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| Aubrey Beardsley |
You may remember we left the Weird Sisters doing their homework, which is never a good thing to watch and unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before Leilitchka - the younger of the sisters by one hundred years or so - started reminiscing about some of her past adventures. One story which she had later recounted to Scheherazade (who used it to great effect in one of her books) involved rescuing Iseult, who was trapped behind Fascist lines during the Spanish Civil War. She had joined some Irish Volunteers thinking she'd be helping old ladies cross roads and - at a push - darn a few socks, but had been somewhat shocked to find what it actually involved, having accidentally arrived in town via a portal from the eleventh Century while working on a few love potions with her mother.
Leilitchka had armed herself with some Sherbet Dabs and a Beretta, the latter being loaded with Chewits. Unfortunately (there always seems to be a hitch when the Weird Sisters get involved in rescue missions), the girls had got distracted by a rapper from Belgium who - in a fit of poetic pique - had stolen all the wrappers from the chewy sweets. Now you all know that one of the first rules of artillery is to 'keep your powder dry', but this is obviously tricky when a rapper's stolen the wrappers. So when the Weird Sisters went into battle, they found - somewhat inevitably - that the damp Chewits got stuck in the mechanism, which consequently jammed, so not a shot could be fired. The Sherbet Dabs proved useless in the situation too, so they had to call for help from their old friend and mentor Janka the One-eyed Wonder, Queen and most beautiful of the Bulgarian witches who was honoured to be asked to aid an Irish princess.
Janka flew in with her trusted cat Salem, who had been a shape-shifting salamander working for a giant rat called Putin (poisoning a speciality), before Janka had rescued him, and had had a spell as a lighthouse keeper, so was accustomed to keeping a beady eye and knew all the ins and outs of Health & Safety, a subject upon witches are notoriously lax. The pair set up a diversion in the form of a few conjuring tricks which produced visions of lusty ladies in luxury lingerie, while the Weird Sisters, sneaked in, grabbed Isuelt and whisked her away hidden inside an empty box labelled 'free porn', whose contents they had previously emptied from a height of about thirty feet (just enough to provide a double diversion).
Obviously owing to issues of National Security, the whole incident was covered up by the authorities, so this is very likely the first time you will have read about it. Now Leilitchka - back to your homework!
When isis-k got to Dartagnion's attic pad, she was surprised to notice that he was clearly 'the worse for wear'. Chasing the Jabberwock had left him with a raging thirst and he'd bumped into old Colonel Gin-soaked of the eponymous Gordon's Highland Regiment, who had got lost on his way back from Gin Lane (penny a pint) and...well, one thing led to another with predictable results. They'd even persuaded the three-legged accordionist to temporarily abandon his stool outside Paris's best brothel and do a quick Fandango. Gin-soaked was slumped on the sofa dribbling and isis-k was unimpressed.
She did what any self-respecting 3,000-year-old witch would do, and made a brew, thus
reviving both the old soldiers and asked them how they thought they were going to fight a mythical beast in that sort of state. They both looked up shame-faced:
'I was going to round up the Gargoyles' Dartagnion stammered, 'but....'
isis-k raised one eyebrow (which took her by surprise, as despite being a pretty damn good witch, she'd never - up to this point - mastered the art of raising an eyebrow in that quizzical, yet insouciant fashion so eloquently employed by her favourite actor Roger Moore, so she took a quick 'selfie' and posted it on Witchtagram)
'First you need to sort out the question of their having been on strike for two hundred years don't you?' isis-k pointed out.
'Well yes, I suppose so' Dartagnion muttered.
'As it happens, I have a plan,' isis-k beamed. 'My friend Janka the One-eyed Wonder (queen and most beautiful of all the Bulgarian witches) once helped out a young gargoyle called Ernestina who is positioned half way up the steeple of a very famous church in the north-east of England. I have absolutely no doubt that Ernestina would act as intermediary for us, as long as we get her some Fondant Fancies. Are you with us Colonel?' she asked, looking over at Gin-Soaked.
'Rather' he replied 'my gin's run out and my sword is rusty. What more motivation do I need?'
So the three of them set off for England (via Tesco's)....
isis-k woke up and found herself in Paris. She had answered a distress signal sent out by a drug-addicted three-legged accordionist, and while she suspected he was a lost soul, she could not help but answer the call.
It was months since her last adventure, which had found her battling the Evil Empress just off the Bermuda Triangle where Barry Manilow's nose was continuing to prove hazardous to ships that passed in the night (unless any of the crew were named Mandy, in which case it sent them away).
Strange sounds heard in the Bermuda Triangle
Her worse fears about the Evil Empress's global ambitions had been confirmed when the BBC's former headquarters at Television Centre had been swallowed up by a movable portal and reappeared on a small island off Miami. However, she could only fight so many battles and had opted to leave Janka the One-eyed Wonder (Queen of the Bulgarian witches) in command of a legion of Romans borrowed from Claudius, a few flying monkeys (defectors from a Disney sequel) and the Weird Sisters, who were on their Easter holidays and were on the verge of trading in their broomsticks for provisional driving licences. We will come back to them later.
For old time's sake, isis-k wandered into the nearest Absinthe bar to look up her old friend Toulouse Lautrec, who was still trying to catch the Green Fairy (a very old friend of the Weird Sister's from Elementary Elf-school back in the 60s.....(1660s), for they were still relatively young and hence somewhat unpredictable)). She asked Henri about the
accordionist and he sighed:
'Best leave him be, isis, he will snap out of it in another few hundred years. If you are looking for a good cause, go see my friend Dartagnion who is putting together an expedition to catch the Jabberwocky, who is running rampage in the 11th arrondissement, ravishing virgins and roasting unsuspecting urchins. Dartagnion needs some help rounding up the gargoyles, who have been on strike since the Eighteenth Century because they are fed up with having their differentials eroded'.
isis-k didn't need to be asked twice. She picked up her bag, mounted her broomstick and headed straight for Dartagnion's house...
