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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Last Will and Testament of Hagatha Darkness Saturday, 18-Mar-2000 11:06:29
#41: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: The Last Will and Testament of Hagatha Darkness “This is the Last Will and Testament of Hagatha Darkness, the Witch of Covenant Manse,” Lisa read, laying down the yellowed manuscript on the polished oak table before her. “As per my client’s instructions, before I go further I will ask you all to state your names so that Sorceress here can verify that you are truly who you say you are and not some sort of shape-changing demon or possessed by ancient evils or anything.” “It won’t hurt,” Sorceress promised. “Grandmother was just very… suspicious.” “Paranoia,” Cobra observed. “I like that in a person.” The person sitting closest to Sorceress decided he’d better start. “Well,” he shrugged, “I’m Jay Boaz, Hatman. I don’t know why I’m in Hagatha’s will. I mean, she kind of hated me.” “What, just because you’re boffing her granddaughter?” Con Johnstantine sneered. When the dishevelled, raincoat-clad Englishman had arrived at Covenant House earlier that day he had planted a firm, confident kiss on Sorceress’ lips, but had assured Jay afterwards, “Don’t worry boss, I didn’t try to slip ‘er any tongue.” “That is no way to speak about young Miss Edmonds,” Sir Mumphrey reproved. “Sorry, squire. I’ll mind me Ps and Qs if there’s quality about, shall I?” Johnstantine smirked. The old gentleman he was addressing reddened. “Not a squire,” he reminded the Cockney oik. “A knight. A Knight of the British Empire.” There was an undertone in his voice that suggested that Johnstantine had better remember it. Johnstantine smirked. “I am Cobra,” Cobra announced, breaking through the growing tension in the old library. “I am not in the will. I am only here because Sorceress is my team-mate, and I felt she might need some support and protection.” She pronounced the last few words glaring at Con Johnstantine. “And I’m Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, and I’m only here because my friend Hatty might need me, and because I’m hoping that Cobra here will give in to the hot desires she’s surprising for me and become my fervent love slave, slowly peeling her owch!” “My banana slipped,” Cobra explained, deadpan. “Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” Mumph announced himself, his eyes watering in sympathy for CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Haven’t seen Haggy in years, of course, but I used to see quite a lot of her back in the days when we were in the League of Improbable Gentlemen together.” “Didn’t that split up about a hundred and twenty years ago?” Bry Kotyk, Lisa’s legal assistant checked. “And your point would be, young man?” Mumphrey asked. “Nothing, nothing,” Bry backpedalled. “I’m Bry, by the way. Lisa lets me camp in her office.” “Excellent secret identity preservation there, G-Eyed,” CSFB! whispered from where he’d been rolling under the table, in a whisper so loud it echoed round the room. “Hey, have you thought of getting a pair of glasses? That way no-one would ever guess you’re secretly a time/space hopping hero phenomenon.” “People call me Xander the Improbable,” Xander the Improbable declared with precision accuracy. “Current Master of the Mystic Crafts,” Johnstantine added, in case anybody was missing a copy of the Who’s Who of the Parodyverse. “And this is Harry, my familiar.” “Er,” G-Eyed frowned, “isn’t he…?” “He’s undergoing a temporary metamorphosis silicate phase at the moment, yes,” Xander admitted, without going into details about the Medusa incident. Everybody turned then to the strange and previously silent visitor swathed in the heavy coat, Russian shapka hat, facial scarf, and sunglasses. He shrugged his bulky shoulders and bubbled, “I am the Manga Shoggoth, a creature of elder horror from before the dawn of humankind.” “Ah,” responded Hatman. “Hi!” Cobra greeted him. “Great!” CSFB! Enthused. “Didya bring the latest Ranmaa?” “He’s not so bad,” Bry explained to Lisa. “He only eats the bad guys. Kinda like Foomy. Only gooier.” “Yes, we’ve met,” Lisa remembered. “Manga Shoggoth?” Mumphrey wondered. “Any relation to the Kabuki Shoggoth I met back in ’93? 1893, that is?” “That was me,” the Shoggoth admitted. “Did Hastings Vernal ever get that semolina out of his beard?” “Eventually,” Hunter Victorious admitted without thinking about it. “Er, I imagine,” he added, as surprised as the rest of the people round the table at his comment. “I’m Hunter Victorious, another of Sorceress’ Abandoned Legion teammates. That is all.” That just left one person left unintroduced, a quiet girl with a sad expression. “I’m Melissa Butelier,” she admitted. “I was Hagatha’s apprentice.” She glanced across at Xander the Improbable, who had set up the arrangement after Melissa’s husband Jarvis had died and her probability-altering powers were manifesting uncontrollably. “Well, if Whitney is satisfied that we are all who we say we are,” Lisa continued, “we’ll proceed to the reading.” “You’re all the genuine articles,” the Sorceress confirmed. “Unfortunately,” added Cobra, glancing at CrazySugarFreakBoy! “If the old beezom left me anything More than a boxful of curses I’d be very surprised,” muttered Con Johnstantine. Sorceress shot him a hateful look. “What?” the Cockney shrugged, “because she’s finally had the good taste to die we’ve got to pretend we liked her now?” “She was Whitney’s grandmother,” Hatman pointed out angrily. “if you can’t…” “Granny who conceived your little Sorceress’ mummy with a Demon Lover she locked up in an attic until Whitney was old enough for ‘im?” Johnstantine sneered. “I say!” Mumphrey warned. “Manners, Johnstantine. You’re acting like an oik of the first order.” “Well maybe Bow Street Primary taught manners a bit different to Eton, eh?” shot back the mysterious occult opportunist. “And maybe…” “That is enough,” said Lisa quietly; but the way she said it shut everyone in the room up. “We shall proceed with the reading.” HV turned suddenly towards the main door, and then there was a loud knocking. “Who could that be at this time of night?” Bry wondered. “And in this weather?” A peal of thunder obligingly rattled the wine glasses. “Hmmm, lessee,” CSFB! grinned. “Spooky old house, will reading, monsters in the attic… I’d say it’s Shaggy, Scooby, and the mystery machine gang. I get dibs on Velma.” “Or travellers lost in the storm,” the Manga Shoggoth bubbled. “That’s traditional.” “Or the attack of enemies who seek to prey upon us in our moment of weakness,” Cobra frowned. “They will not find us unprepared.” “Lost pizza delivery?” offered Hatman “I’ll go see,” Melissa suggested. “Whoever it is they must be soaked in this downpour.” Melissa Butelier unbolted and threw open the creaky front door. A miserable woman huddled on the step. A tall saturnine man stood behind her. The drenched woman fell into Melissa’s arms in a half faint. Mumphrey was there in literally an instant, helping the fallen lady to a couch and making sure she was alright. “She’s exhausted and half starved,” he reported. “Katz, be a good fellow and pass that brandy.” “And a lantern,” added Goldeneyed, curious at the newcomer’s identity. “Who is she?” Melissa asked the man on the threshold. “And why won’t you come in.” “You haven’t asked me in yet,” the tall man suggested with impeccable etiquette. “No!” shouted Xander, “Look at his coat! He’s not even wet!”; but he was too late to prevent Melissa committing Standard Heroine Error Number Five: Never invite the monster into your house. Cobra was suddenly in front of the tall man. “Who are you and what do you want?” Somehow the intruder was able to walk past the young woman who was determined to block his path and hung his coat up on the rack. He looked exactly like Jack Nicholson. “Ah, my mortal guise is confusing you,” he smiled. His canine teeth sparkled. “You may call me Blackhurt, the Prince of… Fibs.” “The demon lord!” Hunter Victorious spat. “Mefrothto’s replacement. What deviltry are you up to here? Who is this woman you have brought?” But Whitney had already identified the newcomer. She had met her once before, under strange circumstances. “M-mother?” she gasped. “Lady Vervain?” Cobra also gasped. “Vervain?” Xander gasped a third time. “Vervain is your mother?” The Prince of Fibs laughed. “What do you want?” Lisa demanded, deliberately positioning herself (and her indestructible ginger cat) between Blackhurt and the woman he had brought to them. “I want you to give the devil his due,” the demon lord answered. “You are executor of the estate of the late Hagatha Darkness?” “Yes,” the first lady of the Lair Legion answered cautiously. “Something’s wrong,” Hatty whispered to CrazySugarFreakBoy! in the background. “I’m trying to radio for help from the Lair Legion and all I’m getting over the comm-card is the Twilight Zone music.” “Could have been worse,” Dream considered. “Could have been country and western.” “I want nothing more than I am entitled to from dear Hagatha’s estate,” Blackhurt answered Lisa. “I have come to claim her soul.” “What?” Bry Katz gasped. “That’s…” “Evil?” the Prince of Fibs suggested. “A bargain is a bargain. I have the paperwork.” “You are not taking my grandmother’s soul!” Whitney warned. “Over my dead body!” “As you will it,” Blackhurt promised. “Hold it!” HV called, stepping forward. “Nobody’s doing anything until we get this all sorted out. I know something of the rules of engagement here – don’t ask me how – and Blackhurt can’t do anything until he’s filed his claim properly with Lisa. He’s got to explain what’s going on, and in this case he can speak nothing but the truth.” “Bit of a bugger for a Prince of Fibs, that,” smirked Con Johnstantine. “Well worth the price of a ticket.” Blackhurt shot the cocky Englishman a look that mirrored the one he’d got from Sorceress earlier. “We’d best all go back to the will reading,” Mumphrey suggested. He turned to the prince of Fibs, “As for you, sirrah, I’d tell you to go to the devil but you apparently are him. So you’d just better jolly well mind your Ps and Qs. I’ve read the Good Book and I happen to know who wins at the end.” “And I’ve read things that would mangle even your sanity, demon princeling,” warned the Manga Shoggoth, “so I suggest you do indeed behave yourself.” Blackhurt allowed himself a small, wicked smile. “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” he challenged as he sauntered into the library and stole Goldeneyed’s chair. “Okay, okay,” Lisa worried as the others filed into the room to recommence proceedings. “How did you deal with this guy before, Hatty?” “Well, we stopped his dad by dropping a cathedral on him once. But the only time this guy showed up he got stopped by Messenger and ManMan – well, Knifey really.” “I’m going to try and teleport for help,” G-Eyed announced. “I’d feel a lot better with, say, Donar here in case things turn nasty.” “I’ve already tried summonsing him,” Lisa warned. “Something’s blocking my power.” “I’ve got to try,” Bry Katz decided. “Try and keep him talking.” His eyes suddenly glowed brightly, and he disappeared. “Is there usually a stench of brimstone when he transports through time and space?” worried Melissa. The remaining Legionnaires took their places round the library table. Xander gave up his place to Vervain Darkness and stood behind the chair with a curious solicitude. “Well, Blackhurt?” the red-robed mage demanded, “Make your move.” The Prince of Fibs reached into his dress jacket and pulled out a rotting, pungent, animal skin. He unrolled it to show where it had been scraped of fur and used as parchment. Ancient script was stained onto the pelt in forgotten runes. “This is a contract from the dawn of mankind,” the demon lord told the guests at Covenant House. “It says…” “It’s an agreement between some shamaness and a devil, pacting her soul in exchange for supernatural powers,” the Manga Shoggoth interrupted impatiently. “Of course I read Alko. I’ve been around for a while.” “That must date back thousands of years,” Lisa objected. “It has nothing to do with Hagatha.” “Yes it does,” Melissa understood. “We know that the Darkness bloodline has powers passed down through its female descent, and that the lineage reaches back to Neolithic times. This was signed by one of Hagatha’s ancestresses, wasn’t it?” “Of course,” Blackhurt agreed. “One who subsequently gave herself instead to the Demon Lover, defaulting on this earlier agreement.” “You can’t hold Hagatha responsible for something signed by an ancestor five thousand years ago,” objected Hatman. “In some ways there is a continuity of personality and responsibility in the women of my family,” Vervain shuddered, her face etched with worry as she glanced across at Whitney. Lisa was unconvinced. “I don’t know quite how I’m supposed to administer intangible assets like souls,” she admitted, “but that seems like a pretty ropy claim to me, Blackhurt.” “Which is why I insisted on this codicil,” the Prince of Fibs answered glibly. Again he presented a document, this time written on the embossed letterheaded paper of the League of Improbable Gentlemen. “Hey, those are the guys who used to do Victorian adventures from the Lair Mansion!” CSFB! enthused. “Haggy was one of them… and so were you, Mumphrey!” “True,” the knight admitted, examining the paper suspiciously. “This appears to be Hagatha’s writing, confirming the power of the ancient claim over her from her ancestress’ original pact. But why would she sign such a thing?” “It’s genuine,” Hunter Victorious agreed, touching the paper and allowing his psychometric abilities verify it. “But she only signed this in exchange for something. What was it?” “She did it to save her child,” Blackhurt answered. Vervain looked up sharply. “Me?” she asked. “But I was born forty years ago, and this must have been written in…” “Eighteen seventy-eight,” HV supplied helpfully. “The year that the League of Improbable Gentlemen finally trapped the Demon Lover who was seeking to claim my grandmother as he had all those Darkness woman before,” Whitney remembered. “The Love-Talker was sealed in the attic here at Covenant House and remained imprisoned until…” “No need for you to talk about that, Whitney,” Jay assured her. “That part of your life is over. The Demon Lover is destroyed, and will never again prey on and impregnate Darkness women to breed an eventual host body for its incarnation.” “But feel free to talk about it if you want, Whitney-love,” Johnstantine added with a sly grin. “How and why did Hagatha make a deal with a devil in 1878 to save her child which would not be born until the 1960’s?” Melissa puzzled. “And eeew, how old and wrinkly was she by then?” CSFB! added. “Hagatha’s child was born in 1878,” Blackhurt told them triumphantly. “The Demon Lover would have sought its destruction, for Vervain was not fathered by him. So Hagatha made a pact with me to allow her to steal a little of her lover’s power to… conceal the baby until such time as the Demon Lover could no longer harm her.” “It must have been a pretty good power, to hide Vervain nearly a hundred years into the future,” Cobra noted. “Time travel power,” Xander concluded, looking across the table at the pale and shocked Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “By George I… I never knew she was pregnant…” the old whiskered man whispered. “If I’d known I’d have… only decent thing…” “Something you want to share with us, Sir Mumphrey?” Johnstantine smirked. Vervain stared with wide eyes as the gentle nobleman came round the table and took her hand. “It appears that this is my daughter,” he announced. “I don’t get the time travel bit,” CSFB! interrupted. “How did…” “Later,” Xander quietened him. Few people knew that Mumphrey Wilton was the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity, a minor cosmic office which allowed him a modicum of time-twisting abilities. “Your daughter?” Vervain repeated. “I’m your daughter?” “That’s my grandfather?” Whitney wondered. “You’re saying that Vervain was zapped forward to the ‘60’s where she was safe from the Demon Lover, and then she grew up and had Whitney?” Lisa checked. “There’s more to it than that,” Sorceress’ mother warned them. “Hagatha didn’t want me growing up to be like her. She didn’t want me knowing magic. So she brought me up ignorant of my heritage, unaware of the latent gifts within me. She didn’t know, she never realised, how empty that made my childhood.” “No magic…” shuddered Whitney. “Hagatha had become a harsh, cruel old woman – or so I thought,” Vervain continued, biting back tears as she spoke. “So when I was fifteen I… I fled Covenant House. I ran away.” “To Paradopolis,” Xander contributed. Vervain had never explained her past to him. “You suffered the fate of so many runaways, and when I first met you you were nineteen, fleeing a brutal man who was your, well, who was exploiting you, and who was not afraid to use whatever force was necessary to keep you under his control.” “We seem to be missing another chapter here, squire,” Con Johnstantine noted. “This is turning into a rare old evening.” “Xander helped me,” Vervain explained. “He was only an apprentice back then, learning the Mystic Crafts from old Lucius Faust. He saved me from my… my protector and his men. And he was… he was so kind to me.” The sorcerer supreme of the Parodyverse actually blushed. “Seemed the only decent thing to do,” he explained gruffly. “And were you ‘kind’ back to him?” Con Johnstantine leered. He’d seen where this was going. “I didn’t know what I wanted back then,” Vervain explained. “I was confused, addicted, hurt, I was lashing out all around me, even at the only person who was ever really decent to me. Eventually I ran away again. I’m good at doing that.” “And the rest,” Johnstantine urged. “Did you ever let Xander know he’d got you in the family way? Not telling the dad just runs in the family, doesn’t it?” Jay suppressed a worried glance at the Sorceress. “I didn’t know when I left him,” Vervain admitted. “I’m sorry, Xander.” “Wait a minute!” objected Whitney, “You’re saying that not only is Mumphrey my grandfather, but Xander’s my dad?!” “This is better than daytime soaps,” CSFB! agreed. “Cdo you have an evil twin sister?” “Nah, that’s spiffy’s problem,” Hatty replied. “Hagatha told that my mother turned up here at Covenant House, heavily pregnant, utterly exhausted,” Whitney remembered. “She told me Vervain died in childbirth.” “I very nearly did,” Vervain admitted. “And I’m so sorry I abandoned you to be brought up by Hagatha. But back then I had no real ways to screen out the supernatural voices except a few basic methods Xander had taught me, and they were always screaming inside my head, driving me to do stupid things…” “Supernatural voices,” noted HV. “Any idea where they might have come from, Blackhurt?” “I couldn’t say,” replied the Price of Fibs. “What happened to you?” Whitney asked her mother. “When you went from here?” “I was saved,” Vervain explained, “I was rescued from demons who pursued me by an old man named Hollywood V.” “This is turning into a right old family affair, innit?” Constantine snorted. He reached for a cigarette but it crumbled to ashes at a single glance from Sorceress. “Apart from the initials, no conclusive link between myself and a number of previous adventurers such as Hollywood V of the Abandoned Legion and Hastings Vernal of the League of Improbable Gentlemen has ever been demonstrated,” Stephen Bloom, the man calling himself Hunter Victorious, declared stiffly. “I don’t know about that,” Vervain admitted. “But HV took me to a place of… safety.” “Where?” wondered Lisa. “A place of wonders and solace,” Vervain breathed; and she glanced across at Cobra. Now it was the serpent woman’s turn to be pale and still. “Yes?” Con Johnstantine prompted, still entertained. The dagger actually nicked his left ear as it embedded itself onto the chair back. “We will speak no more of this!” Cobra warned him. “I rather think we have to,” Hunter Victorious warned her. “Blackhurt here is playing a complicated little game, and hiding the truth only plays into his hands. We’ve always respected your wishes not to discuss your past before, Christine, but this time I think we need to know what’s going on.” I need to know what’s going on, he didn’t add. What manipulative game had his namesake been playing? Cobra stood at the end of the table in furious silence. “I believe I know,” gurgled the Manga Shoggoth. “This is to do with the Sect of Buto, isn’t it?” The Manga Shoggoth calmly pulled Cobra’s dagger out of where his throat would be if he wasn’t a mass of protoplasm currently gelled into humanoid form and passed it back to the serpent woman. “I thought so,” he declared. “Buto,” Johnstantine puzzled. “Egyptian goddess of the Lower Nile, one of the Two Mistresses who guarded Egypt, that sort of thing?” “Of course,” added Xander. “Buto the Cobra Goddess, who assisted when the pregnant goddess Isis was fleeing to save her unborn baby Horus from Set. Buto took care of the infant, getting mother and unborn babe to refuge on the floating island of Chemmis, where Horus was born and trained by Buto. This led to an unusual association in Egyptian myth between orphans or threatened children and cobras, and an old Egyptian wives' tale that a cobra would never attack an orphaned child, and might even care for it. PleasedontthrowaknifeatmeCobra.” “Very well,” Cobra hissed, glaring round the table with all the venom of her namesake. “If any of you speak of this again I will kill you slowly and send your souls shrieking into eternal torment. Yes, I was an orphan child raised by the Sect of Buto on the floating island of Chemmis, trained to become the Cobra, their emissary into the mortal world. From time to time other lost people were rescued and brought to the floating isle as well, and Lady Vervain was one of them. It was there that she learned to use her gifts, until…” “Until?” Melissa prompted. “Until Chemmis was betrayed, the Sect of Buto annihilated, and all we had striven for destroyed by our enemies!” Cobra shouted. “Yes, the floating isle was shattered by a treacherous attack from the Ass-Raping Great Thunder-Monkey Worshipping Ninjas as I remember,” contributed the Manga Shoggoth, “but it was said that the isle’s downfall was caused by one foolish… oh.” He glanced across towards the tensed, lethal-countenanced former emissary of the Sect of Buto. “Well, least said soonest mended, eh?” “It was destroyed,” Cobra repeated, and her words were like ice. Then, turning suddenly on Vervain she demanded, “So how did you survive?” Sorceress’ mother blanched. “I was captured. The Ninjas recognised my mystic skills and needed them. They forced me to work for them, tortured me until I could locate the thing they were looking for.” “The Ass-Raping Ninjas got you?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! checked. “My Ass-Raping Ninjas? I mean, the bad guys who appeared in my origin story?” “Yeah, careful how you say that, dude,” Hatty advised. “What were these unpleasant bug… er, chappies wanting you to find, m’dear?” Mumphrey asked Vervain. Vervain trembled as she remembered the agonies she had faced at her tormentors’ hands and then pointed across the table. “Him.” “Me?” Jay Boaz checked. He looked to see if anyone was hiding behind him. “They were looking for me?” “Hey, cool,” CSFB! enthused. “An early link for the CSFB/Hatman silver age classic team!” “Not exactly for you,” Vervain admitted. “But for what’s inside you.” Johsntantine sniggered. “Isn’t that what the Ass-Raping Ninjas always…” “I presume he means the Serious Matter,” the Manga Shoggoth explained. “The what?” Hatman asked. “Serious Matter. One of the five primal building blocks of the Parodyverse,” Xander footnoted. “It’s like Impossibilityium, the stuff CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s got in his silly suit, only completely different of course.” “I’ve got to read Lair Legion case notes more often,” Lisa chided herself. “Oh, it’s not in there,” Xander assured her. “I’ve never got round to telling Hatman here about the Serious Matter that pervades his body and gives him his powers.” “I thought you got your abilities from being forged to ingest some poisoned radioactive drug?” Whitney challenged Jay. “I did!” Hatty insisted. “That’s my origin! Honestly.” “But the Serious Matter was the isotope making the drug radioactive,” Xander explained. “It’s a long story how it came to be there in the first place. Suffice for now to say that the specially treated narcotic was significantly off-course when it ended up being forced into your body. The Serious Matter was meant to be given to a champion of Order who would destroy Chaos’ champion, the current CrazySugarFreakHero!” “Hey, that’s me!” Dreamchaser Foxglove celebrated. “That means we’re supposed to be mortal enemies Jay, but instead we’ve become best buds despite out disparate backgrounds, like Superman and Bats, fighting crime together and overcoming the profound basic differences in our love for truth, justice, and the American way!” “The hero the Ninjas sought to destroy was your predecessor ConfusingContinuityWastelandWanderder!, even though he had disappeared almost a decade before,” Vervain clarified, “but by the time I managed to locate the Serious Matter it had already bonded with your friend here, gifting him with the whatever abilities he associated with any hat he wore.” “That’s not how Serious Matter is supposed to work,” Manga Shoggoth objected. “Jay’s a special case,” Xander quickly answered. “One day that’s bound to cause trouble, but that’s another story.” “How were you rescued, Vervain?” CSFB! wondered. “I slipped away when their Seattle installation was attacked by some superheroes,” Vervain explained. “Then I ran right into… the Prince of Fibs.” “So all of you are linked with the Darkness family one way or another,” Con Johnstantine summarised. “Vervain’s Haggy’s daughter by Mumph. Whitney-luv, you’re Vervain’s daughter by Xander. Melissa became Hagatha’s apprentice after Whitney left. Vervain was rescued by HV, the last one that is, and taken to the floating island where Cobra had her secret origin. CSFB!’s old enemies used Vervain to find this Serious Matter stuff, but Hatty beat them to it. And Shoggy-here’s arcane elder knowledge helped us to put it all together. Blackhurt, old son, I’ll give you points for putting together a complicated old tangle.” “What about you?” Lisa asked the irritating Englishman. “Why are you here?” “Perhaps Haggy knew I enjoy a good laugh?” shrugged Johnstantine. “Perhaps she was hoping you’d get killed?” suggested the Manga Shoggoth. “I’d love to claim all the credit,” Blackhurt admitted, “but tonight we’re playing only truth games. The truth is that Hagatha herself has spun much of this web, in an attempt to confuse me. You see, the old hag has tried to evade paying her due debt to the Netherworld. Her soul has not yet left this plane of existence. I believe that she has lodged it in one or more of those people close to her.” “One of us has Haggy’s spirit in her?” Hatty winced. “Yeach!” “Of course!” Whitney realised. “The Demon Lover said something to me about Hagatha preparing first me and later Melissa to be the repository of her soul. He made it sound like grandmother was trying to possess us, to regain a youthful body and so continue living. But really she was just working out a means of thwarting Mefrothto, and the inheritor of his estate, Blackhurt!” “And what makes you think we’re going to give up Hagatha’s soul to you, Prince of Fibs?” Lisa demanded of the demon lord. “Because he has a rightful claim,” Hunter Victorious conceded. “If we try and block him he is within his right to use his power against us, and so destroy us all.” “I’ve never liked lawyers,” the Manga Shoggoth admitted. “Present company excepted of course, Lisa Waltz.” “Another reason for you to co-operate,” Blackhurt added, “is that your comrade Goldeneyed is currently trapped in the Nether Realms, unable to teleport to safety.” He cupped one hand, and from the flames that sprung from his palm showed an image of Bry Katz struggling to fend off ever greater hordes of demons. “If you co-operate I will return him. Otherwise…” “You cad!” Mumphrey scowled. “We can’t help you anyway,” Melissa told the Prince of Fibs. “We don’t know where Hagatha’s soul went.” Lisa’s ginger cat slipped down off her knee and went to investigate an interesting scent. “Read the will,” Blackhurt instructed Lisa. “That will tell us all of her bequests – including this one.” “Bring Goldeneyed back first,” insisted the amorous advocatrix. “Now!” The Prince of Fibs blinked and a steaming G-Eyed tumbled down onto the carpet. Whitney and Hatman went to tend to him. “No… not the radishes…” he muttered before passing out. “The last will and testament,” Blackhurt insisted.” Lisa looked around the room for advice. “Do it,” Xander instructed her. “He asked for it.” HV and the Manga Shoggoth concurred. Lisa unfolded the parchment and read: “This is the Last Will and Testament of Hagatha Darkness, the Witch of Covenant Manse. Mmm, let’s see…She revokes previous wills and codicils, appoints me as her executor and trustee, and then disposes of her property. Covenant House goes to Whitney. Melissa gets custody of her cat. A lampshade to Jay. Some books and a good deal of tart advice to Xander and the Shoggoth. A photograph of her to Johnstantine…” “I knew she hated me,” breathed the Cockney. “And Mumphrey?” Whitney wondered. “A sealed letter,” Lisa answered, “and custody of her immortal soul.” Blackhurt hissed in triumph. Mumphrey glowered at him as he took the private letter. There was a moment when time stopped as the bewhiskered gentleman used the chronal pocketwatch to stop time and read Hagatha’s letter, but as far as anybody else was concerned – even the Prince of Fibs - he placed it into his jacket pocket unopened. “So, you bounder,” Sir Mumphrey frowned, rising up and gripping his lapels, “you lay claim to Hagatha’s soul within me do you?” “By right of ancient covenant, yes,” hissed the demon lord. “And then you give up any other claims? No lien on Vervain, or Whitney, or any of their line at all, now or ever?” “Yes,” Blackhurt told him. “Hagatha will be quite sufficient for this deal. We have plans for one who did so much to prevent our brother the Demon Lover from fulfilling his plan.” “Mumphrey, you can’t…!” Sorceress cried. Hatman held her back from flying at Blackhurt. “Wake up, Bry,” CSFB! prompted the stunned Goldeneyed. “It’s the big denouement where Blackhurt gets his butt kicked.” “You all witnessed this?” Mumphrey asked. “That in exchange for Hagatha’s soul within me Blackhurt renounced all claim on the Darkness line forever?” “We heard,” Johnstantine agreed. “I wasn’t talking to you, young man,” Mumphrey told him. “I was talking to them.” And for the first time the visitors to Covenant House became aware of the shimmering shadowy figures the Keeper of the Timepiece if Infinity had summoned: the Shaper of Worlds, the Chronicler of Stories, and others. The old gentleman wanted serious witnesses. “They cannot interfere,” Blackhurt smirked; and the demon lord reached inside the stout waistcoated form of Sir Mumphrey Wilton to drag Hagatha Darkness kicking and screaming down to hell. She wasn’t there. The lid of the coffin in the parlour toppled aside. Hagatha’s pitch-black cat hopped down onto her mistress’ chest (with a certain feline satisfaction based on Lisa’s ginger tom having lived up to his reputation for being unstoppable, but that is also another story) and Hagatha sat up with a little smile on her lined, ancient face. She eased herself out of her coffin and went to the library to have a word with Blackhurt. “Where is she?” shrieked the prince of Fibs to Mumphrey Wilton. “She willed her soul to you. You must have it!” “I probably would,” the Englishman admitted. “If she was dead.” And he pointed over to the doorway. “Awright!” CSFB! called out. “The old demonic pact loophole trick! Yay!” “The what?” G-Eyed worried. “Blackhurt renounced all claim to all the Darkness line – including Hagatha – in exchange for Hagatha’s soul in Mumph,” Lisa pointed out with an advocate’s eye for detail. “Since Hagatha wasn’t in Mumph he couldn’t take her, and has effectively lost all claim on her.” “Grandmother? You set all of this up from the start, including the fake death, to make Blackhurt mess up his claim on you?” Whitney gasped. “Of course, child. You didn’t really think you’d get rid of me that easily did you?” the stern old woman demanded. “I thought you had been tutoring me to be the vessel for your spirit,” Melissa admitted. “Oh no, Melissa,” the old woman told her. “I’ve been preparing you so you can get rid of those probability powers that are making you so unhappy. Just pop them in a box and pass them to Xander, and at the right time he’ll give them to the person who will need them.” “Ha! I knew Blackhurt was going to get a kicking!” CSFB! exalted. The Prince of Fibs was not amused, and was not a good loser. “It isn’t over yet,” he warned. “If Hagatha dies before she can alter her will her soul will go to Wilton and then I can claim it yet. And I have one more little truth to play out yet.” Vervain screamed as the demons possessing her transformed her body into an engine of destruction. Why else would Blackhurt have brought her to the party? “Mother!” screamed Whitney as the monstrous beast hammered Hatman and Lisa back into the wall. Cobra avoided one leprous tentacle. HV and the Manga Shoggoth moved to intercept the creature as it sprang to kill Hagatha. Blackhurt laughed. Time stopped. “Vervain,” Mumphrey said to the transformed beast in that strange twilight of causality which his chronometer had created. “Vervain, listen to me. Remember these words when time starts again. I’m sorry I never knew about you. I wish I could have been a father to you. Lord knows I’ve always wanted a child who was clever and brave and did wonderful things, but I’ve always accepted my children as they are. But I think you might have been the best of them all. So listen: you said you had always run away all your life. You’ve always been a victim. This is your chance to change that, to save your mother, your daughter, all of us. To win against the ones who have always been tormenting you. To be the person I know you can be. So save everyone you care for – Whitney, Xander, Cobra, all of us. Demons have filled you and changed your body. You have to stand up to them and fight to save your soul. Please, Vervain… Don’t let them win.” Time began again. The Vervain-creature stopped just short of Hagatha, writhed in internal turmoil, then twisted and smashed Blackhurt’s corporeal form into mush. With a blast of sulphuric flame Vervain and the Prince of Fibs were both gone. “Mother! We’ve got to save her!” Whitney wailed. “No child,” Hagatha understood, cradling her granddaughter to her breast, “Your mother has saved us all.” “Well, you certainly know how to throw a party, Hagatha,” Con Johnstantine admitted as the guests took their leave. “But I never did work out why you needed me here for your little soiree.” “I didn’t,” the Witch of Covenant House explained. “I was just hoping you might get killed.” “Is Lady Vervain dead?” Cobra wanted to know. “Is she with Blackhurt in hell?” “I don’t know where she is or whether she is alive or dead,” Hagatha admitted with a certain sense of deja-vu. “But I know she is not with Blackhurt.” “And am I really cured?” Melissa Butelier checked. “No more superheroics? No more strange probabilities?” “I have all of that potential here in this little cardboard box,” Xander assured her. “Don’t worry. All the potential that Galactivac placed in you is safe in here now. Already the young person who will receive them is caught up in a tangle they don’t even know about yet. It’ll be great fun!” “For Xander if not for them,” the Manga Shoggoth added. “I’ll get that new will drawn up before I go,” Lisa assured Hagatha. “As soon as Bry stops gently steaming in fact.” “Y’know,” Jay told Whitney, “before, I thought your grandma was a scheming, scary, evil old woman.” “But now?” Whitney asked, kissing him playfully. “Now I know she is,” Hatty replied with a shudder. “Do you want us to forget about that Cult of Buto stuff or what?” HV asked Cobra as they walked down to the car. He caught the knife as it headed for his eye. “So we don’t mention it,” he noted, handing the knife back to the serpent woman. And that left Mumphrey and Hagatha. “You should have told me, Aggie,” Mumphrey chided her. “The Demon Lover would have carved you in an instant, Mumphrey Wilton, magic pocketwatch or not,” Hagatha answered. “Besides, you’d have insisted on marrying me or something stupid like that, and I’d not have made you happy. As it is, I have some very happy memories of my old friend the Improbable Gentleman. Best to leave it at that.” “I suppose so,” Mumph sighed. “Thank you for trusting me today, Hagatha.” “I’ve got a limited number of people I can trust in my life,” the witch smiled crookedly. “You had the advantage of not being dead.” Then, making certain that nobody, especially Whitney, was looking, she put her arms round Mumphrey and kissed him; and for a moment neither of them was old and wrinkled, as they embraced with the vigour and passion that had been theirs over a century before when Hagatha had looked so much like her grand-daughter did now and Mumphrey was tall and strong and had whiskers to die for. “Hmph, well,” snuffled Mumphrey as they parted. “best will-readin’ I’ve been to for a long time, Aggie.” “We must do it more often,” the Witch of Covenant House replied. Then she put on her sour crone face and went back inside to chide Lisa about the disgusting behaviour of her disreputable ginger cat. More stuff like this at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom, including a Who’s Who for the baffled. The Hooded Hood would like it clearly understood that he, like Ross from Friends is on a break. That said, turn down the lights, huddle under the bedclothes, and enjoy the chills and surprises as things undreamed of are revealed about some of our favourite characters when they find themselves lost in... the Parody Zone. Doo-doo-doo-doo... |
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