~ Lord Likely and the Bloody Nuisances: Parts Nine and Ten ~

For the previous chapter, please click here.

“I AM afraid the wedding’s off, lady,” drawled Evan Hellsinger, as he trained his stake-loaded pistol upon my would-be -wife (and vicious vampiress) Helena Handbaskett. “But you’re just in time for your funeral!”

“I’m already dead, foolish mortal!” hissed Helena, baring her fangs.

“Oh yeah,” Hellsinger remembered. “Well, uh…prepare for your second funeral, then!”

Helena rolled her eyes in despair, and then in one swift, effortless motion, she grabbed Hellsinger by his collar and hurled him out of one of the stained-glass windows. I watched with dismay as the only vampire-slayer in the building crashed through the window and disappeared into the night outside, leaving a Hellsinger-shaped hole in the glass, through which bright, brilliant moonlight streamed into the church.

“It has risen!” Helena proclaimed excitedly.

“Well,” I smiled, getting increasingly frisky as the five bottles of whisky I had earlier consumed started to make their presence felt in my system. “You ARE wearing a very low-cut dress, m’dear…I am bound to get rather excited…”

“SILENCE!” Helena screamed. “The Blood Moon…it has risen! The time is here…the time is UPON US!”

I watched with mounting confusion as the various vampires in the building surged forward to revel in the moonlight, dancing and skipping in the beam like over-excited schoolchildren playing in the rain.

“This…this doesn’t look good,” I muttered to Inspector Spunkleford, who had come to my side to behold the freakish spectacle himself.

“I’ll say,” Spunkleford replied. “That window will cost hundreds to replace!”

I was about to refer to Spunkleford as a ‘blithering great anal-fissure’ when I suddenly noticed that Helena had gone very quiet, and was basking in the moonlight, her head tilted back,  almost as if she was absorbing the light through her very skin. Then she slowly began to rise into the air, gently turning in the beam as she rose up, until she came to a stop a few feet short of the church’s ceiling. She hung in the air for a moment, then her head suddenly snapped forward, and her eyelids flicked open, to reveal two blood-red eyes.

“LET THE BLOODENING…COMMENCE!” she growled.

“Oh dear,” I said to Spunkleford. “Either it is her time of the month, or she is planning to feast on our throats…either way, this is going to be an unpleasant experience for all concerned…”

“And so, my children!” Helena gestured to the vampires below. “It is coming to pass, just as the prophecy foretold! In the age of steel and smoke, on the night of the Blood Moon, a new queen shall rise in God’s house, and lead her followers into a new era of blood and darkness!” She paused as her blood-thirsty audience whooped and cheered their approval. “All we need now is the blood of a virgin, and the blood of a nobleman..” she smiled, turning to look at me.

“Well, I can certainly supply the noble blood, but if it is virgin’s blood you want, then I am sorry to report that you’re rather barking up the wrong tree. In fact, I’d go so far to say that you’re not even in the right ruddy forest…”

“Oh, we have our virgin, your lordship!” Helena grinned. “BRING THE WOMAN!” she cried, at which point two burly vampires appeared from the vestry, dragging a rather stout woman along with them. She was kicking and screaming quite loudly, demanding that she was unhanded immediately, and loudly proclaiming that the entire affair was such an outrage that she was going to write to her Member of Parliament post-haste to complain in the strongest possible terms.

“A-Agnes?” gasped Spunkleford, recognising his wife as she was led to the altar.

“ALBERT?” snapped Mrs. Spunkleford. “Is this your doing? Who are these people? Friends of yours, I suppose…”

“Hold on,” said I. “Mrs. Spunkleford is…a VIRGIN? Good heavens, Spunkleford! No wonder your dear lady wife is filing for a divorce!

“Well, I…ahem…I’ve been…busy,” Spunkleford blustered.

“BUSY? For twenty-three years?” screeched his wife. “Honestly, I think he’d have rather married the job than me, you know.”

“Now now, Agnes, do not be silly! One cannot marry an intangible entity…or at least that is what the registrar told me.”

“See?” Agnes snapped. “This is what I am talking about! It’s all work, work work with this man! He never treats me, never takes me out…”

“I beg to differ!” Spunkleford replied indignantly. “I took you out only last week!”

“Albert, it may shock you, but a trip to the morgue to examine a corpse is not every lady’s idea of a dream date, you know.”

“Well, that’s gratitude, all I – ”

“Ahem!” coughed Helena, who was still floating in mid-air. “Sorry to interrupt this little marriage guidance session, but might I remind you that I AM trying to bring about a new era of darkness and terror here?”

“Oh yes,” said Spunkleford sheepishly. “My apologies. Do carry on.”

“SO! Who’s blood shall I take first?” smiled Helena, nodding towards me. “The nobleman’s, or the virgin’s?”

“Well, as a gentleman of impeccable breeding, I have to say ladies first,” I replied, motioning at Mrs. Spunkleford.

“Likely!” hissed Spunkleford.

“‘Tis just the booze talking, Spunkleford!” I beamed, removing a hip-flask from my coat pocket. “Of course, I shall go first.”

“Excellent!” Helena grinned. “Soon, the world shall be mine…”

“Do you mind if I just finish this first?” I asked, waving my hip-flask gently in the air. “A dead man’s final wish?”

“Likely! What are you doing?” whispered Spunkleford. “You are already stupendously sozzled – I hardly think this is the – ”

Spunkleford’s protests were cut short as Helena nodded her approval of my proposition. I duly raised the flask to my lips, and chugged back the last of the whisky therein. As I did so, I felt the booze flow through me, causing every part of me to relax (yes, even THAT part) until, as the last drop slid down my throat, I was completely calm, and really rather drunk.

“Now, my dear,” I said as the warming whisky began to course through my veins. “I believe you were talking about sucking something, were you not?”

Helena drifted gently back down to the ground beside me. “Indeed I was, my lord,” she grinned.

And then, she sunk her fangs right into my noble neck.

~ Part Ten ~

From the Diary of Inspector Albert Spunkleford.

I WATCHED, horrified, as that damned vampire woman plunged her fangs into Likely’s neck, and began to drain the very lifeblood from him. Likely did not resist in the slightest, and simply  stood there with a rather sloppy grin on his face. Poor fool, I thought. The beggar’s too drunk to realise what’s going on. Either that, or he is getting some sort of pleasure from the whole exchange.

“Right,” gasped Ms. Handbaskett, as she let Likely’s unconscious form drop to the floor. “Now it is time for the virgin’s blood…” she continued, advancing toward Agnes.

“Now, stop there!” I protested, holding a wooden cross in front of me. “And…erm…get back, you…uh, fiend!”

“Oh, Albert!” squealed Agnes. “You’re so brave!”

Ms. Handbaskett cocked her head and then burst out laughing. “HA! A cross? Ha-ha! We are in a CHURCH, you silly little man. Do you think we’d have come here if we were terrified of crosses? Ha-ha! Now please, move out of the way so I can – HIC! – ” Helena stopped short, taken aback by her involuntary hiccup. She put her hand to her chest, and looked rather embarrassed. “Excuse me,” she apologised. “I must have drunk his lordship’s blood rather too qui – HIC! ”

I observed with increasing curiosity as Helena thumped her chest in an attempt to stop her hiccuping, but rather than abating, they seemed to increase in frequency. In addition, she started to stagger rather wildly, almost as if she were…

I looked at the comatose from of Likely, now being looked after by his ever dutiful man-servant, and smiled. The sly old dog! For once, his lordship had not been merely getting drunk – he’d been formulating a dashed cunning plan! Either that, or he HAD just been getting drunk, and had gotten rather lucky.

“Musht…HIC! – musht have the virgin’sh blood,” slurred Ms. Handbaskett, wobbling uneasily towards Agnes and I. “Musht – HIC! – musht feed again!”

“Get behind me, Agnes!” I warned my wife, as I feebly tried to keep the decidedly sloshed succubus at bay with my crucifix while I tried to think of a suitable course of action. Fortuitously, my decision was made for me, as Helena attempted to rush at me, but in her inebriated state she instead tripped over her own feet, and impaled herself upon the very cross in my hand.

Ms. Handbaskett let out a blood-curdling scream as she pulled away from me, the cross wedged firmly in her chest. She began to writhe in pain, an act mirrored by the other assembled vampires, and then, one by one, they all exploded in a spectacularly messy fashion, until just Ms. Handbaskett was left.

“Currrrssssse you!” she snarled. “I curse you all to He – HIC!”

And then, with that final hiccup, she too burst apart before our very eyes, like an evil balloon, covering me in smatterings of gore and guts in the process. I picked a kidney from my hat, and then turned to check on the wife.

“It’s all over now, Agnes,” I said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “There there.”

“Look at the state of you, Albert!” Agnes barked, wiping a lump of flesh from my collar. “This will take me an age to put right, you know! You really should be more careful!”

“Does…does that mean you aren’t going to…” I began.

“Well, I’ve been doing some thinking, Albert…I’ve seen you in a whole new light tonight, all dashing and brave and that. I…I think I’d like to stay, yes. We can give it another chance, can’t we?”

“Agnes,” I said, holding my wife’s hands in mine. “If you can spare five minutes in between washing bits of dead vampire from my clothes and cooking me a hot meal, I would very much like to attend to an oversight I have made on my part these past years…”

“Oh, Albert! I say!” blushed Agnes.

“Oh, Agnes!” I sighed, contentedly.

From the Journal of Lord Likely, Aristocratic Adventurer and Gentle-Man of Action.

I AWOKE to find Botter’s awful face baring down on me, concern etched all over his miserable little face.

“Milord! You are alive!” he beamed.

“So it would seem,” I said, disappointed not to find myself surrounded by comely angels in the afterlife. “Please, Botter, do stop fussing so!” I snapped as Botter tried to help me up. “One pain in the neck is more than enough, thank you very much.”

I hauled myself up to my feet and took a moment to get my bearings. “Eurh, how revolting,” I remarked as I looked about.

“I know, milord. They all just burst apart – it was really disgusting.”

“No, not that – THAT,” I clarified, pointing ahead of me where Inspector Spunkleford and his wife were currently locking lips. “Now there is a sight to turn one’s stomach! Egad, what a turn up, eh Botter? An adventure where Spunkleford winds up being the one to walk off with the lady! What is the world coming to?” I shook my head sadly and picked up my hat and cane from the floor. “Well, enough with the slaying, and on with the laying, I say! Let’s get out of here and find me a couple of whores, hmm? Everything seems to have been wrapped up nicely here…”

- Lord Likely.

From the Journal of Evan Hellsinger, Vampire Slayer

SO I woke up to find myself lying in among hundreds of tiny shards of colored glass, in a churchyard, in the early hours of the morning. Groggily, I got to my feet as the previous night’s events began to filter through my aching head. Oh God, I thought – the vampires!

I picked up my pistol and ran around the side of the church, and burst in through the front doors, my weapon primed.

“Everyone get down, I’m back and I’m ready to – oh!”

The place was empty, save for a few messy piles of guts and bones gently smouldering away on the floor. Damn, I thought, looks like I missed one helluva party.

I holstered my pistol and walked out of the church. What now for Evan Hellsinger? What does a vampire slayer do when the vampires have been slayed, I pondered as I sat up on the church wall.

As I sat in deep contemplation, I suddenly became aware of someone standing near me. The figure coughed gently to better attract my attention, and looking up I saw a smartly-dressed man stood on the street.

“Yeah?” I said wearily.

“Good day, kind sir,” said the man, doffing his hat. “I am Mr. Jonathan Harker. Sorry to bother you, but I wondered if you could help me…I am trying to locate this Count, and I -”

“Listen, pal – you want the police, okay?” I replied wearily. “I think there’s a station a few streets that way…”

“Oh, right…I…I see,” said Mr. Harker. “Um…thank you, sir.”

I shook my head sadly as I watched this Mr. Harker disappear down the road. Some people – they just don’t know how to find that which they seek. Damn fools…

The End.

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~ Lord Likely and the Bloody Nuisance: Part Seven ~

For the previous chapter, do please click here.

“LOOKS LIKE I got here just in the nick of time, gentlemen,” Evan Hellsinger said, kicking aside the charred, molten remains of the late Doctor Whelkbladder. “Had I been a second late, this guy woulda been ripping your faces off and chowing down on your eyeballs.”

“Really,” I sighed, finding myself less-than-impressed by this brash, American ‘vampire slayer.’ “I think you will find we had the matter well in hand, sir.”

“Really?” smirked Hellsinger. “‘Cos it looked like you two were crappin’ your pants from where I was standin’.”

“How dare you sir!” I replied, my face reddening with rage.

“I must say, he really is rather spot-on. I am afraid I may well have soiled myself,” Inspector Spunkleford lamented, thus deftly puncturing any last vestige of dignity we may have had in the American’s eyes.

“Anyway, which one of you two is Lightly? Lord Lightly?” drawled our brash acquaintance.

“It’s Likely,” I replied through teeth so tightly gritted, I feared they may crack and splinter apart at any moment.

“Yeah?” answered Hellsinger. “It’s likely to be who, exactly?”

“LIKELY,” I repeated. “Lord LIKELY!”

“Ha! What a funny name! What’s your first name – Not Very? Haha! Not-Very Likely-To-Know-How-To-Defeat-Vampires?”

“Now listen here, you puffed-up, preening, prancing, poncey piss-pot, I – ”

“Hey, calm down, ya lordship! I’m jus’ kiddin’ with ya! Geez, you’re so tightly clenched it’s a wonder you can take a shit in the mornin’.”

“Why you…” I began, and then, deciding that words would be incredibly insufficient with which to express my great displeasure, I punched Hellsinger right in his perfectly-toothed mouth. Hellsinger recoiled, pausing to momentarily wipe a drop of blood from his broken lip, before charging back at me. And thus we found ourselves locked in a spectacularly vicious bout of fisticuffs, exchanging punches with all the frenzied fervour of two schoolboys swapping lewd pictographs in the playground.

“Stop, stop this at once!” barked Spunkleford, as Hellsinger and I crashed to the floor, blood streaming from both of our faces. “This is a police-station, gentlemen – we shall have no violence here!”

Hellsinger and I duly separated, cautiously eyeing one another in case the other should make a further attempt at violence.

“I gotta admit…you fight pretty good,” Hellsinger said, trying to stem the flow of blood gushing from his broken nose.

“You fight pretty well,” I corrected.

“Why thanks,” Hellsinger replied, my attempt at grammatical enlightenment soaring straight over his square head. “But listen, let’s get down to business, alright? I’ve been tracking these goddamn vampires across the goddamn globe, from Pennsylvania to Transylvania, and lots of other places in between that don’t fit with the ‘vania’ rhyme scheme. Anyway,” Hellsinger continued, lighting a big, fat cigar. “They came to London, England a few weeks ago, and suddenly – POOF!”

I paused at this unusual outburst. “You met a homosexual?”

“No, ‘poof!’ They vanished. Lost sight of ‘em…darned if I know where they went. So I’m snooping round the city – lovely place, by the way, so quaint! Everything’s so much smaller over here!”

“Not everything,” I interjected with a wry smile.

“So, yeah…I’m snooping around, trying to find these damn vamps, when I get wind that some fellah called Lord Likely is on the case too, hear talk that he’s gonna bring down the big bad guy…”

“Which I did,” I bristled, recalling my encounter with the now thoroughly re-dead Mr. Stryx.

“Uh-uh,” the American replied, shaking his head. “No you didn’t.”

“He was a pile of smouldering bones by the time I finished with him, sir – I’d say that was pretty ruddy dead, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, you killed A vampire, no doubtin’ that sir. But you didn’t kill the head vamp. You see this guy?” Hellsinger indicated to Whelkbladder’s remains. “He wouldn’t have been tryin’ to snack on your Limey throats if you’d killed the head honcho. Once you defeat the boss, the curse is lifted, y’see? Nope, the main blood-sucker is still out there, y’lordship.”

“Bollocks,” I sighed. “That’s a bloody pain in the neck.”

“Ha! Frightfully witty, Likely!” snorted Spunkleford.

“Shut up,” I snapped. “So, Mr. Hellsinger, where might you suggest we go to find this fiend? Are we to track him to his imposing, Gothic castle in eastern Europe?”

“Who says it’s a he?” Hellsinger asked, drawing on his cigar.

“By Jove!” I exclaimed, grasping Spunkleford’s arm. “It could be Mrs. Spunkleford! She’s trying to bleed you dry with these divorce proceedings!”

“I…I think I’d have remembered if Agnes was prone to turning into a bat and flying off in the middle of the night to feast on people’s blood, Likely.”

“Never trust a woman, Spunkleford,” I warned.

“Relax, it ain’t this Spunkyflood woman. No, the dame we’re after goes by many names, but not that one. Sometimes she’s called Raven, sometimes Lilith, sometimes Helena, sometimes Mrs. Drinksblood…not very subtle, that one…”

“HELENA!” I cried. “Heavens, I almost forgot! I am to be married shortly!”

“Shortly?” exclaimed Spunkleford. “But ’tis nearly evening!”

“Yes, well, Helena wanted us to get wed rather promptly. Said something about a lovely moon-lit ceremony, as I recall. Anyway, I’d best be off, chaps – I can’t be late for my own wedding!!”

I got up and strode out of the room, whistling as I went. Before long, however, I was back, something niggling away at the back of my mind.

“This Helena you mentioned, Hellsinger,” I said, as I walked back into the room. “She…she is the same Helena as the one I am to wed, isn’t she?”

Hellsinger nodded in agreement.

“So she is, in fact, a vampire, is she not?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And so…we are going to have to kill her.”

“Yup,” Hellsinger confirmed, pulling a large, wooden box out of his bag. He flipped open the lid, to reveal a veritable smorgasbord of vampire-slaying instruments. “Luckily, I came prepared,” Hellsinger winked.

“Bugger,” I said. “‘Tis a terrible shame. She had the most fantastic tits, you know.”

- Lord Likely.

Next Time in The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely: Wedding HELLS!

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~ Lord Likely and the Bloody Nuisances, Part Four ~

For the previous chapter, please click here.

From the Journals of Lord Likely, Aristocratic Adventurer and Gentle-Man of Action.

MR. STRIX hissed at me, and opened his mouth to reveal his fearsome fanged teeth. Any doubts I may have had pertaining to the existence of vampires were quickly vanishing in the face of cold, hard, pointy facts.

With another loud hiss, Mr. Strix lunged at me, but I proved much too quick for the blood-sucking bounder, and deftly leapt out of the way. Strix proceeded to fall over a table behind where I’d stood, and then he landed in a rather undignified and un-terrifying heap.

“By Beelzebub’s Acrid Arse-Gas!” I exclaimed as I gathered myself up. “What a turn-up for the books, eh?” I turned to my companions, Inspector Spunkleford and my man-servant, Botter (still clutching his erroneous steak), who were both trembling and white with fear. I believe Botter may have even soiled himself slightly, but I was not prepared to investigate further.

“H-he’s an actual vampire!” Spunkleford stammered, pointing a shaky finger in Strix’s direction.

“Very good, inspector,” I remarked. “I dare say you shall quickly work your way up to commissioner with such remarkable deductive skills.”

“B-but he’s a vampire!” Spunkleford repeated.

“Yes, so we have established. Now, what say we get out of this forsaken hell-hole before that very same vampire recovers himself, hmmm?”

But, even as I spoke it was much too late, and Strix was scrabbling to his feet, his eyes glowing with rage.

“I…musssst…FEEEEEED!” he snarled.

“Quick, Spunkleford! Show him your cross!” I bellowed.

“Erm…all-all right, Likely,” Spunkleford replied nervously, before stepping up in front of Mr. Strix, puffing his chest out in a feeble attempt to look braver than he actually was. “Now…now listen here, my man…I really am rather annoyed, you know…and…and I have found your behaviour quite unacceptable. Furthermore, I – ”

“No, Spunkleford!” I cried out, exasperated. “Don’t show him YOU ARE cross, show him YOUR cross – your damned crucifix!”

Spunkleford nodded his comprehension, but as he went to reach into his pocket to retrieve the cross, Strix was upon him, bashing him out of the way like he was nothing more than a portly, middle-aged rag-doll, and sending him flying into a beam on the other side of the room. That would most assuredly leave a mark, I mused, before refocusing my attention on Strix, who was gliding toward me, his arms outstretched in my direction.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I said. “What is your obsession with me? I dare say Spunkleford had more blood in him than I! I mean you only have to look at him to realise he is positively brimming with the stuff…surely he would make for a fine feast indeed? No?…oh, to hell with it all!” I cried, as I grabbed the raw steak from Botter’s limp grasp, and then brought it sharply across Strix’s face as he leapt at me once more. The full-force of the lump of cow-meat forced Strix to spin round two hundred and forty degrees, at which point he lost his footing and collapsed back onto the table, inadvertently skewering himself on a solid-gold fountain pen which had been resting in an ink-well.

From the diary of Mr. Strix, Vampire.

Owch.

From the Journals of Lord Likely, Aristocratic Adventurer and Gentle-Man of  Action.

Strix let out a piercing shriek, writhed about for a bit, before falling silent and limp on the table.

“Well,” I smiled, hurling the steak back to Botter. “It seems he certainly got the POINT, eh Botter?”

“Very good, milord,” Botter drawled.

“The point…of the pen,” I added.

“Yes, milord.”

“In his chest.”

“Um…yes.”

“And then he died.”

“Erm…”

“Right! Enough quick-fire witticisms! Let us get out of here and – oh-ho? What now?” I exclaimed, as Strix’s body started to steam and crackle noisily, like bacon on a stove, and then – before our very eyes – the corpse began to melt, the skin slipping off the bones and dissolving into smoke.

“Bloody hell!” I remarked.

“I…I think I’m going to be sick…” Botter whined.

At that point, Strix’s maid entered the room, eager to see what all the commotion was about. “What’s all the commotion in here?” she said, confirming my previous sentence. “What’s been happening? Where’s the mast – oh!” Her eyes fell upon the smouldering remains of her former employer, moving her to emit a loud, piercing scream. Thus sated, she swiftly passed out in a dead faint into my manly arms.

“She must have been rather perturbed by the terrible mess,” I hypothesised. “I dare say there’s a good hour or two’s worth of cleaning to be done in here. Poor thing,” I said, stroking strands of the girl’s red hair from her eyes. “Listen, Botter…I shall go and make sure this poor darling is comfortable…you go and check on the inspector. I fear his pride may be slightly bruised, at least if the angle at which he hit that beam is anything to go by.”

“Very good, milord,” Botter nodded, scuttling off to perform my wishes.

“Wha…what happened?” murmured the maid, as she slowly returned to a state of consciousness.

“Do not worry yourself dear,” I cooed sympathetically. “The nightmare is over now – and forever more!”

- Lord Likely.

Next Week in “Lord Likely and the Bloody Nuisances”: The Nightmare is Far From Over!

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