Carpet Diem

  His eyes were black as death. Cherry looked into them and saw the end. Her knees began to give way. Unless she could get him to step away from her, she had no chance.

  “All right,” Faunt said. “He’s on Priest’s Island.”

  He looked perturbed. Cherry was shocked. Faunt had just given up Simon, Bob and Harriet with barely an argument. Why didn’t he lie?

  Worse, he’d given up on saving her.

  The man sighed heavily, lowering the knife to his side. “That is extremely inconvenient, you know?” he stepped away from Cherry and moved to the window. This was her chance, and probably her only one. She leaned as far right as she could, stretching for the candlestick.

  “I do know,” Faunt answered. “Cherry?”

  “Yeah?” she answered, her voice trembling.

  “Say it out loud.”

  The man cocked his head and jammed his finger at the phone, hanging up. He glowered angrily at Cherry. Whatever Faunt had planned, it hadn’t worked.

  She had seconds before he reached her. What did he mean, “Say it out loud?” say what out loud? Why was everyone being so freaking cryptic?

  Then she remembered his curse. He knew everything. He knew what was happening. He knew her predicament. He knew what she was thinking.

  And what she was hearing.

  Scarface placed the phone in his pocket and moved towards her, raising his knife to strike.

  Cherry stood up defiantly, gritted her teeth and loudly said:

  “Ignite.”

  The world burst into flames.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Cherry instinctively ducked and curled herself into a ball. Her would-be murderer lunged towards her, screaming venomously in the fire. Blinded by the flames, he swiped wildly and tripped over her, landing on his back a few feet away. His nudge knocked the teleporter off balance and her foot moved.

  She was free.

  Instantly, she pictured herself in the front garden, in a spot she could see through the rapidly melting window, and was standing in the snow. The cold pierced her lungs as she gulped it in frantically.

  Looking back into the fire, Cherry watched as the man picked himself up and stumbled towards the door, howling like a wounded animal. He still held the knife in his hand.

  She was tempted to stay and watch him burn, but a voice inside was screaming at her to get as far from that man as possible, to never let him touch her again.

  Mouthing a “thank you” to the ghost, she pictured her shower at home and blinked out just as the burning body burst out of the front door and lunged awkwardly into the cooling salvation of the snow.

  He sizzled and popped as the fire went out, a ringlet of smoke trailing above him and puddles of melted snow pooling on the singed grass. Rolling over, his lidless eyes staring maniacally at the sky, he seethed, “Fuck you, puta.”

  In the fire, the ghost smiled.

  ----

  With trembling hands, Cherry switched her shower on and collapsed into a ball under the calming water, sobbing uncontrollably.

  She was alive.

  ----

  Simon wasn’t good at being woken up from a deep sleep. Conversely, he was very good at sleeping.

  When a subtle knocking on his door roused him from his happy slumber, his first instinct was to ignore it and hope it would go away. After all, what could be so important that he needed to wake up when he was this tired? Plus, he was having a nice dream about Heather Graham and a game of shuffleboard to save Africa from being deleted. It made sense in the dream.

  Sadly, the knocking persisted.

  The problem now, of course, was that he was awake enough to realise he needed to pee. He lay for a few moments, hoping the feeling would go away, but instead, he started to feel hungry. There are many things a man can sleep through, but when he consciously realises he is both hungry and in need of the toilet, the game is up. Salvation lies in a slice of buttered bread, via the bathroom.

  Some persistent men will lie for an age, vainly trying to recapture their dream; to incorporate their hunger into it and ignore their bladder.

  It doesn’t work.

  Simon switched on his bedside lamp, then promptly knocked it over as he realised he wasn’t at home. He let out a fairly unmanly yelp, before the memory of where he was came back to him. He remembered why he had to get up. It was just after 3 am. Nobody who wasn’t watching a full season of 24 on DVD in real time should be up at this hour.

  He stumbled out of bed and opened the door to let Sean and Harriet in. When he emerged from the toilet a few minutes later, Sean was pouring coffee. Simon picked up a packet of biscuits from the table and sat on the bed.

  “You back with us, then?” Sean smiled, handing him a cup.

  Simon was amazed at how the Irish could smile in any situation. Come Armageddon, the nation of Ireland would surely be found in the pub, laughing like children and beckoning the horsemen in for a Guinness.

  “I suppose so,” he answered. “I probably shouldn’t have gone to sleep.”

  “Yeah, we didn’t bother in the end,” said Sean.

  That was as much as Simon was prepared to think about that, so he focused on the less disturbing idea of breaking a giant out of a castle dungeon.

  Then he had a quick shower.

  ----

  Luke couldn’t sleep.

  Guilt was nothing new to him. He lived with it every day and, while it never got better, he managed to spend more and more of his life not thinking about it. When he did, however, it gnawed at him. With something fresh to feed his guilt tonight, he had little chance of respite.

  It didn’t help that Gabby had obviously been disappointed in him. She hadn’t said so, but it was hanging in the air all night like a rain cloud waiting to burst.

  She wanted him to find another solution. So did he.

  They could manage this situation. Tomorrow, they’d suggest to Debovar and his aunt that they should break their friend out of the dungeon, then tip off the guards. For Bob’s indiscretion, he’d probably get a slap on the wrist when Priest came back. For attempting to break him out, Simon and his aunt would be held long enough for them to change back to normal, and be evicted.

  This would effectively put an end to their attempt to locate the Rug. And yet, here he was, staring at the damned ceiling.

  ----

  When Cherry finally came out of her bathroom, wrapped in a towelling robe after leaving her soaking clothes on the floor, Faunt was waiting for her. It was hard to tell, what with him being a deer, but it looked like he’d been crying.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  She didn’t have the energy to shout, or even to question him. She shrugged and sat gently on the bed. There was a cup of hot chocolate on the bedside table. She wondered how he’d made it with hooves.

  “Maya says ‘thank you’,” he said.

  Cherry looked up with watery eyes.

  “For what? I got her burned to death.”

  “She’s grateful because you tried. And because you set off her self-destruct spell to take some revenge on her killer.”

  “Is that what that was?” her voice was monotone and frail. “Why didn’t she just do it herself?”

  “She wasn’t allowed to. She owed him her life. He claimed it. You, on the other hand, were not in debt to him, so she gave you the trigger.”

  “Why didn’t it burn me?”

  “The spell is designed to protect the caster.”

  Cherry was understanding everything, but feeling nothing. Part of her had shut down. Faunt was looking at her with, almost literally, big doe eyes. She realised she was crying again.

  “I shouldn’t have sent you,” Faunt said. “I walked into his trap.”

  “No,” Cherry whispered. “I did.”

  It was cold.

  “Is Maya here?” Cherry asked, louder.

  “Yes,” Faunt replied.

  “Will she stay?”

  Faunt looked surprised.

  “She will
, if you want her to.”

  “I’d like that,” Cherry answered, sliding under the sheets. “Is it OK if I crash now, please?”

  “Of course, I’m sorry,” Faunt apologised again and backed out of the room.

  “You still can’t tell me his name, can you?” Cherry asked.

  Faunt paused outside the door and hung his head.

  “No.”

  … “Goodnight,” said Cherry, with no trace of emotion.

  “Goodnight,” said Faunt. As he left the room, he flicked his head, indicating to the door to follow him. It swung closed.

  Cherry collapsed, her exhaustion outweighing her insomnia.

  Maya watched her sleep.

  ----

  Faunt stood outside the door, his eyes closed. He dropped his head and sighed.

  When he raised it and opened them again, the sadness was replaced with anger.

  ----

  Simon watched a lot of television and had seen a lot of movies. From this, he had learned many things.

  Guards in a castle dungeon, for example, are lazy and stupid. Thus, their plan of sneaking down to the dungeon when the guards were coming to the end of their shift made perfect sense, as they were bound to be asleep.

  Of course, when the three of them had crept down the staircase, which Simon was delighted to note was actually lit by a succession of flaming torches, they found the two guards on duty fully awake and debating the merits of their new uniforms.

  When Sean had seen who they were, he had frantically gestured to his companions to turn back. Harriet had shushed him and quietly told him not to be such a pussy.

  A hastily and silently organised new plan had ended with Simon sneaking around to the guards’ right, while Harriet moved to their left. She would distract them so that Simon could sneak up behind them and smack them both over the head with the nearest heavy object. Sean vehemently tried to convince them it was a bad idea and that he couldn’t be seen, but his explanation was limited to gestures and small whispers. Simon half suspected he was just trying to keep himself out of trouble, but he hoped that wasn’t the case.

  Harriet had shrugged at Sean and shoved Simon on his way. The lady was not for turning. Simon dutifully crept his way down the edge of the gloom.

  Sadly, Harriet’s attempt at distraction had been A/ predictable, B/ based on another false guard-related stereotype and C/ wholly unsuccessful. Which was why Simon now stood shaking with nerves to the side of two guards who had not moved an inch from their positions in front of the main gate to the cells, but who had moved their attention to Harriet’s exposed breasts.

  “What do you think of these boys?” she bellowed.

  “Well, they’re certainly firm-looking …well-balanced …and the nipples are a nice shade of pink, wouldn’t you say, Ki?” the first guard replied.

  “Yes, like Cherry Blossom,” the other answered, with a soft Oriental accent.

  Harriet stood frozen in silence. It was a rare event.

  “Is there anything else we can help you with, Madam?” the first guard continued, “Because you shouldn’t really be down here.”

  Simon had come to read his aunt’s expressions very well in the short time they’d spent together, so he was fairly sure that what then went through her head consisted of: “Shit. Now what? Can I take them? Yeah, I can. Fuck it.”

  Pausing only to put her breasts away, Harriet grabbed a torch off the wall and ran at the nearest guard, the one who had spoken first. As both guards turned towards her, Simon jolted into action himself, picking up a stool and running, very, very quietly, towards the back of Ki’s head. This attempted combination of speed, stealth and the flagstones beneath him left him looking somewhat like a drunken gazelle on hot coals …carrying a stool.

  Simon reached the spot a few feet behind Ki and swung the stool with all his strength, which was, now, not insubstantial. Inexplicably, Ki’s head had ceased to be where it was when he started swinging it, leaving him lunging forwards after the stool, which then smashed against the stone wall. Adding insult to injury, Simon had fallen after the stool, carried by his own momentum, and as it bounced back off the wall, it smashed against his forehead. Simon’s eyes flashed red on impact, then he blacked out for a few seconds, collapsing face first onto the floor. By the time he regained his equilibrium and turned over to see what had happened, his head was pounding furiously. Ki looked down at him with a confused and piteous expression.

  “Why did you do that?” the guard asked.

  Simon had no idea how to answer the question, so decided just to remain silent and hope someone else would speak up for him. He looked around for Harriet. She was sort of frozen in mid-run, mouth open in what would probably have been a scream, had she still been able to scream. The first guard was simply holding up a hand towards her, and this seemed to be keeping her in place.

  Simon mentally added a new note to his preconceptions about prison guards: sometimes, if you’re very unlucky, they’ll turn out to be a wizard and a ninja. In this instance, do not attempt to sneak up on them.

  “What do we do with them, Edoard?” Ki asked his colleague. He was now holding a very pretty, but very, very sharp looking sword to Simon’s chest.

  “Well,” the wizard answered, “much as I hate to say it, they do seem to have been trying to attack us. Since we so rarely have new guests down here, I can only assume that they are somehow connected to the tall gentleman who was brought down last evening.

  “Is that the case?” he turned to Simon for an answer.

  Gripped with mortal fear, Simon resorted to every child’s response in the face of being caught utterly red-handed and presented with their own crime. He nodded piteously, looked at the ground and hoped for mercy.

  He also noticed, with some irritation, that there was still no sign of Sean. Well, if they were on their own, then so be it. At least they knew where they stood.

  Probably.

  “Well,” Edoard continued, “in that case, I’m afraid we are obliged to also place you both in custody until you can face trial for this attack. Would you both be so kind as to come along quietly, please? It will be much easier all round.”

  Simon nodded again. Harriet, on the other hand, struggled and let out a muffled grunt.

  “I’ll take that as a no, miss, shall I? Fair enough, I’ll just move you as you are.”

  He made a twisting gesture with his hand and Harriet was suddenly turned sideways, suspended in midair like a statue transported through a museum on an invisible trolley. Ki opened the gate and Edoard walked through, ‘pushing’ Harriet in front of him. Ki gestured to Simon, smiling good-naturedly at him, as though he was showing him to his table. Simon got up and docilely walked through the gate, following Edoard. The other side of the gate was gloomy and cramped. The walls were arched stone, damp and mouldy and there was a faint stench of sulphur.

  This part of the island was clearly not intended to be on the tour.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Harriet moved her fingers. Slightly. She’d been unceremoniously propped against the wall of her cell, which was both extremely uncomfortable and dripping with some kind of ooze. She’d also listened to about half an hour’s worth of Simon lamenting the injustice of their situation to her and Bob, who was in the cell to her left. He hadn’t said much.

  “Ffffffff…” she wasn’t yet in full control of her mouth. She did, however, get Simon’s attention.

  “I think she’s coming to,” said her nephew.

  “She’ll be right as rain a few minutes, just you wait.”

  The voice came from the corridor. Simon swung around to look for its source. Harriet tilted her head.

  While their cells were fronted with bars, leaving an open view of the corridor and the adjacent cells, the opposite stone wall was punctuated with heavy, oaken doors. In the small, arched window opposite Harriet’s cell, green eyes peered out of the dark.

  “See? She’s moving more already.” The voice was deep and resonant, but raspy, as i
f it hadn’t been used for some time.

  None of them had realised they weren’t alone.

  “Hello?” asked Bob, suspiciously.

  “Hello,” the voice answered. There was an awkward silence.

  “Hello,” said Simon feebly.

  More silence.

  “You boys are real social butterflies,” the voice started up again. “I ain’t had any company down here in a long time. Whatever happened to the art of conversation?”

  The accent was difficult to place through the phlegm, but it also sounded Deep South American, maybe Cajun.

  “Em, hello,” Simon started, lapsing into his best ‘polite conversation’ mode, “my name’s Simon. What’s yours?”

  “It’s been a long time since anyone asked me that. I definitely used to have a name. Started with a D, I think. Or maybe a P. Anyways, only thing people called me in as long as I can remember is ‘Prisoner’. So I guess you can call me that.”

  Simon looked confused. As usual.

  “Well, nice to meet you,” said Bob, in a way that also implied, “Goodbye.”

  “So, you all made kind of a mess, huh?” the voice persisted.

  Simon exhaled. “I suppose we did.”

  “Guess that’s how everyone ends up in a dungeon, huh?” the voice continued.

  “I suppose it is,” Bob answered, again with that ‘end of conversation’ tone.

  “But getting yourself mixed up with the daughter of the head witch and attacking a couple of guards are pretty impressive ways to get yourself thrown down here, I’da said.”

  They froze. How had he known that? Who was behind the door?

  “So,” Harriet asked, sighing with relief as she finally managed to sit down on her bunk, “who the fuck areyou and how the fuck did you know that?”