The Enthralling and Endlessly Amusing Adventures of the Right Honourable Haephestus Thorpe, and his Counterpart and Constant Confidant Miss Delilah Hicks.

1. Menace and Malice on the Part of Noted Fiend Count Von Schmetterling.

Fluttern Castle, residential seat of the Von Schmetterling family. One case where appearances are emphatically not deceptive. On the outside, it appears to be a dark, miserable edifice, fit only for the lair of thieves and brigands. On the inside, one quickly finds that it is, indeed, a dark, miserable place, and a lair filled with thieves and brigands.
Our story takes place on a cold November night. A coach (of expensive design) and horses (of expensive breed) can be seen hurtling without heed up the winding forest path that leads to the crumbling castle. Upon reaching the wide, yet long-dry, moat barring the entrance to the castle, the coachman slows, and produces a small goat’s horn from the folds of his cloak, and blows two short, echoing blasts. In answer, the drawbridge is lowered, and the portcullis raised. Once the coach pulls to a stop outside the front door, six of the passengers emerge in a storm of fury, dragging with them a kicking, writhing package wrapped in a carpet.
This was Germany, 1896. The world is wracked with political and social upheaval, and there are some to whom change is no good thing. Witness now the actions of these untrustworthy wretches and the fate of their far from willing captive.
The huge oaken door was shoved roughly open, and the gang of ruffians, with their heavily bound prisoner in tow, rushed down the stone staircase into the dungeon. The prisoner, doubtless snatched in some dishonourable circumstance, was a vivacious maiden with a fiery eye and, judging by the eloquence with which she damned her captors’ eyes, an educated background. She struggled her hardest, but she was, alas, no match for the labour-hardened hands of her gaolers.
The girls’ expletives continued even as she was bound to the thick wooden slab with thick leather straps, but were silenced, at least momentarily, by the huge hand that slammed across her face.
“Enough!” came the bellow from the doorway at the top of the stairs. All went silent, even the barrage of insults from the girl. Eclipsing what little light came from the corridor above, a shadowy figure made its way deliberately down the staircase, measuring each and every footstep exactly, making no move without running it through his mind and analysing its possibilities. This was not a man who made mistakes.
When he eventually reached the bottom, he extended a hand, and turned a small key set into the wall, flooding the dank dungeon with light from the gas lamp in the ceiling. The figure, now illuminated, was shown to be a tall, cadaverous individual, clad in the style of evening dress traditionally worn to the opera. The current Count Von Schmetterling grinned toothily in the dingy lamplight.
The man’s visage was that of the consummate cad. He wore a jagged pencil moustache, and an arrogant goatee. A diagonal scar ran the length of his right cheek, presumably the result of the schlager bouts popular among the German universities. A combination of a smile and a grimace played about his lips almost permanently, and his eyes, one framed by a monocle, were as cold as ice. He spoke, as he did now, in a voice dripping with a sardonic amusement.
“Well…at last, the inimitable Miss Delilah Hicks, lies within our clutches.”
The red-haired girl before him snarled with a primal anger unbecoming of a young lady of marriageable age. Only the stout leather straps binding her to the slab prevented her from attacking him outright. The Teutonic icicle before her saw this is no interruption, and continued.
“Of course, now that we have you, it shall be no difficulty to lure out that…how do you English say it, ‘bounder’? Yes, that is it. That ‘bounder’ Thorpe, who shall no longer hinder my ambitions.”
This time, Miss Hicks managed to cease his talk, as a well-aimed blob of spittle landed in his unprotected eye.
“That for your ‘ambitions‘, blackguard!” she crowed, triumphantly, before the Count’s cane lashed across her face.
“Vile English harlot!” he snarled, all poise and elegance lost. He raised his cane to strike her again. “I shall…No…No, I have a far, far, better idea.”
Lowering his cane, and shooing his minions to one side, the cruel Count stepped over to one side of the room, against which was a nightmare assortment of the very latest electrical paraphernalia, clamps, switches, and a huge lightning rod.
“You are aware, Miss Hicks, of the work of the late Doctor Frankenstein? Of course you are, but I shall refresh your memory. His work concerned the reanimation of dead tissue. Reforming it, shaping it, giving it life. Intelligent, I grant you, but no real vision.”
Some nameless fear crept into Delilah’s spine, making her shiver. The Count went on.
“I have studied his notebooks, and am sure that I can emulate his technique. You ask: why? Simple. The world is not as it should be. In the West, greedy hordes grub for petty nuggets of gold. In the East, there are nothing but opium-fuelled dullards. And everywhere, everywhere! Your blasted Empire spreads like a cancer. I shall change this, all of this, starting with Germany.”
Delilah’s gaze followed him as he strolled around the room, lost in his own fantasy.
“I shall use an altered form of Frankenstein’s application of electricity. Instead of  merely one body, I shall imbue thousands with unbidden life! Think of it…an invincible army. Unquestioningly loyal, inhumanly tough, and if they should die…then I shall raise them again! They shall sweep Europe, and then the world, clean, leaving me in absolute control. And every person they kill shall only swell my ranks further! Yes, that is my vision, and you, my fickle little hell-cat, shall be an important part in its fruition…”
His hand whipped out, and clenched her face in an iron grip.
“You…shall serve as my ’guinea pig’…as it were. You shall be my very first revenant…Reborn to a life of service…in my name!”
Delilah’s once-fierce eyes widened in sudden realisation and terror, which only heightened as Schmetterling gestured to one of his minions, who drew an evil-looking pistol from a waist holster.
“Unfortunately,” continued the Count, blithely. “In order to be reborn, you shall, of course, have to die…Goodbye, Miss Hicks.”
Delilah shut her eyes tightly, and braced herself for the inevitable. She clearly heard the hammer click back, and the cylinder turning into position. The red flash filled her vision even through her shut eyelids, and the blast of noise was deafening.
What Delilah had not seen, however, was that one of the henchman had thrust a hand inside his flapping leather coat, and drawn a long, ornate, wide-bore revolver from his shoulder holster, cocked the hammer, and shot the ammunition cylinder from the opposing minion’s pistol. Fragments of shattered metal sprinkled across the floor like iron rain.
Everybody froze, except for Delilah, who took the opportunity to voice her sentiments thusly: “Took your blasted time, Thorpe!”
Casting off his wide-brimmed hat, the erstwhile henchman revealed himself as, in fact, the Right Honourable Haephestus Thorpe, scourge of evil and friend of the honourable. Gentleman-adventurer, and late of the Oxford University of Expedient Technologies. Rebellious blond hair cut to ear-length, shining green eyes accentuated by horn-rimmed glasses. A thin beard and moustache framed the slim, aquiline face, currently locked in an expression of almost mocking determination. As he turned to cover the remaining villains with his pistol, his coat swirled about him like a leather cloud.
“Nobody move,” he called aloud, gesturing about him with his revolver. “I shall be taking Miss Hicks, and destroying your apparatus, Count, in the name of peace and safety for the people of the world.”
The Count’s face creased in diabolic fury.
“Curse you, Thorpe!” he bellowed, waving a ring-clad fist. “Again you thwart my plans!”
“Indeed!” remarked Haephestus, his aim never wavering. “You were unaware that your retinue had grown by an additional person prior to your leaving the Opera House with your unwilling guest, weren’t you?”
He gestured with his pistol, motioning to the Count and his guards to move to one side of the room. However, the count was not one to quail in the face of adversity. He jabbed at the young adventurer with his cane.
“He is but one man! Seize him!”
Lacking imagination, but well-furnished in the muscle department, the minions surged forward, bludgeoning fists at the ready.
Rapidly adjusting his aim, Haephestus stared the horde down. Five of his custom-tooled bullets found five knees, putting his attackers down with the maximum of agony, and the minimum of fuss. Haephestus smiled his cocky smile, and spun his gold-and-tungsten pistol on one finger, as the burly Germans around him groaned and wailed, clutching their shattered knees. Von Schmetterling was unperturbed, however. Almost lazily, he grasped the nub of his cane, and there from drew a shining steel rapier.
“Your bolts are shot, Thorpe,” he sniggered. “Now I shall deal with you in the prescribed fashion…”
He took up a fencing stance, sword carving little circles in the air before him. He was more than a little surprised as Thorpe’s pistol boomed once more, snapping the blade off at the hilt, which span into the air before lodging in a rafter.
“I built ‘Charlotte’ here myself, Count,” crowed Thorpe, triumphantly. “She gives me eight shots to play with, not six!”
“Yes…” the Count mumbled, nervously. “Well…I fear that I must run off, mein herr, but rest assured that we shall meet again, when I shall be rid of you once and for all!”
So saying, he twisted the jewel on one of his rings, which burst, flooding the room with a cloud of noxious grey smoke. Haephestus threw a hand to his face to shield himself from the vapour, and listened helplessly to the gradually vanishing laughter of the Count.
Wasting no time, Thorpe ran to Delilah’s side, and unbuckled the straps that held her to the slab.
“Everything alright, Miss Hicks?”
Delilah massaged her wrist, before catching Thorpe a stinging slap to the face. She jabbed an accusing finger at him.
“Never, ever leave me in that position again! And if you really must, then bring some heavier firepower than little pop-gun of yours!”
Thorpe sighed, and conceded to his partner.
“Very well…I’m sorry. Now talking of firepower, do you have the explosives?”
Quite unashamedly, Delilah reached a hand under her waistband and down the leg of her jodhpurs, making Thorpe avert his eyes in a sudden burst of embarrassment. After a brief rummage, Delilah produced four cylindrical sticks of dynamite.
“Are you sure this is enough?” she asked, suspiciously.
Thorpe took a box of matches from his pocket.
“Of course, m’dear. It’s my own recipe, includes a few drops of what I like to call pyro-magnesium sulphate. It goes off great guns when it reacts with heat. Just one of those sticks could blow up the Houses of bally  Parliament, placed correctly.”
“Jolly good. Let’s smash the place to bits then, shall we?”
“Hold on,” remarked Thorpe, his paladin-like sense of righteousness bubbling to the fore. “What shall we do with these villains?” He gestured to the injured henchmen. “They were but pawns in our adversary‘s game. I shall not stand idly by and watch a fellow human blown to microscopic shreds.”
Delilah raised an eyebrow.
“If you’ll help me,” she began. “Then we’ll drag ’em upstairs, and leave ’em in the entrance hall before we set the fuses.”
“I say, Delilah old fruit, how uncommon merciful of you.”
Delilah snorted, juggling one of the sticks.
“Merciful nothing, I’m just itching to watch somebody try to run with a broken knee.”
*
The blast caused by the levelling of Fluttern Castle was heard as far away as Nuremberg. Investigating locals found only a huge, smoking crater, and the remains of a bratwurst and zweibeln sandwich, blackened by powder-burns, by which time the strange partnership of Thorpe and Hicks was making its merry way south, aboard the stalwart zeppelin ‘Swashbuckler‘, to investigate strange goings-on in Morocco. The chronicle of this next adventure shall follow shortly.