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Nats
Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 08:29:01 pm EDT
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League of Improbable Gentlemen Chronicles #13; Act Four: Bumps in the Night
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The League of Improbable Gentlemen and the Mystery of the Walkabout Werewolves
Act Four: Bumps in the Night

Professor Phineas Quimby was renowned, or at least nowned, for his work in the many sciences. However, his proudest achievement was his personal discovery of a material known as Improbable Aether. This material could be used in many devices crafted by the so-called EccentricEtherInvestigatorInventor!, as the professor was sometimes known. In fact, he had an idea that he was working on in the back of his mind for some kind of time machine, which would be useful for research with his partner Fogherty, who wasn’t really a man but a woman, but no one knew that, and frankly it has no purpose in this narrative other than because I wanted to drop a mention of Fogherty in there. Oops, broke the fourth wall again. Where’d I put that plaster…?
The Professor was not necessarily one for fisticuffs or general mêlée-filled mayhem, rather preferring to think his way out of a nasty predicament, or possibly invent something to help him, much like his successor a century later, name of MacGyver, would. In fact, the several-times-nowned scientist and technologician had brought along a useful new device he’d crafted himself in his laboratory a few days earlier. If he’d gotten the chance to deliver exposition about it, he would have explained that it was an invention that launched a sticky and tensile projectile that enwrapped its target in an unbreakable grip of neon-colored wires that would dissolve an hour or two later. The Professor had dubbed it “silly string” and wanted to test it in the field. Unfortunately, it was very hard to fire at an opponent when said opponent, which happened to be a large and ferocious werewolf, was standing over him at such close range, and looking for a meal.
“To the spirits below that whisper in the shadows, uh… I beseech thee for thine power which… wait, no. I beseech thine will below to… dammit!” cursed Hagatha Darkness. “How did that spell go again?”
“You should probably do something,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told Dr. Hakenfakir.
“I’m working on that at the moment,” Dr. Hakenfakir told Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “You do something.”
“Well, I could recall a time when you and I were battling a supernatural threat. Remember that one autumn a few years ago when that fearsome djinn was released from--”
“The Chronometer, Mumphrey!” Hakenfakir shouted. “Use the bloody pocket watch!”
“Mmmph,” groaned Knifey, buried hilt-deep in the dirt, and also pinning Colonel Blanchford Bertram’s trousers to the ground.
“Silly old fool,” Bertram said to himself. “Forgetting…the rules of the game… Urf!”
“Finally!” breathed Knifey with relief, even though he was a knife, and therefore did not actually breathe. “It was getting a bit stuffy down there.”
“Right,” said Blanchford Bertram. “Now to leap back into the action! Er…when I can get up, that is.”
“No, but remember?” asked Mumphrey. “I think Admiral Pudu was there. Nice fellow, he was. Him and that Diller chap. Too bad about the horrible soufflé accident, though.”
Professor Quimby, by now, was getting a bit worried if his companions would get around to helping him, so he did the next best thing and helped himself. Certainly, the werewolf was too close for Quimby to fire off his new device, but the werewolf was plenty close enough to forego the technical aspects of the invention and smack him upside the head with it, which is what the Professor did. It succeeded in getting the werewolf away from him, at least for a moment.
“…shadows in darkness, move into the light, and… Oh, forget it,” growled Hagatha. “You there! Yes, you, the hairy one!”
“What?” asked Blanchford, struggling to get back up.
“Not you, the werewolf,” Miss Darkness said. “Depulso!”
A magic wave of psychic force pushed the werewolf several feet backwards. It snarled and hurried to its feet again, now running on all fours, barreling towards the witch.
“I think not,” said Sir Mumphrey, utilizing his Chronometer at last. The werewolf suddenly found itself moving in very slow motion, which gave Hagatha ample time to get out of its way. Then Mumphrey, being the dashing young hero of the era that he was, leaped onto the wolf’s back, and ran his cosmic pocket watch’s gold chain in the beast’s mouth, to corral it. However, now that the monster was no longer moving in slow motion, it threw Mumphrey about before he finally fell free and landed with much fanfare on Dr. Hakenfakir.
The EccentricEtherInvestigatorInventor! tried to line up his shot, but he had to be careful, as he only had a few rounds of his silly string projectile handy and he wasn’t much of a marksman. Unfortunately, Blanchford Bertram had managed to finally stand and tried to grapple with the monster, which obscured the professor’s shot even more. “Blanchford!” he shouted. “Get out of the--”
It was too late, however, as the werewolf tackled Bertram to the ground. It could have killed him, but luckily for the old colonel he had Knifey on him. The blade slid into the werewolf’s heart, and, as Knifey assumed the properties of silver, killed the beast.
“Would someone mind getting this thing off me?” Bertram asked. “I seem to be pinned.”
“Mmmph,” said Knifey from within the beast’s chest.
Mumphrey helped slide the wolf’s corpse off of the old game hunter and helped him to his feet. Blanchford dislodged Knifey and placed him back in his sheath. “Damn shame,” said the colonel. “Didn’t want to kill the poor bugger.”
“Isn’t he going to revert back to human form?” asked Dr. Hakenfakir.
“Not this species,” said Hagatha. “Most of them do, however. This kind’s different.”
“And now we might never find out where they were going,” said Professor Quimby. “And I think Mr. Avis is going to be upset that we killed off one of his workers.”
“Frankly I don’t care what that little toad wants,” Hagatha said, “but the loss of life here is something to regret.”
“Still,” Bertram stated, “we’re close to the ridges by the sea. I think they might have been heading towards some of the caves there. Phineas, can your invention capture them like you said?”
“Yes, and it would’ve caught this one too if you hadn’t jumped into the fray,” said Quimby.
“Just doing my job,” Bertram told him. “Couldn’t be helped, unfortunately. Now, let’s--”
Dr. Hakenfakir interrupted him suddenly, gesturing to the trees around them. “Look,” he said. “Here they come.”
“Oh,” said Mumphrey, “dear.”
Several large and ferocious creatures were appearing out of the shadows now. There were two werewolves, a few werelions, two werebears, a weremoose, and a werepudu.
“See?” Sir Mumphrey pointed out. “Weredeer. I told you. You know, this is just like that time I was on expedition with the Bookman triplets, God rest their souls… Except then we were surrounded by vengeful Indian spirits, and not ferocious beasts. Still gave the oiks some right thrashing, though.”
The werewolves were the first to charge forward, as the werelions stalked in a circular pattern. The other creatures just seemed to stand there and watch. Professor Quimby fired off one of his silly string projectiles, and it wrapped around a werewolf, who tumbled to the ground, unable to move several of its limbs. He aimed again for the other wolf, but Hagatha intervened.
“Subsisto!” she shouted. “Stop! Do not attack me or these men. We are not here to play your foolish games or fight your foolish battles. Cease your actions. You do *not* want to mess with me or get in my way. Understood?”
Surprisingly to the men, and unsurprisingly to Hagatha herself, the monsters backed off and sank back into the shadows. She was obviously a force to be reckoned with. The captured werewolf, however, could not escape or slink back into the shadows. It struggled futilely to get free, but to no avail. Dr. Hakenfakir crouched in front of the beast and waved his Psychostave in a circular motion.
“Listen to me,” he said calmly. “You will not attack us, but rather, you will lead us to the place you were going to. You are being drawn somewhere, and we wish to follow you. You will take us there. Do you understand?” The good doctor was an expert hypnotist, and his staff only amplified his abilities. The werewolf let out a small whimper in reply.
Dr. Hakenfakir stood. “Blanchford? Cut him loose.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” asked Knifey.
“Trust me,” the doctor said. Bertram followed his instruction and used Knifey to cut the werewolf free from his bonds. Then the wolf turned from the group and headed toward the sea. The League of Improbable Gentlemen followed. As Colonel Bertram had surmised, the beasts did indeed head toward one of the caves on the ridge. An eerie orange glow was coming from the mouth of the cave, yet the League headed inside.
What they found inside surprised them. Many were-creatures were gathered about, seemingly in worship, of the figures at the back of the cave. There were odd carvings in the cave wall, but what surprised the League the most were the figures examining it. There was a small man-like creature that seemed to be on a chained leash. The figure that held the end of the leash was dressed in blood-red robes, and Sir Mumphrey recognized him immediately.
“Samhain,” he snarled. “The Destroyer of Tales.”

To be continued one last time…to be concluded, even, in our next act…!





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