Death In Hand

Death In Hand is the thirtieth chapter in the Wombles Eight.

“I’m not a traitor, Katy.” Said Catwoman, “I heard what you said to Tara- you know I would never betray you.”

“I caught you in the act!”

“No, you didn’t.  I’m not stealing this stuff, just borrowing it. I really need it for something which I’m making to help you.”

“…Okay.  Carry on, then… I suppose.”

Catwoman breathed a sigh of relief that Katy had believed her as she sped away in the Batmobile, wondering what she was going to do as an excuse to not return Katy’s things to her.

A figure watched gleefully at Katy’s obliviousness and Fauna’s astonishing abilities.  He watched closely at the spot where Fauna was sitting, invisible to most people’s eyes.  But not his.  And not the eyes of the person who Fauna had nearly accidentally revealed.  The figure walked away and went back to watch the womble existence jewel commotion again.

Tara was now sat on the sofa next to Dr King, staring at him and wondering how she was going to give him the potion, considering he’d fallen unconscious quite a few minutes ago. She put down the bowl on the coffee table and used one hand to pick up her giant book of magic then used the other to flip through the pages. Lime-green and chocolate-brown glitter burst everywhere like confetti as she opened it, and everything except for Tara herself got sprinkled with it.

Tara stopped on a rather yellowed and torn page titled SOLUTIONS TO STUPID PREDICAMENTS. She personally thought this problem was rather stupid, so guessed that it would be on this page. She eventually found the answer given for it. She frowned deeply at it for a full sixty seconds, then sighed and said, “Well, I suppose that’s just what London life’s like nowadays.”

Tara closed the book and slammed Dr King in the stomach with it. He instantly woke up, although he still seemed to be only really half—conscious. Especially since he wasn’t even reacting to being smacked in the stomach with a six-million-page hardback book, by her. She sighed again and started to spoon-feed him with the potion, using Venus’s ruby-and-emerald-encrusted solid-gold spoon.

In the throne-room, Steed was just about to say “Welcome to the throne-room!” when suddenly, *The Avengers* Series Three theme tune started coming out of nowhere. Everybody else just looked confused, but Steed carefully rearranged the left arm-rest on his throne to reveal a gold-and-purple telephone. He answered to hear a male stranger’s voice saying, “Is this King Lord Sir John Steed of England?”

“Well, yes, of course it is.” Replied Steed. “Who do you think this is, Mr Snoodle?”

“Who’s Mr Snoodle?”

“You know, actually, I haven’t the faintest idea myself.”

“What???”

“What do you want? And who are you?”

“My name is…well, it doesn’t matter, really, I suppose. But-some freak came in my nightclub asking something about you. Something rather odd, I can’t…quite…remember what it was, exactly. I thought, though, that you’d want to know. And that *I’d* like to talk to you about it.”

“Well…alright. But you had better make this quick, I’ll have to get back here as soon as possible.”

“OK then, come to my club. It’s roughly just three streets away.”

Steed left and drove about three streets away. He instantly saw the one and only nightclub, which had its name, THE VIOLET FLOWER, on it in lights which in the dark would flash between violet and a blinding  shade of white. Steed went in and walked to the bar, where The Caller was indeed waiting. As soon as Steed sat down, The Caller said, “Now, how do I explain this…? What exactly was it they said…? Something very odd…”

“Look, if you can’t remember it, then I should just leave.” Said Steed. “No, let me think.” Insisted The Caller with a look of alarm. “Well, if it was so odd, then how did you forget it?” asked Steed somewhat sarcastically.

“Well, right after the conversation then the guy went and started dancing with this hazel-eyed young redhead. I just thought she was so extraordinarily pretty that I forgot what I’d been thinking about. I don’t think she was really interested in him, she seemed to have some ulterior motive, but she did tell him her name. Grace, I think.”

“I didn’t come to talk about beautiful women.” Said Steed while bracing both hands solidly on the counter and leaning forward to look The Caller in the eyes.

“Oh, no. No, of course not.” Said The Caller. “If you’re not going to tell me anything, then you’re wasting my time.” said Steed as he abruptly got up from his seat.

The Caller was shouting madly at Steed, but he just continued to walk fast-paced out of the building and back to the throne-room.

Tara was done with feeding Dr King the potion, but it wouldn’t go into effect straight away so she switched Venus’s TV on. It went to the last channel Venus had been watching, which always showed gory horror-themed things. “Oh, Venus, what did you do to yourself?” she muttered and switched to a live fashion show. She switched away from it when she saw what was currently being shown. Now the screen showed halfway through a really bizarre comedy film. Tara was just about to give up, when everything on it went fuzzy and Inlustris appeared.

“Hello, dear one.” She said, gazing right into the camera. “It may look like I address you all, but I am afraid I address only my apprentice. And I address her with the words from this little dirty piece of paper.”

Tara frowned, but carried on listening anyway. Inlustris smiled mysteriously  and continued to speak, reading from the little dirty piece of paper.

*In the City Of Angels this power was hunted                                                                                                                                 By a figment of the burning depths of hell                                                                                                                                    Hidden in a manifestation no-one wanted                                                                                                                                   Destined to be deep into important help*

*In the City Of Angels this power corrupted                                                                                                                                   The potential of future swung hard around                                                                                                                                 Wrongly awakened with death in hand and to stop it                                                                                                              Well, there wasn’t even one being around*

*In the City Of London this power needs saving                                                                                                                           There’s so much this beautiful magic could do                                                                                                                           It was turned into belladonna, now it’s wasting                                                                                                                        But not quite too late for it to be rescued*

The TV switched back to bizarre comedy. Tara switched it off and glanced at Dr King. He was still out of it, so she picked up the phone and called Gordon.

“Gordon Kingston at your service.” Said Gordon. Tara shook her head and smiled but said aloud, “I’m not in the mood for jokes, Gordon.”

“I can hear your smile, Tara.”

“No you can’t.”

“Yes I can.”

“No you can’t!” Tara protested, laughing happily.

“Yes I can.” Said Gordon sounding like he was probably smiling to himself as he did whatever it was he was doing.

“So what’s up?” asked Gordon softly. “I don’t know, really.” Said Tara, biting her upper lip despite the fact that it had lipgloss on. “Inlustris interrupted the TV broadcast with some wackjob-type riddle. An old friend of mine has mysteriously showed up alive, but clearly been attacked. Things are getting very difficult lately with the whole Katy thing. I just don’t know what to do about anything anymore. Ugh, this lipgloss aftertaste is so not nice.”

“Well… you wanna come round and watch some TV, play a game, something?” asked Gordon.

Tara glanced back at Dr King and frowned.  “I’d love to. Really. But I’m afraid I can’t. I should stay with Dr King until he gets better, really.” She paused. “But…I mean, you could come round. I’m in Venus King’s unsold apartment. Don’t worry, I’ve cleaned it up – by mistake. I blew magic glitter everywhere and because it was responding to my touch, it turned the place into something more like my preferences.”

“Yeah, sure.”

**ONE HOUR LATER**

Tara and Gordon had finally managed to find something good to watch while they played Monopoly during the advert breaks. There was currently a champagne commercial on, but they weren’t paying attention. They were having a very good time with Monopoly, despite how long it had been and Tara had been winning for such a vast majority of the time that it was hard not to wonder if she was somehow  using a mystical cheat scheme. She didn’t think she was doing that, but she did half-wonder if she was somehow doing it by mistake.

While Tara was enjoying herself immensely with the game and the film,  she would every once in a while drift back to Inlustris’s words in a distressing curiosity. *The City Of Angels.* Did that mean what it usually meant? Or something more literal? And what did this mystery power have to do with anything? Could she use it to stop Katy?

When she drifted too far, Gordon would say gently, “Hey. Snap out of it.” And sometimes lay down the dice to kiss her deeply.

They were in the middle of such an occasion, with the champagne commercial on soundlessly in the background, when the darkest glitter ever seen clouded the room.

Tara and Gordon were forcefully broken away from their kiss as they began coughing and spluttering and choking on the stuff.

The sparkles gradually cleared, to reveal Katy Perry standing in a brand-new sparkly ebony bikini with her blue hair now curving slightly in places towards the end and streaked with pink and purple. In her hand she held a staff of black wood with a large green ember encased at the top, while her eyelids had blood-red eyeshadow smeared upon them and above. On her head was Cathy’s crown, which she had managed to sneakily summon to herself, and her earlobes were pierced with black loveheart earrings made from carved diamonds and rotten blood. And finally, her deadly-sharp nails were now painted completely black with the same thing as her sickening jewellery.

“What’s this?” said Katy. “Looks like someone forgot to inform me.” She said, looking at Tara. “Tara, my *darling,* I expect to know when my traitors have had the nerve to survive me.”

“I thought you didn’t like people who dyed their hair more than one colour at once.” Said Tara.

“And *I* thought you were my most loyal subject.” Said Katy. “So I guess,” she continued with a stamp of the staff on the ground. “We’re even.”

Black-and-dark-green glitter coated the room once more, and instantly Tara was lying on the floor quite tired and Gordon was in a deep sleep. Katy blew them a kiss of dark magic and disappeared in the same way she had appeared. Tara was too strong to be knocked out by the spellwork, but all the same she would have to wait for her energy to go back up before she could do much again.

Katy, meanwhile, had transported herself to the ridiculously high top floor of her twenty-storey mansion. She smiled at the many people who were standing there with enchanted ghost-chains tying their wrists to each other and their ankles to each other. It wasn’t a pleasant expression to behold, especially as her eyes glowed ferociously.

The door opened and in walked a woman with bouncy, yet not quite curly or wavy, light brown hair and brown eyes that almost reached a noticeable deep without managing to quite get there. She was dressed in a white silk t-shirt with fancy sleeves and a pair of tight white silk leggings that stopped above her black-leather-sandal-clad feet with bright red and perfectly pedicured nails. She was remarkably tall, at six-foot-two, and wearing six-inch heels at that.

“M’lis-a Mac-Kennan, I presume.” Said Katy to the woman, who appeared to be somewhere in her thirties. “Yes.” Said the woman, glancing almost disinterestedly at the prisoners. She couldn’t hide her real feelings for too long, so quickly glanced away. “But actually, I pronounce it as M’lees-a M’kennan.”

“If you insist.” Replied Katy, twirling her fingers lazily on the staff’s ember. “You’ve come, remember, to check that my –“ she pointed the staff towards the prisoners, who instantly cowered back and began to whine or whimper or cry. One of the children fainted, but no-one dared react. “Beautiful slaves here, are in perfect condition to work for me. Or someone else, if I decide to make a little money, of course. Which I may very well do.”

Melissa Mackennan didn’t respond, causing Katy to hiss. Then she spontaneously smiled and said, “*Mac* Kennan, or whatever you call yourself. Any Scottish heritage, hm? *You* certainly sound English to me.”

“I haven’t bothered tracing my family line.” Said Melissa. “And I didn’t come to make small talk.” She didn’t sound biting, really, just rational.

“Exactly.” Bit out Katy. “So let’s get on with things. Shall we, Mackennan?”

Melissa wasn’t genuinely there to help or get involved in Katy’s latest madness.  But still, she had to be convincing. And so for now, though hopefully not for long, she’d have to do as Katy asked.

Tara had recovered, but Gordon was still asleep. She was shaking him in an attempt to start waking him but it just wasn’t working. The film came back on, but that just annoyed her. She got up and kicked it. Instantaneously, it smashed into a ridiculous amount of pieces which were all so tiny that no-one could possibly see them as individuals. They went all over her, then fell down to the floor without having done the remotest bit of harm.  Then something occurred to her.

“Well, everything *is* ridiculous in recent years.” She muttered as she went back to Gordon. She kissed him and watched to see the result.

Suddenly, Gordon woke up and said, “Tara?” Tara laughed briefly and softly with a shake of her head. “True love’s kiss.” She said to herself. “Works every time.”

Gordon smiled and got up. “Well, maybe not for everything. But for a deep sleep, I guess it kinda fits.”

**MEANWHILE, AT A RELATIVELY NEW LONDON MUSEUM NAMED *THE MUSEUM OF MYSTICISM***

The hazel-eyed redhead was gazing at a photo taken of mysterious shimmering air. An official-looking man was passing by, so she said, “Excuse me. Sir. I…I was wondering, if maybe you could expand a little on the background on this photograph? I’m just interested in its origin. And what you think it is.”

“We think it may be a sign, perhaps beginning to reveal The Invisible Edge.” Replied the man, coming to a halt.

“The Invisible – The Invisible Edge?” asked the redhead. “The place that can contain anything you want, whenever you want, without anyone seeing it, except for your desired and people with the rare gift of seeing through glamours?”

“*You* meaning whoever finds it and commands it, yes.”

“And why would it be revealing itself? I mean, what’s on it?”

“If the rumours are to be believed – a mansion.”

“A mansion?” the redhead’s eyes flickered with confusion.

“Yes, a quite ginormous one. Black, and like a haunted house from the worst of your nightmares. They say it even has *upper* dungeons rather than lower.”

“Wow.” Said the redhead. “That’s…that’s weird.”

“Isn’t it. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Grace Van Pelt.” She said, and began to move on through the museum. “Oh, no, don’t go.” Said the man, following her. “Van Pelt, huh? That’s a pretty cool name.”

“I’m trying to look around here – and not for lovers.” Said Van Pelt, with just a tinge of annoyance. “Yes. Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” Said the man and he walked off, looking irritated.