A commission from  desertderp . My first SFW one!

Two Victorian adventurers and their friend run into trouble when the ancient writings they uncovered wind up in the hands of a sect of cultists.

This story has headed my FurAffinity page as a Featured Story

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Midsummer’s Evil
By: Dankedonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/


--1--

The occasion upon which I first met the enchanting Miss Akkabba Ullal is one I have been meaning to commit to paper for some time. As long-time readers of my humble missives are aware, I had been in the employ of Professor Bishop for just shy of four years come Midsummer’s Eve of 1857. A fortnight following our return from the Dark Continent in possession of the two artifacts that I’d wrested from the hands of “Mad Jacques” Lamont. (For the details of that adventure, I refer you to refer to my long-form recollective, Crisis in Karnak, now published in book form.)

The Professor’s research into the ancient documents had reached an impasse. Which he took as an opportunity to reach out to an old colleague of his. One Professor Thomas Ashton, a Badger of much renown among archeological circles. Not unlike my employer himself. The Bulldog spent several days preceding the Twenty-fourth of June pacing the floors of his manor house, eagerly awaiting news of his friend’s return to their own Mother England.

When Bishop’s valet delivered the Badger’s calling card, my friend’s prodigious jowls formed up into the biggest smile I’d seen him hold since that day months ago when we cracked through into our first Egyptian tomb. He leapt to the door to personally welcome the man inside and treat upon him a rigorous clap on the back. “Come in, come in my good man! May I introduce my field assistant, Anthony Baker. Formerly Adjutant Baker of the French Foreign Legion. Do please forgive his manners, he hails from the Americas.”

“Boston, Massachusetts, to be precise.” I reached my battleworn Tabby paw toward him for a shake between gentlemen. No sooner did I do so there came a ragged “Hissss!” and the space between our nearing hands was severed by a jeweled scimitar. An eye-bat later, it was occupied by a grey-scaled Cobra, female no less, clothed in the war dress of India’s deadliest. Her lithe grace lent even such a threatening act a distinctive beauty.

Ashton tapped the blade down with a hand. “It seems it is I who must apologize for the, ah, rather exuberant company I keep. Allow me to introduce to you both my associate, Akkabba Ullal. Do step down, dear. There’s a good lass.”

The scholar elaborated as he was led through the main hall. “We found each other in the back streets of Bombay. Saved me from a bit of trouble with some rather unpleasant bandits, she did. Cut two of them down on the spot, and gave the last a dashing and final chase. I’m a man of the world, but I’d never seen such a display of swordsmanship before. Offered her a job on the spot, whot ho!” More than once my literary agent has asked if it truly is the case that the profession of ‘archaeological field assistant’ equates to ‘bodyguard.’ If you too doubt that this is often the case, I implore you read on.

Professor Ashton certainly felt no need of Miss Ullal’s professional opinions regarding the pieces he’d been summoned to ponder. Electing to retire to the study with my employer alone. As Mrs. Bishop was away visiting an ailing relative, I was left to entertain the serpentine guest. A task I happily set myself towards.

I’ve often found that the best means to get a sellsword to talk is by asking about the weapon by which they ply their trade. “That is a fine blade,” I pointed to her scabbard once we’d entered the lounge. “What I saw of it. Might I have a closer look?”

She unsheathed the tool with mercenary grace. Laying its flat tip upon her free hand. The blade was as richly detailed as the hilt, engraved with florid Sanskrit lines. It struck me an odd piece for a hireling. As likely to draw greedy hands as intimidate foes. “Quite an elaborate piece. Dare I presume it a trophy?”

The lady nodded, her head heavy with memory. “It was crafted for a member of the Maharajah’s royal guard. He became corrupt and used it for evil. I will redeem it.” I could not help but admire the woman’s convictions. And a posture that made clear she was quite capable of doing as she’d pledged. She nodded back towards the study. “What is it they speak of?”

I will not tire my returning audience with a lengthy recitation of all the relics’ peculiarities. Suffice to say I informed my companion of the particulars. The Black Tablet was carved from dark material that proved impossible to categorize. Whether it be stone or volcanic glass or some strange mix. Its odd warmth struck us no concern in the basking Egyptian air, but moved to the mild British clime it was more than strange. Its text was utterly inscrutable. The Long Tome, more accurately a collection of lengthy papyrus scrolls, was written in an obscure Egyptian dialect that Professor Bishop had yet to translate. It too was of mysterious make, being so remarkably well preserved.

I had barely delved into the tale of how we acquired the pieces when Ashton came to collect his associate, Black Tablet in hand. “Come along. Willy’s letting me take this to the museum to compare against some things I have in the back shelves. If we put spurs to the coachman, we’ll get there before Jackson aways for the night.”

. . .

Arrangements had been made that the coachman would return to Piebald House once he’d delivered his charges to the British Museum. In order to assure my friend of their safe arrival. When any such news failed to reach us by the break of dawn, the uneasy Bulldog elected to investigate. “Come along, old chap. It’s the museum for us. And bring that rifle of yours.”

What we found when we arrived was a distressed Horace Jackson. The old Ram was a bloodied mess. “Someone’s absconded with Ashton and the girl! I’ve only just sent for the bobbies! Whatever shall I do? Whatever shall the Board do?”

“Calm yourself,” Bishop bid the curator, motioning me to start looking about. “Tell us what happened. Slowly.”

Jackson did as best he could. “The night watchman gave me word Aston had come in with something of yours. I came running through the East Wing to catch him up. I heard a noise behind me.” He held a hand to the back of his skull. “I was knocked out! All I recall is a cloaked hand. Red. When I came to, the research rooms had been ransacked, and Aston and his guard were gone. That was less than an hour ago.”

The rest of the tale was told atop the southern grounds. One of the stretches of green fronted by columns of white. I transliterated the tale of the tracks for my fellows. “Miss Ullal broke free here… was chased this way… Killed one of them here…Took to a knee here.” I saw evidence of a body being hauled away, but none of the Cobra being surrounded.

“She may have stood down the moment it was clear she couldn’t extricate Thom,” offered Bishop.

I nodded grimly. The thought of that remarkable woman being forced to surrender galled me. Continuing my all-too-late sojourn, I found shards of clay, rounded in the like of jars, in the last place I could be sure the two of them had been standing. “Something was purposefully shattered in their presence.” I regarded my friends with an uneasy stare. “Then the pair of them simply walked away with their captors.”


--2--

Of the many virtues Professor Bishop has exhibited during our adventures, I would list loyalty highest among them. Once we’d determined that our unseen adversaries’ most likely next move would be to raid his estate for the Long Tome, the spry old Dog could not hail a coach quickly enough. “I’ll be boiled in oil before I see any of the house staff treated so roughly as Jackson back there!”

We found the door of the place wide open. The moment we reached the cobblestone roundabout, I leapt clean away from the carriage. Feline reflexes rolled me to my feet, trusty caplock carbine poised for killing work.

“I have awaited your return,” sounded a voice from the other side of the portal. Into the doorway appeared a face I had hoped to see again but would never have expected to so soon.

“Miss Ullal!” I exclaimed, lowering my weapon, which remained bound to me by the strap. “How pleased I am to see you! What news of your charge?”

“He is with those who claimed us at the museum,” she said solemnly.

“How ever did you free yourself from those ruffians?” I asked.

Her words were crisp and steady. “I allowed myself to be taken. So I could listen to their secrets.  I slipped free of my bonds when the time was right.” The robe nearest her off-hand was torn asunder. The cut across her left forearm did not seem to bother her in the least. “They will come for the Tome. We must remove it.”

“Quite right!” huffed my companion, who had caught us up. “If there’s to be a fight for the thing, I won’t have it be here. The staff, how are they, then?”

“They are untouched,” the lady answered. “Come. There is much to be done. I know a safe place for the Tome.” She turned to the interior of the manor, moving with purpose. Though her only notable wound was the one at her arm, her three-limbed stride was affected by an arrhythmic humor. Were it not for the very sober persona she had displayed at our first meeting, I might have thought her a wastrel fresh from an opium den.

I bound to her side. “I say, my good lady. I don’t mean to be impertinent, but might I see to your wound?” I feared she may have been done in by a poisoned blade. It wouldn't have been the first such occurrence in my career.

“If you must.” The Cobra turned to Professor Bishop. “You will recover the Tome while Baker does this.” After a bit of jowl-puffery at the impertinence of being given directions in his own home, by a woman no less, the man obliged. Soldiering on into his study.

I gingerly took her grey-scaled hand into my orange-striped paw for close inspection. I found the damage was indeed from a blade, and saw none of the signs associated with poison’s taint. “What sort of ropes did you say they had you tied with?”

“Hemp. Half an inch thick. Not strong enough to hold one such as I.”

I nodded in understanding. “It’s been some hours since our parting. You must have been lying in wait quite a time for your moment. Before tearing yourself free.”

“Yes.”

“How fortunate, then, that your wrist has no marks to remember its bondage.”

I never saw her draw the blade, so fast was her other hand. Only a deathly gleam of slivered light. Barely had I time to bring my own weapon’s bayonet into position to parry.

I had never encountered such strength in a woman. Nor such fury in a member of either sex. Her blows kept me firmly on the defensive. Backpedaling away only for her to close the distance and strike anew. Within a rotation of the Great Hall, she overwhelmed me. With a slash of her scimitar, she bisected my rifle’s shoulder strap. With a lash of her tail, she sent me tumbling away from it. Rolling into my fall, I came up holding a one-shot pistol I keep secreted on my person for just such an occasion. My shot rang true.

Percussed in the crossguard, the weapon flew from her hand. It never struck the ground. My assailant reached her hand out and spoke a single, alien word. The blade stopped it in mid-air. Next came more of this language I’d never heard before; harsh and clipped syllables of such accursed nature that I shall not record them in these pages. Those words had power, enough to send the sword hurdling across the towards myself. It chased me as I fled, slicing through the air with malignant aims to do the same to flesh. It was solely through the fortune of my feline faculties that I did not lose a limb, or worse. Though alas I cannot say the same for a number of Professor Bishop’s heirlooms.

Another foreign tongue joined the one animating the blade. Ullal turned and lunged at its source, but fell quickly to her knees. Revealing Professor Bishop, holding up a scroll of the Long Tome, speaking its words. Ullal fell to all fours, and then flat to the ground. Dragging herself forward with her hands, determined to reach him. All the while wailing an unearthly scream. A ghastly haze emanated from her body as though steam were escaping from her every pore.

When it was over, the pained Indian prostrated herself in surrender. “The jars!” She cried. “Something in the jars! I did not act of my own will!”

“I should say you didn’t,” the Professor bellowed. Lowering the Long Tome and reeling it back up. “We are acting against dark forces, we three. This scroll contains a counter-curse to the spell that afflicted you. Help the lady up, man. She’ll do us no more harm.”

“It was no spell,” she answered while regaining her posture. “Eight robed men came for us at the museum. I killed one. Wounded another. When they had us, they broke two jars at our feet. Something entered me then. A raaksha! I could feel it reaching into my mind...” A clawed hand tentatively reached towards her hooded brow. “They know all that we know!”

“To what end are they using your knowledge?” I asked, handing the now-impotent scimitar back.

She nodded solemnly. “I thank you for this trust. The raaksha that had me was to use my skills to kill you both, then claim the papyrus. Ashtons is taking them to his residence. To put the Tablet to use.”

“And what use might that be?” The Professor’s tone was low and ominous.

“The cultists worship a being the raakshas serve. They wish to open a gateway to its realm. There are papers there at Ashton’s home which he did not know the full value of. Ritual sigils that must be set out.” She winced. The wound of hers now truly troublesome. She was unable to provide any further clues. “I do not know the mind of that which invaded mine. Only what it said and heard through my body.”

With hours already wasted, a decision was mutually made for our party to press on to Ashton’s residence on our own. The constables were too far removed, and less than inexperienced in these matters. Preparations were quick but thorough. “I thought you hadn’t translated any of those passages,” I asked noted to my employer while re-loading my oneshot.

“Oh? I cracked the bugger last night after Thom detailed a cartouche he saw in an Alexandrian market. Didn’t I tell you?”


--3--

I charged the coachman to deliver us a short distance away from Professor Ashton’s residence. Far enough away that the hooffalls of the steeds would not be heard by any cultists left on sentry. My fellow guardian and I travelled the rest of the way on foot. Her arm freshly bandaged. Along the way, I found myself envious envious of Miss Ullal’s skills at stealth. For I heard not a sound of her passage, even though we were travelling in tandem.

We found a pointman patrolling the outside of the brick-walled fence. Red robes. A face obscured by a dark mask. I snapped a twig by way of distraction, and she took him from behind. A pommel to the back of his skull ended his part in this misadventure. Only after we’d hidden his benumbed form under a bush did we signal for Professor Bishop to come to us. Subterfuge being a suit that fit him ill.

“Old safari wound,” he insisted to our Cobra friend. While he made his allowances to our associate, I took time to look over our unconscious enemy. The unmasked face was that of a Horny Toad. Said mask was carved in deeply stained bronze. It was stylized in a Fur’s form, but one which I could not place. A chimeric blend of Greyhound and Aardvark. With long, rectangular ears akin to neither.

My scholastic counterpart knew it at a glance. “Setesh. Traitorous son of Osiris. Bane of Horus. Kemetish god of deserts and duplicity.” Kemet being the name the by which Pharonic Egyptians knew their pagan nation. “I should have guessed.”

Miss Ullal elected to take up the cultist’s robes and adornments. Reasoning that she had to get up close to put her sword to use, while my bullets and the Professor’s mystic words could strike from a further distance.

“Freeing you from the… raaksha’s... influence was touch and go for a space,” he said gravely. “Your enslaver had hours to root itself in deep, and Thom’s more time than that. We may have to brace ourselves for the possibility that it is too late to save him.” His head lowered forlornly.

The woman lifted the first inch of her sword clear of the scabbard. “Then I shall release him from his bondage in my own way.” There was no mistaking her meaning.

. . .

Upon assailing the wall, the female member of our party crept along the back grounds at some distance from the Professor and I. Our stratagem being that should the Professor and myself be discovered, she could intercept anyone who could sound the alarm. However, we found no opposition on our starlit way to the wine cellar. The cult’s overconfidence was our fortune. So too was the happenstance that Professor Ashton spent so much of his time abroad. To this day, I shudder to ponder the outcomes to his house staff had the place not been in mothballs for the season.

The cellar lock came free after some leveraging, with the aid of piece from a nearby sundial. The air inside was taken up by soft rumble; a chant from which we could not discern words nor rhythm. We three took down the stair. Before we’d reached the earthen floor, I softly returned the doors to their closed positions.

Once more, I bid the Professor to keep back. In the safety of the stairway. Miss Ullal and I made a thorough examination of the wine cellar. Whereupon I spied the slight rustling of firm fabric within the growing strength of the chant. Then soft pawfalls, as the wearer moved closer along the other side of a rack of burgundies. I allowed the stranger to pass into the next walkway. Coming up behind, I removed their mask with one hand, covered a hairy mouth with the other. In the ensuing struggle, my arm sought purchase around their throat. Wishing to render them unconscious. For by now I was concerned that any of these people might be in as hard a position as poor Ashton.

The cultist, alas had contrary aims. Scrounging a leaf-shaped blade from their belt, bringing it over to strike my side. It never reached me, for the arm which held it became enveloped by a Cobra’s mouth. Twin fangs sank deep into grey fur and hidden flesh. The cultist’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she was deceased before I guided her to the ground.  In this mortal coil, she had been a Koala.

Once we’d cleared our way to the end of the cellar, I fetched the Bulldog. At the threshold to the basement proper, the circle of chanters was visible. For the most part; eight robed figures could I see, arranged as such that I could assume fourteen total in their pattern. I would later be informed that fourteen is the number of pieces that Setesh cleaved Osiris into, seven each for the Upper and Lower halves of Kemet. Ashton’s voice sounded clearest of all, though whether he was among the seven-and-seven or if his keeper held some more unique place in the ritual I could not guess. For he was not visible without revealing myself.

They were illuminated by an eerie glow. Speaking in low tones, whether through penitence or need for secrecy. The actual content of these foreign lyrics was alien, at least to me. Professor Bishop nodded along, as though familiar with the general vocabulary but just now learning the proper pronunciations. “Hope returns to us,” he whispered. “My lady, do be so good as to take a place among them. Get to Thom and try to move him where I can see him. The counter-curse won’t work without eye contact.”

“Perhaps your mere presence will upend the symbolic arrangements they have in place,” I added. Having noted that each cultist was standing within a painted circle, lined in hieroglyphics. Each of these connected to the others in a larger circle of paint.

The lady nodded, applied the freakish mask, and walked calmly into Evil’s den. Moments later, chaos! Half the cultists I could see drew blades and rushed out of view. The others began falling to my rifle. One leapt clean of my shot on webbed feet. He landed before me, tore my rifle free. His suckered hand cut short the draw of my sidearm. There in the door frame we engaged in a life-and-death struggle. I seeking to leverage him to the ground. He striking to gouge my eyes with the narrow-snouted mask.

A dull crack sounded, and the Frog slummed low. The Professor stood behind him. Holding up a bottle of Chateau Porcomme. We shook hands, then I tumbled into the room to the room to put my six-shooter to use.

What I saw when I did shook me to the core. A sliver of light in the air, bowed in the middle as a deep cut in one’s arm coming loose of its stitches. From within, and not behind, a terror leered at me. Its giant head an organic match for the occult masks, though colored in an ashy pelt. Adorned it was in gold and jewels and the bone-white teeth of a merciless scowl. Beneath his circular, beaded collar a body that was neither Fur nor Scalie, not Amphibian or Avian. Bronze skin, hideous in its nakedness. It reached for me with a five-fingered hand ended with dull, flat nails. Clouds of dust flew from that hand, obscuring my sight, blowing me toward the rear wall.

Behind that impossible sight was Miss Ullal. A blur of destruction she was, having already dispatched a number of our foes. But there were enough still to keep her clear of her employer. Who stood in robes of gold and black, bellowing words from the Black Tome. I did what little I could to lessen her adversaries. But I had few clear shots, and was loathe to risk hitting Ashton.

I called out to the man with the papyrus. “There’s nothing for it man! Come out and end this!”

Bishop did so, stepping into the open and windy room. Shouting words from the Long Tome.

Ashton -- or I hasten to emphasize his raaksha -- for his part spoke louder. Faster, as well. The rend in the air widened. The beast within began leaning his head through. Leveraging his storm-casting arm forward enough to drive me back to the wall lest I be ensnared by it! The torrent of dust became thick enough to choke the air from my lungs!

With strength of lung that few but a Bulldog can manage, Professor Bishop shouted the Badger down. The chain of dark words broke at last. Ashton, his own man once more, threw the Black Tablet to the floor. Shattering it. Setesh’s eyes went wide, and his snarled maw opened. Into an abhorrent howl that followed Morpheus to my pillow for many a year. Though he put up a royal fight against fate, the beast-man’s head, arm, and hand all fell back through the breach from which they came.

Said breech closed tight. Its light faded. Uncountable debris fell to the floor. Three standing cultists ran for the stairs. A Cobra and Tabby hot on their heels. They led us on a merry hunt through the house and grounds, but we ran them down in the end. Delivering death unto two of them. The last we took alive to join their fellow wounded for delivery to the constabularies of Scotland Yard.

At no time did this last zealot, a Lemur, say anything for or against himself. But the Professors, when we rejoined them, were all rapid patter and easy laughs. Comparing the past hours’ misadventure to bygone thrills of their youth. Debating how they were going to describe this fantastic turn of events to a lecture crowd at the Pytheas Club, of which they were both members in good standing.   

They’d cracked open one of the wine bottles in celebration, and had glasses ready for myself and Miss Ullal once we’d finished securing the captives.  “I join Willy here in offering my thanks to you both, my young friends,” smiled Ashton as he toasted our success. “May all our future collusions end as happily as this. And let them not begin so unpleasantly.”

Indeed, there were collaborations aplenty in the years to come. In time, and with much in the way of shared adversary, I came to count Miss Ullal as one of my most stalwart friends. But those tales, dear reader, shall have to wait for another time.