by Tony Lewis
“Got it,” Ollie replied.
Brian took a large, rusty key from a vast recess in his coat and unlocked the door. He eased it open slowly and with great dramatic effect, making sure that the squeaky hinges made as much squeak as possible.
After what seemed like an eternity, Brian said, “Right, Ollie in you go,” after which he slammed the door shut as loudly as was inhumanly possible. “You boys can observe the proceedings if you go round the corner,” he added to the others.
Around said corner was a six foot by four foot window that gave then a brilliant view of Ollie inside.
“It is sound proofed and the glass is one way, so you can’t help him,” said Brian, “not that I think you’d cheat, but let’s face it, you would.”
“How long has he got?” asked Ethan.
“Plenty of time,” said Brian, “but he shouldn’t need it. Anybody with a reasonable amount of intelligence should be able to figure it out. Just takes a bit of lateral thinking.”
He locked the door and returned the key to the vastness of his coat.
“What if he can’t do it?” asked Stitches.
“Best he does, really,” said Brian, mouth organ already in hand.
* * *
The Ebony Casket was flying down the road so fast that if it went any faster, it would indeed achieve flight. In fact, there were points in the journey that all four wheels of the vehicle had left the road surface at the same time. If Singh drove any more recklessly or any faster, it would easily qualify as a mini cab ride.
“WOOHOO!” screamed Scorpio as Singh took another hump backed bridge at something slightly under the speed of sound. “This is sooo cool. I didn’t think a car could go this fast. I haven’t had so much fun since…no, I can’t top this.”
Jekyll looked over his right shoulder at their extremely happy back seat passenger.
“I didn’t realise librarians were so easily pleased,” he said. “And there’s me thinking that nothing could be better than the thrills and spills of book cataloguing and telling people to be quiet. Seems you’ve come down off the shelf.”
“Please, Dr. Jekyll,” said Singh. “It very much depends on which library you are talking about. The New Delhi Repository of Magic and Myth can be a very dangerous and deadly place. At least a dozen library assistants have been killed in that particular establishment over the years. You see, some of the books therein have a habit of practising what is written in their pages. It can be a most taxing way of making a living.”
“I’m sure. It must be hard working in a place where if you don’t follow the rulebook, the rulebook kicks the brown stuff out of you,” said Jekyll.
“Precisely,” said Singh. “And that would take a lot longer on my countrymen than most.”
“This looks like it could be it,” said Scorpio, pointing to the same road sign that Ethan had seen.
“So it is,” agreed Jekyll. “Slow down a bit, Mandeep.”
The Cornucopia Zoo had passed them by in a blurry water colour haze a while back, so given that your average car would have done the trip from there to the castle in about an hour and they had done it in twenty four minutes, Jekyll deduced, using a process of mathematics and elimination, that they had arrived at the final and correct location. He proudly explained his thinking to his two companions.
“That’s very impressive,” said Scorpio, “but I think the hearse parked on the drawbridge kind of gives it away as well.” She winked at him and poked her tongue out.
“Smarty pants,” Jekyll retorted, affecting a hurt look. “Okay, Mandeep, pull up behind it and let’s get inside. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. It doesn’t look that big.”
They passed under the portcullis and entered the courtyard.
* * *
Ollie felt and heard the door slam shut behind him. A short breeze ruffled his hair as he took stock of what he was faced with. A mess was what it was. The room was quite large, about thirty feet by fifteen. To his right was a vast mirror so big that an elephant could have used it to check how it looked in its new ball gown. (That is quite obviously a ridiculous analogy. Everyone knows that elephants don’t go to balls. They much prefer a rave). Somehow, it didn’t look quite right. Ollie inspected it more closely. Without a reflection looking back at him, distracting him, he could just make out vague shapes on the other side. Two way. He waved at whoever was on the other side.
To his left were four tables facing out lengthways from the wall. They looked for the entire world like the roll out mortuary slabs that you see on every cop show ever made. The look was made complete by the shrouded figure that lay on top of each of them.
“Creepy,” he muttered to himself.
The far wall was floor to ceiling shelves, on each of which was what could only be described as the remnants of a boot fair. They were rammed full of all sorts of crap from old plastic weight training discs to the mother board of a ZX Spectrum and, even though it wasn’t immediately apparent, you could pretty much guarantee that hidden amongst all the detritus would be a battered copy of Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ that someone had gotten halfway through before slitting their wrists, a model of the Millennium Falcon with the radar dish missing, and a painting that the seller was convinced was by Monet even though he was selling it for fifty pence. A boot fair is not a boot fair without these prerequisite items; in fact, you have to declare that they will be for sale before you can get a license. All you need then is to throw in an ice cream truck (doesn’t matter what time of year it is, it has to be there), a burger van that a starving man wouldn’t have eaten from and a couple of prehistoric chemical toilets, and you would be all set.
After taking all this in Ollie had to admit that he was stumped. He didn’t have a clue what to do with all of this unconnected stuff.
“Toe tags,” came Brian’s disembodied voice from over a crackly intercom.
Ollie looked more closely at the shrouded, prostrate figures, and noticed for the first time that the closest one to him did indeed have a yellow toe tag attached to, well, its toe. He removed it and read the message.
“Mr. Hill and his family have been the unfortunate victims of an accidental monstering. Only you can bring them back, using what you see around you.”
“What?” shouted Ollie to no one in particular. “I’m a vampire, not a necromancer. I make the dead, not raise them.”
He let out a massive breath and turned to face the shelves again. For a moment he was overcome by a sense of panic and impending doom. Was it going to be this way, that after all of their efforts they would fall at the last hurdle, thanks to him? It was whilst musing his inevitable failure, and the fact that the others were no doubt standing at the window, screaming at him to ‘do this, this and that’ and ‘come on man it’s bloody obvious’ when he had an incidence of clear thought. A light bulb moment.
Whilst gazing forlornly at the myriad objects before him, it suddenly became apparent. All but three items blurred into the background and spoke to him. He collected them and put them together. The second went into the back of the first and the third went into the front of the first. This accomplished, he scanned the room until he saw what he needed over in a corner. He carried his bundle over and knelt down in front of the electric socket, and plugged his construction in.
He hoped that he had gotten it right and that his flash of inspiration was going to work, because if it didn’t he was well and truly knackered, for he couldn’t think of anything else to do apart from reading that damn King book.
Apprehensively, he reached out and hit the play button on the cassette recorder. A vague whirring sound came from the machine as the ancient cogs started to turn, which was followed by a few seconds of static during which Ollie was convinced, as is everyone who has ever owned a cassette deck, that the tape was about to be chewed to pieces. Fortunately this didn’t happen, and the gentle opening chords of ‘Floppy Lady’s ’I Love You Cos You’re Dead’ floated across the maudlin dungeon. The surprising clarity of the mus
ic and the lilt of the vocals quietly but steadily filled the room, transforming it from a drab and perfunctory space to an F# filled hive of relaxation.
Ollie heard a shuffling noise just behind him. It sounded like a duvet cover being pulled off a bed and then allowed to fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. He turned round, knowing in his heart of hearts that his solution to the puzzle had been the right one. The four figures were not recumbent any longer. All were sitting upright, blinking as the light hit their eyes as if they were waking from a long, deep sleep.
The dungeon door creaked open and at Brian’s behest he stepped outside. Their host congratulated him, but his companions were looking rather dumbstruck.
“I think you’re going to have to explain it to them,” said Brian, retreating a couple of steps before issuing forth with another random burst from his mouth organ.
“So,” said Ronnie, “what the hell was that all about?”
Ollie smiled and explained.
“It was quite straight forward, once the initial confusion cleared. What you guys didn’t know was what was written on the toe tags. They were a family. It was a Mr. Hill, his wife and their two children. The puzzle was to bring them back from the dead, so I figured that the only way, given the stuff that was in there, was to get the tape recorder going.”
Ollie paused, wondering if the penny had dropped but unfortunately it was still hovering mid-air, waiting patiently for someone’s brain cells to fire up. He was just about to carry on when Stitches snapped his fingers and announced, “Oh, God. I got it!”
“Go on, then,” Ollie invited.
“The Hills came alive to the sound of music,” the zombie declared proudly.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me,” said Ronnie incredulously. “After all we’ve been through, it came down to a very simple bad joke?”
“Obviously not that simple,” said Ollie.
“That’s a fair one,” said Ethan. “None of us got it. Well done, mate. So when do we get the last piece of the Cup, then?”
Brian reappeared next to them, thankfully mouth organ free this time, but a whirling mass of energy nonetheless.
“The prize awaits, gentlemen. Follow me one last time to the Crystal Globe. Did anyone drop any money, by the way?”
Off he went again in a flurry of velvet, leather and denim. He looked like someone had taken a seventies rock band and put it in a blender. This time he didn’t lead them too far. Through a double door and into another large open area was the Crystal Globe, a twenty foot high, see through, multi-faceted sphere that sparkled and shone in the light from the torches above.
“That’s a hell of a paperweight,” said Stitches, “but what do we do now? Ethan will never get that in his backpack.”
“Ollie, you have a minute to collect as many black tokens as you can,” said Brian. “Place them into the receptacle inside the Globe. If you get enough, the prize will be yours. Clear?”
“Yup,” said Ollie.
He walked over to the Globe and stepped inside, after which a door closed, sealing him in and separating him from his colleagues once again. Suddenly, a loud whirring began. He then looked up as another noise, a loud rumble, came from a steel tube that was jutting out from the ceiling. It wobbled slightly, before what seemed like a gout of water gushed from it. But water it was not. It was hundreds upon hundreds of tokens, some black and some blue. They flew around him like paper bats, slapping at his face and making it difficult to see.
“Your time starts now,” shouted Brian over the noise of the machines powering the fans under Ollie’s feet.
For all he was worth Ollie began frantically collecting all the black tokens that he could get his hands on and stuffing them into the bin. He didn’t have a clue how many he needed, but he figured that it would be a reasonable amount to make this last test somewhat challenging. He forced them into the bin, not really paying attention as to what colour he was getting. He reckoned that if he got enough overall, then the odds would be in his favour, and it was more favourable than trying to sift through them as they whooshed about him.
“Time’s up,” shouted Brian after what seemed considerably less than a minute.
A lid closed over the bin, denying him the last handful. The globe door swung open so he stepped out to rejoin the others. Brian was standing behind what looked like an altar and he was busy speaking to himself, so Ollie let him be for the moment.
“That looked like fun,” said Ronnie. “I reckon that’s what a load of washing must feel like.”
“You were in da pretty rain,” said Flug, plucking a stray blue ticket that had wedged itself under Ollie’s lapel. “Me keep?”
“Course you can.”
Stitches looked on and tutted. “That’s him lost for a couple of hours. Shiny to Flug is like drugs to an addict.”
“If I may interrupt,” said Brian. “Congratulations, Ollie, you have collected enough black tokens to win the prize. Well done indeed.”
He was holding out a black box, the hinged lid of which was open. Nestling on a crushed velvet cushion inside was the last piece of the artefact, the bowl of the Cup of All Souls. Thanking all the deities that he didn’t believe in that the quest was finally over, Ollie approached Brian to claim his prize.
“I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”
All five of them turned to see where and from whom the voice had come from, but the sight that they were met with was one that none of them could possibly have foreseen in their wildest imaginations.
Henry Jekyll stood before them. Sweat was pouring down his forehead and he had an extremely worried look on his face, the sort of look that a bank robber adopts when he realises that not only is the CCTV camera working, but that it’s pointed right at him, and the local branch of the Police Firearms Division, Karate and General Hard Bastards Squad, are standing behind him ready to deposit the takings from their latest Kick-the- crap-out-of-anyone-who-thinks-they’re-tough-enough-to-take-us-on-athon.
What was most disconcerting was the fact that both of his hands were in the air, the reason for which was a small female standing just behind him and to his left, who had the barrel of a gun pointed to his head. A very big gun with a very long and menacing barrel. None of them knew her, and on the strength of this first impression, none of them wanted to get to know her. Ollie was about to say something, but sneezed violently several times.
“Seeing as my colleague is allergically indisposed,” said Stitches, “Henry, what the hell is going on here?”
“Oh, that’s alright,” said Scorpio, edging forward but still keeping the distance between her and Jekyll with a gentle nudge from her weapon, “I can do that. It’s very simple. I wanted the Cup, but due to some ancient red tape I couldn’t go looking for it myself, so that’s where you guys came in.”
Ollie stared at her intently, a very tiny hint of realisation dawning, as well as a hint of redness appearing on his cheeks after his sneezing fit.
“So whilst I obviously don’t know the whole story, you’ve played the five of us from the start?” he surmised.
“I suppose you could put it like that,” Scorpio admitted, a smug smile on her face. “But don’t be too downhearted, you’ve played a vital role in something rather spectacular. At the very least, your names will go down in history.”
“As the idiots who got taken in by a dodgy woman. Again,” said Stitches. “Sometimes I think the Village People had the right idea.”
Ethan, seeing that Scorpio was distracted exchanging pleasantries with Ollie, tried to rush her, but she reacted quickly and pulled the trigger.
Ethan stopped dead in his tracks and checked himself for holes. Thankfully, he wasn’t as dead in his tracks as he had first thought.
“Look behind you, gentlemen,” she said.
They all turned round, just in time to see Brian slump to the ground. He had a look of shock on his face and he was reaching upwards with his right hand. A trickle of blood flowed from the neat entry wound in his forehe
ad. It pooled in a claret puddle when he finally hit the floor.
“I mean business, gentlemen, and just to show that it wasn’t a lucky shot.” She fired again, this time striking Brian in the chest and piercing his already dying heart. He spasmed once and was still. “Now you,” she pointed with her free hand at Flug, “move that away from there.”
“She means shift the body, mate,” said Stitches to a very confused and very frightened monster.
“Okay.”
Flug thudded over to their ex-host and hoisted him onto his shoulder in a grim re-enactment of his exploits at the Cornucopia Zoo.
“Where he go?” he asked, a tremor in his voice.
“Somewhere over there will do,” she said. “Now, back to the matter at hand. Where are the other four pieces?”
“I’ve got them,” Ethan volunteered.
“Excellent. Take the piece from your friend there, and if you’d be a love and put it together for me, I’d be extremely grateful. Once that’s done place it onto the altar and back off. And no funny stuff. I don’t want to demonstrate my shooting prowess again, but I will if I have to. Are we all clear?”
“Clear,” answered Ethan, shrugging the backpack off his shoulders.
“Good. Now the rest of you, apart from you, Henry, into the globe. And no talking.”
Ollie, Stitches and Ronnie got into the giant crystal as they had been told. The door closed on them, sealing them inside and effectively rendering them useless.
Jekyll turned slightly towards Scorpio, just enough to get her attention but not enough to get himself shot.
“So all that stuff you told me in the coffee shop and the library was just a load of rubbish to get me involved, and get you here?” he asked.
“Up to a point,” she said. “I did see Vortex and Flange have a discussion in the street, and Flange does have a passing interest in dark magic, but that’s as far as it goes. I haven’t got a clue what they’re up to and to be honest, I don’t really care. How’s it going, handsome?”