Tales of the Parodyverse

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killer shrike
Sun Feb 26, 2006 at 01:36:48 pm EST
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The Adventures of Alcheman #28 Part One
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The Adventures of Alcheman #28


“Set Ups, Pay Offs, and Swerves Part One”







“Michael?”

“Trudi.”

“Oh, thank God! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!”

“I’ve been working.”

“Work work or superhero work?”

“Trudi!”

“What?”

“*sighs* What is it, Trudi?”

“Are you mad? About me using the s- word on the phone?”

“No, I’m not mad. It’s just, in this current climate; one has to be careful about what one says and where one says it.”

“……”

“Hello?”

“You don’t think They’re listening, do you? I don’t want to get you arrested like Jenni.”

“Jenni has never gotten me arrested.”

“No no no! I mean, Jenni has been arrested. Chiaki too.”

“Jenni has been arrested?!”

“And Chiaki. For beating up Constance Blott. Well, Jenni beat her up, not Chiaki. Chiaki just went to jail to protect Jenni.”

“Jenni assaulted Constance Blott and she and Miss Bushido have been arrested and imprisoned?!”

“That’s right. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

*****




Michael’s mother was enjoying an early morning tea in her home’s atrium when Michael found her.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she inquired pointedly.

“I took a personal day,” he replied, before giving a curious glance to the drawn curtains. He went over to open them.

“What are you looking for?” Agnes almost screeched.

“I was just trying to get some sunlight in here. It’s as cold as a tomb.”

“And what are you implying?”

“I’m not-“ and that was when Michael saw it, on the end table, by the Shaker designed rocking chair: an extra and unused tea doily.

Grimly, Michael stormed over to the atrium’s closet and flung the door open.

“You!” the Elemental Adventurer seethed.



Baron Ottokar Attila Kublai Tamerlane Zemo calmly took a sip of his Earl Grey, daintily setting the cup back into the saucer he held in his gloved hand, “Güten Morgen, Herr Wooster.”

“What is he doing here?” Michael swung around to demand of his mother.

“It is my house: who I invite to it and for what purpose are no business of yours!”

“Fine. Whatever. But I would hope, even with your busy entertaining schedule that you would find the time to help out a family member who is in crisis. Or didn’t you know that your daughter is currently being held in the Paradopolis County Penitentiary?”

“Your mother is aware of Jenni’s predicament…Michael,” Baron Otto swanned out and retook his seat in the rocker.

“It was in the both the society page and the court report of today’s Trombone,” Agnes grumbled as she herself went to close the drapes.

Otto tutted, “Yes, very unfortunate. It would appear the Blott name carries a great deal of weight in this town, given the amount of sympathetic press the young victim has gotten.

Michael grunted: he knew the Blott family since childhood, and sympathy was an emotion they did not usually evoke.

Agnes downed her tea and stared at her son defiantly, “I know what you want, Michael: you want me to make a few calls and get your sister sprung. But I won’t. Not until she calls and apologizes!”

“You’re going to let poor Jenni stay in prison until she phones you and begs forgiveness for besmirching the family name? Mother!”

“No, she needs to apologize for what she called me last week at dinner,” the woman’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “You had to tell them about Baron Otto, didn’t you?”

Michael was stunned, “Of, of course I told them.”

The matriarch of the Wooster clan nodded furiously, “No doubt in a manner to make my relationship with Otto sound perverse and sordid!”

“Mother, you are engaged in an affair with the ghost of a Nazi necromancer. What other ways could your relationship be construed?”

“And when you talked, did you call me a necrophiliac, like she did at dinner? Don’t deny it: the term isn’t something that little tramp would normally be familiar with!” Agnes turned away and put her face in her hand tiredly, “It’s not true anyway.”

“Indeed,” Baron Otto spoke up, “I am not undead, but rather unalive: the conditions are miles apart conceptually. Still,” the Junker’s face broke into a malicious and knowing grin, “Can you imagine the shame a person must feel at the insinuation that one is consorting with the demised?”

Alcheman got the hint, “It was you who did that to Grace,” his fists clenching spasmodically.

Agnes’s head shot up, “Who’s Grace?”

“I second that: who is this person, Michael?” Otto asked innocently.

The big man held back his accusation that it was the Baron who somehow manipulated Grace O’Mercy into taking on the characteristics of a vampire stereotype in some twisted scheme for revenge on him, out of the realization that the situation was knotty enough, “Mother, I will ask you again: do you plan on helping Jenni or not?”

“Most certainly not.”

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” Michael grabbed up his jacket and headed for the door.

“What are you going to do: put on your costume and break her out? You’ll only make matters worse!” Agnes shouted at his retreating form.

Michael knew that, which was why he was choosing a course that was far more perilious.

*****


Obsidian was the closest thing to a castle Pierce Heights had before the Zemos came to the neighborhood: an enormous estate of granite and basalt, with three stories and four wings, stables, two artificial lakes, and a hedge maze. Agnes Wooster had always dismissed the manor and its occupants as “garish neuveau riche” trying too hard to impress their betters.

Michael Wooster had found Obsidian’s security quite impressive: the ten foot high stone wall that circled the estate was interspersed with an occasional watchtower, in which each one a uniformed man cradled an automatic weapon and eyed his sector vigilantly. When Michael’s cab had driven to the main gate the sentries met him a hundred yards before it and forced him to exit. Michael had no sooner paid his fare then he was subjected to a search and interrogation that bordered on the intimate.

The guards walked him to the gate, where an armored SUV waited to take Michael’s up to the house itself. The drive took nearly five minutes. He spent another five in the drawing room, casting sidelong glances at the wall-sized mirror out of the twin concerns that the frisking had undone his earlier, careful grooming and that he was being watched by security on the other side.

Finally the object of his visit arrived, sauntering into the room in what could only be described as loungewear.



“Michael Wooster,” Constance Blott, sole daughter to arms tycoon Obadiah Blott and heiress to the entire Blott empire cooed, “What a surprise,” she snorted, “Not really.”

“Hello, Constance,” Michael responded before offering forward a spray of dendrobium orchids.

“And you remembered my favorite flower,” she accepted the bouquet and sniffed at it happily.

“Of course I remembered,” Michael stated. But just barely though. Fortunately for him Brick House did not mind making two flights to Thailand to gather the correct flora.

“Hmm,” Constance sighed absently as she picked the petals off her gift, “I know why you’re here, you know.”

“I’m sure you do. You never were, uh, anyone’s fool, Constance.”

“Listen to you; trying so hard to be suave,” she cradled the bouquet in her arms and considered Michael with wolfish eyes, “I was in the office suites when you called. If you wish to join me, we can talk there.”

“A splendid idea,” Michael agreed, though truth be told his heart wasn’t quite into it.

Constanance knew this, of course: that’s what would make it so fun.







Next: Jenni and Chiaki in a woman’s prison. Sadly, no shower scene is planned, but expect a fight with the cellblock’s stereotypical Alpha Dog, a conversation that reveals a deep, dark secret, and a jail break that hinges on exactly who owes what in a debt of honor. Out soon.






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