Carpet Diem
Page 21
Amelia escaped with a firm slap in the face.
“Not now,” Ingrid growled.
----
Ki paused, looking unsure of where he was and, to be honest, exactly how he’d gotten there. This was not, however, to be the most unexpected thing to happen in that moment, as he felt something hammer into his stomach, knocking the air from him.
He looked down to see smoke rising from the ancient pistol in Sean’s hand.
“Sorry, mate. Pirate rules.”
Ki, with a new appreciation for the merits of understanding the rules one is playing by, collapsed in a crumpled heap and bled on the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Yes!” Harriet bellowed.
She’d been certain Sean was mincemeat, but the bugger had a gun on him all along! She liked him more and more. It was all she could do not to run to him and give away the fact that they were all no longer tied up. But her sense of self-preservation kept her still. Just.
“No!” Ingrid howled. “Cheat!”
Sean pulled himself to his feet, looking as sprightly and uninjured as he really was.
“Actually, he and I agreed in advance to Pirate rules. Under those rules, concealed pistols are not so much allowed, love, as downright expected. Nobody cheated.”
He leaned close over Ki and placed two fingers on his neck.
“He’s dead,” he pronounced solemnly, looking up. “Which makes me keeper of the Island until Priest returns, right?”
The hush was a mix of awe and disbelief.
“It does,” said an older man, stepping from the crowd. He was dressed like one of the guards, but in a more decorative uniform than the others. Which was an achievement.
“I place my men at your disposal, sir. What are your orders?”
The Captain seemed pretty happy to have had his mistress usurped and Harriet wondered just how popular the old bat had been with, well, anybody.
“Disperse this crowd and place Ingrid under house arrest until Priest returns. And release the prisoners. All of them,” he said, nodding towards Prisoner, whom Harriet had completely forgotten was still rattling around above them.
“What about the body, sir?” the Captain asked.
“I’ll handle that,” Sean answered, solemnly.
The Irishman found Edoard in the crowd and beckoned him forward.
A pair of guards approached the supposedly restrained threesome.
“This could be awkward,” Bob nodded towards their free hands.
“In the grand scheme of things, Bobby, I think they might let that one slip.”
Harriet shook the ropes off her wrists and held them up to the guards.
“Shite rope!” she said, grinning.
----
Edoard stepped up to Sean. His eyes were glassy with pain and anger. The pirate did his best to look positive, without giving anything away.
“Yes, sir?” the wizard spat the second word like it burned in his mouth.
Sean spoke quietly and deliberately.
“Listen carefully to what I say. I want you to take Ki to his quarters and … deal with him. I believe you have the skills to do what is necessary.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and added, “Quickly.”
----
Edoard was an extremely intelligent man. There was no need for him to hurry to deal with a corpse.
He moved quickly towards Ki, casting the same spell he’d used the previous day on the mad woman with the breasts. Ki, suddenly rigid, floated off the ground and the crowd parted for the wizard to push him out of the hall. As they cleared the room and rounded a corner, Edoard broke into a run, bringing Ki with him. His own room was closer than Ki’s; they’d go there.
----
Ki was exceptionally disciplined. So, when Sean knelt over him and whispered “play dead” it was an easy task. He was, after all, already feeling pretty exhausted, what with having had his body invaded by a witch and a pellet of lead in quick succession. So lying very still and slowing his heartbeat with meditation hadn’t been a huge difficulty.
He did, however, expect a very fine bottle of Saki from the Irishman for his trouble.
----
Harriet ran to Sean and threw herself the last few feet at him.
“My hero!” she said, with not as much mockery as Sean might have expected. “Take me away and ravish me, you beast!”
“Steady, girl. I’ve just staged a bloody coup, in case you missed it. Let’s get you and your mates off the island before we do anything else.”
“Excuse me,” Prisoner called politely from above.
“We can’t leave! We still need what we came for,” Simon had followed Harriet to thank the Irishman.
“Shite, seriously?” he answered. “D’you know how bloody lucky we are to be alive?”
“Unfortunately,” Harriet answered, “if we leave now, he’s probably still dead.”
“Oh,” said Sean, the wind gone from his sails. “Well that’s bollocksed plan B.”
“Hello?” Prisoner called again.
Amelia had come to the edge of the balcony.
“Are you all right?” she called to Bob. “I’m so sorry!”
Bob smiled up at her.
“I’m fine. We all are,” he answered.
“Oh thank God. I’d never have forgiven myself if mother had…” she couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.
“Hey,” Bob changed the subject, “What light through yonder window breaks?”
Amelia stepped back, took in the balcony and herself, and giggled.
“Anybody know what that is?” Prisoner asked everybody and nobody.
“What’s that smell?” Simon asked. “Is something burning?”
Harriet and Sean sniffed the air. There was a faint whiff of … something unpleasant.
“Christ. What is that?” Harriet asked.
“Will one of you damned fools please look up?!” Prisoner begged, with a distinct note of terror.
A burning yellow hole had materialised in the ceiling, no more than ten feet from Prisoner. But the real worry was the gloriously ugly head that poked through, resembling the bastard love child of a hag and a hawk, with teeth like jagged rocks.
“What the fuck is that?” asked Sean.
And then it screamed.
----
Ingrid was a bad loser. To lose control of the island, so publicly and officially, was embarrassing. But to lose the right to punish the lecherous oaf who had abused her daughter was unacceptable. What would the ladies think?
She’d easily killed the guards and slipped back into the lower chamber, to conjure something that would properly finish the job. She may not have jurisdiction over the Island any more, but she was damned if she was giving up jurisdiction over her own flesh and blood.
The Furies would see to that.
----
“Can someone get me down please?” Prisoner yelled, urgently.
Simon reacted first, running for the winch supporting the cage. He worked to release it, trusting that someone would give him a warning if he were in imminent danger of being eaten. The winch was stiff, but he got it moving. Sean quickly arrived to help.
The remnants of the crowd that had gathered to watch the festivities beat a hasty exit. As the last of them cleared the room, the heavy wooden doors slammed shut, leaving only Simon, Harriet, Sean, Bob and Ingrid in the main chamber, with Prisoner in his cage and Amelia on the balcony.
“Get out!” Bob called up to her. “Amelia!”
She didn’t answer. She stared, frozen, at the hole from which another two heads had appeared on long, serpentine necks. The three beasts grunted and grated their teeth, struggling to push through the burning, sulphurous portal. Ingrid stepped from the shadows and shouted something unintelligible. All three heads calmed and turned to her.
She pointed at Bob.
The giant gulped back a mouthful of bile.
The heads turned on him, pulling and jerking with a manic intensity, growl
ing and shrieking at Bob like wolverines caught in a snare. They strained to be free, desperate to reach the object of their summoning.
Prisoner’s cage hit the ground with a loud clang.
Bob had nowhere to run. If he moved towards the others he was only going to put them in danger, too.
The heads were almost within reach. He shuffled backwards under the balcony, never taking his eyes off the drooling mouths, praying for some miracle to distract them.
“Oi! Ugly! Over here!”
Harriet threw something at the monsters, catching one on the side of the head. It shrieked, and all three heads turned towards her, teeth bared with rage. Harriet grabbed a burning torch from the wall.
“What are you doing?” Simon shouted, as Sean fumbled with the keys to Prisoner’s cage.
“No idea!” she answered. “But I got their attention!”
“Now what?” he shouted back.
“Well, if I may,” Prisoner said, stepping from his cage, “perhaps your friend ought to make his way up to the balcony. There ain’t no doors up there.”
Simon looked up. Prisoner was right. He could just see the tops of the archways at the back of the balcony, and there didn’t seem to be any doors on them.
“Bob!” he shouted, pointing, “Balcony!”
From underneath the balcony, Bob had no idea why he was supposed to get up there, but anywhere was better than where he was. He tugged on a nearby tapestry. It held. He grabbed two handfuls and began to climb.
Sean rejoined Harriet with his sword drawn. The more she threw things at the dripping maws, the more they danced and weaved in front of her, darting forward and snapping with each lull in the projectiles.
With Bob on his way to safety, Simon decided that splitting the things’ attention might be helpful. Following Harriet’s lead, he began hurling anything he could lay his hands on. He hit the nearest head with a loose chunk of stone, and it turned towards him. As it bared his teeth and reared back, Simon realised he’d made a horrible error: he had nothing to defend himself with.
The head lurched towards him and Simon instinctively dived for the only obstacle in reach – the empty cage. The beast’s teeth clanged off the metal as Simon ducked inside. It screeched with frustration, biting and nudging the bars, rattling the cage until it finally tipped over. Simon went with it, banging his head hard on a bar. For a moment, everything went black. As his eyesight returned, he saw the head looming above him. Something was wrong. Even more wrong.
There was nothing between them.
The cage door hung open, dangling down towards him. The monster’s eyes glinted with delight at its imminent kill. Simon glanced around, still dizzy. He was trapped. The only way out was up past the head full of teeth. His defence had become his tomb.
With an excited grunt, the beast jerked downwards. Simon instinctively pulled his feet under him and forced himself upwards, slamming the cage door up against its face. It shrieked and banged repeatedly against the bars, incandescent that its prey had escaped again. Simon pushed upwards with all he had, crouched inside his metal shield. Only his newly perfected muscles were keeping him alive – and he doubted even they would hold out for long against the barrage.
----
Bob had nearly reached the height of the balcony, but he still faced a significant leap to get to it.
As he began to sway, building momentum, the one head not engaged with Harriet, Sean or Simon seemed to suddenly remember its reason for being there, pulled around and launched itself towards the giant. The lunge fell just short, managing only to rip the arse out of Bob’s trousers, but taking flesh with it. Bob jerked at the pain, his fists closing tight on the tapestry, which finally ripped from its moorings. With a howl, he disappeared into the folding material as it collapsed to the floor.
----
“Bob!” Simon shouted, as the frantic beast banged against the cage again.
Bob pulled himself out from the tapestry, but was still well within striking distance of the monster. The head bobbed back and forth with a fluid grace, slowly bearing down on its target, gurgling with the joy of an impending kill. Bob tried desperately to shuffle back under the balcony, but the monster was playing with him, cutting him off each time he shifted left or right.
“Hey! Hey!” Simon shouted again, vainly trying to get its attention, all the while resisting his own imminent death. But it was focused on its prey. There was nothing he could do but watch.
Bob's chest heaved with his panicked breathing. The adrenaline was keeping him from feeling the pain of his wounds, but he literally had nowhere to go. He scraped at the wall, desperately trying to pull loose a stone he could use in defence.
He raised his hands, pulling his legs up as the drooling thing reared back and threw its head forward with a screech of delight. The giant winced as its jaws clamped down.
On steel.
----
The beast roared in pain as it sliced its mouth open on Sean’s blade. He’d slipped away from Harriet and thrown himself along the ground, sliding backwards into Bob, sword raised.
The other two heads also recoiled with the shock, giving Simon a moment’s reprieve. His hands shook, bloody from the repeated battering and exhausted from the strain of holding the door closed.
----
A moment of reprieve was all Harriet needed.
Breaking what cover she had, she darted toward the mumbling witch, who stared blankly at the hole the beast had almost finished coming through. Passing a table, Harriet dropped her torch and picked up a discarded bottle. The last of its contents splashed against the wall as she broke off the neck and drove it into Ingrid’s throat.
The witch staggered and focused long enough to stare, astonished, at her killer. At this range, Harriet could see her true face, but as her last breath escaped in a bubbling gurgle, her glamour disappeared. She slumped on the floor, her face a mask of surprise and hatred. Harriet stood over her, panting.
“I told you I’d get you, bitch.”
“Harriet!” Simon cried, urgently.
She turned. While the portal had vanished, the beasts had not died with their master. Or, in fact, beast, since she could now see that the three heads were all connected to one enormous body, which stood upright in its full, murderous glory, pissed off and with nobody to control it.
Harriet dived away from the head that lunged at her, towards her discarded torch, still burning on the stone floor.
----
Prisoner had made his way to the balcony unnoticed. He had no idea how, as he'd been right above Bob, but the head that was so intent on eating the giant hadn't even glanced at him.
On the balcony, he found Amelia still frozen and defenceless. He tried to lift her over his shoulder, but she was utterly rigid and awkward to move. Instead, he settled for pulling her by the waist out into the hall. Then he looked for some rope.
----
“Thank you,” Bob shouted at Sean. He was aware of the woeful inadequacy of the phrase, but hoped he’d live to show his gratitude later.
“Can you stand?” the pirate asked.
He was engaged in a thrust and parry with the nearest head. The blood that dripped from its mouth bubbled like boiling tar on the floor.
Bob pulled himself up. Pain seared through him now, every time he tried to use the muscles at the top of his legs. He brought himself upright behind Sean.
“What do we do?” he asked.
“To be honest,” Sean answered, parrying the teeth away, “I was hoping you’d have an idea!”
The head darted at them again, and Sean landed a blow across its nose.
Almost simultaneously, Harriet grabbed her torch and lifted it in defence, jamming it directly into the mouth of her attacker.
All three heads reared back toward their shared their shared body, took a deep breath…and screamed.
The world went black.
----
The hurricane of sound extinguished every light in the room and knocked everyon
e off their feet. Simon covered his ears, praying that the noise would stop but, when it did, it was replaced with a loud ringing and the terror of complete darkness.
They were deaf, blind, sealed in a room with a monster that very much wanted to kill them all, and which Simon knew - absolutely knew - could see in the dark.
He fumbled for the cage door, aware he had to keep it shut if he had any chance of surviving, but he’d lost all sense of perspective. He barely knew which way was up.
A low rumble began to pierce the ringing in his head, and he winced as a hot, wet breath brushed his face.
----
There is a common understanding that things are usually at their worst just before they start to get better. Or, to use the common phrase, that it is “darkest just before then dawn”. Often, this translates as heroes arriving at the last minute. It is an understandable belief, because it is almost unavoidably true.
If a hero does arrive and save the day, then it must be at, effectively, the last minute, as the danger is then over.
If they arrive too late, then they are not particularly useful heroes and are forgotten.
Those who arrive and are killed while saving others are considered even greater heroes, to be eulogised and martyred by those they made ‘the ultimate sacrifice’ to save.
Those who arrive, die and fail to save anyone have nobody left to remember them either way.