Pure Dead Magic (11 page)

Abruptly the child let go before he could complete his threat. The rabbit bounded into the back of the van, slamming the door behind him.

Across the street, an apprentice piper, in full Highland dress, began to coax the opening bars of “Auld Lang Syne” from his bagpipes. It sounded awful, but it masked the squeal of brakes and the child’s earsplitting wail, “That bunny’s got a GUN!”

Swerving to overtake a trailer, Pronto shuddered at the memory. In the passenger seat beside him now, the rabbit twiddled dials on the radio, played with the heater controls, and wound the window up and down, all the while keeping up an endless flow of chatter.

“Know what this motor needs, eh?” he asked of the company in general. “Needs some of them furry dice, dunnit?” he said to no one in particular. “My mate’s motor, now there’s a really cool set of wheels—he’s got the dice, tinted windows, alloy wheels, sound system big enough ter blow the windows out.…”

“How useful,” muttered Pronto. “No vehicle should be without one.”

“That’s what I mean,” continued the rabbit. “And he’s got satellite navigation, turbocharged twin-cam fuel-injected whatchamacallits …”

“Really?”
said Pronto, investing that one word with every ounce of sarcasm at his disposal. “And your ‘friend,’ what does he do?”

“Eh? What d’you mean, ‘what does he do’?”

“I mean,” said Pronto, speaking very slowly and carefully. “What. Does. He. Do. For. A. Living. Your. Friend?”

“Uhh. I get your meaning. He doesn’t do nothing for a living. He’s dead.”

“Oh dear, how sad,” said Pronto insincerely.

The van began to slow down as they approached a vast rusting bridge. Pronto riffled through his pockets and turned round in his seat. “Look, we have to pay to cross this toll bridge. Has anyone got any change? I only have big notes.”

“I haven’t any pockets, pal,” said the rabbit, stating the obvious.

Mutters from the rear of the van told Pronto that, like him, everyone was carrying either credit cards or rolls of big notes.

“Couldn’t we just drive straight through the barrier?” said the rabbit hopefully.

“No, we could
not,
” growled Pronto. “We are trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. Here we are on a clandestine mission to some Highland fortress, intent on rubbing out a boy and anyone else that sees us do it. If we crash through the barrier, chances are we’ll arrive at our destination with a police escort.”

The van rolled to a halt in front of the toll barrier. Pronto wound down his window and extended his arm with a £100 note at the end of it.

“Haven’t you got anything smaller?” the toll collector asked in disgust, “I haven’t got change for
that.
”

“Tell him to keep the change,” said the rabbit. “And hurry it up, will ya? I need the bog.”

“Will you shut
up
and let me deal with this,” hissed Pronto. “He’s hardly likely to forget several men and a rabbit who told him to keep £99.20 change, is he?”

“I can’t wait much longer,” moaned the rabbit to himself.
“You’ve no idea how long it takes to get this rabbit costume undone.… I’m gonna burst.”

A line of bridge traffic began to form behind the van. The toll collector stuck his head round the door of his booth, the better to address them. “You’ll just have to wait,” he yelled. “Daddy Warbucks here hasn’t anything smaller than a hundred-pound note, and I’ll have to get some more change.” Grumbling to himself, he strolled slowly off in the direction of the other tollbooths, holding the banknote out in front of him as if it was covered in plague bacteria.

Minutes dragged past. By now, the rabbit was jiggling frantically on his seat, causing the entire van to bounce up and down. “Oh, oh, oh. My bladder can’t cope. I need a pee NOW—ow, ow, ow, it’s like trying to stop Niagara Falls … urrrgh … hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.”

The toll collector was deep in conversation at a faraway booth where his ancient colleague was slowly counting out £99.20 in pennies. From time to time, they glanced leisurely over to where the van was rocking back and forth, muffled screams coming from its interior.

To the amusement of the occupants in the long line of waiting cars, the van at the head of the line suddenly stopped bouncing and ejected one of its passengers. What was going on? The ejectee appeared to be attempting to divest himself of a large rabbit suit. He appeared to be in something of a tearing hurry. No? No. The rabbit had changed his mind.

The rabbit was now waddling back to the van, his furry legs held apart, leaving a trail of wet rabbit footprints on the tarmac behind him.

The toll collector shuffled back to his booth, effortfully
dragging a large canvas bag in which clinked £99.20 in coins. He stuck his head into the van, recoiled abruptly, and said, “Phhwoah. What’s that
smell?
Did someone die in there while I was off getting your money?” He roared with laughter at his own wit and began to count out Pronto’s change.

Several miles up the road, they stopped at a service station and bought four cans of air freshener. Several miles after that, they stopped at a pull-off and sprayed the rabbit. Shortly thereafter, the roads narrowed considerably. A series of s-curves and steep dips conspired to make everyone feel very queasy indeed. Everyone, that is, except the rabbit. He was quite happy; his costume had dried off nicely, he’d found an excellent heavy-metal station on the radio, and was rolling the window up and down in time to the beat.

“OPEN THE WINDOW!” yelled the three men in the back as the van lurched and rolled around another corner.

Several miles later, they stopped in the middle of nowhere and tied the rabbit to the roof rack.

A Wee Hot Toddy

W
ith the feeling that she might have lost several brownie points by tripping up her owner, Multitudina sneaked downstairs, back to the cellar. The smell of defrosted and rotting food had grown stronger since her last visit. A reeking lagoon surrounded the once-glacial freezer. I’m not tempted, Multitudina told herself firmly. Last time I sipped at
that
particular watering hole, my nose got fried. She gave the lake a wide berth and continued on her travels. Somewhere in this huge house, she thought, her stomach growling, there must be something for a mother-to-be to eat.

The rain had finally stopped, and weak sunshine trickled in through the kitchen windows. Mrs. McLachlan glared at Sab, Ffup, and Knot, who huddled round the kitchen table.

“There were
four
left,” she said, tapping the muffin tray for emphasis. “And now there are none.”

The beasts sighed sympathetically.

“I turned my back on them for one minute,” she continued, “one minute while I heated up a wee hot toddy for the Signora, and when I turned round …”

Sab licked his lips nervously. Ffup stifled a belch with one leathery wing. Mrs. McLachlan stared at them. Knot lolloped out of the kitchen, leaving a half-eaten bunny slipper on the chair behind him.

“Did he do it?” demanded Mrs. McLachlan. “All
four
raspberry muffins? What a
pig.
After that enormous dinner he ate last night.”

“Blaark,” said Sab, holding his feathery stomach.

“Don’t feel well,” groaned Ffup, clutching his scaly one.

Mrs. McLachlan opened the door to the kitchen garden. “Not on the
herbs,
” she warned as Sab and Ffup bolted past her. “Oh well … never mind, they’ll wash.”

Five minutes later, they returned, both looking rather pale and ill. “Must have been the smocked hiccup,” whispered Ffup, wincing at the memory.

“Now I know why they’re called Brussels splats,” added Sab darkly.

Signora Strega-Borgia huddled under her bedcovers, a trail of tissues leading from the bathroom to her pillow. A fit of sneezing had left her as limp as an overcooked haddock, her throat felt as if she’d eaten a bowl of razor blades, and her nose ran like an Olympic athlete.

There was a discreet tap at the bedroom door, and Mrs. McLachlan breezed in, bearing a little tray on which something steamed. “Good morning, dear,” she said, setting the tray
down on a squelching pile of used tissues. “I’ve brought you a Morangie-Fiddach special. Three spoonfuls of heather honey, the juice of a lemon, both warmed together with three cloves, a cinnamon stick, and a blade of mace … oh, and did I mention? Three glasses of the finest whisky.”

She watched in approval as Signora Strega-Borgia drained the mug in several swallows. “Nnngg,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, as her eyes crossed and perspiration broke out on her forehead.

Mrs. McLachlan plumped pillows, smoothed the quilt, and tucked her employer in. “S’got,” slurred Signora Strega-Borgia, flapping a hand at the empty mug, “s’got a kick like a mule … jusht closhe m’eyes forra bit.…” She slumped deeper into the pillows and began to snore.

Mrs. McLachlan drew the curtains shut, piled the tray with soggy tissues, and tiptoed out of the room. “Is the wee one with you, Titus?” she called, heading downstairs.

Titus opened his bedroom door just enough to poke his head round. “She’s playing in the computer,” he said truthfully.

Satisfied, Mrs. McLachlan descended to the kitchen.

Arachnids with Attitude

T
itus closed his bedroom door and turned the key in the lock. Across the room, Pandora chewed her fingernails and stifled a sob.

“What are we going to do, Titus? How do we get Damp back?”

“We can’t,” Titus said baldly.

“We
must
be able to,” wailed Pandora.

“It’s like posting a letter,” explained Titus. “Once you’ve
sent
something, you can’t stick your hand into a postbox and pull it back out.…”

“You can wait till the postman unlocks the postbox, and ask him to fish your letter out.…”

“It’s not the same thing,” said Titus, running his hands through his hair. “We have to find out where she’s gone, what address she’s gone to, and then ask them to send her back.”

“We’re talking about her as if she’s a parcel,” sobbed Pandora. “She’s a
baby.
”

“She’s a
lost
baby,” said Titus. “And we have to find her before someone else does.”

“What d’you mean we?” said Pandora, in between mouthfuls of fingernails. “I don’t know anything about computers or the Internet.”

They gazed at the screen, each lost in their own thoughts. “Neither do I, really,” admitted Titus. “The Internet’s like a big web, Pandora. It’s absolutely vast. Colossal. Humungous. And somewhere, out there, on one of the millions of strands, is our baby sister.”

Pandora groaned and rolled back on Titus’s bed. She stared at the ceiling, tears rolling down her face, aware of what little hope they had of retrieving Damp. “Poor baby,” she wept. “Lost on the Web. Stuck, like a … a fly, waiting helplessly for …”

“You called?” said a voice. Spinning down from the ceiling came a vast hairy spider.

Titus leapt backward as Tarantella touched down on his monitor. She paused, flexing all eight of her furry legs, and smiling at him with her aggressively pink lips. “YEEEEUCHH,” he said, flapping her away. “Is she
still
alive? I thought I’d killed her years ago.”

Tarantella hip-hopped closer, stopping to cup her chin in one of her legs and gaze at this impudent human. “What’s his problem?” she asked Pandora.

“He’s got several,” said Pandora. “But mainly, he’s got a thing about spiders.”

“AAARGH—a
talking
spider,” squeaked Titus. “When did it
learn to speak? And wear
lipstick?
EURCHH. Gross. Kill it, Pandora.” He climbed onto a chair and curled himself up into a spider-proof ball.

“Titus. Chill out. She’s only a spider,” sighed Pandora.

“AAARGH—a talking
child,
” mocked Tarantella. “Yeurk. Urg. Disgusting. And it’s a
male
one too.… Kill it, Pandora.”

“Tarantella. Titus,” said Pandora, introducing one to the other. “Do shut up, both of you. Listen, this is
really
important. We need you, Tarantella. Yes,
we,
” she added, quelling Titus with a glare. “Tarantella knows about webs; you know about computers. Together you might be able to find Damp.”