The Jekyll Legacy by Jaye Michael & Levanah Greene Chapter Ten Agley Again

Victorian alchemy meets modern science and magic.
What could possibly go wrong?

 

’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world .

 — William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1603, 1604, 1623)

 

“Nice costume, lady.”

The shout came from a passing car and this time, Herbert simply ignored it as she and her wife Emily trotted up one block and down and other searching for the missing wizard. To save time, they’d split up, taking every other block, close enough that they could hear if the other raised a shout, and not terribly worried about anyone accosting them, because, despite the innocuous appearance they presented to the world, they had the weight ond power of a squad of beefy Marines. Of course, she hadn’t realized that as a woman alone at night she’d be the target of many offers to ‘help,’ or ‘go out’ some time, whether those offering had actual help or social engagement in mind or something more earthy. She’d been routinely ignoring the date requests, but for the previous baker’s dozen of critiques of her costume, her breasts, and her face, she’d been vacillating between polite ‘No, thank you’s’ irritated ‘Buzz off’s.’ Initially, she’d tried “Thank you, but no” only to find that the most persistent suitors had been the ones she’d been polite to initially.

Then, she’d tried to brush them off with an immediate “Don’t bother. I’m not interested.” Unfortunately, there seemed to be some folks who took her attempts to brush them off as a personal challenge, showing remarkable persistence until finally convinced she meant it, all of which took time away fromm her search.

Next, she’d tried getting ugly and rude from the start. This helped a bit, as most potential suitors backed off, but few of the men took her antipathy as a personal challenge, and followed her down the street with escalating insistence, usually culminating in snarled insults, and in one case a vulgar threat, which was doing little to soothe her fraying temper.

On several occasions, Emily tried to offer suggestions by cellphone, but Herbert would listen intently as usual, then insist that there was little he expected from this world, but that politeness was one of them. Once, Emily even found it necessary run over to Herbert’s block to step between his husband and the rudest and most persistent suitor. In the end they just cantered away without having to resort to violence, and left the angry young man cursing from the stoop of his brownstone while his friends ribbed him unmercifully for his lack of prowess with the opposite sex.

After enduring by proxy quite a bit of this more-or-less continuous hassling, Emily could see that Herbert was becoming exhausted on principle, so diplomatically suggested, “I’m getting a bit tired, dear. Let’s find a quiet place to rest.”

“Good idea, Emily. This pavement is killing my hooves,” Dr. Lanyon sighed as they slowed to a walk and stopped on the grass in a park across from a church.

“Ah, much better,” Emily rumbled contentedly. “Cool, soft, comfortable grass. Almost makes you want to nibble a bit and see what it tastes like.”

“Emily! You’re not going feral on me, are you?”

“Of course not, dear.” He bent at the waist to pluck a long flat blade with his fingers and hold it up to the glow of the streetlight. “But it does look so green, so moist, so….”

“Emily!” Herbert was shocked.

“Oh relax, Herbert, I’m joking.”

With that, Emily placed the flat of the blade between his thumbs, pushed his thumbs against his lips and played “Yankee Doodle” on his homegrown kazoo. Herbert shook her head, sighed and pulled out her cell phone to check on how the others were doing.

“So, Nancy, tell me about this uncle of yours.” Tim was trying to be a gentleman and make small talk.

“Not much to tell,” Rhea squirmed uncomfortably, unsure what she could safely say. “He’s got flowing white hair, a white beard and he’s only been with us for a day.”

“So? What is he, some kind a foreigner or something?”

She thought for a moment before speaking, for some inchoate reason reluctant to stretch the truth any further than she absolutely had to. “You could say that. He’s certainly not from around here, anyway.”

Two blocks later, Tim’s arm had moved onto the car’s bench seat behind Rhea, not touching her, but getting closer. Ignoring the arm, Rhea touched Tim gently on the thigh, letting her hand linger there for a moment, like her girlfriend Connie would do when she wanted to distract her.

“Turn here and we can check out Broadhurst — and use two hands on the wheel so you don’t kill us both.” Rhea smiled to herself as the encroaching hand disappeared. She was getting better at this “girl stuff.” Connie had been a better teacher than she’d thought.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tim laughed and made the turn. After the turn, his arm returned to the back of the bench seat and Rhea sighed to herself ruefully, recognizing that she would have done the same thing with Connie.

“So, tell me about yourself. You obviously know the town. Why haven’t I seen a beautiful, babe… I mean girl, like you in our school before?”

“I’ve been around,” Rhea didn’t want to tell him that until a couple of days ago Tim had been catching the footballs she’d thrown to him. “It’s probably just the fancy costume that suddenly caught your eye. Let’s loop up to Hechlinger next.”

“Whoa up there, girl! You don’t really expect me to believe that I would have missed a beautiful babe like you at our school, do you?”

“Well,” Rhea frantically searched for a delicate shade of truthiness that would allow her to answer without actually lying. For some reason, despite her insistence to Selene that she wanted nothing to do with boys or dating, she felt that it was important to be truthful with Tim. Deciding, not too confidently, that it was just her normal desire to be honest, Rhea continued.

“I’ve been at Orbit High for the last four years. I guess you could say I had a sort of growth spurt recently.”

“That’s one ‘humongous’ growth spurt, Nancy,” he took his eyes off the road yet again to ogle her breasts appreciatively. “I can tell you from first-hand experience that you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m a twin, remember?” That should be safer, get him talking about Selene instead of me, Rhea thought.

“True. But you’ve got blonde hair and Selene is a redhead.”

“So the only reason you want to be with me is my hair color? Or is it because I’m a twin, or because I have an uncle — with white hair?” Rhea wasn’t sure, but for some reason, it annoyed her that his reason for liking her was as inconsequential as her hair color.

“What can I say? I’m a blonde man, and your hair just happens to be my favorite shade of blonde.”

“I sure hope you’ve got a better reason than that for liking me, mister,” Rhea growled as her left hand moved to the dagger in her waist belt and began slowly sliding it in and out of the hilt.

“No, babe. Stop being such a feminist. It’s you. I think you’re beautiful, so naturally my favorite shade of hair is eactly your shade now. I want to know everything I can about you. I want to hold you….”

The dagger against his Adam’s Apple felt sharper than Tim cared to admit as he slowly moved the hand that he’d been edging toward Rhea’s right boob back onto the steering wheel.

“I suggest that you slowly pull to the side of the road and park, and don’t get any ideas about what ‘park’ means,” Rhea growled through gritted teeth. The dagger remained at Tim’s neck as he complied.

“Now, I’ve known you for almost four years and I’ve always thought you were a bit slow, but trainable, so I’m going to give you one last chance. You will do all of the following to the letter, or you will step out of the car and this ‘date’ is over. Got that?”

He nodded, very carefully.

“First, when you’re not keeping your eyes on the road — your primary responsibility when I’m depending on you for my personal safety — you will speak to me directly, looking at my face rather than my chest. She waited for his almost imperceptible nod. As a reward she moved the dagger a fraction of an inch away from his throat.

“Second, you will not even think about making another crude pass at me. My boobs are not ‘hot buttons’ that instantly turn me into some sort of raving nymphomaniac if you manage to lay a finger on them.”

Another nod.

“Third, you will not call me ‘babe’ or any other degrading or ‘cutesy’ name. My name is Rhea, and I’m proud of it.”

Rhea wondered why Tim’s eyes grew wide, but he nodded yet again and so Rhea shrugged and continued.

“Fourth, and finally, you will act as if I’m a friend rather than just some dumb broad to be talked into the sack. I may be blonde, but I’m a lot smarter than you. Is that clear?”

Tim remained unmoving, staring straight ahead, but said nothing.

“I said, ‘Is that clear?’ ”

Slowly, very slowly, Tim lifted his left hand off the steering wheel and pointed to the knife near his throat.

“Oh.” The knife was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

“Yes, Rhea.”

“Wha?… Why did you call me Rhea?”

“Th… that’s what you asked me to call you, but I can call you Nancy if you like. It’s entirely up to you”

“Oh shit.” Rhea dropped her head to her hands and began to cry. Afraid to touch her, Tim squirmed uncomfortably as he waited for her to take the handkerchief he offered.

In the other car, Phil and Selene had a much friendlier, but equally bizarre, conversation. “So you’re trying to tell me that you’re Jack Utterson? That you played football on the same team as me for the last four years, that you were center for Rhea Lanyon’s quarterback, who used to be Hastie Lanyon and is apparently now Selene, your blonde twin? That your parents are now centaurs and the guy we’re looking for is really a wizard from another dimension?” Skepticism dripped from Phil’s voice.

“Right,” the red-headed barbarian woman responded as she turned towards her passenger. She was nodding her head and smiling, as if he’d just won the All-State Spelling Bee.

“Why don’t you let me out here, please?” Phil shook his head in disbelief. “I think I’ll walk home.”

“If that’s what you really want.” She looked disappointed.

Selene pulled the car to the side of the street and turned off the engine. No words were spoken, but her sad eyes bore deeper and deeper into Phil’s soul. He stared defensively at the floor mat, but refusing to look back into her eyes did nothing to relieve the growing tension.

“Damn it, Selene, how the hell do you expect me to believe that line of bull?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you tell me that obviously ridiculous tale?”

“First, because it’s true. Second, because you asked. I believe in honesty; it’s so much simpler than lies, however well-intended.”

Phil gaped, open mouthed, at the beautiful redheaded woman sitting beside him, unsure what to do. True, there was something about her, an air of familiarity that made him feel like he’d known her for years. Then there was that tone of absolute certainty in her voice, not like other people he’d met who seemed to try too hard when they were lying. Besides, she was the foxiest chick he’d ever met, and if she was mad, it was a beautiful madness. Taking his hand off the car door, Phil turned and forced himself to look into her eyes, stopping briefly to examine her glorious breasts on the way up.

“Explain please. How can an obviously impossible tale be true?”

“I should make you use Aristotelian logic, like Mr. Brekinridge did in tenth grade math.” She smiled as his brow furrowed, no doubt trying to guess how she could possibly had known about that, especially since he’d been the butt of Brekinridge’s “guidance” enough times to have reconsidered his plans for a scientific career until Jack had convinced him to go with his dreams by helping him through the final exam with a grade in the low nineties. “But I won’t. The answer is obvious. I’m telling the truth, regardless of how bizarre it sounds, because it’s the only thing that makes sense. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ ”

“But….”

“Stop talking,” Selene gently touched her finger to his lips. “I only told you because you asked. I don’t care if you believe me or not. In fact, it might be easier if you didn’t.” Selene stopped and thought for a moment. Her eyes gazed unseeing into the distance and her words seem disconnected, as if she were quietly debating with herself rather than answering Phil.

“No, that’s not true,” she said, “I hadn’t realized it until just now, but I guess I wanted to be honest with you on the off chance that there could be something more than just raw sexual attraction between us, and I didn’t want a series of lies to get in the way of that. I guess that I was looking, however tentatively, for a — a relationship,” she stumbled over the words. A moment later she shook herself and turned back to Phil.

“Wow. That was strange. I was already planning a family there for a moment.” She smiled as Phil squirmed at her words. “Relax, bud. Self-examination can be fascinating, but not necessarily the whole story. While those thoughts were there in the back of my mind, I guarantee you that they’re well in the background. I’m much more interested in finding Akcuanrut followed by some joint, mutually consenting, heterosexual experimentation sans commitments. So how about a quick kiss and we get on with our search?”

The kiss took much longer than either of them expected. It finally stopped when Selene felt an intense desire to ask Phil whether it was true, what they said about Scotsmen, and then got a little scared, just thinking about where that might lead, and so backed off a little, for a while.

“George?”

“Yes, dear?” he interrupted his driving and scanning for the old wizard long enough to glance over at his wife. She was chewing absently on a fingernail and George silently groaned to himself. It was time for another “deep discussion.”

“Do you really believe the story Emily and Herbert just told us?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You don’t think it’s another of their elaborate Halloween pranks? Remember last year when they built a UFO in the backyard?”

“I remember.” He turned down Oxford Drive and slowed so they could examine a crowd gathered around “Werther’s Olde Fashioned Soda Shoppe.”

“Why don’t you think it’s a joke, George?”

“Mostly an analysis of the musculature of their hind legs, Lucille.”

“Now, George,” Lucille wagged a finger at him, “don’t you go giving me some boring scientific explanation.”

“Of course not, dear. What I saw was a real horse’s hind quarter. Too thin at the hoof for a human leg to fit into any sort of costume or prothestic, and each joint moved independently. Also, you could see the ripple of muscles on their backs. Then too, there was the way each had information that only the other should have had….”

“Enough, dear. I get the idea. So are we really going to help them go back to that other dimension?”

“I’m afraid we don’t really have any choice. I don’t think our world is ready for a pair of living, breathing, talking centaurs. Worse, there’s the magic,” George scowled for a moment as they drove past a couple of teenage trick-or-treaters throwing toilet paper over a tree on someone’s front lawn.

“What do you mean? The magic is in that other dimension, assuming it exists. How can that affect us, George?”

“It’s like Pandora’s box, my dear. Once people on this world know it’s there, they won’t forget. It will niggle at them until they find out how to use it here. Look at Nobel and nitroglycerine. He was so appalled by what he’d invented, he tried to take back the knowledge. After realizing he couldn’t uninvent it, he created a trust to honor those who worked towards peace and creation instead of the war and destruction made more horrible by his invention. It was the closest he could come to putting the genie back into the bottle, but as you know from history, his ‘noble’ effort, no pun intended, has done little to prevent wholesale death and destruction that he himself made possible.”

“I guess so, dear, but when you put it that way, it sounds so hopeless. Isn’t there something we can do?”

“I don’t think so, Lucille. Although I suppose a couple of well-placed prayers wouldn’t hurt.”

“You’re scaring me, George. Please stop.”

“Yes, dear,” George sighed and changed the subject. “Why don’t you call Herbert and Emily and see how they’re doing?”

“Yeah!” Selene slapped the dashboard in joy as she put down her smartphone. “They found him! They found him!”

“Who? Who found him? Where is he?”

“Rhea’s parents, the centaurs, they found Akcuanrut,” Selene lunged across the seat before Phil could even flinch and gave him a huge hug and kiss. “They were by that old gothic church on Winthrup Avenue, across from the park. He just walked up to them. Would you believe the old coot had gone trick or treating?”

“Great, Selene,” Phil’s enthusiasm was much more reserved than hers as he sat unmoving, waiting for Selene to untangle herself from him. Hopeful that this might mean they could continue their date, but afraid to push the issue as Tim had, Phil asked, “What now?”

“Oh….” Selene realized Phil’s meaning and sobered up. “Oh.” They were silent; each thinking furiously about what should be next. Finally, Selene broke the silence asking coyly, “What would you like to do, Phil?”

“Now you’re going to dump the decision on me?” Phil grumped and was silent again. He had tried to make it sound like he was teasing her, but he wasn’t certain he’d pulled it off.

Selene nodded timidly and held her breath as she waited, hoping he’d give her the answer she wanted. Her hands went behind her back, she crossed her fingers and her lips moved almost imperceptibly as she silently mouthed “Please, please, please, please.”

“How about we finish helping get your ‘uncle’ safe and then finish this date?”

Like a shot, Selene was back on the other side of the car, sitting on his lap, hugging and kissing Phil again. They almost decided that the car seat was the perfect place to finish their date when the cell phone rang again.

“Murfph.” Selene groaned in annoyance, but her face never left his face and her lips never left his lips.

Phil actually pulled away just enough to ask, “Maybe we should answer it?” Despite his suggestion, Phil sighed in disappointment when Selene slowly slid off his lap. “Drat. I was hoping you’d ignore me.”

“I almost did. Being responsible can be a real pain sometimes,” Selene whined as she answered the phone and listened with growing intensity.

Turning off the cell phone, a somber Selene turned to her date. “I’d better drop you off. Would you like me to leave you at the dance or at home,” she asked wistfully. “Where would you prefer?”

“Wha? What happened to our date this time? A guy could get a complex here.”

“Something’s come up. I need to get to that church as quickly as I can. There’s going to be trouble.”

“So? Why do you keep thinking I’m only here to get into your pants? I’m going with you.”

“Are you sure, Phil? You don’t know what you’re walking into. I’m talking dangerous with a capital ‘D’ and it rhymes with ‘T’ and that spells ‘trouble’.”

“So?”

“Phil. Please think carefully here. We’re up against an enemy here that almost beat us last time and can apparently come back from the dead.”

“More of that magic you were talking about?”

Selene just nodded.

“And you think that’s going to keep me away?”

“Phil. I like you very much. I don’t want to be the cause of your death.”

“I’m here now with the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, who’s either crazy as a loon and dangerous to boot, or who may be the ex-first-string center for my football team and a visitor from another world where there’s magic. Either way, I think I’m in love with you and I’m not leaving you if I can help it. You could probably stop me if you tried, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m going.” He crossed his arms and sat staring straight ahead, daring her to kick him out of the car.

Na-Noc was getting hungry again. Many people had passed and a few had even sat on nearby benches, but none had approached him. Worse yet, no one had attempted to enter the castle yet. He was considering changing his position to get closer to the hard white path, when a lone adult in a black costume and a small white collar approached.

“I see our neighborhood hooligans have been out rearranging the lawn furniture again,” the man muttered, but with a smile on his face. Reaching Na-Noc, he grasped the ersatz bench and began to lift it, completing his turn back to the street before realizing that some sort of soft gooey material had flowed over his hands.

Befuddled, the man watched as whatever it was flowed rapidly up his arms, reaching the elbow before he could react sufficiently to attempt to drop the bench. Unfortunately, by then it was far too late. The ooze continued to flow over him, making its way to his shoulders and the pain began. He managed the beginnings of a loud scream before it was aborted as his mouth was covered.

Standing beside a row of tall hedges in the park across from the church, Herbert glanced up in time to see Na-Noc tilt a pair of legs into the air and use gravity to finish his feast. Without taking her eyes off the blob, rapidly reforming into a bench again, she tapped Emily on his rump and pointed. Emily glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the ooze reform into a nondescript park bench.

“Wha?….” Emily’s voice was a low whisper, despite being more than fifty yards away from the creature.

“I guess we know what happened to Na-Noc now.” Herbert’s voice too was hushed. “Better tell the others.”

Emily nodded without taking his eyes off the bench and Herbert reached into her purse for the cell phone as they quickly cantered to a more protected location from which to observe the creature.

“So what’s the story?” Selene asked as she dropped to the grass next to the others. She and Phil were the last to arrive. As they approached the others, Phil lagged behind. Instead of dropping to the ground beside Selene, or even standing beside her, he slowly spiraled closer and closer to the two centaurs with his eyes bugging out more and more the closer he came. He was just about to reach out a hand and touch Dr. Lanyon’s hind quarter when Selene interrupted him and he jerked his hand back to his side.

“What’s the problem, Phil? Grab a seat,” Selene called over to him. “Where’s Tim?”

“He’s at the dance,” was Rhea’s emotionless response. Selene couldn’t decide whether the response was happy or sad, but was immediately concerned for her new twin sister — especially since the date had been her idea, albeit the only non-violent way she’d thought of at the time to get the coach and players to listen to Rhea’s advice about how to win the game.

“Oh, too bad. Are you all right?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Rhea turned away and flinched when Selene placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

With a whispered, “We need to talk later,” Selene forced herself to smile and return her attention to the rest of the group.

“Phil’s decided to help us,” Selene beamed as she explained to the others why he was here before she could be asked.

“Ouch.” Herbert flicked her tail at the offending spot on her rump and turned to see what had bit her, only to discover that Phil had pinched her.

“Oh my god.” Phil staggered back. Tripping in his hurry, he fell into a nearby hedge and slid down onto his backside still staring at the two centaurs.

“What’s the problem, Phil? I know you’ve seen Rhea’s parents before.”

“They… they’re centaurs,” he pointed.

“Yeah, so? I told you they were, didn’t I?”

“Just a moment, Selene,” Herbert interrupted. “There seems to be a problem here. “You did just pinch me on my rump, didn’t you, young man?”

“Unh, yes, ma’am.”

“On my horse’s rump?”

“Yes, ma’am, ” he said, “and I’m terribly sorry, Ma’am. I’m not usually that rude at all. I was just a little confused.” Phil’s voice still quavered and he made a loud gulping sound as he swallowed hard, but he seemed a bit more certain of himself as he glanced sheepishly at Selene. “I guess I can rule out crazy for the moment,” he smiled, but then suddenly looked worried again, “unless it’s me in the booby hatch dreaming this whole thing up.”

“Akcuanrut?” Herbert kept her eyes on the young man still sitting on the grass. “Isn’t our magic working? I know we agreed to use it to seem human again and less inconspicuous once you confirmed that there was enough power to do so and still meet your needs.”

A quick gesture and a squint of the left eye and Akcuanrut answered. “Yes, it’s working. The strongest I’ve seen it since we arrived on this world.”

“Then why can he see us as centaurs?” Herbert asked as she folded her arms under her breasts and stared suspiciously at Phil. She took care to move her rump away from him in order to avoid the chance of another pinch.

Another gesture, another squint and Akcuanrut responded again. “Because this young man has the makings of a first-rate wizard’s apprentice.” The others turned as one to stare at Phil, almost missing Akcuanrut’s next words. “you’re not dreaming, young man. Unfortunately, you’ll never have the opportunity to develop your considerable skills in this strange world.”

“Folks?” Herbert Lanyon raised her hand. “Maybe we should figure out what we’re going to do about Na-Noc?”

“Whatever do you mean, Emily?” Mrs. Utterson asked the female centaur.

“Emily is over there, Lucille.” Herbert pointed to the male centaur beside her. “I’m Herbert, remember? And what I mean is, about a hundred yards away, with only this line of shrubs between it and us, we have a known agent of the Dark Gods pretending to be a park bench; a shape changing creature that eats human beings and just ate some clergyman. We tried to kill the blasted thing once and failed. He, or rather it, will not rest until it has recovered the Heart of Virtue and destroyed the people who took it from him — that is to say, us.”

“An excellent recap, dear,” Emily patted his husband’s rump supportively. “Any ideas?”

The silence was deafening. Finally, Akcuanrut spoke. “I think I can explain his reason for being here. There is a source of magical power, albeit low-grade, and of a kind foreign to me. He must be trying to learn how to use it.”

“I think we’d better come up with a plan of action then,” Herbert suggested.

“I don’t think there’s much choice,” George Utterson observed. “That ‘thing,’ cannot be permitted to remain in this world.” He then reiterated his discussions with Lucille regarding the impact of the discovery that there was real magic in the world and concluded with, “… so while no one could put strife, famine, hatred, et cetera, back into Pandora’s box, we have to at least try.”

The others agreed and Herbert again repeated her recommendation for the development of a plan when Phil interrupted.

“Unh, folks?”

“You have an idea?”

“No, I need to point out another problem.” Phil pointed towards the hedge and everyone turned. Na-Noc was changing again. As they watched, the bench morphed into a gelatinous blob. The blob quivered and began to assume a vaguely human form, but with the head of a cockroach. It quivered again, and the insect head disappeared, only to be replaced by the head of D’lon-ra, the Emperor’s Champion who had fought and died in the battle to recover the Heart of Virtue. D’lon-ra’s head was quickly replaced by several others, before the head, and then the entire body settled into the form of the clergyman Na-Noc had recently consumed. As the group watched, the seeming minister brushed himself off and walked into the church as if he owned the place.

Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002 Jeffrey M. Mahr — All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012 Levanah Greene — All Rights Reserved