Archive for the ‘Jonathan Wood’ Category
The Old Switcheroo
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
According to the pulps, when you want to raid a wizard’s tower you just strap on a broadsword and a loincloth and go at it. Truth is you need a permit with fifteen signatures. Still the government spooks give me enough talismans I make Mr T look restrained. Hopefully they’ll get me further than the permit, which only buys me a stunned doorman and a ride in the penthouse elevator.
Now a tower wouldn’t be complete without a damsel in distress–April Wilcox, heiress of the Wilcox sock empire. Vesu Telquist made all six feet five of her disappear at his show tonight and has yet to make her reappear.
Mundane security’s at the door. So I drop them with rubber bullets. The permit might have worked but this feels more satisfying. There’s so many talisman’s round my neck I don’t which one defeats locks, so in the end I just kick in the door.
I clear the living room and the kitchen, then I open the bedroom door and almost gag–blood and shit spread over the room. The body’s in the bed. What’s left of it. Head’s gone. Belly’s open and the guts lie in circles on crimson sheets. Sick bastard.
I’m right on top of it when I realize it’s too short. April Wilcox is an Amazon with a brunette dye job. This is a shrimp with excessive leg hair.
She comes out of the wardrobe with a knife and goes for the talisman’s at my throat. Apparently her scrying let her know what was being sent to get her back. Vesu didn’t see it coming. Neither did I. We tustle and break. Just in case I’m still thinking of rescuing her, she opens her mouth a breathes fire at me. Some joke about a hot date occurs to me and I’m so ashamed I almost let her roast me. As it is my jacket’s on fire before I find the right talisman. We go at it then, she flinging elemental forces at me, me getting pummeled and my hands caught in ancient chains.
Eventually she and I both get sick of it. She tries fire again and I take the hit. That gives me time to line up the shot, and her blood mixes with Vesu’s. I have the talisman ready in my pocket from the first attack but most of my clothes are ash by the time I summon the water to douse me.
I leave the mess for the spooks to clean up and ride down the elevator pulling off the remains of my shirt. I look at what’s left in the mirrored walls. And on top of it all it turns out a loin cloth isn’t a good look for me anyway.
Fish Food
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
Quite frankly, I’m getting sick of this Lovecraft shit.
It started with these marine biologists and their new species of octopus. Two weeks later all the staff at London zoo look like over-sized scampi and are sacrificing the tourists to elder gods.
My government-sanctioned holy bullets do bugger all. Apparently shrimp-scientists are secular. So I leg it and take refuge in a cleaning closet near the chimp enclosure, which I admit isn’t very James Bond of me. Still, I come across an aerosol can in there, and two seconds later I’m out of there with my lighter flambé-ing a couple of the bastards. Zookeepers dissolve into masses of thrashing tentacles. Enough to put me off shrimp cocktails for the rest of my life.
Lighter in hand I manage to torch a path to the aquarium, but when I get a look at the bugger residing there, I don’t think Pledge and a Zippo are going to cut it. It’s about the size of a double decker, all jelly-like flesh and claws reaching for me. The glass of the aquarium shatters and I’m swept out with the water.
When I catch my breath it’s tottering massively towards me through the ruins of the building. Gas tanks blow. Everything in the aviary squawking at once.
I leg it again.
See the trouble with Lovecraft is he only really gives you running gibbering into the night as an option, and I’ve got plans this Friday…
I smack into the wall of the polar bear enclosure and that’s when, along with the concrete, the idea hits me. The thing behind me is getting close as I blow the lock of the enclosure. We’re talking meters. I’m through the door and then it’s smashing down the wall. I’m roll clear and come up staring into eight white faces. Not happy either. You wake up polar bears, you better do it nicely.
After that I let nature take its course. The elder god is a big bugger, but its still just an overgrown fish to these guys. Some mundanes can take care of themselves. Still sushi’s gonna be off the menu for a while now too.