Lorelei And The Unseemly Court

Lorelei And The Unseemly Court – Samantha Crosby

Intro from the lady hersel’

Franklin Marsh created a set of characters for his stories and I stole one, Lorelei, and used her for my own stuff. Lorelei and her band of weird mates roam the world getting into scrapes with odd beings. This is the follow up to "Mr Punch" and "Angels". In which we meet Lorelei's dad. Apparently........



Lorelei and the Unseemly Court

Valerie was being awkward.
Goat Boy was exhausted. He was currently lying dead to the world on a sofa in the kitchen, unwakeable by or for anyone or anything. It had transpired that Faeries did not sleep. Ever. Regardless of which half was goat and which was man, it made no difference. He had no more in him. Quite literally.

And Valerie was not happy.

“Stupid animal. I want another pet!”
Valerie was following Lorelei around the small crofter’s cottage on the shores of a Loch that the little band were currently hiding out in. They had made it to Scotland.
Lorelei ran a hand through her dark hair. The streak of white was getting broader.

“Valerie, please. He needs to sleep. We all need to sleep. We aren’t like you.”

Valerie shrugged. Even in her ire she was a sight to see. Lorelei had never seen anything more beautiful in her life.

“No, you are not. You are pathetic. Wake him!”

Lorelei sighed. On route to Scotland they had run into various bands of spirit renegades, daemons, zombie horses, angry alien crossbred bovines and even a Vampire or two. All had fled at the sight of Valerie. But she was so damn wearing,
Lorelei would happily have engaged in hand to hand combat with the devil himself rather than face another evening listening to Valerie bang on about the uselessness of her pet, the coldness of this horrible country, the barren nature of the British countryside. Valerie did not like anything, unless it was her home land, alcoholic, or was capable of pleasuring her for weeks on end in one constant orgy of attention. And Lorelei had run out of the latter.
The Chef had gamely offered to stand in when Goat Boy finally caved in and collapsed. Valerie had looked him up and down, declared he smelled of garlic, and flounced out of the room.
She had now taken to looking sideways at Lorelei and licking her lips. Lorelei was increasingly worried.

“Valerie, listen to me. You chose to come along. And really, I am very grateful…”
Lorelei paused to remove Valerie’s hand from her thigh. She wasn’t that grateful. Yet.

“But you don’t have to stay with us. You can go home now. You got us here safe. And I thank you. But I have to do something here, and I can’t leave till it’s done.”

Valerie cocked her golden head on one side and appraised Lorelei levelly.

“Dead relatives, I think.”

Lorelei sucked in her breath.

“My father. I need to find him. I have a question or two to ask him.”

Valerie closed her eyes.

“I am old. Very old. I can see in your heart. You think I am foolish and only interested in the flesh. Certainly the flesh has a broad appeal. But I am many more things. I can see right into you. See your heart. I miss my father too . I miss my land. I will leave my pet and go home and then I will miss him too.”

Lorelei looked at Valerie. Such sadness in her face, all at once.
She rubbed a hand over her face.
Suddenly this was all very odd, Valerie behaving like a normal being, the sadness of their reality.
Valerie smiled, a sunburst avalanche of gold, and placed her hand back on Lorelei’s thigh. Lorelei let it stay there.

“Va…?”

“Huzza!”
Valerie glowered as The Chef bounded into the room. He was wreathed in strings of onions, and his pockets were dripping mushrooms.

“Shops! Wild food! New pans!”
He was incoherent in his culinary frenzy. It had been a while since he had found himself in a proper kitchen all his own, and he planned an orgy of cuisine so fantastical it would defy appetite and belief.

“Please.Shut the fuck up,” said Lorelei crossly. “We were talking.”?

The Chef lowered a frying pan and narrowed his eyes.

“Ah. Then I will leave you ladies to it.”
He walked back towards the door and stopped. Then turned. Sometimes Lorelei wondered what fear it was he could instil in his enemies. Then she remembered.
His eyes were filled with black, his mouth curved into a sneer filled with razor sharp shark teeth, four times wider than normal, five teeth deep. Smoke curled delicately from the cuffs of his tattered coat.

“But stay the fuck out of my kitchen in future.”

******

Goat Boy roused himself by late evening. The Other One was nowhere to be seen. He had been gone since just before dawn. Lorelei had heard him leave, had got up to watch his broad profile stalk away across the moors with intent. She wished she had gone with him.

The Chef had laid a sumptuous table. Valerie, who usually ate butterflies and small insects, was talking with her mouth full of the most wonderful mushroom and rabbit casserole in the world, barely taking the time to make her advances on Goat Boy. Who was eating with two spoons, alternately inserting one over filled cutlery item and then the other into his currently man shaped top half.

Lorelei also ate with gusto, despite the feeling of impending doom that washed over her.
It had been a long day and brought with it a lot to think about. That Goat Boy was some eternal being was unbelievable. She decided to ignore it. That The Other One was still gone was disturbing. That Valerie was proving to be a friend was even more disturbing.
When they finally could eat no more, Lorelei laid down her spoon and leaned back in her chair.

“That was delicious. Thank you.”

The Chef tipped his hat to her.

“My pleasure ma’am. It’s nice to have a proper arena again.”
He gazed around the small kitchen, bathed in late evening summer light, and smiled at the site of all the used pans and utensils. By the side of his plate lay his special knives. Idly he caressed the sharp blade of one, cutting his finger and smiling with a hint of shark as a few drops of indigo blood dripped from the blade onto the delicate muslin table cloth.

Valerie nodded her head slightly and then stood up and yanked Goat Boy to his feet.

“Bedroom. Now.”

Lorelei watched as the odd couple skittered away down the corridor, hand in hoof. The Chef caught her expression.

“He’ll be back soon, I should think.”

“I wasn’t…”

“Yes you were. Listen honey…” and The Chef tipped his chair backwards and looked at her expectantly. She apparated two cigars and a half bottle of bourbon, and handed one of the former and a glass of the latter to him.

“It’s a pickle and no mistake, this whole thing. But we’ll find your pa and find out what the hell is goin’ on.”

“ I slep…”

The Chef put a finger to his lips.

“I know you did. When you was an agent, you were a different girl, darlin’ …”

“I wasn’t. I was a bitch. I betrayed everyone. That’s why I’m running round the world trying to stay alive. A lot of people want me dead.”

“And you was dead once too. And now you ain’t.”

Lorelei sighed. And coughed. The cigar was strong.

A long time ago she had been a Special Agent, working out of America’s underworld, and doing pretty much anything to get her man. And man, she had got him. Doctor Dementer. The man she now thought to be her father, and a man with whom she had most definitely had relations , prior to the idea of his paternal connection becoming a possibility. She’d also been dead, once upon a time. But now she wasn’t.

“I don’t know, I am tired of all this wandering about, looking over my shoulder. Even the Astral isn’t safe anymore.”

She had to raise her voice to be heard over the ascending cries of passion and depravity coming from Goat Boy’s room. The Chef caught her eye and blushed. Valerie had the foulest mouth known to man…or goat…or anything.

“Lorelei sweetheart, we’ve been running, all of us, for years. Running from bad things we did that make bad people come after us. We’ll all keep each other safe.”

Lorelei sighed.

“And now I am chasing after the one bad people I should be running from.”

The Chef looked at her.

“That’s girls, honey. That’s just girls.”
**********


Lorelei lay in the shabby but comfortable small bed and watched the night sky through the window. Goat Boy and Valerie had been exiled to a barn a mile or so away. She could still faintly hear them.

She could also hear something else, something like a million wind chimes being dropped on a marble floor several miles above her head. Over and over again. It wasn’t getting any louder, it was just there all the time. And sometimes she would catch a glint of silvery dust shimmering in a tiny tornado in a dark corner of the room.

She was pretty sure it wasn’t a bad thing. Hard to tell these days.

And she wanted The Other One badly.

Then she heard it, a clump and a groan, as if something or someone had fallen over heavily in the kitchen. She sighed. She was a brave girl and it never got you anywhere, bravery. It made you get up in the night and go downstairs without a weapon in the dark and confront whatever unworldly creature was waiting for you. All this occurred to her as she opened the door to the kitchen and turned on the light.

At first she thought a man was slumped on the floor, dressed in a battered duster coat, face down, the curls of a ragged beard flowing from the downturned head. Then she caught sight of his hand. Beautifully manicured red nails, delicate skin, a tasteful ring or two.
Lorelei caught her breath.

“Hello Hester.”
********

When she had got Hester, a bearded lady and one time member of Doctor Dementer’s circus of freaks, to her feet and positioned somewhat slackly in a chair, she had poured bourbon after bourbon into the bearded lady’s mouth until Hester coughed and moaned and finally opened her eyes.

“Hi girly,” she said. “Thunk you was dead. I did shoot you myself.”
She laughed and it became a cough and then a rattle and her eyes crossed slightly. Lorelei was aware of the blood running from somewhere under the ragged coat. Hester was dying.

“I came back. It’s not rocket science.”

“You been runnin’ ever since. The Doc, he’s after you.”

“I know,” sighed Lorelei, rubbing her face. “And I am not running from him any more. If he wants me dead, then he can damn well tell me why. In person. “

Hester looked up through clouding eyes.

“He don’t want you dead! He wants to find you and make everything ok.”

“Mr Punch? Mr fucking Punch? I KNOW that was his doing!”

Hester coughed.

“Punch got out of control. The Doc, something bad was after you and he wanted you hidden for a while. Hoped you’d get stuck in there and not get out. Not till he had done what he needed to , to keep you safe.”

Lorelei’s head was a whirl.

“I don’t understand?.You…oh Hester, what the fuck is going on?”

Hester moaned again and clutched her side.

“I ain’t got long. I came here to tell you to sit tight. The Doc’ll come get you. Then it will all be ok. And I’m sorry I killed you back then. Them days was hard and I was hurtin’. And you an Agent and all, you was the enemy.”

Lorelei nodded. She didn’t like to dwell on her old life if she could help it. It was too painful.

“Hester?”

“Laurie, I’m dyin’. There’s a bad thing in this world, and its after you. Your Daddy, he ain’t done much for you in your life. For a long while, he dint even know you was his girl . Now he does and he…will..come. A girl needs her daddy in her life, no matter what. He’s the most important thing in the world.”
Hester coughed once, harshly, and closed her eyes. Lorelei looked away. When she looked back Hester was dead.

********

For a long time Lorelei sat in the kitchen, drinking magical bourbon and killing herself with apparated smokes. She would send the others away. Goat Boy could vanish into Faery, The Chef and The Other one could just saddle on up and get out of town. She would stay. It made sense. She sighed and wondered what the hell she was going to do with Hester’s body.

A thump and a groan from the door made her look up.

The Other One staggered into the kitchen clutching the knife embedded in his chest. A black silk top hat followed close behind, shedding tarot cards behind the man under the hat.

“Get a damn towel, girl, now!”
Lorelei jumped to her feet and grabbed a tea towel from the top of the cooker.

Doctor Dementer was lowering The Other One onto the floor.

“Don’t touch the knife. Leave it! Just wait a while. Here, give me that cloth.”

Lorelei passed the towel over and for one brief second Dementer squeezed her fingers. Their dark eyes met.

“Jesus this hurts..” groaned The Other One. Lorelei stroked his face gently.

“It’ll be ok. Just don’t move.”

Dementer was holding the cloth to wound around the knife. He looked up.

“Hester make it?”

Lorelei shook her head.

“Damn. Ok, I’ll do this myself. Get The Chef.”

Lorelei ran down the corridor and hammered on the door of The Chef’s room. There was no sound from within. She kicked the door down and dragged the sleeping and drunken man from his bed. He was still wearing his Stetson.

“Get up! Now!”

The Chef looked groggily at her.

“Wassup honey?”

“The Other One. He’s hurt. Quick!”

The Chef was standing and sober in seconds. Together they dashed back to the kitchen.

“Shit, Dementer!”
The Chef took a step back.

“Ain’t I. Give me a knife and get down here.”
Dementer’s voice suggested that messing about and wasting time were a fast track to hell. The Chef handed him one of his own knives and knelt beside The Other One’s body.

“It’s a Dark Knife. Tell me there aren’t Demons out there?”

Dementer nodded.

“They’s after my girl here. I been running ahead of them for weeks, but they caught up with me last night. When Hester shot her, way back when, and she died, I used Demon blood to bring her back to life. And they don’t like that, no sir.”
The Chef nodded and then looked up.

“Lorrie honey, go in the other room. Please?”

“No. I want to stay with him.”

“Lorelei, go.”
Dementer’s voice was flat but harsh.

Lorelei leant across and reached out a hand to grasp The Other One’s shoulder. His breathing was laboured and his face white.

“No. I stay.”

Dementer looked at her steadily.

“My girl.”

And they began to save The Other One’s life.

**********

As dawn broke, Lorelei wished she had left the room. When they finally removed The Dark Knife, The Other One’s body spasmed and leapt around the room, a macabre and insane clown in a rictus parody of circus moves. Finally he shuddered to the floor, his bow tie spinning in erratic circles till finally it was still. There was blood everywhere. But he was alive.
Lorelei knelt beside him and held him as tight to her as she could. He was murmuring something she could not quite hear, so she bent her ear to his lips. And when she heard what he was saying, tears began to fall onto her pale cheeks, but she was smiling. The Chef raised an eyebrow and glanced at Dementer. Who was also smiling.

“He told her his name, didn’t he?”

Dementer nodded and knelt beside The Other One.

“Welcome to the family, lad. You’ll make a fine son-in-law.”

********

Dementer was still on his knees when the door crashed open and Valerie glowed her way inside. She was dragging Goat Boy behind her by one hoof and one foot. Deranged with her passions, his psyche had gone into overdrive, and his halves were now split down the meridian. One man eye and one goat eye remained resolutely closed.
Valerie dropped the extremities and scowled.

“Asleep! Again! This…”
She caught sight of Dementer and stopped.
“Who are you?”

“Doctor Dementer, at your service,” he said, rising to his feet and swooping into a seamless bow.

Valerie looked him up and down and licked her lips.

“Bedroom.Now.”
And with a wink and a click of his heels, Dementer skipped down the corridor behind her.
The bedroom door slammed happily.

*******

The Chef helped Lorelei to get The Other One onto a sofa, but he was looking better all the time. Not once did his eyes leave Lorelei, wherever she went, whatever she did.

“Congratualations an’ all. Maybe I can make the cake for the wedding?”
The Chef was already seeing confectionary pornography in his mind. Butter. Cream. Marzipan. A little Faery essence for luck maybe..

“Be honoured, sir,” said The Other One in a cracked but up beat voice.

“Ditto,” said Lorelei.”And what I …”

There was a slamming of doors in the corridor. Lorelei raised an eyebrow.

“Here she goes again…”

Dementer walked cockily into the room.

“Valerie’s sleeping.”
His grin was as wide as the world.

“Faeries don’t sleep,” said the Chef, glowing with manly admiration.

“They do now,” replied Dementer. “Which reminds me, let’s go sort out those Demons that are right outside the door.”

The Other One stiffened and tried to get to his feet. Lorelei placed her hand firmly on his shoulder and shook her head. The Chef grabbed his knives.
Dementer raised a hand.

“Sit down gents. This ain’t gonna be hard. Not no more.”

Dementer walked over to Lorelei and put a finger to her cheek.

“My girl here, an’ her man. They done a good thing back there on the Astral. See, Demons is afraid of nothing. You can’t kill ‘em. But you can make ‘em go away with things that sap their dark. With things that just kinda disregard them. Nothin’ a Demon hates more than bein’ disregarded.”

The Chef , who was really warming to Dementer, tossed him a cigar. Dementer caught it between his lips.

“And we got that very thing?” asked The Chef.
Dementer nodded.

“See, what’s the opposite of ‘em? What’s bright and mad and takes no notice of anythin’ but themselves? What can’t really die? What’s older’n even Demons? “
“What talks shit and wears men down with a look and is so fuckin’ relentless?” added GoatBoy, who was currently all man and very confused.

Lorelei held her breath.

“Exaccerly,” said Dementer. “Faeries.”
And he clicked his fingers three times, and whistled an odd and old tune that hurt the ears, and then the room was filled with windchimes dropping on marble and a whole troupe of naked Faeries, male and female, floating in mid air, fluttering by the ceiling, making sparks by the cooker, playing with The Chef’s long hair, had entered the room.

Dementer’s wide as the world grin bridged universes.

“Go at ‘em. Let the carnival begin.”

**************

Later, much later, the fields were scattered with Demon limbs and tattered black winged remnants. The Faeries proved to be a vicious and tactless enemy, with no thought to the protocols of war. Rather, there was a lot of screaming and shouting and then the Demons attempted to flee. A Faery in its wrath was a thing to avoid. Lorelei had not realised they had talons and claws and teeth , and a quite frankly Kurt Russell-esque armoury of improbable physical weaponry at their disposal, should they choose to display it. And they had. Dark blood covered the dusky grass and the little band of comrades had little to do but watch through the kitchen window and gape at the carnage.

Until finally it was over.
Then began a party of such glowing drunkenness and wanton behaviour even Goat Boy looked nervous.
“Anyone for supper?” asked The Chef.

***********

Valerie finally emerged from her room after dinner and walked straight through the kitchen without a word. She didn’t even slam the door on her way outside. Dementer looked nervous as she passed and The Other One smiled to himself. It was pretty obvious Dementer had only laid a hand on her in a physician’s capacity.

“She ok?” asked The Chef of Lorelei.

Lorelei shrugged. A sleeping Valerie that did not slam doors or demand men follow her to a bedroom was unusual in the extreme.

Dementer was pouring another drink for everyone. There was something calming in the candlelight, the clinking of glass, the warmth of the oven. And the company of friends, Lorelei thought.

They chatted of nothing, The Other One holding her hand, across the table her father smiling and promising long talks and explanations. And end to the uncertainties in her life. Goat Boy was enjoying the rest. The Chef was dozing, dreaming of asparagus and Satie.

For some time, a slight hissing had been coming from just outside the window behind Lorelei’s head. Like cicadas, but softer. Out of the corner of her eye she would catch a brief spasm of light, tiny and fleeting but there all the same. Withdrawing her hand from The Other One’s, she drew back her chair and stood to peer through the curtains.

At first she couldn’t quite reconcile what she was seeing. But when she realised what it was she laughed softly.

“Charlie, put out the candles,” she whispered in The Other One’s ear. As he did so, she placed a finger to her lips.

“Ssshh. And look.” Drawing the curtains wide, she stepped to the side of the window so everyone could see what she had seen.

The night was black as tar. But there were a lot of bright somethings framed against it.

Dementer chuckled. The Chef hiccupped. Goat Boy went very, very pale.

Outside, in the dark, numerous tiny, glowing goats with wings thronged the air…