Pure Dead Wicked (17 page)

Stone Skimming

P
laster dust filled the air as Latch, Tock, and the beasts sat round the kitchen table drinking tea and devouring an overlooked packet of digestive biscuits. Washing the milk jug out in the sink, Knot had found what he'd taken to be a small and tantalizingly rancid fur ball glued to the bottom of the jug. He'd been about to devour this when the fur ball informed him that its name was Terminus and proceeded to put up such a fight that the yeti had been forced to hurl it, squeaking, into the kitchen garden. Deeply puzzled, Knot helped himself to another biscuit and scratched his bottom thoughtfully.

Oblivious to all the drama, Damp slept on Ffup's lap, her chest rising and falling in time with her little snores. The butler had stoked the kitchen range, and now it clanked and bubbled in the background, throwing out heat all around the room.

“So”—Latch was attempting to grasp the details of what had passed while he'd been unconscious on the hall floor—“what is needed here is for us to come up with some convincing way of making it look like all four of those deceased criminals met with an accident when they broke into StregaSchloss.”

“Shouldn't be too hard,” said Sab, pouring himself another cup of tea.

“But we've got three vehicles and only two corpses,” Latch reminded the beasts. “Knot's eaten the third and Ffup's toasted her partner. How are we going to explain the extra car?”

“If we could dispose of the Land Rover, who's to say they were even here? Apart from ourselves, no one knows that they came to StregaSchloss tonight.” Ffup rubbed her tummy and groaned deeply. “We'd have to get rid of the crocodile-skin handbag, but Tock could give it another state funeral. . . .”

“But the car,” insisted Latch, “we can't bury a car.”

“We could push it in the loch, with the barbecued roofer in it,” suggested Sab, “or—even better—Ffup and I could fly with it out to the middle of the loch and drop it in. No one knows how deep it is out there.”

“But the taxi driver,” said Latch, “he took Mrs. McLachlan, Damp, and me out to StregaSchloss. He's a witness. . . . Oh, this is all so hideously complicated.”

“I'm in no fit state to carry a car plus a roofer out to the middle of the loch,” moaned Ffup. “My tummy hurts.”

Sab lost patience. “The alternative is admitting that you turned an innocent citizen into a charred heap of carbon—I think the police might take a rather dim view of such unprovoked behavior. . . .”

“All right, all
right
.” Ffup stood up. “Come on. Let's do it. First the car, then the handbag.”

The beasts and Tock followed, obliterating all incriminating tire tracks as Latch drove the Fforbes-Campbell Land Rover down to the loch shore. On the seat beside him, smoldering gently, Hugh Pylum-Haight's remains still emitted a faint but recognizable whiff of aftershave. Latch turned the engine off and climbed out onto the pebble beach, gently taking Damp from Ffup's cradle of wings.

With a deep sigh, Ffup attempted to hoist the vehicle onto her shoulders. “Oofff—it's heavier than I thought. . . . Maybe this isn't such a good idea.”

“You're such a wimp,” Sab complained, gripping his side of the Land Rover and swinging it upward with a grunt. “Stop moaning and get on with it. If you hadn't toasted that bloke, we wouldn't be doing this.”

Groaning and squabbling, the dragon and the griffin effortfully climbed into the sky, their wings laboring as they bore the weight of the vehicle and its cargo between them. Slowly they flapped out across Lochnagargoyle, the Land Rover's wheels barely cresting the little waves that splashed back to shore, where the others watched anxiously. Damp woke up in Latch's arms and gazed calmly around. Since flying cars are the everyday currency of infant picture books, the bizarre sight of a Land Rover winging its way across the loch barely caused her to frown. Surrounded by her familiar beasts and lulled by the sound of the waves breaking on the beach, she sighed and went back to sleep.

Out over the uncharted deeps of the loch, the dragon and the griffin nodded to each other. On a count of three they let go. Making hardly a splash, the Land Rover slipped beneath the surface, sinking rapidly to the bottom of Lochnagargoyle and leaving no trace of its passing. Relieved of their burden, Ffup and Sab flew back to the shore and joined their co-conspirators.

“What an effort,” moaned Ffup. “Hang on a minute—I need a poo.”

“What,
again
?” said Sab. “You've really got a problem with your tripes, pal. This is the tenth time tonight.”

Ignoring this, Ffup squatted on the pebbly beach in full view of her horrified companions.

“Oh,
please,
” groaned Sab, pointedly turning his back and picking up a skimming stone. “At least have the decency to go behind a bush.” He selected a perfect skimming stone, totally flat and utterly square, and drew back his paw in preparation for throwing it.

“Wait a minute . . .
stop
! Don't do that!” Latch made a grab for Sab's paw.

Behind them, Ffup shrieked, “I
can't
stop! OW! OW! OWWW! It HURTS!”

“Not you, you daft dragon—
him
. Sab, let me see that stone.” Latch prised Sab's talons apart and examined the skimming stone.

“It's not a
stone
! It's a BOULDER!” Ffup screamed. “AAARGH! I'm going to BURST! HELLLLP!”

Tock ambled over to where Ffup squatted. The dragon's eyeballs were bulging with effort, tears rolling down her long nose. Little puffs of steam came from her nostrils as she heaved and strained over the pebbles.

“You need a laxative,” the crocodile said helpfully. “Should have eaten more fruit. Prunes and apricots—that sort of thing. . . .”

The dragon panted faster and faster, her little breaths punctuated with the occasional snort of flame.

“Sab—where did you find this stone?” said Latch, hardly daring to believe what he was holding.

“That one?” said the griffin. “Oh, it was one of the ones Tock found for me earlier this evening—when we were playing around after we'd eaten the sheep. There's
millions
of them in the water. Ask Tock—he'll get you more. D'you want a game? I warn you, I'm a world-class stone skimmer. . . .”

“AUGHHH urgh AUGHHH!”

“Relax,” muttered Tock. “Now push. Go for it.”

“RRRGH urgh MMMNG.”

“
Well done!
Take a break. Relax.”

“It's a
slate
!” cried Latch. “It's a StregaSchloss roof slate!”

“Don't be silly,” said Ffup, waddling back to the lochside with Tock beaming beside her. “It's an
egg
. My very first one. Look, everyone! I'm a mummy!”

In her claws, the dragon held a blue speckled egg, not unlike a vast rugby ball. Ffup glowed, she twinkled, and she looked so proud and radiantly happy that everyone clustered around her, all thoughts of slates and roofs temporarily forgotten as they laughed and hugged each other, passing the egg around carefully as they absorbed the miracle that had occurred in their midst.

Down to Business

M
ultitudina reached the edge of the moat and dragged herself onto comparatively dry land. Behind her, gasping with the shock of swimming in such icy water, came Mrs. McLachlan, with Pandora towing Titus behind her.

“Time you learned to swim,” Pandora said, crawling out of the water and turning to haul a dripping and choking Titus onto the rose quartz beside her. Above them, the stars shone clearly in the icy chill of the winter's night. Stumbling and shivering uncontrollably, heedless of StregaSchloss's structural dangers, they ran in through the front door, praying that Damp, Latch, Tarantella, Tock, and the beasts had not only survived, but had kept the home fires burning.

In the kitchen, the beasts and Latch rose to greet them. Damp slept, tucked into a bed hastily improvised from a cutlery drawer, swaddled in tea towels, and utterly oblivious of the events surrounding her. In the absence of a roof over her attic, Tarantella was spinning herself a temporary web in the china cupboard. The beasts had been sitting round the kitchen table, cooing and exclaiming over Ffup's egg, but with the arrival of the drenched party from the dungeons, they lurched into action. Latch rushed upstairs to find dry towels and changes of clothing and Sab put the kettle on. Feeling distinctly overlooked, Multitudina sulked under the table as Pandora, Titus, and Mrs. McLachlan admired the egg.

“Oh, it's absolutely
beautiful
!” exclaimed Pandora, not daring to touch it in case her shivering hands let it slip. “Aren't you clever? It's magnificent, Ffup! When will it hatch? Oh, I can't wait . . . A baby dragon . . .”

“I assume it
is
a dragon, dear?” said Mrs. McLachlan, peering suspiciously at the egg cradled in Ffup's lap.

The proud mother smiled beatifically and pretended she hadn't heard the last question. Knot ambled over to the range, scratching his tummy and emitting a pungent reek of rancid mutton combined with the perfume of old dog. Catching a whiff of this foul odor, and reminded abruptly of Titus's rancid goose incubator, Pandora choked and moved out of olfactory range. This made her the first thing the clones caught sight of as, unannounced, they herded into the kitchen in search of comfort.

“MAMAAAA!” they bawled in unison, running toward her, tiny arms outstretched, tripping pathetically over their socks and ponchos in their headlong rush.

“Oh,
no
!” squeaked Pandora. “
No way!
Not
me,
you numpties, I'm never going to be a mothe—”

Swarming over and past Pandora, the clones threw themselves onto the bewildered Knot, clambering up his filthy fur, snuffling ecstatically at his faintly remembered stench, his pungent smell of fetid meat. It was a smell that spoke to the clones of their brief babyhood, of their early days in the goose incubator, and so it was hardly surprising that they assumed Knot to be their mother. Pandora watched in horror as the clones buried themselves in the yeti's unhygienic nooks and crannies, sobbing and whimpering as they did so.

“WAUGHHH HELLLLP!” wailed the yeti, overwhelmed by the vast numbers of clones currently taking gross liberties with his person. With his entire body covered in wriggling figures, Knot panicked, stumbled, and, with a desolate shriek, fell over onto Ffup's lap. The egg bounced under the impact, rolled down Ffup's leg, and trundled rapidly across the floor, headed for the kitchen garden. It wobbled perilously on the edge of the step, seemingly intent on ovisuicide, and then appeared to undergo a change of heart. In full view of everyone it stopped, appeared to levitate itself to a handspan above the doormat, and retraced its path back across the floor.

From the kitchen garden came the clearly audible command, “Left. Right. Left. Right. HAAAAAALT! After three, down to the floor. STEADY! Don't DROP it, whatever you do. . . . One, two, three, DOWN! Fifth Battalion of the Dragon's-Tooth Engineers, AT EEEASE!”

The egg was gently lowered to the kitchen floor, and, to the astonishment of the onlookers, out from under it marched a dozen tiny men in kilts.

“Oh, my heavens . . . ,” whispered Titus. “The Dragon's-Tooth Tincture! Mum'll
murder
me if she finds out.”

“What? What are you on about?” Pandora picked up one of the tiny squaddies and examined him. He tried to hide under his shield and, failing in the attempt, braced himself for extinction.

“Mum had a bottle of Dragon's-Tooth Tincture in the fridge, as part of her homework from the Advanced Witchcraft Institute,” Titus explained, “sort of an instant army kind of thing. Add water and stir, and ten minutes later you're overrun with squaddies.”

“But they're
teeny,
” said Pandora, peering under the kilt of one she held prisoner in her hand. He battered her feebly with his shield in an effort to preserve his dignity.

“Your mother used Ffup's baby teeth to distill the tincture,” said Mrs. McLachlan. “
That
might account for their size. . . .”

Pandora returned the indignant squaddie to the company of his battalion. “We're becoming overrun with wee things without pants,” she said. “First Titus's clones, now these animated toy soldiers, not to mention Ffup's egg.”

“Excuse
me,
” snorted Ffup, plucking her egg off the floor and tucking it protectively under one wing. “It may not be wearing any underwear, but my
egg
is not vertically challenged.”

“No one said it was, dear,” said Mrs. McLachlan soothingly. “It's a very fine egg, and I'm sure one day it will grow up to be a great strapping dragon.”

“
That
would be highly unlikely,” muttered Ffup under her breath, returning to her seat by the range.

“But what are we going to
do
with them all?” wailed Titus.

Latch came through the kitchen door carrying a pile of towels and clothes. Mrs. McLachlan and Pandora helped themselves to some of these and disappeared into the privacy of the pantry to change. The butler's jaw dropped as he absorbed the sight of milling squaddies and wriggling clones. “What on earth is going on?” he demanded, dropping the remaining towels at his feet.

The clones instantly abandoned their surrogate Knot parent and leapt at the new sartorial opportunities represented by such a mountain of toweling. Recognizing several of his stolen socks running across the kitchen floor, Latch turned to Titus for an explanation.

“Ah, yes . . . er . . .” Titus grabbed Multitudina from under the table and sidled off in the direction of the pantry. “Back in two ticks. I just have to honor a promise I made to Mul . . . Mult . . . um, yes . . .”

Latch groaned and sat down at the table. Sab appeared at his elbow with a cup of tea and leant over to pat him with a consoling talon. “Drink up,” the griffin murmured. “It'll all seem so much better in the morning. . . .”

“It
is
the morning.” Latch gazed at his watch for confirmation. “Soon I'll have to telephone my employers and explain that we are all here, at StregaSchloss, and not tucked up in our beds in the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms. Also, I will have to present Signor and Signora Strega-Borgia with the happy news that not only is their missing roof lying at the bottom of Lochnagargoyle, but—oh, joy—they have hundreds of extra mouths to feed. Then there is the little matter of a massive hole driven through their house by flying criminals and, lest I forget, the fact that their staff and children have been party to four murders, killing the only chap who could have repaired the damage to the roof in the first place. . . .”

“But at least we've found the missing slates,” said Sab, determinedly clinging to the positive aspects of the night's events.

“Oh, aye, in the loch—they're about as much use as chocolate teapots, aren't they?” Latch replaced his teacup in its saucer and sighed.

“But don't you
see
?” Sab grabbed the butler's arm, causing his teacup to slop its contents across the table. “With the slates we can fix the roof!”

Dabbing at the puddle of tea in front of him, Latch took a deep breath. “Much as I hate to be a killjoy—if you recall, Ffup
crisped
the roofing contractor. The roof is falling to bits. . . . I doubt if you'd find a replacement firm of roofers who'd be willing to risk life and limb up there, crawling over the trusses, trying to nail tiles onto wood that might not bear their weight. . . .” Depressed beyond belief by his own gloomy predictions, Latch closed his eyes and laid his head on the table with a groan.

However, Sab was not to be deflected from his mission to bring good cheer to the butler. “Look, here's my plan. Tock gets the slates back out of the loch and we'll organize the tincture squaddies to put them back on the roof. Heaven knows, there's enough squaddies to do the job, and being so tiny, they weigh hardly anything. The rest of the damage to the inside of StregaSchloss can wait.”

Taking Latch's silence for assent, Sab assembled his troops. “Right, Tock, let's go. Back to the lochside. We need to pick the slates up and bring them back here. Ffup, you sort the squaddies out, would you? Since they originally came from your teeth, they ought to obey you without question. . . .”

 

In the wine cellar, Titus took a deep breath to steel himself for the task ahead and opened the lid to the freezer. At his feet, Multitudina meditatively nibbled on the corner of a frozen fish finger. True to the promise he'd made in the dungeons, Titus had emptied the freezer of a box of fish fingers, a brace of game pies, several tubs of ice cream, and twenty or so assorted unlabeled bags of leftovers. Now he peered into the freezer, where Strega-Nonna lay enshrined in tinfoil, her silver hair forming a frosty corona around her little walnut-wrinkled face. Strega-Nonna was the most ancient resident at StregaSchloss, her history forever entwined with that of the house itself, her encyclopedic knowledge making her the family's living archive. On several occasions, she had been known to defrost herself and arrive unannounced in their midst, an anachronistic reminder of their eventual wrinkly fate. Unable to let go her hold on life, even the half-life of the cryogenically preserved, she clung on determinedly, at first suspended in icebergs, then kept in the old ice house on the grounds of StregaSchloss, and finally, with the advent of domestic refrigeration, entombed in the deep freeze, hoping that one day science would find a cure for old age.

Titus's breath formed misty clouds around her as she gazed up at him. “Nonna . . . ,” he began, “how d'you fancy some company in there?”

Strega-Nonna sighed. Company? She considered this. It had been centuries since she'd entertained any form of company worth considering. “What did you have in mind, child?” She shifted her weight and pulled out a bag of frozen peas from under her arm and passed them out to Titus.

“Three hundred and eighty-two very small geriatrics,” Titus said, dropping the peas near Multitudina. “Or, at least, they look like geriatrics, even if they're only three days old.”

“How small?” said Strega-Nonna. “There isn't all that much room in here.”

“Tiny. No bigger than your hand. And there's heaps of space now that I've removed all the food.”

“Right now?” Strega-Nonna said, considering this possibility. “I'll have to tidy this place up a bit, dust, vacuum, that sort of thing. . . .”

“So, is that a yes?”

“I'll give it a go,” said Strega-Nonna. “But I reserve the right to evict them if things don't work out. Now shut the lid, child. I'm beginning to thaw. . . .”

Titus closed the freezer lid and groaned. Time to explain to Mrs. McLachlan exactly where the clones had come from, and take her advice on whether to phone Signor and Signora Strega-Borgia or let them sleep on in blissful ignorance. And, Titus reminded himself, he really ought to apologize to Latch for using his socks as a rudimentary form of clone clothing. He turned toward the kitchen, where he found Pandora and Mrs. McLachlan devouring the remnants of a packet of digestive biscuits with a freshly made pot of tea.

The nanny met Titus's eye, waved her hand in the direction of several clones sleeping in little heaps round the kitchen, and raised one eyebrow inquiringly. While Latch snored with his head on the table, Titus began to explain what on earth had possessed him to think that cloning himself and his sister was A Good Idea. Somehow, in the soporific warmth of the kitchen, the nightmarish quality of the whole clone episode seemed far away, like a bad dream. Mrs. McLachlan murmured sympathetically, the rewound clock over the mantelpiece measured out the minutes, Damp lay tucked snugly under a mound of tea towels in the cutlery drawer, and Ffup's egg took pride of place, set in a copper jelly pan, hung on a hook over the range.

During a pause in Titus's narrative, they all heard the clatter of a vehicle coming round the back of the house. Outside the kitchen window, Vincent Bella-Vista's van lurched to a standstill and Knot, his fur alive with clones, fell out of the driver's door onto the rose quartz. The passenger door opened and Sab emerged, shaking from head to tail.