Micky did not like the look of this place. Deep in the industrial sector of the city, Friendly's Industrial Cleaning ended up being an abandoned complex, emptied of its entire business some months prior. Of course, he couldn't be sure of how long it'd been vacant - sometime between the publishing of the supermarket phone book and now - but it certainly had enough of a creepy aura about it for him to take a good guess.

Without maintenance, grass and weeds grew up through cracks in the pavement, and the power situation remained sketchy at best. As the car slowly moved through the complex's gigantic parking lot, they passed under several streetlights that didn't work at all anymore, and a few that flickered on and off ominously. Utility poles were bent at odd angles, likely to fall over with just the slightest push, taking the whole electrical grid down with them. Given the fact that the sun was now below the horizon and it would soon be dark, Micky was very careful not cause a complete blackout.

Looming ahead of them was an enormous box-shaped building, paneled in steel grey. Green letters on the front face of the structure told them they'd located the right place, although a few of the letters had fallen off and lay useless on the ground. Near the top of the building, curling nearly all the way around it, was a row of windows, many of which were broken out or cracked.

And parked just in front of the building was the black van that the kid back at the supermarket told them about.

Micky killed Matilda's headlights a good distance away, even though he could probably still be seen in the waning daylight. Stopping the Mustang far from the building itself, he pointed toward the windows. "The lights are on in there, see? I think we mighta found the right place."

Davy rolled the window down, hanging out of the car and squinting at the building. "I don't see anyone outside," he said. "No guards or… Anything. You'd think if someone was doin' a kidnapping, they'd want someone else lookin' out for 'em."

"What would a cleaning company want with a bass player and a chicken, anyway?" Micky wondered.

"It's gotta be more than that," Forty-Two said. "I can feel it. Something about this area and the people in it. There's this wave of…" He took a deep breath, inhaling through his nose. His eyes widened, and he pushed Davy's chair forward, nearly squashing the short Englishman, so he could lean out the window and sniff at the air.

"'Ey! Watch what you're doin'!" Davy grunted, pressing back on his chair.

"Evil intent. I can smell it."

"Wha— You can smell evil?" Davy asked, finally succeeding in righting the back of his chair. "You must be joking. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" After a pause, he amended: "Well, today, anyway."

Still straining for the window, Forty-Two smiled. "It's like a Siren's song."

"Great," Micky muttered, opening his door and stepping outside. "We're tryin' to save Michael and Peter, and there's some kind of demonic apple-pie-chocolate-cake buffet in there. Forty-Two, we're gonna need you to — " He trailed off, catching the perfect way the sunset caused the paint on Matilda to sparkle.

"Were you gonna say 'focus,' Micky?" Davy asked.

"Right. Focus."

"There's more," Forty-Two said. "I can smell Michael and Peter in there. But I can also detect someone who's been affected by a genie's magic before. It's really kinda…"

He started pushing forward on Davy's seat again. Muttering something that sounded like 'bloody demon,' Davy opened the door and hurried to get out of Forty-Two's way. Once he was able, the demon exited the car, as well. "It's really familiar. Huh."

"Look, we'll think about this once we figure out how we're gonna get in there and rescue those guys," Micky said. "I think if we just get closer a little bit at a time, we can hide behind stuff until we're at the front doors. That way, in case anyone is watching, they won't see us as we sneak in."

Davy looked toward the towering steel-grey box of a building, then back at Micky, crossing his arms. "There's nothing to hide behind between here and the entrance. Except the van."

"That may be a problem."

"Well, look, we don't see anyone out here, right? And we're in the open." Davy gestured toward the factory again, narrowing his eyes. "They woulda seen us already if they were gonna see us, I think. Maybe opened fire a few minutes ago?"

Micky nodded, rubbing his chin. It was a good point. Still, if there were people watching, maybe they were just biding their time, like in the movies. Wait for the good guys to get close, then spring the trap. "Hey, Davy, we're the good guys, right?"

Davy shrugged. "I'd like to think so."

Forty-Two was still sniffing around the car, concentration evident on his face.

"Well," Micky said. "if we're the good guys, we win, right? That's how this story's gotta end."

Again, Davy shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't read the rest of it. I've just been kind of improvising. I'd assume so. This isn't a Lovecraft tale."

"So no matter how we go about this, we— Hey! HEY! What are you doing!"

Forty-Two was smelling his shoulder, one hand wrapped around the drummer's curls, and the other holding fast to his shirt. "Ah-ha! The guy in there! He smells like you, Micky! Exactly like you. Do you have a twin?"

"Lemme go! Get outta here!" Micky pushed the demon away, but a moment later, the words sunk in. He and Davy looked at each other, their eyes meeting. "You don't think…"

"Who else could it be?" Davy asked.

"Uh, look, if Babyface Morales is in there… The last time we met, he ended up back in prison. He's not gonna want to see me." Micky gulped, loosening his shirt collar. "I kind of… impersonated him. And led the police to him."

"Well, isn't that dumb," Forty-Two grunted. "You don't lead police to gangsters! You'll get yourself killed!"

"We know!" Micky and Davy said at the same time. Davy hadn't even been there, but he still understood the gravity of the situation. Micky had been uneasy for days - looking over his shoulder, making sure all the doors were locked, actually watching the news instead of making fun of the anchor's enormous nose… It took a lot to shake Micky up, so Davy definitely grasped the danger of it all.

"What do you wanna do?" Davy finally asked.

Micky didn't say anything for awhile. "Well, we gotta… We gotta go in there and rescue Mike and Peter." With a decisive nod, punctuated by the closing of his car door, he started forward.

Davy and Forty-Two looked at each other, closed the other door, and followed.

There were a few tense minutes as they hurried through the open area between the Mustang and the black van. Micky honestly didn't feel too much better when they finally reached it, either, since they were that much closer to Babyface Morales, and had a much worse chance of escape as a result. His hearing also seemed to have decided it was going to detect every single noise anyone made, no matter how small, which led to him jumping nearly a mile when the demon and his bandmate finally caught up with him. When the street lamp above them buzzed and sputtered, he squeaked out, "What was that!?"

Forty-Two pointed up.

"Oh, okay, good."

Nearby, a cricket chirped, and Micky again demanded, "What was that!?"

"Crickets, Micky! Bugs! Come on now, pull yourself together. We beat Babyface once, we can do it again!" Davy patted him on the shoulder. "Remember, like you said? We're the good guys." Smiling, he started to peek around the van to see if the coast was clear, when he came face-to-face with the business end of someone's firearm.

His eyes followed the length of the barrel, and then glanced upward into the angry eyes of its owner.

Davy whimpered, "Where's Mike when you need 'im?"

"Who's askin', Squirt?" the armed man demanded.

Davy squeaked, arms going up, palms facing the assailant to show that he had no weapons - or that he was terrified out of his mind - it was always hard to be sure.

Micky peered around the van, too, eyes widening when he saw what had Davy so worried. His face fell as his fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, strongly urging him to run away as quickly as humanly possible. Of course, he wasn't faster than a bullet, which meant that running would probably just end with him being shot.

By none other than Tony Ferano.

"You!" Tony exclaimed, lowering the weapon just a hair. It was enough for Micky to take the opportunity to pull Davy backward and away from the gun.

"Hey, Tony. How're you doin'?" Micky asked as conversationally as he could, while his voice wavered, betraying his fear.

"None of that, eh? We ain't buddies." He lowered the weapon a little bit further, holding up a yellowed envelope instead. "Good thing I was out here to deliver this, 'else no one mighta seen ya."

Smiling with a wicked grin, he held out the envelope as Forty-Two also peered around the van to see what was going on. Micky reached over Davy's shoulder, hand hesitating in front of the envelope and pulling back just slightly. His mind kept screaming that it was some sort of trap - that if he took it, something bad would happen, although he couldn't even begin to guess what that could possibly be. Fire? Explosives? Deadly ants? Maybe Tony needed both his hands to fire that gun, and if Micky took the letter…

"Hey, c'mon! I ain't gonna bite. It's a ransom note. Just read it so's I can take you to the boss!" Tony impatiently jammed the envelope into Micky's hand, and the curly-haired boy staggered backwards. If not for Forty-Two being there, he probably would have fallen over.

"Uh, sure, Tony," Micky muttered, staring at the name on the front. It had been addressed specifically to him. "Give us a minute, okay? Just… Go stand over there or somethin'?"

Davy's arms were still up, though he gave his housemate a look over his shoulder that clearly questioned Micky's sanity.

"You don't give me orders, Dolenz!" Tony insisted, leveling the gun on them.

Taking a chance, Micky stepped forward, pushing the barrel of the gun into the air. Tony, befuddled by this brazen disregard for personal safety (and what should have been a very obvious hierarchy) stared blankly at the three boys in front of him. Smiling, Micky said, "Look, if you want us to read your little love letter, stop pointing a gun at us and go…" He motioned with his hand, "…wait over there, by the street light or somethin'."

It probably was the confusion at this turn-around that ultimately caused Tony to comply, although the gangster wasn't particularly happy about it. He half backed away, and half sidled across the broken parking lot, his eyes never leaving the trio. Micky found a little relief in the fact that the gun was at least pointed at the ground, but that still didn't mean his knees would stop shaking.

"What's it say?" the demon whispered. As Micky tore open the envelope, Davy finally lowered his arms.

"An' who's he callin' 'Squirt?'" Davy asked. "He's hardly bigger'n I am! I bet I could take 'im if he didn't have a weapon."

"But he does have a weapon," Micky noted. "So let's not give him an excuse to use it, all right?" He pulled the letter out of the envelope and held it out so that the others could read it, too.

/DEAR MIKAY AND GEENIY,

WE HAVE MIKE N AND PEDAR TROK. IF U EVR WANT TO SEE THEMS AGAIN, BRING TEH GEENY TO FRENDLEES INDRUSTRAL CLENNING BY SUNRISE TOMOROW OR WE WILL BE HAVE CHIKINS FOR DINNER.

P.S. I AM WORREED ABUT PEDAR TROK HE IS SAD. PLEEZ HURRY./

After a moment of silence, Davy said, "Well, that's just sick, that is."

"What, the whole chicken dinner thing?" Micky asked. "Mike's not too happy about that, either, I'm guessing."

"No - the whole thing where they got someone who can't spell to write a ransom letter. That's not your standard Queen's English."

"You done over there yet?" Tony called.

Micky held up a hand and made a rather rude gesture with it. Tony went back to staring at the ground.

"Guys, what are we gonna do?" Micky asked. "We can't exactly just drag Forty-Two in there. I mean, he's one of us. He's our friend."

"I don't know about friend— " the demon started to say, although it was so quiet that Micky missed it all together, and cut him off.

"So, look, I think if one of us manages to get behind Tony and distract him, the other one can grab the gun, and— What?"

Davy was already shaking his head. The plan was so flawed that it bordered on stupid, a fact of which Micky was well aware. Even so, he wasn't too keen on giving the genie to Babyface, so they had to do something.

"Hey, listen to me," Forty-Two said.

"What if we get behind the van, and before he catches up, we run around the building?" Davy suggested.

Scratching his chin, Micky said, "Running around does tend to inexplicably work pretty well for us a lot…" He trailed off for a moment, taking a look at their immediate surroundings. There weren't a lot of places to hide or run to, unfortunately. "Buildings like this usually have a basement of some sort. Like a cellar. Or an electrical closet or something. I bet if we could find that…"

"We could wait 'til he passed, then jump 'im," Davy said. "Brilliant. I say we go for it."

"GUYS!" Forty-Two yelled. Surprised by the normally soft-spoken genie's shout, Davy and Micky focused on the spot where he'd been, only to find that he'd somehow escaped their care. A quick search revealed him standing next to Tony, the gun pressed between his shoulders. Despite this, he was waving. "I thought maybe I'd just turn myself in. Save you the trouble. It's me they're after, anyway."

"Typical," Davy muttered. "I'm not even sure how to hang a lantern on how cliche that is!"

"I think you just did," Micky replied. "And he ruined what would have been a stellar romp, to boot."

They looked at each other, eyes meeting. Micky noticed that Davy looked slightly annoyed, and quite a bit resigned… And since the drummer felt the same way, he was almost certain that they were thinking the same thing. "We goin' along for the ride, then?" Davy asked.

"Don't think we have much of a choice," Micky said. "Shall we?"

Davy shrugged, raising his hands and sauntering toward Tony and the demon. With a sigh, Micky followed closely after.

—-

Forty-Two had a Plan.

Although not entirely sure how he would execute it, he had a fallback stored up his sleeve, which he was certain would save them all. Maybe. Possibly. The only thing that worried him at the moment was that Micky and Davy decided to tag along, but that seemed typical of mortals. He'd been told before that humans couldn't quite grasp the immortality of a demon, and using a guise of weakness or innocence remained the singular best way to lure a victim to their demise. In this case, it certainly worked against their favor, although Forty-Two never intended for that to happen.

"You should have just left," the demon hissed, eyes narrowing at the other two. Tony pushed them along, through a cramped hallway. "I could save Peter and Mike and get out of there. Now I gotta worry about you two!"

"You're just a kid," Davy said. "Look, we weren't gonna leave you at their mercy."

"I'm not a kid!"

Micky put his hand on Forty-Two's shoulder. "Look, we just care about ya, that's all. If you're in this, we all are. And what's the use of arguing? It's too late for us to back out now, anyway."

At a right angle in the hallway, Tony grabbed one of Forty-Two's wrists and snapped one end of a pair of handcuffs around it, closing them as tightly as possible. The metal pinched his skin, which drew a wince from the genie, but otherwise didn't particularly worry him. Steel was a breakable thing, especially when he put his plan into action. As Micky started to protest, Forty-Two held up his hand, one end of the chain dangling down against his arm, to silence him.

Eventually, the hallway opened up into an enormous box-like room, which was filled with various industrial equipment and a few more thugs. Occupying most of the floor space were gigantic cylindrical holding tanks, with walkways all around them. The entire thing seemed as if it had been out of commission for months, or possibly even years - nothing had any shine or shimmer to it anymore. Instead, there was a layer of dust and grime on almost everything, with most of the machinery being covered by thick dropcloths. It seemed like a waste of time to cover everything, if no one ever intended to come back to this place.

Adding to the eerie emptiness of the facility were a handful of overhead lights, which sputtered and dimmed just as much as the street lamps outside. Half of them weren't functioning at all, and at least one circuit appeared to be completely non-functional, leaving an entire corner in complete darkness. A row of catwalks all around the entire factory and over the tanks created long, dark shadows, which criss-crossed the floor at perfect intervals, making the entire thing look like a prison.

In the middle of it all stood the ringleader.

Tony shoved the genie forward so unexpectedly that Forty-Two tripped, falling forward, and sprawled on the floor in front of Babyface. Glancing upward, the boy faltered as he tried to right himself, his feet deciding they didn't quite want to work properly anymore. Finally, he stood, facing Micky's exact replica with a mixture of trepidation and awe.

"I know you," the demon whispered. "You were the talk of the underworld for weeks. One of the greatest tricks any demon's ever pulled — "

Babyface's lip curled, and Tony took a step forward. The boss, however, held up one hand.

Forty-Two could see through the transformation, his eyes searching over the young man's face with pity. What a horrible thing to do to a young girl. "Katya? Katalina Serov?" He reached forward, cool fingers touching the forever-altered face. Clearly, this was why the gangster brought him here - to fix something that had been destroyed many years ago. To put right a great wrong…

For a single moment, Forty-Two saw hope in those hazel eyes. An escape. "Just make the wish, Katalina. It's yours."

But Babyface grabbed the demon's wrist, holding it in a vice-grip, and looked at the handcuff. "This. This is your bind. And this is my wish - that you bind yourself to me. You help no one but me. You do what I say, when I say it. Forever."

The genie tried to pull away, but the wish was already made. The handcuff glowed, and sealed the binding to it, despite the protests from Micky and Davy behind him. "I didn't agree! Do you know what you've done!?" Forty-Two demanded angrily. Curse everything! He would never be able to shift to his true form with an unbreakable bind around his arm! "You've wasted your one chance!"

"It's been years!" the man shouted, his chuckling voice echoing through the facility. "Years I've had to live like this. I stopped carin' so long ago, it don't even matter anymore." With a pointed look to Tony, whose eyes were narrowed dangerously, Babyface added, "I'm king here. This is my world. Whatever you think I wanted… You were wrong."

Defeated, Forty-Two looked toward the floor, muttering something in Russian.

The look in the Babyface's eyes turned from triumphant to shocked, but the expression lasted only a moment, before his attention went elsewhere.

He looked toward Micky, who stared back quite intently. Surely he'd heard some of the exchange - enough to know that the two of them weren't just accidental twins. Smiling, Babyface approached his double, meeting his eyes. "You know what these things do to people?" he purred, his nose just inches away from Micky's. "They take your fondest wish, the thing you want more than anything else, and twist it. That's all they're good for. You're better without this thing."

Forty-Two found himself compelled to follow behind Babyface, which meant he was quite close when he saw what happened next.

Micky spit in the mob boss' face.

Enraged, Babyface grabbed Micky by the collar and gave him a good shake. As Davy attempted to separate the two of them, Tony threw the shorter Monkee to the floor, and held him at gunpoint while his boss used a sleeve to wipe his face. Forty-Two was sure that this would be the end for his two companions; even as he tested the limits of his new bind, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do anything to help them. All he could manage was picking Davy up off the floor.

"Put 'em with the others, Tony, 'til I'm thinkin' rational again," Babyface finally growled, letting go of Micky's collar. The drummer sputtered, breathing again.

Wordlessly, Tony led them away, leaving Forty-Two only slightly relieved behind them. He did manage a slight smile when Davy looked back over his shoulder, although the glance didn't last long.

"Well, well, well," Babyface said, once the others were out of earshot.

Eyes narrowed, the demon turned. "Look, I didn't do this to you. You're not punishing anyone except yourself with that wish you made."

"I've found the perfect way to keep a demon leashed," Babyface said. "I'm pretty sure a genie'll come in handy, no matter what we do. An endless stream of people, all kissin' my feet and wishin' for everything I could ever dream of." Smirking, he added, "And I've specifically selected your bind for its convenience and tenacity. I'm sure you can understand why."

Forty-Two had to admit, it was a smart move. An indestructible bind wrapped around an indestructible demon.

The gangster's grin only grew wider as he pulled a chain out of his neatly-pressed shirt, upon which dangled the handcuff's key.

Admittedly, Forty-Two had never felt so helpless in his very, very long life.