Gathering Storms: A Kentish Holiday, 23 Mar 1870
Thackery gets himself ordained as a priest of the Anglican Church and blesses over 20 pony barrels of Thames water to make it Holy. He ships this noxious water with our party as we go to Kent to visit his sister. She has taken homeless girls to foster and train up in domestic service. Surely she would have room for our party of five for a few days.
Drusilla is elderly and blind and though her household staff is very protective of her, they cannot keep her completely safe from Thackery's schemes, in part because she loves and dotes on him. He steals her valuable books to sell later. The staff do their best to steal them back before he leaves. In this current scheme, he spins her the story that Isabelle is going to devote herself to good works in Africa and they are all taking a holiday before she leaves.
Meanwhile, Thackery finagles safety measures to be built onto Drusilla's house against attack by vampires. Our goal is to lure Seamus Bourne to Drusilla's house and vanquish him there.
The barrels of Holy Water are mounted on trick shelves over the windows and doors. The Finches lay wire around the perimeter of the grounds and connect them to their equipment to detect Bourne's arrival.
Sleeping arrangements are made and Varney is thwarted in making nocturnal visits to the female household staff. He has to share his room with Thackery and the first night they are both woken by nightmares.
Belle is woken as well by beautiful music. The moonlight paints a path for her to follow and she gets out of bed to walk it.
The Finches' instruments go wild and they realize that Bourne is near. Thackery and Varney are also awake and together the party rouses to Belle's defense. Ariadne follows Belle and tries to keep her from going to Bourne. She has to slap the young woman awake at the end and smelling salts dispels the last of the compulsion. Bourne is in a carriage at the end of the drive and as the menfolk run to keep it from getting away, Ariadne tries to head off the horse. Thackery fires his pistol and spooks the horse into bolting. It misses Ariadne and the carriage flees the scene, taking Bourne with it.
During the daylight hours later that day, Thackery encounters the gnomish lawyer of Bourne, sent as Bourne's proxy to arrange a deal for Belle. If the girl can't come to him due to our interference, would Thackery be willing to let her go for money? Bourne is willing to offer 5 thousand pounds. Thackery counter offers with fifteen thousand pounds. The lawyer and Thackery fail to come to an agreement and the lawyer rides off emptyhanded.
Varney is still deep in denial over the supernatural and insists that Bourne is an extremely accomplished stage magician with prestige tricks he's dying to learn.
The rest of the party gird themselves for the night's attack and Bourne does not disappoint. He shows up at the gate with the lawyer to offer final terms. He is flanked by wolves of huge size and ferocity. Thackery, Varney, and Pieter Finch go outside to parlay. Thackery does most of the talking while Varney does most of the marveling at the stage effects. Thackery refuses to let Isabelle go to Bourne and Bourne orders his servants to attack.
Two of the wolves turn into his vampire brides. Bullets start flying. Holy Water is thrown. One of the brides is shot dead. The lawyer is wounded and makes it back to the carriage waiting in the street. More shots are exchanged and somehow bullets and barrel staves and thrown brick-a-brac saves the day. Even the sulfuric acid vats from the Finches' wet batteries are brought into the fight. All elements do some amount of damage. At one point, Thackery slams the front door shut, trapping Varney and Finch outside with the wolves. Ariadne nearly goes ballistic and rushes to defend her husband. She kills a wounded wolf outright with a thrown knick-knack.
Bourne is wounded by Holy Water and has seen his brides and wolves beaten back. He retreats, disappearing in a column of smoke, to Varney's amazement and professional appreciation. Thackery finds the lawyer in the carriage, mortally wounded, and shoots the man in the head, killing him instantly. The rest of the party is shocked and appalled. Ariadne is furious and throws a slap and a kick at Thackery for locking her husband out of the house during battle. Luckily for Thackery, she misses on both counts.
The rest of the town has been drawn by the noise of battle and Thackery manages to convince the town constable that matters aren't as odd as they appear, blaming the Irishman Bourne for the disturbance. We find out that he is staying with a rich widow nearby and we make plans to visit her once the sun is up, to track Bourne down in his lair, and finish him.
Once the sun is up and the party has breakfasted, they drive over to the widow's house and using Varney's reputation as a spiritualist and Isabelle's stated intention to spend her life in Africa, they gain admittance into the house. They quickly convince the widow that Varney is able to talk to her dead husband and will hold a séance. Is there anyone at the house to add to their circle before he begins? Bourne is mentioned and Thackery, Varney, and Finch go upstairs to invite him down. On the way up, Thackery pulls the flowers out of a large urn and blesses the water inside. He pauses outside the vampire's door to sharpen the shaft of a large ornamental (metal) cross into a stake. Then he and the other men go in and confront Bourne. Bourne is taken by surprise as Thackery douses him with the Holy Water. Before Bourne can recover, Thackery slams the cross/stake into the vampire and BOOM! The vampire explodes into flame and quickly burns to ash.
He leaves a man sized burn on the carpet. Thackery cuts a stub off a cigar and burns the end of it to support the story that Bourne burned the carpet while smoking. Then before the servants can arrive to investigate the noise and the smoke, Thackery steals all the loose valuables in the room that he can conceal in his coat.
The servants arrive. Thackery spins his story. The servants and the widow believe it: Bourne has skipped out on the widow, stealing her blind of valuables and trying to burn the house down to cover his theft. Had we not shown up and ruined his plans, the mansion might now be a smoking pile of rubble. We only regret we were unable to stop his escape out the window. So sorry Ma'am.
We do have the séance, and Varney does a magnificent job. The widow is comforted and Varney gives her back the focus object used for the séance. It's a man's pocket watch and Finch recognizes it for a Harrison Twelve model. He opens the cover and takes a look at the workings, notes the grasshopper escapement and other features. The widow is pleased at Finch's scrutiny and says she's very fond of it. It had been made for her husband by the finest gnomish watchmakers.
Finch looks at the watch a little more and gives it back to the widow with his thanks.
Once we leave and are out of earshot, Varney complains loudly that he still doesn't believe in this vampire nonsense and he cannot get over the fact that we might have killed the most accomplished stage magician in the world—what he wouldn't give to learn how Bourne disappeared in a column of smoke or that explosion of fire. What he wouldn't give to learn how to turn beautiful women into wolves and back again.
Because there's no such thing as magic or vampires or shape-changing wolves. It's all smoke and mirrors.
We get back to Drusilla's house and spend one last night before leaving in the morning. Varney opts to sleep in the barn, as befitting an Irishman, and the oldest of the foster girls joins him there for the night. The next morning we all leave for London.
The next week passes peacefully, until at the end of the seven days, someone knocks frantically at the Finches' side door. Curious, they open the door to see a cloaked figure on their doorstep, growling and crying in distress. They hurriedly let the person in and the visitor throws the cloakhood back to reveal Selene Dashwood …as a HUMAN. As she gasps and shudders in pain, she implores the Finches to help her, to change her back, to stop it. She tells them that she has had someone change her into a human but the plan has backfired and she's losing her—she hisses and lashes out, unable to speak rationally as she loses the last of her control.
The Finches stare in consternation at Selene as she scuttles into the corner with a snarl.
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