Pure Dead Brilliant

by Debi Gliori

  Before the witches in the meadow could run for cover, the hovering cloud of flower buds changed color from pale sugar-pink to a deep and angry orange. Moreover, its shape altered, appearing to vibrate as it did so. A distant buzzing grew into a loud and menacing hum. Fiamma turned her back on the resulting mayhem. Behind her, screams and oaths faded into distant squeals and grunts as the witch let herself into StregaSchloss by the door from the kitchen garden. The kitchen was empty except for Marie Bain, who was locked in mortal combat with a vast pot bubbling on top of the range. Wincing at the smell, the witch ignored the cook completely and headed downstairs through the wine cellar to the dungeons, where she hoped to find Nestor unattended, unprotected, and ripe for a spot of bloodletting.

  “Ees ze sole Véronique,” Marie Bain explained to Fiamma's retreating figure, continuing doggedly despite having no audience. “Ah . . . but zere was no sole, so I find some—how you say?—‘keepers,' een ze smokehouse, and zen I go find some grapes for ze sauce, but zut alors, ze grape vin is . . . piff! Finis! Kaput! I use raisins instead. But zere ees supposed to be a glass of vin blanc in the sauce, and I cannot find a drop of zat, zen I see a leetle bottle of Muscat at ze back of ze fridge, so I pour eet in . . . and”—the cook paused to inhale ecstatically— “magnifique!”

  In the dustbin under the sink, the little bottle of Muscat lay under a rancid pile of kipper heads and tails. The label on the empty bottle had an addendum scrawled across it in Signora Strega-Borgia's distinctive handwriting:

  which was not an obscure vintner's reference to the grape or indeed the vintage, but a reminder that the bottle had been recycled as a vessel in which to lay down a particularly fine example of Multitudina's urine, rat pee being a student witch's handy cupboard staple, essential for certain arcane enchantments.

  “Ees ready!” Marie Bain announced. “Launch ees served!”

  Lunch was also being served at the nearby Auchenlochtermuchty Arms (Taste of Scotland, 1989, eight bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, four-star dining, under new management), but thankfully of a quality far superior to Marie Bain's inedible offering. The dining room was deserted save for one solitary guest, a bulky man who sat in the darkest corner, his back to the room, engrossed in reading what to even the most casual observer appeared to be an Italian newspaper. A waitress brought him the menu and inquired if he'd like a drink while he was waiting, or some wine with his meal. Squeaking his order from behind his newspaper, Don Lucifer di S'Embowelli Borgia, uncle to Titus, Pandora, and Damp and half brother to Signor Luciano Strega-Borgia, was attempting to appear as normal as possible despite his nightmarish appearance. The plastic surgery he'd undergone eight months before to reduce the size of his nose had been executed with disastrous consequences for both surgeon and patient. Immediately following the operation, the surgeon had been dropped to the bottom of the river Tiber, held fast on the riverbed by the simple device of having had his feet buried in a ton of concrete prior to immersion. The patient was on the waiting list for extensive corrective surgery to reinstate a human nose, instead of the ghastly rat-like obscenity that currently twitched and wobbled in the middle of his face. Don Lucifer di S'Embowelli Borgia had ordered the concrete overshoes in revenge for not only bungling his nose job, but also for the rat-tail that, post-surgery, he had discovered dangling from his rear, and the rattish squeakings that he now emitted every time he opened his mouth. . . .

  “Eek, eek squee?”

  The waitress's brow wrinkled. “I'm sorry, sir,” she said. “I didn't catch what you said.”

  “Squee eek, ‘Eek, eek squee?'” Don Lucifer jabbed his index finger at an item on the wine list.

  “The house red is Rioja de Toromerde,” the waitress explained. Then, lowering her voice to a whisper, confided, “I'd avoid that one like the plague—I wouldn't even use it to clean toilets. It's disgusting. How about a nice claret with your steak?”

  The Don squeaked his agreement, hoping the waitress would now disappear. This was torture, trying to communicate in high-pitched noises that made him sound like he needed oil, not wine. But worse was to come.

  “Now, sir. How would you like your steak?”

  “Eek ike ick aww.”

  “Raw, sir? Not rare? You mean raw, as in cold, uncooked?”

  “Eek.”

  “But—it's not a dish best eaten cold, sir. . . .”

  Don Lucifer brought his hand thudding down on the table. “Eekeek ike eek ishh esst eek'n aww!”

  The waitress retreated, clutching the menu to her chest like a shield. Charm school reject, that one. And ugly as sin. Looked like he'd lost an argument with a mincing machine. . . .

  Don Lucifer was all too aware of the effect his appearance had on most members of the general public. Cloistered away from humankind after his catastrophic surgery, he'd had plenty of time to bemoan his hideously altered reflection and plan his revenge. First the surgeon, he thought, and then, that item ticked off his “To Do” list, next—next comes my half brother, Luciano Strega-Borgia. Little lily-livered Luciano, who had the audacity to escape from the death trap I laid for him. Who managed, against impossible odds, to escape from a locked and burning room in my palazzo without leaving so much as a DNA smudge from his supposedly vaporized remains. . . . Luciano, whose eldest brat, Titus, is due to inherit the millions that I, Lucifer, was promised by my dying father. Luciano, whose meddling messed up the Borgia Inheritance, an unbroken chain of money (or so my dying father had said) that had passed down the male line for centuries since—since Italians ran this stupid little island.

  Hissing through his teeth, Don Lucifer began to write a list in the margin of his newspaper:

  Item first: he scribbled, Buy gun oil. He'd retrieved his beloved Beretta from the ashes of the palazzo, and it badly needed to be taken apart, oiled, and reassembled to restore it to its former deadly perfection.

  Item second: Reconnaissance. Had Luciano really escaped being incinerated? He needed to find out exactly who was currently living in StregaSchloss.

  Item third: Animals. He had the suspicion that Luciano kept pets, since all Christmas cards from his half brother bore the weird names of several individuals as well as those of the immediate family . . . probably guard dogs, he decided, so—

  Item fourth: Buy dog food for item the third.

  Item fifth: Buy flashlight—in case he did the job at night.

  Item sixth: Buy waterproof trousers and jacket—to protect his clothes from blood spatter, and finally—

  Item seventh: Assemble state-of-the-art incendiary device and enter detonation code into cell phone—

  “Your lunch, sir.” The waitress put a plate in front of him, adding, “Your raw steak, sir. Will that be all?”

  Don Lucifer waved her away with a dismissive squeak. Pushing the gruesome plate to one side, he continued planning his lethal assault on StregaSchloss, which at this stage appeared to involve nothing more sinister than a major shopping trip to Auchenlochtermuchty.

  “Your wine, sir.” The waitress reappeared with a bottle and a wineglass, both of which she placed in front of Don Lucifer. “Ochhh, you're not enjoying your steak, sir. A bit too bloody, is it? Shall I take it back to the kitchen and ask the chef to do something with it?”

  “Eek.”

  “Medium rare? Medium? Medium- to well-done? Well-done?”

  To each inquiry, the surly guest shook his head. Seizing his pen, the waitress waved it in front of his face. “Write it down. Tell me what you want the chef to do with it.”

  Snatching his pen back and stuffing his incriminating newspaper under his seat, Don Lucifer scribbled something on his napkin and held it up. The waitress peered at the pen marks bleeding into the linen.

  was the terse instruction written on the napkin. For some reason this one word filled her with foreboding, and she felt her flesh creep. Without another word, she picked up the plate and fled the dining room.

  O Sole Mio

  Luciano Strega-Borgia scraped the untouched remains of
lunch into the firebox of the range and slammed the door shut to prevent the smell escaping into the kitchen.

  “If you're sure I can't be of any assistance, sir . . .” Mrs. McLachlan untied her apron and hung it on a hook by the door to the kitchen garden.

  “Quite sure, Flora.” Signor Strega-Borgia smiled at the nanny. “Why not take Damp out for a walk before dinner? That way she'll work up an appetite and we can get on with our work without distractions.”

  “Dad, where d'you want these?” Pandora edged through the garden door, her arms laden with herbs.

  “On the table, and you can chop them with this.” Signor Strega-Borgia passed his daughter a seriously wicked knife and turned to see how his son was faring. Titus stood over a large stainless steel pot, stirring onions and garlic as if his life depended on it.

  “Not so violently, Titus. They're only vegetables, not mortal enemies. . . .”

  “Why are you cooking dinner tonight, Dad?” Pandora looked up from chopping oregano, brushing a stray clump of hair out of her eyes.

  “The rest of the household is indisposed.” Signor Strega-Borgia poured a mountain of flour onto the kitchen table and, after making a small indentation in the center, dropped twelve egg yolks into it. “Your mama is feeling nauseous. Marie Bain is sulking in her bedroom because none of us touched her kippers in raisin and rat-pee sauce; your mother's colleagues are all covered in bee stings—”

  “Hornets,” muttered Titus, “not bees. I saw them—”

  “Me too,” agreed Tock, crawling out from under the table and coming over to the range to peer into Titus's pot, adding under his breath, “And that's not all I saw.”

  “Pardon?” Titus looked down to where the crocodile put his front paw to his mouth and mimed, “Keep shtoom.”

  “Hornets? Where on earth did they come from?” Luciano Strega-Borgia wondered aloud as he rapidly worked the eggs into the flour with his hands, causing Pandora to regard him with horror.

  “Yeurrrrchhh,” she groaned. “Dad, that is just utterly gross. It looks like sick . . .”

  Secretly agreeing with his sister's assessment of the clotted mess on the kitchen table, Titus angled his body in Tock's direction and whispered, “What did you see?”

  “That witch,” Tock muttered. “Her with the ridiculous horse-drawn hearse. I'd opened the bathroom window to let the steam out after my bath and I saw her. Standing talking gibberish on the edge of the meadow, messing up that spell, turning flowers into hornets.”

  “Are you sure?” Titus stopped stirring and stared at Tock. “I mean, that's—that's evil. They're all covered in stings because of her.”

  “Yup,” Tock said. “I think she's batting for the other side.”

  “What? What d'you mean? What other side?”

  Tock's whisper was almost inaudible. “The side of Dark, not Light.”

  Titus paled. “You mean she's practicing Black Ma—”

  “Don't say it,” Tock hissed. “Walls have ears. I think something very nasty is going on. Haven't you humans noticed anything?”

  Titus thought of the overall strangeness of the past few days and nodded. “I thought it was just me,” he confessed. “I've been feeling . . . um, sort of . . . haunted . . . like there's something out to get me—”

  Signor Strega-Borgia looked up from kneading a lump of dough that was beginning to resemble something you could put in your mouth as opposed to hurl in the trash and said, “How are your onions doing, Titus?”

  “Um . . . yes . . . great. Soft and squishy and brownish,” Titus guessed, adding in a whisper, “What do you think we should do? Tell Dad?”

  “No. No way. When it comes to the odd behavior of student witches, your father's judgment is somewhat clouded. As far as he's concerned, Black Magic is just a darker shade of White, a tonal difference as opposed to a moral one. . . .” Tock sighed and raised his voice to a normal volume. “And speaking of clouded judgment, I'd say those onions were black, not brown.”

  “FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, TITUS!” Luciano roared. “Can't I even trust you to do a simple thing like brown an onion? How the heck are you ever going to be able to feed yourself when you leave home if you can't even carry out the most elementary of culinary tasks? At this rate, you're going to starve to death before you're thirty.”

  The knife slipped out of Pandora's hand and fell to the stone floor with a steely chinggg.

  The faces of both his children were ashen.

  “What on earth's the matter with you two?” Luciano pounded the lump of pasta dough with one fist, causing a cloud of flour to erupt around his hands. In the silence that followed, Tock sidled out the door to the kitchen garden, closing it quietly behind him.

  “Titus, caro mio.” Luciano clutched his forehead, instantly full of remorse. “I am sorry for shouting. I'm an idiot. If you don't ever want to cook, well . . . that's your decision. Your poppa's money will make sure you never need worry about cooking ever again. You'll be able to hire the best chef in Europe, should you wish—your only problem will be avoiding turning into a complete butterball in the process. . . .”

  Tears rolled down Titus's nose, landing with a hiss in the pot of blackened onions.

  “Dad—” Pandora tried to head her father onto safer conversational topics. “The herbs are all chopped . . . um . . . what d'you want me to do now?”

  Holding up a hand for silence, Luciano stepped straight into the verbal equivalent of quicksand.

  “How long now? About a week, Titus? I've arranged for one of the estate lawyers to come for dinner tonight, so we can have a little chat about where best to invest your money. I mean, you can't keep it in a piggy bank, can you?”

  Titus stared at his pan of spoiled onions as if it alone held the answer to all that ailed him.

  “Titus. For heaven's sake, lighten up.” Luciano threw his arms wide, narrowly missing Pandora's head. “Think about it: how many thirteen-year-olds do you know with so much money in the bank that they could buy a new car every year? Just off the interest alone? And not just any car; with that sort of money you could buy—”

  “An Aston Martin,” Titus said woodenly.

  “Please. Spare me. I'm Italian, remember?” Luciano made a derisory pffff sound. “Not an Aston Martin, no. A Ferrari, a Maserati, something with a bit of soul—”

  “Eughhh, don't mention sole,” Pandora interrupted, seizing the opportunity to halt her father's unwittingly tactless rantings. “If that was what Marie Bain made for lunch, then I want to be in a soul-free zone for the rest of my life. . . .”

  “Cars don't have souls,” muttered Titus, scraping burnt onions into the compost bucket and dropping the ruined pan into the sink with a crash. Behind him, Pandora gritted her teeth. She'd tried to help, but both her brother and father seemed intent on conversational suicide.

  “Heavens, child, do you have to be quite so literal?” Luciano abandoned his pasta dough in a mound on the table and headed for the pantry. “Titus, give me a hand here, would you?” He retrieved a stepladder from behind a flour bin and dragged it across to a wall of shelves stacked with homemade jams and chutneys, some of such venerable antiquity that they had turned black. Climbing up the steps and using the shelves to keep his balance, Luciano turned to check that he had his son's attention.

  “Look, Titus.” Luciano stretched up and seized a glass jam jar with its cloth cover held in place with yellow raffia. He peered at the handwritten label. “August 1989, Strawberry and Champagne Conserve—in your mother's illegible handwriting . . .”

  “So?” Titus glared up at his father.

  “So, Titus,” Luciano sighed, “the contents of this jar are almost as old as you are. Your mother and I picked these strawberries in the garden with you as a baby on my shoulders. In fact, if memory serves, with you dribbling down the back of my shirt and attempting to pull my hair out in handfuls.”

  “Mmm . . . ,” Titus mumbled, then, reasserting his adolescent need to prove that he found adult conversation deeply boring
, added, “And your point is?”

  “And my point is: this jar contains a memory of one of the happiest days of my life.” Luciano patted the jar fondly. “The weather was hot and dry, there wasn't a gnat in sight, your mother was wearing a white linen dress, I still had all my hair, my firstborn child was burbling on my back, and we were about to go down to the loch and eat strawberries and drink champagne. . . .”

  “So what's in the other jars?” Titus scowled up at the laden shelves in the pantry.

  “Heaps of things. There's half a shelf full of quince jelly made after Pandora was born and”—Luciano indicated a large blue-and-white china jar on a low shelf—“Rumtopf that we began after Damp arrived. We were turning into experts at preserving by then. Come to think of it, we were becoming pretty expert at babies, too.”

  Titus winced. Some things just didn't bear thinking about. . . . “Can I go now?” he muttered, gazing down at his shoes.

  “Titus”—Luciano climbed down the stepladder and sat heavily on the bottom rung—“nearly thirteen years have passed since I first held you in my arms. Nothing you do or say can change how I felt about you then, or now. You can act like you think I'm just the most terminally boring old fart it has ever been your misfortune to share a roof with, you can roll your eyes and pray that I'll just spontaneously cease to exist—but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that ever since you and your sisters came into our lives, we have been a family, and deny it if you must, this family is part of your soul.”

  “Yeah, Dad, but—”

  “Hear me out. So . . . we keep all these ancient jars of jam because they are each and every one a reminder of the importance of family. When you and your sisters have grown up and gone, your mother and I are going to work our way through all these jars one by one, remembering all the joys you brought us—”

  “Dad?” Titus could hardly get the words out. “Dad, there's something wrong. . . . It's . . . oh, it's just so weird. . . . I've got this horrible feeling—something awful's going to—”