2/28/1890 - 4/30/1890 "I think it's for the best." Lance said, the barrel of Regina's arm flashing through his mind, the memory of the bullet tearing through his flesh. "You sure. "Yes. I plan on spending most of my time at the Diogenes Club." "Ok well if that's what you think is best. Stay away from any trains." Some hesitant chuckles filled the room. They thought of Basil pulling the emergency stop cord on the Orient Express as an enormous purple spider rampaged down the length of the train. "Goodbye my friends. I will see you around." Lance said and then turned to leave, thoughts of hideous clowns running through Finsbury Square echoing through his mind as he remembered the first night he spent with them. "Goodbye, Lance." His companions said. Lance walked out the door and down the stairs of the Red Rat. The bald, large Spyder grunted at him from behind the bar. Lance thought of the past two months of hell that he had been through. He remembered the bony devil lifting the sailor off the deck of the Sea Wolf with its tail, blood dripping from the hole in the sailor's chest. He thought of the strange clowns called the Harlequinade and their rampage through Europe. Flashes of flying creatures beating their wings above the Orient Express, passed through his mind. And strange rag dolls marching on him brandishing knives that were as big as it. As he walked through the waterfront district, a large horn went off from the Thames. He jumped involuntarily; at first thinking it was a train, and then thinking of the rag doll from the nightmare realm trying to run over him in its steam engine. No this was for the best, he thought. It would be safer, it had to be. There was less of a chance of re-meeting Regina, less of a chance of being possessed by an evil clown, no fish people to torment him, and no possible way the rag doll which he had tortured back in Venice would ever find him at the Diogenes Club. He rounded a corner into the nicer areas of town and almost ran over a little girl. He apologized to her, and she smiled innocently up at him. "Would you like to meet, Jenny, my dolly?" she said holding up an ordinary little doll. Lance fainted. * * * * * "Get your feet off of my table," said Percy to the cute girl who appeared to be 16 as she placed her bare feet up on his coffee table, his new coffee table, which he had just bought to replace the one that had been tossed out his window by a hoard of zombies. She stuck her tongue out at him and said, "Shut up you prissy git." "Jamie! I won't have you talking with those London colloquisms. I don't care if you spent your entire life here, you aren't speaking like these stuffy Brits," Robin yelled back from the kitchen where she was pounding a hunk of beef. Percy was just glad that she had finally started cooking it. It had taken him over a week to convince her that he didn't like it bloody. He grinned back at Jamie, and stuck his own tongue out at her. She sat there and glared back at him and finally spat out, "You suck!" followed by "Mom I'm going out for a bit, be back soon." Percy shocked at the use of his own line against him, looked dumbfounded as the teen-ager raced out the door, before her mom could even voice a protest. Robin slinked over to the couch, a plate with some mostly rare meat on it, and sat down. "They grow up so fast, don't they?" "Why are you here?" Percy tossed back at her as he walked back into the kitchen with his meat to cook it some more. "Please, I have a daughter, you can't be expecting me to raise her on the streets? Now can you? Besides I caught the girl hanging out with a teen-age were-fox recently. We can't have her growing up with that type of influence." She bit into the meat, juice dribbling a bit down her chin. Percy sighed, wondering what he had done to deserve such wonderful houseguests. At least she kept the place clean. He saw a strange note lying on the table in front of him addressed to him. He snatched it up and opened it. "I was there the night you slashed open Geoffrey and Marsha's neck. Very nice. - Conscience". * * * * * "Well, there's this one. Oh and this one offers some of the best teachers. And this one has gotten some excellent recommendations." Kay rattled on, showing brochures for various finishing schools. Sam grunted as he and Ian Parker moved some dresser drawers along the landing. Kay, oblivious to their efforts, continued to try and point out various schools to both of them. Occasionally one would glance at whatever brochure she had and make a cryptic comment about it being nice. More often than not, Sam would respond with, "How much does it cost?" Sam and Ian were in the process of moving into Julian's and Melissa Whatley's apartments respectively. Throughout most of the move, Sam had been un-bothered by Kay after recommending that she attend one of the many finishing schools found in London. Now, however, that she had with zeal located several, she was trying to narrow down her choices and apparently Sam was to be a part of the decision. Sam and Ian grabbed another piece of furniture from Melissa's apartment and lugged it downstairs. Although most of Julian's furniture had apparently simply disappeared over night, Melissa (or Isabella as she was now) had not cared to remove hers. The two were in the process of removing the pieces they didn't want and moving them downstairs to Dead People's Stuff, Mary having said that she could use the spare furniture. "Does she ever stop talking?" Parker asked the cowboy. "Hopefully, once she gets to school, it'll be quiet for a while," he responded. As the two marched back up the stairs, Kay came running out with another brochure. "This one promises to turn you into a proper wife! Won't that be great Sam. I'll be you proper little wife!" she giggled and gave him a quick peck on the lips, not noticing his glower. Ian choked back a chuckle as the two continued moving a piece of furniture. An envelope with Sam's name fell out of it. Both glanced down at it in surprise. Sam bent over and picked it up. He tore it open and read, "I love how horribly you treat the poor girl. The whore at the Red Rat loves it too. -Conscience" * * * * * Simone pushed the cheap cherry aside, as Basil continued to work on his clockwork secretary. "I tell you, Basil, I don't see how you can condemn me, for building my creation, when you work so hard on your own." "My dear, you will never understand," he replied. He navigated around the rubble that was his office, a result of him spending too much time on fixing his secretary and not enough on repairing his home. "What's to understand? We both do the same thing, giving life to something that's dead, something that does not have a life. We just use different materials. How is your woman any less of an abomination to the purity of life than my man was?" "Simone, I don't use the bodies of former lovers for my secretary." "No, you use mechanical parts, thus making her even less human and more alien. Do you really think she will thank you for her existence? If you do, you are more of a fool than I gave you credit for." "The last Regina was very loyal to me. It is all programming anyway. Unlike your Gestault, there is no soul." "How do you know any of us have a soul? Besides doesn't the soul, leave the body upon death anyway. If that's true than my Gestault had no soul. Be careful, Basil, your nightmare self created a Regina that seemed to very much have a soul. I fear you will make the same mistake." "Simone, you understand nothing about me. Nothing about my work. When you understand the barest of science such as I do, then maybe you will understand that my work is nothing like yours. Now, I thank you for delivering the letter from Lance, but would you please leave me now." Simone got to the door and as she opened it paused. "I fear you are very much wrong, Dr. Montgomery. I do understand. You try to make life where there is no life, and if my experiences have shown anything it is that, perversions of life never prove beneficial. Be careful, Dr. Montgomery, we are in many ways, very much the same." She gave a tight grin and then walked through the door and down the stairs. Basil took another swig of cheap cherry. As he moved some papers on his desk, he revealed a strange letter that he didn't remember being there before. He picked it up, it was addressed to him, and opened it. "I was there when 'for the better good' you attempted to kill a man who had come to parlay with you under honest curcumstances. Ahh lying to one's enemy, making him think that you only mean to talk, and then striking him down. How duplicitious of you. -Conscience" * * * * * Dr. John Roberts rode in his carriage down the street. He turned the page in his newspaper. Suddenly the was a loud noise from the street and as he looked up, he saw a pale man not sitting on, but standing on top of a horse, one hand on the reigns, the other fanning several metal objects. Flashes flew out from his hand as he rode past and a gurgle came from Dr. Roberts's carriage driver. Dr. Roberts looked up to see the carriage driver fall off the top, as his carriage overturned, the horses spooked from the attack. The man on the horse jumped off it, twirling blithely in the air and landing a few feet from the doctor's carriage, overturned on its side, the horses running off down the street. The man walked slowly towards the carriage, bowler hat on, long coat whipping around him, a deathly grin on his face. Roberts crawled out of the carriage and made to bolt down the street, but in the barest of moments, two knives streaked through the air and embedded themselves in his eye sockets. Dr. Roberts fell dead, a gray formless humanoid on the streets of London. Another victim of the wight called Zimbooya and the ZDL. * * * * * "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession." "Yes, my child, please tell me your sins." Father Roberto said. "I allow my husband to perform horrible atrocities upon the city, Father. My husband is an important member of government and I love him dearly, but I know that he performs evil in the name of the government." "If you cannot do anything to sway your husband away from his evil acts, then you must leave him, my child. Do not condemn yourself for his actions." "Yes, father, I keep trying to persuade him to do right, but he seems set in his ways. I love him very much and I know that in his way he loves me and our daughter as well." Father Roberto then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to comfort the poor woman, trying to calm her sobbing, and let her know that God did care for her. She continually vowed to try and change her husband, although Father Robert suspected that this would never happen. After he absolved her of her sins and gave her her penance, he snuck out of the confessional to take a better look at her. He emerged to see a black woman leading off a small 8-year-old little girl by the hand. "Please mommy, don't cry. You always cry at church," the little girl said. "Don't worry Tamika, Mommy will be all right." Father Roberto recognized the girl as the daughter of Vinson Waggoner. * * * * * "Basil! I'm so glad I found you! I need your help with something. I found this recently and need you and your friends to help me locate where it leads." Robert Stevenson spouted out to Basil's amazement. The good doctor laid out a piece of old parchment and spread it out on Basil's work desk. The words "Treasure Island" were scrawled across it.