Pure Dead Brilliant Part 12

"Oh dear," the nanny whispered, aware that rowan branches and salt were about as effective against this demon as bows and arrows against an armored tank. The noise from the hall swelled and grew, causing floorboards in the drawing room to break free of the nails that held them and bang up and down underfoot.

"Stand clear," Black Douglas commanded, pus.h.i.+ng his way past till he stood first in line at the doorway. "Let me deal with this," and before anyone could stop him, he slipped round the door and vanished into the hall.

Kraken Kin The first living thing the Sleeper encountered after leaving the loch to answer the distress call of his kin was a strange squeaking thing fleeing along the track. Unable to outrun the vast Sleeper, the squeaking thing had collapsed to its knees, tears rolling down its ruined face as it attempted, he a.s.sumed, to beg for mercy. Bending down to give it a good sniff, the Sleeper decided to let it go. For one thing, it appeared to have done something rather unpleasant in its pants, and for another he'd always hated snacking on human flesh-its fatty consistency disagreeing mightily with his digestion.

Turning his back on the gibbering Lucifer di S'Embowelli Borgia, the Sleeper resumed his undulating progress toward StregaSchloss. The meadow presented him with few problems, its gra.s.sy sward parting beneath his body like water, but by the time he'd crossed the drive, his tender underbelly was studded with painful little chips of rose quartz, and he was in no mood to be trifled with. The Sleeper barreled through the front door of StregaSchloss, slithered across the hall, and, hearing noises coming from the drawing room, barged right in.

Holding Damp in her arms, Mrs. McLachlan realized that her only remaining option was to save herself and the little girl. t.i.tus lay on the floor, his eyes open, his chest barely moving. Fiamma d'Infer stood astride him, hunched and waiting for the boy's soul to emerge on its final journey. A ring of green flame surrounded them, forming a barrier that nothing human could cross. First Luciano, then Baci, had tried to rescue their son, and both had been flung aside as they attempted to break through the circle of fire. Fiamma had a.s.sumed her true shape, casting off her human disguise like a snakeskin, and causing some of the witches to faint in terror at what was revealed beneath. Discarded socks, scarves, and rowan branches were embedded in the ceiling, witness to the force with which the demon had shed the ties that bound it.

And Pandora? Mrs. McLachlan's mind reeled. Pandora had disappeared completely. One minute she'd been there, trying to s.h.i.+eld t.i.tus with her own body, and then. . . . Crushed by her failure to protect all those she had loved, Mrs. McLachlan found her face wet with tears.

"Och no, wee la.s.sie," she whispered. "I won't let the same thing happen to you. . . ." She hugged Damp tight, giving one last silent plea for some form of divine intercession. She was on the point of pressing the b.u.t.ton on her Alarming Clock when help came from a most unlikely source.

"YOU!" roared a voice. "You're the one who knifed ma wee son. Dinnae deny it, you vicious wee dod of pond-life-I can smell ma wee son's blood all over you!"

Mrs. McLachlan's hand paused on the b.u.t.ton, her heart hammering in her chest.

"Dadda-Dadda-Dadda," Nestor squeaked, the unaccustomed words falling from his mouth and causing Ffup to peer at her infant son in some puzzlement.

"Hang oan, son," the voice commanded as an immense darkness extinguished the ring of flames and arrowed straight for Fiamma d'Infer.

There was a ghastly clotted gargling sound as the demon found itself engulfed in coils of oily black.

"Och, dinnae put up a fight, you," the voice continued, effortlessly squeezing the life from its prey. A high-pitched scream emerged from the demon's crushed throat as it shape-s.h.i.+fted from demon to witch, then back again, in an attempt to avoid its fate. To Mrs. McLachlan's relief, the black coils merely tightened their grip, squeezing and suffocating until-with a last bellow of rage-the demon expired, with a puff of vile-smelling smoke erupting from its mouth. t.i.tus closed his eyes, curled into a ball, and began to weep, oblivious to the legendary beast that stood over him, the corpse of Fiamma d'Infer clutched in its fatal embrace. Signor and Signora Strega-Borgia knelt by his side, their arms wrapped round their son, giving and drawing scant comfort from the embrace. In between howls, Mrs. McLachlan heard t.i.tus call his lost sister's name, as if by doing so he could turn back the clock. Damp wriggled out of her nanny's arms and wobbled across to fling herself on top of her brother.

"Panda," she said, her childish abbreviation of Pandora's name redoubling t.i.tus's anguish. "Pandalina," Damp added, repeating this made-up word with increasing determination until she was yelling, "PandaLINA, PANDALINA," in an effort to make t.i.tus sit up and take notice. In frustration at her brother's apparent lack of understanding, Damp thumped him over the head with her picture book.

"PAN-DA-LINA IN THE FLOWER!" she shrieked, stamping her feet in a fury.

Mrs. McLachlan's mouth fell open. Damp dropped her picture book on the floor and crawled quickly toward her.

"Damp?" Mrs. McLachlan whispered. "Did you put Pandora in the flower?"

The little girl nodded. At last, her expression seemed to say, someone with a brain round here.

"Like Thumbelina?"

"Panda-lina," Damp corrected, adding, "Nasty yuck flower."

"The roses?" Mrs. McLachlan dove across the room and, hardly daring to breathe, searched through the vase of blood-red flowers till she found what she was looking for. So astounded was she that she didn't notice the vast shape of the Sleeper towering behind her, his expression distinctly unfriendly. Tossing Fiamma's corpse aside, he glared down at Mrs. McLachlan.

"You again?" he said with little evidence of delight. "You're the one that woke me up yon time."

Mrs. McLachlan admitted that yes, regrettably, this was indeed the case.

"And fir whit?" the Sleeper demanded. "To defrost that squitty wee loch? So you and yer pals could carry oan fis.h.i.+ng? Seems like a pretty dodgy excuse for dragging me back frae the land of nod."

Mrs. McLachlan agreed, trying to look as apologetic as possible while s.h.i.+elding the flower vase from the Sleeper's gaze.

Across the room, Ffup could be heard muttering to herself. "What nerve. Turns up four months late, no warning, not even a phone call, and does he apologize? I don't think so. Doesn't even so much as give me five minutes' grace to brush my wings, slap some moisturizer on my scales. . . . Just turns up, pulps a guest, and demands his parental rights-"

The Sleeper shook his head and swung round to glower at Ffup. "What're you oan about now, wumman?"

Dwarfed by the gigantic beast, Ffup blinked, s.h.i.+fting Nestor's weight to her other hip. "See this wee beastie I've got attached to my side?" she demanded. "This here's your son. And where were you when I was going through the traumas of dragonbirth? Absent, that's where. Where were you when he wouldn't sleep at night? Ditto. Elsewhere. What happened to all those promises you made me last December?"

"Aww, come oan, hen . . ." The Sleeper looked around in some embarra.s.sment, aware that certain people in the room were paying close attention to Ffup's tirade.

"Don't you 'come oan, hen' me, you faithless toad," Ffup shrilled inaccurately. "This poor wee baby needs two parents, not one. He needs a father, not an absent monster whose only claim to fame is for boosting Scotland's tourist trade with rare appearances in Loch Ness. I mean, it's not even as if you've got a proper job. Itinerant monster with special responsibilities for entertaining visiting Americans? And-" She paused, waiting till she had everyone's attention before delivering her parting shot. "-If you think your son's going to be proud to call his daddy 'Nessie,' you can think again." With a snort, Ffup turned on her heel and stalked out of the drawing room, with Nestor clinging to her hip. Moments later they could all hear the dungeon door clanging shut.

Sab clambered down from his perch on the pelmet and patted one of the Sleeper's black coils. "Don't worry," he said, in a blokeish, beast-to-beast kind of way. "She'll get over it. Bit highly strung right now-"

The Sleeper groaned. He exhaled and rolled his eyes, clearly not used to being lambasted by outraged females. "It's jist-" He groped for words. "Ochhh . . . I'm no' very guid at aw that soppy stuff. I'm weel oot of practice. I mean-it's been centuries since I last-"

"Yes, yes. Fine. We quite understand." Sab shuddered. "Spare us the details. My advice is: let her get a good night's sleep, then-" The griffin leant close and began to whisper in the giant beast's ear.

Collapsed on sofas, chairs, and carpets, the family and guests paid little attention. Their more pressing concerns lay with the missing Pandora, the sobbing t.i.tus, and the fate of Black Douglas. Carefully avoiding Fiamma's remains, Mrs. McLachlan crouched down beside t.i.tus, still being comforted by his parents and Damp.

"My dears," she began. Their tragic faces turned toward her, aware that, for some reason, the nanny was beaming from ear to ear. Mrs. McLachlan held a dark red rose in her hands, its velvet petals curled around a tiny creature. . . .

Signora Strega-Borgia blinked.

. . . a tiny creature that waved and squeaked, its voice too wee to be heard . . .

t.i.tus's eyes grew large.

. . . a tiny creature that slapped its forehead in apparent frustration at being unable to make itself heard . . .

Signor Strega-Borgia burst into tears of relief, and at last they could all hear Pandora's voice, admittedly on the far side of audibility, despite the fact that she was yelling at the top of her tiny lungs, "GET ME OUT OF HERE-THIS ROSE IS FULL OF BUGS!"

"D'you promise not to eat me?"

"How many times do I have to go through this? Oh, sigh. Read my lips, girl. I don't do humans. Flies, yes-gnats, always-daddy longlegs, occasionally-and wasps, well-only when they're sun-dried. Now move over, you're hogging my quilt."

"Your quilt? Whose doll's house d'you think this is?"

"The doll's, stupid," Tarantella replied, grabbing the tiny eiderdown with one leg and hauling it over herself. Pandora lay beside her, gazing in amazement at her beloved tarantula. This is decidedly weird, she thought. Being turned into a fairy-tale character to do battle with gigantic aphids in a rose the size of a circus tent was bizarre, but being tucked up in bed in your own doll's house-only to discover that you're half the size of your favorite spider was, to be honest, more than a little upsetting.

t.i.tus's gigantic head came into view. "I'm GOING to CLOSE the DOOR NOWW," he bawled. "BUT MRS. MCLACHLAN will be back in an HOUR. SHE says to TRY and GET SOME SLEEP. . . ."

"Does he have to roar?" Pandora moaned, deafened by her brother's onslaught on her eardrums.

Tarantella removed a hairy leg from each ear. "You sound like that, too," she said. "Normally. All humans roar. They breathe gales and typhoons as well. And while we're on the subject of human excess, when you lot walk around-it's like an earthquake. I can hear you cras.h.i.+ng around in the kitchen even when I'm several floors upstairs in my attic. Get used to it, kid. This is life as we know it in the arachnid-zone."

"Don't you feel scared?" Pandora asked, wincing as t.i.tus whistled tunelessly, his thunderous footsteps receding as he headed downstairs.

"I'm used to being scared," Tarantella muttered. "It's the price I pay for cohabiting with humans, not to mention their illiterate rodents and homicidal guest-demons."

"I'm so sorry about your poor leg."

"Not half as sorry as I am." The tarantula gazed into the middle distance. "I only wish I'd been able to get my revenge. Now the demon is dead, there's little chance of that happening. . . ."

Had she but known it, Tarantella's vengeful musings were identical to those of Black Douglas. One minute he'd been spectacularly heroic, rus.h.i.+ng out into the hall to confront Fiamma, armed with nothing more than his fiddle; only to find himself demonically transmogrified into the princ.i.p.al source of cat-gut violin strings and booted out of the way by the outraged fiend. Now he sat warming himself by the range, keeping a watchful eye on his colleagues as they attempted to return him to a human form. To pa.s.s the time, Black Douglas washed himself from paws to tail, pausing to spit as he tasted the sulfurous traces Fiamma had left in his fur. Signora Strega-Borgia peered at him in revolted fascination as Black Douglas expertly tucked one leg behind his head and applied himself to the task of laundering his bottom.

"Dougla.s.sss," she demurred, closing her eyes in embarra.s.sment, "could you please hold off from doing that until we change you back?"

"Oh yeah? And when's that going to be?" he inquired between licks, his peevish voice emerging as unintelligible yowls that prompted Signora Strega-Borgia to crouch down and try to pick him up. Hissing, he sprang backward and bolted through her legs, heading for the quiet of the pantry, where a saucer of milk awaited him. At the kitchen table Hecate Brinstone sighed, rubbing her eyes and closing the vast grimoire in front of her.

"No luck?" Signora Strega-Borgia leafed through one of her spelling notebooks.

"The trouble is, I don't know what kind of spell Fiamma used on him," Heck admitted. "If I knew that, then it would be a fairly simple matter to look it up and undo it. But, as things stand, it might be safer to leave him as a cat-"

From the safety of the china cupboard, Terminus was not inclined to agree. Black Douglas might have been a cat for only a short while, but already he'd demonstrated just how quickly he'd adapted to his altered status. In the s.p.a.ce of ten minutes the enraged p.u.s.s.y had shredded the silk cover of a chaise in the drawing room, peed in a corner of Signora Strega-Borgia's bedroom, clawed Knot to ribbons when the yeti had ill-advisedly sniffed Black Douglas's intriguingly perfumed backside, and even now was spraying the pantry in an attempt to mark out his territory. To Terminus's relief, Signora Strega-Borgia stood up and produced a wand from the drawer of the kitchen table.

"I think I might have just the enchantment for our poor colleague," she said, crossing the kitchen to the pantry, where she crouched down, feeling faintly foolish. "Here, puss puss puss. . . . Here, kitty kitty kitty . . ."

Prowling along the topmost shelf in between fossilized jars of jam, Black Douglas hissed. "What are you on about now? What's this puss nonsense? Give me a break-" And then, his yellow eyes widening in alarm, he realized that Baci was waving a wand in his direction. He stiffened, his fur sticking straight out from his body. Baci? The most incompetent witch in the history of the inst.i.tute? Casting a spell? With a terrified meow, Black Douglas launched both himself and several jars of jam into midair, in the faint hope he might thus be able to avoid being the target of one of Baci's dire misspellings.

"Vexing hex be thus undone-cat to mate to man become."

Baci gasped, ducking to avoid the lethal hail of jam jars cras.h.i.+ng down from the top shelf. This spell would, for once, have been perfect had it not been for a brief lapse of attention due to falling preserves. Baci's second stanza became a garbled "c-a-tomato man become" as, to her horror, Black Douglas turned into the main ingredient of pasta sauce and hit the floor with a loud splatttt, scattering tomato seeds and pulp everywhere. Mercifully for Baci, consciousness left her at this point, and she slid to the floor in a faint.

Scissors, Paper, Stone Latch swept the splintered remains of the grandfather clock into a tidy pile and tried not to eavesdrop on Signor Strega-Borgia's one-sided telephone conversation with the local police.

"He's in the border. . . . No, the herbaceous border, not the Scottish Borders . . . Good heavens, Constable, is this so hard to understand? There is a corpse lying in my flower bed."

There was a pause while Signor Strega-Borgia rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers on the hall table. Latch worked on, the pile of broken gla.s.s and wood growing by the minute. Then the butler paused, his eye caught by something glinting in the dust.

"Yes. Good evening, Inspector." Signor Strega-Borgia drew a deep breath and began again. "As I explained to your colleague, I'm phoning to report a murder. . . . No. NO! Not my mother, a murr-derr, as in 'death by unlawful killing.'"

Latch bent down, his attention focused on the s.h.i.+ny crystal in front of him. Wonderingly, he reached out to pick it up, just as Mrs. McLachlan emerged from the kitchen, the freshly restored cat-edition of Black Douglas yowling under one arm.

"Behave, you rogue," she cautioned, adding, "And just count your blessings we didn't simmer you into a sauce for tomorrow's lunch."

Subdued by this reference to his brief incarnation as a tomato, Black Douglas fell into a silent sulk, even allowing the butler to stroke his glossy fur.

"I've found something odd," Latch said, pointing to the crystal at his feet. "I wonder if it was part of the grandfather clock? Or maybe one of the crystals from the chandelier that shattered last New Year? I seem to recall sweeping up endless bits of broken gla.s.s afterward-I must have missed this one."

Mrs. McLachlan peered at the egg-sized stone. A faint alarm bell sounded in her memory. Hadn't Pandora mentioned something about seeing a big diamond during one of her illegal forays with the Alarming Clock? And once t.i.tus had realized that Fiamma was indeed as dead as one could wish for, he'd told her that the demon had been hunting for a thing called a Chronostone. . . .

"I wonder," the nanny said, bending down to pick it up. "Latch, I'm just going to look this up in the library. If it's what I think it is, we're in great danger-"

"Again?" The butler paled. "How much worse can it get? We've had the Mafia dropping in for coffee, we've been unknowingly extending full-on hospitality to a colleague of Satan's and, to cap it all, the Loch Ness Monster just gate-crashed our wee gathering. . . ." He heaved a sigh and picked up the broom to resume sweeping. "All that's missing now is an alien takeover bid," he observed to Signor Strega-Borgia, who'd tucked the phone under his chin and was doodling on the back of the telephone directory.

Mrs. McLachlan frowned in exasperation. Latch simply had no idea what he was talking about. She suppressed a desire to inform him that the forces she suspected would now be coming for the Chronostone made Fiamma look about as dangerous as a snail. Tucking the crystal in her pocket, Mrs. McLachlan carried Black Douglas upstairs to Pandora's bedroom.

Signora Strega-Borgia's eyelids fluttered open-she focused blearily on the heads bending over her, their eyes full of concern, their combined breath hot and faintly fishy.

"Welcome back," Tock whispered, his claws embedded in Signora Strega-Borgia's pillow.

"We've been told to guard you and Damp," Sab explained, aware that his mistress might be somewhat peeved at the presence of all five beasts in her bedroom. Wis.h.i.+ng to a.s.sure her that they were there on a legitimate errand, he added, "Your husband said to tell you to stay here while he deals with the police."

Beyond the windows, dawn was breaking over Lochnagargoyle, and Baci checked her alarm clock, dimly aware that she must have been unconscious for hours.

"What?" she croaked. "Where's Black Douglas?" recalling with shame her part in turning her guest into a squashed mess on the pantry floor. This thought made her stomach roll in protest; with a desolate moan, she fell out of bed, ran for the bathroom, and made it to the sink just in time.

Outside the door the beasts discussed her abrupt departure.

"I had a bath last week," Knot said defensively. "I'm sure it's not my smell that's done it-"

"I think she's eaten something disagreeable," Sab decided. "She did this yesterday as well."

"What, a Technicolor yawn?" Ffup said, seeking greater clarity. "She hueyed? Gave it big rrralfs? Up-chukkies?"

Tock clamped his front paws over his ears with a small moan. "Enough," he whispered. "We get the point. Yes. She threw up on the front step yesterday."

Behind the door, Signora Strega-Borgia gave an all-too audible demonstration of this newfound skill.

"In the morning?" Ffup persisted, a wistful smile playing across her mouth.

"I fail to see where this is leading," Sab protested, leaping back from the bathroom door as Signora Strega-Borgia emerged, pale and wobbly, tottering across the floor to collapse facedown on the bed.

Ffup folded her wings carefully behind her back with a smirk. "Well, well, well-," she said, grinning widely. "Who'd've thought it?"

Signor Strega-Borgia's head appeared round the door, his anxious expression giving way to one of relief when he saw his wife was awake.

"Luciano . . . ," she groaned. "How is Pandora? And what's happened with Black Douglas? And the police? Oh heck, it's all such a mess, and I feel so dreadful-"

"It'll pa.s.s," Ffup muttered, adding darkly, "But you can kiss good-bye to nights of unbroken sleep."

Ignoring the dragon, Luciano hurried to his wife's side. "Don't worry-Pandora is fine. So is Black Douglas. The police have taken that poor lawyer off to the morgue. And they've put out a search warrant for Lucifer, alerted airports and all points of exit from the country, and . . . You know, Baci, you don't look too dreadful. In fact, you look-um . . ."

"Radiant," whispered Ffup in Sab's ear. "Bet you he says 'radiant.'"

"Radiant," Signor Strega-Borgia decided.

Baci burst into tears and fled to the bathroom, leaving Luciano to turn to the beasts in some confusion. Embarra.s.sed, they turned away, except for Ffup, who drew Signor Strega-Borgia to one side and whispered something that caused him to sit down abruptly on the floor, a stunned expression on his face, his mouth opening and shutting, but with no words coming out.

"What are you up to?" Sab demanded, tapping Ffup on the shoulder. "What is going on?"

"It's a girl thing, pet," the dragon murmured, so condescendingly that Sab had to grit his teeth to stop himself from shaking her as she added, "Trust me, you wouldn't underst- Ow, ow, don't do that, you big brute." Ffup bolted from the bedroom and fled down the corridor, pursued by Sab. Their raised voices faded into the distance . . . and the air filled with birdsong, greeting the birth of a new day.

Mrs. McLachlan hadn't actually lied to Latch when she said she was going to the library; but, on reflection, she decided that she had perhaps been a mite economical with the truth. With Pandora's tiny body safely stowed away in a pocket and the cat under one arm, she set off at once. Regretfully, the journey to the library didn't agree with Black Douglas, who dug all his claws into Mrs. McLachlan's flying rug and yowled his protest at such a brutal form of transportation. On arrival at their destination he shot through the library door and sprayed everything within range, including the librarian, until he calmed down enough to realize he wasn't under attack. Now he sat on guard beside the library fire, alert and suspicious, eavesdropping on Mrs. McLachlan and the centaur, Alpha.

"Where's the clock?" the librarian demanded. "I can't possibly allow you to withdraw anything else until you return it to the library."

Mrs. McLachlan closed her eyes in despair. In her haste to remove the Chronostone from StregaSchloss, she'd completely forgotten about the Alarming Clock.

"Look . . . ," she began, removing the crystal from her pocket and placing it on the countertop between Alpha and herself. "Never mind about the clock. I've brought you this thing, which, I think you'll agree, is a wee bit more important." She watched with satisfaction as the little centaur bent over the stone and gave an admiring whistle.