Pure Dead Batty

by Debi Gliori

  65 mph

  body attack: level 19

  begin workout

  Before Luciano could do anything to save himself, the treadmill whined into life. Under his feet the plate tilted and lurched upward till he practically required crampons to remain upright on its alpine slopes. As the angle of the footplate steepened, it began to move, at first slowly, but within seconds Luciano was scrabbling, running, sprinting, leaping, screaming, and—

  The treadmill spat him backward, straight into the line of knuckle-crackers, bowling them over like skittles and scattering them across the gym floor. Miraculously, he had escaped injury: as he spun shrieking into his fellow cell-mates, he’d had the good fortune to bounce into the marshmallow belly of Big Brian, whose lifetime devotion to the product of the deep-fat fryer had endowed him with sufficient abdominal cushioning to qualify as a human airbag. However, Luciano was the only lucky one. The impact ruptured Big Brian’s spleen, one of his meaty flying elbows broke Malky’s nose, the other outflung arm connected catastrophically with the mouth of a police informer called Danny the Fox, and as Big Brian crashed backward, his vast weight toppling like a felled oak, he landed on top of a frail little murderer whose name no one could pronounce, and squashed him flat.

  In the ensuing riot, no one paid any attention to the blare summoning prisoner 3/10/GLA/MURD to the governor’s office. No one except for prisoner 3/10/GLA/MURD, that is. Everyone else just wanted mindless violence, revenge, and a spot of recreational rending, biting, and gouging. In the explosive atmosphere of a Scottish men’s prison, it didn’t take much to ignite the prisoners’ tempers, and the sight of seriously injured bodies lying sprawled across the floor was a perfect excuse to get stuck in. Fists flew, recently healed noses were rebroken, cauliflower ears and black eyes blossomed like weeds. Manly grunts and squeals were punctuated with wet thuds and grisly crunches. Old scores were settled and new vendettas born. So merrily engrossed were the prisoners in their adoption of all things Neanderthal that it wasn’t until several hours later that they noticed someone was missing from the bloodstained, bruised line of criminals waiting in line to see the prison doctor.

  “Aw, ma heed,” whined Malky, slumped on the floor beside the unconscious body of Big Brian. “Ah need a painkiller, me.”

  “Yoush got aff lucky, pal,” opined Danny the Fox, one hand over his mouth, the other clutching his front teeth, which had been an early casualty of the riot. “Ah canny shee a thing right noo, ma eyesh are a’ shwollen.” Indeed, the injured prisoner was sporting two black eyes, courtesy of a vengeful middleweight boxer who’d seized the opportunity to settle out of court. Hardly able to enunciate the words, he continued, “Hash anyone sheen that wee Italian bloke who went fleein’ aff the runnin’ machine?”

  “What—yon wee Mafia chappie?”

  “Shhhh. Shut up. Wallsh have earsh.”

  “Ow. So dae I, and both mines have got lumps bitten ootae them—”

  A shadow fell across the line and the injured men immediately quietened. A trolley bearing the flattened remains of Big Brian’s last victim rolled past, casting something of a pall over the assembled prisoners.

  “Aw jeez, that’s no human anymore,” stated Malky, turning away to demonstrate his vast reserves of empathy by spitting on the floor. One of the prisoners seized the opportunity to ask about the missing Italian bloke with possible connections to the … He tailed off in mid-query, suddenly remembering that he wasn’t supposed to mention anything whatsoever to do with the Mafia. The guard pushing the trolley had no such scruples.

  “What, you mean Don Borsher?” he roared, his voice echoing along the metal walkways and stone corridors of the prison; it bounced off cell doors and security blocks alike; ricocheting across the courtyard outside until everyone within a two-mile radius shared in the joyous tidings that the prison had played temporary host to that wickedest of criminal types—a Mafia don.

  “Aw, him,” the guard continued, giving a dismissive sniff. “E’s skedaddled, him. Shot the craw. Headit fir the hills.”

  “Whaaaaa …? He’s escaped?” The prisoner could barely get the words out past his sagging jaw.

  “Nawwww,” the guard grunted. “Ah mean, he’s gone hame. Released, he was. Case aginst him all fell apart. See, the chief witness for the prosecution was …” And with a lamentable lack of accuracy, the guard drew his finger across his own throat in the universally accepted gesture for “murder by way of windpipe severance.”

  This fiction met with a predictable response. The prisoners’ eyes grew round—even those slitted from blows sustained earlier—their mouths dropped open, and they effortfully and slowly put two and two together and arrived at a variety of conclusions, none of which bore any resemblance to the truth. However, the one fact upon which they all agreed was utterly and perfectly true.

  That Italian chappie, whoever or whatever he was, was a lucky guy.

  Dainty Dragoness

  Peering round the moth-eaten damask curtains in Titus’s room, Latch risked a quick look out of the window. He couldn’t see Signora Strega-Borgia anywhere, but that might have been due to the fading light; outside, the skies were clogging up with browny-gray clouds from which a sleety rain was beginning to fall. Shivering, the butler turned round to face his co-conspirators.

  “Well?” he demanded. “What should we do? Cause the Signora hours of unnecessary anguish by telling her the truth, or try and keep up the pretense for a little longer?”

  “But … the truth—I mean, it’s so weird. Is it true? Are you sure—?” Titus began, and then stopped, embarrassed, as Minty turned reproachful lavender-blue eyes toward him.

  “I’m sure I saw Damp,” she said firmly, then qualified this with “Problem is, I don’t know where that was. But I was given proof that it was real. Proof that what I saw really happened. Damp said—well, no, the woman with her said I was to look in the dresser drawer under the blackbird for a recipe for Titus’s favorite food—”

  “I do apologize, but can we please hurry this up?” Latch interrupted, turning away to stare out of the window again. “She’ll be here any minute now, and we still haven’t worked out what we’re going to tell her about Damp.”

  Rand yawned pointedly and muttered something under his breath.

  “My favorite food …?” Titus frowned, ignoring Rand and distracted by the proximity of Minty and by the fact that here he was, towering over her. Nannies, in his experience, usually towered over him. She smelled good, too, he thought, then forced himself to pay attention. “Tell me then—what is my favorite food?”

  Minty smiled. “I checked. In the drawer. And there it was, handwritten on the back of a shopping list, and it said, Raspberry muffins—makes twelve.”

  “Yes,” Titus whispered. “That’s right. I loved them. I’d completely forgotten. Mrs. McLachlan used to make them for me all the time … I … er … I …” Oh, heck, he thought, I might just be about to burst into tears here.

  “Fascinating,” Pandora snapped, “but if we could just forget your stomach for once and concentrate on Mrs. McLachlan. This means—Oh my God—don’t you see, this means that Mrs. McLachlan is alive. I mean—we’ve seen her, Titus, but that might have been because we so desperately needed to have any hint, no matter how small, that she wasn’t … wasn’t dead. But Tooth—I mean Minty really did see Mrs. McLachlan and Damp as well, so … so … um, oh, heck.” Pandora’s shoulders sagged. “But we’re still left with what on earth we’re supposed to tell Mum. I just don’t see how we can pretend that Damp is here. Mum’ll want to see her.”

  “Unless we said she was ill,” Titus suggested. “You know—something really infectious.”

  “But not life-threatening,” Pandora said. “Mum would panic if it was dangerous. But what if … what if … Yes! I’ve got it. What if Damp had something that was infectious, non-life-threatening, but really dangerous for unborn babies? That would do it. We could tell Mum that Damp was fine, but she wouldn’t be able to go near her—”r />
  “German measles,” Minty said firmly. “That’s the one. Harmless to almost everyone except unborn babies—” She stopped and bit her lip. “Bother. It’s only dangerous in the first three months of pregnancy—d’you think your mum would know that?”

  “Somehow, I doubt it,” Titus said. “Even if she does know it, we could tell her that it’s a new and virulent strain.”

  “That really is very good,” Latch said. “But are you all good enough at lying? Could you look your mother in the face and lie through your teeth? Forgive me for saying, but in all the years I have worked here, I’ve always been able to tell when you or your sister were being economical with the truth. Your eyes swivel about and you blush like beetroots. One look at your faces and your mother would know instantly.”

  “If it’s really infectious, we’d have caught it too,” Pandora said. “We can say we caught it from Damp—poor us. That means we’re all shut up together and Mum won’t be able to see any of us. We can talk to her through the door, and if I absolutely have to, I can make my voice go all squeaky and pretend to be Damp.”

  “I’m a rotten liar,” Minty confessed. “Can I join you? After all, as your nanny, I’d be pretty likely to have caught whatever it is as well. And I could be looking after you, even though I’d be feeling pretty grim—”

  “What about me?” Rand squeaked. “Not only have I not got German measles, but that wax didn’t work.”

  “What?” Titus glared at him. “What wax? I haven’t given you any yet. Matter of fact, there wasn’t any left when I looked. I meant to tell you. What wax d’you mean?”

  “For God’s sake!” Latch finally lost his temper and spun round from the window to glare at Rand. “You, sonny, have a lot to learn. Right now, we’re trying to come up with a plan to protect Titus’s mother from the hideous discovery that her youngest child has vanished into thin air, while you, you selfish little toad, you’re trying to hijack the conversation for your own ends. Time you got a grip, laddie. Just because your father has amply demonstrated that he’s a moral midget doesn’t mean you have to become one too.…”

  Rand’s face colored instantly, as if he’d been slapped. Unable to meet Latch’s furious gaze, he looked down and exhaled noisily. Then, shaking his head, he visibly pulled himself together. “Point taken,” he muttered. “So … what d’you want me to do to help?”

  Which, Latch decided, was probably the closest young Master MacAlister Hall would ever get to an apology.

  Proving, were proof required, that she had the observational skills of an oyster, Baci had failed to notice the police excavations that had chewed up the path surrounding the moat and left it like a mud-slick. Perhaps she might have paid more attention to where she was walking had her thoughts not been so full of what she’d heard in her hotel bathroom that morning. How could Flora McLachlan have talked to her? Was she losing her mind, hearing the dead speak? Were aural hallucinations part and parcel of pregnancy? She didn’t remember hearing things during previous confinements; in fact, quite the opposite—pregnancy had slowly filled her head with what felt like cotton wool and clouded her perception with an invisible veil. That was one of the things she loved about the whole birth thing, she reminded herself. It was like living in a bubble: pregnancy allowed her to float blissfully along, blown hither and yon, not really connecting with anythi—

  “Auuuk! Watch out!” shrieked a familiar voice as Baci suddenly found herself skating rapidly and uncontrollably through the mud toward the moat. The empty moat, her mind wailed, realizing all too late the significance of all the big yellow diggers, their buckets and scoops bent over the moat like vast birds at a watering hole. Except there wasn’t any water in this hole, was there? Oh, heck, she thought, bracing herself, this is going to hurt. She opened her mouth to scream—and was spun around to find herself skating away from the moat, this time with a partner. A partner dressed in very realistic crocodile skin, with arms that were regrettably too short to span her expanded waistline, but a partner who was nonetheless very nimble on his fee—claws. Claws. Crocodile skin. Strong reptilian reek and row upon row of primrose-yellow teeth. Dear Tock, she thought, clinging on tight. How kind.

  Scrabbling frantically in the mud with his claws, the crocodile managed to bring them to a halt, avoiding pitching them both facefirst into a herbaceous border by using his tail as a rudder. They hung on for a moment, giggly with relief. Tock grinned up at his mistress, his nostrils drinking in her familiar smell of moisturizer, shampoo, and, oddly for her, lavender. Gallantly extending a foreleg, he offered to escort her inside, apologizing for the parlous state of the moat and surrounding garden as they walked together round the outside of StregaSchloss.

  “It’s a complete mud-fest,” the crocodile admitted, wondering if now was an appropriate time to raise the subject of funding for his moat renovations. Looking at Signora Strega-Borgia’s pale face, he decided against it. Plenty of time later to explain that he needed unrestricted access to the Borgia bank vaults if he was ever going to build his dream moat. Together they picked their way carefully over a mound of broken flagstones, which the police had smashed with sledgehammers and dumped on the lawn. Baci heaved a sigh as she regarded her mangled garden.

  “Those policemen seemed to take an unholy delight in making as much of a mess as they possibly could. I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it either, especially now Luciano is in … in …”

  “Don’t,” Tock counseled, patting her arm and half dragging her toward the kitchen garden. “Please, don’t upset yourself. Think of your little baby. And look, there are your children welcoming you home.” The crocodile pointed up to the first-floor windows of StregaSchloss, where lights had been turned on since the daylight was fast fading and the sky was heavy overhead. He saw the waving silhouettes of the children in Titus’s bedroom window and waved back, unable to see from this distance that their throat-cutting gestures did not signify hello, but meant something entirely different. A tiny feathery snowflake blew across his line of sight, closely followed by another and another. All at once the sky was full of snow. Tock shivered and clutched Baci’s arm even more tightly.

  “Come on. Let’s get you indoors,” he said firmly. “The children must be absolutely dying to see you.”

  “Right, that’s perfect,” said Pandora, peering at Minty with an artist’s critical eye.

  The nanny gazed in the mirror and groaned. “I look awful,” she said, scratching her nose and pulling a face at her reflection.

  “Don’t,” Pandora commanded, “you’ll smudge them,” and turned her attention to Rand. “Right, pal. You’re next for the lipstick plague.”

  Minty moved over to allow Rand some space in front of the mirror, then paused. “But you’re done already,” she said, gazing at his face, where a respectable crop of red spots had blossomed.

  “No, he’s not,” Pandora muttered, sifting through a selection of Halloween face paints, Damp’s finger paints, and several of Tarantella’s discarded lipsticks, all in similarly virulent shades of sugar pink. Holding up a tube of Deadly Nightshade, a hue rejected by Tarantella as being too poisonous by far, Pandora turned back to Rand.

  “What?” she said, puzzled. “When did I do that?”

  “Do what?” he squeaked, aware that this was the closest he’d ever been to Titus’s stunner of a sis—

  “God, your voice. Honestly, at times you sound like Multitudina. I mean, did I paint all those spots on your face earlier, or are they home-grown?”

  “You didn’t paint these.…” Rand poked his face gingerly, his reflection mirroring the dismay he felt at seeing his altered complexion. “These are real. Hot, itchy, lumpy, and sore. I tell you, some guys have all the lu—” He broke off abruptly.

  “What is it?” Pandora had turned back to the mirror in order to apply dots of lippy to her own face.

  “Er. Look, I’m trying my best not to freak out completely but—” Rand took a deep and wobbly breath.

  “What?” Pando
ra demanded.

  “The spots. They’re moving. I mean inside. Under my skin. This is so weird. Titus—did this happen to you? With the”—he broke off to check that Latch was safely out of earshot—“the wax,” he hissed. “Did you get weird zits when you used it?”

  Pandora finally worked out what Rand was talking about just as several of his spots simultaneously burst open to reveal what looked like springy coils of black wool underneath. Alerted by his sister’s squawk of horror, Titus snapped out of gazing at Minty and swiveled round to see his fellow band member rapidly sprouting a black rug across his entire face. Minty also turned and caught sight of Rand, who was doing a passable imitation of a werewolf: black fur erupted from every visible inch of his skin, and judging by the activity taking place beneath his clothes, every invisible inch as well. The nanny’s eyes widened, rolled backward—and with a little whimper of protest, she collapsed on the floor.

  “Oh, really,” Pandora said with disgust. “What a complete and total lightweight.”

  “Tea?” suggested Tock, one claw poised over the kettle.

  Leaning against the towel rail on the range, Baci nodded. One cup of tea to warm her up, and then she’d go and find the children. “Can you smell toast?” she asked, sniffing the air several times.

  “Now you mention it, yes,” Tock said, placing a cup and saucer on the table.

  “That smell of toast,” Baci groaned, sniffing again. “I couldn’t swallow my hotel breakfast and I missed lunch too. Not good for the baby if I starve to death, and besides, I’m ravenous.” She heaved herself off the towel rail and peered into the empty breadbox, sniffed several times in quick succession, and frowned. “It’s coming from the pantry,” she decided, crossing the kitchen to investigate. Seconds later there was a shriek followed by an answering roar and a burst of bright light. Knocking Baci’s cup and saucer to the floor in his haste, Tock ran to assist his mistress. He flung open the pantry door and was met by the unmistakable smell of burnt toast. In a corner, flushed with embarrassment, Ffup was trying to hide her paws behind her back. Her ingratiating grin was an orthodontist’s assault course of uneven yellow teeth; all flecked with black fragments of, presumably, burnt toast.