Pure Dead Brilliant (19 page)

“Now we undo the spell,” Mrs. McLachlan replied.

“I'm not exactly like the handsome prince in your picture books,” Pandora said apologetically, kneeling down beside Titus and smiling up at Damp. The little girl watched her big sister bend down over her big brother and clapped her hands
in delight as Pandora planted a smacking kiss right on Titus's lips. To Mrs. McLachlan's amusement, Pandora grimaced, then swiftly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Titus's eyes flickered as he woke up, peering blearily at his sister. “Eughhh,” he remarked pleasantly, rolling over and sitting up. Around him, the waking witches were doing the same, sleepy and bewildered, but immediately snapping back to full consciousness as Lucifer roared in outrage at the thwarting of his plan.

“EEEK SQUEE URK,” he bawled, raking through his pockets in disbelief.

“Your phone has gone, Mr. Borgia,” Mrs. McLachlan informed him, crossing the room with Lucifer's Beretta held firmly in one hand. “And unless you wish to join it at the bottom of the moat, I suggest you make your farewells and depart.”

“Eek?” Lucifer peered at the nanny in some confusion.

“I have your gun here, so don't waste your time looking for it. You've got what you came for, so kindly don't be so ill-mannered as to outstay your welcome—” Mrs. McLachlan's tone was breezy, brushing off the astonished gangster as if he posed no more threat than a housefly.

Lucifer gaped, his little pink eyes narrowing as he processed this information. For the first time in his life, he realized he'd met his equal. Snatching his notebook and pen, he rapidly scribbled something, tore the page out, and passed it to Mrs. McLachlan. Without a squeak of good-bye, Don Lucifer di S'Embowelli Borgia turned and walked out through the open windows.

In the stunned silence that followed, they could all hear his measured tread fading away down the drive. Pandora bit her lip and tried to restrain herself from asking what he'd written in his note to Mrs. McLachlan. Titus closed his eyes and hoped he hadn't just condemned his uncle to death by passing on the inheritance, and Signor Luciano Strega-Borgia gave silent thanks for his family's continued survival.

From the hall came an enraged shriek, as Fiamma found herself trussed like a turkey.

“What on earth?” Luciano's head jerked upward as ear-splitting screams echoed round the hall, accompanied by roars so powerful that the floorboards vibrated. Tendrils of yellow fog began to curl round the door to the hall, and the temperature plummeted within the drawing room. The twilit sky outside the windows turned to night, then day, causing the hands on the mantelpiece clock to describe such a rapid orbit that they glowed red-hot, as Fiamma demonstrated the ease with which she could manipulate time itself. As if to underscore this, the grandfather clock, which had stood ticking erratically in the hall for centuries, exploded in a hail of glass and wood, its whirling pendulum spinning into the drawing room and missing Damp by a hair. Ffup snatched Nestor up in her arms as howls of demonic laughter echoed around the hall.

Titus paled. He knew that Fiamma was coming for him and Damp. He turned to Mrs. McLachlan and realized with a sickening jolt that she was every bit as petrified as he was.

“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, pushing 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

T
he 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 assumed, 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 grassy 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. Titus 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 assumed 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 shield Titus 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 lassie,” 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 button 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 button, 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-shifted 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. Titus 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 Titus 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 Titus's anguish. “Pandalina,” Damp added, repeating this made-up word with increasing determination until she was yelling, “PandaLINA, PANDALINA,” in an effort to make Titus 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 fishing? 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 shielding 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, shifting 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 embarrassment, 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 Titus, and the fate of Black Douglas. Carefully avoiding Fiamma's remains, Mrs. McLachlan crouched down beside Titus, 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 . . .

Titus'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.

Titus's gigantic head came into view. “I'm GOING to CLOSE the DOOR NOWW,” he bawled. “BUT MRS. M
C
LACHLAN 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 crashing 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 Titus 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, rushing out into the hall to confront Fiamma, armed with nothing more than his fiddle; only to find himself demonically transmogrified into the principal 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 pass 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.

“Douglassss,” she demurred, closing her eyes in embarrassment, “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—”