A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Ichabod Temperance
charming on my way in a few minutes ago, is in some sort of trouble. I cannot see well from my vantage point, yet from what I can discern, the struggle grows in intensity. The copper and crystal of the entrance is only allowing a shadowy impression of the action outside, but it seems that the old fellow is fighting his fellow employees.
“My word!” I exclaim at the next sight I behold.
In an unnatural display of strength, the old doorman grasps, and raises one of the bellboys above his head, and bodily throws the poor lad crashing through the ornate front doors!
The dangerous doorman enters the wrecked portal directly behind his improvised missile, but this is not the same man who greeted me so charmingly in the minutes prior.
Something alien is in possession of the wretched fellow’s body.
With the orbs rolled back he looks upon me with sightless eyes.
“Eee- Aye -rRoark!”
The enraged entryman screeches, and lurches towards me, like a clockwork automaton whose brain gears have lost their ratio.
With certain knowledge that the possessed doorman intends to kill me, I fly from the lobby. The terrible, wrath-filled intelligence controlling Old Tom’s body is in a determined pursuit. I run straight through the palatial dining room and into the kitchen. Behind me, I hear the turmoil caused by the gentlemanly greeter’s reckless chase trailing at my heels. There is a relentless uproar of anger, amidst the screams and bellows of outrage surrounding my pursuer wreaking unchecked havoc at my heels. His hands are as claws, slashing into wreckage table, chair, and dinnerware. I am just able to elude his grasping fingers, as I push through the confines of the kitchen and out the back door into an alley. Heedless of any direction, I blindly run, bursting out into a busy thoroughfare.
Miraculously, I am not run down by horse or carriage in my headlong flight.
I risk a look back.
The stricken doorman has stopped. A heartrending howl is torn from the poor man, the first human sound he has made since being ridden by the foul spirit.
He shakes. He rises...??? ...
A green miasma issues from his mouth, as the depleted body falls, the thick smoke coalescing into a form I can hardly fathom.
An unthinkable creature that has no place in our world, forms.
Countless legs stretch into existence, and two bubbles expand, blinking open into a pair of bulbous eyes. Crammed with thousands of insectile visual receptors, these fill with life as the unthinkable abomination falls to the street, and comes for me.
Chapter 9 - A Stroll In The Park.
Ichabod
Punching a Knighted newspaper reporter in the nose is probably not the wisest thing I have ever done.
I sometimes act before I think.
Maybe a walk through an English park, and a tug on my old clay pipe, is what I need to settle back down.
Standing on the curb of ‘BirdCage Walk’, opposite to the entrance of the neatly laid out urban refuge, the sign informs me that this manicured meadow is Saint James Park.
“What’s this?”
A terrible cry is disturbing the frenzy of traffic filling the busy street.
The source is an old gentleman in the fancy coat of a hotel doorman is in the middle of the road. Horses rear up in fright from the tortured howl. It is the worst sound I have ever heard from a grown man.
He holds the unearthly scream long after he should have run out of breath.
He violently spasms, with severe convulsions.
He slowly rises into the air! ? ! ?
An icy hand grips my heart to see this man suspended in the air. My knees turn to jelly and I almost lose consciousness at the unreality of the sight.
A thick, green, and oily smoke pours from his body, leaving a desiccated corpse to fall to the ground.
Green mist churns in the roiling tumult of a small emerald thunderstorm, localized just above the fellow’s remains. For a fraction of a second, the image congeals into a horrible nightmare. A creature from beyond imagination is briefly glimpsed in reflective
“My word!” I exclaim at the next sight I behold.
In an unnatural display of strength, the old doorman grasps, and raises one of the bellboys above his head, and bodily throws the poor lad crashing through the ornate front doors!
The dangerous doorman enters the wrecked portal directly behind his improvised missile, but this is not the same man who greeted me so charmingly in the minutes prior.
Something alien is in possession of the wretched fellow’s body.
With the orbs rolled back he looks upon me with sightless eyes.
“Eee- Aye -rRoark!”
The enraged entryman screeches, and lurches towards me, like a clockwork automaton whose brain gears have lost their ratio.
With certain knowledge that the possessed doorman intends to kill me, I fly from the lobby. The terrible, wrath-filled intelligence controlling Old Tom’s body is in a determined pursuit. I run straight through the palatial dining room and into the kitchen. Behind me, I hear the turmoil caused by the gentlemanly greeter’s reckless chase trailing at my heels. There is a relentless uproar of anger, amidst the screams and bellows of outrage surrounding my pursuer wreaking unchecked havoc at my heels. His hands are as claws, slashing into wreckage table, chair, and dinnerware. I am just able to elude his grasping fingers, as I push through the confines of the kitchen and out the back door into an alley. Heedless of any direction, I blindly run, bursting out into a busy thoroughfare.
Miraculously, I am not run down by horse or carriage in my headlong flight.
I risk a look back.
The stricken doorman has stopped. A heartrending howl is torn from the poor man, the first human sound he has made since being ridden by the foul spirit.
He shakes. He rises...??? ...
A green miasma issues from his mouth, as the depleted body falls, the thick smoke coalescing into a form I can hardly fathom.
An unthinkable creature that has no place in our world, forms.
Countless legs stretch into existence, and two bubbles expand, blinking open into a pair of bulbous eyes. Crammed with thousands of insectile visual receptors, these fill with life as the unthinkable abomination falls to the street, and comes for me.
Chapter 9 - A Stroll In The Park.
Ichabod
Punching a Knighted newspaper reporter in the nose is probably not the wisest thing I have ever done.
I sometimes act before I think.
Maybe a walk through an English park, and a tug on my old clay pipe, is what I need to settle back down.
Standing on the curb of ‘BirdCage Walk’, opposite to the entrance of the neatly laid out urban refuge, the sign informs me that this manicured meadow is Saint James Park.
“What’s this?”
A terrible cry is disturbing the frenzy of traffic filling the busy street.
The source is an old gentleman in the fancy coat of a hotel doorman is in the middle of the road. Horses rear up in fright from the tortured howl. It is the worst sound I have ever heard from a grown man.
He holds the unearthly scream long after he should have run out of breath.
He violently spasms, with severe convulsions.
He slowly rises into the air! ? ! ?
An icy hand grips my heart to see this man suspended in the air. My knees turn to jelly and I almost lose consciousness at the unreality of the sight.
A thick, green, and oily smoke pours from his body, leaving a desiccated corpse to fall to the ground.
Green mist churns in the roiling tumult of a small emerald thunderstorm, localized just above the fellow’s remains. For a fraction of a second, the image congeals into a horrible nightmare. A creature from beyond imagination is briefly glimpsed in reflective
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