Sir Reginald Once Shat A Man To Death

[benchilada]

For those of you who are relatively new to this journal, this is the latest story about Sir Reginald, Occult Bastard. Also, LJ's formatting sucks.

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“If you touch that chalice, so help me, you’ll be in a world of hurt.”

Rich threw back his head and let out a horrible, phlegmy laugh that reverberated throughout the house. He looked down at Sir Reginald—indeed, very down, since he was just over nine feet tall. He wrapped his hand around Reginald’s head and, with a grip strong enough to tear a bear in half, lifted the warlock into the air.
           
            “If you so much as think about magicking me, Reginald, I’ll punch your breastbone straight out your back. Do we have an understanding?”
           
            “I—”
            
            “Rhetorical question, you son of a bitch.”
           
            “Got it.”

            “You still talking?”
           
            Reginald shook his head.
          
            “You still moving?”
           
            Reginald stayed perfectly still.
           
            “Now I’m gonna take your little cup and get the hell out of here.”
           
            Rich tossed Reginald onto a nearby davenport then reached for the chalice…and stopped.
           
            “Aw, see, now I get it. It’s gonna be some kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark thing, isn’t it? I touch the cup and then angry Nazi ghosts come out and melt my face, right?”
           
            “It was actually the wrath of—”
          
            “I know what it was, Reginald. Now how do I pick up the chalice? Or rather, how do I pick it up SAFELY?”
              
            Reginald’s eyes very briefly flickered over to a chain mail glove laying on the sideboard. Rich turned and smiled.
           
            “You gotta work on your poker face, Reggie,” He paused for a moment and stroked his goatee menacingly. “Unless you want me to grab the glove, because it’s the real magical thing that’s gonna mess me up. Okay, I take it back; your poker face might be pretty good after all. So how’s this gonna go down, little man?”
              
            “RAAAAAARGH!” screamed Willy, Reginald’s resident ghost as he flew across the room at Rich, who punched him in the face.
           
            “Gah! How the devil did you do that? Why did that hurt? Nothing hurts anymore!”
           
            Rich grinned and pointed at a black band around the middle finger of his right hand. “This is a little ring I picked up in the mystic realm of Delaware a few weeks ago. Makes my fist solid to anything in the spectral realm. As a matter of fact…”

His hand darted out again and grabbed Willy by the throat.

“You wanna tell me how I can pick up that chalice?”

“With your hand, why?”

“Oh,” said Rich as he tightened his grip, Willy’s face distorting in pain, “we got ourselves Casper the Funny Ghost here.”

“No…I’m serious…he just…picks it up…” wheezed the spirit.

“You serious? And to think I was gonna bet on the glove.”

“Can I…go…now?”

“Nah, man, you’re my insurance. Anything bad happens to me then you’re getting it, too.” Rich looked over at Reginald, who was reaching for an enormous glass ashtray.

“Reggie, you think I can’t get over there and kick your head in before you can even lift that?”

Reginald sat back on the sofa and gave a sheepish shrug.

“I was going to say ‘At last, the Cup of Lords and Flame is mine!’ but people who do that shit always end up dying,” smiled Rich as he grabbed the chalice and was promptly struck by one, then another bolt of lighting.

Rich’s hand now permanently clenched around Willy’s throat, the spirit tried to talk but eked out nothing but a shrill whistle.

“Shit,” said Reginald as he walked over and peeled back the dead man’s fingers. “So what was that all about?”

“Well, it’s not like he could have actually killed me, so I thought that I’d just trick him into touching the Cup of Lighting.”

“Cup of Twice-the-Lightning, it seems,” Reginald grimaced as he looked up at his ceiling. Two perfect holes had been burned straight through it. He reached over the ring Rich was wearing and with some strategic bone-breaking managed to slide it off.

His face went flat as he turned it over in his hand, squinting to make out the marking on the inside surface.

“One ring to…no, sorry, misread that. It’s a…well, thank you for risking your life to save me, Willy.”

“Like I said,” he smiled as Reginald tossed him the ring, “It was only a matter of—oh. Is this really…oh. So he, uh…he could have really killed me again.”

“Yep. Sure, it would have cost him a week of his life, but if he was really after the Chalice of Lords and Flame, then a single week wouldn’t have been very important once he got it.”

“Well,” said Willy, slipping the ring into his pocket, “Why did you have the Cup of Lightning out, anyway?”

“Oh, I guess I was looking at it or something.”

“And how did he get through the mystical defenses around the house?”

“Probably tricked his w—”

“And the front door, which was unlocked?”

“Look, if—”

“Reginald, you can’t keep doing this. There are better things for you to be doing than electrocuting a half-wit who thinks that he can best you. Sharon is still terrified about that man who’s after her, and you keep—”

"She is NOT terrified," fumed Reginald, "She's one of the strongest people I've ever known, and she--"

"...can't do a damn thing against a magician she can't see."

“Do you want me to finish what Rich was doing to your neck,” he asked, looking for the ring.

“I still have it, Reginald, and if you were half as here as you pretend you are, you would have noticed. Look at you. How long since you showered or even changed your clothes? You have important things to do and you’re just sitting around, all but asking people to try to kill you. What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” said Reginald as he walked to sideboard and poured himself a very large sherry. “except sobriety and continued conversations with you.”

“You make me sick, Sir Reginald, and I used to sacrifice children.”

                Willy sank through the floor as Reginald threw his glass at him.

“I’m afraid,” mumbled Reginald before taking a long pull straight from the bottle, “that I’ve no idea what to do with my life anymore.”

                He sat on the floor, closed his eyes, and tried not to think about Sharon.

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