The Revenge of the Mummy, Chapter Fifty-Five

by John Pirillo
Chapter Fifty Five

He still remembered a game he played with his father as a child. Tata, as he called him. A sign of respect. Usually one used that with one's grandfather, but his father was never one to stand on past traditions. Had he been, Harry might never have graduated from the school of humanity to become the fine wizard he was this day. Not that he was the greatest. Gandalf and Merlin still remained standards to measure up to, but they were both busy on other continents, and in other matters to have anything to do with his more mundane adventures.

As he mused on those thoughts, it never had occurred to him just what they might be doing on those other continents. He sat up straight on the park bench and lapsed into further adventures of fantasy on that angle of thought. Perhaps. Perhaps they weren't fooling around. Perhaps they were on adventures of their own. After all Mordor had been turned around for a time in the Land of Blackness that bordered Fairie, but not all things were permanent in this universe, as he had found out many times before.

Perhaps...there was that word again. Perhaps Mordor was even behind what was now  happening in the Greater Britains.  Her Majesty, Queen Mary of Scots, had made many enemies abroad with her harsh condemnation of the dark magics, creating bitter rivals for power. Not that any of that mattered, as those dark hearts wouldn't care for any kind of civilized culture in any event, or the Morgan Le Fayes and Saurons would never have made bids for power in this and other worlds.

He smiled at that thought as a lone and somewhat shivering pigeon landed on his bench and gave his lap of scones an appraising eye. He remained motionless to see what it would do. It finally made a leap of logic in its head, then with its wings and alighted in the middle of his scones, scattering them across the bench and onto the walk.

He could have laughed then at the expression that event would have caused on dear Watson's face, but he was more interested in seeing if his social experiment would yield even further results. His lack of motion kept the pigeon calm, even as it was flapping its wings in fright from what it had done. No, it didn't abandon its newly won perch and place of forage, but instead lorded it over the other pigeons who began zooming down from neighboring ice gabled rooftops to land in the snowy sidewalk at his feet and begin pecking hungrily at the remains of the shattered scones laying there.

Happily, he allowed the creatures their hunger. His own was not that strong. The events of the last two days had dwindled his appetite by a magnitude. A Mummy getting up of its own accord. Okay. Magic could do that. But reanimating itself? That just didn't make sense in any law of magicks  he understood. Even the great Merlin would ponder this one greatly, his thick white brows bouncing in frustration beneath his mane of thick silver hair.

Gandalf, a man he had met only fleetingly at a wizard's convention in Brussels, was not one to countenance conversation, nor flirtation with ideas. You either knew or did not know. It was as simple as that. He was no longer Gandalf the Gray or the White. He was simply Gandalf. A man who had faced magic more mighty than his own, but through his faith in something Higher than himself, had drawn on powers more mighty than any wizard to that point in time had ever wielded.

Having finished their frantic meal, all the pigeons about the bench and his feet, shot into the air in a wave of gray wings and leaping feet. They landed on the rooftops again, huddled close together, making their soft reassuring noises, eyes on him in case he had any more tasty surprises he might desire to share.

He laughed aloud then, no longer fearful of disturbing their fast. Maybe he would make this a regular visit for himself. It wasn't far from Sherlock's place on Baker Street, nor Challengers on Market, and the park was only several blocks away. He loved to visit Regent Park during the winter months, because of all the children and parents that played with them there. He would use those times to appraise his audiences of new tricks. The smaller ones that defied logic, but worked. For you see not all his magic was magic. Some of it was sleight of hand that only a very, very skilled eye and mind could ever figure out. He had one of the sharpest minds on the planet. At least that's what Lady Shareen would tell him in between laughs of joy when he played his tiny parlor tricks for her and the Jungle Lord, Lord Graystone.

Then that brought him back to the reality of why he sat there at that time, instead of went to the meeting he was certain was still going on at Baker Street. Too many loose ends in this case were starting to bug him. To distress his great mind. Not that he was thinking that thought, but he knew his mind was not an average one. Only one other, maybe two had minds similar to his. The lost friend, James Moriarity, who had vanished without a trace and was believed to have drowned at sea; and Sherlock Holmes, the new one that had come to take the old one's place who had been foully murdered by the now dead...may he burn in hell!...Moriarity, who cared little about the lives of any but himself.

Such an irony that James Moriarity would be the undoing of the man no cop, or even the great Sherlock Holmes could put an end to. Moriarity had been struck down like a blinded animal by a car driven by James Moriarity as he fled the law on his home world...an alternate earth somewhere out there among many that ran parallel to their own.

Which brought up another weighty ponderance for his mind. Just how many surprises, more surprises were there out there among those parallel universes. In the Indian Isles, they believed that God had created an infinite tapestry with every single possibility of existence that could ever be. It was so vast it was unfathomable to any.

He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. They burned from all the late hours he had been working on his magic formulas. When he had the help of Professor Langdon in taking out the advanced chip that had pierced Watson's brain, he had then fallen to the task, along with the brilliant, but good Professor Langdon...to the task of discovering where the chip had been made. It had been daunting to say the least.

So stressful had been the pursuit that one night the Professor had lost complete and utter control of his invisibility and had walked into a dining room with only the top half of his body visible. It had caused in instant panic and chaos which had come damn close to bringing down the British establishment, which had been a popular eating place for the Lords and Ladies of London for centuries now.

He shivered then. To this point the cold had been nurturing his thoughts, helping him to pursue the flights of investigation  he knew his mind must wind if they were to solve this problem. So it should be no surprise that he also wasn't paying attention to who was on the street and sidewalks about him.

The dangers about the town were not over. Had they been, he might have fortified the magical defenses he always kept about him, instead of allowing them to lapse because of fatigue and stress. He felt a hand grip his shoulder on the right and then one on the right.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" He demanded, wrenching free of the grasps. He stood up and backed away to look into the faces of what could be none other than zombies of the Mummy creature.

There was no sign of recognition on their faces, only an empty hunger that must be satisfied. He raised his right hand to summon his powers, then was struck from behind by something some powerful that he was slammed to the pavement. That was the last thing he remembered.