Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (27 page)

“I wonder, though, that the ferry will go, Your Grace,” the bellboy continued. “It’s starting to look nasty outside.”

“The ferry will go,” the Birdie said with confidence. “I am not concerned with a little bit of weather.”

“A little bit of weather! More like a real howler,” the chatty bellboy said. “Well, he who lives will see, eh?”

I heard the chime of an elevator. We bumped inside and then plunged downward. A door thumped open and we rolled through, jolted down several stairs, bruisingly, and then stopped. All around me I could hear the muffled sounds of people walking, people talking, the distant tinkle of music. I tried to scream, but I could not.

“I’ll have the trunk loaded on your cab, Your Grace.”

“Please do. I shall be there directly.”

We rolled beyond the cheerful sound of help into a silence that was broken only by a tuneless whistle. The cart bumped down a short flight of stairs, bobbing my head against the top of the box. “Hey, Bob! I need a trunk loaded!”

This yell received no answer. The bellboy muttered under his breath and sat the trunk upright with a thud. Footsteps moved away.

Silence.

I thrashed and whipped my head around and kicked my legs and feet, and moved not an inch. Fiking hell. I had to get out of this trunk before it left the hotel. Once I was on the ferry, I was sunk. Even if I got loose, I’d be trapped with the Birdie, with no aid, no friends, nothing.

Oh, fiking pigface Califa.

I reminded myself I’d been in tight spots before. When I was trapped in Bilskinir’s oubliette; when the kakodæmon attacked me and Tiny Doom; when I had to tell Buck I’d failed Secondary Maths. I’d been terrified, but never like this. Never to where I thought I might actually lose my mind with fear. How easy that would be, to give into the horror, to just lie back and let it happen. But if I let that happen, then I was as good as dead. And so was Tiny Doom.

Fear will kill you,
said Nini Mo,
faster than any bullet.

I closed my eyes and took a deep mental breath, imagined my chest inflating and then deflating, the air filling my lungs and leaving them again. I did this three times and, by the fourth, felt calmer and more in control.

The Sonoran Zombie Powder would wear off eventually, but when? If it didn’t wear off in the next five minutes, it would be too late. And
too late is the same as never,
Nini Mo said. I had to get out of here now.

Maybe I could project my Anima outside my body, leave my meat and bones trapped behind, and let my mind drift away, escape into Elsewhere. I’d never projected before, but I knew the technique—could it hurt? I took another deep mental breath, trying to relax, trying to imagine myself light as a cloud. But no matter how hard I visualized myself floating free, I remained trapped in a cage of bone and flesh, motionless.

Fike.

If I could have spoken, I would have done a charm to unlock the trunk. Some adepts can subvocalize their Gramatica Commands; they don’t need to speak the Words, just think them. But I’m not that good an adept, and I didn’t dare try. At best, the Gramatica wouldn’t do anything. At worst, it might blow the back of my skull off.

And then I thought of Pig.

I wasn’t sure if Pig could get me out of the trunk, but I knew he could handle the Birdie. The Birdie might be a nahual, a wer-jaguar, and a blood-sucking cannibal, but Pig could handle him. Oh, Pig could handle him all right. Hadn’t Pig handled a kakodæmon? Hadn’t Pig handled a Quetzal? Pig would turn the Birdie into bird feed. Now that I was discovered, there was no reason to be coy with the Haðraaða magick.

The Invocation to summon Pig is almost laughably childish and requires no Gramatica, no funny gestures, no postures, or offerings. I know the Invocation works, because I’d tried it once before, summoning Pig from Crackpot Hall to my room at the Barracks. He’d been slightly annoyed that there had been no actual enemy but had been solaced with ice cream. I wasn’t sure if the Invocation would work without being spoken aloud, but I would try.

Pig, Pig, come to me. I need you to smite my Enemy.

Nothing happened.

Pig, Pig, come to me. I need you to smite my Enemy.

Nothing.

Fike. Maybe you did have to say the Invocation out loud.

Ayah, the rule: the third time is a charm.

Pig, Pig, come to me. I need you to smite my Enemy!

My every nerve was strung to bowline breaking point. The silence was as deep and empty as the ocean. It stretched on and on, forever and forever and forever—and then I heard a familiar sound, a wonderful sniffy snuffling sound, the kind of sound made by a wonderful sniffy snuffling dog.

Flynn!

I tried to call him, but no matter how much I strained, I remained immobile. Snapperdog whined and scratched at the trunk. Clearly he knew I was in there, but he wasn’t doing anything helpful about it. My hope, momentarily alert, began to flicker out. Flynn wasn’t a trained rescue dog. He wasn’t going to run off and tell someone where I was. He wasn’t going to open the trunk.

And the Invocation hadn’t worked.

I was done.

Flynn barked sharply, and then the trunk lid began to rise up. I blinked against the light, and a shivy nose thrust itself into my face, slurping at me with a slimy pink tongue. I opened my eyes and saw Flynn leaning over me, front paws akimbo on the edge of the trunk. I welcomed the slime, welcomed the doggy breath.

A sticky tentacle brushed my cheek.
Are you all right?

I’m paralyzed! He used Sonoran Zombie Powder on me!

I know. That's what took me so long. I had to get the antidote. Here.
Another tentacle insinuated itself between my nerveless lips, smearing something bitter and gritty on my tongue.

Where'd you get it?
I asked, swallowing the sour taste.

I picked it out of the Birdie's bag when he was paying his bill. People shouldn't leave their luggage unattended. There are a lot of unsavory characters out there.

My toes twitched. I could wiggle my toes, and even though they felt prickly and buzzy with sleep, no movement had ever felt better. My left foot jerked and then my right. And my fingers! I clenched my hands into fists. I bit down on my lip and the pain felt glorious.

Let's get the fike out of here before he comes back,
Octohands ordered.

I sat up creakily, painfully, every muscle in my body stretching in agony.
How did you find me?

I was bored in the room and decided to have a little look around.
Flynn was bored, too,
so
we went together, and we saw you follow the Birdie into his room. I squeezed under the door and saw the whole thing. We’ve been waiting for a hot moment ever since. Come on, move it.

I hoisted myself over the side of the steamer trunk. My legs were still prickly and weak, but with Octohands’s urging, I managed to lock my knees and ignore the pain. Flynn jumped up on me, licking ecstatically.

Come on! Get your hinder rolling!

I wheezed, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” My buckskin jacket, boots, and dispatch case had been wedged into the trunk at my feet. With nerveless fingers, I slung the jacket over my shoulders. My fingers were too numb to lace up my boots, so I just thrust my feet into them and left the tongues flapping.

Hurry up!
Octohands launched off my shoulder and jetted ahead impatiently, tentacles trailing. I slung my dispatch case over my shoulder and followed him. What I would have given then for my pistol; fike Cutaway and her weapons policy.

The trunk was sitting on a loading dock; beyond the portico, I saw night and rain, a bright spike of lightning, the storm the bellboy had predicted. I toddled across the loading dock and in through the fire door, into a room full of luggage. By the opposite door, a stack of umbrellas leaned against the wall; I grabbed one on my way by. It wasn’t much of a weapon against a wer-jaguar, but it was better than nothing. Buck had once killed a jaguar with a shovel;
It’s not the weapon that counts,
Nini Mo said,
it’s the Will.
I sure as fike had the Will. I staggered down a long, featureless white hallway brilliantly lit by white squares set into the ceiling.

Octohands settled back on my shoulder, coiling a tentacle around my neck.
Where are you going, girlie? We need to get out of here! Out is the other way! We can hide, go to ground until day. Night is the nahuals time—he can’t change in the day.

I have to stop him. He’s going to go after Tiny Doom.

Let him go. She can handle him, I’ll wager. And if she can’t, well, you are the heir. You are who matters.

I can’t let him get her. It will be all my fault!

Don’t toy with old sweetness, my girl. You haven’t the luxury, I tell you.

I stumbled through another set of doors, down a lavish hallway, past tall flower arrangements of orchids and calla lilies smelling to high heaven, past the silvery mirrors with their images of the wild-eyed girl with tentacles mixed into her hair, the prancing red dog following her. The hallway terminated at the elevator. I leaned on the umbrella and punched weakly at the call button.

What’s your glorious plan, then?
Octohands asked.

I’m going to let the Birdie have it.

Have what?

I pushed the call button again. And again. Where was the fiking elevator?

Everything. Every Curse I’ve been swallowing for the last six months. I turned you into an Octopus, and turned the Zu-Zus hair green. Surely I can do something to blow him out of his tracks. If you don’t want to help me, I can drop you off right here, Grampy.

With a loud
ping!
the elevator door sprang open and there stood Udo in all his glory, grinning like a fox.

“Udo!” I almost sobbed in relief. “Udo! Thank the Goddess—”

“Thank the Goddess, indeed,” he said jovially. “It’s my little pigeon. Just the dainty morsel I’ve been looking for. Faithless oath-breaker! How glad I am to see you. Let’s chat, shall we, about what happens to people who try to cheat me.”

Oh, fiking hell. Not Udo.

Springheel Jack.

I
TURNED TO RUN
—or, rather, to toddle slowly—but Springheel Jack reached out with one long arm and, despite my feeble whacking with the umbrella, yanked me into the elevator and into his embrace. Flynn had barely squeezed in with us, when the door sprang closed and the elevator jerked into motion. Jack reached over my shoulder and hit the
STOP
button. With a squeal, the elevator ground to a halt.

“Let me go!” My struggle was feeble and his embrace was strong.

“Get down!” Jack pushed at the bouncy happy-to-see-him Flynn with one of the Jack Boots. The snakes’ heads hissed and Flynn got down, looking confused. I didn’t blame him. From the outside, Springheel Jack looked exactly like Udo.

“You look weak-kneed at my appearance.” Jack took the umbrella out of my stiff grip and tossed it away. He was grinning like a weasel with a rabbit in its sights.

“Let me go!”

“I would, but I think perhaps you would not be standing, and much as I love it when people grovel at my feet, in this case, I prefer the armful. You make quite an armful, darling.”

I tried to kick his shin. My unlaced boot fell off. Jack just laughed.

I said, “I thought you and Udo had an understanding. You were going to share, or something. This doesn’t sound like sharing to me.”

“We do have an understanding. And Udo, unlike some people I could mention, keeps his part of the bargain. We take turns. I do with my turn what I will, and he does as he will with his turn, and this is my turn—
oof—”

When Jack had grabbed me, Octohands launched off my shoulder into the air, where he swirled and jetted just above our heads. Now he dropped onto Jack’s shoulder and snaked a tentacle around his neck. Jack gurgled in surprise and let go of me, reaching up to tear Octohands off. I slid to the floor in a muddled heap. But instead of yanking Octohands away, Jack let his hands fall, his face intent with concentration. Clearly Octohands was communicating; I could only imagine what he was saying.

I didn’t bother to get up. Before, I would not have considered Springheel Jack the lesser of two evils before, but compared to the Birdie, he seemed harmless. As long as Jack didn’t kill me, I didn’t care what he did; it couldn’t be worse than what the Birdie had done. And I didn’t think, with Udo in there somewhere, that he would kill me. Tears prickled at my eyes, but I blinked them away.

Octohands slackened his grip on Jack and waved a tentacle at me, perching on Jack’s shoulder like a squishy parrot. Jack smiled and said, much more kindly, “Ah, now I understand. You should have said so earlier, girlie. Here, have a sippy It will restore you.”

He pressed a silver flask to my lips, and I had to drink or choke. The liquid was chocolatey and it burned as it went down my throat, but it also spread warmth and energy through my veins.

“Said what earlier?” I asked, bewildered by his sudden change of heart. My feet were no longer tingling, my muscles no longer ached. I hoisted myself up, leaning against the elevator wall.

Jack said, “That you were family Hardhands has filled me in about your little trouble with Sieur Nahual. I shall let you off at your floor. You hightail it to your room, lock the door, and don’t come out until it’s all over. We’ll take care of him, Hardhands and I—”

“What are you talking about, family? And you can’t take on a nahual! Don’t be a fool—he’ll kill you, which means he’ll kill Udo—”

“Leave it to us.” Jack cut me off. He punched the
STOP
button again. The elevator began to move, but this time up, not down. “And if the improbable should occur and we should fail, take the boy and run. He’s a handsome lad. Udo don’t like him, but I think he’ll do just dandy”

I grabbed at Jack’s lapels, wadding the silk between my fists, and pulled his face down to mine, heedless of the sharp lace scratching at my face and the cravat pin threatening to put out my eye. “Udo! Are you in there? Come on—Udo—it’s insane! He’s going to get you killed! Udo!
Udo!”