Vinnie De Soth and the Invisible Friends
Previous stories at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom
Character descriptions in Who's Who in the Parodyverse
 Samantha Featherstone fixed Vinnie de Soth with a penetrating glare and folded her arms. "Okay, confess," she demanded.
Vinnie stopped short as Magweed and Griffin halted when their friend did. "Confess?" he repeated guiltily.
Sam nodded.
Magweed looked at the acting sorcerer supreme carefully. "His heart is pure," she admitted, using one of her fairy godmother's gifts to sense people's true nature, "but he's feeling awfully guilty."
"About Liu Xi Xian, I bet," Griffin speculated. "Because he's not been practicing his dancing."
Vinnie blinked in confusion. "My dancing?"
"I kind of overheard Flapjack and Amber talking. You've been practicing the horizontal mambo with Liu Xi, he said."
The young occultist-for-hire swallowed hard. "No, no that's not it. Really. No."
The dishevelled young acting sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse stood uncomfortably on the corner of Busiek and Stern Streets with Visionary's twin children and their friend, Sir Mumphrey Wilton's hand-daughter. It was a cold morning so Magweed sported a bobble cap and thick mittens and a parka that disguised the malformed limbs that made her self-conscious. Her brother was shivering having refused to wear a jacked because 'Griffins don't get cold'. Sam Featherstone wore a long dark coat that billowed out behind her.
"So there is something else," Samantha persisted. "You didn't just happen by at exactly the right moment that Vizh had to go bail out Kerry and Danny. It wasn't just good luck that you were passing and could offer to take us to the zoo. This isn't even the way to the zoo."
Vinnie blushed. "Well..." he shrugged. "It's a way to the zoo. A kind of roundabout way."
"He needs our help," Magweed surmised. "Only he doesn't feel good about asking us."
"Not... well, if you did feel you wanted to be..." Vinnie stammered. "I mean, there's probably no danger. Not serious danger. And it's important or I wouldn't be taking the risk."
"So we are at risk," Sam noted.
"The risk's that when your father finds out where I took you he'll have Donar snap me in pieces," Vinnie clarified.
"Dad wouldn't do that," Griffin assured the nervous occultist. "Not before mom got her tent-sisters to carve you up with honour blades."
"Or Hallie-mom could do that zappy thing with the fireworks," suggested Magweed happily. "That always looks so pretty. From a distance."
"Yeah, maybe this was a dumb idea," Vinnie reconsidered. "I think there's a bus stop down that way where we can get to the zoo."
"Maybe you should tell us what your problem is," Samantha Featherstone countered. "That way we can evaluate the risks and decide whether it's a good idea to help you or not. Your dossier suggests that you generally work towards benevolent ends."
"The Lair Legion has a dossier on me?"
"I was talking about my dossier," Sam clarified. "The LL's bound to have one too, of course."
Magweed patted the worried occultist on the sleeve. "Don't worry, Vinnie. Tell us what's wrong and we'll figure out a way to help." She turned and spoke to the mice lurking in the shadows. "And none of you are to tell, either," she warned them.
"Um..." Vinnie frowned.
"Mouse guard," Griffin explained; or didn't.
"Right. Well. The thing is, I have a shop. Well, it's not my shop, it's Alto Tumour's shop really, but I have a desk and most of a chair and I'm working on a filing cabinet next. And people come to my, to Alto's shop if they have weird problems and they ask me to help them."
"You're an occultist for hire and alternate lifestyle specialist," Sam advised him. "An outcast scion of the ancient De Soth wizarding family, you eschewed your substantial allowance and set up an online tarot reading business in..."
"Sam, he knows who he is," Griffin pointed out. Sometimes Samantha allowed her researches to get the better of her.
"Go on, Vinnie," Magweed encouraged.
"Okay. So most of the people I get just want their fortunes told or their auras cleansed or whatever. A few are kooks. A very few really need my serious help, with possessions or hauntings or curses or things like that. Um, some even pay me after I've helped them."
"Some?" challenged Sam.
Vinnie shrugged helplessly. "I've not yet really mastered invoicing," he admitted. "Besides, you can't re-curse them if they don't pay up. Well, I guess you could. And you could arrange repossession. But not me. Anyway, the point is that sometimes people come for help. But usually those people are adults."
"But one wasn't?" Magweed guessed.
"One wasn't. Yesterday I had a visit from this kid called Timmy. It was a bit of a shock, because Timmy's nine. Alto only let him into the store because he thought he was a dwarf. Or maybe a hobbit. Timmy had slipped away from his mom and come all the way into the seedy part of GMY to find me and get my help."
"How did Timmy know where to find you?" wondered Griffin.
"I'm in the Yellow Pages. But as it happened, this time Timmy heard about me from his invisible friend."
"Timmy has an invisible friend," Samantha noted.
"I was Mags invisible friend for years and years," Griffin pointed out. "Before I found out I was real. And trapped in human form."
"But we know you're a Griffin inside, Griff," Magweed encouraged her twin brother.
"Around thirty percent of children experience or claim to experience an invisible childhood companion," Sam reported. "In a statistically improbable number of cases these companions have repetitive names like Dab-Dab or Hob-Hob. A moderate percentage of invisible companions appear as animals, toys, or other nonhuman forms."
"Er, yes," agreed Vinnie. Samantha disconcerted him. Since her parents murder she often seemed like a grown up in an early-teens body; a scary grown up. "Well, Timmy has an invisible friend. Kweeg-Kweeg, as it happens."
"You saw him?" Magweed asked.
"You can't see invisible friends," Griffin chided his sister. "That's the whole point of them. Unless they turn out to be your twin brother who got magically attacked in mom's womb, of course. Then it's okay."
Vinnie glanced longingly at the bus stop to the zoo.
Sam brought the conversation on. "So Timmy's imaginary companion brought him across town to your office," she prompted. "Why do you need us?"
Vinnie turned a street corner and pointed up to a brownstone apartment. "Timmy lives up there, with his mother and his little sister Tammy."
"Timmy and Tammy?" Griffin asked. "Really?"
"Tammy has an invisible friend too," Vinnie explained. "But Kweeg-Kweeg is frightened of him."
Samantha held her hand up. "Hold on. You brought us here because some child's made-up friend is frightened of his sister's other made-up friend?"
"Well, if Kweeg-Kweeg's getting bullied that's not nice," Magweed pointed out. "Nobody should be bullied."
"As a matter of fact I was a little concerned by what I heard from Timmy before social services burst in to Alto's shop," Vinnie admitted. "Bothered enough to take a closer at look, anyway. There's just one problem."
"Did you get hit with a restraining order like Flapjack?" Griffin wondered. "Do you have enough to wallpaper your room too?"
"I'm an adult occultist," Vinnie explained. "I can usually see ghosts and things but only a child could see an invisible friend."
***
"Hi," Vinnie said brightly to the Dawson family babysitter. "I'm, um, we're..."
"Never mind geek-pop," Samantha Featherstone stepped in, nudging the young occultist out of the way and flashing her best smile at the sitter. "He's just taxi-ing us over to play with our friends Timmy and Tammy."
"I am?" Vinnie asked, "er, I mean, I am."
The sitter looked uncertainly at the motley crew of children assembled around the apartment door. "Mrs Timson didn't say anything about this."
"She didn't?" Griffin gasped. "But... it was a promise!"
Magweed began to sniff.
"I mean, I don't know you," the young babysitter said uncomfortably.
"Statistically speaking, relatively few axe murderers take three children along as accomplices," Sam assured her. "There was that one case in Kentucky back in '75..."
"I need the bathroom," Griffin announced loudly. "Real bad."
"Waaaghhh!" said Magweed.
"They're... really nice kids when you get to know them," Vinnie offered. "Apparently."
""Well..." wavered Jessie Dennison, but just then Magweek shrieked and pointed past the door into the hall beyond. "Eeek! A rat!"
Jessie turned round and screamed as she spotted Magweed's mouse guard scurrying along the hallway.
"Don't worry, I'll deal with it," promised Vinnie. He took the opportunity to stride past the girl into the apartment and began to hunt for rodent invaders.
"My money would be on the mouse guard," muttered Griffin as the children swarmed after him.
"We'll just let ourselves in to see Timmy and Tammy, shall we?" Samantha asked brightly. "Where are they?"
"Timmy's watching TV in there and Tammy's in her bedroom," Griffin answered too promptly after his invisible intangible scouting trip earlier.
"TV it is then," Sam covered, dragging the twins through the indicated door.
"I'll just stay here and check for, um, vermin," Vinnie told them.
"You might want to stand on a chair for safety, miss," Griffin told the sitter. "In case of, you know, rabies."
"My Mouse Guard do not have..." began Magweed indignantly before her friends bundled her into the living room.
Timmy looked worriedly at the children invading his home.
"It's okay," Magweed assured him. "We're here to help Kweeg-Kweeg. I'm Maggie, princess of Faerie. This is my brother who is secretly a griffin - that's a noble creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. He's a bit morphically challenged right now though. And this is Sam, who intends to become the world's greatest crimefighting detective in about seven years time."
"Hi," said Tim. People instinctively trusted Magweed.
"Is Kweeg-Kweeg about?" Griffin went on. "It's probably best that we hear about the problem from him."
Sam opened her mouth to protest that the main thing about imaginary friends was that they were imaginary, but Magweed pointed and said, "There he is."
Tim nodded but Griffin and Samantha couldn't see anything. "Er..." Sam said.
"Right there," Magweed insisted. "Griff, go secret. Then you'll see him."
Griffin stopped concentrating on keeping himself solid and visible and melted from sight. "Oh, right," he agreed. "Yep, there he is alright."
"He's what?" demanded Sam Featherstone. "What do you mean he's there?"
"Right there in the corner," pointed Griffin, flipping back into visibility. "I can only see him when I'm phased - when I'm not real, I guess." He flickered out again then reappeared. "I guess Kweeg-Kweeg's not very PC though."
"What are you saying about Kweeg-Kweeg?" Tim asked protectively.
"Well, these days golliwogs aren't really allowed, are they?"
"I'm sure nobody's told Kweeg-Kweeg that," intervened Magweed majestically. "How do you do, Kweeg-Kweeg. Lovely to meet you."
"So everybody can see the imaginary golly but me," Samantha sighed. "Wonderful."
"Kweeg-Kweeg says that's not your fault," Magweed comforted her friend. "You've had a hard life. It's made you grow up too fast."
Before Sam could respond to that Griffin phased in for a moment to shush her to silence. "Kweeg-Kweeg's telling us about RumTum. He doesn't sound nice."
Samantha sighed. "Fine, you interview the imaginary stuffed doll and I'll go find Tammy. Let me know if he says anything that couldn't come straight out of Timmy's head."
She slipped out of the room leaving Magweed (and presumably the invisible Griffin) chatting with Timmy and Kweeg-Kweeg. In the kitchen Vinnie was trying to coax a nearly hysterical babysitter off the table.
"I really don't think rats run up girls skirts these days, Ms Dennison. Not since Victorian times when they were much longer. The skirts, not the rats. No, don't take your skirt off!"
Sam slipped into Tammy's room. "Hi. I'm Samantha. Can I come in?"
***
"RumTum is mean," Timmy warned Magweed and Griffin. "He bullies Kweeg-Kweeg all the time. I'm scared that Kweeg-Kweeg will run away from home."
"Why is RumTum horrid to you, Kweeg-Kweeg?" Magweed asked.
The golliwog was naturally shy. He wasn't used to an audience of more than one. He was especially wary of such a large eagle-headed lion.
"You can tell them, Kweeg-Kweeg," Tim encouraged. "They're nice."
"And my mouse guard can't keep scaring that babysitter forever," Magweed warned. "We should really have brought along Aunt Lisa's cat."
"Daddy said that was banned under the Geneva Convention," Griffin reminded her. "So what's the problem with RumTum, KK?"
"RumTum isn't nice," Kweeg-Kweeg finally confided. "When I tried to tell him to stop what he was saying he chased me. With his snippers."
"Kweeg-Kweeg has snippers?" Griffin sounded slightly worried.
"What was he saying?" Magweed asked.
"He tells Tammy to do bad things," Tim explained, "like put drawing pins on chairs or spill paint over my drawings. Then she says its an accident - but it's RumTum."
"He's bad for the little girl," Kweeg-Kweeg answered. "He does encourage her to be nasty, but... lately he's been telling her to stick the pins into herself."
"Eew," said Griffin.
"Has he now," said Magweed, flatly.
"And to steal a box of matches," Kweeg-Kweeg went on, his voice lowered in case RumTum might hear him. "RumTum likes fires."
"He threatened to set fire to Kweeg-Kweeg!" Tim blurted.
"And lately..." whispered the golliwog, "lately he's been trying to get Tammy to go visit with him."
"Visit him where?" asked Magweed.
"Where he lives. Down the drains. Tammy's supposed to go down one of those manhole covers you see and go find him."
"We think that's where Mobbily went," Timmy added. "Mobbily was Tammy's secret friend before RumTum. We think RumTum took her down into the drains."
"Mags, I'm starting to really not like this," Griffin said.
"Griff, I think we have to do something," answered his sister.
***
Sam knocked on the door of Tammy's room then walked straight in. "Hi. I'm with the imaginary pests police and I'm investigating a charge of bad behaviour by a frontal lobal anomaly of yours, so just co-operate and we can..."
She paused as she realised that the room was empty.
The teen detective frowned. "Right. Of course. Favourite coat missing from its hook. Wardrobe opened to take out Wellington boots, leaving scatter of socks on floor. Furtive packing of secret chocolate stash from under bed as for a long journey. Problem finding matched gloves so picked unmatched ones. Tammy's sneaked off and gone walkabout."
She did a quick check of the drawers and cupboards. She closed them quickly.
Torn open stuffed toys and disfigured dolls are unpleasant even for the most mature fourteen year old to find. These had been torn apart with malice.
"Mr De Soth!" she called down the hallway. "We have a problem!"
***
"I'm so going to buy that when I get paid!", Jessie Dennison announced, admiring a patch of lichen on the sewer wall.
Timmy was confused. "Why would she want to buy a wad of goo?"
"She's not seeing a wad of goo," Magweed explained to the youngster. "She was hardly about to let you come with us on a hunt through the sewers to look for Tammie and RumTum, so Vinnie had to make her think she was taking you out to the shopping mall."
"But I wouldn't be seen dead in that," the englamoured girl sneered at a cracked downfall pipe.
"So that's why she offered to buy us ice creams," Timmy realised.
"Just so long as she's happy," Griffin said. He kept flickering from visibility and substantiality to check with Kweeg Kweeg for directions. "That way now, under that dripping arch."
"We need to be careful," warned Samantha. "We don't have a full briefing on this psychic predator entity and that makes it hard to plan a counteroffensive."
"Plus it's a bit difficult for me to fight something I can't perceive," admitted Vinnie. Cold sewer water dripped down the back of his neck.
"Why would RumTum want to bring Tammie down here anyway?" Timmy worried. "Miss Mobbily never came back. Kweeg Kweeg is very scared."
"RumTum's being very naughty indeed," Magweed said firmly. "We shall deal with him."
There was a squealing from the tunnel ahead as the Mouse Guard cleared out the common sewer rats.
"What's that smell?" asked Griffin, anxiously.
"The sewer, maybe?" Sam suggested sensibly.
"No, worse than that. That rotting stench."
"I can't smell anything worse than sewer," Vinnie De Soth admitted. "If there is anything worse than sewer."
Maggie shook her head and sniffed. "He means that smell like sour tears. Like mouldy sawdust and mildewed rags dipped in coagulated blood."
Vinnie turned to the children. "Just what kind of upbringing did you two have?" he worried.
Griffin was more concerned about the present. "I can only smell it when I'm secret," he reported. "I think it's from that world, not this one."
Samantha kicked away a pile of debris from one side of the tunnel. "There's a grate here. Someone tried to hide it."
Maggie peered inside and shied back with a gasp Vinnie couldn't see anything.
"What is it?" the occultist asked.
Griffin phased back to solidity and visibility. "It's what happened to Mobbily, I think. And lots of other imaginary friends, by the looks of it. There are... parts of them there. The bits that are left."
"The bits that RumTum didn't eat," Magweed shuddered.
"So now we're hunting a serial killer cannibal imaginary kidnapper," sighed Samantha.
Vinnie scowled. "I think it's time I took you kids home now. It's turning out a lot heavier than I expected. I'll come back later and deal with this."
"Except that RumTum must know that Timmy's called for help," Magweed reasoned. "I mean, why else make Tammy come to the sewers just as we're coming to investigate?"
"Do you think we've got time to stop and pick up a cheeseburger?" the babysitter wondered. "Scott Levis is working the counter now and he so wants me."
Samantha checked the grill across the concealed entrance. "An imaginary friend could get this way, I guess, but Tammy couldn't. Mags, can you ask the Mouse Guard to go through the bars and see where it leads, and if there's another way in?"
Magweed assented. The brave rodents vanished into the mire.
"I could go with them," offered Griffin.
"No," said Vinnie sharply. "If you can see RumTum then he could see you. Maybe hurt you too."
"Griffins aren't afraid of imaginary friends."
"I'm not convinced that RumTum's an imaginary friend. Or at least not anymore. He's become something altogether darker and nastier now."
"Everything has its natural predator," Sam considered. "Even things that don't exist, I guess. This is the Parodyverse."
"But how can we stop him then?" wondered Griffin. "If I had my proper claws and beak I bet I could deal with RumTum."
Vinnie thought hard. "I think we need something better than claws and teeth, actually. Something far deadlier."
"OMG! What does she think she's wearing!" exclaimed the babysitter. "I just have to text everyone I know!"
"What sort of something?" Magweed wondered.
"Oh," smiled Vinnie suddenly, "I've got an idea."
***
The Mouse Guard came scampering down the tunnel, racing frantically, terrified, and cowered behind Magweed.
"Down that way, then," Samantha concluded. "Come on."
"They say there's a metal door, bolted on the other side," Magweed reported. "Tammie's in there, trapped, terrified."
"I don't understand why RumTum would lure Tammy down here," Sam puzzled. "It doesn't fit his M.O. She's not an imaginary friend."
"But she can imagine them," Timmy suggested. "Maybe RumTum wants more to eat."
Vinnie frowned. "RumTum's taking up battery farming."
They approached the door the Mouse Guard had discovered. It was a rust-stained service entrance to a forgotten pumping room. "I can get the door open," Griffin said. He blinked out and a moment later a metallic thunk from the other side of the hatch indicated that he'd unlocked it.
"I guess there's time to go for a movie," said Jessie uncertainly, still in her own private world. "As long as it's not got Jim Carrey in it."
"Yes, I'm sorry about this, Miss Dennison," Vinnie told the enchanted babysitter. "I'm afraid I'm going to need your help to solve all this. And Maggie of course."
"Me?" Magweed asked, interested.
"Sure. You're a fairy queen in waiting, right? And you've had godmothers?"
"Lots of them. Really cool ones."
"So you know how fairies can give blessings to deserving young girls to help them on their path?"
Magweed nodded. "Although straying off the path into the wild woods is where it starts to get interesting," she admitted.
"Providing you bring GPS," interjected Sam. "And a hunting rifle."
Vinnie fumbled in his pockets and brought out a silver-foil wrapped object with writing on the side. "Well, I'd like you to give Jessie this, please. As a fairy gift."
Samantha looked at the object. "Do fairies usually hand out condoms?" she checked.
"It's not a condom. It's a spell. Vacuum-wrapped for freshness. It's a glamour actually, from the Baba Yaga Cosmetics Range, as sold in all good boutiques across the Mythlands. This one's called Lady of Perfectgaard. Or colloquially as an Arkenweald Tickler. Don't ask."
"And it's not a condom?"
"They don't have condoms in the Mythlands. They have grandparents."
Timmy looked anxiously at the metal door. "Kweeg Kweeg says that Griffin's been on the other side an awfully long time," he reported.
Magweed realised that her brother had been gone for too long. "He has!" she gasped. She rushed to the door. "Quick, help me! Griff!"
Samantha kicked the door open and drop-rolled into the pump room.
Something slammed her hard into the wall.
"He's over there!" Magweed pointed, gesturing frantically to the machinery where little Tammy was trapped with her dress caught between great gear-cogs. "RumTum's got him!"
"Quick then!" Vinnie called. "The blessing!"
"But Griff...!"
"The blessing! It's the only way!"
Magweed frantically tore the silver foil open and hurled the blessing at Jessie. "Fine. Blessed be! And be home by midnight!"
Sparkles of light flickered round the confused babysitter. Suddenly she was taller and a lot bustier and her skin had an emerald hue much richer and deeper than the greenish cast of Magweed and Griffin. He hair hung in lustrous dark curls and her only clothing was gold chains and gauze veils.
"Mom?" puzzled Magweed.
"An illusion of her," Samantha guessed. "After all, she did spend some time as the Lady of Perfectgaard in the Mythlands. With, um, with Captain Arkenweald. This must be one of the Baba's bestselling lines."
Griffin appeared, dangling in midair as if suspended by his neck. Then he was dropped to the ground.
"What's RumTum doing now?" Vinnie asked urgently.
"Kweeg Kweeg says he's just standing and staring at Jessie," Timmy reported. "With his tongue out."
"Yes, that'd be the glamour," agreed Vinnie. "But the question is whether the little twist I added does the trick."
With a pop, a foul-shaped toadlike humanoid blinked into sight, looking like Gollum after a motor accident.
"That's RumTum?" asked Samantha. "Eew."
"That's how he is now," Magweed recognised. "Why is he changing? He's spouting hairs everywhere."
"That happens when boys start to notice girls," Vinnie smirked. "That's why we needed Jessie to be very noticeable. RumTum is growing up, which means RumTum can't see KweegKweeg and his kind any more."
"Wait, he's visible to me?" Samantha declared. "That mean's he's touchable?" She experimentally leaped at the imaginary fiend and scissor-kicked him in the head. "Yep, touchable. This'll be good."
"Watch out for his snippers!" warned Timmy.
Griffin pulled himself up and went to Tammy's rescue. "It's okay now. My friend's going to beat RumTum to a pulp. She practices this stuff all the time."
RumTum shouted obscenities at Sam and slashed at her with his razor-hands.
The Mouse Guard went for his face.
"And so to the banishment spell," Vinnie observed. "Easy now he's grown up and I can see him. He won't be able to see or touch - or eat - invisible friends ever again, so this is a kindness really."
"That creepy guy is totally checking me out," said Jessie, staring vaguely over to where the battle raged.
Vinnie opened another silver foil sachet, found out that one was for Liu Xi later, then activated the right banishment. RumTum shattered like glass and vanished.
"There," said the jobbing occultist. "Yet more proof that the female of the species is deadlier than the male, and the all our problems are only beginning at puberty."
"I want to go home!" sniffled Tammy as Griffin handed her to her brother.
"I want a shower," added Samantha.
"I want a new pair of shoes," said Jessie.
"And some clothing," observed Vinnie. "She's going to be really popular until midnight."
Magweed peered around the chamber. "We can't go yet. There's something else we have to do."
Griffin flickered out to check what his sister was pointing at, then reappeared. "You think that's possible, Mags?"
The fairy princess-in-waiting nodded her head determinedly. "There's plenty of parts around and it's not nice to just leave them to fade. And Tammy needs Miss Mobbily more than ever right now. We can rebuild him. We have the magery."
***
"So as far as anybody asks, we had a nice afternoon at the zoo, feeding the penguins," Vinnie reiterated nervously. "Especially if anybody asks who happens to have an enchanted baseball bat-wit-a-nail-in-it or houri daggers or electro-shock zapper technology, yes? Or Liu Xi."
"But of course," agreed Samantha. "It's always good to have the acting sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse owe one a big favour, isn't it?" And she smiled scarily.
***
Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2011 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2011 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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