The Princess and the Wizard
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: There are Castles and castles in this, but I own neither. Rating: K Time: 1967 and elsewhen.
Author's note: To get a look at what Castle's unit looks like, go to http colon back slash back slash ctrp dash 3d dash 4thcav dot com backslash troop dot html Click on org chart.
"Now I'm afraid all of you ladies will have to dismount. We have work to do."
The teenager turned to get down, then turned, kissed Castle quickly and leapt off before Kate could do anything.
"Looks like you have a fan club now, sir." Doc said, pointing to a group of girls gathered around the young witch. She was telling the rest all about her adventures with the great wizard, Rick Castle.
"I bet they'll be taking down their posters of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and putting up Rick Castle posters." Doc said, grinning.
"Maybe I should have tee shirts made?" Rick said.
"What are tee shirts?" Kate demanded.
Rick pointed to a sign on a shop just down the street. It read, "Surfin' Susie's Tee Shirts."
Then Susie herself came out of the shop, wearing a blank tee shirt.
"How do you like it, oh, great wizard?"
As she spoke, the shirt changed to show Rick Castle defeating a giant single handedly, in color and in 3D.
"It looks like you're using my image without my permission."
Susie kept her smile on her face.
"Just a sec, sir. I'll be right back."
True to her word, she was right back, this time with a sheet of parchment in her hand. She handed it to Castle along with a quill pen.
"The contract is smoking, and it smells of brimstone." Castle said.
"The demon just got done with it, sir."
"You have demons draw up contracts?"
"Of course."
"They do all sorts of legal work?"
"Of course. Who else would do it? Don't you have demons do your legal work where you come from, sir?"
"Of course. We just call them by a different name."
Castle was about to sign when Kate grabbed the contract and the pen from him.
"Not likely." She said, lining out a clause.
"Forget that." She muttered, removing a whole paragraph.
"Do you really expect us to do that?" She said, lining out more.
She handed it back to Rick.
"Now you can sign it."
Susie looked at the new contract.
"That hardly leaves me with anything."
"Don't be absurd," Kate said, "you're getting a bargain and you know it."
Susie signed.
"It's a pleasure doing business with you, sir. And if you'd care to do some pleasure…" Susie saw Kate's glare and headed back to her shop.
"Sir, it looks like Martha and her people are up and about." Doc said.
They command group dismounted and walked over to Martha and the coven leaders.
"You killed that monster?" She said.
"Monsters and other vermin removed while you wait. That's us." Rick said. "And as long as you have the Potion of Potions, Meredith the Mad will keep coming after you. We'll be around, of course, but you never can tell, something bad could happen before we could stop it."
Martha looked at the leaders of the coven. They were all nodding.
"You can have it. Just take it far from here."
"Sure thing. One thing though, what is a Potion of Potions?"
"It's the most powerful potion ever." Kate said. "It takes hundreds of witches centuries to make even one ounce. You can use it for over a thousand different types of spells."
"Actually, one thousand, one hundred and eleven different spells." Martha added. "You can have thirty ounces of the Potion of Potions. It's all we have."
"Great. Hand it over and we'll be on our way."
As they drove out of town, the streets were lined with witches waving good bye and wishing them luck. Castle saw their teenaged witch friend standing in the crowd, waving and crying. He waved back.
"Where to now?" Castle asked.
"We go to Witch One. She's the original witch. They say she was here before the planet formed. She's old, mean and powerful. We'll need to be very careful."
"Really? How many nice people live here anyway?" He asked, sarcastically.
She leaned over and whispered in his ear.
"There's one nice person that I know of, unless you don't think she's nice."
"She's perfect." Castle quickly replied. "But how far away from Witch One are we?"
"About a day's ride. Then it'll be two days back to my home."
"Just two days?"
"We've been travelling in a sort of a circle. It'll be two days."
They stopped for the night a little way from Witch One's home, not wanting to arrive after dark. At dawn they got under way and quickly arrived at her home.
"You've got to be kidding me." Castle said, looking at the house through his binoculars. "She lives in a gingerbread house? With candy on it?"
"What do your witches live in back home."
"Condos paid for by their ex-husbands."
"I have no idea what that means." Kate snapped.
"Later. We have to go see Miss Witch."
The column pulled up in front of the witch's house and Kate, Rick, Alexis and Kemper walked to the door. Kate knocked. Then she knocked again. Finally, she knocked a third time, harder this time.
The door flew open, but there was no one there.
"Jayzus, woman! Why ere you wakin' me oop in the middle o' the night?"
They looked down and there was a small, blond haired, blue eyed man, dressed entirely in green.
"Excuse me, sir." Kate said. "But we're looking for Witch One. If you could…"
"She's no here!" The little man screamed and slammed the door.
Kate went to knock on the door again, but Castle stopped her.
"Was that a leprechaun?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I think we're going about this this wrong way."
He walked back to his track.
"Doc, do we have any Irish whiskey?"
"Irish? No, sir. None at all. How about some rum? I've got Cokes in the ice chest. Like everything else, the ice hasn't melted and we never run out of Cokes."
"Good enough. Grab 'em and come with me."
They stood outside the door and Castle spoke softly.
"I guess this fellow doesn't want to have a drink with us. We may as well leave."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the door opened.
"A wee drap, ye say? Why' din't ye say so, Boyo. I'm thinkin' we'll have a drink outside." He pointed to a table and some chairs that hadn't been there a few seconds ago."
They sat and when they did, they found glasses were in front of them.
"What kind of wine dee ye hev?' The wee fellow asked.
"It's not wine. It's called rum and we mix it with Coca Cola. It'd be better with some ice…" Castle stopped. An ice bucket had appeared next to him. "And some lemons." And there were lemons.
Castle began making drinks for everyone.
"Ye're a bit light ain the booze, ain't ye, Boyo?"
Castle agreeably doubled the amount of rum in the leprechaun's glass. As soon as it was done, the wee fellow grabbed his glass and downed it. Then he began coughing.
"Jayzus, Boyo! What's in that?"
"Rum. It's forty percent alcohol, which is a lot more than the wine you're used to."
"And it's magnificent, Boyo. Just magnificent. Kin I have a wee drap more?"
"Sure. We have a magic bottle. See? We filled up all of our glasses and the bottle is still full. Same with the can of Coke."
"Less talking an' more pourin', Boyo."
"Sure, Mister….?"
"Me name's Kevin Ryan. Boyo, and you?"
Castle introduced his party and himself.
Soon, Kevin began to sing, loudly and way off key.
"In Mountjoy jail on Monday morning,
"High upon the gallows tree,
"Kevin Barry gave his young life,
"For the cause of liberty.
"Another martyr for Old Erin,
"Another murder for the Crown,
"The British laws may crush the Irish,
"But cannot keep their spirits down."
The wee fellow grabbed the rum bottle and filled his glass and downed it.
"Oop the rebels!" He cried and immediately filled his glass again.
"Wha'd ye call this drink agin, Boyo?"
"Either a Cuba Libre or a rum and Coke."
To everyone's surprise, Kemper began singing.
"If you ever go down Trinidad,
"They make you feel so very glad,
"Calypso sing and make up rhyme,
"Guarantee you one real good fine time,
"Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola,
"Go down Point Koomahnah,
"Both mother and daughter,
"Workin' for the Yankee dollar."
"Where did you learn that?" Castle asked, only slurring his words slightly.
"I's an ole Worl' War Two song. Daddy sing's it alla time." Kemper replied.
"Boyo," Kevin interrupted. "Ye wouldn't be interested in sellin' me this foine bottle, would ye?"
"Sell? No." Kate said. "But we'll trade you the bottle and a can of Coke for a cookie. A big one from the witch's house. By the way, what happened to Witch One?"
"She foinally perfected the youth serum. Went off to Witch City and runs some sort of tea shop."
"She go by the name of Susie, by any chance?" Kate asked.
"Tha's her." The leprechaun looked around bleary eyed. "What was we talkin' aboot, before?"
"You want the rum and coke and we want a cookie from the witch's house. Oh, and if you have a little container so we can take some rum with us, for the road, you know, we'd appreciate it."
The leprechaun staggered to his feet, walked right into the gingerbread house, righted himself and went inside. They could hear him running into things and cursing, but he finally came out with a cookie that was three feet wide and a small barrel.
"There!" He said, sitting down heavily. "Air we even?"
"Absolutely." Kate filled the keg with rum, then demonstrated the bottle was still full and they all left. Behind them the leprechaun was singing A Nation Once Again.
In two days, they were back at the palace. Sergeant Esposito had reported that all had been quiet and that King James was still drunk and his wife still in the living death.
"Okay, we have everything we need, I hope. Kate, how soon can we get under way?"
"I'll have to read the Book of Books, but we should be ready in a few days.
That night Kate made sure that everyone saw her lead Rick off to her bedchamber. She made no effort to hide what they were doing there and the ladies in waiting of the court spread the news.
Finally, they were ready. Kate, dressed all in white held the Book of Books in her hands while the other objects were placed very exactly around Queen Johanna's prostrate form. She had been moved from her bedchamber to the throne room as Kate thought they might need more room.
She had just begun to repeat the words from the Book of Books, in a language that no one there had ever heard before when lightning crashed in the throne room and their stood Meredith the Mad.
"You're not going to stop me now, my pretty!" She yelled and advanced on Kate.
Rick raised his M16 and fired, but it seemed to have no effect on Meredith.
She turned to face him and laughed.
"It'll do you no good. I have a spell against your firearms. Cold steel is needed, but I have a chain mail suit that'll deflect any blade."
"Any blade?" Castle asked.
She just laughed and turned back to Kate.
Castle dropped his M16 and pulled his .45. He strode to Meredith and hit the back of her head as hard as he could with the butt of his pistol. That drove Meredith to her knees.
"My Colt is cold steel all right, but it has no blade. I think your spell didn't cover every possibility." He repeatedly beat her with his pistol. It was hurting Meredith, but not as badly as Castle had hoped.
TBC