Pure Dead Wicked (14 page)

Wee Things Without Pants

“B
ut what happened?” Knot whined. “I don't understand. No one ever tells me anything.” The beasts stood on the shore of Lochnagargoyle, within sight of home.

“D'you mean the roof?” said Sab, expertly skimming a pebble across the lapping water. “We told you. It blew off. On Christmas Eve, remember?”

“No,” wailed Knot, “I don't mean the
roof
. I mean what happened to Ffup? He's—no,
she's
gone all . . . weird.”

“It's a girl thing,” muttered the dragon. “Don't ask.”

Tock emerged from the loch, his scales dripping and his claws scrabbling for purchase on the seaweedy pebbles. “Here's another of those stones for you, Sab,” he said, handing the griffin a perfectly flat and square example. “My claws are frozen stiff. If you want any more skimming stones, you'll have to get them yourself.” He shivered. “Let's go back home.”

“For some reason, I'm utterly famished,” remarked Ffup, picking up a mouthful of seaweed and devouring it. The beasts ignored her completely. For the past half hour since the dragon had returned from her investigation into the source of the Distant Howl, she'd been acting very strangely. She was inwardly focused, vague, giggly, and perpetually complaining about how hungry she was.

“Is that a light up there?” she said through another dripping mouthful of seaweed, vaguely flapping a claw in the direction of StregaSchloss. “I thought I could see a glow through the trees.”

The beasts stood on the loch shore, peering through the night at their old home. There
was
a light. Headlights swung down the track, sweeping across the fields and throwing the skeletal shadows of trees up against the walls of StregaSchloss. Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the lights vanished and the unmistakable rattle of an approaching Land Rover stopped. To the beasts' confusion, the vehicle appeared to be creeping down the drive, lights out, engine cut, stealthily advancing toward the deserted house.

“Something's not right,” said Sab, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Let's go and see what's going on.”

The beasts tiptoed in single file, negotiating the gorse-lined path that led from the loch shore to the meadow. Now that they were closer to home, they could see that some of the house lights were on, throwing diamonds of light over the drive, across the grass, and picking out the naked branches of the chestnut tree. Desperately homesick, puzzled, and exceedingly wary, the procession of beasts halted in the meadow and waited to see if their ancestral home was under threat.

 

“RIGHT, YOU HORRIBLE LOT. FALL IN!”

Light shone out from the kitchen windows of StregaSchloss across the littered kitchen garden. It illuminated Signora Strega-Borgia's parsley patch, it filtered through the leaves of her bay tree, and it picked out a tiny figure perched on an upturned plant pot.

“ON THE DOUBLE! QUICK MARCH! ONE, TWO. ONE, TWO. ONE, TWO!” The tiny figure leaned on its shield and sighed in exasperation. Then it hitched up its kilt over its stomach. “PICK YOUR FEET UP, YOU MISERABLE SNIVELING WRETCHES! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AN INVINCIBLE UNIT OF THE FIFTH DRAGON'S-TOOTH ENGINEERS!! OH, GIVE ME
STRENGTH
! ABOUT TURRN! HAAAAALT!”

On the sodden ground below their bawling leader, the massed ranks of the tincture squaddies came to a mutinous standstill. Several of them tripped over their shields and fell into the parsley. Seeing this, their leader sank to his knees on the plant pot and banged his head five times against his shield. The tincture squaddies watched this performance impassively. They'd seen it all before, many times. Next, their leader would stand up, hurl more abuse at them, and begin the whole exercise again. It was the pits. The army was the pits, their leader was the pits, and this godforsaken country, with its vast parsley trees, giant marauding spiders, big rude cats, and endless snow and rain, was —

“RUBBISH!” Their leader was back on his feet again, jumping up and down on top of the plant pot. “THAT WAS RUBBISH! HAVE YOU ALL GOT CLOTH EARS OR WHAT? READ MY LIPS! FAAAAALL IN!”

They fell in. Reluctantly, grumbling about the unfairness of the fate that had brought them here to train and fight and die; moaning about the inadequacies of their uniform, given the hostile climate, they still did as they were told, and fell in.

 

A short distance away, separated by stone walls and panes of glass, Titus blinked. “You're kidding, right?” He sat at the kitchen table, staring open-mouthed at Tarantella.

Pandora had managed to light the fire in the range and the kitchen was growing warmer by the minute. She'd found some shriveled carrots and onions and had made a kind of vegetable soup, which she was now dishing into a bowl for Multitudina while Titus listened to Tarantella's unbelievable story.

“Have it your own way, dear boy,” the spider said, pausing as she applied pink lipstick to her mouthparts. “It's a tale, told by an idiot,
sigh,
signifying noth—”

“Is it true? Come on, Tarantella, this is
important
.”

Tarantella glared at Titus, snapped the cap back onto her lipstick, and tucked it away in a hidden pouch under her abdomen. She looked up at him, smiled in a decidedly insincere fashion, and produced her comb from another pouch. Humming to herself, she began to groom her legs with maddening slowness.

Titus turned to his sister. “Help me out here, would you? Tell me, what do I have to do to get to the bottom of this story—fall to my knees on the floor and beg?”

“That would be a good start,” Tarantella said. “And while you're at it, you could get me something to eat. Good flies are so hard to find these days. . . .”

“
Tarantella
”—Pandora remembered how effective McLachlan mode had been in quelling the rebellious clones—“stop messing about. Tell us what happened on Christmas Eve or I'll send you to the attic without any supper.”

“Oh,
my
. Hark at it now.” The tarantula hopped across the table and ran up Pandora's arm.

Titus gagged. If that hideous spider had done that to him, he'd have died on the spot.

“Such a bossy little boots,” Tarantella continued, tapping Pandora's nose with a reproving hairy leg. “However, seeing as it's
you
and not him, I'll tell you.” And she crawled up Pandora's hair and began whispering in her ear, “
Psss-psss
roofers,
hiss-psss
pulled slates off,
psst-hssst
lost in the loch,
pss
.”

“LOCHNAGARGOYLE?” gasped Pandora, struck by the wickedness of it all. “They threw our slates in the
loch
?”

“Never to be found again,” came a familiar voice from the kitchen door. “And after your unfortunate accident, that's where you're headed, too.”

Swathed in golden fur and holding a gun in front of her, Ffion Fforbes-Campbell stepped into the kitchen, followed by Hugh Pylum-Haight. In the horrified silence, Tarantella scuttled unobserved out through the open kitchen door.

Rising Damp

T
he clatter of the Fforbes-Campbell Land Rover leaving the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms had woken Damp from a deep sleep. Rubbing her eyes with chubby fists, she assessed how exactly she felt about this. It all hinged on the status of her diaper. If it was dry and warm, nine times out of ten she'd roll over and go back to sleep, but tonight, the cold clamminess round her bottom augured ill. Damp stood up, her travel cot creaking loudly as her weight shifted. Sometimes this sound was enough to wake the sleeping mummy summit. Tonight, this was not to be. Damp cleared her throat and experimented with a Grade One Whimper. Sometimes, this was all it took. . . .

By the time Mrs. McLachlan reached her cotside, Damp had progressed to the deafening heights of Grade Eight (Full-on Sobbing with Extra Hiccups for Good Measure). The baby was so enchanted with her own operatic prowess that it was several minutes before she realized that she had an audience.

“You poor wee chook,” clucked Mrs. McLachlan, scooping the tear-stained baby up into her arms for a hug. “Och, my wee lamb . . . my poor little honey-bunny, what's the matter?”

The baby gave a wail and burrowed deep into her nanny's comforting chest.

“Was it a bad dream, sweet pea?” murmured the nanny, stroking Damp's head. “Don't know
where
your parents have gone,” she continued, turning on the bedside light and sitting down on Signor and Signora Strega-Borgia's empty bed with Damp on her lap. “And when I woke up, Pandora had vanished, too.”

A knock came and Latch's head appeared round the door. “Flora,” he whispered, rubbing his eyes, “where
is
everyone? Young Titus isn't in his bed and it's gone three a.m.”

“Why don't you try downstairs?” suggested Mrs. McLachlan. “I'll come down and give you a hand just as soon as I've settled the wee one back in her cot.”

Damp stiffened. Back in her cot? No way was she going back
there
. Ah, well—she was left with little choice. . . . The opening aria from Grade Nine filled the tiny hotel bedroom, beating off the walls, swelling to an ear-splitting crescendo of High-C Shrieks coupled with Progressive Choking Sounds that threatened to overwhelm both audience and performer. The audience capitulated and bore the diva downstairs. Two minutes later, their ears still ringing, Mrs. McLachlan, Latch, and Damp found one half of their missing family. In the darkened lounge bar, Signor Strega-Borgia bent over the lifeless form of Mortimer Fforbes-Campbell, while behind the bar, Signora Strega-Borgia was on the phone to the nearest hospital, explaining the nature of the emergency.

“Blue. Yes, his mouth is still blue,” she said, a discernible note of panic creeping into her voice. “No. We're not sure what he's taken. Might just be the alcohol—I'm pretty positive he's had most of a bottle of whisky, but I think that's pretty normal for him. . . .”

Under the assault of Signor Strega-Borgia's vigorous chest massage, Mortimer's inert body flopped like a landed fish. Grimacing at the prospect ahead, Signor Strega-Borgia ceased his efforts at kick-starting Morty's heart and turned his attention to administering the kiss of life. He pinched the landlord's red nose between finger and thumb, waved away Latch and Mrs. McLachlan's offers of help, and bent down to perform his lifesaving duty.

As they tiptoed backward out of the lounge bar, they heard Signora Strega-Borgia yell, “Get a
move
on. Send an ambulance, a helicopter, whatever you can. This man is
dying
and you're doing nothing to help.”

They closed the door behind them. Damp's eyes were round pools of terror. Seeing Dada hitting the smelly man and then
kiss
him was so outside Damp's range of experience that she involuntarily slipped into the chorus of Grade Three.

“Hush, hush, there, now,” soothed Mrs. McLachlan, carrying the whimpering baby into the residents' lounge and sinking into an armchair by the fireplace. “It's all right, pet. Daddy and Mummy are a bit too busy right now to help us find your big brother and sister, so we'll just have to manage by ourselves.”

Ten minutes later, somber-faced and giving the thumbs-down signal behind Damp's back, Latch entered the lounge. At a loss for words, he pulled his dressing gown tighter round his lanky body and busied himself with trying to revive the fire. “Awful business,” he muttered. “And there's no sign of those children. I've tried the kitchen, had a quick check round the pool—I even tried the stable block, but. . . .”

“They'll have gone back to StregaSchloss,” said Mrs. McLachlan grimly. “Despite being expressly forbidden to do so. I
thought
something was going on this evening—did you notice how preoccupied they were over dinner?”

“To be honest, no,” admitted Latch. “I was more concerned with why my wardrobe door was broken, why the floor was covered in wee things like rabbit droppings—and, talking of droppings, the beasts are on the loose.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. McLachlan stared at the butler.

“I kid you not—there's a tunnel dug through the stable-block floor, and not a trace of them to be seen. Plus—and
this
one completely defies understanding—I seem to have lost every single pair of socks that I possess, all the towels have disappeared, and I can't find my toenail clippers anywhere. . . .”

“What in heaven's name have socks and toenail clippers got to do with StregaSchloss? And where have those beasts gone?” sighed Mrs. McLachlan. “I think we're going to have to find Titus and Pandora for the answer. I'm going to dress the baby and myself and you call a taxi. We're going to StregaSchloss.”

Thinking wistfully of his warm bed, Latch heaved a sigh. Maybe there was a simple explanation that didn't involve heading out into a December night. Maybe the children had decided to give the beasts a pedicure and take them for a walk? Maybe they'd been breeding rabbits in the wardrobe? Latch's frown deepened. His imagination failed him totally when it came to the missing socks. Eleven pairs? What on earth could Titus want with them? And the broken door—what of that? With a furrowed brow, Latch followed Mrs. McLachlan upstairs.