The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company

by L. G. Estrella

  Alas, not all of Timmy’s rivals and enemies followed the same rules he did. And as forgiving as Timmy could be about some things – like the many, many times his cake had mysteriously disappeared around Sam who pretended to know nothing about the aforementioned disappearances – there were some things he could not ignore.

  Shortly after he and the others had returned from their mission to retrieve the Eye of the Abyss, the rats had informed him that one of his enemies was plotting to assassinate his adorable apprentice. Timmy had scowled and read through the rats’ report thoroughly. It made a frightening sort of sense. Katie was already powerful. In the future, she would be an absolute nightmare to face. Her magical reserves were amongst the largest he’d ever seen in a child her age, and they were still growing. Her grasp of her magic was also improving in leaps and bounds, and she seemed to discover some new trick or facet to her magic every day. She was also fiendishly cunning and extremely intelligent. Eliminating her now while she was still a child and Timmy was distracted by all of the work he was receiving from the Council was the perfect idea, or so it would seem to some of his enemies. Timmy, however, was not a fan of plans to assassinate his apprentice.

  Setting aside how adorable she was, he’d invested a lot of time and effort into training Katie. He’d also gotten used to having her around. Despite her occasional attempts to overthrow him, it was rather nice to have her as his apprentice. It had taken him less than a minute to make up his mind. If someone were seriously planning to assassinate Katie, he had to take action. Whether that action involved murder, a simple whack over the head with a shovel, or turning over the plotter to the authorities for a reward, he had yet to decide. But he was definitely going to do something.

  Timmy read through the report one last time before putting it in one of the drawers of his desk and locking it. The runes and seals etched onto the drawer flared briefly and then dulled. There was no reason to bother Katie with this right now. She was in the middle of some fascinating new research about a new type of zombie she wanted to make. Isaac, the castle’s zombie librarian, was very enthusiastic about it. She was also still quite young. In a few years, perhaps, he’d let her handle this sort of thing. For the time being, it was up to him, and it might also be time for him to remind certain people that although he was working toward a pardon, he had not gone soft. If they pushed him too far, he’d push back, and they wouldn’t enjoy it.

  “I need a small group of rats,” Timmy told the rat in front of him. This particular rat was one of the clan’s finest spies. Had Timmy not known any better, he would have assumed he was simply another one of the rats common to large, old castles. “Rats suited for infiltration, sabotage, and demolition. Tell them to report to me in this office. Keep it quiet. There’s no need to trouble Katie yet.”

  The rate gave a cute but menacing laugh before vanishing to do his bidding. Timmy smiled. If someone had told him that he would one day consider a bunch of ninja rats to be amongst his most capable minions, he’d never have believed them. Oh well. Results mattered, and the rats got results.

  The next day, Timmy left the castle with a small group of rats. His excuse – he was going on a bit of a shopping trip – wasn’t even a total lie although Old Man seemed to have worked out what he was up to. The swordsman nodded gravely as Timmy left and cautioned him to be careful and thorough. Rembrandt must have worked it out too because the eye-patch-wearing rodent gave Timmy a brief salute as he left. They might not agree about everything, but Rembrandt was perfectly fine with Timmy’s decision to go after someone who had threatened Katie. It did make him wonder about Old Man, though. The swordsman had definitely sounded as though he was speaking from experience.

  * * *

  Renoir was a master infiltrator and saboteur. The brown-furred rat couldn’t fight as well as Rembrandt, nor was he was stealthy as Rubens. But if there was something or someone that needed to be brought down either figuratively or literally, then Renoir was the perfect rat for the job. Give him access to what his explosive-loving kin the demolition rats came up with, and he doubted there was a building in Everton he couldn’t demolish if he had the time to plan and the right rats to help him.

  He had been Timmy’s first choice for this mission, and there had been no shortage of volunteers.

  The Grand Necromancer was Katie’s master, so the rats respected him even if some of them, such as Rembrandt, rarely showed it. He had trained Katie well, and he had protected her from the many people who sought to either harm her or use her for their own ends. Katie would one day be incredibly powerful, on the same level, Timmy had told the rats, as titans like Vicky or Avraniel. However, she still had a lot of growing up to do first. When one of Renoir’s kin had uncovered a serious plot to assassinate her, as opposed to the usual deranged mumbling or lackadaisical speculation common to most of Timmy and Katie’s enemies, the rats had brought the information straight to Timmy.

  Katie was intelligent, powerful, and cunning, but she was still a child. She had not dealt with many assassins yet, and she could be oddly sentimental. Her zombie dog, Patches, was a perfect example. When the ninja rats had first arrived, Katie had insisted that Patches was all the protection she needed while she slept. The zombie dog was definitely loyal, but he was not going to stop any real assassin. More than once, the rats had caught him chasing his own tail until he caught it and tugged it off, forcing Katie to reattach it. Luckily, Katie had accepted their help although she thought they were being paranoid. Timmy had been pleased. The castle was extremely well defended, but it couldn’t hurt to add another layer to its defences. Now, there was no less than a dozen elite ninja rats in and around Katie’s chambers at all times.

  Katie had also begun to incorporate more of her master’s teachings into her daily routine, like using runes and seals to better protect her room. Timmy had made it something of a game by occasionally trying to break in and catch Katie off guard. The rats made no move to stop him because they understood what he was doing. He was teaching Katie how to identify and control potential access points and danger zones. It was a game, and it was hard to take it too seriously given Timmy had once rappelled down the side of the castle to swing through her window with a trumpet to wake her up early. Yet it was a game that would make it far harder for someone with malicious intentions to catch her unawares. Timmy had taken it a step further recently by occasionally asking Spot to help out. After waking up with an energetic dragon bouncing around on her bed and pawing through her closet in search of food, Katie’s security improved remarkably quickly.

  Timmy was going to deal with the person plotting to assassinate Katie, and the rats were going to help him. The Grand Necromancer had faced many assassins in the past, and the report had made it clear that this was far more serious than the usual bluster involved when necromancers squabbled. His opponent had already reached out to elite assassins. In a week, at the most, there would be half a dozen world-class assassins after Katie unless Timmy and the rats acted now. No assassin would ever work for an employer who was unable to pay.

  The plan was simple: they were going to demolish their target’s castle… with him in it. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Their target lived in a castle with no company to speak of except his zombies and whatever nightmarish creatures he’d summoned using the dark rituals necromancers were so famous for. Timmy had mentioned that the other man hadn’t always lived in such solitude. Once, he’d had servants and even some apprentices, but his growing obsession with power at any cost had driven all of them away. It was that same obsession that had driven him to go after Katie since he viewed assassinating her as an efficient way to eliminate a threat to his future power, as well as a way to get back at Timmy. Not everyone was pleased with Timmy and Katie’s recent success.

  Renoir snorted. Living alone with nothing but zombies and monsters was so obviously a bad idea that he could scarcely believe someone as skilled as their target had allowed it to occur. Renoir was a rat, and even he knew better. Then again, necr
omancers were strange people. Timmy certainly was, and so was Katie although her version of strange tended to focus more on pursuing a classical necromancer aesthetic than an unhealthy obsession with power and world-ending secrets. Katie also loved to knit, and the jackets she’d made the rats were excellent. Renoir had one, but he’d left it back at the castle. He couldn’t risk damaging it on a mission, but he was proud to wear it around the castle whenever he had the chance.

  Renoir and the others had used a zombie wyvern to fly as close as they could get to the target’s castle without being noticed. It was one of the problems of facing another necromancer. If they used one of Timmy’s zombies, their target would definitely sense them if they got too close. On this mission, Timmy and the rats would have to do all of the work.

  “The first thing you need to know about Thomas, the man we’re here to deal with, is that he is not the most intelligent man. Oh, he’s not stupid, but he’s definitely not as smart as Katie or me. However, he is maniacally determined, which is what makes him so dangerous. Believe me, you could cut off his arms and legs in a fight, and he’d just growl and try to bite out your throat.”

  Renoir chuckled at Timmy’s description of their opponent as the necromancer pulled out the map he’d brought. They were huddled in a cave not far from Thomas’s castle, which was built on a treacherous patch of the mountainside.

  “His castle is not well maintained, or it wasn’t the last time I checked. He was never one to spend money on what he viewed as unnecessary maintenance.”

  The rats snickered. Timmy’s desire to renovate the castle to its former splendour was common knowledge. Some of them wondered if it was worth the money, but Renoir happened to agree with Timmy. It was far cheaper to spend money on maintenance and renovations now than on emergency repairs later.

  “I haven’t set foot in his castle for years, but I have spoken to some of the contractors he hired the last time he bothered to get something fixed professionally. This map should be accurate.” Timmy grinned. “And it should also serve as a warning. Pay your tradesmen well and make sure they agree to non-disclosure agreements. You already know that we’re going to bring the castle down. Here’s how we’re going to do it…”

  Renoir and the other rats gave cackles of pure malevolence and glee as Timmy outlined the plan. The castle was not structurally sound. If Timmy was correct, the foundations had definitely seen better days, and the cost of fully repairing them had led to Thomas putting those repairs off over and over again. The only reason Timmy didn’t bring the castle down with his magic was that the castle’s magical defences were still strong enough to withstand a direct, large-scale attack. But those defences were built into the castle’s foundations, which was exactly where the rats would be making their move.

  They were going to plant explosives all over the foundations and bring the whole castle down. Against what the demolition rats had come up with, even a properly maintained castle would be unlikely to survive. This castle? It didn’t stand a chance.

  Once the foundations had been destroyed, gravity and physics would do the rest, and Timmy could nudge things along if he had to. If Thomas survived, the collapse would still wipe out almost all of his zombies, as well as his base of operations. Timmy could then decide what to do with him. Personally, Renoir thought they should cut Thomas’s throat and be done with it, but they could also earn a very nice reward and more favour with Everton if they turned Thomas over to the Council. Throughout the mission, the rats would do their best to conceal their involvement. The more people thought Timmy had done the whole thing himself, the less likely they would be to target his apprentice. After all, people had a tendency to take rats lightly, no matter what they were capable of.

  The key to the mission was Timmy. He had to sneak into the castle and then pick a fight with Thomas while the rats got to work. There were few necromancers who could multitask the way Timmy could. For all intents and purposes, he could see and hear almost everything his zombies did. So Thomas shouldn’t notice the rats if he was focused on Timmy. By the time Thomas did notice what was happening – there was bound to be better security around the foundations – it should be far, far too late for him to stop them.

  * * *

  Sneaking into Black Tower Castle would have been almost impossible for anyone who wasn’t Timmy. He had dozens of different rune and seal networks in place to detect and repel intruders, magic, and anything else he could think of. If someone did manage to get past all of those, they’d have to worry about his zombies. Amongst his zombies there was a special group dedicated solely to preventing infiltration. It included zombies that had been modified to detect and counteract magic, as well as zombies with exceptionally keen senses and abilities chosen to make capturing and disabling opponents as easy as possible. These zombies had a priority link to not only him but also several scrying spheres that were constantly monitored by the rats and some of the castle’s most trusted servants.

  And speaking of the rats, the ninja rodents were exceedingly good at infiltrating places and equally good at keeping people out. He doubted it was possible for someone to sneak past them, and if the rats were unable to repel an intruder, they should be able to last long enough for Timmy’s zombies or the castle’s other residents to reach them and offer aid.

  Then there were the traps. Katie was especially fond of traps, and she’d proven to be very good at designing them too. More than one would-be intruder had been caught in her zombie octopus pit or her zombie honey badger pit. In fact, just last month, they’d allowed a bunch of thieves into the castle to test some of the new traps. They’d turned the thieves over to the authorities, but not before the thieves had triggered one of the traps. They’d ended up chest deep in tar while a zombie salamander lounged around nearby, waiting for an excuse to set them all on fire.

  If someone somehow managed to get past everything and everyone else, there was still Sam and the other protoplasmic horrors. So far, the only person Timmy was confident he couldn’t keep out of the castle if they wanted to get in was Vicky, and she was monstrously powerful and had magic perfectly suited to dealing with the castle’s myriad defences. And even Vicky couldn’t get in without him noticing. There was a way he could stop her, but it would involve waking up at least a couple of the things that lived underneath the castle, and he’d rather avoid that if he could. Besides, it was Vicky. Not only was she one of his friends but knowing her she would also find some way to pummel the things that lived underneath the castle despite their otherworldly power and indescribable might. Besides, whenever she did drop by, it was either to discuss a mission or to hang out, which was a nice way of saying that she occasionally enjoyed shirking her responsibilities for a while.

  Compared to Black Tower Castle’s security, the security around Thomas’s castle was severely underwhelming.

  There was little in the way of real security around Thomas’s castle, and Timmy wondered if the isolation had finally driven his rival mad. Thomas had set up only the thinnest of magical barriers, which Timmy was able to slip past without much effort. The zombies on patrol were not very intelligent, and without any specifically attuned to magic, all he had to do was have the rat in his pocket make both of them invisible. The castle had wraiths and ghosts, but Timmy was skilled enough to subtly influence them with his magic without drawing undue attention. In his castle, an intruder would never have been able to do that. The wraiths and ghosts of Black Tower Castle were instructed to report or detain any intruders and to report any attempts to influence them that didn’t come from him or Katie. The ones here seemed to have been left to fend for themselves, adding less to the security of the castle and more to the general creepiness of the place. If he had to guess, they were the spirits of whomever Thomas had recently turned into zombies or used for rituals.

  The rat in Timmy’s pocket had other skills beside stealth. This quiet fellow was also one of the clan’s premier defensive specialists. If necessary, he could use his magic to create barriers and
shields, not that Timmy thought it would be necessary. Thomas was powerful – he had to be to have evaded capture or assassination for so long – but he was like a bull in an artificer’s workshop: all fury and force and no subtlety. Timmy wasn’t the most powerful mage around, but he was cunning and creative. It took some serious power to simply overwhelm him. Vicky could do it, but Thomas was nowhere near as powerful as her.

  Thomas had also made a mistake with his zombies. He had severely underinvested in composite zombies. Unless he was hiding them somewhere, almost all of his zombies seemed to be of the human type. A zombie human could be deadly, but against another necromancer who could interfere with the magic that animated zombies, nightmarish horrors like zombie hydra-dragon-bears or zombie salamander-basilisk-griffins were far more useful. If they had been properly made, they would be able to withstand far more of Timmy’s magic before beginning to either fall apart or go wild. If Thomas were actively defending them with his magic, they would also do a far better job of ripping Timmy limb from limb than a standard human zombie. It was much harder to beat a zombie hydra-dragon-bear to death with a shovel than it was to whack a zombie human over the head. To his credit, Thomas did have some runes and seals set up to detect intruders and trigger traps, but they were woefully out dated. Katie still had a lot to learn about runes and seals, but she could have handled these ones in her sleep.

  In almost no time at all, he reached the throne room. Timmy rolled his eyes. The vast chamber was lined with tattered banners bearing Thomas’s heraldry, and there were even zombie courtiers and the like milling about the edges. Really? Thomas had his own zombies fawning over him. What was the point of that? It wasn’t like they had a choice. It was only half a step from being overjoyed about patting himself on the back, which Timmy had never been a fan of. More often than not, all it resulted in was a dislocated shoulder.