Pure Dead Magic (16 page)

At the top of the secret stairway, Latch and Mrs. McLachlan halted. Trying not to sneeze in the dusty air, they whispered to each other in the darkness.

“We’ll surprise him,” hissed Latch. “I’ll burst in, tackle him, hurl him to the ground, get his arms up behind his back, kick his gun to one side, frog-march him downstairs, and phone the police.…”

“Er, no, dear, I
don’t
think so,” whispered Mrs. McLachlan, discreetly removing her little case from her pocket and flipping it open. “Too risky—we can’t have stray bullets flying around.”

Attempting to shield the case from Latch’s inquiring gaze, she switched it on and peered within. It lit up with a silvery glow, illuminating her face and causing Latch to wonder why, at a time like this, his companion had decided to turn girly and powder her nose.

“Have you a better suggestion?” he muttered through clenched teeth. “For heaven’s sake, woman, there isn’t time to gaze in your mirror, come on!” And without waiting for a reply, he burst through the secret door into Titus’s bedroom.

Later, Pandora would recall that everything moved very quickly from the moment that she’d noticed the off-kilter painting. One minute she was wondering why it appeared to hang from the wall on hinges, and next thing, Latch was flying through it like a … well, really, like a
hero,
she admitted as Latch landed on top of that vile gangster with the horrible gun.

“BANZAIIIIiii!” yelled Latch, launching himself at Pronto. “GERRRRONIMO!” he added for effect as he knocked Wormwood out of Pronto’s grasp.

Pronto was scrabbling across the floor in pursuit of Wormwood, followed by Latch, who was intent on fastening his hands around the thug’s throat, when Mrs. McLachlan stepped through the hole in the wall with a dazzling object held in her outstretched hands. A beam of light streamed from it, bathing Pronto in a silver glow.

The gangster flailed and screamed, and Latch, sensing victory, fastened his hands around Pronto’s neck.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” wailed Mrs. McLachlan as she saw what a ghastly mistake she had made. “What a
stupid
idiot. What a
moron.
What a cretinous act of cybermagic. What a dumb thing to do!”

“WHAT?” roared Latch, his hands tight round Pronto’s throat. “What have I done
now,
woman?” From beneath him came a ghastly sound like a strangulated wheeze.

“Not you, dear,
me.
I missed. My aim was off.” Mrs. McLachlan tutted, closing her case with a snap and instantly dropping it into her pocket. She crossed the room to where Wormwood lay twitching and spinning on the floor. “This,” she explained, picking up the gun with some difficulty, “
this
was my intended target.”

The gun hissed in her arms, twitching this way and that, seeking skin. “Revolting thing,” said Mrs. McLachlan, reaching under the trigger for the on/off switch. Immediately, Wormwood slumped over her arm, floppy as a disk and pliable as a Slinky.

Latch gazed at her in some confusion. If the gun hadn’t become her target, what had? A snort from Titus caused him to turn back to his wheezing victim.

“Oh, Latch,” gasped Pandora, “if you could only see your face!” Bewildered, Latch slowly released his grip on the fallen Pronto.

A strangely familiar droning groan came from beneath the butler’s kilt. Titus and Pandora made eye contact and burst into hysterical giggles. In a forlorn attempt at maintaining some shred of dignity, Latch rose to his feet, dusted down his kilt, and cleared his throat. “Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why I find myself locked in mortal combat with that … that
thing?
” he spluttered, pointing at what lay on the floor at his feet.

Pronto had undergone a magical transformation. Where seconds before he had stood, exuding bristling Mafia menace, now he lay metamorphosed into a giant set of bagpipes, droning like a stale tartan fart.

Titus prodded the ex-thug with his toe. Pronto obliged with a desolate wheeze.

Trying her hardest to keep a serious expression pinned to her face, Mrs. McLachlan wrapped an arm round Latch’s shoulder and began to explain what had really happened. “You see, you were just a wee bitty impetuous, dear. If you’d waited for me, I could have turned that nasty gun into …”
Seeing the look on Latch’s face, Mrs. McLachlan hastily changed tack. “Now, dear, if you hadn’t been so brave and rushed in to tackle that brute single-handed …,” she crooned.

A tiny smile began to hover round Latch’s mouth.

“…  and with no thought for your own personal safety …,” Mrs. McLachlan sighed admiringly.

Bored with all this Latch flattery, Titus drifted back to his computer screen and discovered that it was now working again. To his delight, there was a message informing him that he had mail. Titus downloaded it and began to read while Pandora experimented with the musical possibilities of a metamorphosed thug.

“…  and the way you dropped him with just one blow—I’m just lost in admiration …,” murmured Mrs. McLachlan in the background.

Pandora leaned over her brother’s shoulder to read whatever it was that he was so engrossed in.

“…  such strong hands you have, and you cut a fine figure in a kilt …” Somehow Mrs. McLachlan was keeping a straight face as she laid the flattery on with a shovel.

“OH NO!” wailed Titus. “DAD! NO! Help, we’ve got to do SOMETHING!”

“Somebody get Mum!” yelled Pandora. “Something awful’s about to happen! LATCH! GET MUM! NOW!”

Inside Titus’s modem, Tarantella sighed. There they go again, she thought. One drama after another. And so much noise and fuss. She looked down at the sleeping Damp. The baby was oblivious to her siblings’ recent near-extinction, her father’s imminent crispdom, and her mother’s inebriation. She slept, slung in the cradle of Tarantella’s
eight legs, cocooned in spider silk, her mouth slightly open and her cheeks flushed pink from the warmth of the modem’s internal workings.

The Revenge of the Hot Toddy

S
ignora Strega-Borgia proved difficult to wake. “S’amatter?” she protested as Latch hauled her out of bed and Mrs. McLachlan dragged her under a cold shower. “Wossarush? S’apanic? Aargh! STOP! It’s
freezing!
Wossgoinon? Aah! No! STOP THIS!”

Mrs. McLachlan, satisfied that her employer was now fully awake, turned off the shower. Signora Strega-Borgia lurched out of the bathroom leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her. The nanny followed, holding out a bath towel by way of a peace offering.

“This had better be good, Mrs. McLachlan,” Signora Strega-Borgia said, ignoring the towel and pulling a bathrobe around herself. “There had better be a
very
good reason for knocking me out with your fiendish hot toddy,
then
trying to drown me in that—”

Mrs. McLachlan interrupted, “Madam, hurry, it’s the Master and the wee baby.…” Her voice broke.

“What is it? Where’s Damp? Luciano? Flora,
tell
me. Are they hurt? Injured?” Signora Strega-Borgia’s eyes filled. “Oh no. Not dead, no! Tell me not. TELL ME THEY’RE NOT DEAD, Flora. FLORA!”

“No, madam, but …”

“Where
are
they?” screamed Signora Strega-Borgia, grabbing Mrs. McLachlan’s shoulders and shaking her. “Where ARE they?”

“Oh, madam,” Mrs. McLachlan sobbed, “they’re in the computer.”

“I don’t
believe
it!” yelled Signora Strega-Borgia, abruptly releasing Mrs. McLachlan’s shoulders and pacing round her bedroom, addressing the furniture. “She drags me out of my sickbed, half-drowns me in water cold enough to give a polar bear hypothermia, leads me to believe that my baby daughter and missing husband are in mortal danger, and for what? FOR WHAT?” She paused in front of her reflection in the dressing table mirror. “FOR WHAT?” she bawled.

The mirror rippled and spoke:

“Shut UP!” yelled Signora Strega-Borgia, continuing through clenched teeth. “For what, I ask you? Woken, drowned,
and
frozen in order to learn that baby and spouse are on the computer. How earth-shattering. How desperately important. How—”

“Madam,” interrupted Mrs. McLachlan.

“Yes, MRS. McLachlan?” said Signora Strega-Borgia, in a
voice that dripped vitriol. “What now? Perhaps you need to tell me that … let me see … it’s Saturday? The earth is still turning? Night will follow day?”

Showing remarkable patience in the face of Signora Strega-Borgia’s tide of sarcasm, Mrs. McLachlan continued, speaking slowly and clearly as if to a small child. “I said
IN,
madam, not
on. IN,
as in, ‘Your husband and daughter are
in
the computer.’ ”

“What?”
wailed Signora Strega-Borgia. “No, don’t answer. Show me. Please. I don’t care
how
they got in there, just take me to them.”

A Muffin-Scented Gale

“T
itus, can you send an e-mail to Dad?”

“Fat lot of good that would do,” said Titus, his eyes glued to his father’s last message on the screen. “E-mail’s not going to save him now.”

“Titus! Yes or no? Can we e-mail him?”

“Yes,” sniffed Titus. “We can. Now. Since the computer seems to be working again. Why? What’s the point? What are you doing, Pandora?”

Pandora looked up from where she’d been hunting under her brother’s bed. “Got it.”

“Got what?”

“The wand, Titus. I’ve got an idea. I’ll shrink myself like Damp, and you blow me into the modem, e-mail me to Dad, I’ll shrink
him,
and—”

“Oh BRILLIANT!” yelled Titus. “Oh, Pan, what a GREAT PLAN! What a STAR! You’re a GENIUS!”

“Yes, I have to agree,” said Pandora, circling the wand round and round her body.

“WAIT!” screamed Titus, grabbing her wrist. “Stand on the modem, or on the table. If you shrink on the floor, I’ll never find you.”

“Oops. Good thinking, Titus.” Pandora clambered onto the table and began again. She spun with the wand, slowly at first, and then faster and faster until, with a final thrust, she pointed the wand directly at her heart. “Oh no …,” she wailed.

With a crash, the table beneath her gave way.

“Oh NO,” groaned Titus. “You forgot, didn’t you, dumbo?”

“Contrawand,” moaned Pandora, her gigantic mouth pressed against the plaster cornice of Titus’s bedroom ceiling. “Hang on a tick.…”

Pandora filled the room.

Her massive feet pressed hard against the bedroom door, her mountainous bottom swamped Titus’s bed, and with one colossal fist, she plucked her brother off his seat and brought him within range.

“Who’re you calling ‘dumbo’?” she said.

Titus, gazing into an eyeball the size of a watermelon, swallowed painfully. “N-n-not you, sister dear.”

“I thought not,” Pandora sighed. “Listen, squirt, much as I’d love to play around with you, we don’t have the time, so if you’ll be good enough to pass me my wand from under that table.…”

She gently placed her brother back on the floor and he passed her the wand. In her wardrobe-sized hand, it looked like a matchstick as she made dainty circles round her stomach.

“Careful,” warned Titus. “Any bigger and you’ll go through the roof.”

With a patter of falling plaster, Pandora resumed her normal size.

“Right,”
she said, spitting out bits of ceiling. “Let’s put the modem on this footstool, and I’ll climb up here, and …”

Round and round, she spun the wand, and with a grin for Titus … vanished.

“Pan? PANDORA? Oh NO! Now what?” He bent over the footstool, trying hard not to breathe. “Pandora—yell if you’re still here.” He leaned closer to where he hoped his shrunken sister might be, his ear close to the modem.

A tiny voice said, “Yeuchhh. Don’t you ever wash in there? You’re so GROSS, Titus.”

“Get ready, Pandora. Curl up in a ball, and that way you might not break too many limbs … five, four.” Titus leaned carefully over the footstool and stood, fingers poised over the keyboard. He took a deep breath.

“I’m scared, Titus.”

“Three, two, don’t be a wuss, Pan, one … PUFF! We have Liftoff.…”