"I believe it's the type of party that you would call a banquet, sir," came the reply, delivered in a rather suave fashion from the impeccably dressed doorman, a smug smile creeping onto his face. However, just a few brief seconds after the pun escaped his mouth, he began to vomit violently as a result of its arrogant stupidity. He started convulsing disturbingly, foaming at the mouth and struggling for fresh oxygen. But alas! it was too late and he was dead moments later.
His co-doorman stood over his body and stared defiantly into the eyes of the original speaker. The eyes, red-raw and bleary, stared right back into his with the steely determination of a man who might have had one too many.
"I'm going into that party," he rasped throatily at the new doorman. "I may not be on any damn list you have, but I belong in there and I'm going in. You can try to stop me, but you'll fail."
"Sir, this is a banquet for the Steampunk Queen of Steampunk England; an important event celebrating her 75th year without being assassinated. If your name is not on the list, you could very well be an assassin trying to get a clean shot at her," the new doorman replied with a level of professionalism that could only be deemed as admirable. “I can’t let any man in here whose name does not correspond with one on the list.”
“Who said I was a man?”
“Sir?”
The stranger was standing in the darkness; just beyond the reach of the lights that blazed out of the windows of the National Steampunk Banquet Hall. By studying the silhouette, the doorman could work out that he was of short stature, perhaps only 1.5 feet high. Thinking that this was due to some type of pituitary gland disorder, the doorman had decided not to query it – lest he insult the midget. However, as he studied the shadow more intently, he could see that it was not quite in proportion.
“A dwarf, so,” he thought to himself. “I should be careful with how I tread around him; I do not wish to make fun of the poor chap.” A professional to the end. “But what unusual clothes he wears…”
He had just managed to make out that the short stranger was wearing an unusual hat; its brim cast yet another shadow upon his already darkened face and the top seemed layered – as if there were ear flaps tied on top of the hat. Below the brim’s shadow, a strong, almost snout-like, jaw jutted into the air and, clenched between strong, albeit slightly yellowed teeth, was a lit clay pipe. The cloud of smoke that rose from its bowl obfuscated the face further from any real detail.
There was some type of cape covering his shoulders. With a squint, the doorman quickly realised that it was a tweed Inverness cape (having just finished a cape-sewing course, the doorman was well adept at identifying capes from ten, sometimes even twelve yards away).
“Step into the light…” the doorman requested rather slowly.
The stranger was about to take a step forward, when the mammoth double doors to the NSBH burst open with the intensity that could only be delivered by authority. Through the doors stepped the Head of Steampunk Scotland Yard, Chief O’Brien, a 14 foot high stegosaurus with two kids, a mortgage and a stomach ulcer that just won't quit.
“Bones! What do you think you’re doing here?” the large stegosaurus roared at the stranger.
“Just doing my job,” came the reply from the shadows and, into the light, stepped Sherlock Bones, the best darn detective Steampunk Scotland Yard had ever had in their employ.
The doorman gasped as Bones was suddenly illuminated. Standing at just 1.6 feet high and 6.8 feet long, Bones was a velociraptor who always had his eye on one thing and one thing only: justice.
Having never seen anything of his like before, the doorman was stunned into silence; not because he was a dinosaur, but because his reputation always stated that he was clean-cut and professional. Now, however, he was a broken, dishevelled shadow of his former reputation. Unshaven, unkempt and with a demeanour that just screamed ‘Who cares? It’s only justice’, his cape was in tatters, covered with tobacco stains and burnt-out holes. His eyes were yellowed by either by their natural colouring or by the fifth of scotch that he now took a swig from. Either way, his vision seemed slightly askew as he took a few more steps forward until he was almost face to face with his old boss.
“Your job has been taken from you,” O’Brien seethed.
“Just like everything else in my life,” was the reply, delivered with a harsh, yet slightly self-pitying, teeth-clenching breath. “Why stop there, O’Brien? Why not take my dead wife from me, too? Oh, never mind. I forgot. She’s already dead.”
O’Brien raised one tree trunk-like leg and brought it down hard with a loud thump, crushing the skull of the man who used to stand at a door but now lay in lifeless solitude, like a lonely plastic bag caught in the breeze.
“I have had just about enough of your crap, Bones! Now get the hell out of here before I shove your tail down your throat and tickle that atrophying liver of yours.”
“I’ve got a feeling though. One of the old feelings I used to get deep down in my toe-claws. Something big is going to go down tonight and, unless you let me in, you’re putting everybody at risk,” Bones slurred before losing his footing and falling to the ground. “Shit-biscuit Fridays!” he grunted as he slowly tried to get back on his feet.
“A feeling? Your hunches started running dry months ago, Bones. Each and every single one of them just ended up leading us down dark and twisted alleyways and into the jaws of death. I’m not being dramatic either. Mahoney was literally swallowed by the Jaws of Death, that big garbage compactor at the end of No-Return Lane on the corner of Demise Street and Coffin Alley. And why? Because you had one of your hunches.”
“I thought that kid he was tailing was the scumbag that murdered all of those foxes!”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Look, go home, grab a shower, get some sleep and have a damn shave every now and then. You look ridiculous. Take a few weeks to pull yourself together and then come see me at Steampunk Scotland Yard HQ. Maybe I can free something up for you around the office.” O’Brien was trying to be nice, as evident by his offering Bones some type of job just there in the previous sentence.
“I’m not some desk-jockey, O’Brien. I’m the best darn-tootin’ detective Steampunk England has ever seen, heard of or smelled from a distance due to my distinct musk of amazing intuition and deduction. I can look at piss on the street and tell you what the culprit did for his fourth birthday before his parents divorced and left him a broken shell of a man that pisses on my streets. Throw me a bone and I’ll tell you what the animal’s last meal was. I’m a super hero super detective with super dinosaur sense and I don’t deserve to be patronised or condescended by a boneheaded behemoth like yourself. You know that the Yard can’t survive without my sexy crime-solving brain.”
Bones took a step back and eyed up O’Brien, proud of his little speech. He was still not aware that it came out in a string of incomprehensible gibberish and a few terms that were pretty racist both to Catholics and, somehow, Barbara Streisand.
It would have been impressive if it wasn’t so uncomfortable.
Bones unfortunately took the awkward silence to be awed silence at his eloquently delivered speech and, perhaps due to the amount of alcohol that he had drank at that point, or perhaps due to his over-inflated ego, he began to dance on the spot, moving his arms back and forth as the Steampunk Happy Dance took over his body.
It can not be stressed how uncomfortable this was for O’Brien and the doorman.
The doorman shuffled uncomfortably on his feet, hoping that Bones had yet to spot his ‘I heart Streisand’ tattoo, whilst O’Brien just made a low whistling sound, avoiding eye contact with the two individuals in his company. After an almost inaudible “Wow…just, wow,” O’Brien turned his large frame and walked back into the NSBH. The sound of the doors slamming snapped Bones from his dance and he ran up to them, pounding his little clawed hands against them.
“Let me in, O’Brien! Just let me in!”
But it was all in vain. Bones pressed his head against the doors, wet hot tears now beginning to well. He moved his face over the door, whispering “Let me in” over and over again. Again, this was pretty uncomfortable for the doorman who now envied O’Brien’s quick exit.
In a crumpled mess, Bones slid to the ground, defeated by the locked doors.
Then, a cat flap carved into one of the doors opened and, from within the NSBH, emerged a compsognathus. At just over 60 inches long and around 10 inches tall, he was a determined and spirited little thing. However, his heart dropped when he spotted Bones.
“Just look at you…you’re a mess,” he sighed.
Bones looked up, locked eyes with the compsognathus, and a large, almost goofy, smile broke across his face. It was pretty pathetic to be honest.
“Watson…oh my god, Watson! Look at you! With your little tuxedo on! And a little top hat! It’s like playing dress up with Steampunk Barbie’s dogs!” He reached forward and took Watson’s hat and placed it on his claw. “It’s like a thimble!”
Watson snatched his hat back and stuck it back onto his head. It wasn’t done with any malice though; he and Bones were old friends and were even partners of a sort at one stage. Watson was a physician who was called into Steampunk Scotland Yard to lend his expertise on a case. Whilst there, he met Sherlock Bones and the two of them quickly struck up a friendship. This may be because they were two of only four known dinosaurs living in the world, or it may have been down to their personalities, it’s hard to say and going into it might just ruin it really.
Bones was Watson’s child’s godfather and Watson had been Bones’ Best Man at his wedding. They worked together for years, Watson in awe of Bones’ sharp mind and wit; Bones always impressed by Watsons ability to be a physician even in the most extreme conditions (once even in a moving car!). Theirs was a friendship and a partnership worthy of novels, short stories, a film franchise and maybe even a Saturday morning cartoon? They’re dinosaurs after all. How cool would that be?
But now, their friendship had become slightly fractured. Bones became a peninsula on the continent of their relationship and now he had broken off and was drifting away as an island of regret.
“O’Brien told me you were out here. He also told me that you were a mess, but I didn’t think you were this bad,” Watson said in a caring voice.
“I’m fine! I don’t need anyone or anything!”
Watson looked back through the cat flap quickly and then hopped over to Bones.
“He mentioned something about a hunch you have, Bones,” he whispered conspiratorially. “What is it?”
Bones guffawed slightly and then exhaled deeply. His eyes took on a dream-like stare and he started to mumble something under his breath. Watson leaned n close to hear the last few words: “…assassination attempt…” before Bones passed out entirely.
And so it came to be that on the night the Steampunk Queen of Steampunk England was celebrating her 75th year of not being assassinated, Watson, the tiny but kind-hearted compsognathus stood over the shallow-breathing, but snoring, body of his velociraptor partner: the ingenious, brilliant and gifted Sherlock Bones.
ART WORK!
Amazing, super-fantastic, sexy drawings done by my good friend Jon McCormack. If you want to sexy up your blog with art work that tastes better than anything you could ever draw, please contact him!
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