The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics (18 page)

A chill wind seemed to sweep through the room. The Captain was glad he was wearing his hat, because he wasn’t aware that the idea you lose most of your body heat through the top of your head was just a myth.

‘What can we do? Where is he? Do you know where he’s hidden the missing bit of the book?’

T.H.E. F.I.E.N.D. I.S. . . .

‘Yes?’

. . . I.N. . . .

‘Yes?’

. . . I.N. . . .

‘Don’t milk it, Jennifer.’

. . . T.H.I.S. V.E.R.Y. R.O.O.M!

Everybody gasped, and let go of each other’s hands.

E.M.P.T.Y. Y.O.U.R. P.O.C.K.E.T.S.

‘This is getting idiotic,’ said Babbage. ‘I will play no further part in such an unscientific charade.’

‘You seem very jumpy, Charles – if that
is
your real name,’ said the Captain, eyeing the mathematician suspiciously. ‘Perhaps you’ve got something to hide, hmmm?’

‘I suggest we do as she says,’ said Shelley. ‘On the count of three, we all empty our pockets onto the table. Agreed?’

‘Because of the ridiculous nowadays fashions, I don’t have pockets,’ pointed out Mary. ‘Will a purse do?’

‘I’m sure that’ll be fine,’ said Shelley. ‘Ready?’

One by one they all nodded, even Babbage, though he looked a bit reluctant.

‘Right then, here goes. One. Two. Three!’

Everybody thrust their hands into their pockets and plonked the contents onto the table.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got then,’ said Percy. He indicated the scented handkerchief, squashed lily and well-thumbed thesaurus from his own pockets. ‘Nothing incriminating there. What about you, Babbage?’

Babbage mostly had equations written on scrunched-up envelopes, and a few doodles of mechanical ladies saying things like ‘Oh Mister Babbage you are a one’.

‘Mary?’

Mary just had a notebook and some smelling salts.

‘So,’ said Percy, turning to the Pirate Captain with a glare. ‘How about you, Captain?’

‘Well now,’ said the Captain, sifting through quite a big pile of bits and pieces. ‘Half a ship’s biscuit,
³⁵
my lucky toy unicorn, a novelty astrolabe shaped like a lobster, a selection of drinking straws in different sizes, and the
I-Spy Book of Waves
.’

‘Really? That’s everything?’ Shelley looked a bit disappointed. ‘Well, uh, that just leaves you, Byron.’

Everybody looked at Byron. He pursed his lips.

‘How odd! Here’s a shopping list that I don’t remember writing.’ He held up a shopping list. It read:
coffin
,
mothballs for coffin
,
billowing black cloak
,
toothpaste
. ‘Then there’s this petticoat, which looks to be about Jennifer’s size, and finally there’s this badge that says “I AM A MASSIVE VAMPIRE”.’

For a moment, nobody said a thing.

‘Well, would you look at that?’ Byron ran a hand through his hair and shook his head in happy disbelief. ‘It appears that I’ve been the evil Count Ruthven all along!’

Sixteen

Ham and Hellfire

‘This is fantastic!’ said Byron, bouncing up and down. ‘Me! The maleficent undead! I’ve taken “dangerous to know” to a whole new level. The fans are going to be beside themselves when they read about this in the next issue of
Young, Brooding and Doomed
.’

He started to sing a little song to himself about being a vampire. The more easily frightened members of the pirate crew hid behind whatever furniture they could find. The others scratched their heads.

‘The evidence does appear irrefutable,’ said Babbage, looking sadly at the shopping list. ‘And to be honest, I can’t say I’m
entirely
surprised.’

‘No,’ agreed Byron, eagerly. ‘I mean the signs were always there, weren’t they? Though if I’d had to put money on it I’d have probably guessed I was a protoplasmic nightmare of some description.’ He leaned forward and drummed his fingers on the table. ‘So, what happens next? Something eldritch, I’d wager?’

‘Well, for a start you can tell us what you did to Jennifer, you rogue,’ said the Pirate Captain, looking cross. It’s hard not to be disappointed when friends turn out to be soul-sucking abominations. ‘And then you can tell us where this infernal secret of yours happens to be hidden.’

‘Haven’t a clue! I don’t remember anything about all the stuff I’ve been getting up to. I don’t even know what special powers I’ve got, though I’m sure they’re brilliant. Perhaps I’m only a dracula when I’m asleep? Is that a thing?’

‘Aarrrr,’ said the Captain, getting up from his chair and pacing up and down the length of the study. ‘I think we’re going to have to lock you in the pantry whilst we decide what to do with you.’

‘Of course, can’t be too careful. Don’t want me biting your face off.’ Byron suddenly threw his head back and bared his teeth with a hiss. Then he grinned again. ‘No, see, I’m just messing with you. Right then, in I go.’

Everybody waved as Byron helpfully stepped inside the pantry, and then the Captain and Babbage made sure the door was properly bolted.

‘I didn’t really want to say it in front of the chap,’ said the Captain, turning to the others, ‘but obviously we’re going to have to lop his head off.’

‘But we can’t!’ exclaimed Mary. ‘I know he’s a vampire, but he’s still our friend.’

‘Yes,’ said Percy, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for all of this.’

‘Sorry, can’t risk it. I made that mistake before, when I took on that cannibal boatswain. Remember, number two?’

The pirate with a scarf winced and nodded.

‘Kept on assuring me he had it under control, but he’d eaten half the crew before the week was out. It’s a shame, because he really did have a lovely singing voice.’

‘But how?’ asked Babbage. ‘How does one kill the awful undead?’

‘Well, there’re lots of ways,’ the Captain explained. ‘Lopping his head off is just one of many options. We could set fire to his hair, or stuff a garlic clove in his mouth. Those are the usual methods.’

‘No! It’s too horrible!’ said Mary.

‘Fair enough. Well, if none of those grab you, I suppose dousing him in holy water is the most humane/least messy option.’

‘And where do you propose that we find holy water?’ pointed out Percy. ‘Here, in a haunted castle miles from anywhere?’

‘Actually, Percy, I’ve got that covered,’ said the Captain. ‘A few years back, I got a touch too heavy a dose of tropical sun. I did a lot of things that month, but one of the few that I can remember is insisting I should be allowed to officiate at my own marriage to a turtle. So I took the time to become an ordained member of Black Bellamy’s Oceanic Evangelist Church. It’s amazing, you just send off your cheque, pick which type of deity you want to worship – I chose that elephant one, with all the arms – and then they send you a certificate through the post. So I’m a fully ordained minister, with legal powers to bestow sainthoods, verify miracles, and, more to the point, bless water. Actually, it doesn’t have to be water. I can probably bless a chair. Or a ham. Whatever you fancy, really.’

So, after some surprisingly boring debate about the nature of right and wrong and whether if a vampire bit into a ham it would turn the ham into a hampire or if it would just stay a regular ham, the Captain got the pirate in green to fetch him a big bucket of water from the kitchen. Then he blessed it, which seemed to involve him making a lot of elephant noises whilst doing an odd little dance.

‘Okay, everybody ready?’ said the Captain, holding up his bucket of water. Mary stifled a sob and nodded. Percy stared at his shoes. Babbage did a thumbs-up and slid the bolt across.

‘Count of three. One. Two.
Three
.’ With that the Captain kicked open the door and threw the bucket of blessed water as hard as he could into the pantry.

There was a splash. Everybody peeked inside. All they could see was a lot of soggy bread and breakfast cereal. Shelley rubbed his eyes, gobsmacked.

‘The fiend has vanished!’ exclaimed Babbage, looking about. ‘But how?’

The Captain slapped his forehead, groaned, and pointed up to a tiny gap in the wall. ‘Neptune’s lips! There! He obviously transmogrified into a bat and flew out through that hole. I forgot they can do that.’ He sighed, sat down on a stool and ruefully started to chew on a wet bit of Weetabix. ‘It’s like my old Aunt Joan always used to say: if you’re going to end up fighting monsters, Pirate Captain, try to stick to ventriloquist’s dummies who have gone alive.’

They spent the rest of the evening searching the castle from top to bottom, but there was no sign of Byron anywhere. Eventually, as the clocks struck eleven, everybody agreed that there was no alternative but to go to bed, and – assuming they didn’t all meet a grisly end in the middle of the night – decide what to do in the morning. So reluctantly they tramped back to their rooms, locked their doors, made sure the windows were closed so bats couldn’t fly in and tried to get some sleep. Usually the Captain prided himself on being able to fall asleep in any situation at the drop of a hat. Once he’d even managed to nod off in the middle of being squeezed to death by a giant squid. But now he found he couldn’t get comfortable. He tossed and turned and every time he
did
get close to drifting off, he’d suddenly hear a noise. He tried to console himself with the thought that a nervier pirate would think the creaking sound was a wooden ghost opening its mouth ready to gobble him up. Or that the hideous shuffling from outside his door was an awful headless horse about to strangle him with its terrible hooves.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

The Captain let out a shriek.

‘Pirate Captain?’ whispered the headless horse from outside the door. It was quite well-spoken for an unnatural monster that presumably spoke through a severed windpipe.

The Pirate Captain shrieked again, but this time with as much dignity as he could muster. If he was going to get eaten alive by a headless horse then he planned on doing it with aplomb.

‘Captain?’ repeated the headless horse, now sounding uncannily like Mary Shelley.

He opened the door a crack and peered out. Sure enough, Mary stood there wearing a long white nightgown and some sort of complicated woman’s sleeping bonnet that framed her face in a particularly attractive way.

‘Hello, Mary.’

‘Were you shrieking?’

‘Yes, just practising my girlish shrieks. I’m entering an improbable competition of some sort.’

He did another shriek to illustrate.

‘Anyhow, what are you doing shuffling about like a headless horse at this time of night?’ he asked. ‘Not really safe with Byron on the prowl.’

‘Oh, Captain, I can’t sleep. Can I come in?’

‘Of course. I was sleeping like a baby, by the way, aside from the shrieking.’

‘I can’t stop thinking about my novel,’ said Mary, perching on the end of his bed. The Captain noticed now that she was clutching the manuscript to her breast. ‘I’m starting to fear it’s cursed. That my love of monsters has somehow beset us with this
actual
monster. Do you believe that possible? Could one’s own imagination call forth a corporeal horror?’

‘Oh no, that almost never happens. I spent ten months marooned on an island trying to will a ham shrub into existence, but with no joy.’ The Captain paused, and tried to do a casual face. ‘So, your novel . . . how is it? Any interesting bits leap out at you?’

‘It’s useless,’ sighed Mary, ‘and I am nowhere nearer to finishing it.’

‘You’re not? Are you
sure
? Can I have a look?’

Mary passed him the manuscript. He flicked through it. To the Captain’s bafflement it seemed that it hadn’t changed at all. Everything was still written in her looping handwriting, and there was none of his clever new subtext or slightly obscene illustrations to be seen anywhere.

‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ said the Captain, frowning.

‘You’ve spotted a plot hole?’