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Authors: Debi Gliori

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BOOK: Pure Dead Frozen
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Annoyed at being squeezed in the grip of the roaring man and aware that Baci, source of all good things, was somewhere nearby, the changeling decided to seize control of the situation. Before Don Lucifer could issue another threat, it reared forward in his arms and sank its teeth into the gangster's newly restored nose, biting down so hard that it was some moments before the Don could dislodge its grip, hurl the monster to the floor, and get as far away from the biting baby as possible. Blind with pain and rage, Don Lucifer crashed along the corridor, flinging open doors at random in search of something to stanch the flow of blood as well as something to numb the pain. Ten minutes later, pressing a towel to his face, he reentered the Ancestors' Room clutching a bottle of whiskey. Again the room was silent, save for the changeling hissing on the floor in front of Malvolio's portrait. Don Lucifer smiled nastily. He'd had enough messing around with biting brats and wailing women. He'd do the wife and the baby together…. At this thought, his smile widened and he dropped the towel. Slowly, lingeringly, he removed the cork from the bottle and let it fall to the floor. It bounced once, then rolled toward the glowing embers in the fireplace. Perfect. Don Lucifer had just worked out how to hammer the two final nails into his brother's coffin. Paying particular attention to the area of floorboards around Malvolio's portrait, Don Lucifer splashed whiskey all around, laying a trail of alcohol that led all the way back to the warm tiles surrounding the fireplace. He did this with one hand while, with his other hand, he rummaged in his pocket for his cigarette lighter.

         

Running across the rose quartz drive, knowing deep down that something was very wrong indeed, Luciano smelled the smoke but couldn't at first see its source. Then he heard the sound of breaking glass, and looked up just as the windows of the Ancestors' Room were illuminated by an awful flash of bloody light. As he ran, he saw two figures silhouetted in the window, backlit by leaping flames. Luciano's throat was so constricted with dread that he couldn't even say Baci's name; could do nothing other than run flat out for the front door, knowing that no matter how fast he took the stairs, nor with what degree of suicidal courage he broke into the burning room, he would forever and ever and ever be too late to save his beloved Baci.

Burn, Baby, Burn

A
wave as tall as a mountain rose up out of the loch. It was like nothing Titus had ever seen before, unless he discounted the sort of tidal waves generally found in disaster movies. Except, he decided, you don't get the smell of the sea from waves in disaster movies; nor do they sound like the babble of a million voices, one on top of the other, all of them clamoring to be heard. Titus knelt beside his dead great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, shocked into a state of emotional numbness, hardly aware of the baby in his arms or the imminence of his own death as it rushed toward him, borne by the vast wall of water towering over the shores of the loch. He looked up from Strega-Nonna to where Pandora was struggling on the pebbly shore with Strega-Nonna's murderer; looked to the meadow, where Ffup was rising into the air with Damp clasped in her forepaws; and finally looked back to the house, where he saw flames leaping from the windows of the Ancestors' Room.

Then something as tall and heavy as an apartment building hit him, driving him under, deep, deep down into the darkest night, and he found himself wondering, as consciousness fled, if there might be white-chocolate-and-vanilla brownies in the afterlife or if being dead was really as final as he'd been led to believe.

         

S'tan sat at the table reading recipe books, oblivious to the chaos surrounding him and unruffled by the wicked wind howling through the broken window by the sink. Occasionally he would lick his finger and turn a page, his entire attention focused on his search for whatever had been in Mrs. McLachlan's icing bag. Thus, when the nanny appeared in the kitchen, he didn't at first regard her as a threat, but as a welcome source of information.

“That…that stuff you rammed down my throat,” he began, closing the recipe book and pushing it to one side before taking another from the pile of unread volumes and opening its stained cover. “It was…well, heck, it was
wicked,
whatever it was.” He didn't look up, didn't make eye contact with the nanny; instead, his fingers continued to flip pages as he scanned the lists of ingredients, hoping against hope that Mrs. McLachlan would let him in on her secret recipe. To his delight, Mrs. McLachlan did not disappoint.

“It was just a wee rowan jelly, dear. Made from rowan berries. Of course, being a cook yourself, you'll know that a jelly made from the ripe berries is the most concentrated form of the fruit you could hope to obtain….” Here Mrs. McLachlan paused and took a breath; when she spoke again, her voice had developed a marked edge. “What you
weren't
to know was that here in Scotland, we used to grow rowan trees in our graveyards to ward off evil. And very effective they were too. So a jelly made from
those
berries…well, I'm sure you can imagine how potent its effect would be.”

Which was when he looked up and saw that Mrs. McLachlan wasn't alone. Behind her stood Minty, Latch, and the wolf pack, all of whom stared at him with flat, expressionless eyes.

“Your time's up,” said Mrs. McLachlan, and as if to underline this, Minty took an egg timer out from behind her back and placed it firmly on the cupboard, where they could all watch its progress.

Clearing his throat, Latch removed a small Play-Doh figure from his pocket and met S'tan's puzzled gaze before saying, “I took the liberty of mixing some of the blood from your injured finger into this dough. I'm sure you'll appreciate the significance of what I'm talking about.” And stepping to one side, the butler opened the door of the oven and held the figure uncomfortably close to the flames.

Fat beads of sweat broke out on S'tan's brow, and he held up his hands in mock surrender. “Guys, ladies, I mean…Sheesh. Is this aggro strictly necessary?”

Silence greeted him, and his eyes flicked from the egg timer to the oven and back. Blisters began to break out across his face, swelling up and bursting, as the silence stretched out, unbroken. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, S'tan's mood abruptly changed.

“D'you cretins really think that you can best me? ME? The Prince of Dork, the Prints of Dark…yeah, whatever…” He paused, his brow furrowed as if he were an actor who'd forgotten his lines, his whole body racked with the embarrassment of waiting for the prompt that never came. Shaking his head and sending drops of sweat spraying in all directions, S'tan stood up, and his chair went crashing to the floor behind him. His face twisted with contempt, and he closed the recipe book as if it held a story with a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. With his eyes firmly fixed on the falling level of sand in the upper chamber of the egg timer, S'tan ground out his final lines, spitting each word across the kitchen, the effort of speaking costing him dear. Latch tried to ignore the black smoke trickling out from S'tan's nostrils, just as he forced himself to ignore the pain he felt in his own hand—the hand that held the little figure over the flames. Somehow S'tan managed to force a laugh from his throat, even as his lower legs burst into flame.

“You—
you
must be out of your tiny minds if you think this is
it
. I'll boil you
alive
and suck the flesh from your
bones
. I'll make you wish you'd never been
born
. I'll give you nightmares for all eternity. And as for
you
—” At this, he lurched toward Flora, and that was enough. With a roar of rage and pain commingled, Latch flung the manikin into the oven and slammed the door shut.

There was a ghastly scream, a crackle and a hiss, and in front of their horrified eyes S'tan melted, blackened, bubbled, and turned to smoke. The smell was indescribably bad, the air so thick with cremated devil flesh that it seemed to Latch and Minty as if they would never be rid of him. S'tan coated their skin, clung to their hair, trickled down the backs of their throats, clogged their lungs; even his glowing, flaming afterimage seemed to have seared itself on their retinas—but Mrs. McLachlan flung open the door to the kitchen garden and they fled blindly outside, never before so glad to be cold, wet, and alive on a winter's night in Argyll.

         

Even though she now understood the changeling was not her own—was some twisted stand-in for her missing baby son—still Baci was unable to ignore the little creature's shrieks and wails. The changeling shrank away from the flames that licked across the floor of the Ancestors' Room, its face a gargoyle's mask of horror, its true nature revealed by fear. Half mad with grief, Baci broke free from Ludo's grip and lunged through the gilt frame, passing through the portal between the worlds as if it were merely an ordinary doorway. She scooped up the howling changeling and ran for the window with it in her arms. Two paces behind, barely able to see through the smoke, Ludo plunged across the burning room, intent on saving Baci from herself. As the lawyer reached out to her, the velvet curtains caught fire, their moth-eaten, sunbleached fabric no match for the greedy flames. For one heart-stopping moment, Baci and the changeling were silhouetted against an unbroken wall of fire; then the curtains fell from the pelmet, spilling to the floor in a waterfall of sparks and flecks of burning velvet…

…at which point the windows imploded and Ffup crashed into the burning room, wings wide, neck outstretched, a grin stretching from ear to ear, delighted at having made the most dramatic entrance of her entire life.

“Pretty cool, huh?” she demanded, stamping on the burning curtains with her heat-resistant dragon feet, forgetting in her triumph that she was the only creature in the room in possession of heat-resistant
any
thing. Smoke filled the room; the floor was dotted with little bonfires; and glowing flakes and embers threatened bookcases and chairs, beds and wardrobes alike. Despite this, Ffup paused in front of Minty's cheval mirror and turned to one side admiringly; then, remembering the purpose behind crashing into the Ancestors' Room, she collected herself.

“Right, guys. Time to rock and roll.” And grabbing Ludo, Baci, and the changeling, she ran full tilt at the window and her powerful wings bore them all out into the night.

Waiting one floor below, with his mouth submerged in the waters of the moat and the remainder of his scaly body coiled on the rose quartz drive, the vast Sleeper took Ffup's reappearance as his cue for action. He trundled forward, quartz crunching beneath his belly as he uncoiled and extended his colossal body, inching slowly up the wall beneath the Ancestors' Room. When his head was finally level with the shattered windows, he paused, took a deep breath, and then, looking more like a firefighter's hose than a mythical Scottish beast, squirted thousands of quarts of moat water straight into the burning room.

Something's Got to Give

T
he unmistakable smell of burned flesh hung in the darkness of the great hall as Luciano took the stairs five at a time in what he knew must be a doomed attempt to rescue his wife. Memories of her flickered across his mind: Baci crowned in cream rosebuds as his bride; Baci asleep, her body curled around the babies like a mother lion's; Baci dancing across a meadow full of cotton grass; Baci swimming in the lily pond…

“BACIIIIIIII,” he howled, catching sight of the telltale line of wicked orange flame glowing round the doorframe of the Ancestors' Room. He could feel the heat from the other end of the corridor; knew even as he ran toward its source that the best he could hope for now was to join his dead wife, and thus leave their children completely orphaned….

“BACIIIIIII,” he roared, aware of a shadow passing between him and his goal. Then the shadow spoke.

“You might as well save your breath,
stupido.
Place she's gone, they don't have any ears left.”

The brutality of this statement, its crude assessment of the situation, hit Luciano in the center of his chest like a sledgehammer. Lucifer di S'Embowelli Borgia stepped out of the shadows, walking toward him with a sneer on his ugly face as he'd always done when they were children, appearing at the best moment to inflict the maximum damage possible on his little brother. Hardly any surprise that he was here now, gloating while Luciano wept.

“You pathetic little worm,” he observed, strolling toward Luciano, taking the time to savor his triumph. “Don't tell me you think your tears are gonna put out the flames. Is that how you're gonna save her, hero? Is that it? You're gonna snivel all over her?” He was alongside Luciano now, his changeling-bitten nose a cosmetic nightmare of blood and bruising, his yellow eyes alight with malice. “Hey. You may as well face it, Luci-boy. You ain't gonna be able to live with yourself after this. Think, my heroic brother. You did
nothing
while your lady-wife burned to death. Or did you? Oh, excuse
me
. I do apologize. You
did
do something. You…you
cried.
She screamed her head off and you…you sniveled and wept like the useless, cowardly—”

“Not another word,” Luciano spat, lunging for his tormentor with one arm outstretched in front of him. “Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”

“Make me.” Lucifer yawned, looking down at his fingernails as if that concluded the matter.

Luciano grabbed Lucifer's shirtfront, forcing them close enough to feel each other's breath.

“Oooh, I'm wetting my pants, I'm so scared. Ooooh, little brother, you're so frightening.” Lucifer made no attempt to escape his brother's grip, but stared into Luciano's eyes, his bottom jaw working from side to side until, with no warning, he reared back and spat full into Luciano's face, simultaneously shoving him so hard that he fell backward and crashed to the floor.

Lucifer's mocking laughter bounced off the suits of armor downstairs and seemed to echo endlessly in Luciano's ears as he picked himself up off the floor. Grimacing with disgust, he wiped the spit from his face, observing his own actions as if he'd somehow managed to split himself in two: into Luciano, the ice-cold witness, and Luciano, the man with the red mist rapidly occluding his sight.

Lucifer was striding past the open door to the game room when Luciano caught up with him. A monumental, unstoppable force batted Lucifer through the doorway and into the room, flung him across the carpet, and narrowly missed pitching him headfirst through the glass front of the game cabinet. Lucifer caught a brief glimpse of the hundreds of muddled-up games stacked behind the glass, games he half recognized from childhood—

         

He'd always cheated. Always. Thing was, it was never as much fun when your opponent was too dumb to realize you were robbing him blind. Luciano was such a knucklehead he never even guessed why he lost every game he played with his big brother. The stupid sap would just stare at the cards, or the board, or his dwindling stock of poker chips, peering at them with his big brown eyes like some sorta dumb animal, so doglike in fact that Lucifer frequently found release in kicking his kid brother until Luciano howled exactly like a dog….

         

Lucifer was spun round and his face slammed against the wall, his nose making painful contact with the brass dome of the antique light switch. Shove. The lights came on over the billiard table. Another shove from Luciano, more agonizing contact between Lucifer's tender bitten nose and the unforgiving metal of the light switch, and off went the lights again. Shove, on. Shove, off. In the background, over his own grunts of pain and Luciano's labored breathing, Lucifer could hear a shuffling sound, as if the jumbled game pieces in the cabinet were stirring in their sleep. Then came a shove vicious enough to make him scream, a high-pitched shriek he'd never before heard coming from his own throat….

         

He recognized it, though. He'd made Luciano squeak and squeal like a stuck pig often enough. 'Specially when the pinhead was just a baby and couldn't rat on him. Those were the best times, him and his kid brother playing the game where he'd loom over the crib in time to catch the look of utter horror as Luciano realized that here was the nightmare, back again. The rush of power he used to feel when he saw the fear in Luciano's eyes was indescribable, almost better than the feelings he had afterward. Poppa didn't notice the bruises that sprouted all over Baby Luciano like black flowers; Poppa was too busy trying to keep control of his Mafia empire—besides, real men like Poppa took very little interest in their children until they were old enough to hold a gun…. Not like wussy Luci, who probably spent all his time with his squalling brats because he'd never grown up hims—

         

Shove.

“AUGHHH.”

“How d'you like being on the receiving end, huh?” Luciano's breath felt hot on Lucifer's face; the two brothers tangled in a mass of thrashing, wrangling limbs, a two-headed beast whose struggling shadow fell across the floor. “I
said
. How. D'you. Like. It?” Luciano demanded. “I hope you're beginning to be afraid, Lucifer. You bloody well ought to be.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Me? Afraid of you?”

Shove.

“Ah, Lucifer. I'm not going to stop, see? I'm not going to quit on you now. Not now that you've killed her. Not now that there's nothing left for me.”

Shove.

It hurt. It hurt Lucifer far more than anything had ever hurt him before, but he was damned if he'd ever admit it. Not to Luciano. Not ever. Never say quits….

         

“Say it, you big baby, c'mon, say it. Let me hear you beg.”

“Please, stop. Please, Lucifer, I'll do anything you want, I'll give you anything, just stop it. You're killing me. Lucifer. PLEASE. STOP.”

He couldn't make out if the sniveling fool was crying, because Luciano was dripping wet from repeated duckings in the bath. One minute the stupid baby had been whipping up a storm of soapsuds; the next he found himself grabbed by the scruff of his scrawny neck and forced underwater. And don't think Lucifer hadn't been tempted to keep old Luciano under till the frenzy of thrashing limbs and bubbles had stopped, but
that
would have meant an end to the game, and it was no fun at all when games ended.

         

He hoped that Luciano felt the same way. Hoped that his dumb brother wasn't thinking of playing this one to the death.

“Hey. Luci. Murdering me ain't gonna bring her baa-AAUGH.”

“Shut it.”

“If they send you to prison, you'll never get to see your kids grow up.”

“I said,
shut it
.”

“Awwww, Luciano, weedy little jerks like you get eaten
alive
in prison. Come on. You'll get over her. Plenty more where she came fr-AUGHHHH.”

Clotted gargling sounds came from Lucifer's throat as Luciano dragged him choking and struggling across the room. His spine made contact with the edge of the billiard table, and Lucifer found himself bending backward under the relentless pressure of his brother's hands. Luciano's face loomed above him, but what he saw was not a brother he recognized. Even if by some miracle Lucifer had managed to force any words past his throat, Luciano was beyond reason, beyond hearing. The stupid jerk's eyes were squeezed shut, tears sliding out from under the lids; he was sobbing like the baby he'd always been, his mouth drawn up like a gargoyle's. Trying to move his head, Lucifer saw movement out of the corner of his eye. At first he couldn't work out what it was he'd seen; it looked like hundreds of toy soldiers had been laid out across the green baize of the billiard table like some sort of weird war game.

Then he realized that it wasn't a war game—wasn't a game at all. They weren't toy soldiers, they were
real
. Real soldiers, who had discovered their life's true purpose in this final battle. Real living, breathing warriors, who despite their height were no less lethal than their full-size human counterparts. Lucifer had approximately three and a half seconds to consider the vicious points on each and every one of the shrunken warriors' tiny spears before he was impaled upon them, their wicked tips penetrating skin, muscle, blood vessels, and several of his major organs simultaneously. As his blood leached out across the baize and his sight faded to black, Lucifer saw with utter clarity that, for him, the game was over.

BOOK: Pure Dead Frozen
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