The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  I turned to LeGras. “Zombie or golem?” I asked.

  “Golem,” he replied. “Zombies do not afford quite so much upper-body strength, and one does need to feed them on occasion. Shall we proceed?”

  Stanton led the way into the depths of LeGras’s house, down a hall and up to a pair of heavy double doors. At a touch of his hands, they rolled into their wall pockets silently, revealing a parlour big enough to host a ball game. It’d have to be for the girlie league, though. Everywhere I looked, I saw chintz, gilding, and frou-frou. It was like being trapped inside the brain of a wedding cake designer gone ga-ga.

  In the centre of the floor was a plain wood kitchen chair. A man was tied to it. It was Hansel. Big surprise. The thick velvet drapes were drawn tight and there was only a single lamp lit, but I could see him good enough. He’d changed about as much as his sister. The grubby-faced kid who’d been too scrawny to pop into my bake-oven had grown up into a man with the body of a has-been athlete and the face of a cherub.

  That cherub should’ve been more careful about where he flew. He’d obviously glided into the bad part of town where some punk grabbed him by the wing and used his face for a punching bag. I wondered whether Hansel’s lips were always that pouty or if they’d just swollen up from the beating. One eye was battered shut, the other squinted sullenly in our direction. If he recognized me, he didn’t let on. Then again, seeing as how he was flanked by a couple of burly chaperones, maybe he didn’t want to get spanked for talking to strangers.

  “How goes it, dear boy?” LeGras exclaimed, sidling up to Hansel. He passed his walking stick and gun to one of the two guard-goons. “Have you taken advantage of my absence to repent the error of your ways?”

  “He ain’t spilled nothin’, Boss,” the second ape said.

  “Ah.” LeGras turned to me and shrugged apologetically. “Dear lady, you must forgive Max. He lacks the benefits of a course in proper English.”

  Max, huh? Hel-looo, nurse. I did my best to keep a poker face. “I don’t know, sweets,” I said. “That’s pretty bad grammar. Someone ought to teach him a lesson.”

  “Perhaps. In the meantime, I would prefer to limit my attempts at, ha, pedagogy to this young man.” He approached Hansel and stooped over – not without a whole lot of effort – just so he could be at eye level when he wheezed: “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships? No longer, alas. Such a needless waste of beauty when beauty is ethereal at best. You disappoint me deeply, my boy. You might have spared yourself this.”

  “Save it,” Hansel growled. “I didn’t talk for these creeps and I’m not talking for you. Think I can’t see who that is?” He nodded in our direction. I gave Gretel a sidelong look. She was staring at her brother, tears streaming down her cheeks, but unless you were close enough to see them in the dim light, you’d never have known they were there. She didn’t make a sound. A pair of granite bookends, those two. “You wasted your time, bringing her here,” he went on. “I know I’m a dead man, no matter what. Say I did tell you where the black bird’s stashed, you want me to believe you’d let me go – me or her – like nothing ever happened? Fat chance.”

  LeGras took that last remark personally. “You would choose to perish, knowing your innocent sister must share your fate?”

  Hansel grinned, showing off some recently administered gaps in his pearly whites. “Yeah. So? I’d die knowing that you’ll never see the black bird again in this lifetime. Who says you can’t take it with you?”

  LeGras waved one fat hand languidly. “Edgar, my things,” he said. The goon who wasn’t my pal Max fetched a green tin box from the shadows and set it down on the table holding the lamp. LeGras opened it and took out a pair of black rubber gloves and a neatly folded white cloth. While LeGras pulled the gloves on, Edgar spread the cloth over the tabletop, then reached into the tin box and started laying out the tools.

  “Stanton, see to the lady,” LeGras directed. The golem butler grabbed Gretel and hauled her forward. Max got another kitchen chair and more rope from somewhere behind the Louis-the-Whatever settee and tied her up like the Sunday roast.

  “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” LeGras murmured, an ugly little smile on his blobby lips. “You see, lad, the question is no longer if you will die but how long you will be about it. You are about to have a demonstration of what awaits you, performed with the kind assistance of your own dear sister.” He picked up one of the tools from the white-shrouded table. Lamplight glittered along the edge of the blade like a string of fresh-dipped rock candy.

  Hansel went pale. He opened his mouth – nothing came out – then closed it and tightened his jaw. I knew that look. Tough guy.

  I’ve got no use for tough guys. I had to leave my home in the Old Country when the tough guys took over. I know their kind: They’re real brave as long as they outnumber you, or when it’s someone else’s neck on the chopping block. Dig the brown-shirted bastards out of their burrows one by one and they stop barking and start whining, no teeth and all tail.

  That’s why I spoke up when I did:

  “Hey, LeGras, do you like to waste time?”

  He stopped making goo-goo eyes at the blade and gave me a slow, contemptuous look. “I assure, you madam, I shall proceed with all requisite alacrity.” He snapped his fingers. Max made a move for Gretel. She screamed like she was auditioning to play an air-raid siren

  I laughed. LeGras raised one stubbly eyebrow. “You take pleasure in the impending misfortunes of others? How . . . unsuitable a character trait in a woman. I can’t say I approve.”

  “I’m not laughing at her,” I told him. “I’m laughing at you. You’re a fool, LeGras, a fat fool.” Legras’s driver made a grab for me, but I held up one hand and talked fast: “Call him off, LeGras, or kiss the black bird goodbye.”

  “Hold, Geoffrey.” LeGras’s trained gorilla stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of his master’s voice. LeGras himself set down his sharp, shiny toy and came over to me. “What are you saying, my good woman? That you have some arcane knowledge that may facilitate our search? That you would be willing to place your sorcerous powers in my service to the end of recovering the bird?”

  “Right you are, cupcake.”

  “And I suppose your price will be their lives?” He didn’t even bother looking back at his prisoners, he just shook his head and said, “I am afraid that would be out of the question.”

  I blew his words away like they were smoke rings. “What do you take me for, a sucker? Me bargain for their lives? What’s the matter, gumdrop, your mama never read you any fairy tales at bedtime? Do you even know who I am?”

  It was a beautiful thing, watching the little light bulb go on over LeGras’s head. “You mean to say that you are that witch? My word, this is an honour.” He grabbed my hand between both of his and shook it briskly. The rubber gloves squeaked and left my palm all sweaty. Beaming, LeGras babbled on: “How fortuitous. Of course you would never ask for their lives in fee. Not after what they put you through, eh? Pardon my previous ignorance, but it is understandable. Anyone who has ever heard your story assumes that you perished in the oven where that graceless cocotte left you. Well! This puts quite a different complexion on things.”

  “I’ll say.” I got my hand out of his clutches and wiped it dry on my skirt. “You want my powers at your service, you got ’em. Pay me what you paid the gal who conjured up that gangbusters ring of yours. Say, not to cut my own throat or anything—” I gave Max a Wouldn’t you like to try? leer “—but if you need magic to trace the bird, how come you don’t give your bought-and-paid-for witch a call?”

  LeGras made an irritated noise deep in his jowly throat. “The unmannerly hag left my employ some months ago, complaining that I did not show her the respect her art deserved. She is of no further consequence, thanks to you. Sorcerous aid will make the search for my treasure far less tedious. Can you locate the black bird for me, my good woman?”

  “Depends,” I said. “Can you locate my cat?”<
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  “Your . . . cat? Ah! Your cat, of course.” LeGras smiled. “More than reasonable. Restore the black bird to me and I promise you that not only shall you have your beloved familiar back, but that you shall also remain on permanent retainer in my employ. You shall find me to be, er, decidedly generous.”

  “So I hear.” I stared at Hansel and made sure to do it so that LeGras got my meaning. “Okay, LeGras, bring me my cat and we’ll get started.”

  “Madam, I beg your pardon but you will only receive your cat after I am again in possession of the black bird. Those are my terms and I promise you, they are not negotiable.”

  “In that case, I hope you packed a lunch because this job’s not going any further without Bogey. I told you, he’s my familiar. Do you even know what that means? He’s the supernatural servant I hired at the price of my soul the minute I got into the life. I give the orders, he carries them out; we’re a team.”

  LeGras curled his lip. “So you are powerless without him?”

  “Applesauce!” I snapped my fingers under his nose. “He didn’t turn himself into a toad, did he? I’ve got plenty of Moxie on my own, but he boosts my capabilities. It comes in handy for the big jobs. You want someone to dig you a grave, do you give him a spoon or a steam-shovel? Bogey’s my steam-shovel.”

  “I see.” LeGras barked a few commands to his boys. Edgar scuttled out of the parlour quick and came back quicker. He was holding a toad. He would’ve handed it over to me when his boss stopped him. “Before I allow this charming reunion, fräulein Hexe, permit me to remind you that I am still protected.” Again with the pinky ring. I was sick of the sight of it. It made that pudgy white finger of his look like a grub wearing a garter belt.

  “Think I was going to pull a fast one?” I smirked. “Nothing could be farther from my mind.”

  “Is that why you came into my home carrying a concealed weapon?”

  “Which your butler destroyed. I’ll send you a bill for the replacement as soon as I’m on your payroll. Look, LeGras, I admit I was thinking about using that rod, but that was before I realized we’re playing on the same team. I don’t bite the hand that feeds me. Heck, until I get me a decent set of dentures, I’m not biting anything tougher than a slab of gingerbread. All I’m gonna do is restore Bogey to his true form. That okay by you, Boss?”

  Boss. LeGras liked the sound of that, I could tell. “By all means.” He waved his hand at me like he was the sultan of Turkey ordering a harem girl to dance.

  I’d give him a dance.

  The spell for the restoration of an enchanted being’s true form is short and sweet. I got through it faster than a chorus girl with a playboy’s bankroll. Edgar was still holding Bogey when the change hit. One second he had his hands wrapped around a toad, the next he was holding eight-foot-six of bright green demon by the tail. Bogey’s head turned slowly, his eyes a trio of pits filled with the fires of Hell, his jaws dribbling sulphurous foam, razor-sharp fangs set in a permanent come-to-Papa leer. He snapped off Edgar’s head with a crunch like a little kid biting a lollipop.

  Cat shape or true shape, Bogey never did like anyone to pull his tail.

  Max was next on Bogey’s disassembly line, followed by Geoffrey the driver, followed by Stanton. It took Bogey a couple of tries to swallow the golem, but he managed. I’d probably be up all night, nursing him through the bellyache. I was sorry that I couldn’t give my old pal Max a personal thank-you for what he’d done to my office and my noggin, but you go bother a demon at dinner time.

  LeGras was the last to go. The fat man fell to his knees, waggling his pinky ring at Bogey. “You can’t touch me!” he squealed. “I am proof against all magical attacks! It will go ill with you if—”

  Bogey made four neat bites out of him, then spat out the ring like it was a watermelon seed. He always was a show-off.

  I pocketed the ring and rattled through the spell to return Bogey to feline shape. A demonic familiar has his uses, but a cat takes up less room at the foot of your bed. While Bogey sat there washing up after his feed, I untied Gretel’s bonds.

  “How – how did you do that?” she gasped, rubbing some circulation back into her hands. “Doesn’t that ring—?”

  “—Work?” I finished for her. “Yeah, it works. But it only repels magical attacks. Nothing magical about a demon turning mortals into chop suey; it’s what they do, if you give them half a chance. I gave Bogey a whole one.”

  “How kind of you,” said a prim voice behind me. “That is more than I shall give you.”

  When you’ve been in my line of work long enough, you can tell a lot from a voice. I didn’t even have to turn around to know that this one belonged to someone young, healthy, British, and armed. The last part was a gimmee: He had a gun jabbed into my shortribs hard enough for me to know what calibre.

  “Mr Carlisle, I presume?” I said. I played it cool, but mentally I was kicking my own tail seven ways from Sunday. How could I have forgotten about Carlisle, LeGras’s sometime valet and full-time prettyboy? The first rule of a good gumshoe is to keep count of your enemies, their weapons, and how many rounds they’ve already squeezed off. If you screw up the first one, don’t bother about the other two; you’ll be too dead to care.

  “Correct, madam.” I felt the gun ease off some and heard the creak of shoe leather on parquet as he took a step away from me. “Please face me. I dislike shooting anyone in the back unless absolutely necessary.”

  “Not cricket, huh?” I did what he said, turning around and sizing him up. He was easy on the eyes, I’ll give him that, one of those tall, thin, English blonds so pale-skinned that a good blush would probably make his cheeks explode. He had a pickpocket’s long, delicate fingers. At the moment one of them was wrapped around the trigger of a .45.

  “One must play by the rules, mustn’t one?” He waved me aside with the heater, then fixed his eyes on Gretel. They were blue and steely, like his gun. “Free him.” He nodded at Hansel.

  “That’s it?” I asked while Gretel attacked her brother’s bonds. “‘Free him’? You don’t want to get in line to slap him around until he tells you where the black bird’s stashed?”

  Carlisle’s laugh was about as warm and human as plate glass shattering. “Do you mean to say you haven’t guessed the truth even now? A fine detective you are! I should stick to baking gingerbread if I were you.”

  “Don’t be too hard on the old broad,” Hansel said. He was on his feet, one arm around his sister. “She’s sharp enough, when love’s not making her stupid.”

  “Besides,” Gretel chimed in, smiling like a fallen angel, “it’s not like we wanted a smart cookie for this job.”

  The truth dropped on me like a grand piano, and the song it played when it hit was Variations on a Theme for Suckers. “You were all in this together from the start,” I said. “You knew that if you snatched the bird, LeGras and his goons would hunt you down no matter how far you ran or how long it took. You had to get them out of the way, permanently, so you could lie back and enjoy your loot in peace.”

  “Precisely,” Carlisle said. “But given the fact that Mr LeGras was so well protected – by physical as well as arcane resources – we stood in need of someone of your particular talents. We knew that if we drew you in, you’d find the way to dispose of him for us. We were right.”

  I watched as Hansel slipped his other arm around Carlisle’s slender waist and gave him a kiss on the cheek, so as not to distract his aim. So all that talk about the two of them being rivals was just a lot of jive cooked up to make me dance to their tune. If I had any more egg on my face I’d be an omelette.

  Bogey gave me a worried look and meowed. Carlisle laughed again. “Poor pussy. You’d like to destroy us as well, wouldn’t you? But I’m afraid you’ll remain a cat for the duration. If your mistress so much as begins to utter her demon-freeing spell, I’ll kill her by the third syllable.” Bogey’s tail dropped. I felt the same way.

  “Game, set, and match, Carlisle,” I conceded. �
�Since you’ve got me licked, do an old lady a favour? Before you rub me out, I mean.”

  “How can I refuse so elegant a plea? What do you want?”

  “The black bird,” I said. “I want to know how you managed to hide something that size from LeGras and his goons.”

  “She really isn’t a very good detective, is she?” Hansel giggled. “The hell with her and her last requests, she’s too stupid to live. Shoot her and let’s blow.”

  “Not so fast.” Carlisle could’ve been the love-child of Vincent Price and Lesley Howard, a good-looking bad guy who liked to watch his victims squirm. “It’s a not unreasonable request. Let us show her, by all means.”

  They took me out of the house and down the front walk to the pond. As soon as I locked eyeballs with the swans, I knew. Swans are nasty, evil-tempered creatures with vicious streaks a yard wide. Three of the birds sailing across the water looked like they’d wreck their own nests just to throw an eggnog party, but the fourth . . .

  “You bastard,” I breathed. “You sharp little bastard.”

  Carlisle was loving it. “‘The Purloined Letter’ never does go out of style. Care for a closer look before you die?”

  “Don’t bother on my account.”

  “No bother, my dear,” he replied, like we were all sitting down to cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey tea. “None at all. Hansel, if you would—?”

  “I’m not wading in there.” Hansel pouted like a hell-spawned Shirley Temple. “Bad enough I had to let LeGras’s apes work me over and now you want me to get my pants wet?”

  “Would it be the first time?” I muttered.

  Carlisle made an impatient sound. “Very well. Gretel, you do it.”

  “Me?” she squealed. She eyed the birds nervously. The three genuine swans gave her the glad-eye, a trio of feathered sharks. “Why do I have to? I’m with Hansel: Shoot her now.”

  Carlisle sighed. “Whether I shoot her now or later, we must retrieve the bird sometime. Get it.”