Announcement: Concerning the Inspector Wolfe Tales

Friends! Readers! Bloggermen! Lend me your ears;

I come to bury Wolfe, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is often interred with their bones;

Let it be so with Wolfe.

-Adapted from Mark Antony's speech, Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

It is true, readers. I am discontinuing the Inspector Wolfe Tales. I shall be supplementing my blog instead with poetry and writing. Inspector Wolfe will live on, but I will not be posting any more of his lore.

The reasoning behind this decision is simple: since the Inspector Wolfe Tales was so long, it was hard for new readers to be incoporated into the blog, when all they saw was "Part 64,000,000" on the very top post. So, I shall discontinue it. I will post stories, poetry, and thoughts of various types on here, and try to be more consistent in my posting, but the Wolfe will be no more, except in the tab above, where I will fill in all of his saga that has been posted for anyone who wants to read it. But there will be no new installments, no clues, no leads, no suspects, no cucumbers, no sporks or spork-hats.

Here lies our friend, the Inspector

James Hamilton Wolfe

(2012-2013)

May he ever rest in peace

Broomstick - Part Sixteen (+ CONTEST WINNER)

Welcome to Inkweb! I have a few announcements to make before we begin.

FIRST, I have selected a winner for my contest (in the post below this)! I mulled over the choices, and the winner is.....HYPERLINKZER!!!! His blog is Livin' on the Edge and he came up with a fine character. I will use his character as a police officer in my Camp NaNoWriMo July novel! Congratulations, Hyper!

It has also come to my alarmed attention that the mobile template of my blog has a white background! All of my posts previous to changing the template of the computer version of my blog have been in white! Thus, on my mobile template, my blog was completely unreadable. Two days ago, this alarming fact came to my attention. I don't control my blog through a phone, so I didn't realize this problem until I had mulled over my new blog template. I realized in alarm what I had done, but I've fixed it. No longer are any of my posts written in white! They will now be readable on a phone. Anyway, I'm glad I caught that.

Now, on to Inspector Wolfe's investigation, and the Nether World!

---------

I strapped on my black helmet, protective vest, and belt, attaching a piton cord to the last item, just in case any of the readers was confused and thought I attached it to my vest or eyeball or something.

I looked around and saw a red pyramid-like creature trying to fit on a vest and a belt. Eventually Lox came over and told the little guy he could just have an arm strap with a cord attached to it.

We all processed into the portal room, a circular room lit with soft pulsing blue werelights from the floor. A man stood in the middle of the room, wearing a silver robe and holding a wand in his outstretched left hand.

We came in, and Lox locked the door tightly behind us. “Please tether yourselves to the wall.”

I went over to the wall and stuck my piton in a slot at eye level. Others did similarly.

“All right, please be patient,” Lox instructed, “Lenny’s going to perform the spell.”

I heard a low muttering emanating from the center of the room where Lenny the magician stood. It echoed around the room, a deep roiling tone that bounced around in the acoustics of the space while Lenny moved on to a higher tone in his chanting. This higher tone joined the echoes bouncing around the room, harmonizing in perfect synchronization to create a haunting effect of simultaneity.

Lenny’s arm moved, and the werelights changed colors, switching from soothing blue to unnatural emerald, brightness constantly shifting, shadows flitting about.

Then, we weren’t there in that room.

The landscape around me was desolate and dry, and white clouds sped past like unicorns through a purple sky. The clouds were going so fast I had a feeling of vertigo.

The land was flat for what seemed like miles around. I looked back and saw Lox, standing smugly with the others. I took a tentative step toward Lox, my tether dragging along the ground as I did so. Somehow it was still back at that wall in that room. Lenny was there, in front of me, as I took the step. But the room wasn't there.

My foot hit ground, and the landscape suddenly changed. I was on a tall snow-capped peak, the powdery snow falling sideways, driving into me. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky now, and the landscape was sharp and jagged, mountainous. My tether extended downward behind me.

I took another step, and I was suspended in motion, falling into the magma below in a volcano, but then my tether snapped taut and I stopped. As I swung, the molten liquid below turned into water, sea water, crashing on rocks, and I was clinging to a cliff face. I could still see Lox and Lenny and Spoonella and the others, moving around as well. Did they see the same thing as I did? Or did they experience shifting realities completely different?

I tried to yell up to Lox, who was making her way along a ledge farther up the cliff. But no sound came out of my mouth, except the faintest whisper.

I climbed higher, and the scene changed. I was in a dark cave, and there was a light ahead of me, and something rushed by me. I heard a rustle, and two green eyes peered out of the darkness. “I am the Raven,” rasped a voice. There was a rustle like the fluttering of wings, and suddenly the light was extinguished. I gasped and stumbled forward, and I tripped as my tether turned taut once more. The landscape changed.

I was underwater, but not drowning, instead borne along by a current. I could see the pyramid shape beside me, waving his red arms that protruded out of his triangle-like body. I peered into the water’s depths all around me, but could perceive nothing except the water around and the others on the tour.

I looked below me, but there was nothing except the eventual darkness below. Not even sand. I looked around me, but there was no light source. The water’s light became green, and then red, but it seemed to come from the water itself. I tried to shout to Lox, but only a few bubbles came out of my mouth. I cursed inwardly. How was I supposed to ask questions in this environment?

I stepped forward and was borne out of the current, taken onto the wing of a giant eagle. But it wasn’t an eagle; it was made of paper, which melted away into tiny scraps that became multiple shadows of myself, laughing and pointing at me. I stepped forward across white space and into a tawny canyon, and into a maze of blue columns with different designs, all of them rotating around the base of the structure. ∆˚∫çµΩ, was one of the patterns. Some of them were indistinguishable, and I didn’t think I fully perceived much of the symbols; they were too otherworldly.

I stepped to the side and was upside down walking along the bottom of a blade of grass. I saw Lox above, or rather, below me, and I jumped toward her. The world shifted, and I was pulled sideways into a crumbling house, away from her. I twisted in midair and changed directions, spinning slowly to the ground as I landed on a cubelike platform protruding from a blue plane that stretched ever on into the distance where a pink sun was setting. The others were on similar shapes. I saw Plate-O with eyes wide, groping forward.

I moved towards Lox but the land changed, and I was falling through a dark liquid, and music was playing, a soft music that was dark as well and didn’t make sense. Lox was in the distance. “I just want to ask you something,” I whispered, but she didn’t hear me. The Nether was a nightmare.

I moved forward, and the music turned into the twittering of birds, and I was atop a dandelion in a grassy field, and the other dandelions crowded around me. I saw the others bouncing along them, but I took a step and plunged straight down. My tether seemed to follow me, so I guessed I wasn’t actually moving, but it felt like it. Everyone moved with me, and I retained the same perspective.

Suddenly I passed through fire, and I ran forward. I crossed a desert in one step into a jungle with the next, bounded down a snowy hill into a valley full of cherries and then twisted directions and was falling sideways into a giant dark pit, climbing up out of it and into a mountain range, swimming upward and plunging into a forest of gray. Sometimes the tether tugged, others it bent and moved with me, but always it stayed, and I always saw the others. This was the Nether realm. It was amazingly complex. I hadn’t even gone more than a few feet judging by the length of my tether, and yet I had completely lost myself in the folds of this dimension. How could Alice Shipton even begin to fathom its complex structure? It was clear that she couldn’t have mapped it all, or solved all its mysteries. She may have explained a part of it, but most of it would remain a mystery forever. This realm was not merely that which transported magic; it was magic, the very essence and well of magic, the soul of magic. And Alice was within its depths. Of course she couldn’t survive for long in this, because this was pure magic. There was no way to live here for a prolonged period.

And then there was a shrill whistlelike sound, and it all disappeared, and I stumbled back into reality.

Lenny had brought us back from the Nether world. That sounded funny in my head.

“As you can see,” Lox announced, “the Nether is almost more complicated than one might have first imagined. Every step you take is a step through another world. The Nether’s movements are highly unpredictable, and even Alice Shipton herself once was lost on one of her famous explorations, but using her expertise she managed to relocate her tether and come back to reality. Her discoveries have helped, but the Nether realm is still far too complex for us to navigate without difficulty.”

I nodded and looked around the room, now lit in blue once more. The ducklings were looking around, starry-eyed, at their surroundings, dizzied by their recent experience.

            “All right!” Lox cheered. “Let’s go back to the other room, and I’ll take questions.”

Broomstick - Part Fifteen

Everyone got up, and Lox motioned to a door, walking over and opening it for everyone. “If you’ll please step into this next room,” she remarked. I realized that she was the girl I had scried, whom I hadn’t seen. Very eager girl.

I went into the next room, which was filled with diagrams hanging on the walls, as well as protective vests and helmets that were meant to show the kind of gear that spelunkers and explorers wore.

“We’ll start,” Lox said, “with a brief explanation of the history of the Nether exploration trade. The Nether was discovered eighty years ago by a scientist named Victor E. Ismyne, a bear working in quantum magic theory and also the grandfather of Papa Ismyne, the manager of this company. Victor was the first to conjecture that magic did not travel through material means, through the air, but rather he theorized that magic existed in an entirely different dimension which was mostly closed off to normal people, but which affected everything in our lives.” Lox showed off a few old portraits of Victor E. Ismyne; he was a stately gray bear with large glasses on his head and a monogrammed cane in his hand.

“Let’s fast-forward about eight years. By this time Ismyne’s Theorem was largely accepted by the general scientific population,” Lox informed us, “but we had yet to cross dimensions and prove that the Nether realm existed. A man named Bert Norrell, a magician of high repute, worked out a spell that could enable magic to transport a human through the Nether realm. The theories that have developed concerning exploration of this new dimension have come to be known as Norrell’s Laws, and gateways to the Nether are sometimes called Norrell’s Doors.

“Norrell’s followers improved his spell and soon they came to have a sophisticated tool for travelling through the Nether. However, they did not know the effects of Nether travel quite yet, and so they preferred to sit back and ponder what little experience they had of the Nether realm.” Lox paused and smiled at the assembled guests. I heard the ducklings’ pencils scratching as they took notes for their field trip; the dish was simply staring at Spoonella and was not paying attention. I smiled back at Lox.

Lox continued. “Eh-hem. Anyway, an apprentice of Norrell thought that his master was too cautious with these new theories. He put on a helmet and some knee-pads and opened a gate and plunged through. He was never seen again.

“More cautious exploration was developed in his tradition, but with proper safety measures,” Lox explained. “Spelunkers took on the name Strangers, supposedly because the reckless apprentice was named Strange. That has never been confirmed. Anyway, slowly it was recognized that there was a pattern to the shifting of the Nether currents. Explorations were risky, though, because the pattern was never fully understood and often people were stranded in the Nether due to the uncontrollable effect of magic.

“However, just as Nether exploration was fading, and people stopped funding spelunkers, a young woman named Alice Shipton came along. She was a daring explorer, and eventually charted the flows of the Nether and how it moved.” Now this was the interesting part. She might contact me at any moment, and I needed to understand how the Nether worked. Lox continued, pointing to a diagram, “she figured out how magic is altered in the Nether dimension and how that same effect, called the Shipton Factor, could account for the seemingly unpredictable flow of the Nether. Now, thanks to her work, the Nether is safe for some tourism, so that even inexperienced beginners can see how it works.”

“Good for me,” I chuckled as Lox finished.

“Why’s that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked at me.

“Well, because I’m inexperienced...” I trailed off, then picked up again, “...and a beginner...”

“Oh.” Lox nodded and raised her voice to everyone in the room. “All right, let’s move to the preparation station!” I grimaced. Did everything rhyme around here?

Broomstick - Part Fourteen

I apologize for the delay in posting; I was preoccupied with other things yesterday and could not post on the last day of the month as usual.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I took a cab back to the Sleazy Fox and borrowed an address tome to look something up. I also rented out a scry bowl for about fifteen minutes. I found what I was looking for in the tome and scried “All-Weather Tethered Nether Tours, Inc.”

“Hello,” answered a frighteningly attentive young woman’s voice on the other line. “All-Weather Tethered Nether Tours, my name’s Lox, how can I help you?”

I peered into the bowl but only saw a chandelier and the back of an office chair. “Uh,” I faltered.

“Yes?” answered the very pert person on the other end.

“Uh, yes,” I said, “I’d like to go on a tour.”

“Oh, OF COURSE!” exclaimed the voice. She seemed ecstatic. “Of course, of course, of course, of course! Do prices bother you?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Just give me the cheapest full tour you have, I’ll pay when I get there.”

“Of course,” replied the voice with a sweet quality that made me think this girl didn’t quite understand the meaning of the word “reality.” She continued, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Uh,” I asked, “what time do I get there?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and there was a short silence as she, I presumed, looked through their tour schedule. “How early can you be here? We’ve got a reservation for fifteen minutes from now, it’s the full deal, if you can make it. Also half price!” She practically squealed this information at me, as if I had found her lost dog Foo-Foo. “But that might be too early. There’s one in three weeks, and there’s also one tomorrow. Those are your other options.”

“Actually,” I said, “I think I can make it to the one in fifteen minutes.”

“Ooh,” she said, “Papa bear. I would have taken the one tomorrow. All right, well, see you there!” Right before the line disconnected, I thought I heard another thump, and someone shouting awfully loudly, “SOMEONE’S BEEN USING MY DESK!!!!”

I shook my head, replaced the scry bowl and the address tome, and bade Woody goodbye before going up to my room and ransacking it of all the money I had on hand. I had a hunch that this tour would cost quite a lot and I would be eating bread and noodles for the next six weeks as I recovered financially. Oh well. After the investigation I would be getting paid for consulting, so that should hopefully cover expenses.

I went out to the street and hailed a cab. “All-Weather Tethered Nether Tours,” I ordered. “I’ll pay you double for speed.” The carriage scooted off as if hell’s minions were chasing it, insuring that I would get to the place on time for the tour.

We got there, and I paid the driver. “Keep the change,” I gasped as I raced out the door and onto the sidewalk. A bright orange sign, some clear orange tubing with werelights bouncing around inside, proclaimed, “ALL WEATHER TETHERED NETHER TOURS” in large capital letters. This was it.

I ran into the office and saw a huge bear behind the desk in the lobby. Her hair was light brown and fuzzy, a kindly smile lit her face, and perched on her long canine snout was a pair of wire-frame spectacles. “How may I help you, sir?” she asked. “Are you here for the tour?”

I looked around the lobby, nodding. “Yeah,” I said as I surveyed the occupants of the room. There was a spoon with four limbs and a face, sitting next to a similarly animated plate. They looked amorously into each other’s eyes, and I noticed they were holding hands. Next, I saw a large duck with her little toddler ducklings, all sitting attentively on a sofa. I guessed it was a field trip. I saw a few other people, a frog, a man, some sort of jumble of geometric shapes, and a mouse in the corner reading a newspaper.

I paid for the trip and then sat down in the waiting area, next to the dish and the spoon. Music came on that sounded so generic to a waiting room or an elevator that I wanted to kill myself, and then a minute or so after I sat down, the spoon and the plate started kissing. I looked the other way, feeling very awkward.

About three minutes in, some angry utensils burst into the room, and the plate and spoon hid behind the couch. A furious fork yelled, “Where’s Spoonella? I’ll get that rascal Plate-o!” They all ran out, and the dish and spoon came back to their seats. “I hope your parents don’t find out we ran away together,” Spoonella whispered to Plate-o. I concealed my derisive laughter with a well-timed sneeze and an arm over my mouth.

After about ten minutes of waiting, a young woman came out from the back hallway of the building. She was dressed in a black dress with an All-Weather Tethered Nether Tours logo embroidered on the shoulder, and her long curly hair was as bright golden blonde as I had ever seen on someone’s head before. “Hello, everyone, my name is Lox,” she smiled, “and I’ll be your tour guide.”

Broomstick - Part Thirteen

And hear ye, hear ye, the thirteenth part of Broomstick! Enjoy, all ye who enter here! I'll update the "Inspector Wolfe Tales" page of the blog by Saturday, I promise.

-----

The squad carriage pulled up to the curb and we all tumbled out. It was me, Thumb, and two others: officers Snow White and Josiah “ugly duckling” Bernard.

Snow White and the ugly duckling were almost completely opposite. Officer White was a tall, slender, charming woman with dark locks and pale skin; Officer Bernard was a squatty musclebound bald man with a lazy eye and several scars on his face.

We all rushed forward to the door without a word, and immediately saw that something was wrong. The door was open and the house was dark. The ugly duckling quietly stepped across the threshold with wand extended, and the other two Peacelocks followed. I was last inside.

“Hello!” called Thumb. “Anybody here?”

“Something’s not right,” Snow White muttered.

“Fan out and search the building,” Thumb ordered. “Wolfe, go with the ug—er, Officer Bernard.”

I followed the Peacelock in question. We burst through several doors and finally ended up in the kitchen.

The worst of my fears were confirmed. A body lay sprawled on the floor, the body of Anthony Shipton.

“Man down!” shouted Officer Bernard. He rushed forward, knelt down, and took the man’s pulse. “He’s dead. Tom, he’s dead!”

I surveyed the scene and noticed several things. A mug of coffee was shattered on the floor, its liquid contents pooled over the tiles. I crouched down and dabbed at the coffee with my finger, raising it to my nose and taking a good sniff.

My nose wrinkled, and my face almost shriveled up in disgust. This guy used way too much creamer.

But then I realized what the pungent smell actually was. “One teaspoon gremlin ash, quarter pound wolfsbane, three tablespoons flour, one cup spider blood, two drops mandrake sap.”

My mind raced back to the scene of the crime yesterday morning. Aleck Shipton’s dead body. In his pocket, a folded piece of paper with a recipe on it.

Aleck Shipton had been in almost as deep as I was right now, and then he was killed before he could piece it together. He must have discovered the recipe when he was snooping around for clues. The recipe for the poison concoction that would kill his father.

My inn where I lodged was more or less halfway between the King’s Men Club and this house that I stood in right now.

They had planned to poison both of them, but Aleck had gotten wind of the operation. He was travelling from the club to warn his father when the spellbolt hit him. A powerful hex custom-crafted to look like a heart attack. He had spasmed and fallen to the ground, white as a sheet, and he had died.

But who would be powerful enough to have wrought such a powerful spell, much less used it without it backfiring? Some very magically adept person, in employ of the Three.

I had no leads, was the truth. All I knew was how the events had fallen in place, nothing more. I needed a new clue, a new lead. I needed some way to draw out whoever was behind all this.

I stared down at the sprawled body on the ground as Thumb came rushing into the room, followed momentarily by Snow. She gasped and looked away.

Thumb skirted around the puddle of deadly coffee on the floor, kneeling beside the victim. He went through various checks of vital signs. I decided to give him some information about it. “Thumb,” I said, “the coffee...it’s got the same ingredients as the list in the back of Aleck’s pocket; I could smell it.”

“What?” Thumb asked. “Oh.” He took a sniff and wrinkled his nose. “Way too much creamer—wait, you’re right. I can pick up the gremlin ash.”

“He’s been poisoned,” I said. “And it’s linked with Aleck.” I was trying to push as much as possible, give him leads. If I could convince Thumb to turn up the pressure on the investigation, then maybe it would play to my advantage in forcing the criminals out of hiding.

“You’re right,” Thumb answered. “And it must also be linked with Alice’s disappearance. Someone’s got a beef with the family or something; this can’t all be coincidence. And you know what? It may be connected with this whole Nether Key business, too!” He was hot on the trail now. Inwardly I started dancing for joy. If Thumb could get some leads, then I would be a step closer toward wrapping up this whole affair. It was going on far too quickly, and who knew how much time Alice had left? She couldn’t be stuck in the Nether Realm indefinitely. I had to free her. With or without the Nether Key she was still in harm’s way, and I was the only one who could help her.

“Get a forensics team,” Thumb ordered Snow, who nodded and left the room eagerly. She didn’t seem keen about staying with a dead body. “You’ve done well, Wolfe,” Thumb commended me. “But the Peacelocks are taking this one over.”

I groaned inside. This was the last thing I wanted. Thumb was back to being an idiotic prickly pear cactus of a detective. “Well, maybe I could help more,” I said.

“No, don’t get me wrong,” Thumb assured me. “I’ll have forensics search the house, and if anything turns up, I’ll inform you. Just this once, you’re on board as temporary consultant. If this goes well, I’ll send you a check. But for now, you don’t have much you can do. Go back home.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” I said, a bit confused. Thumb was actually being...well, being practical, for once. I nodded. “I’ll let myself out,” I remarked, turning and leaving the room. I felt a touch of pride at the prospect of being a consultant, even if it was a temporary post for just this single investigation. My dreams were close; I was closer than ever to being a certified detective. A temporary consultant’s status would show well on my resumé. Perhaps I would even get some sort of discount or scholarship to the Peacelock University so that I could become a certified investigator. The world would know my fame, at last!

But for now, this investigation was closest at hand. I needed to concentrate my efforts, and I needed a little something done for me.

Broomstick - Part Twelve

I ran up the sidewalk towards the Peacelock HQ. As much as I hated this, it might be the only way. I had to get police help quickly.

I hurried in through the door and brushed past several people to the front desk in the lobby. “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait in line,” the receptionist informed me, a cat in a gray suit.

“No time,” I told her. “I need to see Tom Thumb, it’s an emergency and I think someone’s about to be murdered.”

“I’ll notify him,” the receptionist responded. “Now, I have people in line.”

“No, do it now,” I insisted. The cat at the desk ignored me, so I left and journeyed down the hall. I passed a “No visitors beyond this point” sign but ignored it and acted like I worked there. Not strictly legal, but someone’s life was on the line.

I knocked on the closed door to Tom Thumb’s office. “Come in!” he yelled.

I opened the door, and he started in his chair. “James Wolfe!” he exclaimed. “You’re not supposed to be in here. I’ll escort you out!”

“Tom,” I growled, “Anthony Shipton is about to be murdered, if he isn’t dead already.”

“I’ll get a squad carriage,” Thumb told me. “You’re not off the hook, Wolfe!”

I sat down in a chair in front of his desk. “I don’t care. Someone’s going to be dead if we don’t get to him right this instant.”

Thumb got up from his position behind his desk and made a few quick scries. “Okay, Wolfe, we’ve got a team. Snow White and the ugly duckling volunteered.”

“The ugly duckling?” I chuckled.

            “It’s a nickname,” Thumb explained cryptically. “All right, let’s go.”

Broomstick - Part Eleven

Here's part eleven! We left off with our hero escaping the dwarves with the Nether Key, which he cleverly took in his escape. Now the story continues.

I've been tagged again...by Leilani Sunblade this time (http://dreams-dragons.blogspot.com/2013/04/tagged-again.html ). So I'll do it right here as quickly as possible. Same tag as last time.

1. I have red hair that needs to be cut soon.
2. I love to play chess.
3. I have never owned a hamster.
4. I want to see the new Star Trek and Man of Steel, but I can wait for Iron Man 3 probably.
5. I live on earth.
6. I like science fiction, and am trying to write some.
7. I am currently reading Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.
8. I think it's a good book.
9. I write poetry from time to time.
10. I like to draw people's faces, but I can't get body proportions down right.

-------------------

The next morning when I woke, it was on my bedside table. The box that contained the Nether Key was right there, and I couldn’t return it.

I went downstairs and out after carefully hiding it (in my sock drawer) and purchased a paper out in the street. I returned to the Sleazy Fox and ordered some breakfast and began reading. The front-page headlines stated: POWERFUL ARTIFACT STOLEN FROM IMPOUND

The article was about the Nether Key, of course, and to my annoyance featured Tom Thumb as an interviewee. To my further dismay the paper reported that he wouldn’t be taking today off for the Broomstick holiday, but would rather be continuing his investigation into this.

The death of Aleck Shipton and the disappearance of his sister Alice were bumped back to the second page. The recipe in Aleck’s pocket was not mentioned, but the cause of death had been determined to be a heart attack. I highly doubted it was that simple, but the recipe he had in his pocket hadn’t been what killed him. I read a little more about Tom Thumb’s exploits and then breakfast arrived, and I handed the paper to Woody. I ate quickly and headed out to the library.

The mysterious “Three” wanted Alice alive for some reason. They wanted her brother Aleck dead for some reason. They also wanted the Nether Key, which they did not have. Why?

I checked out a few books on the Nether Key and spent the morning scanning the pages of those up in my room at the inn. What I found was not very helpful.

It had something to do with the Nether Realm, but the problem lay in the fact that nobody really knew what the Nether Key did. There was much speculation about the subject, but the artifact was kept locked up and had never been used in recorded history. All that was known about it was that several had tried to channel its power, to disastrous effects.

I wrote down a few possible uses of the Key:

Nether Key

Summoning the dead/supernatural being(s)

Control over death

Control of the Nether realm

Grants wishes

Gives immortality

Curses the user to be a vampire or other creature of darkness

This was more promising. If I could figure out what they might want it for, I could derive what they needed to do in order to use the Nether Key. I fished around to see if there were any references to kidnapping, and I thought I found something to do with summoning a supernatural being and controlling the Nether Realm.

The sacrifice of a person with no family and a deep connection with the Nether Realm is thought by many theorizers to be required for the proper rites to do with summoning the great Titan Ishgrald of the Dark.

And then it hit me like a brick to the face. Alice was the sacrifice, of course; but what I hadn’t realized in time was something I should have seen coming. My mind flashed back to when I first eavesdropped on the two dwarves in the King’s Men ballroom.

“Did you hear the news?”

“Of course.”

“He’s dead.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“Same as tomorrow.”

“Of course. With Aleck out of the way, all that’s left is Old Man Shipton, and then Alice.”

Alice Shipton still had family. And I might already be too late.

Broomstick - Part Ten

“He’ll scry the bosses and if they know him, he’s fine. But if they don’t, then we’ll slit his throat,” Dopey explained to the other six dwarves. “Simple.”

“Seems good enough to me,” Happy shrugged. I struggled to retain my composure. I needed a way out of this, fast.

“Okay,” I managed to say, “but they’ll get really mad that you guys stalled the plan just to check if I was on your side. For crying out loud, I helped steal the Nether Key with you!”

“The wolf’s got a point, but it can’t do any harm to check in with the Three. Better safe than in custody,” Bashful reasoned. “I’ll fill a bowl.”

He went to the bathroom to fill up a scrying bowl, and I surreptitiously glanced at the window. A two-story fall to the ground below didn’t seem so bad at the moment, and I was weighing my chances.

Happy smirked. “You’re gonna get caught, wolfie, and we’re gonna kill you and dump your body in an alley.”

That was the last straw. I bared my fangs and struck. I swept Happy off his stupid feet and onto the floor and then I bashed Grumpy in the face. Two down. Dopey yelled and swung a triple-flip kick that should be illegal, but I dodged it by mere inches and retaliated with an iron paw to his solar plexus. Sleepy, Doc, and Sneezy crowded around me, but I bouldered past them and to the door as Bashful came sprinting into the room. I wrenched it open and dove into the hallway, running for the nearest stairwell. I heard the dwarves noisily groping after me, but I shot down the staircase to the first floor by way of the banister.

I turned down a few hallways and opened one of the grandiose doors to the main ballroom. Safe at last. And tucked under my paw was a small black box.

Broomstick - Part Nine

Greetings, and welcome to Inkweb! First of all, please click the link to Iron Wyvern to go and see the beginning of The Draconian Letters Book Two, opening with a letter from Smok's newly recovered uncle Trubodox!
Secondly, I am proud to announce that The Inspector Wolfe Tales, Part Nine, is below! I have also added it into the "Inspector Wolfe Tales" tab above, a nice little update if you want to read the whole of the project so far. Part 10 will be posted on Tuesday, April 23rd. Please enjoy!

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“Get in!” shouted Happy, shoving Grumpy through the doorway and into the vault. “Wolfy!”

I ignored him. My defense instincts had set in by now, and I was staring down a pack of turkey fiends. I growled, and they raised their feathers and gobbled menacingly.

The turkeys were pretty normal looking. Well, sort of. For the most part they were your average farm turkey: the colors, the shape, the beak, the feathers, the feet. They were what one might expect, except for a few things. First off: their teeth. Regular turkeys don’t have teeth, and these ones didn’t just have teeth. They had razor-sharp axeblade chompers, meant to maim and kill upon contact. Second point, the eyes. I shudder to think back on them. They were the most horrific sight I had ever seen in my life.

Well, they started shrieking like before, and I raised a growl before retreating back, my rational side overpowering my instincts.

“What was that, wolfy?” Happy barked as he shut the door behind me.

“Who cares right now?” Grumpy intervened. “Let’s find the key and go.”

This is Dopey. We’re retreating.

Bashful reporting. I’ve turned on the outer defenses for the vault and I’m making some upgrades. It’ll take the Peacefire team at least ten minutes to break in.

I looked around the room and was surprised at what I saw. It seemed that they didn’t keep the Nether key completely alone. Filing cabinets lined the room, neatly placed from A to Z. It was a big room too, and I hoped the dwarves knew how to get to the Nether key fast.

I heard a bang at the door. “That would be the turkeys,” Happy informed me. “Get over here and help look.”

“It should be filed under ‘Artifacts of Mass Destruction,’” Grumpy informed me cheerily. “Then under K, for ‘key.’”

“Okay,” I answered. “Where’s Artifacts of Mass Destruction?”

“In the D section, for ‘destruction, artifacts of mass.’ So, about nineteen rows back! Let’s get cracking.”

“How large is the section?” I inquired as we trotted down rows of filing cabinets. The werelights above followed us around the room, keeping everything nicely illuminated.

“Oh, probably about eight rows. But we’ll be looking at the beginning few shelves.”

I gulped. Eight whole shelves for the destruction section, and these dwarves were only after one thing. I reasoned that the Nether key must be even more powerful than rumored.

Grumpy led us down the nineteenth row, his eyes speedily scanning the shelves. “If only we had Sleepy with us,” he muttered. “He’s the most alert guy out of all seven of us.”

“Well, he is a neat carriage driver,” I remarked. “Speaking of which, what exactly is the getaway plan?”

“The getaway plan? Oh, that’s simple. We’ll—” Grumpy was cut off when Happy exclaimed, “Here it is! I found it!”

We rushed over to the other side of the row of cabinets, where Happy stood pointing at a single cabinet. “It’s in there, Grumps. It’s in that cabinet, by golly.”

I heard shouting and thumping outside. “That would be the Peacelocks,” I reminded them. “Let’s hurry up!”

“Well, the actual box is protected by more hexes,” Grumpy told me. “But we know our way past that. Bashful will take care of it when we get back to the King’s Men Club.” With those words, he pulled the whole drawer out of the filing cabinet and took the box from inside it. It was a simple black cube, and I couldn’t believe that such a powerful artifact was just shut up in there like a forgotten keepsake.

“They tried to destroy it, the Peacelocks,” Happy grunted. “But the idiots should have known. They couldn’t make a dent. It belonged to a king of shadows long ago. It was forged in the Nether realm, from the very essence of the ancient Titans. There’s no getting rid of that kind of power.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “How are we doing that, by the way?”

“Oh, baby, you’re in for a surprise,” Grumpy chuckled, and then the doors blew open and the werelights turned crimson.

“Bouncing bugles!” cursed Happy, and ran toward the back of the room. Grumpy motioned for me to follow, and we all raced across the vault floor. I heard the shouts of Peacelocks and Peacefires behind us and saw the reflection of all the flashing lights on the walls and ceiling.

“Don’t look back!” Grumpy called as we reached the back wall of the room.

“What do we do? We’re at a dead end!” I gasped.

“Watch and learn, wolfy,” Happy sneered, and he pulled a playing card out of his pocket, on which was drawn a depiction of the seven dwarves’ room back at the King’s Men Club.

“Is that a veniflagrus card?” I asked in surprise.

“Absolutely, my friend,” cackled Grumpy. “Burns up as soon as we travel through. Grab Happy’s hand!”

I did as I was told, a thrill spreading through me. I glanced over my shoulder to see a line of Peacefire assault agents sweeping the room, crimson firebows at the ready, but that was the last I saw of that vault as I was dragged by a strange force into an interdimensional gap. It happened forever, and in a flash, and suddenly I was standing in the middle of the dwarves’ room in the club with Happy and Grumpy.

“Merlin’s bushy eyebrows!” I exclaimed. “That was jarring. Where’d you find a veniflagrus card?”

“We’ve got connections,” Happy said dodgily. “So who’s the wolf, exactly?”

“James,” I said, holding out a hand. Happy didn’t shake, so I dropped it. “I was sent by the Three to supervise the heist.”

“So you’re reporting how well we did?”

“Absolutely. And you did well.”

Grumpy grinned and set down the black box on one of the beds. “Well, we ain’t done yet. We have to crack the box open somehow.”

The door opened, and in rushed all the rest of the dwarves, swarming inside and pulling off masks. Grumpy, Happy, and I remembered to take our own masks off.

Bashful looked at Grumpy. “Where is it?” He looked tired and haggard, and out of breath. I wondered what toll magic must take on someone.

“It’s on the bed. Tonight we’re gonna crack it.”

I looked at the black box on the bed, the box that held death and destruction inside, all crammed into a few cubic inches. And then I made my move. “Actually,” I announced, “the Three said I was supposed to take it to a professional to get it open.”

“What?” Happy snarled. “That wasn’t what they told us! In fact, they never told us you’d be coming along, much less that you’d take our score. How do we know we can trust you?”

Grumpy frowned. “He has a point, actually. How do we know we can trust you?”

The other dwarves crowded around us, chorusing “Aye” with varying degrees of loudness.

“I never trusted him!” Happy growled. “And now he’s trying to rob us, ain’t he?”

“No, guys,” I tried to explain. “The bosses sent me, I swear!”

“Well, why don’t you prove it?” Dopey shrugged simply. Everybody turned and stared at him.
I gulped. This was going to be a hard sell.

Broomstick - The Inspector Wolfe Tales, #1 - Part Eight

This is Dopey, roger. We’re in. Commence secondary diversion and deploy primary maneuvers.

Grumpy looked up. “That’s our cue. Let’s get out of these itchy bushes.” We jumped up and cut across the lawn towards the building. I felt my heart pumping like crazy as the adrenaline set in. I was going to help commit the crime of the century. And then I was going to stop the crime of the millennium. Someone needed this Nether Key, and I just knew it had to be connected with Alice’s disappearance.

“Why are we attacking at midday?” I puffed as we got to the wall of the building and Grumpy unzipped a black bag.

“Security’s worse at night, you idiot,” Happy snapped. “So we’re attacking in the middle of the day when the guards are really bored.”

“Unfortunately cannibal turkeys never get bored,” Grumpy remarked matter-of-factly as he stapled a circular length of wire to the wall and got out his wand. “All right, buckos, step back.”

His wand sparked, hitting the fuse on the wire, and with a short abrupt bang, the wall crumbled inward in a circle of plaster and brick. Grumpy led us in.

We’re in, Happy signaled.

All right, commencing secondary maneuvers, remarked Bashful with something of a gleeful tone to his thoughts.

“So we’re the primary maneuvers?” I whispered.

“No need to whisper, dolt,” Happy told me. “Of course we’re the primary maneuvers. We’re going to steal the Nether Key. The others are just distractions.”

“Except for Bashful,” Grumpy smirked. “He’s going to wreak some havoc.”

I restrained myself from asking the manner of this havoc. If I appeared to be too inquisitive, I might lose my credibility. I was supposed to be stern and tough, an overseer sent from “the three,” whoever they were.

We advanced down a corridor, torches on the walls rapidly flickering red and an alarm siren echoing through the halls along with the bloodcurdling wails of the carnivorous turkeys.

“Backup will be here in ten,” Grumpy remarked. “We’ll have to be quick.” We raced down several hallways and up several staircases until we arrived at a large steel vault door.

Diversion in progress, Bashful updated. Suddenly the noise of sirens cut, and the torches stopped flickering. I still heard the screeching of the turkeys, but overall the building was much quieter. Silent alarm cut; cancelling reserve spells. Backup is on its way, but the Peacelocks no longer have were-camera feed or communication with the building.

How is he doing that? I asked, taking advantage of the worm coiled around my brain.

He’s at the security control room, where all the defense spells were originally cast, Grumpy replied. Bashful’s good with magic.

Bashful’s thoughts came in again. Working on vault hexes now. Clock’s ticking.

I heard muffled thumps coming through the floor, and the building shook a little.

Fighting security, messaged Dopey. Taking heavy spellfire from Peacelocks. Doc’s trying to distract the turkeys but it’s not working well. Enemies headed your way.

I heard the shrill keening of the bloodthirsty avians as they drew nearer to us, getting louder and louder and rising to a discordant apex pitch.

Hexes disabled; working on wards and curses now, Bashful informed us. Backup just arrived, three regular Peacelock carriages and a Peacefire crack team. They’re fanning out and preparing to breach. A suspenseful pause, and then: Vault unlocked. You’re free to enter.

Happy shot his hand out and grasped the handle of the steel door, twisting gently and pushing the door inward. It made not a sound as it swung open.

And then the turkeys rounded the corner.

Broomstick - The Inspector Wolfe Tales, #1 - Part Seven

I stared at the building, at its magnificent glory. It stood for the destruction of crime and the construction of peace. And I was about to help break into it.

I had three choices: (a) run away, (b) go ahead with the heist, or (c) make sure the heist goes awry. My mind automatically chose option (b).

I’ll explain. In a deep cover operation like this, you really can’t risk aborting the mission when lives might be on the line. Alice was fading fast and the quickest way to get to her was to join up with these guys. If there was a delay, say, if I chose option (c), then their plan would be stalled, and Alice would most likely have completely faded by then.

Grim as this was, I had to carry on and steal the Nether Key.

Have we discussed the Nether Key? Maybe not. I’ll tell you later.

Anyway, Grumpy signaled for me to come with him and Dopey, and we headed around the perfectly-manicured lawns to a clump of bushes around back of the building, where we found another dwarf with a mask over his face crouching there.

“About time you showed up!” he growled. “And who’s Big Bad ‘n Bushy over there?”

I snarled at him. “I’m with the Three. They want me on the mission.”

“What?” the dwarf snapped. “We’ve already got plenty of cover in these bushes without you. Speaking of which, get in here before we get spotted!”

“Hey, cut the attitude, Happy,” Grumpy said, and I realized the identity of this snarky personage. “I’m in charge here, and I’m telling you—he’s with us. The Three sent him. You know how it is. They’re giving us that big honking paycheck.”

“Whatever,” Happy spat. “Come on. And here’s an extra earpiece for our guest.” He reached into one of the bushes and pulled out a slimy green worm that wriggled between his stubby fingers. I instantly recognized the specimen as being a Terravermis limus, more commonly known as a “seashell slug” and having very interesting properties. If split in half, each half would grow into a full slug, psychically connected. A practical use of this property is to insert the slug into one’s nose, where it will slither up and coil around the brain. Thus, if there are more of these slugs elsewhere in other people’s brains, then one can transmit thoughts to the others via the psychic connection between the seashell slugs. It sounds disgusting. It is.

I grimaced under my mask and took the slug. I lifted up my mask and slid it carefully into my nostril. I felt horrible, like I was about to sneeze, and the slug slithered up my nostril. I started to gag and felt it tickling the inside of my head, and then I snorted and my jaw hung slack.

“Oh, no,” Happy hissed. “He’s gonna sneeze!”

Never sneeze with a seashell slug half-coiled around your brain. I, luckily, managed to swallow down the impending storm and seized up as the tickling in my brain continued.

Then it all stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief and suddenly heard all six dwarves’ thought-chatter.

Donuts, said one of them. Bread and donuts. I thought I recognized Bashful.

This is Dopey, setting up the breach spells with Doc and Sneezy. The operation was going down already. They were going to steal the Nether Key right now, and I was going to sit by listening into their thoughts.

I needed to get a splice of my worm to a Peacelock detective. If the dwarves pulled off another heist, they’d be able to listen into their thoughts and capture them. I just hoped they reused their worms.

We hunkered down in the bushes as quietly as we could manage. Dopey sent another message. Breaching the wall in three, two...
Then I heard it. A horrible wailing shriek, emanating from the Magical Artifacts Impound.

The deadly turkeys were on the prowl.