Inappropriated Funds
The deposing of Dr. Carver Wrackham Malleus, PhD, IFD.
A Bone to Pick
Doctor Carver Wrackham Malleus, PhD, IFD, scowled unevenly into his cocktail. The light pianoforte playing in the background, usually a welcome reminder of the echelons of taste and luxury that he inhabited, now felt merely frivolous and irritating. He cast a sour glare across the floor of the Chime and Chant, and fancied he caught a few pointed looks in his direction.
Pointed looks had been his lot of late, and it was so unfair. “Misappropriation of funds”, they’d said! Balderdash! He’d not even BANKED with the damn Claddages, much less placed his grant money in their care! Certainly, he’d skimmed a little off the top . . . But for all the money that his work had brought to the university (from the Emperor’s own hand, no less!), he’d been sure that they’d leave him to his spirits and creature comforts and look the other way. Now though . . .
That Volkova woman had something to do with it, he thought bitterly to himself for the umpteenth time. Or, no, PROFESSOR Volkova. Mustn’t forget our sensitivity training, oh no . . . But yes, it was her. She did something, somehow. Some kind of Severosi trick. But how to get the PROOF-
”Excuse me . . . Are you Dr. Malleus?”
Malleus turned to face the speaker, and his irate retort died on his lips at the sight of the delectable young woman who’d addressed him. A beauty, truly, one to rival his second ex-wife and to utterly bury his current wife and any of the students he was currently sleeping with.
“Why YES, for my sins!” he chortled with a booming avuncularity, bowing ponderously in a way that he believed charming, “At your service, miss . . .”
Casta smiled with vulpine eagerness as she took a seat next to him.
”Oh, I hope so, Doctor. I have a bit of a night planned, but I’d just LOVE your company . . .”
An hour later, Lord Scurlock opened his apartment door to find Casta with an unconscious Dr. Carver Malleus, PhD IFD, slung over her shoulder. She was smiling as she often did, but her eyes were flinty and cold.
”Hey boss, sorry to bother ya, but I felt like calling in one of my favors. Bit of a custom job, tell me if it’s an issue, buuut . . . Well, if I said I wanted this man to have a haunted boner, what could you do for me?”
Scurlock blinked.
”. . . I beg your pardon? A bo-“
A light of revelation seemed to overtake Scurlock’s face, followed by an almost-dreamy look. Wordlessly, he took the supine body from Casta.
”I think I have JUST the thing . . .”
Pure Poetry
CW: Body horror, reference to sexual impropriety
Dr. Carver Wrackham Malleus, PhD, IFD, opened the book with trembling hands. It looked like a children’s book at first glance: paper cutouts and simple images over whimsical font . . . and yet, of the assembled concerned letters, solicitor’s notices, and increasingly angry correspondences from granting agencies, this was the only piece of mail that mattered to him.
The . . . thing . . . below his beltline stirred as he read, a croaking staccato chattering underlying every printed word.
If it’s in a scheme or it’s in a trick
You can’t get rid of the Babadick.
If you’re really a nasty one, and you know what it is to take
Then you can be joined with a special one, a friend to cads and rakes
His name is Mister Babadick, and this is his schtick.
A trouser shift, and three sharp pangs
Ba-Ba-Ba Dick Dick Dick
That’s when you’ll know that he’s around, you’ll feel him there (you prick)
This is where he goes beneath your clothes, all up within your bits
Feel him when you’ve some lusty thoughts and you’ll just stop (you shit).
He’ll soon begin his REAL work, take heed of what you’ve read
And once you see what’s underneath
You’re going
To wish
You were dead
I’ll wager with you. I’ll make you a bet.
The worse your thoughts, the stronger he’ll get.
You start to change when he gets in
The Babadick growing right under your skin
Oh come, come see what’s in your briefs!
Watching from the window outside, Casta the bounty hunter took a moment to congratulate herself for taking that poetry class on a whim six years ago.