Concerning a Questionable Trade

The Shadow Man was tall, thin and very black. He wore a broken beaver fedora that might once have been grey and a collage of jackets, torn shirts and blankets. He had a small fire and a scattering of sputtering candles when Tupelo arrived, sliding down the muddy embankment.
"Mr. Tupelo," the Shadow Man said in a deep whiskey rasp, and in his voice Tupelo could hear the cry of distant trains and forgotten kingdoms. "We did have a bargain tonight."
Tupelo sat down across the fire and passed over a very dead pigeon and a half bottle of Admiral Nelson. "Kitty Rollins is dead," he said. "The King just told me, said to tell you."
The Shadow Man raised one hairless eyebrow. "Interesting. She has lived long time. Now, her power passes on." He handed Tupelo a cassette Walkman with great ceremony from the mound of junk behind him.
"The Silver Lady?"
"Yes," the Shadow Man said thoughtfully, as he cut off the pigeon's head with a rusted steak knife. "Or another, if they find her spirit first."

Concerning a Random Encounter

Tupelo was supposed to meet the Shadow Man about a trade. If he was lucky, a cup of coffee also could be found in one of the shelters down by the vista.
The Shadow Man set shop beneath the stone bridge by the river, in the Horseman's territory. Tupelo didn't like to be there after dark. He picked his way through a narrow sliver between buildings strewn with rain soaked trash and feral cats. Cars moved by in the distance, a fleeting rush of movement and wet tires. He suspiciously eyed a heap by a dumpster, and determined it wasn't worth it.
Suddenly Tupelo turned, and there was the Ragamuffin King standing at the alley's mouth like a shadow of a rowan tree, imprinted over glistening black puddles by the flickering pole lamp. Tupelo jumped.
"Kitty Rollins is dead," the King intoned. His hands were shoved into the oiled-canvas coat. "Tell that rake her territory passes to the Lady. He should mind himself before he digs up something wanted by someone else."
Tupelo didn't answer, but fairly fled across the wet flagstones, coat tails flapping.
"Pass the news to the Shadow Man!" the King yelled after him, and then he slipped off into the oncoming night.

Concerning An Eclair

He found the Fop daintily eating an eclair on a terrace, fingertips coated in powdered sugar. "My dear Tupelo." The Fop smiled at him graciously with long rouged cheekbones. "What new and glorious tidings do you bring our way?"
"I saw the King," Tupelo responded, fumbling nervously in his mackinaw. "I think he was looking for you."
The Fop yawned. "I see no reason he should. I've unearthed nothing of interest to him . . . . lately. . . "
Tupelo wiped his lips with blackened fingers, eying the eclair hungrily.
"Besides. Should the King desire our company he only need find us."
"Okay," Tupelo said. "Just thought you should know, that's all."
The Fop nodded inconclusively. Tupelo produced the Winston butt from his pocket. "Um. Do you have a light?"

Concerning Events Even More Unreltated

Introduction

The Fop and The Silver Lady had passed the hedgerow when the Ragamuffin King appeared at the fountain. He perched birdlike on the edge of Psyche's knee, dirty coat-tail barely dipping like a paintbrush in the water. He was watching for something behind those matted dredlocks, Tupelo could tell. He also knew the thin partnership the Fop and the King shared had ended, purportedly over a bag of zombie powder. It wasn't he, though; Tupelo tried to steer clear of the King the last few weeks. The King could be irascible in the spring months.
Tupelo turned back to the tall ashtray, fished a butt from the sand with a fingertip's worth of tobacco left. He stashed it quickly in the recesses of his coat, drew a small celtic knot in the sand. When he looked back, the Ragamuffin King was gone, vanished into the park square. Tupelo scanned about quickly, then scuttled out of the square.


copyright 2009
bacon press ltd
tcr

And Now, a New Season and New Narrative

To Begin With. . . .

But Nicholas was chivalrous, above all else. It was well-known, like a birthmark you can’t hide with clothing, or a withered arm. His eyes would betray it, in the dark hours, and he would sit in the darkness and watch the first snow falling outside the latticed study windows. A virtue streaked like a character flaw in his destiny, spoken over dim fires and homemade caves on the secret places, marred like Galahad. In the end, it would be his undoing.

Concerning an Account of Burmese Savagery

Two years ago, we had engine trouble over Burma, and were forced to set down and spend time affecting repairs. The shaft of the portside prop had seized, something about cheap French bearings. Worse yet, the rough emergency landing damaged a fin of the same side, gouged deeply by shrubbery.
Danvers was mate at the time, recently back from a rescue in the Swiss Alps on the Magdalena. Under his orders we set a crude camp around the airship, disparate hedge against dangerous animals and savages brought out by the ruckus. Wilson and Voslo had the first watch, Enfield automatic rifles and an electric torch between them and the creeping darkness. A few other examples from the weapons store were left within easy reach of the repair crew. We thought it would have been a sufficient preparation, even without knowing the disposition of natives of the area. The darkness taught us otherwise.

Concerning Events Most Unrelated

Harold McClellan was never much of a shot. His brother Duncan was, however, a fact that would not have mattered had Harold not drunkenly fallen into a duel with Lord Atterbury's second son Phillip, who promptly drilled him through the heart at twenty paces in a clearing outside of Hyde Park. Even then it only mattered because one dull-moon evening Phillip Atterbury decided to stroll Victoria Embankment, and ended it beneath Blackfriars Bride with a hole in his head.
The Yard was punctilious and efficient as usual. It appeared to be a straightforward case, and they had Duncan McClellan in irons before two days were out.
The only snag to their case was that Duncan didn't do it. A brawl had crushed a gin bottle of his right hand four days earlier, breaking several bones and damn near slicing a finger off.
The terrible affair came to my desk because other than Duncan, the Chief Inspector didn't have a clue to go on, and would be forced to attribute Atterbury the younger's new trephination to being a victim of this city's stew of murderous felons. Atterbury the elder would most certainly not accept that, or anyway were he in London at the moment instead of colonial Africa.

The year of 1887 had been slipping into the stagnant chill of winter, the dangerous slope into the hell known as The Christmas Season. The air outside was bright, cold, the type of cold that'll freeze a witch's tit until it can cut plate glass. London's not a city to trifle with on an afternoon such as this, if you don't need to. I was beside the glowering fireplace, sharing my coffee with some cognac so we could both stay warm. The newspapers were offering very little about the Atterbury case, chiefly the sensationalist speculation newspapermen fall upon where they can find no other scintillating truth to garrote. I'd ascertained Scotland Yard would be releasing McClellan when the front bell rang. I tried to make sure there were not an obscene number of cigarettes smoldering in the ash plate before Miss Templesmith introduced the guest.