The Darke Toad (3 page)

“Good,” said DomDaniel. “If a
Darke
Toad knocks, the Coven has to answer. Well, go on, then.”

“What?”

“
Knock
, you fool.”

Simon raised his hand to the cold metal toad, but before he could do anything, there was a tremendous thudding of footsteps inside the house, and the door was thrown wide open. Simon leaped to one side just in time and out burst a disheveled young man with piercing blue eyes, dressed in black. He pushed DomDaniel aside in a fine football tackle and hurtled down the street as though in pursuit of the ball. DomDaniel swayed dangerously, and Simon heard the bones clink ominously against one another beneath the cloak.

Ter-link-clink-plink
.

DomDaniel was just regaining his balance when another figure in black—female this time—came pounding out of the door yelling, “Madrigor! Madrigor! Wait. Please wait.
Pleeeeeeese!
”

She too elbowed DomDaniel aside in as fine a tackle as her quarry had done, and it caught DomDaniel on the rebound. With a loud
clinkle-clank
his bones folded up and descended into an orderly pile on the doorstep, on which his cloak settled like a cover over a birdcage. Simon watched as DomDaniel's head dropped neatly down onto the top of the pile. The head stared angrily up at Simon as though it were
all his fault
. Simon could do no more than return the stare in amazement, while he tried to fight the desire to pick up the head and run with it and join in the football game that seemed to be in full swing farther down the street—accompanied now by shrieks and a few well-aimed punches from the female protagonist.

A moment later a white-faced woman swathed in black—teetering on shoes from the soles of which sprouted a forest of spikes twelve inches high—arrived at the door. The woman stared at Simon and gave a gruesome smile, showing a few stubby black teeth. She turned around and yelled into the house, “Veronica! Dorinda! Daphne! Look what we've got here!” Then she leered at Simon. “Hello young man,
young man
.”

Simon felt horribly uncomfortable. Three young witches arrived at the door. “Ooh, Witch Mother.” They giggled, staring at him. “Where did you get that?”

Simon felt himself turning pink.

“He's blushing,” said one of the witches, who had a conical peak of hair balanced on the top of her head.

“So sweet,” added the small, chubby one.

The third witch said nothing and stared at Simon with disconcertingly big blue eyes.

The Witch Mother leaned forward to inspect Simon at close quarters. Hastily, he stepped back from the old-cat breath. The Witch Mother went to take another step forward but a sudden screech came from somewhere near her left boot—the sharp spikes of which DomDaniel had a distressingly close view.

“Pamela!” shrieked DomDaniel's head. “Stop!”

The woman stared down at her feet and swore loudly.

“No need for that kind of language,” DomDaniel said primly.

The Witch Mother stared with incredulity at DomDaniel's head, so neatly placed on its cloak. Her shoulders began to shake, and suddenly the thick white makeup that was plastered over her face split into a tracery of cracks and she burst into hoarse, barking laughs. “Dommie, is that you?” she spluttered.

“Yes, as it happens, it is me,” said DomDaniel. “I don't see what is so funny, Pamela.”

“You never did have a sense of humor, did you?” the Witch Mother observed. “So, are you coming in or what?”

“At present, Pamela, I am somewhat immobile. However, my assistant here—when he stops gawping like a stuck fish—will assist me. Pick me up, will you, Heap?”

Simon stared at the fleshy head sitting atop its pile of bones. He suppressed a shudder. “Oh! Well, yes. Um …”

Unexpectedly, the Witch Mother came to Simon's rescue. “Leave him,” she commanded and turned to the young witch with the big blue eyes. “Dorinda! Wheelbarrow!”

“Yes, Witch Mother,” said Dorinda, and she disappeared back into the house.

“No!” yelled DomDaniel's head.

The Witch Mother looked down and favored DomDaniel with a black-toothed smile. “I suppose you're a pile of bones under that fancy cloak of yours?”

DomDaniel scowled in answer.

The Witch Mother's smile grew even wider and blacker. “I thought so. Well, we don't want them dropped, do we? A
wheelbarrow
it must be.”

“Pamela, you are a cruel woman.”

“But a practical one, Dommie, dear.”

And so it was that DomDaniel was ignominiously wheeled over the threshold of the Port Witch Coven in a wheelbarrow—just as the Witch Mother, in a fit of fury with DomDaniel over one broken promise too many, had once foretold. Simon, however, was escorted in style, with a young witch on each arm.

T
here was a very peculiar
smell in the kitchen of the Port Witch Coven. Simon sat on a small greasy sofa, squashed uncomfortably between Veronica—the witch with the cone of hair on top of her head—and Daphne, the small, chubby one. To take his mind off how uncomfortably close they were—and what knobby elbows Veronica had—Simon tried to work out what the weird smell was. Soon, as his eyes grew accustomed to the murky darkness—which was illuminated only by the fire in the stove—he realized what it was. Cats. Countless pairs of blank yellow eyes, glinting in the glow from the flames, were staring at him.

Simon felt edgy. He was wedged so tightly between the witches that he could hardly breathe. It was just his luck, he thought, that the nice witch who had fetched the wheelbarrow was not sitting next to him. She was busy stirring a dirty old pot on the stove, from which came another peculiar smell—Witches' Brew. Every now and then she glanced around at Simon and smiled shyly at him, and Simon smiled back. But even Dorinda's smiles did not stop Simon from longing to jump up and run out of the fug, into the clean night air of the Port. However, he knew better than to leave his master, who was piled on the kitchen table with his head placed at a jaunty angle by Dorinda.

DomDaniel was looking at the Witch Mother, who seemed, Simon thought, to have a score to settle. “What did I tell you, Dommie?” the Witch Mother crowed. “I said you'd come to no good in the end. I
told
you the next time you came to see me it would be in a wheelbarrow.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Pamela,” DomDaniel snapped. “Anyway, things are perfectly fine. I am regrouping. Reassessing. Recharging. That Overstrand woman—she'll be sorry. I have plans. Rather clever ones, actually. I will soon be back with a
vengeance
. Won't I, Heap?”

“Yes,” Simon said obediently, though right then he thought it seemed highly unlikely.

DomDaniel stared at up the Witch Mother. “To that end, Pamela, I need a little assistance.”

The Witch Mother gave a snort of amusement. “A
little
!”

“Ahem. With a
Clothing Bones Spell
. Difficult to do it for oneself.”

The Witch Mother leaned down, put her elbows on the table and stared eye to eye with DomDaniel's head. Simon saw the head wince at the onslaught of cat breath. “Well, now, who would have thought it—
you
asking
me
a favor?” the Witch Mother said with a stubby-toothed smile.

DomDaniel looked very uncomfortable. “You won't regret it, Pamela. You get me back on my feet so that I can sort out old Nastier Overstrand for keeps, and I will let you keep the
Darke
Toad, which is, at this very moment, sitting on your door.”

“The
Darke
Toad? For
keeps
?”

“For keeps, in exchange for a top-of-the-range, permanent
Clothing Bones
. I need one that lasts even without the bones—after they have been, let us say,
Placed
elsewhere. Can the Coven do that, Pamela?”

The Witch Mother frowned. What DomDaniel was asking for was a very difficult and complex
Darke Spell
, and she wasn't sure that the Coven
could
do it—especially the bit about lasting without the bones. What, she wondered, was the old goat planning? But a
Darke
Toad was a huge status symbol—a sign to any passing witch or warlock that beyond the door lay serious
Darke Magyk
. The Witch Mother made a decision: The Coven could manage something, and once the
Darke
Toad was theirs, what did she care about DomDaniel's boring old bones?

“Yes,” she said. “We can do that. No problem.”

Crash!
The sound of the front door crashing open, then slamming shut, shook the kitchen floor and far, far beneath it, Simon thought he felt something stir. A heavy pounding of footsteps came toward the kitchen and the door burst open.
Bang!
The fifth witch, Linda, rushed in. Her dark blue eyes glowed in the gloom and her long, shiny black nails flashed like claws. Linda looked furious. Simon saw Dorinda cower in fear, and beside him Daphne and Veronica went tense.

“Ear-flapping, nosy cow!” Linda yelled at Dorinda.

Dorinda dropped the wooden spoon and, like a rabbit caught in a flashlight, she watched, terrified, as Linda set a course for her, kicking her way through the rubbish-strewn floor.

Linda reached her victim and poked her in the ribs. “Madrigor has gone,” she said. “And he is not coming back. Ever. And it is all
your
fault, you nasty little earwig, you filthy string of nose slime, you—”

“Now, now, Linda,” said the Witch Mother. “Language.”

“I'll give her
language
,” snarled Linda. “Earwigging at my door. Listening to every word we said. And then
giggling
.”

Dorinda gave a whimper and hid her face in her hands. “I didn't mean to,” she said.

“Yes, you did, you lying little weasel. You listen at all our doors; don't think I don't know.”

“Does she really?” asked the Witch Mother, looking worried.

“Yes, she does. You'd be amazed at the secrets those delicate little ears have heard.”

“Oh dear,” muttered the Witch Mother.

Linda reached out and tweaked one of Dorinda's ears. Dorinda squealed. Linda leaned closer and breathed the special kind of Linda mouse breath all over the terrified witch. “Never mind, Dorinda. I'm going to do you a favor.”

Relief flooded across Dorinda's face. “Oh, Linda, are you?”

Simon sighed. Dorinda must be very silly, he thought—anyone else could see that Linda was planning something very nasty indeed. On either side of him, Veronica and Daphne were watching, enthralled.

“What are you going to do, Linda?” they asked in unison.

“Well, seeing as how Dorinda loves to go flapping her ears around the place, I'm going to give her some ears she can really flap.”

Dorinda began to look worried.

Quick as lightning, Linda grabbed hold of Dorinda's ears, her nails digging in viciously. Dorinda whimpered in pain. “I'd keep still if I were you,” Linda hissed. “Because I am going to
Bestow
upon you the finest pair
ever
of …”

“Yes, yes?” chorused Daphne, Veronica and the Witch Mother.

“Elephant ears!”

Dorinda screamed so loudly that Simon stuffed his fingers in his own (thankfully human) ears and closed his eyes. When the smoke cleared and the smell of burning flesh subsided into the comparatively pleasant odor of cat poo, Simon opened his eyes just in time to see Dorinda flee sobbing, her huge, gray African elephant ears flapping wildly as she hurtled from the kitchen, pursued by gales of raucous laughter. Simon felt sorry for the young witch; he knew that a
Bestow
was a permanent spell, and for the rest of her life Dorinda would have to live with a pair of elephant ears sprouting from her head. The fact that they looked so comical and that Simon had trouble not joining in the laughter somehow made it even worse.

The laughter subsided and the Witch Mother turned her attention to DomDaniel. The elephant ears had put her in an extremely good mood. It had also shown her that Linda was a force to be reckoned with.