The Kensington Horror

Body

BTW, the paragraphs quoted in this part are from "Call of Cthulhu" by HP Lovecraft...

******************************************************************************

About four that afternoon, Freddie Mercury made a grand entrance with little Jada, who was bedecked in a bright yellow dress trimmed with glittery lace, complete with a matching bow attached to a headband. The latter would have been a little less comical had the baby had any appreciable hair.

"Daaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr - lings!" he trilled. "We're here!"

"Is that Jada?" Ned Lockwood said, coming in. "She's adorable."

"Well, of course she is, dear. She takes after her father," Freddie replied, touching the tip of his nose to the baby's. "Why she even has my nose --- AAAH!" He let out a startled operatic yell as Jada grabbed his nose - hard.

"Why yes, I believe she does," Ned chuckled.

"Ow. Kitten, please. You have a grip of iron," Freddie said, gently disentangling himself from the babygrasgrasp. Ned shook his head with a laugh, then went to get his phone.
Freddie leaned against the low wall in front of Maddy's desk. "What an afternoon, darling. I still haven't decided if it was good or bad."

"What happened?" she said.

Freddie set the baby down and refluffed her bow. "Well, first I ran into Mary while I was shopping with little Jada here. Darling, I'm perfectly willing to be civil, don't get me wrong, but she simply insists on being nasty. She even suggested that Jada might well not be mine." Considering that the baby had Freddie's huge, deep brown almond eyes, recognizible even at five weeks old, that accusation was more than slightly ludicrous. "Then, after I finally got away from her, who do I run into but an old boyfriend? It left me wondering what I ever did see in him. Well, he is actiactive, I mean --- broaduldeulders, killer abs, the most incredible mustache you can imagine, a dick like the world's longest beer can---"

"Just a little too much information, Freddie," Maddy sighed.

"Well, darling, he does. It must be at least six inches around. With balls like that little squeezypoo thingy there." He meant her stress ball.

Maddy picked it up, making a face. "Gee, thanks for putting that image in my head."

"Just gorgeous, dear. But nothing whatsoever going on above the shoulders," Freddie sighed. "He was with this horrid slab of Lancastershire beef, too, and all I could think was that I was just so glad to be away from that scene. Well, I shouldn't say that entirely. I do miss the excitement sometimes. The thrill of the chase and all, so to speak. But I could never have had with any of them what I have with Tigi. Never in a million --- " He trailed off with a horrified squeak as he caught sight of his reflection in the glaf Jif Jim's office door. "Darling, don't tell me I've been about looking like this! Why didn't you warn me the dreaded curlies were back?!"

"What curlies?" Maddy said, watching Freddie try frantically to smooth down his charmingly ruffled locks with his free hand. "Freddie, stop it. You look fine."

They both looked around as the main door opened again. It turned out to be Brian.
"Hey, pretty baby," he said, kissing Maddy hello. "I got those charts Tigi wanted, but I don't think they're going to be a lot of help. Oh, and, by the way------"

"Charts, darling?" Freddie came over, looking curious. "What sort of---?" He was interrupted when Jada started crying. "What's wrong, kitten? Did I wake you? Do you want your dinner? Or is it---" He trailed off. "Uh-oh."

"What? You haven't figured out nappies yet?" Brian tease

Freddie stuck his tongue out at the guitarist. "For you information, darling, you're looking at the world's ultimate quick-change artist. It's just that the bloody mens' room doesn't have a level surface to set a baby on."

"Use the ladies'. It's got a change table," Maddy said. "I'll guard the door."

~*~

She wound up following him in, sure that he was going to need her help - badly. To her amazement, he actually knew what he was doing.

"Just wet, darling," he said, sounding a bit relieved. Nontheless, he used several baby wipes, followed by baby lotion, oil, and a very thick layer of diaper ointment. Very thick.

"Freddie, isn't that overkill?" Maddy said. "It's going to soak through the diaper if you're not careful."

"We don't want a rash, darling," he told her, adding a bit more, just to be safe. "Oh dear. I hope we have more of this at home."

Maddy didn't point out that it looked like it had been a new tube before he got through with it. At least he was trying.

"Maddy, darling, don't these come in any other colors?" he said, holding up a diaper. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with white, don't get me wrong, but she's not wearing white. And they show. It's just so ---- déclassé."

"You're asking the wrong person," she said with a laugh.

Freddie smiled at her. "Aren't you BrimBrimi going to have kittens of your own someday?"

"Well, yeah, not not now," she said softly.

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "Brian is going to be a perfectly wonderful father, dear. Don't worry about that. We're not all like that horrid ex-thingy of yours." He paused, then picked the newly rediapered Jada up. "I never did think of being a father until I met Tigi and Opal. Tigi's little fledgling was four at the time, and they'd just come over from the States. Roger and I used to watch her while Tianna was in class. She was the only one who could change the cash register tape and get it to work on the first try." He fingered the baby's bow. "Opal thought I was her father. She thought that Tigi had brought her all the way to London so we could be together. I hated to have to tell her I wasn't, because it meant so much to her, but I told her I wished I was. When I said it, I realized I actually, truly meant it. I think I was more surprised than anyon---ow!" He let out a startled yelp as Jada grabbed a lock of hair and tugged. "Ouchiepoo. Kitten, please. It's atta to to something on the other end." He carefully disentangled his hair from the baby's fist. "Dear, with a grip like that, you'll be an expert ---- expert---- expert something."

~*~

As they were coming out, they ran right into Tianna.

"Hey, amis," she said, completely unfazed at the sight of her husband coming out of the ladies' room with Brian's fiancé.

Before either of them could say anything, Brian poked his head out. "Took you two long enough in there," he said, then, "Oh. Hi, Tigi."

Tianna burst out laughing. "Nice try, but I only worry when this one comes out of the men's room looking all primed."

Freddie laughed. "Look, kitten. All changed and clean for your mum!" he said to the baby, before leaning over to kiss Tianna softly on the mouth. "Hello, darling."

"You changed her? You sweet thing, you---" Tianna took the baby, then winced as her hand encountered something warm and sticky oozing out from under the diaper. "Uh-oh---" She cautiously looked at her hand and found her fingers covered in a gooey white substance. It took her a moment to figure out what it was. "Freddie, how much of this stuff did you use?"

"Now we don't want to risk a rash, darling," he pointed out. "By the way, do we have another tube at home?"

"Freddie, that was a new tube," Tianna started, then gave up and kissed his nose. At least he was trying. At at least it hadn't been what she thought for a second.

"Bri, did you get those star charts for me?" she asked.

He nodded. "Do I dare ask what you needed them for?"

"I need to know if they're identical," she replied.

"If they're ----- " He looked at her. "Does this have anything to do with what we were talking about earlier?"

"It might," she admitted.

Brian started to ask her if she really believed all that was true, but stopped. Before he'd met Maddy, he would never have thought that a quartz crystal, a blue candle and a few strategically chosen words could have cured a migrane.

~*~

Later, back at Maddy's place, Brian had the two charts spread out side-by-side on the floor.

"This is going to get us nowhere," he concluded. "They're completely different."

Tianna was looking at a sheaf of papers she'd had her dad fax over to Jim's office. Maddy looked over her shoulder.

"....the statuette, idol, fetish or whatever it was had been captured some months earlier in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting; and so singular and hideous were the rites connected with it, that the police could not but realize that they had stumbled onto a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of voodoo circles. On its origin, apart from the erratic and unbelievable tales told by the captured members, nothing was discovered.......no recognized school of sculpture had animated this terrible object, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its' dim and greenish surface of implacable stone. The figure.....was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisite artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaugely anthropoid outline, but with an octopuslike head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, amd long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unral ral malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with indecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the center, whilst the long, curving claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge forepaws which clasped the croucher's elevated knees. The aspect of the whole was abnormally lifelike, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome and incalcuable age was unmistakable, yet not one link did it show with any type of art belonging to civilization's youth - or indeed any other time......
"....they worshipped, they said, the Great Old Ones, who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. These Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea, but their dead bodies had told their secret in dreams to the firan, an, who formed a cult which had never died. This was the cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and would always exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the Great Priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'leyh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again under his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.
"Meanwhile, no more must be told. There was a secret which not even torture could extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few. But these were not the Great Old Ones. No man had ever seen the Old Ones. Their carven idol was great Cthulhu, but none might say whether or not the others were precisely like him. No one could read the old writing now, but things were told by word of mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secret - that was never spoken aloud, only whispered. The chant, "Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" meant only this: "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
"Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged, and the others were committed to various institutions. All denied a part in the ritual murders, and averred the killing had been done by Black-Winged Ones which had come to them from their immemorial meeting-place in the haunted wood. But of these mysterious allies no account could ever be gained. What police did extract came mainly from an immensely aged man named Castro, who claimed to have sailed to strange ports and talked with undying leaders of the cult in the mountains of China.
"Old Castro remembered bits of ous ous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists and made men and the world seem recent and transient indeed. Here had been eons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities.....these Great Old Ones were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape, but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right they could plunge from world to world through the sky, but when the starts were wrong They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They could never really die....."

"I was w. Th. The first year was 1907," Tianna was saying.

"Maybe this would be easier if I had a chart from then, too---" Brian mused.

"Maddy, dear, may I use your phone?" Freddie said. "I might be able to clear all this up."

"Go ahead," she said. She was in the process of lighting an incense cone.

He looked over her shoulder. "What are you doing, darling?"

"Dedicating the athame you bought me," she replied.

"Ah." He fetched the phone off the table and punched in the number. "Hello? Kash? Put mommy on, will you?" There was a pause, then, "Mommy? It's Fari---" He went on, speaking in whatever Arabic dialect he used with his parents.

"His mom is such a cutie," Tianna said, more to Jada than Brian, who was watching Maddy. "I don't think his dad likes me all that much, though."

Freddie got off the phone about twenty minutes later. "Darlings, I was right. There are only a few stars we have to look for!"

"What's a few?" Brian took the sheet of paper, frowning at Freddie's handwriting. "The Sta Star, the Fixed Star, The Star of Three, The Shepard's Crook, The Horse in the Sky, The Dragon's Star, The Star of Kadith, The Eye of----- what?"

"Yog-Sototh, darling," Freddie replied.

Brian looked at him for a moment, then back at the paper. "The Necromancer's Star and the Three-Lobed Star? This is going to help like all get ou He He rolled his eyes.

Freddie pouted. "I didn't write it, darling. I just quoted it."

"Quoted what?" Brian said, bewildered.

"The Third Book of Ozmid, dear," Freddie replied. "It refers to part of the Necronomicon."

Maddy, meanwhile, was finishing up. "The circle is open, but----" She broke off with a squeak. "What the heck?"

The others looked. Freddie let out a startled cry of his own. "It---it really does turn blue, dears----"

The athame's blade was glowing a faint but definate pale blue. Brian being Brian, his first thought was of a lightsaber.

"Maddy, hadn't you better put it down?" Tianna said nervously.

Maddy shook her head. "It's not that. It's reacting to something. Freddie wasn't too far off with his orc joke." She swept the athame around in a cautious circle. "It's not anything close by. But something's around here that shouldn't be." She looked at the blade. "Darn. I wish I knew who bought that Necronomicon."

~*~

"HOOBY HOOBY HOOBY HOOBY NOOBY NOOBY NOOBY NOOBY BOOBY BOOBY BOOBY BOOBY BIPPY BIPPY BIPPY NEKKY NEKKY NEKKY NEKKY HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA NIBBA NIBBA NIBBY NUBBY HOOBA BOOBA BOOBA BOOBA BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP NEKKY NEKKY NOGGA NOGGA GOOBY GOOBY GOOBY GOOBA GOOBA GOOBA BOOBY BOOBY NOOBY NOOBA HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA----"

"Ooooooooh, Mr. Cuddles, you're just like soooo funny and all! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Kitchy kitchy coo. Kitchy kitchy cutie-coo. Look at that sweet wittle face, oh yes, are you the pwettiest wittle kitten in the world? Oh yes you are you are you are you're just the pwettiest wittle kitten in the whole wide world! Oh yes you are you are oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes oh kitchy kitchy kitchy kitchity-kitchity coo-----"

"Put them together and what have you got? Bippity boppity boo," Maddy sighed, shaking her head. It was late the next afternoon and she was in a park near Tianna and Freddie's building. Freddie was leaning on the handle of a bright yellow pram, cooing to Jada, who was sound asleep, and Carlton was running around in a circle waving his hands and yelling, much to Vikki Barrett's delight.

"Pardon?" Freddie looked around.

"Never mind,he rhe replied.

Freddie looked over at Carlton. "What is he doing?"

Maddy shook her head. "Magic for dummies."

"HUBBA BUBBA NUBBA NUBBA HOOBY HOOBY NEKKY NEKKY NEKKY NEKKY NASTY NASTY NASTY NASTY NEKKA NEKKA NEKKA PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY ABRACADABRA HOCUS POCUS PARTYMAN COMMAND EVERYONE TO GET BUTT RAVING NEKKID AND PAAAAAR - ARARARARARRRR - ARARARARARARRRRR - ARRRRRRGHUUUURRRRRRRRRPPPPHHHHHHHH!" The Partyman Yell was interrupted by a 100 dB belch. "WHOAMAMA! That tasted like partywurst! When did Partyman party him down some partying partywurst?!"

Freddie made a face. "Vile, dear. Absolutely vile. Not to mention extraordinarily uncouth."

"You left out gross," Maddy added.

Freddie laughed, then looked at her. "Dear? Could I ask you a rather --- odd ---- question?"

"Sure," she replied.

He looked at his white clogs (he and Brian shared the same taste in shoes, apparently.) "Dear, well --- umm - Tigi's doctor has given us the go-ahead to, well, you know --- in a couple of weeks and I was wondering, speaking of love spells --- I mean, not one to make someone love you, I know you aren't supposed to do that, but----" He actually blushed. It was really quite charming.

"You want something to set the right mood?" she said.

"That's exactly it, dear!" He looked relieved. "Do you know of anything?"

"Come on," she said. "They have some great stuff at Mystic Grove. Their Aphrodite Incense is the best." Somehow, this was one subject she'd never imagined she'd be advising Freddie Mercury on, but she supposed even good old fashioned lover boys needed to keep their skills current.

"Aphrodite Incense?" He smiled. "Will that work?"

She gave him a mischievous look. "You should see what it does to Brian."

~*~

"Mmmmm, darling, this is divine! And we haven't even lit it yet!" Freddie was exclaiming, sniffing at a pink incense cone.

"It's sandalwood, gardenia, jasmine, white rose and passion flower, with a little bit of muskflower thrown in for good measure," Deana said, smiling. She took a sample cone and lit it, blowing out the flame. A deliciously exotic scent wafted through the store.

"Perfect!" Freddie picked out a 20-pack of cones.

"Here." Maddy handed him a pretty pink stone bowl shaped like a lotus bud. "It's the same burner I use. Just fill it partway with salt."

Freddie smiled. He'd already picked out some other items as well. "Darlings, this is wonderful!"

Deana laughed. "At least you're looking for normal stuff. Maddy here might need to have a serious talk with her weird cousin."

Maddy looked around from the bags of potpourri she was perusing. "Why? What did he do this time?"

"He was in here earlier today looking for stuff you don't want to be messing with," Deana replied, shaking her head. "Belladonna, black and white hellbore, gum bdellum, which isn't dangerous but hasn't been available for who knows how long----"

Maddy's eyes went wide. "God and Goddess! What was he trying to do?"

"He tried to tell me it was a love incense from the Kama Sutra," Deana said, rolling her eyes. "Wait. I wrote all that stuff down. Hold on." She went to the counter, opened the register and retrieved a piece of paper from under the cash drawer. "Belladonna, euphorbium, roots of both hellbores, mistletoe, gum asatraxaca, gum bdellum, sulpher, lodestone, brain of a bat or blood of a cat---" She made a face. "Personally, I prefer tragathum gum for binding stuff together."

Freddie made a face. "And he got that from the Kama Sutra?"

"I doubt it." Deana shook her head. "This stuff would kill you, never mind how it smelled. It sound more like a banishing nse.nse."

Maddy smiled wryly. "I'll stick with sage for banishing negative influences. Not to mention Brian."

Deana and Freddie both looked around. "Brian?"

Maddy giggled. "The last time I used the "Instant Karma" incense, Brian started sneezing so badly that he had to go outside until it cleared. I think the sage got to him." Luckily, the "boyfriend-banishing incense" had turned into one of their private jokes.

They looked around as the door chimes jangled. It turned out to be Brian and Roger.

"Maddy, great! Just the person I wanted to see!" the drummer exclaimed, running over to her. Brian followed, trying to walk lightly across the wood plank floor with his clogs, to no avail.
"I need some kind of a love potion or something!"

"Having trouble running the flagpole up to see who salutes it, dear?" Freddie inquired blandly.

Roger gave him a dirty look complete with pointed finger. "You are such a twat."

"What do you need a love potion for?" Maddy said. "And FYI, it's Samhain, not Valentine's Day." She started to add, "and since when am I the expert?" but decided not to.

"Never mind what day it is. I finally talked Pinky Torrance into talking that nutcase Trevor into recording their next album over here. Now I have to figure out how to get her to stay here for good," he said.

Brian looked at Maddy and Freddie. "Isn't he cute? Puppy love."

"Fuck off, May," Roger snarled good-naturedly.

"Come along, dear. I know just the thing---" Freddie led the drummer off, an arm around his shoulders.

Brian shook his head with a laugh and kissed Maddy softly on the mouth. "Hey, pretty baby, what's up?"

"That's what I'd like to know," she replied, showing him the list Deana had given her. "Get a load of Carlton's shopping list."

"Eeeew," he said, reading it. "What's that supposed to do?"

"He t to to say it was a love incense from the Kama Sutra or something," Maddy said.

"Looks more like an ancient formula for getting rid of cockroaches," Brian said.

Maddy laughed, then sobered. "I think I need to talk to him."

~*~