A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) (17 page)

Workbenches are strewn with the detritus of a thousand projects.

Uncountable firearms lie scattered in varied states of completion and construction. Most are practically unfathomable in their potential use.

A drafting table dominates the center of the room.

This is the nexus of firearm creation.

Mr. Temperance explains the construction of his ‘Green Beauties’, P.E.R.K., and P.G.D.D. to Mr. Johnson.

He then explains the devices we intend to create.

“I might just have to build one of these babies for myself,” exclaims the excited armament engineer.

- - -

Firearms of unheard of ferocity are now in our possession.

Three more sets of ‘Green Beauties’ have been built.

“Edged weapons are frowned upon in the police force.” This from Officer O'Hagan. “How about an alternative?”

“I might have something, officer.”

Borrowing a couple of tools from the two men, he uses the proffered items to quickly form two casting molds. Mr. Temperance returns to them their old toys, and the delighted constables’ new toys are soon at hand.

For Constable Keefer Smith, it’s an emerald truncheon.

“I call it a “BillyPUNC,” says Mr. Temperance.

Petrified

Ubiquitous

Necrotized

Cudgel

“Thank you, citizen Ichabod!”

“And for Mr. O'Hagan, his PUNKdusters.” says Mr. Temperance with a smile.

Petrified

Unified

Necrotized

Knuckles

“Oh, thank you kindly, little Icky!”

Everyone is shopping and getting new things but me! I rap my parasol pointedly on the floor. “Mr. Temperance, might I have some means of defense, as well?”

“I hate the idea of putting you in a position such that armed combat would be necessary, Miss Plumtartt.”

“Well it seems, sir, that I am finding myself in these circumstances whether you and I wish it or not. I am afraid there is no other choice. I insist.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Go ahead and build a weapon for ye’re bonnie lass, Icksy, the lass has a lot of pluck.”

Mr. Temperance’s eyebrows pull together in a knot of concentration, and then they open back into a happy state of relaxed inspiration. With a snap of his fingers and a carbide flash of ingenious light in his eyes, he ideates a personalized weapon especially for me.

When he shortly thereafter presents it to me, I start to protest, but quickly relent.

“I would prefer something more substantial, Mr. Temperance, but I must say, this
is
rather darling!”

Ichabod
.

“Bring on your old, scary monsters, we’re loaded for bear!”

“Yessir, Mr. Johnson, sir, this here is a sure ‘nough heavy duty arsenal all right, but don’t let your guard down. We might run into some ecto-grizzly bears.”

“Oh, dear, I had hoped that we would already be put to sea at sunset, but the ominous dusk catches us in her darkening embrace. We now enter the operational realm of our enemies.”

“Citizen driver, hurry this carriage to the docks, we have a ship to catch.”

“Sorry, Constable Smith. The docks are only a few blocks ahead, but traffic is not moving. There appears to be a disturbance up there. All traffic is turning back in this direction. All the horses are stampeding!”

“Saints and sinners, so is our horse wishing to flee. We’ve tarried too long! Everyone out of the carriage!”

“Yessir, Constable O’Hagan. Let me assist you, Miss Plumtartt.”

“Get us out of this street, Mr. Temperance, we shall be run under hoof!”

“We’ll squeeze in behind this porch post as the sidewalk is flooded with traffic as well.”

“I think that’s it, Ma’am. You can hear horses’ hooves throughout the city making their exodus.”

“Not only equine, but the human population is just behind.”

“Oooh, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Rather, I too suffer from nausea.”

“I think the sick feeling is coming from the dock area, Miss Plumtartt.”

“Indeed, for just as every other living creature senses in their most primal core, a repulsion to of that unto which we go. Come, Mr. Temperance, we must defeat this evil and make our way across the Pacific Ocean. We have been tasked.”

“Yes, Ma’am, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am.”

“Somehow, I feel safer walking down the center of the street.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Citizens Temperance and Plumtartt!”

“I am not, I am afraid, one of your country’s citizens, Constable Smith.”

“Oh, right, nevertheless, British citizen, I am relieved to see that you are uninjured.”

“Thank you, Constable, and now that our party is made whole again, I suggest we continue our trek down Desolation Boulevard.”

“I thinks it’s time we adorned our ‘Green Beauties’, lads.”

“Great day in the morning, I can see in the dark!”

“Aye, Mr. Johnson, my goggles are functioning as well. How about you, Keefer?”

“Roger-dodger.”

“Gee, it sure is lonely around here, ain’t it, Miss Plumtart?”

“Keep marching, Mr. Temperance.”

“Look at that tumbleweed bush getting blown along in a path perpendicular to us. In a peculiar way, somehow it fills my heart with a nameless sense of dread.”

“You and me both, Icky, lad.”

“Keep your head on a carousel and your eyes open for danger, citizens.”

“It’s less than two blocks to the wharf that has your launch, kiddies. We shall see you there.”

“Miss Plumtartt! Are you all right? Don’t falter now!”

“He is here, Mr. Temperance!”

“Shh, listen, y’all. In the uncanny silence that has gripped this town, you can hear the slow, measured, echoing steps of a man’s footfalls.”

A thin figure walks out into the empty street, strategically placing himself directly between us and our aquatic conveyances. This gentleman is as skinny as a rail and dressed in high fashion. A long thin mustache inhabits his upper lip.

“Mr. Temperance, that is Jean-Jacques Bhauh Buuhm, the horrid fellow from the hotel of whom I told you!”

“Persephone Plumtartt, you stubborn aristobrat. You selfishly put innocents in harm’s way. Had you co-operated with my European Counter-part, Herr Doktor Himmel, you might have spared many people much anguish and heartache. My mission is now to be completed. You are to be extinguished.”

“Don’t you talk to Miss Plumtartt like that, skinny britches! She has more aristocracy in the end of her little finger than you could carry heaped up in that big ol’ top hat of yours!”

“The intrepid Mr. Temperance,” sneers this oily poof. “If you could only get beyond your out-dated sense of chivalry, none of these exercises would have been necessary.”

I do not care for his implication.

“Wake up, man. This is 1875! You cling to the moral convictions and integrities of another age. Chivalry died many years ago.”

“Chivalry lives in all times, mister.”

“Move it, Slim. We have the means to advance our position.”

“Ah, yes, Johnson, the Negro gunsmith. We are familiar with your advancements in weaponry.”

“French citizen, you have the right to remain silent. I wish you would.”

“Constable Keefer Smith, you may be big, but you are no match for me.”

“Ho, ho, Keefer will have to settle for the scraps I leave him.”

“O’Hagan, ever the promiscuous and combative copper. I think you will agree, you still lack the capacity to stop the forces
I
have at hand.”

A green light begins to glow behind the sinister skeleton.

It comes from the ocean, behind the malevolent man.

The water has a sick and ghastly luminescence.

“A snake just slithered over the seawall, y’all. No, it’s not a snake but a tentacle. There’s another tentacle. Oh my goodness, a big monster octopus is climbing out of the sea!”

“Is that a phalanx of spears that rises from the water? Oh no, I see, they are the legs of an enormous, ocean-bottom scuttlebug, eh hem?”

Things crawl up over the pier’s railings, horrible creatures that should not be.

In a few short moments, the sea walls overflow with aberrant bottom feeders.

Nightmarish visions more horrible than an opiate addict could concoct in his drug addled dreams crest the wharf.

A torrential tide of terror washing a wave of water based wastes in an inbound undertow of unclean unsavoriness assaults our shores.

Swarms of swollen, slavering shrimps, grotesque galloping grubworms, and prehistoric prawns approach.

We open fire.

BUH
-WHOOMP.
{The two stages of charging.}

POW!
{The plasmo-gasmic discharge.}

BOOM!!!
{Exploding monster.}

There is a phosphorescent maelstrom.

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

The discharges are almost as dangerous as the frightful combustion of the abominations we shoot.

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

etcetera...

Big Keef and the lethal Leprechaun show great alacrity in combat.

Mr. Johnson’s choice of weapon design has proven providential. Just like I thought back at the Pistol Parlour, I do believe this gentleman has been influenced by the Comet’s passing, for his device is quite ingenious. Much like the Henry, or, Winchester, lever-action, repeating rifles we are familiar with, Mr. Johnson has a similarly designed shaughtte gun. However, it operates by means of a sliding mechanism, instead of a lever, under its twin, opposite side ejecting barrels. Two large canisters of ammunition replace the under barrel tube to supply higher multitudes of destructive reserves. A pistol’s grip adds speed and leverage. Plasmogasm enhances the deadly device’s destructive powers exponentially.

My La Mat is shocking in its devastation.

Miss Plumtartt’s accessory is proving quite effective! She wields it with precision and murderous intent.

The abominations dart about with deadly purpose, their locomotion alone creating a clickety-clackety cacophony, not to mention their shrill analogue to language. The other indefinable aural phenomena they emit are anathema to my senses, a saturation of maddening sounds that were never meant to be heard in our universe.

A steady rain of plasmogasmic fire creates a green storm of deafening blasts. These are followed in quick response with the huge explosion of each creature.

How long does it go on? The barrage is horrific. The carnage is unimaginable. The hordes of our attackers are relentless. No matter how many monsters are destroyed, a continual wave of foul creatures follow the departed.

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

…

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

…

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

…

…

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

…

…Our fire begins to wither. …

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!
BOOM!!!

Dang, our firepower seems to be waning as we use up our ammunitions.

The onslaught of craven crawfish is unabated.

I see Miss Plumtartt taken with a shudder. She compulsively shoots a pair of red energy spheres of sorts from her palms. In the resulting two huge explosions, many monsters are destroyed. Unfortunately, more take their place. Miss Plumtartt has a deathly pallor. Swaying on her feet, she nearly collapses.

Our fire dissipates as our munitions are depleted.

I hate to do it. I don’t really know what is gonna happen if I discharge the Ectoplasmic chamber in the shaughtte gun tube of the LaMat.

I don’t have a choice.

BUH
-WHOOMP.
POW!

BOOMITY! BOOMITY!

BOOMITY! BOOMITY!

BOOMITY! BOOMITY!
BOOM
!

It worked, but it is about as useful as lips on a chicken, as more monstricized shrimp fill the void of depleted prawn as fast as we can dispatch them.

My stalwart companions and I have exhausted our entire stock of ammunitions.

We resort to our ecto-resin weapons.

Big Keef clobbers his adversaries with his emerald truncheon.

O’Hagan clocks monsters left and right with blinding speed. His emerald knuckles are a blur of punishment.

Miss Plumtartt regains her resolve and has great effect with the weapon I crafted for her.

I am P.E.R.K.-o'lating.

Mr. Johnson swings his depleted shaughtte gun at a monster with a mighty blow. The metal barrels pass through the inter-dimensional horror like air and Mr. Johnson spins three times before landing on his backside.

“Use the other end, Mr. Johnson, sir.”

“Blast you, Temperance, tell me faster next time!”

Muttering curses under his breath, the angry gunsmith flips his scatter-gun, and cracks the closest monster with the wooden stock of the weapon.

“Take that!” rings Miss Plumtartt’s clear British voice as she cracks the head of a nasty bug, with her “R.O.S.E.”

“At you!” insists Miss Plumtartt, as she punctures another beastie with her “T.H.O.R.N.”

Somehow, I and my companions demand of ourselves the wherewithal to continue.

We fight with what means are left to us.

Valiant though our efforts be, our position has become untenable.