Stephanie And Ignatius' Finest Hour

Stephanie And Ignatius' Finest Hour

Prologue

"Let me down easy?!" snapped the middle-aged man in his cigarette-decayed voice. "You think that you were going to let me down easy by texting me?" He stared intensely at a moderately attractive young woman, who had her back against the wall within the confines of the alleyway. Whatever he was going to do, nobody would be able to hear, witness or interfere.

          "Well, I tried to call you, arrange a meeting...," the woman said slowly. She gulped somewhat as she felt the butter knife gently touch her neck, which was held shakingly by the man. "....but I couldn't reach you, is all. You must have been sleeping again."

          Her attacker snorted, even though she was most likely right. His frightening features were on full display. As he gritted his yellow teeth, he tried to speak more coolly, but his temper had already been ignited, and wasn't going to subside anytime soon. "Still,"he growled, "that still leaves no excuse for not going out with me anymore...,"he coughed roughly, then stated,"you didn't take any consideration of how I might feel!"

          The woman sighed. She was becoming frozen with the winds of the early spring weather, and it was nearly half-past six in the evening. Her favorite drama was on television. She simply wished for this to be over, and quickly.

          "For that!," the man announced, "I'll cut your neck open like a farm animal!" The man grinned wildly.

          "It's not you...it's me...," the woman shrugged listlessly, keeping her calm demeanour. "But, to be honest, you have a tendency to be a bit sensitive...," she whispered softly.

          There was a loud cacophony of noises from behind a door of an adjacent apartment. The door suddenly flew upon, scattering bins and litter everywhere.

          From inside the entrance, stood two shadowy figures, one tall one, another one the height of a small child.

          After a brief dramatic pause, the unknown duo stepped into view of the alley, and were illuminated by a nearby battered streetlight. The tall silhouette carefully navigated the discarded rubbish placed haphazardly across the pathway. The smaller figure simply skipped merrily into view.

          The taller figure was a woman, roughly late twenties to early thirties, dressed rather eccentrically. She casually placed her left hand into the pocket of her green trench coat, and with her free hand adjusted her white fedora hat. The smaller figure, was a dog. An Irish Setter, to be precise, a ginger canine with a long silky coat, and a sleepy glare in his eyes. He stood up on his hind knees. The woman simply nodded and cheerfully said "Greetings!".

          The dog looked swiftly around their surroundings, then spoke. "Y'know, Stephanie, I think we took the wrong LUAS train. This doesn't look like O'Connell Street....," His voice was high-pitched, like a young boy's, and his delivery was quite energetic for someone who looked easily bored and tired. He spoke with an accent similar to a loudmouthed country farmer.

          Stephanie frowned slightly, then tilted her head towards the situation occurring simultaneously in the alley they were standing in. "Well, there's the obligatory attempted robbery, violence and/or asking for directions against irritated locals that we've come to expect from our beloved capital, Ignatius." she rambled. It was clear Stephanie loved to plunder her thesaurus. She spoke in a hushed, weary, yet unusually chipper fashion, with a subtle Dublin accent running through her words.

          "Oh joy!" Ignatius exclaimed excitedly. "Speaking of traditions and whatnot, shall we put this almighty chancer in his justified place?"

          "Indeed we shall." Stephanie grinned.

          The thug in the alleyway grunted, and whirled around with his soon-to-be-in-more-ways-than-one ex-girlfriend. He held his weapon closer to her neck, and made subtle gestures with it. The woman had an apathetic look on her face, like she was annoyed more than anything.

          "You can't stop me, Heroes For Hire!" the criminal chuckled darkly, his eyes staring the duo down. "All I gotta do is just swing my knife and soon she'll be pushing up daisies."

          "Hmm...I knew I should have stopped at the florists!" the woman sighed again. "I'm such a scatterbrain..."

          Knowing that last word she uttered with take on a more grisly meaning if they didn't do anything, Ignatius turned to Stephanie. "Say Stephanie, shall I teach this bold guy the meanings of the phrases "mercy kill", "death wish" and "orbital fracture"? He had an air of naivete around him.

          "Sure thing, mo chara." Stephanie nodded, whilst tapping her sneaker on the ground with some degree of impatience. "But not necessarily in that order."

          As soon as Stephanie finished speaking, Ignatius was all over the attacker like a rash. With lightning speed, he punched and kicked the guy repeatedly, knocking the knife from his grasp as well as the woman, who rushed over to Stephanie for safety. The lady looked at her gratefully, then fled the scene. The Heroes For Hire could always solve your problem, provided you could find them, or more likely, they found you.

          Ignatius raised his arms in victory as the attacker lay beaten and bruised on the ground of the alleyway. "I'm not gonna lie Stephanie, but I feel pretty damn smug right now." He eyed the man's butter knife, and picked it up. He was entranced by its shininess. "Can I keep the knife, Stephanie?" he asked with puppy-dog eyes.

          "Now, why in the name of sporadic organ removal would I allow you to do that?" Stephanie sighed, irritated, almost like a mother.

          "But, it's so....entrancing....," Ignatius cooed in awe, as Stephanie pocketed the butter knife. "Do you mind if I use it only to cut toast, brown bread, cake and the like? How's about that?" he begged again.

          "Not if you don't mind me backing away cautiously from the kitchen table whimpering like a kitten with an inferiority complex each and every morning." Stephanie stated, shaking her head. "Come on, you little idiot, let's skedaddle back home." The two turned away from the visage that had just unfolded and sat down at the bus stop beneath the purple evening sky of Dublin City, waiting for transportation homeward.