Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  “And your wife too,” I suggested.

  “That goes without saying,” he promptly responded.

  Didn’t sound very convincing, though.

  Lord Basilton’s ancestors had amassed an amazing collection of antiques in the course of over six centuries, his family’s roots established with the Crusades. He lent part of his treasures to museums once in a while, but refused to sell anything. One of his most precious pieces was a Picasso of the blue period, a unique piece whose subject was a cat emerging from a flowering bush. It had been bought by his grandpapa for a ridiculous sum from Picasso himself, before the great painter had gotten famous. Obviously, Basilton was particularly worried about its safety. “As you can see, whenever that thing shows up, it destroys and makes a mess all around,” he continued, gesturing at the huge mess in the attic. It was strewn with broken, empty boxes, crashed suitcases and trunks and splattered everywhere with slime.

  “This slime you see all around, it’s fluorescent, Lord Basilton. That’s a clear sign that we’re dealing with a poltergeist, am I right, Will?”

  “Well, usually that would be so, child,” he answered, furrowing. “A few things that Lord Basilton told us make me think it could be something else,” he turned to our client. “Sorry Lord Basilton, but I understand the creature speaks, from time to time? And has…an accent?”

  “Exactly Your Grace, a very strong, obnoxious, Irish one,” Lord Basilton answers. “When that thing appears, it looks like a huge, luminous ball. It mocks us and swears a lot, sometimes in English, sometimes in what I believe to be Gaelic, I studied Gaelic a bit when I was attending university, you see. Also, it will produce unintelligible sounds which are a mystery to me; a sort of song, or a mysterious language, perhaps.”

  “OK, I understand,” I replied, exchanging glances with Will, as my back stiffened and a knot began to form in my stomach. According to Lord Basilton’s more in-depth description, our supernatural guest wasn’t a simple poltergeist, but a leprechaun. He spoke Gaelic and emitted “unintelligible sounds” which were very likely the fairy language, which would follow because leprechauns are close relatives of the fairy folks. No one, except fairies, and me, perceived it as a language with distinct words; to everyone else it sounds like a whisper in the wind, like dead leaves rustling.

  But there was no way it could be a leprechaun, right? Leprechauns don’t look like fluorescent balls, nor did they leave opalescent slime behind…

  “Miss Wise, are you listening to me?”

  “Sure, Lord Basilton, sorry! I was just…processing the information,” trying to determine how clueless I actually was.

  “I do not mean to be rude, Miss Wise, but, are you a hundred percent certain that you can take care of this? My dear friend Lord Lawrence truly sang your praises…”

  “Thank you, I’m so very happy to hear it: He had a nasty ghoul in his basement. William and I took care of it without problems,” never mind the fact that I nearly got beheaded, but that’s not something I’m apt to tell a new client.

  “RIGHT. Again, I’m aware that your references are impeccable, but try to put yourself in my shoes: There’s a dangerous, supernatural creature terrorizing my household, my priceless collection, as well as my wife, which are all stored here in this house, and, well, you are very young!”

  So, there was no way this man could put his spouse ahead of his precious stuff. And didn’t he hear himself? His wife was ‘stored in the house’? I mean, WTF.

  “Lord Basilton, I fully understand your doubts, but I can assure you that I have the situation under control,” no, I didn’t. “As you can see, my ally is a powerful ghost, plus, I’ve been dealing with the paranormal since…early on in my life,” since I was born, to be precise. “And I assure that I am perfectly capable of taking care…”

  A clock somewhere in the house gave five strokes, partially covering the noise of shattering glasses downstairs.

  “CHAAARLES!” A terrified female voice shrieked.

  “MY WIFE! IN THE LIBRARY!” Lord Basilton erupted, as we all rushed downstairs.

  “You said it appeared only at seven, only in the attic!”

  “That’s the truth!” He yelled, peeking from behind the sofa. “No idea why…damn it!” he barely ducked a regency chair that flew towards him and smashed into the nearby wall of the library.

  Wrecking the room was a ball of powerful, evil poltergeist energy, inside of which I could distinguish the silhouette of an even more evil leprechaun. So, it was a leprechaun’s poltergeist we were dealing with. Not either one or the other. Both. Just to make my life easier, for a change. Leprechauns, being close relatives of the fairy folk, do not die. They turn into something else. It’s usually something pleasant, like rainbow colours or scented morning breeze. Of course, this one was an exception, having likely been attracted by 50 Berkley Square, then forced to move into Lord Basilton’s nearby mansion, where he had produced relatively little damage, appearing only in the attic until that day. That day, the little bastard must have eavesdropped on our conversation and learned of the many “important things” downstairs ripe for his destruction. Poltergeist are geared towards destroying as much as possible in a very short span of time, so now my job was to keep him where he was, so that his damage wouldn’t spread anywhere else in that expensive house. Only problem was, how?

  “KILL YOU! KILL YOU!” Little Bastard shrieked, then laughed and shot corrosive poltergeist slime all over the place.

  “WILL!” I shouted, barely ducking one of the deadly bullets. Thank God my supernatural agility kicked in, as it always does, when I’m in danger.

  Will protected the Basiltons with a magic barrier, while throwing a number of restraining spells at the leprechaun poltergeist. They all bounced back.

  “HIHIHIH! Tell me where I’m from OR DIE!”

  “Irkland!” I shouted, while ducking another poltergeist beam it shot at me.

  “Irkland” is “Ireland” in the fairy language and, according to what I knew about leprechauns, by telling them where they are from, you automatically force them to go back there. I knew that, because in the past I had used it against leprechauns and discovered it worked. Only, this time it didn’t. I had no idea why.

  “WRONG! WRONG! Destroy all!” Little Bastard mocked me, just before throwing poltergeist magic all over the place and then…shooting through the door we’d come from and disappearing.

  “STOP THAT THING! DO NOT LET REACH IT THE DRAWING ROOM!” Lord Basilton yelled, rushing out of his hiding place to run after us, chasing the creature.

  We ran down a long, wide corridor. Its walls were covered with precious antique watercolours. Watercolours, not oil paintings, which meant that they were under glass, which meant…

  “COVER YOUR EYES!” I shouted, just in time. The poltergeist made the protective glasses explode all at once, poltergeists LOVE to make glass explode!

  “HIHIHIHIHIH! TELL ME WHERE I’M FROM! WHERE-I’M-FROM!” Little Bastard mocked me. Then it gave me an evil look before pirouetting in mid-air and spraying corrosive poltergeist slime on each and every eighteenth century watercolour hung in that damn corridor…

  “NOOOOO!!!” Lord Basilton cried, sounding as if someone had stabbed him in the heart. “Not the John Martin landscape! The Albert and Victoria Museum wanted to buy it!”

  “Well, not anymore, I’m afraid,” I thought, glancing at the pulp of coloured paper and slime now hanging on the wall.

  “CHARLES, COME BACK HERE!” His wife begged from behind him, clearly not caring for the paintings, but only for her husband’s safety.

  “NOT THE DRAWING ROOM!” He yelled, ignoring her, as Little Bastard turned right and headed towards a sumptuous double mahogany door with golden knobs, which lead, guess where.

  “Àstynte! Àstynte!” I shouted. It means ‘stop’ in the Fairy Language. Sometimes, when I say something in it, it produces an effect. Makes things happen, so to say. This time it also worked, sort of, the leprechaun slowed down a little, givi
ng me and William time to catch up with him. We entered the drawing room a second after he did.

  Lord Basilton’s drawing room was the size of a small flat. And so crowded with antiques that it looked like a section of the British Museum. The leprechaun poltergeist shot into it like a fluorescent bullet.

  It took me two seconds to assess the situation: I spotted the Picasso, hanging above the fireplace, on the other side of the room, protected by thick, bullet-proof glass. The Basiltons had jumped behind a huge armchair, unseen by Little Bastard.

  “Will, the Picasso…” I told him telepathically. He surrounded the painting with a powerful magical barrier. “It should hold for a while…”

  I considered our options as Little Bastard sing-sang: “Catch me! Catch you,” spraying corrosive slime all around. I didn’t have time to wonder what he meant when he flew towards a heavy medieval armour. And possessed it.

  “KILL YOU! KILL YOU!” He shrieked, running towards me embodying the heavy armour and brandishing the matching bludgeon. Little Bastard seemed eager to smash it down onto my head.

  “CHILD!” William yelled, as I back flipped in mid-air and crashed against a shelf filled with what looked like…

  “The Ming China! NOT THE MIIING!!!” Lord Basilton howled from his hiding place. I jumped onto my feet just in time to avoid another blow.

  “CHILD, HOLD ON! DON’T MOVE!” My ghost shouted, throwing all sorts of powerful spells at the possessed armour. They all bounced back, wrecking numerous knick-knacks, including a collection of seventeenth century silver, a China vase and an art nouveau statue of a dancing shepherdess… and the magic barrier protecting the Picasso. Well, the bullet-proof glass was still in place, after all. So, nothing to worry about, aside from an animated medieval armour eager to smash a heavy bludgeon on my tiny forehead.

  “STOP THAT THING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!” Lord Basilton shouted, angry and desperate.

  “Child,” William rushed me a telepathic message. “I cannot, for the love of God, capture this creature or even slow it down. Its ambiguous magic messes up with my own magic. And the more time passes…”

  “The worse it gets, I know. It’s the leprechaun-poltergeist mix,” I replied, while dodging the tenth bludgeon blow. “Will! I need a weapon,” I continued, eyeing an elegant antique saber hanging from the opposite wall.

  “On it,” Will threw a spell at the sword, and it flew right into my hands. Just in time to block an irony punch from armoured Little Bastard. With the corner of an eye, I saw Lord Basilton crawling out of his hiding place and reaching the exit, leaving his wife behind. To duck one of the poltergeist’s blows, she had moved behind a sofa and was much further away from the door, still, a gentleman shouldn’t leave his wife like that, plus, not having them in one place made it more difficult to keep them safe.

  “Will, protect the Basiltons! I’ll keep him occupied!”

  “All right, but how will you?”

  “I’ll think of something!”

  Now, my mother would have argued that thinking wasn’t really my best attribute, but that wasn’t the time to be dealing with my mummy issues which always left me feeling insecure. That was the time to dodge and block bludgeon blows and poltergeist magic, while trying to find a way to get rid of Little Bastard. Why on Earth couldn’t I send him back to Ireland, where he belonged? Was the poltergeist magic messing with the leprechaun’s so that the trick of telling him his home country was useless? Nope. That wasn’t the case, or Little Bastard wouldn’t keep defying me to guess where he was from. Maybe the problem wasn’t him. It was me. Maybe he actually didn’t come from Ireland. Suddenly I remembered that leprechauns consider their homeland the last place where they spent over a hundred years. Leprechauns tend to move around, so staying in one place for over a century is kind of a bid deal to them, so …

  “BERKLEY SQUARE! YOU COME FROM 50 BERKLEY SQUARE!" I shouted in the fairy language.

  “WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!” The leprechaun grinned from under the armour’s helmet, right before swinging his weapon in the direction of my chest. I back flipped just in time, missing the bludgeon by an inch or two. I landed on an antique table holding a precious Chinese vase filled with flowers that crashed under my weight. The water in it soaked me. And gave me a sudden, crazy idea.

  “Lady Basilton, did he appear directly in the library?” I shouted, grabbing the saber just in time to block another blow, noting with horror how quickly heavy, animated armour could move.

  “I’m not sure…” she feebly replied.

  “PLEASE TRY!” I gasped, jumping aside to avoid the bludgeon which, this time, plunged into the expensive wooden floor and became stuck there, like the Sword in The Stone. Perfect timing.

  “Will, slime! I need some time!”

  Immediately, my ghost poured a massive amount of his slime on the animated armour, covering it completely. In a second or two, the slime hardened, imprisoning Little Bastard for…maybe a minute, if we were lucky.

  “Disgusting!” the creature shrieked, desperately trying to break free.

  “Lady Basilton, we don’t have much time,” I hurried her, rushing behind the sofa where she was hiding. “This is of vital importance: I must know if that thing materialised directly in the library or came from somewhere close. Where were you, when you saw it?”

  “I was,” she stuttered, in shock. “I was reading the paper by the fireplace. My eyes were on the paper, so I really didn’t see it…I …I just heard that horrible laugh that gives me the creeps…”

  “When you raised your eyes, where was it?”

  “It was floating in front of that very wall,” she whispered, nodding at the wall in front of us. “Of that I’m sure.”

  She was right, I could see a huge, round stain of poltergeist slime, a sure sign that Little Bastard had gone through it a few minutes before.

  “OK, what’s on the other side of that wall, a room?” I rushed.

  “No, a small lavatory for guests…”

  “That’s it then!” I shouted, startling her as I jumped away.

  Where he came from was the London sewers, not Berkley Square. Little Bastard had for sure been kicked out of Berkley Square and forced to wander the sewers for a good while, for “over a century while”, so to speak... He had moved into Lord Basilton’s mansion from the sewers through the pipes and was still using them to move around, that’s why he always showed up in the proximity of either sinks or water closets.

  “FREE! FREE!” Little Bastard shrieked, getting rid of the last bit of William’s dried slime. “FREE! KILL YOU!” he strode towards me, his evil eyes glowing underneath the armour’s helmet. “DIE! OR…”

  “Tell you where you’re from?” I grinned. “There you go, mister: LONDONIA FLODÀN!” I yelled. Which simply meant “London sewers” in the fairy language. It worked.

  Little Bastard froze on the spot, cracks running all over his armour…oh no, no, it’s going to go the poltergeist way…

  “WILLIAM! COVER!” I yelled, right before jumping behind the armchair, where Lady Basilton was still hiding. “HEAD DOWN!” I shouted, trying to shield her with my body while Will’s powerful, magic barrier wrapped around us, just in time to protect everyone from LB’s massive, paranormal explosion. Yeah, that’s how poltergeist usually go, when exorcised. Only Little Bastard wasn’t a regular poltergeist, so the explosion was much, MUCH worse, with boosted poltergeist energy shooting everywhere, its light blinding us while it destroyed anything it flashed upon. I pushed Lady Basilton further against the floor as I felt William’s barrier shaking around us, holding up just by the skin of its teeth.

  Then the shaking stopped and everything went silent.

  Lady Basilton and I emerged from behind the armchair and looked around. The drawing room resembled a First World War battlefield, maybe worse: Everything was either burnt, broken into pieces or both. Some pieces of furniture were literally turned into ashes by the leprechaun’s poltergeist magic, the carpet was black and slimy and…the Picasso pa
inting! The canvas had somehow been torn apart and ripped in half. One could still see the head of the blue cat and a few of the flowers behind him, the rest was gone. For good.

  “Lord Basilton, I am so very sorry, but that creature’s magic was indeed powerful and there was no time to produce two equally powerful barriers against it. So, it was either the painting or your wife and I chose your wife, since I thought…”

  “THAT WAS A UNIQUE PIECE! Picasso painted that cat that one time, when he was still no one…my great grandfather commissioned the piece…” he exhaled, on the verge of tears, while caressing the broken canvas as if it was the cheek of his dead child.

  “Darling, I know you’re upset,” his wife kindly interjected, still unaware of what was really going on. “But a painting is just a thing, no matter how beautiful. What’s important is that we’re both here, safe and sound, thanks to Miss Wise and His Grace…”

  “To hell with your common places, Martha! This one was the most valuable piece of my collection and now it’s ruined! It should have been given maximum priority!”

  “PRIORITY OVER YOUR WIFE OF TWENTY YEARS?” she had finally got it. Better late than never. “And I was just happy, that we were both safe! Silly me!”

  “Oh, don’t get me started on how silly you are!”

  “WHAT??”

  I cleared my throat. They both stopped arguing and turned to me. “Lord Basilton, I understand my job is done here, your house being cleared of any paranormal threat and you and your wife being safe,” I did my best to underline the word “safe.”

  “So, I’m going now, will send you my invoice ASAP…”