The final installment
***
Crack.
He catapulted into Abe, sending both in a rolling, cursing heap down the stairs. Whee, thought Alan giddily as they careened into the wall.
Crack.
Dizzy, Alan thought, grinning a little bit. Head hurts. Should sleep. Things became dark.
Or they would have, had Abe not been there.
Alan came to full awareness as a jet of water washed over him. He spluttered helplessly.
‘Wha-goddamn it, who – bugger it, what the fu-‘ Alan roared, trying frantically to wipe the water from his eyes. His hands felt his coat. ‘My coat! My trenchcoat! Bloody hell it costs a fackin’ fortune to wash thi-‘
‘Aguamenti.’
Another jet of water struck him full on.
‘Blast and damn you, I’m awake!’ Alan shrilled, thoroughly put off now.
‘Good, because we have more to worry about than your coat, Alan!’ Abe said. He pulled Alan up by his scruff. Alan, offended by the great indignity of it all, was about to make a snappy comeback when he looked up. The words died in his quite suddenly dry throat.
The thing that crouched now in front of the intrepid duo was most likely human. Probably. Possibly. It certainly retained the parts associated with mankind, though humans generally didn’t have pasty white skin that almost appeared ethereal, nor did their eyes normally tend to be completely jet-black. Technically, even with these mutations, one could assume that the thing was human in some way or manner.
What made matters very dubious in the exact positioning of the creature in the hierarchy of animals was that while, yes, humans technically could have unnaturally ethereal skin (say, if they were very very dead) or, just possibly, have jet-black eyes (eye-encompassing contact lenses, perhaps, or a heavy and painful application of black paint) humans had never been documented with a brain attached to their chest by a series of bloody veins that looked completely unhealthy.
Alan looked cheerfully to Abe.
‘Well, at least we found the thing,’ he said with a chipper tone that Abe thought did not befit the current situation the two agents were now embroiled in.
‘Oh hail Mary and God save the Queen, that does a bloody lot of good for us,’ he grumbled, eyeing the creature apprehensively. At the moment it seemed content to stare at the ground, slack jawed and vacant. Squinting his eyes, he could see…was the thing drooling?
‘Now now, one should not have the holy Mary in the same sentence with a profanity. And never with the Queen, god forbid,’ Alan chided, nervously watching the currently inert creature.
‘What spell d’you think we should use?’
‘I’m thinking something flamey.’
‘Pyromaniac. An Incarcerous would be more wise in this situation…’
At the word ‘Incarcerous’ the brain-man twitched.
With a soundless roar it leapt forward, hands outstretched and spittle flying from bared teeth. If Alan hadn’t seen the creature twitched he wouldn’t have had time to push Abe out of the way, wouldn’t have had time to realize that he had just placed himself in the path of the leaping creature.
He didn’t even have time to mutter ‘Bugger’.
The brain-man rammed into Alan. They hurtled towards the banister, raging nightmarish monster and shrieking, frightened man. The banister didn’t stand a chance. They landed on the wood floor with an audible thump, pieces of the banister raining around them. Having taken the brunt of the impact of both banister and wooden floor Alan’s back, and thus Alan in turn, was in a world of pain. He was still aware enough to realize that the brain was pulsing in a most disgusting and ominous way, and that the veins that connected the brain to Robert Freeman’s chest were slowly making their way out of the man’s skin. The brain sensed that Alan was a wizard, and a wizard was a delectable target when compared to an ordinary muggle.
‘No! Not good!’ Alan yelped. ‘Stupefy!’
Nothing happened.
Alan looked at his wand hand. It twitched as though in greeting. It was, unfortunately, very wand-less. His wand was nowhere to be seen.
‘Accio wand!’
His wand flew towards him from beneath what had once been the banister, but to no avail; Robert the brain-man batted it away with a flick of the arm. It struck the wall with a bone-cracking force that sounded very unhealthy. Glancing at his wand he saw that it looked distinctly fragile. He couldn’t risk Accioing his wand again, not in that state.
He flailed at the creature with his bare fists. His spirited attempt to was no avail. Despite several blows that would’ve surely left a lesser foe dazed, and an uppercut that Alan was particularly proud of, Robert didn’t even twitch. In desperation he kneed Robert where it really counted. The brain froze, its tentacles suddenly freezing up. Robert’s slack face twitched in a most ungentle manner.
Alan smiled with a glow of satisfaction. Whether it be magical enchantments, unnatural resilience to pain or control by a freakish brain from the nether regions of very dark places, a man kicked in the goolies is a man kicked in the goolies.
He kneed brain-Robert again. And again. And again. And just when it looked like he would succeed in escaping the evil creature, it discovered the obvious solution in preventing the blinding pain in its most precious of areas: it sat on Alan’s legs.
‘Oh come on! This is hardly fair!’ Alan yelled in outrage, unable to believe that his foe would stoop to such a level, ignoring the fact that he had already crossed that line four kicks and altogether too much blinding pain ago.
Satisfied that its prey was secure, the brain began retracting its tendrils from Robert’s body. Growling, Alan grabbed at the brain. Ignoring the sickening sensation of pulsing brain flesh he attempted to rip it to bleeding, gray pieces. Robert simply pinned Alan’s flailing arms to the ground.
‘Bad Robert! Bad Robert! Release me now!’ Alan had run out of all options and it was looking as though the brain was soon to have a new master when a voice rang out:
‘Impedimenta!’
Abe stood at the top of the stairs, in the space where the banister had once been. His wand flashed as he cast another spell. Alan whooped.
‘Abe, if I wasn’t stuck beneath this utterly disgusting creature, and didn’t fly that way of the Quidditch pitch, I would kiss you.’
‘Stupefy!’
The spells struck the brain-man with bone-cracking force, yet it stood stock still as the brain began to slowly retract from its host, otherwise ignoring Abe. Several bloody tendrils began reaching for the enfeebled Alan. Alan watched the tendrils with extreme trepidation.
‘Eh, Abe, mate, could you please hurry up and, I dunno, kill this thing? Like, soon?’
‘Incarcerous! Impedimenta!’
Ropes flew around the brain-creature, and Abe drew in breath to sigh when it burst out of its trappings with a shriek. This time it reacted to Abe’s spells. Faster than the human eye could track it took up a piece of banister and threw it with violent force at Abe. Abe fell with a sharp crack to the forehead. Alan’s erstwhile savior collapsed with a groan.
With no distractions to impede its work the brain turned its full attention to Alan. With painstaking tardiness it withdrew from its host, bloody slurping sounds accompanying each retreating tendril. The host body that had once been Robert Freeman didn’t seem to react at all to the invader’s retreat beyond looking, if it was even possible, even more stupid.
Alan tried to keep a cool head. You needed a cool head in these types of situation. Cool head, ice cold. Ignore the feeling of those tendrils working at your skin, ignore the really, utterly disgusting pulsing of the brain, ignore the sight of more and more tendrils slithering bloodily out of one body to slither into another; IGNORE. IT. ALL. He was a wizard, an Unspeakable, and they did not need to rely on their wands alone.
And then he saw the debris of the banister.
‘Accio banister!’ he cried. The brain/Robert, sensing something amiss, looked up to see every piece, scrap and splinter racing towards it. It let go of Alan’s arms to protect the brain. Blood ran freely as splinters and shards pierced its skin.
‘Hah! You filthy wanker, take that!’ Alan bellowed, and turned to summon his wand. It was only then he realized the flaw in his plan: pieces of the banister were everywhere, and were coming all to him.
‘Accio wand!’ he yelled desperately. His wand flew back into his hand. Unfortunately, so did many splinters and shards of wood.
Alan’s shriek of pain was obscured by a cry of, ‘Incendio!’
Robert’s back burst into flame. A shriek ripped out from his throat, his limbs going into spasms due to the pain. The wooden pieces of banister lodged deep into his skin also began to burst, causing terrible internal damage. The brain struggled fiercely to leave Robert as the flames began to spread. Alan’s screaming intensified as the flames reached his struggling legs.
‘Abe, you goddamn wanker, get this asshole off of me! I’m on fire!’
‘Ah, sorry about that,’ Abe, forehead gashed open and with blood streaming down his eyes, managed to sound trite. Despite the pain he managed to summon up the strength for another spell.
‘Wingardium Leviosa!’
The flaming Robert flew up into the air at a surprising speed, striking the roof with enough force to crack it. It went down, then up again at the roof, causing more cracks to form. Down, up, down, up. Alan giggled maddeningly at the sickeningly humorously scene before him, almost forgetting to beat the flames off his roasting legs as the adrenaline streamed up through his brain.
‘Come on Alan, move! I can’t keep this up forever!’ he bellowed at Alan’s struggling form below.
Alan attempted to stand up. Halfway through he slid alarmingly back down.
‘Sorry, sorry, that’s the blood pooling on the floor,’ he called back cheerfully. And there was indeed a rather large pool of blood, a great deal of which was dripping off of Alan.
Alan noticed the look. ‘No, don’t worry, it’s mostly the other guy’s.’
‘Right,’ Abe muttered. ‘I’m going to drop him, Crucio him and then we can capture the brain.’
Alan winced as he brought up his wand hand, which looked like a pincushion for splinters. ‘Ready whenever you are.’
‘Now!’ Abe cancelled his spell and the still-burning Robert dropped speedily to the ground, right into the pool of its own blood. Smoke and blood alike smothered the air and the hissing and crackling sound of steaming flesh resounded sickeningly around the room. From the smoke came a screeching cry utterly inhuman in it’s variance, and the horrid form of Robert reared up from his smoking ruin. His skin was horrifically marred, fiery welts boiling to the smoking surface before exploding in gouts of pus, where it wasn’t simply blackened beyond sane belief. It stumbled, child-like, smoke streaming from open wounds and sores, the brain on the chest beating wildly, as if in extreme pain.
Alan walked forward, wand outstretched towards the center of the stumbling Robert. Robert’s head looked up blankly at him.
Alan grinned a feral grin, a savaged wolverine turning suddenly, viciously on its surprised foe, turning the predator into the frightened, confused, helpless…prey. ‘Crucio.’
The brain went into spasms. It shook so violently, so forcefully, that it didn’t quite seem that the brain could hold such spasmodic force; it looked as though at any minute it would come apart at its bloody, organic seams. The surface of Robert’s skin was a nest of covered snakes, or so it seemed as the tentacles caught within Robert’s skin writhed jerkily, convulsively. Robert fell foaming at the mouth, mind unable to accept the sensory overload without the sensory-depriving effect that the brain had induced in his body.
Alan walked up to his helpless foe, a mad grin etched onto his feral features. He grabbed the brain and, with relish and insane pleasure drawn from the darkest parts of his heart, slowly squeezed. A whining hum began to grow from the very bottom of Robert’s chest; as the pressure increased so did the intensity and pitch of the humming.
A hand gripped Alan’s shoulder. He turned to see Abe, who was momentarily startled by the look in Alan’s eyes: eyes that flashed with a quick cruelty, eyes that screamed for sadistic pleasure.
‘What?’ he said testily. As he did so he briefly jabbed his thumbs into the brain and the humming turned into a screaming whine.
Abe pointed at the brain. ‘Eliminating the very thing we were sent to re-capture is generally not the best way to be well thought of by the administration.’
‘Yet, it is so tempting.’
‘Yet, it is a bad idea.’
Alan scowled. ‘Look, Abe, stop telling me this is the wrong thing to do. It’s not what is right that matters, but what I find the most enjoyable. Such as pushing my thumbs deep into this piece of shit as far as I can go, until I reach it’s heart, or equivalent thereof.’ As if to press the point, he jabbed his thumbs in further, eliciting a high-pitched squeal of pain, followed by what might be called in a human being, whimpering.
Abe simply glared at Alan.
Tense moments passed. The two men simply stood glaring at one another, a contest of will and fortitude. The brain whimpered intermittently.
‘Y’know, I always wanted to go to the Caribbean.’
Abe blinked once, twice. Finally he replied, ‘What?’
‘Well, Abe me friend,’ Alan began, relaxing his thumbs ‘If we bring in this beauty, we’ll probably get a raise. Money that could go into my Caribbean fund.’
Abe smiled and let out a deep sigh, echoed by the brain. ‘I knew you’d cave in.’
‘Who said anything about caving in?’ Alan placed his foot against Robert’s catatonic face. With vicious speed he gripped the brain, hard, and ripped it from Robert’s body in a welter of bloody fluid. The brain screamed once, twice, as its pseudopods left the flesh of its host violently and painfully. Viscera sprayed as it’s tentacles and various other paranaphelia shook pathetically at the force of its ejection. Just as suddenly it stopped; the brain grew still, its tentacles going slack, waving stonily in the gentle wind.
Both Alan and Abe looked at the still brain, then at one another’s bloody selves.
Abe idly flicked off several gory pieces off his bloody coat.
Alan coughed.
There was a pause.
‘Right, I’ll get the tea brewing, then.’ Alan cheerfully announced.
