Pure Dead Brilliant

by Debi Gliori

  The pantry door opened and Signora Strega-Borgia tiptoed in. “Don't mind me,” she whispered. “I've just suddenly been overcome with an unaccountable desire for some of that date-and-banana pickle we made last year. . . . D'you know where Mrs. McLachlan put it, Luciano?”

  “You must be feeling better, Baci. You certainly look better.” Luciano stood up and wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders. “But pickle? Are you sure? Why not wait until dinner? We're making pasta—that is, once Titus has told me what's eating him.”

  Signora Strega-Borgia plucked a jar off one of the shelves and, after a cursory glance at the label, peeled off its cloth cover and sniffed the contents appreciatively. “Mmmm. Delicious . . .” She dipped a finger into the jar and withdrew a sticky lump of pickle which she promptly swallowed.

  “Eughhhh. Mu-umm.” Titus squinched his eyes shut in an attempt to block out the revolting sight.

  Signora Strega-Borgia opened the door to leave and then paused, as if remembering something faintly unpleasant. “I'll leave you guys to it,” she mumbled in between mouthfuls. “Don't forget that lawyer chap is coming at eight and he doesn't eat meat, tomatoes, garlic, or onions.”

  “What does he eat, then?” Luciano complained. “Supper is meat, tomatoes, garlic, and onions.”

  “Who cares? Let him starve,” Signora Strega-Borgia said with uncharacteristic venom, closing the door behind her.

  “Doesn't she like lawyers?” Titus said. “Or is it him in particular?”

  “Just him. Your mother loathes anyone who has anything to do with your grandfather's estate.”

  “Why? What's wrong with it?”

  “Let's just say that poppa, your grandfather, may he rest in peace, was a businessman with some rather unorthodox methods of dealing with his clients.” Luciano turned back to the shelves and replaced the jar of jam.

  “What d'you mean, ‘unorthodox methods'? Come on, Dad, you have to tell me. After all, I am involved as well, with . . . with Grandfather's money and all that inheritance stuff.”

  Attempting to think of a reply, Luciano picked up a squat glass jar and tried to remember what was inside it.

  “Dad? What exactly did my grandfather do to make all that money? What was his job?”

  Peering into the murky depths of the jar, Luciano took a deep breath. “Only your mother and I know about this. And one other, but he may well be dead now. Titus, you must never, ever breathe a word of this to another living soul. Some things are best kept hidden. Your grandfather, Don Chimera di Carne Borgia, was a mafioso. A very big and powerful one. In the criminal underworld of his time he was the big cheese, il grande parmigiano, with big businesses, politicians, royalty, and even heads of state forming corrupt links in his chain of influence. . . .”

  “The Borgias must break the chain,” Titus whispered, recalling the final line of his terrifying e-mail.

  “The Borgias are a chain. We are, Titus. You and I. The money can only pass down the male line. Thank heaven your mother and sisters are exempt.”

  “But all that money . . . Where did he get it?” Titus had the sneaking suspicion that his grandfather hadn't saved it up, lire by lira, in an old fruit jar.

  “He killed for it—oh, not with his own hands. No. Not personally, but he gave the order to kill, and one of his henchmen would do the dirty work on his behalf. He also ran casinos and dog tracks, was involved in illicit trades on the stock market, owned diamond mines, smuggled opium, and probably had a finger in every dodgy pie imaginable. . . .”

  “So, it's poisoned? Tainted?”

  “The money? Oh yes, but most money is. Even if you make your money by honest means, the minute you bank it you're indirectly involved in all sorts of unsavory practices—or at least your money is.”

  “But, Dad. Why me? Why did you allow him to give that money to me? You knew all this—stuff and you still let him go ahead.”

  “Titus, I loved him. He was my father. That doesn't mean I forgave what he did. I hated what he did. I ran away from home, left the country of my birth because of it. But when I heard he was dying . . . I—you were newborn—I took the first flight to Italy to show you to him . . . to show him that out of evil can come great goodness—”

  “But you should never have allowed him to give me the MONEY!” Titus's voice rose to an anguished howl. “You knew it was blood money! Yet you allowed him—”

  “He died two minutes after the will was signed.” Luciano's face was devoid of color and expression. “It was the first time I'd seen him in over twenty years, and he died in my arms. Titus, I would have allowed him to do anything. It was his last wish. The man on that bed wasn't a powerful criminal mastermind, he was just my poppa, an old man that I loved . . . despite it all. . . .”

  “Dad . . . ,” Titus whispered. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”

  “No, Titus. You are right,” Luciano interrupted, waving a hand for silence. “On the day my father died, I did what I'm always accusing your mother of doing. I didn't think. And now, here we are, and I've told you something you'd rather not know, putting you in the horrible position of having to decide what on earth to do with all that money. . . . You could always give it away to charity if you just want to get rid of it.”

  “Get rid of it,” Titus mumbled. “Destroy it, for it will destroy all who seek to possess it . . . destroy it.”

  The glass jar slipped out of Luciano's grip and plummeted to the floor, exploding on the flagstones with a crash. At once the floor was awash in blood-colored liquid and broken glass. Whatever had been preserved in the jar had long since decomposed, its tattered remains resembling some unidentifiable human organ.

  Luciano and Titus looked at each other, aghast, both wondering exactly what it was they were now standing in and thinking how apt it was to be paddling in what looked like gore, given their recent conversation.

  “Oh lord,” moaned Luciano, peering at his spattered shoes.

  “Don't move,” said Titus. “I'll get a brush,” and leaping out of the pantry, he ran past Pandora and out into the corridor, heading for the broom cupboard.

  To his surprise one of his mother's guests was already there, raking through the various brushes and mops, searching for something that, judging by the hissing and muttering coming from her hooded figure, wasn't there. She was oblivious to everything in her effort to find whatever it was that she'd lost. Titus cleared his throat to announce his presence. The witch spun round with a snarl, affording Titus a glimpse of something so feral that he nearly shrieked.

  “Oh, my heavens! What a fright you gave me! Didn't your precious nanny ever teach you not to sneak up on people like that?” Fiamma d'Infer rearranged her face into an approximation of a smile and ran a hand through her hair. “So . . . ,” she purred, taking Titus's stunned silence for normal teenage sulkiness. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “We haven't got a cat,” Titus muttered. “Excuse me. I need to get a broom from the cupboard.”

  “Be my guest.” Fiamma pressed herself against the wall, allowing Titus just enough room to squeeze past her. Under her watchful eyes he felt his flesh creep. As he reached out for a long-handled brush, Fiamma murmured, “I don't think so. That one's Hecate's and I promise you it's got a major problem with its steering, not to mention its brakes . . . and we wouldn't want the young about-to-be inheritee to be wiped out in an avoidable broomstick accident, would we? At least not just yet . . .”

  She paused and, pushing past Titus, grabbed a larger broom and thrust it at him. “Take this one with my compliments. Totally safe, state-of-the-art ABS, enhanced twig-ruddering, twin air bags—”

  “Air bags? On a broomstick?” Titus couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing. “I suppose now you'll tell me it runs on unleaded and does zero to sixty in two seconds? Actually, what I'm after is a broom to sweep the floor with, not to fly on.”

  Avoiding Fiamma's offering, Titus grabbed what he fervently hoped was a bog-standard, wood-and-bristle, floor-sweeping brush and, without s
aying good-bye, bolted back to the kitchen.

  Tarantella Spills the Beans...

  The grandfather clock in the hall chimed six times as Mrs. McLachlan let herself and Damp in the front door. “Perfect timing, pet,” murmured the nanny, lifting the little girl onto the settle to remove her wellies. As she undid the zipper on Damp's jacket, the clock gave a deep and resonant twongg and began to chime again.

  “Oh dear.” Mrs. McLachlan hoisted the child up and made for the kitchen, pausing to peer at the clock's face as it continued to chime in what appeared to be a fit of temporal hysterics. Its filigreed hands were rotating in a counterclockwise direction that boded ill for its internal mechanism. Mrs. McLachlan checked her wristwatch and tsked.

  “Heavens, the battery must be dead,” she muttered, crossing to the telephone and dialing the number for the time. In her arms, Damp reached out for the porcelain jar of pens kept on the hall table—for the express purpose of jotting down telephone messages but in reality used for doodling on the telephone directory during boring phone calls. Mrs. McLachlan immediately shifted Damp to her other hip, thus placing the pens out of the child's reach, and, patting her reprovingly on the nose, listened as the connection was made.

  “—the time, sponsored by cccchhtssst will be sshttpssckshh precisely.”

  Mrs. McLachlan sighed and waited for the recording to advance to the next time.

  “—the time, sponssssht by accupshhhht—ssss—twenty-five and pssss seconds.”

  “Oh, for heaven's sake,” Mrs. McLachlan groaned. “The phone's not working very well, is it?”

  “—the time, sponsored by ppppssssschhhhhh— Please replace the handset and try again.”

  Mrs. McLachlan dropped the receiver in its cradle and bore Damp off to the kitchen. Opening the door, she was greeted by a mouthwatering smell and the sight of Marie Bain sitting at the far end of the kitchen table, idly picking her ears with a pencil stub as she pored over the crossword in the newspaper. The sink was clear of dishes and a stack of pasta bowls sat on the warming plate of the range. Blue-and-white china platters of salad were lined up by the window, and someone had taken the trouble to wrap blue linen napkins round each individual place setting of cutlery, tying them in place with yellow raffia.

  “Very nice, dear,” Mrs. McLachlan said approvingly.

  Marie Bain looked up from the paper and removed a pencil from one ear, wiping it on her sleeve. She gathered her pinched features into a frown. “Ees Eetalian, zat. Anyone can do eet. Eet takes ze real culinary genius to create Frrrrench food. . . .”

  “I'm sure you're right, dear,” Mrs. McLachlan agreed mildly. “Do you know when dinner is to be served? My watch doesn't appear to be working.”

  The cook rolled up the grease-spotted sleeve of her cardigan and peered at a tiny watch on her wrist. “Mon Dieu,” she tutted. “My hands haff fallen oeurf. . . .”

  Mrs. McLachlan blinked rapidly and then realized that Marie Bain was referring to the hands of her watch rather than the two red-knuckled appendages that poked out of the frayed sleeves of her cardigan. Mentally logging the cook's watch onto the growing list of non-functioning StregaSchloss timepieces, Mrs. McLachlan bore Damp upstairs to check the time with her Alarming Clock.

  Closeted in the library in the company of his father and the estate lawyer, Titus was uncomfortably aware of loud grumblings coming from his stomach. The library windows were open onto the lawn, and in the warm evening air a distant sound of laughter could be heard coming from the meadow, where Signora Strega-Borgia and Pandora were playing against Ffup and Tock at badminton. The faint aroma of singed feathers indicated that the dragon had incinerated a shuttlecock in her enthusiasm for the game.

  Titus sighed as he watched his father and the lawyer riffling through boxes of papers, all stamped with the distinctive Borgia crest. In the dusty silence of the library, the digestive process going on inside Titus's stomach was embarrassingly loud. Titus's eyes roamed around the room, desperately seeking to fix his gaze upon something that might provide more entertainment than watching adults shuffle bits of paper from one side of a desk to the other. His attention was caught by a familiar hairy leg waving from behind the half-open door of the mantel clock.

  Ughhh . . . that hideous tarantula again, he thought, watching in disgust as the leg curled and uncurled like a beckoning finger. . . .

  Fed up with being ignored in her efforts to gain Titus's attention, Tarantella made an exasperated tchhh noise and dragged herself closer to the light. This entailed moving a thimbleful of brandy (thoughtfully supplied by Multitudina for its postoperative analgesic effect), a small stack of miniature leather-bound books, and a sinister pile of bloodstained dressings. Negotiating past these was painful, and by the time Tarantella made eye contact with Titus, she was exhausted. She watched as he stood up, yawned, and walked over to the mantelpiece. Peering round the edge of the clock door, Tarantella realized that they were not alone, and she slumped back onto her sickbed, toppling the brandy thimble as she did so.

  “Auuukkkk!” she wailed, as the alcohol burned a fiery trail along her recently stitched wound. “Aaaargh, ow, ouch, OW!” she shrieked, vaulting out of the clock in her desperation to put some distance between herself and the source of her agony.

  “Aaagh, yeurrrrrch, no!” squeaked Titus, as the twitching tarantula landed in his hair and immediately clung on with all her might.

  “Titus, for heaven's sake, we're trying to concentrate.” Signor Strega-Borgia looked up from the paper mountain teetering in front of himself and the lawyer and removed his reading glasses with a sigh. “What is it?”

  Titus was standing with his back to his father, so Luciano was unable to witness the expression on his face, which was probably just as well, since Titus looked as if he were about to expire from sheer terror. To add to his nightmare, Tarantella had scuttled down his face and was currently clamping his mouth shut in the furry grip of all seven of her remaining legs.

  “Shhhh,” she hissed. “Don't scream. Just make some excuse and get me out of here.” The tarantula released Titus's lips and dropped down the inside of his T-shirt.

  “Ughhh . . . ahhh . . . got to . . . got to—got to go to the bathroom,” Titus squawked. He fled from the library and stumbled along the corridor to the family bathroom, where, after locking the door, he tore his shirt off, bundling Tarantella up in its folds and grabbing the showerhead for maximum protection.

  “Right, spider-thing. One false move and I turn on the power shower,” he said, restraining his desire to stamp on his discarded shirt. Tarantella dragged herself out onto the bathroom tiles and blinked up at Titus towering above her, shower-head trembling in his hands.

  “Listen up, boy-thing, and put that ridiculous hose down. Believe me, being up close and personal with you was every bit as painful for me as it was for you—” The tarantula broke off, looking down at her abdomen, where a trickle of bloodstained fluid was seeping from beneath a soggy dressing. “Oh lordy, I've sprung a leak. . . . Pass me a bit of toilet paper, would you?”

  Titus reluctantly replaced the showerhead and bent down to examine Tarantella. “You're bleeding,” he gasped, his face turning white. “Did I do that? Heck—I'm really sorry. I never meant to hurt you, it's just . . .”

  “It's just that you can't stand me and wish I was dead, isn't it? Nothing major, nothing I should feel too sensitive about. . . . Pass me something to plug the leak before I terminally exsanguinate.”

  Titus tore off an extravagant length of toilet paper and passed it over to the spider. “What—what happened? How did I manage to hurt you so badly? Oh no. You've lost a leg. I'm really, really sor—”

  “Do shut up,” Tarantella snapped, waving huffily at the hillock of toilet paper in front of her. “What am I supposed to do with all this? I asked for a bandage and you provide an entire Emergency Room.”

  “Sorry. Sorry, so sorry, I'm really—”

  “Spare me. We haven't got all night, you know. Stop apologizing, tear me
off a wee bit of toilet paper, and listen very carefully because this is very important.”

  As Titus improvised a tiny dressing from a quarter sheet of toilet paper, folded up until it was the size of Damp's smallest fingernail, Tarantella told her reluctant nurse about what she'd overheard in the guest bathroom just before being attacked and mutilated.

  “You're kidding.” Titus gasped, dropping the tiny wadded dressing, which caused it to slowly unfold once more.

  “Oh, sigh. Do I look like I'm kidding? Do you think this is fake blood? I mean, I've heard of method acting, but ripping one's own limbs off for no better reason than thespian verisimilitude seems a tad . . . excessive.”

  “It's not that.” Titus caught himself in time. “I mean, Fiamma trying to kill you is awful, but . . . it's terrifying. Everything you've just told me—the mask she wears, the false teeth, the feet—her tail. What is she? And what's the Chronostone she was going on about? And who is the ‘last male soul' and the ‘baby magus'? What's going on, Tarantella?”

  The spider sighed and examined her leaking wound. “What's going on is that I am bleeding to death while you are flapping your lips, dear boy. You'd make a lousy nurse. . . .”

  “Oh lord—sorry, sorry, sorry.” Titus attempted once more to fold the tiny sheet of paper.

  “There you go again.” Tarantella covered her eyes and heaved a sigh. “Let's take your questions one at a time, shall we? ‘What is she?' you squawk. Um, let me see, she's masked in makeup to disguise the fact that either she's thousands of years old or else has had an awfully hard life . . . wears false teeth for the same reasons . . . um, fake feet—well, if you had two cloven hooves you'd probably wear false feet, too—unless, that is, you were a pig, in which case you'd acquire two more and wear them with pride. Let's see, forked tail? Oh gosh. What animal has cloven hooves and a forked tail. Gosh and golly, that's a tough one. . . . Any ideas, team?”