The Dark City "A Professor Challenger Story" By John Pirillo

The Dark City

"A Professor Challenger Story"

By John Pirillo

It's this way."

He followed the voice in the dark, making sure to leave a chalk mark every few feet to mark directions. He wasn't going to get caught a thousand feet underground without knowing a way back. He'd been there, done that. His beard was driving him nuts though, the sweat from the heated passage dribbling from his jungle hat on his mop of thick red hair down across his eyebrows, cheeks and mouth, then neck and chest. He could live with the sweat; it was the dratted gnat bugs that were landing in his beard and sucking up the moisture, no surprise to him, just weren't in abundance.

"I'd appreciate a light."

"Not yet." The voice returned, steady and certain.

How in God's name and the name of Queen Mary of Scots had he gotten himself into this deplorable expedition, so far away from his friends? He could just see himself telling his tale to his friends on their usual night together. Sundays. They would talk about their sleuthing, explorations, experiments, and the souls they'd saved, or seen damned. Sometimes it was more of the first and less of the latter, and sometimes...far darker days in his mind...more of the latter. He might have a temper, he might be impulsive and compulsive at times, but his moral compass was tried and true. No life was worthless. None! 

Even that dratted...

"Owww!" He cursed as the top of his head scraped the roof of the passage, knocking his helmet off and taking a hefty bite into his scalp. 

"Sorry."

"Shorty!" He roared angrily, feeling the blood now adding to the sweat in his blood. He mopped it away with what he was sure was now a blood stained, dirt stained, moss stained, and sweat stained coarse shirt he always wore on such expeditions. Good for warmth and cold.

"Challenger, if you insist on being insulting, I will have no recourse, but to leave you in the darkness."

"Go ahead, Batwings!" Challenger roared back. "See if I care. You've kept me in the dark the past six hours, what's another six going back."

"Your humor is most distasteful. You know I don't have batwings."

"No, but I would expect better eyesight from you."

The man ahead of him sighed. "I'm a Dracula, not a bat, and I have neither high pitched sounds to guide my path, nor wings to fly."

"And yet you can see in the dark." Accused Challenger.

"True enough. A small gift from..."

"Are we close or not, you buffoon!" Roared Challenger, his temper getting the best of him at that moment yet once more.

Suddenly, the floor vanished from beneath him and he plummeted helplessly in the dark to an uncertain fate.

======================================================

"And it is my belief that the Draculas come from a subterranean civilization that once lived beneath the lands of Scotland." Professor Challenger announced to the assemblage of fellow scientists and philosophers.

Were it not for his personal notoriety as an explorer of great accomplishment, he would have been laughed off the platform; instead he was given a tolerant clap of hands.

He sighed inwardly, but bravely went on. "I am announcing an expedition to the highlands to explore a little known cavern, which I have every reason to believe, has a series of tunnels that lead directly to the lost kingdom of the Draculas.

A sturdy older man, Deputy Prime Minster Calloway, stood up. "Professor, am I to believe then that you think the entire vampire race stems from the Draculas?"

"Yes. I do."

The assemblage went wild with shouts and angry disavowals. He waited for it to crest, and then raised his hands for quiet. "And furthermore, I have a brave champion of our Victorian London, and an honored friend of Queen Mary of Scots, here to affirm my thoughts, as well as to help on the mission of exploration." 

He turned slowly to the side and a dark and elegantly dressed man swept onto stage and joined him.  The assemblage grew so silent you could hear a fly's wings. 

"Count. If you will?"

"It is my pleasure, Professor Challenger." The Count replied, then swept his cape over his right shoulder and eyed the men and women gathered before him.

He smiled. "Ah, I can see the Vampire Clan of Easterbury is here tonight."

A group of men and women to his right suddenly tried to look small in their chairs. He turned to the middle and smiled again. "And the Clan of Brighton."

Another group of men and women looked suddenly busy.

Professor Challenger's eyes widened. He'd had no idea so many of the dark ones had assembled to listen to him. Had he thought that would be the case, he might have approached his speech a bit more carefully.

The Count started to expose another group, but shrugged. "It's enough to say that if my friends of the night are interested, then where there's smoke, surely there might be....fire?"

The assemblage stopped squirming in their chairs and examining each other and looked forward again.

=======================================================

Professor Challenger was not one to be fearful of death and dying, and rather than plunge to certain death, he reached to his right hip and slung loose a  hook ended rope and flung it outwards. It scraped the walls of his plunge, and then with a huge jerk and a loud crunching sound, he was flung forward into the shaft's wall he had been falling into. 

Then a funny thing occurred. He felt someone breathing at his left.

"I had you."

"You let me fall sixty meters to what seemed certain death..."

"Oh Challenger, stop being so dramatic."

Count Dracula used his strength to lower Challenger the rest of the way.

"I was prepared to catch you."

"You might have told me there was a shaft in front of me."

"What! And miss out on all the fun of seeing your face as you fell?"

"I hate you!" Challenger snorted in anger and derision.

Before he could say more a bright light flared, revealing he stood at the doorway of an immense cavern. Inside was a city like none other he had ever seen. It glowed with an eerie green luminescence.

"The home of our forefathers."

"You mean yours!"

"No, actually I mean ours. Man was not always a topside dweller. And he was not always...well, human as you appear."

Challenger gave the Count a scowl. "Have you been holding out on me, Count?"

"Let's just say, I've been dancing around the truth somewhat."

Challenger would've said more, but the lure of exploration overrode his anger. He strode through the immense doorway and stood on the crest of a small rise that descended into the city. "Just imagine what treasures must still remain here."

"I thought you were a man of science."

"I am. A man of science who needs to pay his bills just like any other man. Treasure pays for my next expedition."

The Count nodded. "In that case, let's explore."

=====================================================

They finally reached the last structure of the ancient underground city. It was carved from the rock of the cavern. It had scrollings and depictions all about its walls, inside and out. Challenger was cooing like a happy baby, when he finished examining the chamber inside. It had a huge dais with a throne the size of a giant.

"In those days Dracula's were giants, Professor."

"And men?"

"As now. Cattle."

"Cattle. Good lord, man, how can you be so callous?"

The Count shrugged. "What was, is not now, what is, could not have been then. My ancestors were the first to go against the laws of the ruling Draculas. They were shunned and sent to the earth above, where they lost much of their height over time as they intermingled with the masses of men above."

"You sound sad."

"That's because we should have risen as a society to greater heights than raising humans as cattle to slake our hunger."

Count Dracula flung down the backpack he was carrying. "I intend to wipe out every visage of this civilization that ever existed so no other vampire can ever again use this place to gain power and position."

He opened his backpack and revealed String bombs. "Tesla made these for me."

"Dear Lord, what are they?"

"The cleansing of history."

=================================================

"Run! Run!" The Count hollered.

Professor Challenger was running behind him, the marks on the walls now luminous and glowing as he knew they would be.

"Why...run?" He gasped.

Then the world behind them shook them to the floor and a hammer of air pressure flung their bodies like balloons through the air.

Count Dracula caught Professor Challenger in his arms and ran faster, then leaped with all the strength he had as the very passage behind them began collapsing.

They tumbled into the high grassy knoll and its rocky fields as the short mountain behind them began to collapse.

"Run!" Count Dracula yelled.

"I've already run!" Professor Challenger shouted.

Then he saw the mountain began to collapse.

"Okay!" He agreed, and then began running again, his lungs and legs aching from the stress of his exertion.

Finally, they reached about twenty yards away from the collapse and it tumbled to a stop, leaving a huge smoking heap of rubble and an odd colored, green luminescent smoke that glittered and glowed in the dying sun of the highlands of Scotland.

"We made it." Professor Challenger sighed with relief. "But I had no time to get any treasure."

"Oh, but you did, my dear friend."

"What?"

"The greatest treasure of all....your life!"

Dick Tracy's Dilemna...movie

The Making of Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. - Chapter 4 (1941 Serial)

"Dead Man's Trap" is the fourth of 15 chapters comprising Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc, a serial produced in 1941 and released in 15 minute cliffhanger style increments.

Tracy discovers a clue suggesting a man at Trent's steel mill is working for the Ghost and goes undercover in the mill. He is quickly uncovered by the man and after a fist fight Tracy loses his suspect. The Ghost visits Council member Trent's home and forces him to give up his precision machinery plans, shooting Trent and rigging Trent's trapped vault to drop Tracy into a deadly pit.

Fractal Frenzy Art Gallery Number One hundred and fifty thousand...just kidding! by John Pirillo

(New) Something So Evil "A Sherlock Holmes Story" By John Pirillo

Something So Evil

"A Sherlock Holmes Story"

By John Pirillo

Gareton Forbes was a rich man. A very, very rich man. He had his fingers into every rich merchant's pockets, as well as many of the Lords and Ladies of the Realm. He was a facilitator. And as such he was welcome into any household or institution that needed money or wanted to expand its income to include more possibilities. He was good at what he did, and consequently, he was also paid well for his services. He was unique among his kind, because he had a secret. A dirty little secret that if it were it were to become known, he could very well lose not only his wealth, but his life as well. So he carried on his business discreetly, but with verve, never allowing a scrap of rumor or myth about him to linger anywhere, being careful to take care of any hints of inadequacies with great resolve and immediate attention.

That night he went about his business as punctiliously as usual, his overcoat draped neatly over his formal suit and tie, his hair combed in the fashion of gentleman. Rich gentleman. The burrs on below his ears pointing outwards. The hair across his forehead pointing down, but trimmed at an even length so as not to touch the eyebrows. He used a gold tipped cane to support his brisk pace on the slick sidewalks that night, knowing full well he was out later than he should be. He had declined a Tesla Cab, because the electric motor caused his hearing to pound mercilessly in great pain. He was extremely sensitive to sound, so it was no wonder that he heard the scuttle of feet behind him.

Muffled by furtive moves, but there nonetheless. He weighed in his mind an image of the pursuer and came up with six feet tall, broad shouldered, a touch inebriated, lower class, with a truncheon and perhaps a large knife at his hip. The tap of his shoes indicated he was a sailor, but the briskness of his walk indicated he was used to doing much physical activity, hence probably also a marine of some kind.

Interesting, he thought to himself, the hint of a smile beneath his brisk mustache that stuck out for a good five inches in both directions to a curled tip. He used wax to keep its shape and waxed it morning and afternoon to keep it shiny and brisk.

He casually, so as not to alarm the sailor, dropped his left hand to touch his midriff pocket in his overcoat. He held a special weapon there for times such as this. He wasn't scared. Not much did. He had a history of success in combat. Not in the military, but in the streets. He had grown up an outlaw in the distant Carpathians. His mother and father had perished in a mob of people who had driven them from their home, then later burned them to death.

No wonder that he had little love for the common man, as some of his more philanthropic friends did. He knew their worth better than most. Put fear in them and they would kill mercilessly and without thought. For they were not much more than animals, and that was a disservice to the animals.

The sailor made his rush.

Gareton swung around, his weapon in hand. A smile on his lips. "Well met." He exclaimed, not without a hint of irony, as the sailor looked down at his gut which had been sliced at least four times in the amount of time that most men would make one.

"Ey!" The sailor grunted in great pain, clutching at his stomach.

Gareton caught the giant of a man as effortlessly as if he were a child, and then lay him down on the slick pavement. He looked into the man's eyes. "Your night has not paid you well, has it, dear chap?"

The sailor tried to speak. and he put a finger to his lips. "Don't. You'll just make it worse. Would you like me to stop the pain?"

The sailor nodded with great pain.

Gareton smiled.

A block away Constable Evans was doing his nightly jog to keep his body firm and strong when he heard the scream of a dying man. He froze a moment, and then ran in the direction of the scream. He reached the area where the sailor had fallen, just in time to see a portly man run into an alley. He saw two things in swift succession.

The dying man on the pavement was spurting blood like a fountain. The running man had a gold tipped cane.

=======================================================

"I see." Sherlock said as he and Watson examined the body lying on the wet pavement. A thick fog was rolling in from the Thames and slicking the buildings with moisture and reducing visibility to a few yards.

Sherlock's hawk-like nose stood out in the contrasted light of morning. Harsh shadows filtered through the wispy remains of an overnight fog as he gathered samples with his tweezers, and then bottled them in small vials.

Watson, on the other side, was doing the same. Both men noted the ghastly wound on the sailor's stomach, which looked like something had come out, rather than that something had cut in. The flaps of skin on the bell hung loosely, revealing a large cavity within the man of stinking flesh and blood.

"His intestines are gone." Watson noted.

"And his heart." Sherlock also noted.

"Look, what's this?" Watson asked.

Sherlock looked closer. Both men could see an odd imprint inside the bloody cavity. No blood pooled there. It just gave off a slight steam, as if it were still burning into the body.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed.

Both men ignored the presence of the two Scotland Yard men observing them.

Constable Evans and Inspector Bloodstone stood to the other side of the body, taking notes as Watson took measurements and samples from the sailor's body. 

Watson took a tiny tape measure and began reading out measurements.

"Six two. About 150 stone. Blue eyes. Firm shape. At least it used to be. A percentage of recent alcohol in his system."

"Excuse me, dear Watson, how can you know that without taking blood samples?" Constable Evans asked.

"His breath."

"Oh."

Sherlock rose from his kneeling position, and then turned to the Inspector as Constable Evans dropped to a knee besides Watson and helped him turn the man's body over to take other measurements.

"This is the fifth such murder in the past year."

Sherlock's eyes were fixed on the blood which was scattered in a specific pattern on the pavement, even though it was melting away beneath the onslaught of fog moisture.

"Have you considered an occult crime in this?"

The Inspector gave him a startled look.

Sherlock paced the stains of blood, making footprints at the edges of it, until he made the Inspector stand back and look again. 

"A pentagram!" The Inspector cried out in alarm.

"Yes." Sherlock agreed. "As well as the wound on his stomach. Crude, but definitely the shape of one. And the burning one inside his body cavity."

"Constable Evans?" Sherlock spoke up.

Constable Evans rose, shutting his notebook. He came over. "Sir?"

"You say you saw two things?"

"Yes, the fountain of blood. The gold tipped cane."

"Was anything unusual happening in the blood?"

"Don't you mean with the blood? Yes, that there was. Now that you mention it. There was."

Constable Evans shut his eyes a moment, and then reopened them. "The blood seemed to be shooting upwards, but it never fell. Not until the murderer vanished into the alley."

"I see."

Sherlock looked at the Inspector, who blanched.

"I want to see your records, Inspector. Every incident. The location, time and victim. I also want you to do the follow."

He quickly wrote a note to the Constable and handed it over. Constable Evans eyebrows rose, but he nodded. 

"Certainly." He said, and then took off at a run.

=======================================================

"Mister Forbes?" Inspector Bloodstone inquired as the elegantly scrolled, but ancient door opened to reveal a portly man with a thick mustache, carefully waxed in the latest fashion of the very wealthy. The man stood there saying nothing. 

"You are Mister Forbes, are you not?" The Inspector asked, looking at the note in his hand. "Gareton Forbes?"

So swiftly the Inspector hadn't a chance of dodging the blow, Gareton threw himself into the Inspector and knocked him to the ground. "You should have kept your nose to the ground, Inspector. Now I shall have to bloody it for you. And worse" Gareton replied, as he prepared to smash the Inspector's head onto the porch cobblestones.

"I wouldn't." 

Gareton held back, searching for the owner of the voice. As he tilted to see who was speaking, we can see that something resembling a gory, red worm has extruded from his pocket, with great leering white teeth that are fang shaped. Sherlock stepped into view his weapon held at arm's length. Gareton laughed. "Only you and one man. You mock me!"

"Actually." Doctor Watson said, as he stepped into view from another side.

"There are more than two." Constable Evans declared as he too stepped into the light, revealing crossbow with a silver tipped arrow.

Gareton laughed. "Silver won't kill a vampire."

"No. It won't." Sherlock agreed, stepping closer. "But this will."

Sherlock motioned with a hand and Count Dracula dropped from above and snarled, revealing his teeth.

"Count!" Gareton growled.

"You always were a greedy fool." Count Dracula stated, then stepped over and effortlessly lifted the portly man off his friend, Inspector Bloodstone, who rolled away, gasping for air, as Constable Evans gently pulled him to his feet.

"Drat you, Sherlock; you never indicated he would throw me like a rag doll!" Then he saw the creature stuck halfway in and halfway out of Gareton's body. "Oh bloody hell!"

Sherlock kept his eyes on Gareton, as did Watson.

Gareton rose slowly, holding his hands out. "You know, of course, that vampire cannot kill vampire."

Count Dracula smiled. "I do. But you are not just a vampire, are you? You have aligned yourself to the Dark Ones."

The creature hanging from Gareton's body chose that moment to strike.

The Count's hand flew faster than visible and clutched behind its jaws, than jerked it mightily. It screamed just once as it was ripped from Gareton's body.

He flung it down onto the pavement and pressed it flat with a highly polished shoe, "You give vampires a bad reputation, Gareton Forbes, and that must stop!"

He made a motion with his eyes and a man of medium height stepped into view. He had hair all over his body.  "I believe you know each other?"

Gareton paled. "The High Council has nothing to do with this. A werewolf. You would have a werewolf stop me?" He acted boisterous, but everyone could see his words were now just bravado. He knew that the werewolf could tear him apart limb from limb, not just rip a blood worm from his intestines as Count Dracula did.

Sherlock lowered his weapon. "The violence ends here. This night. Now!"

"How did you find me?"

Count Dracula grinned as he stepped closer and began tying Gareton's wrists with cords of garlic. Gareton's skin made smoking, hissing sounds.

Count Dracula stepped back and took off his white gloves. "Good thing I always carry an extra pair. He tossed the burning ones, and pulled on a fresh pair."

Sherlock looked at the stunned facilitator. "You have a gold tipped cane."

"Yes. But so do many other wealthy men."

Sherlock nodded. "But you did two things which gave you away. First, you incised the shape of a pentagram on that poor sailor's body."

"The man was going to rob me." Protested Gareton.

"Two, you performed a ritual that only a very, very few know of. Your father, a well respected sorceror..."

"And you are the only living man besides your father who knows that your gold cane is one of a kind with a unique pentagram shape on its head..." Inspector Bloodstone continued. He nodded to Constable Evans, who whistled. A team of Constables came running. They immediately wrapped Gareton in a net of garlic. He snarled and thrashed in pain.

Another Constable walked from inside the home, carrying the gold tipped cane. He handed it over to Sherlock, who turned its head towards the Inspector, then Watson.

Watson nodded. "Matches the imprint within the intestines."

"This isn't the end. I swear it!" Gareton screamed at everyone.

Sherlock smiled. "Actually. It is."

=======================================================

Sherlock and Watson stood on the porch of 221B admiring the night skies. The air was clear that night of both clouds and fog. 

"There!" Watson pointed.

"Something so evil can be so beautiful." Sherlock mused.

They both stood there somberly a moment with their thoughts, watching an ascending comet leave Earth's orbit, and then as the front door opened, Mrs. Hudson peered out. 

"You two will catch the death of pneumonia out there. Come in, I have a fresh pot of tea and raspberry scones for the both of you!"

Watson's face lit up. His only thought at that moment. Actually two. Was that he was going to have steaming hot scones served to him by the woman he loved more than life. Mrs. Hudson.

They entered the building and the door shut behind them.

=======================================================

The round ball of Earth from space was both delicate, graceful and beautiful as a bullet shaped craft, shot from a cannon far below, made its way into orbit, joining a train of similar bullet shapes, each with a supernatural criminal inhabiting its shape.

Gareton looked out the only porthole he was allowed and screamed over and over as his bullet cell settled into orbit behind a dozen others.

=======================================================

Dick Tracy Water Gun Mattel Commercial

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome

Dick Tracy Movie Trailer

(New) Rich, Creamy and Smooth Eye Candy! Fractal Flame Gallery by John Pirillo

(New) Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. - Chapter 3 Golden Age Serial

The Baker Street Universe Cool Stuff!

More cool stuff about Sherlock Holmes.

A facinating interview with the notorious Professor Moriarity, which will undoubtedly surprise you.

Other cool things at The Baker Street Universe! Go there or I'll have Houdini turn you into a flower!

Enjoy.

John

Rocketman, soldier of the future and the past!

Harry is Rocketman. Fighting the Nazis at the end of World War Two he is involved in a top secret project that involves the top minds of the time, one of whom is Einstein.

The project involves him flying a jet suit that allows him to fly faster than the sound barrier and attack behind enemy lines.

He and his partner, Jet, fly missions into Nazi territory to sabotage their factories and munitions dumps.

Secret Intelligence reports that Hitler's regime is working on a series of weapons that can bring the world to its knees, and its Harry and Jet's mission to stop that machine before it can start.

Harry's suit uses a new kind of fuel that compresses time and space to keep it fueled. There is a flaw in the system and Harry finds himself caught between two worlds, the real one where the Nazis are fighting a battle to be the first to have the atomic bomb, and the other world where the Nazis have won the war and subjugated all of mankind.

Harry struggles to find his sanity in two different worlds, with the same villain, but with totally different outcomes.

Will he be able to survive. Will he survive as Rocketman, the most powerful weapon of the Allied arsenal, or will he fail to stop the total domination of the world by the Third Reich?

Buy it now at Amazon for only 99cents!

Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. - Chapter 2 (1941 Serial)

"The Prisoner Vanishes" is the second of 15 chapters comprising Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc, a serial produced in 1941 and released in 15 minute cliffhanger style increments. 

Saving New York city, Tracy and Billy Carr find Lucifer unconscious when they swim to shore and hold him in jail. The Ghost sends a fake doctor to examine Lucifer in the cell, handing off his invisibility device which the henchman uses to escape. Tracy chases the getaway vehicle but his vehicle slides off the road when oil sprays out the back of the getaway car.

(New) Some more experiments in Fractal Flames! Fractal Flame Gallery by John Pirillo

Interview with the Devil: Professor Moriarity...Part Three By John Pirillo

Interview with the Devil: Professor Moriarity...Part Three By John Pirillo

"The abyss of terror is never greater than that of the unknown which stands before you." Professor Moriarity

I flicked through some documents that the good Professor had dug up from his bedroom closet above the shop. I suppose you're interested in our meal, but only lightly so, so I'll brush over that and say only that it was pleasant and gave me more reason than ever to both fear and respect this master villain of the past. I say past, because he is not the same man today, he was in Victorian England...on that other world of which this interview mostly dwells, though parts have emerged into ours, but not so clearly, which I hope to explain as the interview continues.

What interests me the most is the eagerness of this man to expound upon issues of which I'd never expect a criminal mind of such vast proportions to dwell upon, so I will skip my own ponderances and leap to the rest of the interview.

The interview continues now:

"It was on August 1st, the year of our Queen Margaret, in the realm of Glacscony, that my father was born. A poor man of humble habits, but of brilliant mind and character. He was beloved by all, especially the poor to whom he administered. He was as you'll see a doctor, though not the one you find trained in the finer places like London, but one of hard necessity." Professor Moriarity explained, cradling a cup of steaming tea between his massive fingers, while Morina flitted about the kitchen, pretending to be straightening up things, while actually listening to every word.

I'm sure the young girl, who was not so young, had every reason to be as curious about her father's history as I was. I'm also certain that she was not what she seemed to be. For one in what appeared to be in their mid twenties, she gave off the air of someone of much greater control and intellectual development. I frowned inwardly, shaming myself for missing the words the good Professor spoke, but thank God I kept my cell phone on and never missed a moment.

"But that period of time was not friendly to the common folk. While the lords and ladies frolicked in their expensive castles and indulged themselves with fine imported wines and expensive foods, our people were just barely surviving, learning to live off their own sweat and blood and then having more than three quarters of that stolen by the Queen's tax collectors in the name of fairness."

He set down his cup, and I'm sure the next words were from an actual experience. "One day they came to my father's home, and pounded on his door, demanding to be heard. He opened it. He usually spent the Sundays of each week going over his potions and equipment, so he'd know what he needed to repair, or find yet again in the abundant forest nearby."

"Your father used homeopathic medicines then?" I asked, curious what he would say.

"Aye. And that's long before your hippies discovered the blessings of land and water in your own home country." He replied with a touch of amusement on his lips. Smooth shaven, his every expression was lit by a ruddy face, free of wrinkles or scowls, of which I had assumed he might have many, but was proven totally wrong over the course of the interview, except such times as he found something distasteful to reveal.

"You see, my father was part of a lineage that dated back to the great Paracelsus."

My eyes lit up. "That man is remembered in our world for many great things."

"And rightly so. His name came from the word meaning, 'next.' Which I later found out meant, next to God."

"Amazing." I uttered. I hadn't known that, even though I knew he was renowned during the fifteen hundreds for his knowledge of toxicology, medicine, philosophy, alchemy and botany. He was also considered an occultist, and believed to be part of a larger group of enlightened society, called the "Golden Brotherhood," who were famous for such men as Lord Byron, Bram Stoker, Blake, 

Shakespeare and many other notables I haven't the time or space to reveal here.

"Yes. He was close to God, as all such men tend to be. And he was also mentored by the great master of the occult, Merlin."

"You're kidding!" I  exclaimed.

"Not one tiny bit." He said, his eyes narrowing with amusement. I found that a peculiar thing, as most people's eyes widen.

"As you know from your own writing and research, Merlin, still alive in your Baker Street Universe, is a man of great talent and wisdom."

"Yes, I've always admired him for the great work he did in this country with the young King Arthur."

"Yes. Him." Moriarity softly said, then no more. He looked up. "My father answered the door and found himself confronted by the Queen's Men and the Tax Solicitor. It was demanded that he come immediately to the court."

"Why him?"

"He had a reputation that was growing and expanding beyond our tiny town. The Queen's child, her only child, King Edward was ailing. She was desperate and seized upon any and all rumors of those who might help." He laughed. "I suppose she would even have used Merlin had he been available."

"And was he?"

"No, he had other...work to do." He said in a hint of mystery in his tone.

"Interesting. So I suspect this turn of events led to your father becoming famous."

"More than."

"In what way?"

"He became the Queen's Personal Doctor, which unsettled the Royal Court of Medicine no little bit. I dare say if it wasn't for his intervention, in her wrath at their clumsiness in serving her so, she would have had their heads taken off, but he intervened begging mercy for them. But that didn't stop them from being banished from the country."

"But wouldn't that have hurt the people needing their service?"

He gave me that strange laugh again. "Son, your world is a miraculous place, but your people, even with all their modern medicines and devices are dying a slow death from all the chemicals these fools are pouring into you with the backing of the gigantic pharmaceuticals."

"Not all doctors are bad."

"No, but they ignore so much that is good, and the corporations of your country are despoiling the world far faster than any war might."

I considered that solemnly for a moment, stunned at the ferocity of his reply, then trying to get back on track, said. "So what happened next?"

"I was brought into the court and given the education my father never could. But alas, my education fell far short of what I had gained in my poor town. It was about etiquette and proper ways of speaking and eating at our plates. I despised the formality of it all and set about undermining such occasions in any way I could."

I gave him a surprised look.

"Look, son, the world is too short in our lives to waste it upon nonsense. The rich have their place, I'm sure, as do the poor so we can all learn to get along and learn from each other, but I do not now, nor ever have thought that foolishness was wisdom. The folly of Queen Margaret's Court was unbearable to me." He almost spit out.

He tensed, as if about to say more, and then decided against it. I felt a presence to my left and saw Morina watching him closely now, a look of fear on her face. I didn't know why at that time, though later in another interview, she did explain.

He finally sighed, and relaxed again. He leaned towards me. "It was in the midst of all that waste and folly that I decided to turn my hand to a more productive direction. You have heard of the legend of Robin Hood?"

"I have."

"That legend was started by me."

I was stunned.

"You see." He paused for dramatic effect. "I began the League of the Black Hand!"

And with that revelation I shall let my reading audience pause to consider all that's been revealed so far, and all that has likely been hidden. How could such an intelligent man, and seemingly kind as well, have gained such a terrible reputation in the world of Holmes. In my world there is a dichotomy of Moriarity's, but this man defied them both...the good and the bad. And you shall see how so in the next portion of this interview. I must retire now as my hand grows weary from the putting down of all these words and editing that which is not essential and frivolous, or perhaps dangerous for you to know.

Sincerely,

The Author and Interviewer

John Pirillo