He told me that you worked for him."

"Oh, yeah. I work for him alright, but I sure as fuck don't live with him anymore." He puffed on his cigarrette contemptuously. "And frankly, I think I was a dumbass for sticking with him as long as I did. I mean, have you seen how fuckin' filthy that place is? I bet there was a leak at the door, wasn't there?"

He threw his cigartte onto the sidewalk and stepped it out. "Naw, I moved out a few months ago. I got a better place now. No rent to pay, either! Anyway...."

He turned back to face her. "Now about Shakie...."

"Wait, Shakie....is that the name of the girl?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Wait, he didn't tell you who she.....oh, yeah. Of course. Of course he didn't fuckin' tell you her name." He smacked his forehead with a gloved palm. "Lemme guess, he called her 'merchandise', amirite?"

Chay nodded. "Yes, that's how the conversation went. He seems rather contemptuous of his employees."

"Baby, you don't know the half of it! I'm surprised he rubs enough braincells together to remember my name!".

He sighed deeply, tapping his forehead.

"Her name is Shakie. And she's my gal pal."