All "Egan Buckley" (nee Miguelito Loveless) had to do, to get Count Manzeppi to talk, was to subject him to the hallucinogenic pollen of the Nicodemus flower. Following which, the not-so-good doctor rhythmically swung a Swiss pocket watch back and forth. Which the count was easily misled into seeing as a razor-sharp pendulum straight out of Edgar Allen Poe!
"I wasn't hired to assassinate you. I swear! I was simply transported here by the mystic power of the Black Obelisk of Ramses!!"
"And, where is this obelisk now?"
"That witch has it. The one in the erotically wrinkled long-Johns! Her feline familiar is in that Persian oil lamp that transported with me."
"You mean, this one?"
"No! Don't open it!! Don't...!!!"
"RRRRRRRRRRRROWWWWWWWWWWWWR!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Fortunately, for the ill-fated count, he was a firm believer in reincarnation. Which is why his soul transmigrated, through time and space, into the infant body of William Mackelroy. Born to Professor and Mrs. Henry Mackelroy--recently moved to Omaha, Nebraska, from Gotham City, and vacationing for the summer in Smallville--on the fortieth anniversary of Count Manzeppi's death.
* * * * *
THE HOG'S HEAD PUBLIC HOUSE,
HOGSMEADE, SCOTLAND
(MAY 8, 1945)
"You actually apprenticed under Count Cagliostro?" exclaimed Cassandra Faustina.
"Well, that's the alias he used when he came to England, looking for meteor fragments, near Wold Newton, Yorkshire," replied Dr. Cabala Spellcraft: "When I first met him, though, he was being addressed as 'Dr. Curtis Knox!' A U.S. Army medical officer who was assigned to autopsy a so-called 'Martian' recovered from a crashed 'airship' near Aurora, Texas."
The two alchemists were sharing a table at this currently over-crowded pub. She had been reading a special issue of THE DAILY PROPHET; the front-page article of which dealt with Albus Dumbledore's capture of the renegade wizard Grindelwald. Apparently, the latter had nearly triumphed over the former, due to the intervention of a fellow renegade occultist calling himself "Cagliostro" (a name that Spellcraft had grunted at, in recognition).
Fortunately, for Dumbledore, the American superheroine called "Wonder Woman" had intervened, as well! Defeating Cagliostro quite handily. Though she would never remember doing so, as he had blasted her with a memory charm, at the next-to-last moment.
"And, you say he claimed to have gained his immortality from a meteor that crashed in Finland back in prehistoric times?"
Spellcraft nodded: "In the Karikkoselka region."
"How strange! My reanimation and age-retardation processes rely on electrified sea cucumber extract. But, the voltage first has to be conducted through electrodes made of iron from the Lake Kaali region of Estonia. And, the ethnic folklore of that region seems to center around a similar meteor impact! Circa the 7th century B.C."
"Tell me; did some of the raw ore contain small crystals the same shade of translucent green as moldavite? But, which glowed in the dark, like radium?"
Faustina's eyes widened: "Why, yes!"
"Did a small percentage of these same crystals become a fluorescent purplish-black when super-heated?"
Faustina excitedly nodded.
Spellcraft then smiled: "My dear! How would you like to become my research partner?"
* * * * *
GOTHAM CITY
(JUNE 1968)
Florence of Arabia sauntered back into her bedroom. Proudly bearing the Black Obelisk under her arm like the ceremonial scepter in a beauty pageant. Her smile vanished, however, when she saw that not only had Little Batman gotten dressed back up. He was also trying to extract his now overgrown Bat-talkie from his utility belt!
"Hey! What's going on here? How come you're not hypnotized anymore?"
"To be honest?" he replied: "I don't know. Perhaps, when you dehydrated me with the Schmidlap ray, you likewise evaporated the chemical components of the Bat-gas in my bloodstream. But, in any event, I've had my free will for sometime, now. And, it's only through the sheer strength of that will that I've managed to pretend to acquiesce to your every erotic demand...without shuddering with revulsion!"
If looks could kill, Florence's mere glare would have crushed the shrunken Caped Crusader, like the proverbial bug, right then and there. But, a moment later?
She smiled!
"In that case; I wish you to become my permanently obedient little love-slave...all over again."
Batman raised his right index finger. But, whatever moralistically caustic reply he was about to rebutt her with was cut off. For, his body suddenly became paralyzed at the exact same instant both it and the obelisk became suffused with a fluorescent purplish-black glow!
When the glow vanished, Batman was able to move and speak again. And the first words he uttered were:
"How may I serve you, My Mistress?"
Florence grinned: "I wish you to slowly strip yourself, stark-naked, for me. Saving your cape and cowl for last."
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
SMALLVILLE, KANSAS
(JULY 4, 1876)
(JULY 4, 1876)
Chapter End Notes:
Should be needless to say: JKR owns and profits from anything and everything associated with the Harry Potter-verse.