A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) by Ichabod Temperance Page A
Authors: Ichabod Temperance
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sinking feeling to see one’s own wheel pass one by.
The unlucky locomotive Leviathan unhappily flings its parts in all directions as it slowly tilts to its unsupported ‘port’ side. With a terrific crash, we fall to the left side of the tractor, the axle angrily rending and carving an ugly gouge deeply into the pristine Parisian Boulevard des Saint Jacques. The plunge of unforgiving steel into the immaculate stone fills the wide street with its tortured objections. The wrecked locomotive’s whistle wails as if in mourning for her own sad death.
I leap off and hit the ground running. I manage to stay upright for several lengthy strides before succumbing to a series of uncountable tumbling spins. Somehow I come out of the tumble back on my feet and running at top speed. My errant wheel maintains its pursuit of the Doktor’s steamer. As the Doktor slows, and then stops, I see him grab the wrist of Miss Plumtartt, making to pull her after him. He is forced to release her and dive for his safety as the gigantic steel wheel from my locomotive crushes the steamer as flat as the Kansas prairie, making the once gorgeous mechanical carriage one with the street. Steam rises from the squooshed carriage. The sleek steamer is now as flat as a lake. Like a penny that’s been laid on the railroad track, and then run over by a train, she looks like a shiny steel puddle of water. Her tyres are forced akimbo, like a puppy that has lost its footing on a slippery floor. The villain and the heroine are now about fifteen feet apart, facing each other with the flattened steamer between them.
The howling wind and pounding rain will not slow me.
At a hundred feet, a sight that bends my concept of reality almost causes me to slow: almost.
From a distance that is too far for him to actually reach her, Herr Himmel reaches out to Miss Plumtartt. His arms stretch out in length. Further and further they extend, metamorphosizing into ghastly squidlike appendages. They have a squamous, boneless attribute. These articulate into a dozen tentacle arms that grasp Miss Plumtartt and lift her into the air with a crushing, viselike grip. The writhing, aquatic sucker-pod covered octopus legs smother Miss Plumtartt from head to toe.
A terrific red flash explodes with Miss Plumtartt at its center. The sphere of crimson energy bursts with a concussive scarlet bubble that knocks me back on my rear. Herr Himmel has been blasted back about twenty feet, and Miss Plumtartt also. I’m glad she was wearing her bustle!
While the concussion knocks me down, I barely touch the ground, as I am back on my feet immediately and running at top speed. I am intent on getting Miss Plumtartt to safety. Before either of them can recover, I have already snatched up Miss Plumtartt, and I’m making tracks in the opposite direction.
“Thank you, Mr. Temperance, I believe that I can now manage to run under my own initiative, sir.”
I hang onto one of her delicate hands in an effort to increase her speed. The buffeting wind and rain blows us along with the same indifference as the newspapers around us.
There is a lot of Deutsch cursing, behind us.
“Schweinehund Amerikaner! Anmaßende Schlampe!”
I hope that’s not a language Miss Plumtartt is familiar with. I am sure Herr Himmel is not using polite words.
“Oh, oh my, Mr. Temperance.”
“Pardon me, Miss Plumtartt, but you just shuddered as if gravely stricken. I know you've shown a propensity for awareness of unnatural occurrences, so I'm figuring by the look of your terrified countenance, something enormously horrible has been triggered. Even I can get a sense that something basely evil has been released.”
“Look there, Mr. Temperance!”
“I don’t see nothing.”
“Use your goggles, Mr. Temperance.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The spectro-enhanced vision reveals a huge plume of phosphorescent, green smoke pouring up from out of a narrow, tunnel entrance behind Doktor Himmel. A steady show of lightning
The unlucky locomotive Leviathan unhappily flings its parts in all directions as it slowly tilts to its unsupported ‘port’ side. With a terrific crash, we fall to the left side of the tractor, the axle angrily rending and carving an ugly gouge deeply into the pristine Parisian Boulevard des Saint Jacques. The plunge of unforgiving steel into the immaculate stone fills the wide street with its tortured objections. The wrecked locomotive’s whistle wails as if in mourning for her own sad death.
I leap off and hit the ground running. I manage to stay upright for several lengthy strides before succumbing to a series of uncountable tumbling spins. Somehow I come out of the tumble back on my feet and running at top speed. My errant wheel maintains its pursuit of the Doktor’s steamer. As the Doktor slows, and then stops, I see him grab the wrist of Miss Plumtartt, making to pull her after him. He is forced to release her and dive for his safety as the gigantic steel wheel from my locomotive crushes the steamer as flat as the Kansas prairie, making the once gorgeous mechanical carriage one with the street. Steam rises from the squooshed carriage. The sleek steamer is now as flat as a lake. Like a penny that’s been laid on the railroad track, and then run over by a train, she looks like a shiny steel puddle of water. Her tyres are forced akimbo, like a puppy that has lost its footing on a slippery floor. The villain and the heroine are now about fifteen feet apart, facing each other with the flattened steamer between them.
The howling wind and pounding rain will not slow me.
At a hundred feet, a sight that bends my concept of reality almost causes me to slow: almost.
From a distance that is too far for him to actually reach her, Herr Himmel reaches out to Miss Plumtartt. His arms stretch out in length. Further and further they extend, metamorphosizing into ghastly squidlike appendages. They have a squamous, boneless attribute. These articulate into a dozen tentacle arms that grasp Miss Plumtartt and lift her into the air with a crushing, viselike grip. The writhing, aquatic sucker-pod covered octopus legs smother Miss Plumtartt from head to toe.
A terrific red flash explodes with Miss Plumtartt at its center. The sphere of crimson energy bursts with a concussive scarlet bubble that knocks me back on my rear. Herr Himmel has been blasted back about twenty feet, and Miss Plumtartt also. I’m glad she was wearing her bustle!
While the concussion knocks me down, I barely touch the ground, as I am back on my feet immediately and running at top speed. I am intent on getting Miss Plumtartt to safety. Before either of them can recover, I have already snatched up Miss Plumtartt, and I’m making tracks in the opposite direction.
“Thank you, Mr. Temperance, I believe that I can now manage to run under my own initiative, sir.”
I hang onto one of her delicate hands in an effort to increase her speed. The buffeting wind and rain blows us along with the same indifference as the newspapers around us.
There is a lot of Deutsch cursing, behind us.
“Schweinehund Amerikaner! Anmaßende Schlampe!”
I hope that’s not a language Miss Plumtartt is familiar with. I am sure Herr Himmel is not using polite words.
“Oh, oh my, Mr. Temperance.”
“Pardon me, Miss Plumtartt, but you just shuddered as if gravely stricken. I know you've shown a propensity for awareness of unnatural occurrences, so I'm figuring by the look of your terrified countenance, something enormously horrible has been triggered. Even I can get a sense that something basely evil has been released.”
“Look there, Mr. Temperance!”
“I don’t see nothing.”
“Use your goggles, Mr. Temperance.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The spectro-enhanced vision reveals a huge plume of phosphorescent, green smoke pouring up from out of a narrow, tunnel entrance behind Doktor Himmel. A steady show of lightning
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