Gaslight Fantasy: A Ripping Yarn by Jaqhama

[Mich]

 

[Jaqhama]

     The tableau was frozen for a moment.
     Susan, dangling over that awful vat of black, bubbling liquid.
     The inhuman creature, the Baylok, with his hand upon a lever that would release the rope that held Susan suspended.
     Bull Sackett and myself, shocked into immobility, unsure as to what we should do.
     Drop our weapons to the floor as Baylok had demanded? Lest he carry out his threat to drop our friend into the ‘mixture’.
     I hesitated.
     Bull Sackett did not.
     Once again I was witness to the incredible speed of the American’s pistol drawing technique.
     In less time that it might take a man to blink, Bull drew his revolver and fired from the hip.
     The sudden movement and crack of the pistol shot startled me.
     I saw the hand of the Baylok, the one that held the lever, suddenly thrown backward.
     Bull had drawn and fired as one continuous motion, without it seemed, appearing to aim at all. Yet his bullet had struck the creature before us in the wrist. Causing the hand to open and the arm to be flung back.
     “Shoot him,” Bull cried out as he ran forward and leapt upwards.
     The Baylok clutched its left wrist in its right hand. It hissed in pain and anger. Raising the Express rifle to my shoulder I took quick aim and fired a .50 calibre bullet into the centre of the thing’s chest. The impact of the heavy slug, combined with the speed of its travel, knocked the Baylok from it's feet.
     Meanwhile I was astonished to see that Bull had leapt from an old machinery bench onto the very lip of the vat. He balanced there for a second, then leaped again, forward and upwards. As his leap carried him over the edge of the vat he reached out and wrapped his left arm around Susan’s waist. At the same time his right hand slashed sideways above his head. The wickedly sharp blade of his huge Bowie knife cut through the rope that held Susan suspended. The razor- edged knife sliced through the thick rope as easily as though it was but a thin piece of string.
     The momentum of Bull’s impetuous leap carried both he and Susan clear across to the the opposite side of the vat of bubbling liquid. They sailed over the lip and fell to the floor together, in a sprawl of tangled limbs.
     I rushed across the wide room. Rifle up, seeking the Baylok.
     There. The creature had made its way to another part of the room. I registered that we were in another warehouse of some sort, there was much rusty machinery scattered about. I had neither the time nor the inclination to investigate what use it had been put to.
     The creature stopped next to a large table, on which lay a black shape.
     And that shape moved.
      It twitched and writhed. Rubber tubes went into the body. I got the impression the tubes were connected to the brass pipes, that likewise were attached to the vat over which Susan had been held captive.
     What it all meant I had no idea. It was enough that I had the creature once more in my sights.
     I fired my second shot at the Baylok. It missed, as the thing anticipated my fire and slipped behind a metal pillar. The slug struck the pillar and ricocheted away.
     I tossed aside my rifle and pulled the assegai loose from the retaining strap that held it beneath my long cape.
     Bull Sackett appeared next to me. Knife in one hand, shotgun in the other. I risked a glance at his face.
     I have seldom seen such rage contained within a human being. The American fairly pulsated with it. His tanned face was darker than I had previously seen it. Like the Baylok, his own eyes blazed.
     “This is where it ends,” he snarled.
     He rushed past me, seemingly heedless of the danger and launched himself at our adversary.

Dun, da dun, dun daaaaaa

[Victoria The Mistress]

 

I LOVE the sensation of anticipation....

A very ripping yarn indeed.......

[Mich]

OMG! MORE, MORE!

[Jaqhama]

OMG! MORE, MORE!

I was busy tonight...so I'm afraid...you'll have to wait.

[Victoria The Mistress]

You certainly know how to keep us ladies hanging on your every word....

[B. Fugu]

Not just the ladies.

[James Harrison]

Gah!  The suspense!  The suspense! 

[Jaqhama]

     Bull Sackett threw himself against the Baylok creature.
     He slashed and stabbed at it in a frenzy of naked aggression.
     Curses and profanities burst out of the American’s mouth.
     For a moment it seemed to me that the inhuman being was all but overwhelmed by the suddenness and force of Bull’s attack.
     It reeled backwards, attempting to fend off the maniacal blows of the big Bowie knife. Giving it no room for respite, the other thrust the cut-down shotgun into the creature’s throat and pulled one trigger. The thick, black liquid that inhabited the Baylok’s veins burst out of the terrible wound, covering both the creature and its attacker.
     Off balance, head hanging at an odd angle, the thing teetered on unsteady legs. The American dropped his firearm and his left hand flashed out and grasped hold of the creatures arm. Dragging it toward himself he cut into the neck. Once, twice and a third time. Bull Sackett hacked away at the Baylok’s neck like a demented woodsman battling a living tree. The flailing talons of the monster caught Bull across his own throat and chest. The leather protector hung in ribbons. It was a miracle that the claws had not reached his own soft flesh. The chain-mail vest was all but torn asunder. Yet still the American kept up his frenzied attack.
     I heard a noise beside me and spun around to see Susan run up. She wore Bull’s long riding coat over her nakedness. I had but dimly registered the fact that the American was no longer wearing it.
     Realising that I was contributing nothing to the slaying of the awful thing, I took a firm hold of my assegai and ran over to help my friend.
     Just as (with a terrific blow from the Bowie knife) the creature’s head sprang free of its neck and went tumbling across the floor before me.
     I gasped and pulled myself up short.
     The head rolled across the stone floor and came to rest against an old workbench.
     The red hellfire that emanated from the thing’s eyes burnt brightly for a second…and then dimmed…leaving only two black holes in the face.
     I looked to where the American stood. He had let go of the creature’s arm and I watched the body topple to the ground. Bull steadied himself with a hand on the wall. He was panting, covered in the black liquid muck that was the Baylok’s blood. Suddenly he knelt down and removed something from a pocket of his trousers. He thrust the Bowie knife into the centre of the thing’s chest and moved it around.
     What now? I wondered.
     Susan came over and grasped my free hand. “What’s he doing?” she asked.
     “I have no idea,” I admitted.
     With a grunt of satisfaction Bull Sackett plucked something from within the rendered chest cavity. He held it up before himself.
     A heart? No. This was something else. It looked like a rough black stone, about the size of a cricket ball.
     He placed it upon the ground and I saw that the object which he had removed from his trouser pocket was a phial of some sort. He uncapped it and poured a reddish powder all over the black stone.
     A wispy trail of black vapour began to rise from the stone. It eddied upwards, dissipating. The black stone upon which Bull had poured the other mysterious substance crumbled slowly to dust.
     Susan and I saw that the decapitated head, and indeed, the rest of the Baylok’s body, had melted into that thick liquid of which it must be comprised. The liquid also began to evaporate before our startled eyes.
     Bull Sackett stood up.
     “That’s it,” he said wearily. “It’s finished.”
     “Ha!” Susan hugged me in delight.
     I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
     “You’re sure?” I asked.
     The American smiled at us. “Quite sure. The red powder was delivered to Ricardo after we came across the Baylok on that street in New Orleans. It arrived too late to help us then. Esmeralda said it was from another Voodoo feller that Ric knew. The red powder, poured onto the stone that holds the life force of the Baylok, causes the stone to disintegrate. The Baylok is dead. Finally.”
     I smiled in relief, as behind us a deep, wicked chuckle stole across the room, freezing us all in our tracks.
     “I yet live!” said a voice.
     Oh my God…the black form on the table, that twitched and writhed with some awful semblance of life. I had forgotten about it!

*          *         *

[Jaqhama]

     We whirled around and stared, aghast.
     Once more the Baylok stood before us.
     Or did it?
     Here was no man, with the features and colouration of an American Indian. Nor yet the half-man, half-rat creature that I had previously witnessed the Baylok become.
     Instead here stood a woman. Slim and slender. Of an undeterminable age. Black slime dripped off her naked form. One arm was still unformed, yet even as we watched it went from undefined black goo to a match for the other, perfectly formed limb.
     The skin was not dark, but alabaster white. The hair was long, with a reddish tinge. The face lean…and the eyes…bore no trace of the hellish red glow that the original creature emanated.
     Another chuckle…and the deep voice spoke to us again.
     “You cannot kill me white men.”
     “You’re not the Baylok,” cried Bull Sackett. “You can’t be?”
     I started forward, with the intention of thrusting my spear into this new threat. But, guessing my intent, the female form before us gracefully leapt upwards and swung aloft, amongst some large, overhead pipes. It crouched above us there. Aware that the pipes gave it protection from our firearms.
     “I am more than Baylok. Did you not wonder why I only took women in this blighted city? Did you think I killed merely for sustenance? Fool’s you are. Using the dark-blood from my very own body, I created a mixture that would create new life. The blood and organs of the sluts I killed, added to the dark-blood, have allowed me to transmute my form. Now I am both male and female. Now I can impregnate…and be impregnated. Now can I give birth to a legion. Half-human and half-Baylok they will be. They will be able to endure the daylight hours. They will be able to mate with humans of both sexes. They will become an army of Baylok’s. Our metabolisms are far different to your own feeble bodies. We can be impregnated and give birth within weeks…weeks do you hear me? Soon I and my children will rule this polluted city…and that will be but the beginning. An entire world beckons us…I can barely wait.”
     The laughter that emerged from the creature’s throat was terrible to hear.
     Bull had his pistol in his hand, yet the creature above us was shielded by the pipes upon which it crouched. It was the reason I had not attempted a shot myself.
     “You are a worthy adversary, Ranger Sackett. Oh yes, I know all about you now. I delved into the unconscious mind of the wench who stands beside you. I know now, how you have been able to hunt me so well. That will not occur again. I leave you with a last thought…when I and my off-spring have conquered this city. When the screaming hordes of hapless humans have fed us enough…then I shall go forth…to the city you call New Orleans…and I shall find your new wife, Esmeralda, and those who have aided you both in your search for me, and I shall kill them. Slowly and in great pain. Your woman especially.”
     Enraged Bull fired his pistol into the pipes overhead. Hoping a stray bullet might catch the creature.
     More laughter greeted this attempt. “Too late Ranger, too late. Even as you poured the dust of dissolution onto my life-stone, I abandoned it, and fled to the fragment of stone within this newly created body. I go now…leaving you to your death!”
     With that, the newly revitalised Baylok sprang up and dashed away, springing across the overhead piping with the agility of a monkey.
     “We’ve got to get that thing,” Bull Sackett grated.
     He pulled the chain that held his magical compass out of his pocket…and looked down in horror.
     It was gone!
     The chain dangled with nought attached to the end.
     “That’s why the Baylok was so easy to kill this time,” he told me in shock. “It wasn’t trying to defend itself hardly at all…it just wanted to make sure that it got hold of the compass.”
    Bull and I looked at each other, equally shocked, when Susan screamed.
     We followed her pointing hand and saw that the thick black liquid, that made up the mixture contained inside the huge vat, the dark-blood of the inhuman monster…was flowing over the edge of the vat in a great stream…and making its way unerringly toward us.

*          *          *

[Victoria The Mistress]

    

I didn't see that coming.....

[Jaqhama]

   

I didn't see that coming.....

I posted two sections tonight...did you read the last one?
I think I posted it just as you wrote and posted and this comment.
Don't want you to miss anything.
It's the last entry on page four.

Cheers: Jaq.

[Mich]

 Ooooooh, now what are they going to do?

[Jaqhama]

Ooooooh, now what are they going to do?

Imagine an evil chuckle as the 'mixture' draws closer...heh,heh, heh...

[Jaqhama]

     The black liquid flowed towards us at an amazing pace.
     “That table, onto it, quickly,” I instructed my companions.
     They ran a few steps and clambered upon it.
     I backed up a few steps, ignoring the table myself.
     The liquid split into two different streams, one flowed across the stone floor toward me and the other stream deviated in the direction of the table my friends now stood on.
     I turned and dashed over to another side of the room. Hoping to find an exit for us. But I could locate no door.
     I heard Susan scream again. I saw that the black liquid had reached their table. And now it flowed up the legs. Defying gravity, as though alive in some horrid fashion.
     It was at that moment that I realised the tubes which exited the brass pipes…the tubes that had been connected to the second Baylok’s body…were also spewing forth the black liquid.
     The vile muck would soon overtake us, I had no doubt. What would happen when it made contact with our bodies I did not even wish to consider.
     There have been times in my life when I have been compelled to act almost without conscious thought. Such was the case now.
     The room was brightly lit by gas lamps affixed to the walls, but there were some oil lamps burning also. I snatched one up from a shelf bolted to the wall and hurled it with all the force I could muster onto the floor, just in front of the black liquid creeping toward me.
     The lamp struck the floor, shattered, and a puddle of burning oil mixed with the black fluid pursuing me.
     In seconds the black fluid was alight. It burned with a noxious odour and clouds of thick smoke coiled upwards.
     The fire flowed along the black fluid like a living thing.
     The black mixture seemed to sense the danger. It tried to move away from the ever growing conflagration. To no avail. The flames greedily clung to the black liquid, and spread all across its surface.
The table where upon Bull Sackett and Susan stood was now also lapped by fire. I saw the liquid that had emerged from the rubber tubes try to retreat, but some of it had caught alight and as the fluid slid back into the tubes, those tubes exploded. Setting alight, not just to more tendrils of the black fluid, but to the very room itself.
     “We’ve got to get out of here Allan,” I heard the American cry.
     “I can find no door,” I yelled back. I was then taken by a coughing fit as the smoke in the room became thicker and thicker.
     “There’s a door over there,” Susan shouted and pointed. “I saw it when I first woke up.”
     I looked in the direction that she indicated and nodded in agreement. Both she and the American leaped from the table and ran across one of the few parts of the floor that were not yet engulfed by the blazing black fluid. I wished for nothing more than to join them in their flight, but there was something I had to do first.
     I jumped through the fire that was burning waist high all around me. Trusting to my heavy soled boots and long woollen cape to keep me safe from the flames for just a few minutes longer.
     I ran to the area where Bull had attacked the Baylok. Neither the black liquid nor the fire had reached this part of the room yet. I kept low, to avoid breathing the noxious smoke and also to search the floor better. I was looking for something. I scrabbled desperately on my hands and knees. I coughed. The smoke got thicker. I knew I had scant moments left if I was to escape the inferno that the room was fast becoming. I had both my hands on the rough surface of the stone, sweeping them around in ever widening circles. I could barely see anything now, my eyes watered and my throat was choked with smoke. Then I felt something. I’d knocked it away with a sweeping hand. I moved my hands around on the floor again. Slower now, more gently. Yes! There it was. I had it. I picked up the object I sought and hurriedly thrust it into a pocket. Now to escape myself.
     I stood up and turned to face a wall of flame.
     I had to shield my face with my hand, the heat was so intense.
     I would never make it across the room to the door that Susan had shown me now. I stepped back until my spine made contact with the wall behind me. The flames were but a few feet in front of me.
     I thought I could hear Susan calling my name? Perhaps Bull Sackett also?
     Up…the only way was up. I turned and grasped a pipe that ran up to join those overhead. If the Baylok could escape that way, why not I?
     I shimmied up the pipe like an Indian rope charmer. Reaching the ceiling I leaned out and grasped an overhanging pipe. I swung myself out and up, wrapping my legs around it and jerking my body around until I sat atop it. From that thin one I managed to climb across to the thicker ones that the Baylok had used to protect itself from our bullets. Not being as agile as the inhuman creature, I clambered clumsily along these thicker pipes in the direction I had seen the Baylok flee from us.
     Beneath me the fire raged, completely out of control. The heat rising upwards was incredible. The flames had grown so large that some even licked the underside of the pipes on which I now moved.
     In moments I had reached the end of the piping. It disappeared through the wall in front of me. How had the Baylok made its escape from here?
     An explosion rocked the pipes I stood on. I heard an ominous creak and a groan of metal. The pipes under me sagged alarmingly; suddenly I was standing at an angle, as behind me the pipes dropped to the floor. Another jerk and the pipes dropped lower, the angle becoming more extreme. A few seconds more and I would no longer be able to stay balanced here, I would either slide or fall into the raging inferno below.
     I suddenly noticed that the flames beneath me all seemed to be leaning in one direction…as though straining to reach something?
     I peered through the smoke, to my right.
     There…a small ledge…and above it an open window. The flames were being drawn to the air flow that the open window provided. The pipes I was standing on moved again. I felt them begin to drop.
     I threw myself off them and made a wild grab for the window-sill I could see. My hands grasped it and with a terrific wrench I pulled myself through the window and outwards. I felt myself falling. I tried to get my legs under me and was partially successful. I hit an adjoining roof and tumbled end over end, until I was again falling. I struck another roof, and this one collapsed under my weight and I crashed through it. I landed bodily on something soft. Although the breath was knocked out of me I wasn’t hurt at all. I heard movement all around me. For a horrible instant I imagined I was surrounded by Baylok creatures. I may have cried out and thrashed about, I’m not sure. A familiar noise calmed me. I peered about in the darkness and found a silhouette. The noise continued. The creature issuing it more alarmed than myself. I climbed to my feet and took a few steps forward. Speaking softly to the animal. “Easy boy, easy.”
     I made contact with a soft nose, then a bony forehead. The horse in front of me calmed somewhat and nickered gently.
     “Yes,” I told it. “You scared me too, old son.”
     I knew that I had been extremely fortunate, to have crashed though the roof of a stable, and impacted with nothing harder than a pile of fresh straw.
     Somewhere outside the stable I could hear raised voices.
     I patted my new friend on his chest and whispered a few more endearments. Then, taking a deep breath, trying not to cough, I found the doors to the stable and opened one and stepped outside.
     A short distance to my left a large building glowed with the fire that burned within it. Clearly visible were the flames that issued from an open window, set high up in the wall. Some of the roof was ablaze. I rounded a corner in the stable yard and found myself in a cobblestone street. Many people were about, some of them police constables. No one took any notice of me as I walked amongst them. I made sure my assegai was concealed once more beneath my long, slightly charred cape.
     Ah…there….I spied Susan…in my uncle’s arms. Bull Sackett and Frederick Abberline next to them. Fred had hold of Bull’s arm, as though the American intended to fling himself back into the blazing building.
     I sauntered up to them, feeling quite cocky I admit.
     “Bit of a rum do what?” I inquired.
     Fred and Bull whirled around to stare at me. Uncle Henry’s eyes went wide. Susan had her head buried in my uncle’s shoulder. Now she raised a tearful face towards me in wonder.
     “Allan?” she gasped.
     I shrugged with some nonchalance. “Of course, were you expecting someone else?”
     “Oh Allan!” She broke free of my uncle’s comforting arms and threw herself into mine. “We thought you were dead. We thought you hadn’t been able to get out of the fire.”
     “Yes, I gathered that,” I conceded.
     She pulled back and looked at me with a glint in her eye.
     “You don’t seem very concerned that we was all worried to death about you?”
     “I’m a big lad Susan. Takes more than a Baylok and a bit of a camp fire to do for me.”
     The impact of her small fist with the side of my jaw knocked me off my feet. I assure you that it was the shock of being struck by the young woman, more than the actual force of the blow you understand?
     I landed on my posterior on the cold stone of the cobbles, gingerly rubbing my jaw. Looking with not a small amount of surprise and askance at Susan.
     She waved her clenched fist in my direction. “Men,” she shouted angrily. “Bloody men!”
     To my amazement Bull Sackett and my uncle, along with Frederick, and even several of those others standing around began to laugh.
     Bull reached down and hauled me to my feet. “Why the hell didn’t you follow us out of that door?”
     I reached into my trouser pocket and pulled out a small object. I passed it to the American.
     He looked down at it. “I’ll be damned.”
     I smiled. “I had the thought that the creature you killed, dissolving before our very eyes, had no where to put it. That the best it could have done was throw it away somewhere in the room. I see that it is mangled somewhat, that the glass is broken, and the needle is bent, but apart from that it looks alright.”
     The other looked first at the object in his hand and then at me.
     “Goddamn, just, well Goddamn.”
     He closed his hand around the magical compass.
     I hoped it wasn’t damaged enough as to be completely useless to us in the future.

*          *          *

[elkedoring]

I have just finished reading this ripping story and hope sincerely that another installment will follow 

[Victoria The Mistress]

Absolutely brilliant Jaqhama, if I wore one I would take my hat off to you.

And I agree wholeheartedly with elkedoring - Allan and Susan must have more adventures! 

[Mich]

I am eagerly awaiting the next part too...

[Jaqhama]

Absolutely brilliant Jaqhama, if I wore one I would take my hat off to you.

And I agree wholeheartedly with elkedoring - Allan and Susan must have more adventures! 

Only your hat? 

I must be losing my touch.

[Jaqhama]

     Back at my uncle’s house the three of us informed Frederick and Henry of the latest events that had transpired.
     Frederick of course, was most concerned.
     “Good Grief. So now there’s a creature running around that can be either male or female…with the ability to be impregnated by a human man, in it’s female form…and then give birth to some awful monstrosity in a matter of weeks? With the intention of breeding enough of the things to conquer the city of London and feed off the inhabitants?”
     “That’s it in a nutshell,” I agreed.
     “Have another brandy, Frederick,” suggested Susan.
     “A double thank you, Henry,” the inspector pleaded.
     Clutching his glass between his hands Frederick spoke again. “So is there any good news?”
     “Well,” I replied cheekily. “We got to see Susan naked.”
     This earned me a dark look from the lady in question. “You must like being knocked on your backside, you must. Done it once, I can do it again you know.”
     Bull Sackett chuckled. “Highlight of the evening Susan.”
     “I can knock Yank’s on their arse ‘an all Mr. Ranger.”
     “I lost my Express rifle in the fire,” I mentioned sadly.
     “But saved my compass,” said Bull. “That was a great risk you took Allan. I’m guessing you only got out by the skin of your teeth?”
     “It was a close run thing,” I admitted.
     “Yes, the compass,” said my uncle. “Is it too badly damaged to work again do you think Bull?”
     The American sighed. “I don’t know Henry. Hoping I can get a watchmaker to take a look at it. See if’n he can maybe straighten it out a bit.”
     “I know one of London’s finest chronometeer’s,” Frederick informed us. “Clockmaker if you will. We shall take your compass over to him this afternoon Bull. If anyone can repair it he can.”
     “Excellent,” I applauded. “It’s been an awfully long night. I’m off to get some sleep for a few hours. I’m sure you’re all welcome to take advantage of uncle’s offer to make up a bed here. Pointless returning to your own dwellings, if we’re all to be up and about again shortly. Regardless, I shall bid you all good night, or good morning as the case may be.”
With their wishes for a sound sleep ringing in my ears, I made my way wearily upstairs to the room that my uncle kept aside for me.
     I didn’t even bother to remove my outer clothing. I simply fell down onto my bed and sleep overtook me within moments.

*          *          *

     It seemed as though I had closed my eyes mere seconds ago.
     Someone was shaking me. “Come on lazybones. Up and at ‘em.”
     Susan’s voice, I registered dimly. I mumbled something.
     More shaking, irritating to be sure. “Kiss me or kill me, but let me sleep,” I muttered.
     Suddenly I felt a not insignificant weight land atop me. I grunted in shock. A pair of small, soft hands took hold of each side of my head and the next thing I knew, a pair of equally soft lips pressed themselves to my own.
     It was an extremely pleasant sensation. Keeping my eyes closed I returned the kiss. It went on for some time. Eventually I opened one eye. Both of Susan’s were open. They positively sparkled. I went to wrap my arms around her, when she broke free and pushed herself off me. She smoothed down her dress and fussed with her hair.
     “That’s for saving me life,” she announced.
     I had both eyes open now. “Did Bull get the same treatment?”
     She stuck her tongue out at me. “Nah, he’s married remember. I gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek.”
     “Highly commendable,” I observed. “Will I be getting anymore kisses?  Perhaps a few in advance, for the saving of your life I’ll undoubtably be doing in the future?”
     She gave me a smouldering look. “You’re not a bad kisser. I’ll have to think about it.”
     “Oh please do.”
     I heard Bull’s voice from down the hallway. “How long does it take to wake up a great white hunter?”
     “He’s awake,” Susan yelled back. “Looks like death warmed over ‘an all, he does.”
     “Do I really?” I asked.
     “Wait till you get a good look at yourself in the mirror cully. You’re covered in soot, your face is scorched and you stink of ash and smoke. It’s into the bath for you, young man.”
     “Any chance of a back-rub?”
     Another look. “If I come in to rub your back darlin', I’ll make sure I’ve got a copper bristled brush in me ‘ands.”
     “I’ll manage alright by myself,” I hastily assured her. I was beginning to realise that with Susan, anything might be possible. Including the brush.
     She smiled. “I’ve run a tub for you already Allan. You toddle off and have a good scrub and I’ll make you a nice brekkie afterwards.”
     “Breakfast sounds wonderful.”
     “More like bleeding lunch. You’ve almost slept the whole morning away.”

*          *          *

     Scrubbed clean, I went down to a full English breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast, marmalade and a big pot of tea.
     Bull and I chatted briefly before he went off for an appointment with Frederick and his clockmaker.
     This left Susan, my uncle and I alone in the house. The housekeeper was out doing some grocery shopping.
     We discussed the events of the night past and what our plans to catch up with the Baylok in the near future might be.
     We only had a short amount of time to catch the inhuman thing I guessed. Before he/she/it put its diabolical plan into action.
     The daily paper contained details of the fire last night in Whitechapel, adding that the police suspected an armed gang had been responsible for starting it. Witnesses claimed to have heard gunfire from within the building before the fire broke out. Who were we to disagree with them? I felt that for once the journalists had actually managed to at least get some of their facts straight.
     It was decided we would relax until Bull returned. My uncle suggested a walk in the nearby park, to which Susan readily agreed. For myself I still felt a little tender in places from my encounter with the flames last night. I was content to merely sit in comfort on the well padded lounge and read a novel. 
     “’An you being a young man ‘an all Allan,” said Susan.
     “The events of last night, coupled with this mornings excitement, has left me drained I fear,” I told her.
     My uncle gave me an odd look. “Excitement? This morning?”
     “He’s being funny Henry. Take no notice of him.”
     I waved a languid hand. “Be off with you. Leave me to my book.”
     So off they went. And as soon as I heard the front door close I promptly stretched myself out on the lounge and went back to sleep.

*          *          *

     Bull Sackett returned before Susan and my uncle.
     “Clockmaker couldn’t fix the compass,” he told me straight away. “Reckons it’s made in a way he doesn’t understand. Reckons he doesn’t even know what kind of metal the internal mechanism’s made of. He wanted to keep it for a thorough examination, but I wouldn’t let him. Best he was able to do is straighten the needle and replace the broken glass cover.”
     “That’s not good,” I admitted. “Does it work still, do you think?”
     “No way to know I guess. Not until we go looking for the Baylok again.”
     “Then we shall go forth again tonight,” I told him. “And every night until we catch the monster.”
     My friend grinned. “I admire your persistence Allan.”
     “How much of that red powder do you have left?” I inquired.
     “A tiny amount.”
     “The creature boasted that it had transferred its energies to a fragment of life-stone. Mayhap the powder will be enough to destroy that fragment?”
     A shrug. “Hope so amigo. Have to find the thing again first.”
     “Indeed,” I sighed. “It’s almost like we’re right back at the beginning of our quest again.”
     Bull nodded morosely. “Was thinking the same thing myself.”
     Just then my uncle and Susan bustled through the front door. Carrying several packages and bags.
They saw our long faces.
     “Cheer up boys,” cried Susan. “Me ‘an Henry been shopping. Bought some clobber to put a smile on your dials.”
     I smiled at her. The more I heard her speak the more I enjoyed her accent. So much more alive did it sound than the boringly staid tones of the upper London classes.

*         *          *

     With Frederick once more at our side, we went hunting again that very night. Again my uncle Henry drove us about in the seconded Hansen. Bull stood beside him while the rest of us sat inside. The cabs not being large enough to seat four comfortably. The hatch above our heads was open, to allow us to converse with the others.
     We rode around Whitechapel several times between ten p.m. and midnight…and the compass in Bull Sackett’s hand registered not a tiny movement.
     “I think it’s broke,” he said forlornly.
     We visited the place where we had first met Susan. Then the alleyways and streets along which Bull and I had pursued the Baylok. Even did we return to the gutted building that had caught fire last night. And all to no avail. The compass did not flicker so much as an iota…and we likewise saw neither hide nor hair of any man, women or beast we suspected might be the Baylok.
     Hour after hour we drove around. Sometimes Bull and I walking about by ourselves.
     One of the packages my uncle and Susan had returned with contained a brand new Express rifle. This one specially cut down with shortened barrels. The better to conceal beneath my cape. I was touched. How many women go shopping for rifles for their male companions?
     Henry had paid for it of course. The cost of a custom made Express rifle was beyond the means of many people. But engraved on a small steel plaque on the stock were the words:

For Allan, from Susan
With much affection

     I was suitably impressed. Bull agreed that a woman who buys a man a good firearm was a ‘woman to ride the river with” whatever that meant? Some of the expressions that our American friend came out with baffled me.
     I was also given a new great-coat to replace my charred cape. It was made of thick, dark blue wool and had shoulder drapes to let water drain off it. It came almost to my ankles and would be perfect to hide any weapons I might see fit to carry about my person.
     “I bought it all, but Susan picked it,” my uncle confided in me when were alone together. “She’s a great girl you know?”
     I had already deduced that and told him so. He mentioned something about ‘making someone a good wife’ and I asked if he’d been talking to Bull about Susan and myself. My only reply being a small chuckle.
     I was leery about all this ‘wife’ stuff myself. I had seen first hand how white women, met and married in England or Europe and thence transported to the wilds of Africa, to live with their new husbands, had often not been wives for very long. Indeed I could count on the fingers of one hand exactly how many white women had lasted alongside their husbands in Africa. It is not a place for the fainthearted. The romantic visions that many European women have of the bushveldt is soon dispersed when the harsh reality of life in the bush is experienced. I’d had female friends stay with me in my home or come along on safari several times. In very short order they were only too glad to return to their country of origin. Since then I had not considered marriage to a woman raised within the gilded confines of the British Isles.
     “Nothing,” Bull muttered beside me.
     We were walking along one of the smaller backstreets. Already the fog was thick enough to cut with a knife. We had seen a few people strolling, (perhaps rolling might be a better term) about.
     None had paid us much attention, save the inevitable offers of the prostitutes.
     We returned to a main street and met up with our companions in the Hansen.
     Bull expressed his dismay in his magical compass.
     “But it might just be that the Baylok is lying low,” my uncle consoled him. “I mean you had no results the first few nights you were hunting the creature did you?”
     “That’s true,” admitted the American. “Let’s give it another hour or so and we’ll call it quits for tonight.”
     Another hour made no difference however. Either the Baylok was indeed keeping itself quite somewhere, or the compass was no longer functioning.
     At length we returned to my uncle’s house.
     It felt very unsatisfying that, having almost caught and destroyed the creature, that we must now find it all over again.
     We were all somewhat muted and despondent.
     Frederick offered to escort Susan home. Bull was headed back to his hotel, but accepted my uncle’s offer to relocate himself to our abode the next morning.
     “No need to waste all your money staying at the Ritz, day after day Bull,” my uncle told him. “Plenty of room here.”
     “It ain’t exactly my money I’m wasting at the Ritz Henry,” the other responded cryptically.
     “Is the Governor of Texas paying for everything then?” I asked.
     A chuckle. “No, he ain’t Allan. Poor feller probably couldn’t afford my gallivanting and upkeep.”
     “Then how do you afford to live in that flashy hotel?” Susan asked.
     “Well…I’m a gambler. A pretty good one if I do say so myself. I been financing this hunt with the money I make playing poker.”
     We all looked at him in surprise.
     He raised his hands. “Hey, it’s not a crime you know. Poker is all a mater of mathematics, hardly any luck involved at all. Just so happens I’ve got a good memory for the cards being dealt and the likelihood of the cards the other players are holding.”
     “And you’ve been able to pay your way all across America and now here in England through your poker winnings?” I asked sceptically.
     He nodded. “Yep. Reason I always try and stay at the posh hotels is that there’s always a few fellers looking to have a poker game. Lot of high rollers stay at those hotels. I don’t normally have no trouble getting myself into a game.”
     “Do you lose much,” Susan asked with genuine curiosity.
     “I let myself lose a few hands now and again. Kinds of gives the other players the idea that they might have the upper hand in the skill stakes.”
     I shook my head and smiled. “That home town accent you affect must disarm a lot of people.”
     “I thought the very same thing myself,” Frederick interjected. “I knew you were not just a common town sheriff when you used that Latin expression some days ago. Modus Operendi indeed. That’s more the kind of language I’d expect from some university educated chap.”
     “I reckon I can speak English as good as y’all when I want to,” Bull confessed. “But where I come from, most everyone talks like this. Goes with the territory so to speak.”
     After we’d all said our goodbyes, my uncle and I retired for a nightcap in the lounge.
     “Remarkable fellow that Ranger Sackett,” he said to me.
     I nodded. “It wouldn’t do to underestimate him. I’m sure plenty have.”
     “Those ones are probably buried in…what do the Yanks call it?...Boot Hill?”
     “You’ve been reading too many of those penny dreadful western tales,” I laughed.

*            *          *

[elkedoring]

Oh wonderful! Another installment! Can't wait for more!

[Jaqhama]

Oh wonderful! Another installment! Can't wait for more!

I'm glad you're enjoying the story Elkedoring.

I shall write some more tomorrow.

A few more thrills and spills before the tale is done I'm sure.
I'm not writing to a specific scenario, just going with the flow, so to speak.

I appreciate everyones support.

Cheers: Jaq.

[Victoria The Mistress]

Another enthralling episode.....

I probably come and check this three times a day or more at present - I'm utterly hooked!

*Bouncing on edge of seat with excitement!*

[Jaqhama]

Another enthralling episode.....

I probably come and check this three times a day or more at present - I'm utterly hooked!

*Bouncing on edge of seat with excitement!*

I normally write between 8 pm and 2 am my time. (it's 2 am here now)

I managed 7 pages tonight, using size 14 Bold font (good sized font to write on the screen that, easy on the eyes)
The font size changes to the forum norm when I post. And I have to re-indent all the lines as well. The forum won't accept indenting, if I just copy and paste. Won't accept justifying very well either.

I average between 3 and 5 pages most nights.

For any who are interested, the August 2008 edition of Flashing Swords magazine contains what I consider to be my best eerie fantasy story. They have already published two of my stories (and will publish more after the Aug issue) but the story in Issue # 11 is my personal favorite.
It's called A Strange Knight's Tale...I'll post up the story scenario is anyone is interested. Perhaps even a few paragraphs from the story itself.
(I also did the illustration for the story)


Cheers: Jaq.

[elkedoring]

oh yes please! I really do enjoy your writing