A Study in Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 4) (22 page)

“Hey! I know! I’ll just go run and grab up that big sparkly rock while everybody is ah-fighting! Oops. Maybe I should-ah not have said that part out loud. Watch out little druid girl, I wants those rocks!”

“Oof! Hey! You-ah spin away and give me a heel kick in-ah my tummies! I’m-ah gonna get you! When I can breathe and gets my breath back and can get up off the floor, you are gonna be in the big trouble, you betcha!”

In the meantime I sit and watch the many raging conflicts such as Ickzi and the Horbaz, as they tumbles and they fights-ah. The giggly grinning WilloughSickle brother, he has two large daggers at the face of little Ickzi who struggles to hold them at bay by holding Horbaz at the wrists.

“Tee, hee! I could almost likes ye, Icky my boy. Oh, how it pains me to have to slit your throat and pop your lights. Tee, hee!”

“If you are really a part of this
‘Nile-ist fer Annuubnuub’
cult, then how come you still have this ridiculous Scottish accent?”

“Oh, Icky, once ye get started with the silly thing, eet be hard to stops.”

I watches Manlington in his struggles with Eucalyptusti and Sergeant Cleese with Eugacifraugi. Blythe Cleese finds that she too, cannot bear to see her man in combat. When Eugacifraugi turns his back to her, she leaps to it and tries to find his eyes with her Swami claws. Thurston Purrington and Euripides struggle for possession of a knife. Beulah and Eupicitwitides have rolled to their feet and now circle one another, each looking for an opening of attack.

Snikle Liag drops her hooded cloak to reveal her exotic, gold and blue-hued, Egyptian-stylized raiment. With a gleeful laugh she shouts out loud, “Welcome, Elyodnanocruhtraris! Come and take the destined Queen to await her mate!”

The bandaged guy, he holds his hands straight out before him, oblivious of the many fights that rage about him. He is on a collision course with the Plumtartt girl. I thinks this is a not so good, so I gets to my feets and moves in between big stinky and little aristocraty.

“Hey! Big Stinky! Ah-I don’t thinks you gots the invitation to be here tonights, eh-henh? I thinks you just turns rights around-ah before I haves to give a you the boots where you-ah no wants them! You bet!”

“Oof!”

Hey! That guy, he is a plenty strong, I tells you! He just-ah knocked me, Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza, a right-ah backs down on my bountiful backside-ah!

But this allows my little Persephone that I love so much to snatch up one of the many swords that decorate every inch of this nutty place. With a wherewithal I did not know the girl possessed, she advances to her frightening foe. Skillfully ducking a foul embrace she rises to plunge her sword through her opponent’s heart with a powerful stab, I tells you! This strike of Persephone’s, it is very good, but her battle cry of,
‘
at
you!’,
though seemingly effective, needs, in Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza’s eyes, a little work.

Oh, how I am disappointed to see that the great fellow is unaffected by the mortal wound! He does not even register the grievous harm. Rather, he strikes Persephone down in a backhand slash. The giant then kneels and bends to lift his unconscious capture. With a fanfare of meteorological mayhem to announce his victory, Elyodnanocruhtraris squares his broad and bandaged shoulders, and then rises again to turn and leave. The blue-white light of the lightning show illuminates the monster’s black-rimmed eyes, revealing the ancient creature’s evil lamps of unnatural sight.

Eugacifraugi continues to fight Sergeant Cleese, even as Blythe tears at his face. Actually, it is more that she clings to his head because now she is more concerned with her distance from the floor than the actual combat she is caught up in. Eugacifraugi reaches back and throws Mrs. Cleese over his shoulder and into her husband. Dis-enCleesed, he is able to render assistance to Euripides by dumping a suit of armor on top of the Purrington gentleman. Eugacifraugi and Euripides are joined by Eupicitwitides as Beulah abandons her fight to assist Thurston. The trio of Eugacifraugi, Euripides and Eupicitwitides go to Eucalyptusti’s assistance against a very elegantly capable Manlington. The odds prove to be too much for this formidable, even if he is rather flouncy, butler, as one insufferable cad, throws a heavy burglar tool in a blind side attack. The cowardly assault strikes the gentleman’s, gentleman, with a strong blow to the sword arm. These four men are now free to split their efforts in rendering assistance in the three fights that remain.

My little Snic, Snic is magnificent in his abilities against the oafish Euciligucides. It is sad to see the outside intrusion upon the exciting combat in which he so surprisingly excels.

The Ickzi boy, he is hanging onto this red-headed lanky Scotsman with all his ability to hold the dagger points from his face.

The personal secretary is outmatched with his cane versus the sword. When the stick cracks, the butler togged man spins away from Jabez’s death slash, throws table, book and chair at his pursuer until able to draw a large rapier from the wall and just is able to parry a lunge meant to give him the cranial shiskabob. Their swords ring in sliding metal contact, ending in the hilts of the swords clanging together in a solid collision. The two combatants ram heads with the impact but both force their foreheads forward to drive the other back. Though the secretary wears a big, fresh, blue goose egg of a lump on his forehead from his diamond assault a few moments earlier, the gray eyes do not reveal an ounce of pain. A slight rattling of the swords from the tremendous energies being exerted against each other make them both appear to be caught in the grip of St. Vitus’s convulsions, but after a few moments of locked eye contact, the two, by unspoken agreement, shove away from one another. After only a slight hesitation to take each other’s measure, they rejoin the fray. Ringing notes of steel accompany the menacing, metal, musical, melody of murder in a deadly dance of slash and thrust.

I look again where I see something happening with my Snic, Snic. The brute Eupicitwitides has taken up a table and thrown it at my man! It has struck him sideways and I can tell that it has re-injured his old ‘Badminton Knee’.

The eight foot tall bandage wrapped man is headed for the door with an unconscious Persephone Plumtartt in his arms. There is no one to stop him. No! What is this! I cannot believe my eyes! The little page boy, I think is the Spikey, he runs up and begins a furious kicking of the monster’s shins. His soft, velvet, silver buckled little shoes do little to discomfort the monster, but it is a nice gesture I am thinking. He desists when Snikle Liag shoo-shoos him away.

Ickzi has worked his grip a little bit further out on Horbaz’s limbs from the wrist to the hands. With Ickzi’s thumbs to Horbaz’s palms, and fingers to back of hands, he spins into Horbaz’s embrace, still holding the dagger-gripping hands in a stationary position before them. The turn is continued until Ickzi is once again facing Horbaz; Horbaz’s arms have been twisted into a pretzel shape by this time. This encourages Horbaz to release the daggers.

“Eep, eep, eep! Oh, Icky my child, you know Oi was just havin’ you on when I tried to give you an oiye examination with them daggersies.”

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I hate to do this, sir.”

Ickzi gives one more little upward surge in the clutched hands. There is an audible, double
‘pop’
of the wrists as they slip from their proper seating. Ickzi releases the frustrated footman who screams in Scottish anger and falls away. Ickazi immediately dashes with fire blazing from his eyes to rescue Persephone.

“Here I come, Miss Plumtartt! I’ll save you!”

A solid backhand from ragboy throws a big bucket of shutup water on Ickzi’s furnace, dousing his intent. Where before, Ickzi was all excited, now he is sleeping where his mummy has sent him to take a nap.

Horbaz has replaced his grinning and giggling face with the sobby, sobby boo, hoos. He holds his dislocated hands limply before him with his elbows bent and close to his chest like the impotent little arms of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

A hail of scaffold debris from the Gang of Onesies forces the personal secretary to fall back, just as he is gaining an advantage over the incredible skills of the swordsman, Jabez WilloughSickle.

Elyodnanocruhtraris is exiting from the Annex through the hole he created. The druids and their mercenary gang leave in triumph. Jabez is immensely frustrated at leaving his battle with the secretary unfinished, but relents in withdrawing from the battle.

The five members of the unibyker gang all appear more or less intact as they make their way out.

The Egyptian girl, the one who was the cook, Millicent Wallaby, but is now revealed to be High Priestess, Snikle Liag for the
Nile-ist Cult of Annuubnuub
, turns back to the room as she is the last of her party to leave. Her outrageous outfit of short skirt and midriff showing, all with shiny metallic accouterments that highlight her feminine charms in an enticing, and, dare I say it, sexual/sensual contour- enhancing and stylized Egyptian motif, laughs at us in a hurtful and scornful tone. With her feet in a wide, confident stance, she locks her legs and places her hands astride her shapely hips. She stands with her head held high and calls back to our defeated forces:

“We have won! We have it all! We have the Stones! We have the Plumtartt girl! We shall have this World and there is nothing anyone can do to stop us!”

“Ah-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

A heart stopping boom of thunder accompanies a blinding flash of lightning that starkly describes Snikle Liag’s haughty contours in dramatic black and white contrasts.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,-
hahahahahahahahaha!!!
”

I am drenched into instant consciousness.

“Uh, sorry about that Icky, Manlington made me do it.”

I sit up, spitting water from my mouth, blowing it out my nose and blinking the liquid refresher from my eyes.

“Spike,” I ask, attempting to draw the double image I see of the page into focus, “where am I?”

“England, but as to wot’s goin’ on ‘ere, we just been plundered by a steam powered byker gang in the employ of a trio of Egyptian Druids. They had some stinky old linen wrapped backup wot stole away with the Madam, in spite of my selfless and heroic efforts.”

“Thanks, Spike, it’s starting to come back to me now.”

I see three couples scattered about the North Annex, each huddled together on the floor.

Manlington hurries over to me. He has his right arm in a makeshift sling. He still manages to smile and be cutesy pie charming in spite of the calamity of tonight’s events.

“We normally prefer to rouse the residents by playing a flute outside their bedroom door, but under the circumstances, in order to expedite the return of your waking mind, I authorized Spike to fling a pitcher a water into your face. I do so hope this was the appropriate action, sir?”

“Yeah, thanks, I needed that. I see you got a bum wing in that dust up, buddy.”

“Yes, it is but a trifle, I assure you, though I am afraid that it may pre-empt me from further pursuits.”

“Hey, are you okay, Mr. Cleese?” I call over to where I see the crooked, but lovable couple.

The poor fellow is sprawled across the floor, his blond head at rest in his wife’s lap. He is breathing in a peculiar way, as if his mouth is trying to blow bubbles.

“Oh, woah. Oi thinks ‘e’ll be bettuh once ‘e wecovers from this wittle spell,” Blythe Cleese answers on Mr. Cleese’s behalf. “That’s the first bit of fisticuffs Eh-wic’s been a part of since Egypt.”

“How’s Thurston, Mrs. Purrington?”

“Beulah’s got me fixed up right enough,” Mr. Purrington answers, cutting Beulah off and indicating a bandage on his left leg, “but I cannae stand without opening the wound again.”

“Hey! When-ah you gonna check on me, Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza, henh? Just-ah looks at my poor Snic, Snic. He’s-ah laid out with-ah the boo-booed knee, I thinks.”

“Bad show, this blasted knee of mine. Deucedly sorry, old boy. I’m afraid I can neither straighten, nor bend the dratted thing. Nor can I place weight upon it. I am dreadfully sorry, old chap.”

A tall figure moves rapidly into the room through the opening of the ruined glass doors. His intent features brighten when he sees that I am conscious.

“Temperance! You’re all right! Splendid! It appears that you and I are the only forces at hand to effect a rescue. Are you up to it, my good fellow?”

“Yessir. They done made off with Miss Plumtartt, and I ain’t having it.”

“I thought such would be the case. I have been able to track where our quarry has fled this scene. They have traveled straight out upon the moors, on their uncanny conveyances, having first seen to disabling our means of transport, that being the Sforza steamer, and freeing any horses. The steam cycle that you acquired today has been reclaimed by its owner.”

“I was just borrowing it, sir! I was gonna give it back, honest!”

“Of course, my boy. Nevertheless, we are still left without modus transportatus. There is also the tedious business of their outnumbering us.”

“Excuse me, Gentlemen, I think that I may be able to lend assistance on that score.”

Mr. Sforza sits in the embrace of a worried Signora Francesca Angelina Marianna Sforza. He pulls a small cylinder from his pocket. From one end, a circular, finger-pull ring protrudes. Clasping the tube in one hand, and inserting a finger through the ring with the other, he then gives a sharp pull. There is a high speed whirring sound of many tiny gears and a sharp
‘puh-whurp!’
announcing that his little device has successfully functioned.

“Hey! What is this? Is this some sort of festive party gimmickry that you try to lighten our mood with, henh?”

“No, my dear, it is actually a wireless signaling device. It is only a short range model, but my team that I have been suppled with is within the parameters of the requisite distances. Assuming that my team’s receivers picked up the broadcast, their units should have discharged in a similar manner to this device, thus alerting them to my call.”

In just a few short moments, Mr. Sforza’s mysterious ‘team’ bursts into the room from both the terrace and from within the house.

“Hi girls,” I say at the pleasant surprise.

“Agent Snooteepahntz, we heard you instigate ‘Operation OvertLard’. What’s the situation?”

In spite of the flouncy French maid’s outfit, Whimsy BummeTwiddell now wears a very stern expression. It matches the severity of boots she and her sisters have exchanged for their high heels.

“An enemy consisting of five ruffians, two swordsmen, a High Priestess and a supplementary reinforcement in the form of a forty-three hundred year old ghoul.”

“Objective?” queries Deliriah KruncheGrippe from the aloof, Swedish, blonde, alliance.

“Madame Plumtartt has been taken prisoner and is in grave danger of helping to instigate an enormously cataclysmic disaster. We must effect a hostage rescue mission on a hostile target immediately.”

“Location?” asks Nonsense GoodeWoodey on behalf of her pleasingly proportioned red-headed siblings.

“Deep within the impenetrable Great Sucking Death Mire directly behind the Manor,” replies Agent Persnicitus Snooteepahntz. “Which brings on our next dilemma; how to cross such inhospitable terrain as this in the dark and at speed without the aid of the wonderful cycles our foes are equipped with.”

“This is kind of along my lines, y’all. I think if we removed the wheels and axles from the hay wagon, that it would do well as a makeshift sleigh. If we had a powerful means of propulsion, we could make our way across the marshy moorish mire.”

I look to the Purrington couple.

“Thurston and Beaulah,

with your bear so bright.

May I ask if she can,

pull our sleigh, tonight?”

“Can she pull your sleigh?!?” Thurston Purrington’s eyes flare with anger and defense. Challenge leaps from the glaring peepers. His defiantly jutting jaw nearly dislocates itself as it attempts to jut even further than the painfully pushing chin normally endures. Lips are withdrawn over bared teeth. “Why there’s nothing that bear can’t do! Of course she can pull your sleigh! Beulah, see that Winnifred behaves herself and get her hitched up.”

“This blasted fog and darkness will make tracking difficult,” says my London friend with some consternation, “I wish we had some way of knowing their destination and location that we could simply make haste to that position.”

“Ah-h-h-Aye-ee bheih knowin’s their de-e-e-e-e-e-e-vee-ouhsse low-kalle.”

Like some disapproving tribal elder from the Old Testament, Jebidiah BarbarraHaughnne’s frightful figure now graces the smashed doors.

“Tthheh HEE-a-h-h-h-h-h-ghthjiejgnnes, huhwhaughtte khielljghtte meghe broughthierres, hthieyie mahkeie hthierre effgphouwojllje aye-een-khaunne-taiye-shioujnnes ouwnnie meghe dghieaedde broughthierres bghuiighrre.”

“That’s just a little more rustic than I can manage, y’all. Can you help me out, with a translation, Mr. Manlington?”

“Of course, our Mr. Icky. What our landlord has so clearly, even if a touch colloquially, stated is that the individuals we seek are upon the moors. They have murdered the other two BarbarraHaughnne brothers and seized their Great Sucking Death Mire hovel. It is here that the fiends have been up to some occult mischief. If you prefer a more literal translation it transcribes as, ’the heathens, what killed me brothers, they make their foul incantations on me dead brothers’ bier’.”

“Ouwenneijghllieyie Aiye bhieghe aijbhlle tthejgh iffiennjdde aiyette.”

“He indicates that only he would be able to find it.”

“Please sir, they have Miss Plumtartt and they killed your brothers. Will you help us?”

“Aiyyie!”

The GoodeWoodey and BummeTwiddell girls help me out with removing the wheels and axles from the hay wagon. The KruncheGrippe sisters help Beulah to get Winnifred properly harnessed. I snag me a sword, a long one with a fancy designed basket hilt. Loaded revolvers are issued to one and all except Mr. BarbarraHaughnne, as it goes against his grain and beliefs.

“Yoo, hoo! Oh, Uppsey! Please do not go out upon the moors with your head uncovered. Here, you may wear one of Professor Plumtartt’s hats that he favored. It has a brim both fore and aft, and if you need more protection, just untie the little bow on top and the ear flaps can be utilized.”

“Why, thank you, Manlington, I think I prefer the flaps up, but this hat is just the thing I desire right now.”

As the detective flings the deerstalker cap back and onto his head, a brilliant flash of lightning illuminates him in stark silhouette. This momentary image though, is frozen on the retina of my mind, and I know that this is how I will always envision him.

Me, the London detective, and the nine secret agent girls get in the wagon. Jebidiah climbs aboard Winnifred and we’re off across the moors.

“You must agree, Temperance, we do well in our supply of reinforcements.”

“Yessir, the BummeTwiddellers are perky, the GoodWoodeys are at attention, and the KrunchGrippe sisters appear to have things well in hand.”

“Let us try to remain focused on our primary task, Temperance.”

“Yessir.”

Winnifred has gotten a sense of the group’s intensity, and is an exuberant state.

Jebidiah guides the bear of sled-pulling might, through the dark and misty English night, over rocks and bogs and marshes and streams and mires and moors and swamps of bad dreams.

Jebidiah and Winnifred deliver the hay sleigh to a point that we see a bonfire glowing in the thick mists ahead. Loud voices can be heard, even at considerable distance.

“This shall do nicely, Mr. Barbarra Haughnne,” says the investigator extraordinaire. “Please keep Winnifred prepared to assist us should we require a hasty withdrawal.”

“Aiyyie.”

“Let us make a covert approach. I feel safe that the element of surprise is ours.”

As we get closer, the conversations of our target audience becomes more clear.

“Hey, Horbaz, when are we gonna getz that dough?” Eupicitwitides’ nasal whine is easy to identify. “Oi been spendin’ dat wansom money in moi dweams fo’ weeks.”

“This is a funny kind o’ kidnappin’ innit?” Euciligucides quacks. “When we gonna demands a wansom? And wuz-zup wit putting the hostage in dem funny wobes? The Estate moight thinks we soiled the merchandise before concluding our twansaction.”

“Shut up!” snaps Snikle Liag, whom has added a flamboyant and flowing Egyptian headdress to her alluring outfit. “Can’t you see we are about to accomplish something so much more grand than a simple kidnapping and ransom?”

“Ee-yew hired the Gang of Ones to kidnap this Plumtartt wench wotz you ‘ave fitted out in a clingy white gown with Egyptian hoiloights and gold braiding wot shows off ‘er charms most pleasingly,” Euripides admiringly considers. “Yew pwomised us ah bonus if we helped yew snag them pretty sparklies, too. The Gang of Ones have fulfilled their obligations and then some! Pays up, guhlie.”

“You bungled the operation twice, you imbecile! If I had not brought our High Priest, Elyodnanocruhtraris, there would have been a third failure again tonight!”

“Come on, Jabez, can’t yew dew something wit dis wittle skuht?” pweads, er, pleads Eugacifraugi.

“Shut up and do as you’re told.” orders the younger WilloughSickle, “You’ll get your money. Oi’m busy at the moment.”

“Oh! Woah! Woah! Be careful, Jabez! Oh, me poor wists. Oh, woah, woah. Oh, ‘ow Oi wish Oi could slide about a foot o’ steel through that little Ichapoop Tempywenche’s ‘eart. Oh, woah, woah, looks ‘ow ‘e ‘as cruelly broken me poor, poor wists. Oh, woah, woah.”

“Actually, Horbaz, Oi thinks Oi can fix those, for you.”

Jabez WilloughSickle quickly reaches out and grabs the two hands that hang limply from where I had earlier disassembled them from their more natural positioning.

“Oh! Woah! Woah!”

Jabez gives a sharp pull on Horbaz’s hands. Even at a distance of several yards, there is another audible double
‘pop’.

“Oh-h-h-h! Woah! Woah! Woah-ah-h-h, hey! Ye fixed me, Jabez, me boy! Tee, hee! I am whole again! Tee, hee, hee!”

“You lot quit resting your butts on that Cube!” Jabez is now taking on more of a leadership role, it seems. “This is no game. Stay well back from the coming phenomenon, as things could get dicey.”

Snikle Liag brings forth a canvas sack. Four unbelievable stones are inserted into particular settings carved into the flattened, black cube. Each placement is crafted to accept each gem’s particular cut and dimension.

Upon insertion of the gigantic diamond, a crackling of strange energies snaps about the pedestal. Simultaneously, lightning flashes into life in the sky all around us. The storm has decided to return her fury down upon Crimpenmestylenshire once more tonight. In a complete horizon encirclement, lightning strikes sink their straws of unquenchable desire into the Earth to suck forth and slake their thirst for complete destruction.