Baskerville Hall, Dartmoor, Devon, November 1999

"Are you sure that we need to be here, Mr Holmes?" I asked the Great Detective as a party of us were trudging along in the wilds of the West Country. It was a cold, damp November day and not really the ideal weather for a country walk.

"Yes, Mr Milligan. Watson and I have heard that the Hound has been seen again."

"I thought that you had found that it was a dog in phosphoric paint," Jigger pointed out, "which you promptly shot!" Jigger doesn't approve of violence against animals, even when they are trying to kill you. Not that he should worry on that score. A hellhound would probably be running up to have its head patted after about ten seconds of meeting him.

"Faking a haunting is elementary, Mr Johnson, as you should know from your Bureau. I suspect that it might be a copycat."

What a party we were, by the way. Not only Mr Holmes and his old comrade in arms, but James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Willie Garvin, Emma Peel, the Baker Street Irregulars (not the original street urchins, but a band of former young detectives led by Sherlock's great-grandson Dan Robinson) and the four of us from the Bureau. Oh, and Baskerville, the giant blag dog who was the fifth Irregular. A gentle giant, Baskerville. Whilst braver than Scooby-Doo, he is only marginally more dangerous, unless you have a very weak heart or a severe allergy to canine hair or saliva. Still, he looks intimidating enough. George had brought Timmy and Ranji was perched on Jigger's shoulder. Boko was looking after the rest of Jigger's animals back at the zoo that is his house. Jigger's house I mean, not Boko's.

"What is your plan, Mr 'Olmes?" Willie Garvin still speaks with a cockney accent, despite having lived in posh Maidenhead for several years. Top bloke, Willie. A good man to have around if the bullets start to fly. As is James, come to think of it. I assume that was why he invited them both, plus Willie's old boss Modesty and the formidable Emma, along. They aren't the sort to back down when trouble comes. After all those years in the espionage business (and Modesty and Willie were career criminals before that), you learn to be calm under fire.

"Is there another potential claimant, Great-Grandpa Sherlock?" Dan asked. If his nose was just a trifle more hawk-like, he would be almost a carbon copy of his illustrious grandfather. Tall, dark-haired and with a long, purposeful stride, he is a formidable presence matched with a supersonic brain. A worthy sort, Dan.

"Not that I know of, Dan."

"I say, Holmes, we didn't know Stapleton was either." This was Doctor Watson.

"If it wasn't for the family resemblance, I might not have deduced it," the Great Detective admitted.

For those of you who can't remember the incidents in question, may I recommend Doctor Watson's own account, as passed to his editor Sir Arthur? They tell what happened much better than I can, but I shall do my best to go over the central features. There was an old legend of Hugo Baskerville, Master of Baskerville Hall in the Civil War having sold his soul to the devil in return for his help abducting some poor woman. He was then taken to the abyss by a giant black spectral hound. Serves him right, to be honest. That was not very gentlemanly. After that, a rumour began that the Hound of the Baskervilles would be seen around the time each Master died.

In the 1880s, Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead near the footsteps of a great hound. His heir, Sir Henry Baskerville was nearly killed by a large black dog in phosphoric paint. It turned out that a local naturalist calling himself Stapleton was really Rodger Baskerville, nephew of Charles, cousin of Henry. Since Henry was childless, Rodger was the next in line. The odious oik was apparently drowned fleeing through the mire at night. Again, serves him right!

We reached our destination. In front of the hall was a SHIELD convoy, a familiar tall, slender redhead in a black catsuit awaiting us amongst others. Natalya Romanova was a Soviet defector, now a SHIELD agent under the Americanised name of Natasha Romanoff and the nom de guerre of the Black Widow. Like Emma and Modesty, she looks good for her actual age. The Royal Jelly honey is responsible for the British agents not looking their age, with the treatments given to Natasha in the notorious Soviet Red Room having kept her looking more like twenty-five than the forty-five plus she really is.

"The things you wanted are enclosed, da," Natasha told us. "I don't know what's in than cage, Jigger, but it seems to be friendly. I get this feeling…"

"Ah, he can communicate telepathically," Jigger admitted. "Everyone, meet an old friend." He pulled away the canvas covering the cage on one of the SHIELD trailers. Inside was a spectral large black dog wagging his tail enthusiastically. "This is the Girt Dog of the Quantock Hills…"

"Hang on," said Liz Spencer, a fellow journalist and one of the Irregulars, "I know the old legends. If you see a Black Dog, it is an omen of your death."

"Not this one, Liz," Jon told her. "The Girt Dogs of Somerset and Dorset love guarding playing children, guiding lost travellers and inebriated farmworkers back home safely and directing impoverished farmers to buried treasure. We befriended this one on a visit to the Quantocks a few years back."

"Pretty rubbish hellhound!" Mickey Denning, a third Irregular jeered.

I beg your pardon! An irate voice spoke into all our heads. I'm a heavenhound. We have standards to maintain, you know! Quite right, too! Not just any phantom dog can be a heavenhound.

They are an interesting group, the Irregulars. Alongside Dan, there are his best friends Liz and her husband Jeff Webster. Liz, having been raised an ardent women's libber, flatly refused to take Jeff's surname. They spend most of the time calling each other "chauvinist pig" and "little miss militant" respectively. It seems to keep them happy. Both are tall and fair, although Liz is slender and Jeff more muscular in build.

Mickey is short, a couple of years or so longer and with large protuberant ears and close-cropped black hair. He was nicknamed "Mickey Mouse" at school for obvious reasons. A loyal and determined sort, Mickey, but he can be spiky and impetuous.

A good bunch, then, and we get on well. After they left school, a former client Sir Jasper "Jim" Ryde of Old Park House, an old manor near their childhood homes on the outskirts of London, offered them an old outbuilding to convert into a headquarters. Through a mixture of high-tech state of the art technology and the gift for deduction that ran in Dan's blood, they are as much a force to be reckoned with now as they were then. Now, thanks to our old friend the Royal Jelly, they still look like twenty-somethings, instead of forty-somethings.

"Oh, one other thing," said one of the SHIELD agents. "Some naturalist has been nosing around.

"Given what happened in the 1880s, we thought you all might want to know about her."

"Does she claim to be a Stapleton?" Mr Holmes was alert now, leaning forward, his fingers steepled.

"No, she's young – and a bit odd. Says that she is called Miss Lovegood, I think."

"Da! I've met Miss Luna Lovegood. How do you say it? Charmingly eccentric."

"Sounds as if she's a friend of yours, James love!" Modesty's got a point, although usually James would be going a lot further than befriending someone named Luna Lovegood.

"I can't place her, Modesty, but then I meet women with similar names all the time!" James is honest to a fault. He always says you can always tell a traitor by the fact they cheat at cards!

I was looking around the place, when a blonde woman, no more than twenty or so, came up. [AN: Luna was eighteen and had finished at Hogwarts a few months before. RM] She had protuberant blue eyes, a dreamy expression and a necklace made from several radishes and a piece of string.

"Hello, I'm Luna Lovegood." The way she said her name had a definite West Country burr to it. Not the full Bristolian roll of the Hollywood pirate, but the warm Devonian version. "Yer be new around 'ere."

"I'm Rex Milligan, freelance journalist and scribe to the Bureau of Paranormal Research," I said. "You must be that naturalist the SHIELD agents were talking about.

"Are you after the Hound of the Baskervilles too?"

"Arrh, that I be! What pray tell do you want to do with him when you've caught him?

"I must dash. The nargles be abroad!" Well, honestly, I ask you…? What the dickens are nargles?

A little later back at the Manor, Sherlock Holmes and his great-grandson were beginning a conflab. "I have been unable to establish anyone with an obvious claim to inherit the title, manor and estate," the Great Detective admitted.

"If we assume that there must be a motive, what else might be going on?" Dan asked in response.

"My old friend Thomas Carnacki always noted that faked hauntings could be used to conceal other criminal activities."

"Fair point, Great-Grandpa. I remember that the faked haunting at Old Park House was concealing a treasure hunt.

"Mickey, I asked you to keep an eye on crime reports for the area. Anything unusual?"

"Nothing, Dan. There are reports of drug smugglers in Plymouth trying to export their goods through Exeter to London.

"That can't be it. We are nowhere near the sea."

"No, but assuming they wish to avoid the A38 and A30, the obvious route would be to go through the country roads through Dartmoor," George pointed out. "That might be a-doing out there." Being in Devon had deepened her own West Country burr as a Dorset lass.

"This road goes between us and another large house, King's Holt, on the way to Exeter," Jeff noted.

"I remember that house from when we Lone Piners got involved in those experimental flying saucer-shaped aircraft the MOD was working on," Jon recalled. "These country lanes are pretty quiet, so perfect for avoiding the police. [AN: The MOD is the Ministry of Defence. RM]

"Why would they want to create a scare story though? What would be the point?"

"Per the noticeboards," I remarked, "the House is due to start candlelight processions for local schools shortly followed by carols and mince pies in the Great Hall.

"If there are going to be children, parents and teachers descending en masse some evenings, there would be more chance of officialdom being around. If there are unexpected convoys of vehicles along the local roads, someone important might notice."

"That's it!" Mr Holmes exulted. "The game's afoot!"

We were shivering that night on the cold windswept marshes of Dartmoor, in a ditch hidden from the road. The SHIELD troops other than Natasha were back at the Manor, in case reinforcements were required. Lucky them! It was cold, wet and misty. Poor Ranji was left by the fire in the drawing room in the manor. Monkeys aren't evolved for Dartmoor in November. Neither are humans, quite frankly.

Suddenly, a female voice sounded from behind us: "What be a-doing out here? I be a-wondering if ye are expecting the Hound o' the Baskervilles to appear."

"Good evening, Miss Lovegood," Natasha responded. "This is SHIELD business. We are expecting a party of drug smugglers with a fake hellhound to go past."

"Arrh, I knew the nargles be abroad!" Miss Lovegood chirruped enigmatically. "They thrive on mistletoe, you know." Well, none of us did know. Quite frankly, we were beginning to wonder if she was quite sane.

There was a strange bang sounding and two men appeared to come from nowhere with a large black dog. Seconds later, a flotilla of Ford Transits came in sight. The vans stopped and men got out.

"How did those first two men and the dog get here?" Mickey asked.

"Apparition," said Luna, suddenly sounding much less dreamy. "One of them must have been holding the dog whilst he Apparated. How interesting!

"I assume that the two of them must have Disillusioned themselves."

"Crystallised Cheesecakes!" I groaned. "You are stark raving crackers!"

"Nyet!" Natasha chimed in. "I've heard WAND Agents use those terms. Those men are wizards, da?! And you are a witch?"

"That I be! Luna Lovegood, apprentice magical zoologist at your service!"

"Well, whatever," Jigger noted, "it is time to unleash the heavenhound!" With that, he motioned for the Girt Dog to begin to ascend the bank of the ditch.

My fellow canine, please come back to the light. I see that you are no hellhound or grave spectre, but a mortal dog made to look like one. I don't know what happened, but the Girt Dog's appeal worked. The fake Hound came trotting up, with wizards and smugglers following behind, bemused to say the least.

As they approached, the heavenhound came into their view, having reached the top of the ditch. One of the wizards produced a stick that I assumed was a wand and shouted "Abracadabra!" or so I thought. [AN: It was of course "Avada Kedavra!". RM] A green light shot hit the Girt Dog, but had no effect. Luna emerged from the ditch with a shout of "Stupefy!", her own wand levelled at that wizard. He collapsed to the floor in a heap, struck by a ray of red light from her wand. She then proceeded to engage the second in a kind of duel with lights, levitating objects and other weird phenomena.

A couple of the smugglers were aiming their pistols at Luna, but James' Walther PPK snarled twice and both fell lifeless to the ground, a red dot precisely between each set of eyes. Then the smugglers reached the ditch and the melee began!

Willie, the best knife thrower in the business, produced two knives from a harness around his chest and hurled them into the chest and neck respectively of two smugglers. Modesty, as lethal as her old friend, had her MAB Brevete automatic pistol in her right hand and her kongo assault baton in her left. She used the latter to catch one of our opponents under the chin and then deftly rotated her arm like a windmill blade to whack him firmly on the back of the neck as he fell. Brutally effective, that. Emma and James were using automatics, fists and feet to good effect, both having a good working knowledge of judo, boxing and some karate. Sherlock Holmes had pistol in one hand and his heavy cane in the other, still the force of nature that had the late Victorian underworld cowering in fear. Doctor Watson was offering covering fire. Natasha was tasering one smuggler with one of her Widow's Bites (on each wrist was an armguard with various handy gadgets thus called), before using the climbing rope of the other as a garrotte cord on a chap who was barking orders and seemed to be in command. One press of Natasha's knee, followed by a sickening snap and he spoke no more commands in this life.

As for the rest of us, Dan knows judo, Jeff boxing and Liz and Mickey are both handy in a scrap. Jon is blessed with the famous reserves of hidden strength associated with the tall and slender. George is a tomboy with a love of rough and tumble scrapping. As for Jigger and me, we played fly-half and right wing three-quarters respectively for the Colts XV at Sheldrake. We both know how to tackle! The smugglers who tried anything with us were disarmed and out for the count in no time at all. The dogs, mortal and immortal alike, were also using legs and jaws to good effect.

Meanwhile, other wizards in formal looking black robes began appearing out of nowhere. The leader seemed to be a tall bespectacled man of about Luna's age, with black hair as messy as Jon's blonde, piercing green eyes and a jagged scar like a lightning bolt on his forehead. As they arrived, the second smuggler, who was already being bested by Luna, seemed distracted and was easily felled at another shout of "Stupefy!" from his opponent.

"Hello, Harry," she said to the bespectacled wizard, "apparently a couple of wizards were faking a haunting to cover up a muggle drug smuggling ring. Not very nice of them, but there you are.

"Please can you be a dear and take these two into custody for me? Thank you."

"Of course, Luna. It will be my pleasure.

"But tell me who these new friends of yours are?"

"Oh, this is a Natasha Romanoff, an Agent of SHIELD. I've never seen her with a shield…"

"You wouldn't have, Luna. It's an acronym, although the exact words that spell out S.H.I.E.L.D. initially are subject to change. We know about them at the Auror Office, as we occasionally liaise with WAND, their Wizardry, Alchemy and Necromancy Department.

"From them, we have heard tales of the infamous Black Widow…"

"As we have of the equally infamous Master of Death!" Natasha retorted. "It's good to meet you, Mr Potter."

"Likewise. And the rest of you?"

Once everyone had been introduced and the Aurors (who apparently are the wizard police force) had taken the wizards to the Ministry of Magic for holding pending trial, the ordinary police were given a special delivery by SHIELD of the smugglers. The non-magical smugglers had their memories magically altered to forget anything about witchcraft being used. It took some discussions between Luna, Harry Potter (as you have probably deduced the bespectacled wizard was called) and a tall black man with a voice like Paul Robeson's named Kingsley Shacklebolt to avoid the same thing happening to us non-SHIELD muggles (as us non-magical types are called) on the side of law and order. Apparently, it was felt that we were all used to dealing with hush-hush business and could make useful muggle allies. They seemed particularly keen to avoid offending us when George said we were friends of Jason Blood, who apparently is classified as Avoid offending at all costs by the White Council. In any event, Kingsley as the Minister of Magic for the United Kingdom approved us keeping our memories, if we promised to share knowledge of their world with only a select group of people. We were happy to so promise.

Luna came up to me afterwards. I was helping Jigger feed the canines, well the mortal ones. The Girt Dog was wagging his tail cheerfully. He doesn't like drug smugglers much, so was glad some were out of circulation for a while at least (or, if they had been taken down by those of the spy contingent, probably permanently). The fake Hound was also doing better for a good bath and plenty of food. Doctor Watson had promptly adopted him, so all was well.

"Mr Milligan," Luna began, "my father runs a wizard paper, The Quibbler. I would like to arrange a meeting between the two of you. No wizard newspaper has ever had a Muggle Correspondent before. Would you be interested in the position?"

"Firstly, call me Rex, Ms Lovegood. Secondly, what does your father have to say about your offer?"

"Then call me Luna, Rex! I'm sure the thought of having a Muggle Correspondent would get my dad on board at once. Besides, he was forced into acting against his conscience in a recent wizard conflict. I want someone to keep an eye on him for me.

"There is something about you that makes me feel that you are the man for the job.

"Now, I must warn you that my father is somewhat eccentric…"

Luna Lovegood may be as mad as a box of frogs, but you can't help liking her all the same. [AN: it goes without saying, but I got the job. Xenophilius Lovegood is certainly eccentric, but a good editor. Luna is still, well, Luna, but is also one of the best friends I'll ever have. RM]