Floods 7 (9 page)

‘That is Brastof?' said Mordonna. ‘I kind of pictured him as a huge black hound, not a spaniel.'

‘He certainly barks like a big black hound,' said Nerlin.

‘Oh, I did that,' said Mildred. ‘He had such a girly little yap that even mice laughed at him.'

‘Until I speaked,' Brastof said. ‘They usually went srsly quiet then.'

‘So tell me,' said Mordonna, ‘could you speak when you were born, or did your wonderful mistress teach you?'

‘Mistrss dun magik,' said Brastof. ‘Not too good wiv speling tho. Srsly.'

Mordonna gave Mildred a hug and a huge smile.

‘You were so made to be part of our family,' she said.

‘And so were you,' said Satanella to Brastof.

There were so many ways that Brastof was meant to be part of the ever-growing Floods family. They included, in no special order of importance:

• Satanella needed a boyfriend.
  
• He could talk.
  
• He had his own red rubber ball – although, as it was over two hundred years old, it had lost a lot of its bounce.
  
• His smell was exactly the same as Queen Scratchrot's armpits.
  
• He was very cheap to look after – after all, he had survived for two centuries on three tins of Pedigree Chum, seventeen spiders, lots of rats' legs and a brussels sprout.
  
• He knew of lot of really rude jokes.
  

There is, hidden away in a remote valley
²⁵
in Transylvania Waters, a special clinic. Only 0.5 per cent of the population know this valley exists. It isn't on any maps, on account of none of Transylvania Waters being on any maps, but even if there was a map of Transylvania Waters, this valley would NOT be on it because it's a secret. Of the 0.5 per
cent who know it exists, only thirty-seven of them know there is a clinic there and only half of those thirty-seven know what the clinic is for – and seven of the ones who know what it's for work there.
²⁶

To summarise, this clinic is more remote, more exclusive and more secretive than anywhere else on Earth, even that place in the Nevada desert where the American government keeps some dead aliens from outer space.

One of the thirty-seven people who knew about the clinic was the Hearse Whisperer.

And she has just gone there.

This is the Sulfuric Clinic, a special hospital for the treatment of depression and insanity in witches and wizards. Its director and owner is the fearsome Dr Reversion.

Dr Reversion was a powerful woman. She had more muscles than most men, even serious body builders, and other muscles that most men would never want if, that is, they even knew such
muscles existed. Tall, with damp black shiny hair, Dr Reversion wore a lot of damp black shiny leather that cried in pain as she moved, because some of the leather belonged to animals that were still alive. Notebook and pen in one hand, damp black shiny whip in the other, Dr Reversion was the perfect psychiatrist for a depressed wizard. For depressed witches, maybe not so perfect, but as she was actually a witch herself and the only psychiatrist specialising in the treatment of screwed-up wizards and witches, she was as perfect as they were going to get.

‘I cannot believe it,' she said. ‘The legendary Hearse Whisperer here in my clinic.'

The Hearse Whisperer had left a webcam on the volcano rim on Tristan da Cunha, a webcam that sent its pictures right into her brain so she would know the instant the Floods arrived – if they arrived. Then she had transformed and flown back to Transylvania Waters.

To get into the clinic as a patient and not as dinner – albatross stew was one of Dr Reversion's favourite meals – she had had to transform herself
again, but she felt her miserable state of mind was worth it. It had snowed a lot more on Tristan since she had left, and now the camera was buried in a deep drift. All the Hearse Whisperer could see inside her head was pure white, the colour she hated more than any other colour in the whole world. This, of course, was making her even more depressed.

‘When I was a child,' said Dr Reversion, ‘I had your picture on my bedroom wall. Well, I say your picture, but as you know, there are no pictures of you, so I had a huge sheet of black paper taped up right above my head.'

‘How black was it?' said the Hearse Whisperer, fearing grey.

‘Well, what is the blackest thing you can think of?'

‘Is this part of the treatment?'

‘Of course. Everything is part of the treatment at the Sulfuric Clinic,' said Dr Reversion. ‘So, what is the blackest thing you can think of?'

‘The centre of my grandmother's heart when she was sitting in a locked cupboard in the deepest part of the Transylvania Waters coal mine, right at the bottom of shaft thirteen, where it is so dark that the light from a torch is absorbed before it even leaves the bulb,' said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘At three a.m. on a completely moonless night.'

‘That is good.'

‘And I have my eyes shut,' the Hearse
Whisperer added. ‘And I am wearing a blindfold made of lead lined with black velvet.'

‘Excellent,' said Dr Reversion, ‘an answer worthy of the legendary Hearse Whisperer. Now I can tell you that the huge black poster on my wall that represented you was ten times darker than that.'

‘Ten times darker?' the Hearse Whisperer said. ‘Is that possible?'

‘Oh yes,' said Dr Reversion. ‘Do not forget you are the Hearse Whisperer. You are a legend and as such you deserve the blackest black in creation, a black that is not merely the absence of all colour, but the absence of black itself.'

‘You're not just saying that to make me feel better?' said the Hearse Whisperer.

‘Well, of course I am,' said Dr Reversion, but before her patient could look upset, she added, ‘and you
should
feel better, because it is true.'

‘Already, I feel a great weight beginning to lift from my shoulders,' said the Hearse Whisperer.

She felt her spirits rise. The last time she had
felt her spirits rise, she had let them rise just above her shoulders and then she had torn their heads off and eaten them raw with a green salad. Her spirits had kept their heads down since then, but now they were rising again. This time, however, the doctor told her to let them fly free.

‘See them hovering below the ceiling?' said the doctor. ‘If you don't mind me saying so, some of them are rather overweight. So it's not surprising you feel the weight lifting. We will deal with them in a moment – but first, tell me why you are here. I mean, what on earth could make you, one of the most powerful and evil witches in the world, so depressed?'

‘The Floods.'

‘Ahh, I see,' said the doctor. ‘You feel the Floods are your nemesis?'

‘Oh no, that was my grandmother.'

‘Your grandmother was your nemesis?'

‘No, no, she was my only comforter,' said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘Nemesis was her name.'

‘So what do the Floods represent?'

‘Failure,' said the Hearse Whisperer, dropping her head as her spirits began to fall again.

Dr Reversion handed her an umbrella.

‘Here,' she said, ‘take this. It will keep your spirits off.'

The Hearse Whisperer said nothing. Her spirits were rising and falling like yoyos. One minute they were soaring and hitting their heads on the ceiling. The next they were bouncing off her umbrella and grovelling on the floor. Dr Reversion suggested that they go outside. The next time the Hearse Whisperer's spirits soared, they vanished up into the clouds. The Hearse Whisperer and Dr Reversion ran back inside and locked the door.

‘And now,' the doctor said, ‘when we have stabilised you and you are totally dispirited, or, as I prefer to say, Spirit Cleansed, we can take you into the Transferation Laboratory and give you a spirit transplant.'

‘What?'

‘We can give you a spirit transplant,' said the doctor. ‘We have a huge store of brand new and
second-hand spirits, from Happy Fluffy Bunny to Leap Into Prams And Eat The Baby. I don't see you as a Happy Fluffy Bunny and we've had problems with the Baby Eater. No matter how many times we de-bug them we can never completely remove the trace of guilt or the indigestion.'

‘Well, right now, I'd like the Curled Up Asleep In Bed,' said the Hearse Whisperer, ‘with added Never Wake Up Again.'

‘Oh dear, oh dear,' said Dr Reversion. ‘I didn't realise you were in such a bad way. I think we will have to give you acupuncture.'

‘Whatever,' said the Hearse Whisperer.

‘Sit,' the doctor commanded and, as she left the room, she added, ‘Stay.'

Choose from the following reasons why she left the room. You may choose more than one answer:

• She was going to get the acupuncture hammer and nails.
  
• She was bored.
  
• It was lunchtime.
  
• She needed to go to the toilet.
  
• She was actually a robot and her batteries were going flat.
  
• The Bold & The Beautiful
  was about to start on TV.
  
• She was overcome with even more depression than the Hearse Whisperer, having just discovered her heroine was not invincible but old and tired and depressed.
  
• She had heard the ice-cream van outside and was dying for a Cornetto.
  
• Some of the above.
  
• All of the above.
  
• None of the above.
  
• None of the below.
  
• Dog food.
  
• Toilet rolls.
  
• Vinegar.
  ²⁷
  

The Hearse Whisperer lay back on the examination couch and closed her eyes. Everything was still white and a thousand thoughts, some evil, some miserable, some seriously weird, all fought for her attention. These included imagining the long list of things the King would do to her if she failed to bring his precious Mordonna home to him. The traditional water-skiing on Lake Tarnish, an honour the King reserved for his enemies, would be mild compared to what the King would do to her. Thoughts of moving to a foreign country
under a false name came into her head, but where could she go?

She had no friends and the few relations she had who were still alive – or at least sane enough to not spend all day talking to a stain on the wall – were all in Transylvania Waters, and that was probably the last place she should go. Of course, she was there already, but pretended she wasn't because visiting the Sulfuric Clinic was something you kept very quiet about. In fact, the clinic provided its patients with a special service where they sent postcards to your friends and family pretending you were having a wonderful holiday in Bali. All this was irrelevant because the Hearse Whisperer had stopped talking to her relatives three weeks before she had been born, apart from her beloved grandmother, who was deaf anyway so it didn't really matter.

And then two and two added together and were joined by six and a half and the Hearse Whisperer thought,
If Transylvania Waters is the last place I should go, then my enemies would think
that too, so in actual fact, as long as I stayed indoors, Transylvania Waters is probably the safest place I could go because it would be the last place anyone would expect me to be
.

And then, just as an even more totally brilliant thought was about to replace that one, something else hit her, but it wasn't the brilliant thought. It was Dr Reversion's first acupuncture nail and that knocked all thoughts and ideas out of her head
with the most painful agony she had ever felt.
²⁸

‘AAAHHHHHHHH!' the Hearse Whisperer screamed as the first nail was knocked into her left ear.

‘F@@#XXX!!!!£,' she cried as another nail went in through her right ear.

‘GR!!***&8¢¢KK*!' as another went up her nose.

‘This might hurt a little bit,' said Dr Reversion, holding up a really big nail.

‘Might? Might?' cried the Hearse Whisperer. ‘Why didn't you warn me before?'

‘I wanted you to be nice and relaxed,' said the doctor, knocking in a few more nails.

‘Relaxed,' the Hearse Whisperer whimpered. ‘I haven't been relaxed since 1965.'

‘Well, try to relax now while the nails go to work,' said the doctor. ‘Here, have a toffee. I'll be back in an hour.'

Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, F@@#XXX!!!!£!!, Organiser!!!
, thought the Hearse Whisperer as she fought to stay conscious through the excruciating pain.