by Tom Holt
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Also by Tom Holt
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tom Holt was born in London in 1961. At Oxford he studied bar billiards, ancient Greek agriculture and the care and feeding of small, temperamental Japanese motorcycle engines; interests which led him, perhaps inevitably, to qualify as a solicitor and emigrate to Somerset, where he specialised in death and taxes for seven years before going straight in 1995. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Chard, Somerset, with his wife, one daughter and the unmistakable scent of blood, wafting in on the breeze from the local meat-packing plant. For more information about Tom Holt visit www.tom-holt.com
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © Kim Holt 1994
Cover illustration by Lauren Panepinto. Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First US e-book edition: September 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-23334-7
Also by Tom Holt
Expecting Someone Taller
Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?
Flying Dutch
Ye Gods!
Overtime
Here Comes the Sun
Grailblazers
Faust Among Equals
Odds and Gods
Djinn Rummy
My Hero
Paint Your Dragon
Open Sesame
Wish You Were Here
Only Human
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Valhalla
Nothing But Blue Skies
Falling Sideways
Little People
The Portable Door
In Your Dreams
Earth, Air, Fire and Custard
You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps
Barking
The Better Mousetrap
May Contain Traces of Magic
Blonde Bombshell
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages
Doughnut
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For
KEN FUNNELL
and
Mike Hughes, Dave Little, Peter Wolf, Arthur Harvey,
Ed Howard et al.
And all charcoal burners, everywhere
CHAPTER ONE
The Laughing Cod in downtown Hlidarend is rated as one of north-east Iceland’s premier restaurants. Or one of north-east Iceland’s restaurants. In practice, it amounts to the same thing.
On the three hundred and sixty-four days each year when the Laughing Cod isn’t being a restaurant, you can still walk in to the bar and order a coffee; and this is precisely what the Most Wanted Man in History did.
Six of the seven regulars turned and stared at him as he did so; the seventh, Wall-Eyed Bjorn, just carried on complaining about herring quotas.
Torsten Christianssen, the ever-popular proprietor of the Cod, poured the coffee, waited for it to settle, and leant back against the cash register, soaking in the thrill of a new experience.
‘Just passing through, are you?’ he asked after a while.
The newcomer looked up. ‘You could say that,’ he replied, with only the very faintest trace of an unfamiliar accent. ‘Could you fix me a toasted sandwich, while you’re at it?’
‘Sure,’ Torsten said. ‘Coming right up.’ He withdrew into the kitchen, wondering what the hell he was doing. It was theoretically possible to get a toasted sandwich in the Cod, but you needed references from two doctors and a justice of the peace before your application could even be considered.
When the stranger had eaten his sandwich, drunk his coffee and spent about forty-five seconds studying the framed photograph of Einar Sigfussen’s record grayling on the wall opposite, he stood up and asked for the bill.
‘The what?’
‘The bill,’ repeated the stranger. ‘Please.’
‘Oh, yes, right. Coming right up. Anybody here got a pencil or something?’
There was a brief, stunned silence, which was resolved when the stranger unclipped one from his top pocket and handed it over. Torsten took it as if it was red hot, and tentatively pressed the top.
‘How do you spell coffee?’ he asked.
The stranger told him; then took the paper from his hands, glanced at it, and fished a banknote out of his shirt pocket. A ten-thousand kroner note.
‘Hey,’ said Torsten, when God’s marvellous gift of speech had been restored to him. ‘You got anything smaller?’
The stranger looked at him, took back the note and put it down on the counter. Then he smiled at it.
It began to shrink.
You couldn’t say how it did it; it just gradually occupied less and less space, until eventually it was about the size of a postage stamp. The stranger picked it up, blew on it, and passed it back across the counter.
‘Is that better?’ he asked.
On the other side of Death, there is a tunnel, leading to an archway. Then the road forks, and this is the point at which you find out whether the ethical system you’ve been following all these years was the right one after all.
If you’ve backed the Betamax version, you’ll come at last to a rather impressive black stone gateway. There is no name or street number, but the chances are that you’ll have guessed where you are anyway. However, by way of a heavy hint, the gateway bears the celebrated inscription:ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
- or so your Michelin Guide would have you believe. It’s very possible that it still does, but you can no longer see for yourself, because the whole of the architrave of the gateway is now covered with a huge banner, on which is painted the legend:UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
- and when you get up really close, you can see that it actually says:
- just to ram the point we
ll and truly home. At this juncture, you will be met by your guide, who will escort you to the ticket office (where you can also purchase guide books, souvenir pencils and locally-made coconut ice). The Michelin Guide doesn’t mention that; but if you think about it, how would they know, anyway?
Once you’ve passed the ticket office, your tour will take you all round the justly celebrated architectural gems that comprise the inner courtyard, with the exception of the Council Chamber, which is not yet open to the public. This is a pity because apart from the Michelangelo floor (remember where we are) the Chamber houses three late Veroneses, a rather fine set of Dürer engravings and, naturally, the finest collection of works by Hieronymus Bosch in the universe. They are, of course, all portraits, such as may be found in the boardroom of any long-established corporate body.
On the day in question, the Council was in session, and had been for sixteen hours. The Council members (or Board of Directors, as we must call them now) each sat under his, her or its respective portrait, each one looking just the same as he/she/ it had when Ronnie Bosch had painted them six hundred years previously; except that they were all wearing, somewhat self-consciously, identical red T-shirts with the words:HAVIN’ A DAMNED GOOD TIME
printed on them in big white letters.
‘I still reckon we haven’t thought this thing through properly,’ said the Production Director stubbornly. He’d opposed the whole idea of a management buy-out from the start, and had only come in with the rest of the consortium under considerable pressure.
‘Listen, Harry,’ replied the Sales Director, lashing his tail irritably. ‘We know what you think, so you stick to keeping the ovens going and we’ll all get along just fine. You leave the management side to the grown-ups, okay?’ For the record, he’d been the one applying the pressure, with a pitchfork, in the small of the Production Director’s back.
‘Actually,’ interrupted the Admin Director wearily, ‘Harry has got a point there, of sorts. I mean, it’s one thing getting the blasted franchise. Keeping it’s a different crock of entrails entirely.’
The Sales Director scowled, displaying a wide selection of unlikely components. ‘All you can do is make problems,’ he complained. ‘We’re running a business now, people. I suggest we all remember that, okay?’
‘Sure.’ The Finance Director nodded what, for the sake of argument, we shall call his head. ‘We all know that, Steve, you’ve told us often enough. I’d just like to remind you that if those bloody inspectors catch us breaking the terms of the franchise, they’ll have us out of here like the proverbial pea through a trumpet. Is that what you want?’
The Sales Director groaned theatrically and paused for a moment to scratch his nose (the one growing up out of his navel, not the one sprouting between his eyebrows). ‘Look, Norman,’ he said, ‘there’s ways round all that stuff, you know that as well as I do. All it takes is a little . . .’
The Finance Director shook what he had recently nodded. ‘And there’s such a thing as being too bloody clever for your own good, Steve. You’d do well to remember that.’ He rubbed the bridge of his beak with a thoughtful claw, and continued; ‘If they think we’re not fulfilling the public service part of the deal . . .’
‘But we are.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Neither am I,’ interrupted the Production Director. ‘Take the perjury business, for instance. We could have got in serious schtuck with that.’
‘I hadn’t heard about any perjury stuff,’ murmured the Finance Director, tapping the edge of the table with his offside front wing. ‘Sounds interesting.’
The Production Director grinned unpleasantly, even for him. ‘I’ll bet,’ he said. ‘Look, in the franchise agreement it says, clause nine, sub-para three, all perjurers shall be broken on the wheel, right?’
‘Right,’ agreed the Finance Director. ‘Standard procedure, it’s what we’ve been doing for years. So?’
‘So this dangerous clown here only had the whole department cleared out and fifty roulette tables put in. If I hadn’t found out about three days before the last random check . . .’
‘I still don’t know what you’re getting so uptight about,’ growled the Sales Director. ‘A wheel’s a wheel, right? And I can guarantee the whole lot of them were broke by the time . . .’
He subsided under the glare of the Finance Director’s six beady red eyes, and took a sudden interest in the pencil on the table in front of him.
‘That,’ said the Finance Director, ‘is definitely going too far. As,’ he added sharply, ‘is this idea of changing the name of the place to Netherglades Theme Park. How the hell am I meant to explain that to the inspectors, Steve? A smear campaign by the printers?’
The Sales Director sniffed - quite an achievement, considering. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Even a bunch of blinkered, concrete-brained civil servants is going to realise the importance of image in a business like this. You honestly believe the punters are going to be able to relate to the image we’ve got at the moment? I mean, would you fork out good money if you thought you were going to get your lungs ripped out with a blunt meathook?’
‘But that’s the business we’re in, Steve.’
The Sales Director waved an impatient talon. ‘So are an awful lot of people, Norman, that’s not the point. The point is, you can torture the punters and roast them alive and coop them up in confined spaces indefinitely and flay them on spits and they’ll still fall over themselves to give you money, just so long as you can convince them it’s fun. That’s what the holiday industry’s all about, Norman. Just so long as your image is okay . . .’
‘I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one for the time being,’ said the Finance Director smoothly. ‘I mean, there’s obviously good arguments on both sides. Yes, we have to watch our backs as far as the inspectors are concerned. On the other hand, we’ve got a bloody good compliance record as far as everything else is concerned. Like, you know, waiting lists cut, catering costs reduced by half, maintenance schedules improved, security as good as ever . . .’
There was a soft cough from his left. If the Head of Security had had a head, he’d have shaken it.
‘To a certain extent, yes,’ he muttered.
The Finance Director turned round sharply, and his horns twitched; a sure sign of impending trouble.
‘What do you mean, a certain extent?’ he demanded. ‘Look, either nobody’s escaped or . . .’
‘I was coming to that.’
As the echo of the report died away, a faint breeze dissipated the remaining wisps of smoke, revealing that (against all the odds) the Vampire King was still on his feet.
‘Hmm,’ he croaked. ‘I’m not sure how many points you score for that.’
On the other side of the valley, Kurt ‘Mad Dog’ Lundqvist blinked, swore quietly under his breath, and reached into his top pocket for another silver bullet. Nothing. Just a compass, a pearl-handled switchblade and a roll of peppermints.
‘Oh-kay,’ he called out. ‘You want to do this the hard way, that’s fine by me.’
A few minutes later they were facing each other, mano a mano in the sand. Lundqvist could see that the Vampire King was sweating now, his face more than usually drawn, his teeth protruding just a telltale smidgen more. All the King could see was the flash of the noon sun on Lundqvist’s mirror Ray-Bans.
‘Not like you to miss the heart at four hundred yards, Kurt,’ muttered the King. It was intended as a taunt, but Lundqvist accepted it as a statement of fact; which, of course, it was.
‘It’s this goddamn awful rifle,’ he replied. ‘Comes of trying to do two jobs at once, I guess. You ready?’
The King backed away. ‘How do you mean, two jobs, exactly?’
‘I promised the guys at Terminator Monthly I’d do a write-up on the new McMillan .30. Nothing like actually testing the bugger in the field, I always say. Ready yet?’
The Vampire King looked round. He was six hundred years old, completely invulnerabl
e to anything except silver bullets and fire-hardened yew, with the strength in his hideously attenuated body of nine rogue elephants. He was also shit scared.
‘We don’t have to do this, you know,’ he mumbled. ‘We can just walk away, and . . .’
Lundqvist shook his head; a tiny, precise movement. The peak of his cap came up level with the King’s third nipple. He tested the balance of the mallet in his right hand.
‘Sorry, Vlad,’ he said. ‘A contract’s a contract. Nothing personal.’
Maybe the King’s mistake was to try and rush him, or maybe he didn’t make a mistake at all. When you’ve met your match, that’s it; no shame, no dishonour, just the natural course of events. In any case, there was a short blur of activity, a thud, the hollow sound of mallet-head on stake. And that was that.
As six vindictive centuries caught up with the Vampire King, he raised his head one last time and tried to give Lundqvist the stare. All that happened was that he got the stare back, with interest.
‘Just tell me, Kurt,’ he croaked with the last of his breath. ‘Why the hell do you do it?’
‘The money, Vlad. So long.’
When it was all finally over, Lundqvist got to his feet, wiped the stake off on a patch of couch grass and stuck it back in his belt. There were times, he realised, when the job did get to him, although he found it hard to admit it to himself. Not the danger, of course, or the incessant conflict with hideous and unnatural monsters, or the mind-bending horrors he came face to face with every day of his life. Certainly not the killing. When a man is tired of killing, he’s tired of life.
No, Lundqvist said to himself as he tucked the vampire’s severed head under his arm, shouldered the rifle and started the long walk back to the jeep, I guess what really bothers me most is the lack of excitement.
The Most Wanted Man in History, wishing to get from Iceland to Holland and having no transport of his own, had hitched a lift. Nothing unusual in that, except that he’d hitched it off an airliner.