by Green Dc
‘It’s an aniwye!’ I cried. ‘A giant skunk! They can chomp the roofs off houses! And their backside spray’s deadly!!’
‘It’s Pepé Le Pew on steroids!’ Bruce shrieked.
The giant skunk’s buttocks trembled.
A breeze rippled. I grabbed a final breath, until I realised it was only Bruce, hiding behind me, doing his vibrating thing.
‘I ain’t old enough to die,’ the spider whined.
From behind Zorg, Scarab moaned, ‘Me too! You bet!’
Legs trembling, I stepped towards the massive backside, imagining my first and final musky breath of death. ‘Aniwye, you must not squirt us!’
‘It is my task!’ the skunk’s thunderous voice reverberated.
‘I order you not to!’ I spoke with all the authority I could muster. ‘I’m Prince Thomas and, um, I’m legally allowed to be here!’
‘I follow only Lord Boron’s orders.’
‘Yeah, well, I outrank Lord Boron,’ I bluffed. ‘He follows my orders!’
‘Why then did Lord Boron not tell you the security code?’
I gulped. ‘Lord Boron is dead.’
‘Dead?’ the aniwye hissed.
‘Cyborg assassins,’ I lied.
The giant skunk twisted to face me. ‘Do you bear identification proof?’
‘Proof?’ I turned to the Dead Gang. ‘Um, anyone have a wallet?’
‘Killer plan.’ Bruce slowed his vibrating long enough to toss me his coin sack. ‘FYI, you ain’t gonna bribe the gnarly killer skunk from Hell with my lunch money!’
I clinked through Bruce’s coins until I found a recent half-crown. Inching to the aniwye, I held the coin before his plate-sized left eye.
He squinted and frowned. ‘The image is you, Prince Thomas.’ The skunk’s buttocks ceased trembling. ‘So be it.’
My sigh was so loud, the banshee jumped. ‘Tell me, aniwye. Does – did Lord Boron look after you well?’
‘Well enough.’
‘How did you come to be here?’
‘I am a convicted criminal. Lord Boron offered me two roads: become his security monster, or suffer in a succubus jail.’ The aniwye’s voice plunged deeper. ‘I gather you will now be in charge of providing my meals and removing my waste?’
‘Yeah. I promise you’ll be cared for.’
‘So be it.’ The great skunk nodded, and the wall panel slid back into place, hiding him again.
‘Gnarly.’ Bruce stopped vibrating and flicked sweat from his forehead. ‘What’s everyone peeping at? Vibrating’s webbing hard work. It’s arachnid aerobics!’
Greta gazed at me oddly. ‘You handled that … smartly.’
‘Thanks.’ I felt light-headed. ‘Um, now we better find these mysterious books.’
Stoker yanked open drawers. ‘Has anyone else observed Lord Boron’s defence system appears a trifle overkill?’
‘You bet! By the Pharaoh’s pointy chin,’ said Scarab. ‘The prince? Gets a sleepy ogre. You know, for a guard. And the silly money book? It gets a pyramid-gnawing aniwye!’
‘Quite so.’ Stoker spun, grabbing Scarab by the throat. He twisted one arm behind her back and pressed her face onto Lord Boron’s desk. His cheek pressed down upon her neck. ‘Who are you?’
‘Are you out of your hieroglyphs? I’m Scarab!’
Zorg scratched at Stoker.
The vampire brushed the zombie away like an annoying fly and angled his elongated canine teeth into Scarab’s neck bandages. ‘Who are you? Or should I simply bite?’
The mummy squeaked, ‘Y – your fangs couldn’t penetrate. You know, not through my stone-tough skin!’
‘Shall we test that theory?’ Stoker’s fangs lightly jabbed. Twin pin-pricks of blood swelled. ‘Shall I bite harder?’
‘No!’ Scarab screamed in a rough new voice. Her outline flickered, changing from bandage-wrapped to a thicker-set body covered in bright purple skin – with horns and a pointy tail! – before flickering back to mummy-form. ‘I admit it!’ the new voice trembled. ‘Truth? I’m not Scarab. I’m a shifter! You know, a shape-shifter?’
‘Another traitor!’ Bruce rubbed his pincers together. ‘Can we chow this one?’
‘Dirty zhape-zhipper!’ Zorg rained blows on bandages. ‘Where iz real Zcarab? Be telling!’
‘Ouch!’ the shape-shifter squawked, struggling in Stoker’s grip. ‘Stop! I’ll tell. You know, if dead bloke stops bashing me!’
At Stoker’s nod, Zorg lowered his fists.
Words jostled from the shape-shifter’s mouth. ‘Scarab’s safe. I swear! She’s dozing. Soundly! You know, in her sarcophagus. You bet!’
Stoker licked the trickle of blood. His nostrils flared. ‘Why, shape-shifter?’
‘Last weekend, I followed Scarab. You know, to her Dead Quarter home. I hypnotised her. That’s all! You bet. That’s what I do.’ The shape-shifter’s head twisted on the desk until he faced up, towards Stoker. ‘How did you scope? You know, that I wasn’t a mummy? I perfectly impersonated Scarab.’
The vampire sighed. ‘One. You cried out when you punched that door. Two. Why would a dead monster who doesn’t breathe fear the spray of an aniwye? Three. Your annoying over-usage of fake Egyptian slang. Four. Your bizarrely constructed sentences. Am I missing anything?’
‘He iz zmelling diff’rent,’ said Zorg.
‘Quite so,’ said Stoker. ‘Now, who do you work for, shape-shifter?’ The vampire stretched his mouth wide, as if to bite again.
‘No one! I swear. By Morpho’s nostrils!’ The shape-shifter tried to wrench free from Stoker’s grip, and failed. ‘Truth? Us shifters? We’re hated and feared. Even by other monsters! We get hunted down. And killed! Or forced to – you know, do other stuff. I’d rather die! You know, than be a slave!’
‘Either can be arranged,’ growled Stoker. ‘Continue.’
The shape-shifter gulped. ‘I’ve been on the run. Rolling. You know, for months. From gob bounty hunters! I hid in your school. Sometimes, I impersonated a gargoyle janitor. Sometimes, I just turned invisible.’
Stoker glowered. ‘You can do that?’
‘You bet! That’s how I scoped you chums. You know, from a distance. I liked how you’re all outcasts. Minorities. I could relate. You bet! Us shifters are the ultimate minority! Ultimate outcasts too. I liked everything! You know, about your gang. How you accept each other. How you stick together. And, especially, Bruce’s gags!’
‘Awww,’ said Bruce. ‘Suddenly, I ain’t so ravenous.’ Stoker turned his glower on the giant spider. ‘Yet how can we trust this–’
‘Jaak,’ said the shape-shifter. ‘That’s my name. You bet! Although you can keep calling me Scarab. You know, while I’m in this form – Ouch! All right, I’m Jaak!’
‘I cannot observe the real face of this Jaak. Thus I cannot read if he is lying. Yet I observe,’ Stoker’s eyes roamed across the Dead Gang membership, ‘he is not a teenager like us. He is an ancient monster who likes teenagers!’
Jaak giggled nervously. ‘You mean, unlike Scarab? The 5,000-year-old mummy? You know, the one I’ve been impersonating?’
‘Regardless of your age, how can we trust you, Jaak?’ asked Stoker. ‘Answer? We cannot!’
Greta raised her hand. ‘Is this some deranged group initiation thing? I’m positively breathless for my turn to be tortured and threatened.’ Before Stoker could interrupt, the goblin rushed on. ‘Despite Jaak’s hideously warm and fuzzy words describing our “gang”, and I use that word with both scorn and sarcasm, the fact is: this is far from a trust-filled group. For the record, I positively trust none of you.’
Stoker hissed, ‘If we have zero trust, as you say, why then are we performing this foolish quest for a mortal?’
‘Because it’s more fun than doing homework?’ Greta shrugged. ‘And for the record, I wondered when someone else would notice Jaak was a shape-shifting male.’
‘I had been wondering that since the weekend,’ countered Stoker.
‘Truth, chums?’ aske
d Jaak. ‘I’m male, all right! You know, and female.’
Bruce gagged. ‘Wayyy too much info, dude.’
Stoker pushed Jaak into the desk chair with such force that he rolled and crashed into a bookcase. ‘We shall be democratic. Who votes the shape-shifter removed?’ The vampire raised his hand.
Zorg’s hand shot up. ‘Zorg iz wanting Zcarab back! Wanting Jaak on bun!’
Stoker’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who votes the shape-shifter not removed?’
Greta’s hand lazily rose. ‘As the missing, presumed asleep, Scarab would endlessly drone, “Safety in numbers”.’
‘Zilch offence, bitey dude,’ said Bruce, ‘but Jaak’s kick-butt sense of humour appreciation makes our gang all the more top-notch.’
‘Ditto his shape-shifting skills.’ I nodded as I rummaged through desk drawers.
‘I bow to democracy,’ grumbled Stoker. ‘Yay.’
‘So, I don’t get digested? You know, or drained of blood?’ Jaak line-danced the chair across the floor. ‘Whoopity!’
Stoker growled.
I slammed shut the last drawer. ‘Stuff it! I can’t find a single account book. There should be stacks, surely.’ I tapped a metallic prism on the desk. ‘Maybe something’s hidden in here? Who’s in smash mode?’
Zorg formed a double-fist. ‘Zorg angry. Zorg zmash!’
Greta pinched her nostrils and used her other hand to block the zombie with surprising skill. ‘Back!’
Zorg slumped back.
Greta’s fingers darted over the shiny rectangular prism, across the attached mini-typewriter and along a tapering, glass-screened box. ‘I’ve read books relating to these, though I grasped there were none left in the world.’ The forest goblin eyed each of us in turn, and pushed a button on the prism.
The button flickered with a blue, internal light.
The prism clunked, whirred and vibrated as if lurching back from the dead.
Bruce’s mouth turned oval. ‘It’s a funky machine!’
‘Indeed,’ said Greta. ‘An ancient machine that somehow evaded the mechanical purges.’
‘Quit being such a wannabe butt-teacher. What the web’s it do?’
‘Inside this tiny box resides a magical library with an astonishing amount of stored information. The ancients called it,’ Greta’s eyes glittered, ‘a computer!’
I gulped. ‘Please don’t spray him. Or nibble his ogre bits.’
14: REALISATIONS
I gawked at the glass-faced box, illuminated from within. ‘So this … comporter is Lord Boron’s books?’
Greta nodded. ‘You’re not as moronic as your face suggests.’
Stoker bared his fangs. ‘How does a goblin comprehend such complex technology?’
Greta stiffened. ‘Do not fall for the prejudice that we goblins of the forest are ignorant. Ours is the finest school in the Goblin Quarter, if not all of Monstro City. We alone have kept alive knowledge of both the natural and technological worlds that elsewhere has been lost, destroyed, or denied!’
‘Interesting,’ said Stoker. ‘Then why transfer to the more dubious Monstro Central School?’
‘Your curriculum is more diverse.’ Greta’s expression was inscrutable. ‘And slumming is the new black.’
‘Chip on shoulder much?’ Bruce coughed. ‘Gob gal, you’re suddenly the chattiest gob in M-City. You sure you ain’t a shape-shifting midget? Has Castle Mount given you altitude sickness? Or the gnarlier gob disease: attitude sickness?’ Bruce thwacked his kneecaps.
Greta’s top lip curled. ‘Spider, unlike the evidently brain-damaged shape-shifter, I find your jokes to be juvenile in the extreme.’
Bruce bowed. ‘Why thanky, Ms Snarky.’
‘I possess more urgent tasks than trading innuendo with a corpse or insults with a racist bug who shoots floss out of his posterior. The computer is booted up!’ Greta shooed away Jaak and rolled the chair before the glowing, glass-faced box. ‘Now, what could Lord Boron’s password be?’
‘Password?’ I asked.
‘His secret, enabling words.’
‘Boredom? Dead kings? Lunch?’ I scratched my noggin. ‘Who could possibly know Lord Boron’s secrets?’
A voice shook the room. ‘I could.’
I approached to the wall panel. ‘Aniwye?’
The skunk’s baritone echoed again. ‘If you deduct ten years from my sentence, I will tell you the password. And for ten more years, I will tell you the security code.’
‘How many more years are left on your sentence?’ I asked.
‘A little over 137.’
I whistled. ‘Your crimes must’ve been great.’
‘And I am paying them off.’
I nodded. ‘Make it fifteen years all up and we’ve a deal.’
‘So be it,’ said the aniwye. ‘The password is proditio. The security code is 687153. And I strongly recommend you clean the webs from my banshee friend’s mouth.’
‘Oops,’ said Bruce, and did so.
Greta typed.
Stoker glowered my way. ‘Your ogre would have driven a superior deal–’
‘Sacred forest!’ Greta punched air. ‘The computer has allowed us into its holy library!’ She entwined her fingers and stretched her arms. ‘Gather behind me, those of you who are literate. I’m zapping around the computer at speed, so scan what’s on the monitor swiftly and keep your comments brief.’ Meeting our blank stares, she pointed at the glass-faced box and said, ‘Mon-i-tor.’
We crouched around her and peered at the magical symbols that changed as Greta clicked a mouse-sized device on the desk. I tried to ignore her subtle scent of jasmine and crushed lavender.
A list of words and figures blinked into existence.
‘These are the human royal earnings for the last year,’ said Greta. ‘I’ll print the juicier pockets.’
Tink! I flinched. Tk-tk-tk-tkk-tk-tk-tkk-tk-tk …
Pages typed themselves at inhuman speed from another machine. I breathed new paper and impossibly fresh ink.
Reflected in the monitor, the forest goblin’s eyes shone with joy. I focused on the glass-face figures, which scrolled like a living page. Greta narrated, ‘As you can doubtless grasp, assuming you can read, over 50 per cent of human income comes from rentals, 40 per cent from the 19,857 tax-paying humans living in Castle Mount and the few scattered villages that still pay royal taxes. While the rest–’
‘Selling human treasure to goblin collectors.’ I frowned at the screen. ‘I can read.’
Stoker inspected his perfect nails. ‘You mortals lack industry.’
‘You mean, unlike your vampire rat pens?’ I grumbled. ‘We’d be doing okay if every quarter paid their ten per cent in royal taxes like they’re supposed to. Greta, can you show me when the various monster types stopped paying?’
‘Can you say “please”?’
‘I … Please?’ The word squeezed through my teeth.
Greta clicked her mouse-device, directing the image to change. I read swiftly, as instructed. The Ex-Human Quarter was the last to stop paying taxes, with the Frankens and cyborgs both quitting around ten years ago. The various Mythic suburbs bowed out between 20 and 50 years back, the goblins around 100 years ago, while others – like the dragon Kalthazari – hadn’t paid since the royal tax was established 512 years ago.
‘Fine luck sending a tax snaffler to Fire Mountain!’ Bruce snickered.
Greta clicked on. Over the years, many royal revenues, such as parking and postage, had expired, been transferred or just ignored. Quarters collected their own regional taxes and paid a new national tax to the elected city administration, dominated by the Viethe and Klusk goblin mafia families.
‘I wouldn’t entirely trust these figures,’ said Greta. ‘Mayor Viethe, the breathing epitome of dodginess, doubtless provided them himself.’ The image changed. ‘Expenses next. The juicy pockets.’
I read on. The royals’ main expense was security: Mummy Police wages and ogre bodyguard salaries. Although most royal bodygua
rds who’d retired in the last ten years hadn’t been replaced. Hmm.
‘Little wonder we snuck into Castle Mount so easily,’ said Stoker.
Despite her clicking and searching, all Greta could learn about the next largest expense was a name. The Exodus Project. Hmm again.
Greta summoned more factoids. The next two chunky expenses were easy to work out: ever-rising electricity costs and our tribute payments to Fire Mountain. The dragon received 9,000 gold crowns plus a trailer-load of hippocows per week!
‘We never miss a payment to her,’ I groused. More factoids blinked onto the screen. The dragon payments had been delivered by the deputy mayor until the mayor took over the contract ten years ago. Each year since, the payments had steeply climbed.
‘Does that reek hideously to anyone else?’ asked Greta.
‘Has the dragon raised her prices?’ I asked. ‘Or do you think the mayor is ripping us off?’
‘I think duh.’
‘Viethe’ll regret that,’ I seethed.
‘It’s not you the mayor should fear,’ said Greta. ‘Not if he’s also been ripping off a certain gigantic monster with an HP of 50,000.’
‘Kalthazari.’ The word tingled down my spine. ‘But surely the dragon has never missed her due?’
Greta’s lips pursed into a smile. ‘Ancient dragons hardly think like teenage human princes.’
I rubbed my chin. ‘Can you make the invisible typist print details of the next tribute delivery … please?’
‘Printer – print!’ Greta cackled and pointed at the machine.
Tk-tk-tk-tkk. It instantly obeyed her.
‘Gnarly,’ said Bruce.
I grabbed the still-warm paper, my mind whirring with crazy possibilities.
‘There’s one more thing I wanted to check.’ Greta clicked to a new page. ‘Aha. Lord Boron has purchased property in one of the most expensive guarded suburbs on Holly Hill.’
‘Well, Lord Boron is a wealthy man.’ I gaped at the screen. ‘But not that wealthy.’
‘He has evidently been diverting royal money for a long time. Planning his escape. His exodus, perhaps?’
My face burned. No wonder Lord B had hidden information from me for all these years!