A Matter of Taste

"So the colonial thief-catcher and you silly kilt wearing, fools actually did manage to find me," hissed the vampire, exposing every inch of his long white fangs. "Amazing. Bloody incredible."

Incensed, the tartan-clad Scots cursed in anger and started forward, but the bats and rats hissed in dire unison stopping the invasion faster than it had begun. With the entire population of the remote village outnumbered thousands to one, even the alcoholic mayor and the junkyard dog wondered if it was time to try diplomacy? Immediately, the secret band of Freemasons in the group started writing a petition.

"Its a rum deal, my culleys," sneered the inhuman beast in a really bad Rookery accent. "Enter, and my servants will tear you to shreds! Oh, some may live to combat me, but will there be enough?" A truly devilish eyebrow raised in contempt and, self-consciously, he tucked the medical marvel of the recently invented Pierre Fuachard toothbrush deeper into a vest pocket. His personal hygiene was none of their damn business.

"I'm ready for battle!" it panted breathlessly. "Are you?"

Not exactly sure what a lot of that meant, Withers felt sure it was mostly insulting. In reply, the Bureau 13 agent fired both of his Colliers, the silver ball smacking the vampire directly in the chest to no effect, but the wooden ball exploding into splinters from an overload of gunpowder. Damn!

However, his blazing weapons triggered a barrage of blunderbusses, four-barreled 'duck foot' fowlers, horse pistols and muzzleloading rifles from the attending crowd, the strident discharges filled the mine with thunder and flame and boiling clouds of acrid black powder smoke. Wasting no time in a reload, J.P. Withers dropped his spent Colliers, and pulled two squat .66 Newarks from the voluminous pockets of his great coat and fired again. This time cold-iron balls. Then he dropped those and drew from his boots a matched pair of double-barreled Manton conversions. Deadly little barkers, indeed. Withers fired simple lead this time, but only used one pistol to hold the other for reserve. Even he could only carry so many weapons and still be able to walk.

The Scottish mob gave another volley from their blunderbusses and muskets. The assorted fusillade of rounds wildly ricocheted off the back wall and blasted the expensive clothing of the vampire to pieces.

Contemptuously, the man-beast brushed some imaginary lint off a riddled lapel, took a bit of snuff from his gold Nathaniel Mills box, sneezed and smiled toothily at them.

"Ouch," he chuckled.

The angry crowd made some more angry crowd noises, but much less sure of themselves this time. His flowing white beard bristling in fury, a determined piper doffed his tam o'shanter and started playing the bagpipes at full volume, but even that vicious attack seemed to have no dilatory effect on the man-demon. Deciding this was the appropriate moment to act, the barrister promptly took a huge swig of pure quill laudanum and fainted dead away. The priest began a lengthy exorcism.

Unexpectedly a flurry of wooden arrows twanged across the mine entrance. The shafts impacted everywhere except into the half-naked body of the muscular monster. At the rear of the mob, a doddering old groundskeeper glared hostility at his impressed gang of apprentice archers. Britons who couldn't fire a long bow? What was the empire coming to? In return, the clerks, cooks and coopers looked incredibly embarrassed. Well, at least they hadn't shot themselves in the foot again.

Inside the mine shaft, the laughing vampire twirled the remains of a bedraggled Spitfield cape about himself and was gone from sight.