by Tom Holt
‘That’s Pluto, you pillock. Plato’s in Filosofy. It’s where all that’s material and corruptible is purged away, leavin’ only the eternal verities in their true spiritchual essence. That’s here,’ he added, making a wide gesture towards the machines, the workbenches, the teachests and the carefully labelled plastic dustbins full of shiny metal bits. ‘All this lot. Goin’ to be borin’ as fuck, you mark my words.’
Regalian nodded. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is why I’d like some help making sure it doesn’t happen.’
‘Wot, you mean stop the end of the world?’
‘Mhm.’
The man grinned. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said.
Regalian grinned too. ‘God, I’m relieved to hear you say that.’
With a crash, the crypt door fell inwards. Dust settled.
‘Right,’ said the goblin captain, turning his back on the vault. ‘That’s that, then. Don’t suppose you’ll be needing me and my lads for the rest of it, so we’ll be on our way . . .’
‘No,’ said Claudia. ‘You stay there.’
‘Ah shit,’ whined the goblin. ‘Don’t make us go in there, please.’
Claudia looked at him, amused and bemused. ‘Why ever not?’ she asked.
‘Well.’ The goblin shuffled his feet. ‘It’s just - well, don’t like crypts. Spooky.’
‘Oh get a grip, you silly little man. Whatever can there be in there that can possibly hurt you?’
- Whereupon five coffins simultaneously opened, their lids hitting the ground in unison, and five hideous spectral figures loomed up out of the darkness -
‘Eeek!’ the goblin explained, pointing. ‘Ghugug . . .’
‘Not ghosts,’ Claudia sighed, ‘just vampires. Honestly!’
‘Eeek! Vuvuv . . .’
‘Oh go away, then, see if I care,’ Claudia snapped. ‘And I don’t expect to receive a bill, either.’
Much pattering of iron-shod feet; then silence, broken only by the shunk-shunk of Max chambering a silver-headed bullet into the chamber of his rifle.
‘Well, here we all are,’ Claudia said briskly. ‘Or at least, almost all.’ She frowned, then shrugged. ‘Can’t waste any more time, we’ll just have to make do with three horsepersons. Jane, you can double up as Famine and Death. On second thoughts,’ she added, looking Jane over, ‘not Famine, you wouldn’t fool anybody. You’d better be Pestilence and Death. Ready?’
‘No.’
Claudia allowed herself a moment to soliloquise about bloody prima donna starlets who hold everything up, and then said, ‘Max.’
‘Howdy.’
‘Shoot them for me, there’s a love.’
‘Sure thing, ma’am,’ he replied, and did so.
As the smoke cleared and the echoes of the shots died away, Jane found herself thinking, Odd. Death’s obviously not so very fatal in these parts. She sat up and, instinctively, felt the side of her mouth. The big, pointed teeth had gone.
‘All done,’ said Claudia cheerfully. ‘In case you’re wondering, by the way, that was all it took. Look around. Better still, breathe in.’
The ex-vampires did so, and gagged. It smelt horrible. Claudia nodded.
‘Welcome to Reality,’ she said.
The consultant bent down to glance at the chart at the foot of the bed, then straightened up and put a big, professional smile on his face.
‘Now then, Mr . . . Oh dear, we don’t seem to know your name.’
‘Smith,’ Dracula replied. ‘Vlad Smith.’
‘Ah, right.’ The consultant scribbled something in a notebook, and sat down beside the Count’s bed. ‘Now then, Mr Smith, I’ve been looking at your case notes and I have to admit, I’m puzzled.’
‘You are. I mean, you are? Why’s that?’
The consultant’s forehead furrowed over for a moment, as if a stray thought had crept up behind him and hit him with a brick. ‘I have to tell you,’ he said, ‘your case is - well, I’ll admit, it’s a new one on me. You see, we keep on pumping blood into you, and we can’t seem to see where it goes to.’
‘Really.’
The consultant nodded. ‘Twenty-six gallons of the stuff we’ve put in over the last ten days, and according to our scans it’s just vanished. Hollow legs, as it were. Very curious. ’ He paused. ‘Er, how do you feel? In yourself, as it were?’
‘Oh, fine.’
‘Do you indeed? That’s very—’
‘Apart from the pain, of course,’ Dracula added quickly. ‘Really terrible, the pain is. Ouch. Ouch ouch.’
The consultant looked at him over the rims of his spectacles. ‘Whereabouts is this pain, exactly?’
‘Oh, all over. Everywhere. It’s agony, Doctor, really it is.’
The intravenous drip on the rail over his head burped and ran dry. The consultant waved to a nurse, who installed a fresh bottle. ‘Well,’ said the consultant, ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep you in, just for the time being. Until the condition stabilises, I mean.’
‘I see,’ replied the Count. ‘And what does that mean, exactly?’
The consultant smiled wanly. ‘Until we manage to pour some blood into you and keep it there, I suppose,’ he said. ‘This pain, you’re sure it’s everywhere?’
‘Positive,’ Dracula replied. ‘Ooh. Ouch. Ooh.’
‘Well, in that case . . .’
Suddenly, Dracula sat bolt upright, tearing the drip tube from his arm. A look of sheer fury crossed his face, and he covered his heart with his hand. A sticky red patch began to grow under his fingers.
‘Fuck,’ he said, and fell back on to the pillows.
The consultant bent over him and moved the hand aside, saw the bullet-hole, glanced up at the skylight and ducked. ‘Nurse!’ he yelled.
‘Doctor?’
‘There’s someone shooting the patients.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Seems to have cured this one.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Well, sort of. He’s dead.’
Claudia glanced round.
‘Your friend,’ she said, ‘the chap with the cape and the teeth. Where’d he get to?’
Skinner looked down at the pile of empty clothes, and shuddered. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘he actually was a vampire, if you follow me. Name of Dracula.’ The penny dropped and Skinner looked up, astonished. ‘This is Reality,’ he said. ‘That’s why he really died. Jesus!’
‘Told you,’ Claudia said. ‘Why do people never seem to believe what I tell them?’
‘Jesus,’ Skinner repeated softly. ‘I’m home.’
‘Indeed you are, Mr Skinner. And you too, Ms Armitage. All part of the service.’ Claudia glanced down at her watch. ‘And now, if you don’t mind. If I may put it this way, if you think we’ve got all the time in the world, think again. Places, please.’
Something hot and wet blew in Skinner’s ear. He whirled round. It was a horse.
‘Do we have to?’ he groaned. ‘Only I get this rash, right up the side of my legs. Wouldn’t a Buick do just as well, really?’
‘No.’
There were, indeed, four horses; one pale, the others jet black. Jane felt in her pockets for a lump of sugar and wondered whether, if she asked nicely, she could have hers fitted with training wheels.
‘Ready?’ Claudia asked.
And then the wall caved in.
‘Mind how yer go,’ the man said, and then he closed the door behind him. Regalian nodded, and then found himself falling forward—
Into the damn crypt, the one he’d been at such pains to leave. Buggery!
—Except that now it seemed to be full of horses. And Claudia. And Max, pointing that blasted rifle at him. He ducked down behind a horse, and the bullet sang off the rock behind him, which was now of course an archway.
‘How in hell’s name—?’ Claudia was shouting, and that at least sounded promising. He heard Max’s rifle cycling, and glanced over his shoulder, the way he’d just come—
Out of, apparently, the
desert.
To be precise, Arizona.
He was only guessing; but the rock formations, the huge tree-like cacti, the sand, the burning sun. Arizona, New Mexico, one of those places. Maybe Nevada. The geography of Reality wasn’t his strong suit.
Reality . . .
‘Oh bloody marvellous,’ he muttered, and ran.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ Claudia yelled. ‘Get after him.’
‘Sure thing, ma’am.’
‘And before you go,’ she added, ‘tie up these idiots.’
‘Right away, ma’am.’
‘No, on second thoughts, don’t do that.’ Claudia scowled horribly through the hole in the crypt wall, temporarily dazed. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt like this, not knowing what to do next. Take the ground out from under her feet and she’d find a way to cope. But suddenly to have the initiative snatched away from her; it was intolerable.
Then she smiled. No need to worry.
‘Let him go,’ she said. ‘He’ll keep. Max, you just make sure this lot behave themselves and don’t try running away.’
‘But the other one, ma’am,’ Max objected, pointing at the archway with his rifle. ‘You ain’t jes’ gonna let him—’
Claudia shrugged. ‘Why ever not? Fictional character loose in Reality, just what the doctor ordered. Let him run as far as he likes.’
Max thought about it for a moment, and grinned. ‘I surely see your meaning, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘Kinda, let him do the job for us.’
‘Quite. Can we have a couple more horses, please? One for you and one for Ms Armitage. I think she’ll have to make do with just being Pestilence.’
‘Sho’ nuff, ma’am. But I thought . . .’
Claudia took the reins of the pale horse and vaulted lightly into the saddle. ‘The hell with it,’ she said. ‘It’s my show. Why shouldn’t I get to act in it too?’
Having checked that he was alive and no worse damaged than the average first-class parcel, Regalian picked himself up and looked around.
‘How.’
He groaned. Around him in a circle he could see feathers, buckskins and the shiny heads of newly polished arrows. The painful bruise on the back of his head probably had something to do with the lump of rock which had rolled down the side of the narrow gorge just as he was passing through it.
‘I refuse,’ he announced wearily, ‘to be party to crude racial stereotyping. No pre-Columbian Native American ever said “How” except for the tourists, and I’m not a tourist, I’m here on business. Now . . .’
The seven-foot flowerpot-coloured giant who towered over him had no discernible facial expression. He could have been a statue, until he started to talk.
‘How,’ he repeated. ‘Me Take Forty-Two. Cigar Store nation. You fight with me or go in anthill.’
‘Just a minute,’ Regalian snarled. ‘This is supposed to be Reality, dammit.’ An unpleasant thought occurred to him. ‘Or are you—?’
‘We come from hole in rock,’ said the Indian, pointing in the direction Regalian had just come from. ‘We from Fiction, where damn sight better than this. In Fiction, we goblins, knocks being crude racial stereotype into cocked hat, on account of which we well pissed off. Now, you fight or you want go in anthill? All same to us.’
‘Please yourselves,’ Regalian said, and his hand swooped down on the grips of the Scholfield. The ring of warriors parted, something about their manner suggesting that while they were unquestionably braves, they drew the line at being bloody stupids. He drew the gun.
‘Psst!’
‘What?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ the Scholfield hissed. ‘I hate to have to tell you this, but I’m empty. No cartridges left. You used the last one shooting off the door handle, remember?’
Regalian closed his eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you ever so much. I’ll be sure to remember this as long as I - well, teabag memory or not, I should be able to manage that. Thanks a lot.’
Take Forty-Two was frowning at him. ‘What paleface saying to obviously empty handgun?’ he demanded. ‘Let’s get show on road. We fight with knives.’
‘Knives?’
‘Sure. You got better idea?’
‘Plenty.’
‘Very probably you do. We fight with knives anyway.’ A coffin-handled Bowie knife whizzed through the air and buried itself in the sand at Regalian’s feet. With obvious distaste he leaned forward and picked it up.
The crowd was silent. Nobody was buying popcorn. Nobody was selling popcorn. The sky was blue instead of green, but otherwise; business as usual. Except that, in real life, when you get killed you die.
He glanced down at the knife he’d been issued with and compared it with the trainee meat cleaver in the other guy’s hand. Maybe it was all subjective, but as far as he could see, the one he’d got was smaller, flimsier and really only suited to opening letters; air-mail letters, for choice. He got the impression that if these characters had ever heard of sportsmanship, they’d have assumed it referred to some sort of purpose-built racing canoe.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Before we start, can I just have a quick word with the umpire?’
‘Me umpire.’ The voice came from something Regalian had taken to be a totem pole. In fact, it was a very large man. ‘Me Five Tupperware Dishes, Coldfoot nation. What you want now?’
Regalian looked at Five Tupperware Dishes until the crick in his neck became painful, and decided not to bother. Having this guy for an umpire, he reckoned, was a bit like having a kleptomaniac for a store detective. What do I do now? he asked himself. Well, you could try fighting. What an inspired suggestion. Yes, I think I’ll give that a try.
The thought was still being processed in his mind when Take Forty-Two’s knife whistled past his jaw, proving that, no matter what claims they make for modern hi-tech electric razors, the cleanest, smoothest shave you can get is still a Bowie knife in the hands of a seven-foot-tall psychotic warrior. Regalian swayed clear, stepped back and folded his arms.
‘Excuse me,’ he said.
A fraction of a second later he had to move again, thereby cheating himself by the thickness of a lightweight Rizla of eligibility for a Vincent Van Gogh Look-Alike contest. He could see, however, as the maniac facing him recovered his balance for the next blow, that the first seed of doubt had been sown. He concentrated . . .
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but do you mind waiting till the umpire gives the signal?’
‘Huh?’
‘For the fight to start,’ he explained, moving smartly to his left to avoid a blow that would have decapitated an elephant. ‘Although actually . . .’
Take Forty-Two stood still, his knife hand hanging limp at his side. ‘What you mean, actually?’ he grunted.
Regalian slowly dropped the knife. ‘You’ve lost,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
‘What you say, I lost?’ demanded the warrior angrily. ‘I not lost. I still alive. You hold still, I prove it.’
‘I hate to be pernickety,’ Regalian said, shaking his head, ‘but you forfeit the match. Rule Seventeen, striking a blow before the umpire gives the signal.’ He pulled a book from his pocket (it was, in fact, his concise English/Elvish dictionary, but he guessed he’d be safe) and tossed it at the warrior’s feet. ‘Look it up for yourself if you don’t believe me.’
For a moment. Take Forty-Two looked as if he was going to explode. Then he turned slowly round and stared hard at the umpire.
‘Hey, you,’ he thundered, ‘what big idea? Me undefeated champion. Now I lose match. I pull out lungs and make you eat.’
A moment later there was a really good fight going. Nobody gave the signal, but (Regalian reasoned to himself as he ran, unnoticed, towards the rail the horses were tied to) it probably didn’t matter, because it wasn’t a championship bout, only - chunk, chunk, scream! - a friendly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Main Street.
You’ve seen it over and over again. You could draw a map of it bli
ndfold.
Here we have the Lucky Strike saloon; swinging doors, pianola tinnily tinkling Dixie, raucous voices implying that the cowpokes are cutting the dust after six weeks on the Lone Star trail. Next door, the general store, presided over by a nervous Swede who knows for a fact that before long some bastard in a poncho is going to come in, load up a buckboard with his entire stock of dynamite and leave without paying. Sharing a party wall with the general store, the barbershop-cum-funeral-parlour, presided over by a long, thin, elderly loon who wears wire-framed John Lennon spectacles and giggles a lot. Due south lie the livery stable, the blacksmith, the dentist (J. Holliday propr; painless extractions guaranteed; CLOSED) and the bank, miraculously open between robberies. On the other side of the street, we have the sheriff ’s office (Wtt Earp, propr; CLOSED), the Silver Dollar saloon (see above under Lucky Strike), the Wells Fargo office, the dry goods store (for dry, read inflammable, as some clown with an oil lamp will inevitably demonstrate before the titles roll) and one or two other establishments not essential to the plot and accordingly left anonymous. Main Street. All human life is here; although, quite often, not for very long.
In a cloud of dust, six horsepersons thunder into town, draw up in front of the Lucky Strike and tether their horses to the rail. Quite soon, they have the front stoop to themselves. Trouble has come to Main Street, punctual as ever. You can set your watch by Trouble in this town.
‘Where . . . ?’ Skinner began to say; then Max tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the sign over the doorway of the Bank.
BANK OF CHICOPEE FALLS
Skinner’s mouth fell open, as if some joker had cut the tendons in his jaw. He stared, unable to speak.
‘Welcome home,’ Claudia said. ‘Of course, you’re a bit early. In thirty-odd years or so—’
‘Thirty-six, ma’am,’ Max amended.
‘Thirty-six years, you’ll be born. Yes, I know,’ she said, before Skinner could interrupt. ‘Last time around you were born in Chicago. Well, this time you’re going to be born here. Or rather, you won’t, because the world’s about to end, but don’t worry about it. You’re home, that’s the main thing.’