Something rotten (41 page)

I heard the sound of a single slow handclap and noticed the silhouette of Kaine standing behind the partly finished control gondola. I didn’t pause for a moment and let fly a second eraserhead. In an instant Kaine invoked a minor character—a small man with glasses—right in the path of the projectile and he, not Kaine, was erased.

Yorrick moved into the light. He hadn’t aged a day since I had seen him last. His complexion was unblemished and he didn’t have a hair out of place. Only the finest described characters were indistinguishable from real people; the rest—and Kaine was among them—had a vague plasticity that belied their fictional origins.

“Enjoying yourself?” I asked him sarcastically.

“Oh yes,” he replied, giving me a faint smile.

He was a B character in an A role and had been elevated far beyond his capabilities—a child in control of a nation. Whether by virtue of Goliath or the Ovinator or simply by his fictional roots I wasn’t sure, but what I did know was that he was dangerous in the real world and dangerous in the BookWorld. Anyone who could invoke hellbeasts at will was not to be ignored.

I fired again and the same thing happened. The character was different—from a costume drama, I think—but the effect was identical. Kaine was using expendable bit parts as shields. I glanced nervously around, sensing a trap.

“You forget,” said Kaine as he stared at me with his unblinking eyes, “that I have had many years to hone my powers, and as you can see, nobodies from the Farquitt canon are ten a penny.”

“Murderer!”

Kaine laughed.

“You can’t murder a fictional person, Thursday. If you could, every author would be behind bars!”

“You know what I mean,” I growled, beginning to move forwards. If I could just grasp hold of him I could jump into fiction and take him with me. Kaine knew this and kept his distance.

“You’re something of a pest, you know,” he carried on, “and I really thought the Windowmaker would have been able to dispose of you so I wouldn’t have to. Despite the woefully poor odds on Swindon winning tomorrow, I really can’t risk Zvlkx’s revealment coming true, no matter how unlikely. And my friends at Goliath agree with me.”

“This place is not your place,” I told him, “and you are messing with real people’s lives. You were created to entertain, not to rule.”

“Have you any idea,” he carried on as we slowly circled one another about the airship’s unfinished control gondola, “just what it’s like being stuck as a B-9 character in a self-published novel? Never being read, having two lines of dialogue and constantly being bettered by my inferiors?”

“What’s wrong with the character exchange program?” I asked, stalling for time.

“I tried. Do you know what the Council of Genres told me?”

“I’m all ears.”

“They told me to do the best with what I had. Well, I’m doing exactly that, Miss Next!”

“I have some swing with the council, Kaine. Surrender and I’ll do the best I can for you.”

“Lies!” spat Kaine. “Lies, lies, and more lies! You have no intention of helping me!”

I didn’t deny it.

“Well,” he carried on. “I said I needed to speak to you, and here it is: you’ve found out where I’m from, and despite my best efforts to retain all copies of
At Long Last Lust,
there is still a possibility you might find a copy and delete me from within. I can’t have that. So I wanted to give you the opportunity of entering into a mutually agreeable partnership. Something that will benefit both of us. Me in the corridors of power and you as head of any SpecOps division you want—or SpecOps itself, come to that.”

“I think you underestimate me,” I said quietly. “The only deal I’m listening to tonight will be your unconditional surrender.”

“Oh, I didn’t underestimate you at all,” continued the Chancellor with a slight smile. “I only said that to give a Gorgon friend of mine enough time to creep up behind you. Have you met . . . Medusa, by the way?”

I heard a hissing noise behind me. The hairs on my neck rose and my heart beat faster. I looked down as I twisted and jumped to the side, resisting any temptation to look at the naked and repellent creature that had been slinking towards me. It’s difficult to hit a target that you are trying not to look at and my fourth eraserhead impacted harmlessly on a gantry on the other side of the hangar. I stepped back, caught my foot on a piece of metal and collapsed over backwards, my gun skittering across the floor towards some packing cases. I swore and attempted to scramble away from the mythological horror, only to have my ankle grasped by Medusa, whose head snakes were now hissing angrily. I tried to kick off her grasp but she had a grip like a vise. Her free hand grabbed my other ankle and then, cackling wildly, she crept her way up my body as I struggled in vain to push her away, her sharply nailed claws biting into my flesh and making me cry out in pain.

“Stare into my face!” screamed the Gorgon as we wrestled in the dust. “Stare into my face and accept your destiny!” I kept my eyes averted as she pinned me against the cold concrete and then, when her bony and foul-smelling body was sitting on my chest, she cackled again and took hold of my head in both hands. I screamed and shut my eyes tight, gagging at her putrid breath. It was no escape. I felt her hands move on my face, her fingertips on my eyelids.

“Come along, Thursday my love,” she screeched, the hissing of the snakes almost drowning her out, “gaze into my soul and feel your body turn to stone—!”

I strained and cried out as her fingers pulled my eyelids open. I swiveled my eyes as low in their sockets as I could, desperate to stave off the inevitable, and was just beginning to see glimmers of light and the lower part of her body when there was the sound of steel being drawn from a scabbard and a soft
whoop
noise. Medusa fell limp and silent on my chest. I opened my eyes and pushed the severed head of the Gorgon into the shadows. I jumped up, slipped once in the pool of blood issuing from her headless corpse and ran backwards, stumbling in my panic to get away.

“Well,” said a familiar voice. “Looks like I got here just in time!”

It was the Cheshire Cat. He was sitting on an unfinished airship rib and was grinning wildly. He wasn’t alone. Next to him stood a man. But it wasn’t any ordinary man. He was, firstly, tall—at least seven foot six and broad with it. He was dressed in rudimentary armor and grasped in his powerful hands a shield and sword that appeared to weigh almost nothing. He was a frightening warrior to behold; the sort of hero for whom epics are written—the likes of which we have no need of in our day and age. He was the most alpha of males—he was Beowulf. He made no sound, knees slightly bent in readiness, bloody sword moving elegantly in a slow figure-eight pattern.

“Good move, Mr. Cat,” said Kaine sardonically, stepping from behind the gondola and facing us across the only open area in the hangar.

“You can end this right now, Mr. Kaine,” said the Cat. “Go back to your book and stay there—or face the consequences.”

“I choose not to,” he replied with an even smile, “and since you have raised the stakes by invoking an eighth-century hero, I challenge you to a one-on-one invocation contest pitting my fictional champions against yours. You win and I stay forever in
At Long Last Lust;
I win and you leave me unmolested.”

I looked at the Cheshire Cat who was, for once, not smiling.

“Very well, Mr. Kaine. I accept your challenge. Usual rules? One beast at a time and
strictly
no kraken?”

“Yes, yes,” replied Kaine impatiently. He closed his eyes and with a wild shriek Grendel appeared and flew towards Beowulf, who expertly sliced it into eight more or less equal pieces.

“I think we got him riled,” whispered the Cheshire Cat from the corner of his mouth. “That was a bad move—Beowulf
always
vanquishes Grendel.”

But Kaine didn’t waste any more time and a moment later there was a living, breathing
Tyrannosaurus rex
tramping the concrete floor, fangs drooling with saliva. It whipped its tail angrily and knocked the engine nacelle onto its side.

“From
The Lost World,
” queried the Cat, “or
Jurassic Park
?”

“Neither,” replied Kaine. “
The Boy’s Bumper Book of Dinosaurs
.”

“Ooh!” replied the Cat. “The nonfiction gambit, eh?”

Kaine clicked his fingers and the thunder lizard lunged forwards as Beowulf went into the attack, sword flailing. I retreated towards the Cat and asked anxiously, “This Beowulf isn’t the original, is it?”

“Good Lord no,
quite
the reverse!”

It was just as well. Beowulf had made mincemeat of Grendel but the
Tyrannosaurus,
in turn, made mincemeat of him. As the giant lizard slurped down the remnants of the warrior, the Cat hissed to me: “I do so love these competitions!”

I wiped my scratched face with my handkerchief. I must say I couldn’t really share the Cat’s mischievous sense of glee or enjoyment. “What’s our next move?” I asked him. “Smaug the dragon?”

“No point. He’d invoke a Baggins to kill it. Perhaps it would be best to make a tactical retreat and introduce an Allan Quatermain with an elephant gun, but I’m late for my son’s birthday party, so it’s going to be . . .
him!
”

There was another shimmer in the air about us and, with a whiffling and a burbling, a bat-winged creature appeared. It had a long tail, reptilian feet, flaming eyes, huge sort of
catchy
hairy claws . . . and was wearing a lilac-colored tunic with matching socks.

The
Tyrannosaurus
looked up from its feast at the jabberwock who stared back at it while hovering in the air and making dangerous whiffling noises. It was about the same size as the dinosaur and went for it aggressively, jaws biting, claws catching. As the Cat, Kaine and I looked on, the jabberwock and the
Tyrannosaurus
rolled around in mortal combat, tails flailing. At one point it looked as though Kaine’s champion had the upper hand until the jabberwock executed a maneuver known in wrestling circles as an “airplane spin and body slam” that shook the ground. The giant lizard lay still, moving feebly. An animal that large does not need to fall from very high to break bones. The jabberwock burbled contentedly to itself, doing a little triumphant two-step dance as he walked back over to us.

“Right!” yelled Kaine. “I’ve had just about my fill of this!”

He raised his arms in the air and a gale seemed to fill the hangar. There were several crashes of thunder from outside and a large shape started to rise within the empty framework of the half-built airship. It grew and grew until it was wearing the airship skeleton like a corset, then broke free of it and with one tentacle clasped the jabberwock and raised it high in the air. Kaine had cheated. It was the kraken. Wet, strangely shapeless and smelling of overcooked oysters, it was the largest and most powerful creature that I knew of in fiction.

“Now, now!” said the Cat, waving a claw at Kaine. “Remember the rules!”

“To hell with your rules!” shouted Kaine. “Puny Jurisfiction agents, prepare to meet thy doom!”

“Now that,” said the Cat, addressing me, “was a
very
corny line.”

“He’s Farquitt! What did you expect? What are we going to do?”

The kraken wrapped a slippery tentacle several times around the jabberwock’s body and then squeezed until his eyes bulged ominously.

“Cat!” I said more urgently.
“What’s the next move?”

“I’m thinking,” replied the Cat, lashing his tail angrily. “Trying to come up with something to defeat the kraken is not that easy. Wait. Wait. I think I’ve got it!”

There was a bright flash and there, facing the kraken, was—a small fairy no higher than my knee. It had delicate wings like those of a dragonfly, a silver tiara and a wand, which she waved in Kaine’s direction. In an instant the kraken had melted away and the jabberwock fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

“What the hell—?” shouted Kaine in anger and surprise, waving his hands uselessly to try and bring the kraken back.

“I’m afraid you’ve lost,” replied the Cat. “But you cheated and I had to cheat a bit, too, and even though I’ve won I can’t insist on my prize. It’s all in Thursday’s hands now.”

“What do you mean?” shouted Kaine angrily. “Who was that and why can’t I summon up beasts from fiction any longer?”

“Well,” said the Cat as he began to purr, “that was the Blue Fairy, from
Pinocchio
.”

“You mean—?” asked Kaine, mouth agape.

“Right,” replied the Cat. “She made you into a real person, just like she made Pinocchio into a real boy.”

He touched his hands on his chest, then his face, trying to figure it out.

“But . . . that means you have no authority over me—!”

“Alas not,” replied the Cat. “Jurisfiction has no jurisdiction over real people in the real world. As I said, it’s all up to Thursday now.”

The Cat stopped and repeated two words as if to see which sounded better. “Jurisfiction—
jurisdiction—
Jurisfiction—
jurisdiction.
”

Kaine and I stared at one another. If he was real it definitely meant Jurisfiction had no mandate to control him and it also meant we couldn’t destroy him through his book. But then he couldn’t escape from the real world either—and would bleed and die and age like a real man. Kaine started to laugh.

“Well, this is a turnaround! Thank you very much, Mr. Cat!” The Cheshire Cat gave a contemptuous snort and turned to face the other direction. “You have done me a great service,” continued Kaine. “I am now free to lead this country to new heights without the meddling of you and your fictional band of idiots. I’ll be free to put behind me the last vestiges of kindness that I was forced to carry because of my written character. Mr. Cat, I thank you, and the people of the unified Britain thank you.” He laughed again and turned to me. “And you, Miss Next, won’t be able to even get close!”

“There’s still the Seventh Revealment,” I said a bit weakly.

“Win the SuperHoop? With that ragtag bunch of no-hopers? I think you grossly overrate your chances, my lady—and with Goliath and the Ovinator to help me, I can’t begin to overestimate mine!”