IGMS Issue 17 by IGMS Page B

cage, crying. She hugged the spider in her arms.
    "He's had to overcome so much!" She kicked at the Daimyo, who was cowering against the wall. "Do you hear that, you Labrador mutant? How would you like to be an epileptic psychic spider and have nobody understand you, huh?"
    "I think Detective Bell has done very well," Jasmine said as she edged towards Einstein's cage.
    "That's right!" Capers patted the spider on its furry head. "You're a great detective!" She glared at the Daimyo, who was trying to move sideways along the wall. "Where do you think you're going, you big meanie?"
    Jasmine shot the lock off Einstein's cage and released her dog. It took her a while to remove his muzzle: the K9 unit was too busy gamboling excitedly around her feet.
    "Ohboyohboyohboy!" Einstein said once she'd got the muzzle off. "I missed you! But now you're here! Can we hunt zombies now?"
    "Soon, Einstein," Jasmine said. She hauled the Daimyo to his feet and clocked him on the jaw.

    Canticle 5: Gloria Patri
    ". . . and that's how we solved the Mystery of the Missing Ice Sculpture."
    Capers' feet were up on the dashboard of the Silver Stallion. Detective Bell skipped back and forth on her shoes, playing with the laces.
    "I never would have thought that memorizing the digits of pi would prove so useful," Jasmine said, scanning the horizon. Something was up.
    "I think there should be more zombies in that story!" Einstein said, perched on the coffin in the back seat and staring out the rear window. He wore a new bandana proudly around his neck.
    From inside the coffin, the bound and gagged Daimyo gave a muffled groan. Jasmine smiled, grimly. Without the Daimyo's psychic abilities, his followers would not be able to control the army of cellular madmen. The threat to the Wasteland was diminished. And the Order of the Serpent would no doubt be interested in the information the Daimyo could provide. All she had to do was deliver him to them.
    "We can't add zombies," Capers said doubtfully. "That's not how it happened."
    "But everything's better with zombies!"
    "Quiet, all of you." Jasmine narrowed her eyes. "This place is dangerous."
    In the silence they could all hear the Daimyo's nervous breathing. Einstein whispered something about zombies.
    "How many more creatures do we need to fight before we get to the abbey?" Capers said. "We've already had to fight armies of ninjas
and
cellular madmen
and
a giant mechanical anaconda. We need to solve more mysteries! Why --"
    The dinosaur attack came out of nowhere, just like they always do. There was a screech of metal as the mutant T-Rex tried to get a purchase on the car.
    "Dumb lizard!" Capers rolled down her window and aimed her slingshot at something Jasmine couldn't see. "We've got raptors, too!"
    "
Zombie
raptors?"
    Jasmine sighed and reached for her double-barreled Reptile Annihilator.
Deliver us from evil,
she thought . . . and prepared to bring the pain.



Frankie and Johnny, and Nellie Bly
    by Richard Wolkomir
    Artwork by Anna Repp
----
    I always ran down to the Depot at 3:37 p.m. to see if the Central Florida Express brought persons of interest to Duster. Also, I liked to visualize myself boarding a Pullman and steaming out into the world -- I would achieve éclat, then extricate my mother from the Ascending Angel and provide her with fine dining and wholesome activities.
    Éclat, if you've never looked it up, means "brilliance of success or reputation." I imagined crowds at newspaper kiosks clamoring to read the latest scintillating dispatch from Budapest or Marrakech or Rangoon or Cincinnati, penned by the lustrous Susanna Entwhistle, who is I.
    So, that momentous afternoon, guess who disembarked! Nellie Bly! The most famous reporter in the world!
    She was precisely as attractive as in her pictures, with her hair pulled back at the sides, but down over her forehead, and her eyes set wide apart and intensely observant. Her plush blue dress had a white embroidered collar, like a