Presents:

Sophia The Utterly Wicked

Prologue:

It was Halloween night and Sophia the Utterly Wicked, the last great apothecary, sat gazing out into the darkness beyond her dining room window, one porcelain cheek cupped forlornly in her dainty hand. Her thoughts were on her latest suitor, whom she had just poisoned, and whose slumped-over corpse was currently making a mushy pillow out of a bowl of autumn vegetable soup at the opposite end of her dining table.

Aside from being dead, there was really nothing wrong with the poor bastard. She glanced at him in brief amusement. He had been handsome, rich, and thoughtful… Why, he had even brought a bouquet of her favorite roses, pink and red, just this very evening. She had tried hard to resist poisoning him, truly she had, but then the man went and did what they all do, eventually. He had made a grab for her sugar bowl.

Sophia owned an exquisitely wrought silver antique tea set that belonged to her family for generations, passed down mother-to-daughter, (as all things in her family were, the males having the unfortunate tendency do die off at an early age...) and she kept her tea set polished to a high gleam, carefully arranging each piece in relation to the others on the silver tray to better display the masterful ornamentation that adorned the set, the crowning piece of which, indubitably, was the sugar bowl. The thing had delicately etched scenes of great castles and grand estates, of Lords and Ladies who lived long ago, scenes of them dancing merrily upon an ancient world that no longer existed to anyone but the beautiful Sophia, who would gaze longingly into the polished surface of the bowl, watching as the figures danced and whirled gaily over fields of barley and of rye, laughing. They were always laughing, the Tea People were. They laughed and laughed and laughed…

Sophia loved her tea set. And unfortunately, most everyone else found the set temptingly beautiful as well. Beautiful to explore. To admire. To touch… And the rest was pure reaction. She would poison anyone with the temerity to commit such a crime. Oh, she sometimes poisoned people for other reasons as well: revenge, money, or boredom to name a few, and indeed, she had found that poisoning could be an absolute kick, but lately, it simply wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.

Sophia was lonely, terribly lonely, despite the laughter of the dancing Tea People. She needed romance, passion. She longed for a real man. But what sort of man could survive her beauty and her peril? She glanced again at her dinner companion. Certainly not that lump over there.

In all her experience there has been only one man able to withstand her sting, a client of hers who requested an exotic sedative / hallucinogen mixture, (to be shot out of a dart gun of all things, how exciting!) and that man’s name was Dr. Horatio Von Darkfaulker.

He survived thus far, she reflected, partially due to the fact that she kept him at arms reach for his own damned good. But there had been times when she just couldn’t help herself but to try and satisfy her curiosity about the man by seeking out his council in matters of the arcane and paranormal. She would invite him over to discuss a “ghost” this or a “goblin” that, for truly, she was most interested in such things, and on such occasions, while the two shared the enjoyment of one another’s society, despite her best efforts to contain herself, she had poisoned him… she counted through her memory, “Oh, here and there, three or four times at least,” she said out loud. But somehow, through pure dumb luck or some other mysterious agent, he just wouldn’t die.

A man with staying power. A mystery.

Suddenly, a decision was reached to call the man up. She elegantly rose from her chair, and with a grace born of the heavens and a purpose that could lead a man only to hell, she made her way to the antique telephone in her study and placed the call. She told him she had a monster under her bed and could he please come over and save her. He said he had an ocean to cross and that he would be there in ten minutes. She returned to the dining room to watch the figures on her sugar bowl as they danced. She suffered a light giggle, which turned into rich, pealing notes of laughter, and Sophia the Utterly Wicked laughed and laughed and laughed.

And so did the dancing Tea People.

Sophia The Utterly Wicked

By H. Von Darkfaulker

It was around 4:30 in the afternoon of All Hallows Eve when the call came in. I was busy coaching my dog on some of the finer points of animal levitation, our usual Friday session. I am by no means ignorant to how incredible this may sound to the metaphysical laymen, but I have, in fact, through the exceptional nuero-psychic receptivity of my dog, Boo, and via the sheer puissance of my own telepathic powers of canine mesmerism, caused my gifted dog to come so close to the state of true levitation in our previous sessions that three of her four paws wavered off of the ground for a full minute before succumbing to the force of the earth’s gravity. This particular session I intended to work on the fourth and final paw, thereby establishing the scientific fact that dogs can fly when properly coached to do so, a phenomenon I myself witnessed long ago while hot on the trail of the greatest animal-levitator the world has likely ever known: the infamous and insufferable Jersey Devil Duck-Dog.

The infamous and insufferable JERSEY DEVIL DUCK-DOG

I comfortably sat in a lotus position facing Boo within the familiar sanctum of my vast library. As I locked gazes with her clear, brown eyes the very air in the room became laden with the tangibly mounting charge of otherworldly energies. Solemnly, I fished a doggy treat out of my pocket. Thusly did our Friday session begin.

“Up, Boo, up you go now…” I coaxed. With slow, liquid grace, my small black cocker spaniel vertically unfolded onto a single hind leg and uncannily hovered there, cradled in the languid, buoyant tug of effervescent levitation. But it wasn’t enough. I pushed myself and increased my mental link with my dog.

“One more leg to go girl.” I said. “You can do it…” Boo cocked her head and let out a plaintive whine. In some remote corner of my consciousness I was dimly aware that the phone had started to ring, but I fiercely rejected the sensory input and redoubled my concentration.

UP BOO! I projected the command with every iota of willpower I could muster. RISE!

Boo let out another whine. Beads of sweat formed on my brow from the enormous effort of the task. The phone continued its insipid ringing but I remained adamantly fixated on my pooch, watching as Boo’s long black ears began to float dreamlike above her head from the strong anti-gravitational field being generated. Then it happened. The Miracle. Slowly, impossibly, Boo’s final paw cleared the floor just enough for a sliver of light to spill out from underneath the rising appendage. And as the dog continued to hover a bare fingerbreadth above the floor, a look of bewilderment animated her canine features.

Then the door to my study flew wide and the voice of my assistant Fong Qui Fang rang out in deplorable English, “Round eyed white fag! Telephone. For you.” I immediately lost my concentration and Boo tumbled to the floor with an indignant yelp.

“Dammit Fong!” I growled. Fong threw the phone at me and left the room mumbling obscenities in his native tongue. I lifted the phone to my ear. “Darkfaulker here. Make it quick, I’m busy.” Boo started to chew on a table leg. When I tried to push her away, the mutinous beast growled and nipped at my hand. Mutinously.

BOO -Mutinous Cur

“Horatio? Are you busy?” The voice was pure allure and electric sweetness spilling out from the telephone.

“Sophia?”

“Horatio, there seems to be a monster under my bed, and I was wondering, if your not busy, could you come over and, you know… take care of things? I’ll understand if you have other plans, this being Halloween and all…”

I made some mental calculations. Sophia lived in the UK, which meant… “Well, I have to cross the Atlantic…I could be there in, say, ten minutes?”

“That would be lovely. I’ll make tea…”

I hung up the phone. Bursting into action, I stood bolt upright and spun around in time to catch sight of my dog as she stood on the fifth level of my libraries’ Eastern Bookshelves. She was helping herself to the bag of doggy treats I had laid up there only minutes before. She couldn’t possibly have jumped that high. Could I have actually cracked the secret of Full, Animal, Lighter-than-air, Levitation? (F.A.L.L., as the phenomenon is referred to by experts in the field.) I only had a moment to muse upon the full implications of what I was seeing. I had an ocean to cross.

I rushed to my bathroom, grabbed my toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, a towel, and ran madly back to my study, where I stopped in my tracks, turned about, and ran madly back to the bathroom to snatch up a bottle of Dragonback cologne. There, I gave myself three liberal squirts before returning to the study, (when using Dragonback, I always designate copious as my watchword. Chicks dig it and it scares the shit out of warebadgers.)

As I brushed my teeth I considered my options. I was going to have to whip out some major mojo to cross the Atlantic, and there was only one item in my arsenal of artifacts formidable enough to do the trick. I hated to use it, but there was a monster under Sophia’s bed and I was going to By-God be the first one to get there and dispatch it before anyone else had the chance. I grabbed my tranquilizer dart gun from off of a table and holstered it.

Wasting not a further moment, I walked to the Eastern Bookshelves, barely taking notice of Boo as she was finishing up the treats. I scanned the shelves looking for a gleaming Spanish helmet that once belonged to a 13th century Spanish paladin by the name of Holy Juan Frijoles. He had been burned alive for witchcraft back in his day, and his soul still haunted the helmet.

Spying it at last, (it was on a different bookshelf every time I went looking for it, being magic and such,) I reached my hand out, swallowed toothpaste, and spoke the words that would summon the ghost of Holy Juan Frijoles. “Holy Frijoles, the flame’s On High! The simpler the Templar, the quicker he’ll fry!”

HOLY JUAN FRIJOLES –Ghostly Spook

As the ghost manifested I grabbed my shaving cream and dabbed some on my face. A profound sense of Goodness and Light filled the area. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach.

“Darkfaulker,” said a spectral voice in an antiquated Spanish accent. “When will you learn to turn from the darkness and embrace the… What are you doing there, spook?”

“Your one to talk. I’m shaving, and I’ve no time for gab old man. Got a hot babe to rescue. Take my hand. I need to use the power of the helm to cross an ocean.”

“You know this would be easier if you would just wear my helmet…” he replied.

“Don’t give me that crap.” Frijoles wanted me to put the helmet on so he could possess me. It was the nature of spirits of the dead. Even the good ones wanted another crack at life. “It’ll never happen. Just take my hand.” I reached out with a hand full of shaving cream.

“No Darkfaulker. You take mine.” The specter reached forth to where my hand was, opening up a channel of eldritch Power from the Helm. The Power filled me, and I spoke the words of the spell that would teleport me to Sophia’s castle estate.

The Helm amplified my natural arcane ability fifty-fold, but even so, the strain of teleporting such a distance so soon after my efforts to levitate my dog nearly sucked the life out of me. I wouldn’t be able to cast spells for weeks.

Darkness swallowed me, but not the darkness of unconsciousness. It was the darkness of a closet, Sophia’s kitchen closet, judging from the smell of spices and herbs. From within the confined space I detected the muffled sound of sweet, pealing laughter. I put my hand out to where I thought the door ought to be. And it was. I nudged it open and stepped through only to collapse onto the kitchen floor with a bone jarring thump. The laughter abruptly stopped.

I simply lied on the floor, too tired to even raise my head from a half-face full of shaving cream. From my skewed vantage point I watched as Sophia walked in from the dining room through two French double doors. Gods she was beautiful!

“Horatio, you poor darling! You’re as pale as a ghost! Are you ill?” She bent down and put her hand on my back. The touch sent thrills through my supine form.

“Don’t worry Sophia,” I slurred. “I’ve come to save you.” I reached down and unholstered my gun.

“Oh, Horatio, the monster’s gone. It must have caught wind you were coming. Lets get you up and get some tea in you. Poor dear.”

With Sophia’s aid I managed to stagger into the dining room where I was confronted with the sight of a man slumped over on the dining room table with his head in a bowl of soup. Autumn vegetable, from the looks of it. ”What happened to him?”

“Monster got him,” Sophia said, and giggled.

I sat down at the table with a grunt and studied the victim. I saw no signs of struggle and therefore concluded the monster had likely been some manner of vampiric, stealer of souls, rather than the more mundane tooth and claw variety, the type that relies on mesmerism and misdirection to sneak up on the unwary… After darting several furtive glances around the dining room area to assure myself that the monster had indeed left the scene of the crime, I turned my gaze back to Sophia. I found it hard to look at anything else in her presence. “Poor bastard. The thing probably poisoned him with some kind of toxic venom… I’ll bet he never saw it coming. That’s what happens when an amateur goes fucking around with the Darkness. A man’s got to watch his ass at all times. That tea smells good. Chia?”

“Special blend. Um, Horatio, while you’re here, I want to discuss with you a new ingredient I was thinking of adding to the formula I make for your dart gun.” She handed me a small vile of brackish liquid. “It’s a powerful hallucinogen I’ve been able to extract from Wolfsbane. I’m still experimenting with it, but I think it could act as a catalyst to accelerate the sedative effects of the other ingredients in your darts, and it would make the formula more effective against any supernatural adversary. Sound interesting?”

“Most interesting. But isn’t Wolfsbane fatal to a non-lycanthrope?”

“Well, yes. I’m still working on that part.”

“Will it be expensive? Fong and I haven’t had a paying job in a while now…”

“Don’t worry about that.” She said. “I would never dream of charging you a penny. I find the idea of my pois… formulas being fired from your dart gun most… exhilarating.”

When I handed the vial back to her our fingers met and so did our eyes. I had a lump in my throat from the series of impressions that wafted across my mind…fireworks, ice cream, and Moonpie. I had the serious feeling that I could possibly get lucky with the most beautiful woman in all the world.

Part of me wanted to stand up, enfold her in my embrace and kiss her ardently, but the other parts of me recoiled at the possibility that she might very well slap me for such audacious behavior. Besides, I wasn’t completely sure I was strong enough to stand up on my own quite yet. And so I opted for a change of subject.

“What a marvelous sugar bowl you have,” I said, disengaging my fingers from hers. “May I touch it?” My fingers were already on it as I said this.

After a brief pause she said, “But where are my manners? I haven’t poured you any tea.” She then grabbed a cup from the tray, and, with the cup in one hand and the vial of Wolfsbane derivative in the other, she retreated to the kitchen, which I thought was odd, as the tea was clearly still sitting on the tray, but it only took a simple moment for me to realize she had likely absconded with the cup to rinse it out for me.

Beautiful and thoughtful, that’s my Sophia.

She returned with the cup and poured a glass. I drank, and she giggled as I did so, obviously made giddy from the Dragonback cologne I was wearing. That stuff does it every time. I certainly had her under my spell alright, and to be honest, I was beginning to feel a bit odd myself. Flushed, as if the temperature in the room had suddenly increased. Her giggle was contagious and I started to giggle with her, casting her knowing glances. We shared a joke, she and I, and the joke was on the world. Here we were, two lovebirds of the same dark feather cresting the first wave of newfound romance. Before long our giggles turned into outright laughter.

The world was just that funny.

I finished my cup of tea and set it down on the table.

“More tea darling?”

“Yes please,” I responded. “And how about a little sugar?” I winked. I was getting my strength back.

“Oh. Horatio, you are such a rascal,” she laughed, winked, collected my cup and walked back into the kitchen.

She returned, and as she poured another cup of tea, I asked her, “Tell me, Sophia, where ever did you find such a quantity of Wolfsbane? The amount needed to procure so much of the active ingredient must be prodigious, and I understand it to be extremely rare.” I wiped the sweat off of my brow. It was definitely getting warmer in there.

She told me of her recent foray into the heart of the Amazon rainforest where she found not only the batch of Wolfsbane, but had discovered three hither-to unknown species of herbs, each with amazing properties. As she talked, she became lost in the story and started drinking my tea. I didn’t mind. Her tale was fascinating. But then she broke off the telling of it halfway through and looked down at the half-empty cup she cradled in her hand. A look of shock and dismay crossed her pretty features.

The grandfather clock that stood sentinel in the corner of the dining room struck Twelve O’clock, Midnight, The Witching Hour of All Hallows Eve. A lightening bolt crackled through the air outside, its rocking vibrations causing the spring mechanism of an antique victrola next to the clock to release and the needle to drop. The sound of a haunting violin concerto in E minor filled the room and I had to pee.

Midnight, Witching Hour Of All Hallows Eve And I Had To Pee

“Oh no,” she said. “Oh no…I’ve been drinking your tea.” She looked down at me. “This is terrible. Just terrible.”

“I thought the tea was rather delicious, myself” I chuckled. “Please, hold your thoughts. I must use your restroom. That stuff just runs right through me.”

I warbled my way up to a standing position and unsteadily ambled toward the restroom.

Sophia’s home was stocked with all manner of knickknacks and curiosities from all over the world, lining the walls and shelves. And handmade porcelain dolls, they were everywhere; their all-too life-like, beady little glass eyes seemed to follow me as I walked through the rooms. I paused for a moment and studied two of them positioned on sconces jutting out from the wall.

As I stared at them they started to move, or shift rather. Subtly, their faces would phase and shift from malignant smiles into sorrowful yearning and back again as I watched. “Creepy little shits,” I murmured, and continued to the restroom. The journey seemed to take an infinity. I felt as if I had been walking for hours. When I reached the restroom, I flipped the switch to turn on the light and looked at myself in the mirror. That’s when things really got bad. Apparently, I had begun shifting and phasing like Sophia’s dolls. Then, to my growing horror, before my very eyes, I watched as the blackness of my shirt began to spread up to my face like burnt motor oil that doesn’t know which way gravity wants it to flow. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was being turned into an eggplant, and it was the fucking dolls that were doing it to me.

Creepy Little Shits

“Gods! I’m an eggplant! You little shits!” I spun about and tromped off into the room with the dolls, where I shot them both with my tranquilizer dart gun. Then I ran to Sophia’s dining room to warn her of the danger. We were under some manner of magical attack, and I was completely defenseless. I had to get her out of there!

“Sophia! The dolls! I’m an eggplant!” I cried upon entering the dining room, but my darling Sophia was nowhere to be seen. Panicked, frightened, and completely out of my fucking mind, I rushed through the house, shooting dolls where I found them, and shouting for Sophia to get out while there was still time. Eventually I located her in her bedroom. She was laughing and dancing about on the bed, her sugar bowl snuggled tight against her bosom.

“Sophia! Thank the gods! Listen, we’ve got to get out of here…”

“Horatio!” she laughed. “Come dance with me! Come! The tea people want you to dance! Dance Horatio, dance!” Then she paused, looked at me and cocked her head. “Why, you’re an eggplant, Horatio, ” she laughed merrily at this and began dancing again, singing, “Tea people, tea people!” over and over again to the melody of what sounded like the song Bicycle by Queen. I was too late. The dolls had gotten to her.

Things were getting out of hand fast. I decided to call for backup. I reloaded my gun and prepared myself to battle the dolls. “I’m going in. I’ve got to make it to the telephone, ” I stated, grimly. I looked to Sophia. “If I don’t come back, save yourself. Get out of here. Jump through the window if you have to. But whatever you do, don’t try to follow me. Those dolls are dangerous!”

“Weeeeeee!” she replied. I turned and left.

I found stalking the hallways of Sophia’s home terribly difficult. For one thing, the walls were breathing, which I found distracting, but the breathing and writhing of the floor made walking a straight line nearly impossible. Nevertheless, I was able to tag three more enemy dolls on my way to the phone. I knew my chances for survival were slim, but I was going to make the dolls pay dearly for their treachery. A Darkfaulker never goes down without a fight. It’s part of the Darkfaulker Code.

Wrath Of The Darkfaulker

At last I reached Sophia’s antique telephone and began dialing, chasing the numbers around on the dial as they tried to evade my finger. It seemed that the whole world was going bat-shit crazy! I reached six wrong numbers before successfully dialing my home.

“What?” Fong answered, pissily, after ten full rings.

I curbed my desire to reprimand him for dallying. Instead, I said, “Fong! Listen! The dolls are magic! I’m an eggplant! Sophia’s with the Tea People! Jesus Fong! Come quick! Bring help! Call Moongoddess! Call Ken! Bring the Helmet of Holy Juan Frijoles! The Lost Book of Maligigi! The medicine bag of Chauncy Crowstool Wolfbaiter!” I put my hand up to my face and felt something gummy. I pulled my hand away and looked. It was shaving cream. “And bring a towel. Do Not Dally Fong! I’m dying, dammit, and you know what will happen to you if I die…”

“Too bad,” he curtly replied. “Stupid Dog-faulker.” He hung up the phone. I hate it when he calls me that. But I knew he would come as fast as he could. His very existence depended on my survival. The reason why this is so is another story entirely, far too long and complicated to go into here. But perhaps I will share it in a future episode. And perhaps not, but I will say this much: Fong Qui Fang is no ordinary man. Indeed, there are some who would argue that he is not even a man at all…

I stalked my way back over the floor as it twisted like an inverted Mobius plain on acid… And the analogy made me pause in my tracks. Acid. L.S.D. Somehow those dolls had been able to fool with my noodle, and the effects of their meddling bore a remarkable resemblance to an acid trip. Or, so I’ve heard, from those who have indulged in such brain-bending depravity. Certainly not me.

Shooting dolls along the way, I finally arrived at Sophia’s bedroom. Her bed was a four posted, canopied affair, all intricacy and lace, and upon it she laid, a vision out of a fairy tale. I crawled up beside her and simply lied down. I was tired, so tired. All I could do was hope that help arrived in time to save us. Keenly feeling the ebb of lifeforce draining out of me, I gazed upon her features, my face mere inches from hers. Of a sudden, she opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Horatio. I’m sorry,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You called me to save you, and I couldn’t. It is I who am sorry.”

“I poisoned you, Horatio. I poisoned us both. It’s the sugar bowl…the Tea People. It’s like I can’t help myself…but I never meant to hurt you. Please understand… You have ingested the Wolfsbane derivative, we both have, and we are going to die. Here. Now. There’s no antidote, and these are our last words. Will you forgive…?”

As I peered off into the amber-brown netherworld of her deep, rich eyes, I said, “Sophia, you could poison me a thousand times, a hundred thousand… And I would drink…”

And she kissed me. Fireworks, ice cream, and Moonpie.

Fireworks, Ice Cream, and Moonpie

And Death. I was dying. We both were, but I wasn’t sad. This was a death worthy of a Darkfaulker.

As I felt the last of life’s ephemeral essence drift from my mortal coil, I noticed a swirling of motion from the corner of the room. It was a pattern of will ’o wisp lights, a pattern I had seen before. Help had arrived. The flowing lights formed a shining nimbus, a cocoon of radiance, out from which stepped two figures, one of a woman of regal bearing, garbed in flowing white samite.

“Frigae,” greeted Moongoddess, my patron deity. She had brought with her my assistant, Fong, and he had brought with him the Lost Book of Maligigi, the Medicine Bag of Chauncy Crowstool Wolfbaiter, and the Helm of Holy Juan Frijoles. The ghost of Frijoles materialized to stand beside the pair.

Fong had also brought a towel.

I succumbed to a smile. We would live, and it was the Medicine Bag that would save us, for the Medicine Bag of Chauncy Crowstool Wolfbaiter, ancient shaman of the legendary Red Desert Falcon-Warriors tribal cult, was a powerful artifact indeed, and in the right hands, the potent healing magic found therein could not only heal the very sick, but could even raise the very dead. For a minute or two, anyway…

Sophia started laughing. And as I listened to her, I began to make out the sounds of the Tea People. They were laughing as well. Happily and freely they laughed, their beautiful pealing notes of mirth resounding heartily in my head.

Sophia and the Tea People laughed and laughed and laughed…and I began to laugh with them.

The world was just that funny.

Special thanks to Sophia the Utterly Wicked
for being an absolute Muse. Thank you dear.

If you would like to contact Dr. Darkfaulker, you may do so
at the following e-mail address. At your own risk, of course.

darkfaulker@kensocrates.com