by Tom Holt
‘Sod off,’ shrieked the first, silvery voice. ‘Get out of it before I set the dogs on you.’
Of course, said Fang to himself, she isn’t to know. That’s all right then.
‘I’m warning you. All right, then. Here, Buttercup, Popsy, Snowdrop! Kill!’
A yard or so to his left, the door creaked open and three large Rottweilers bounded out, ears back, tongues lolling. Fang let them get right up close and then, in his best parade-ground voice, barked out, ‘Atten-shun!’
The dogs skidded to a halt, lifting divots with their outstretched claws. By the time they came to rest, they were sitting up ramrod-straight, chests out, chins in, Oh-God what’ve-we-done expressions engraved on their stupid canine faces. Fang counted to five under his breath and said, ‘At ease,’ whereupon the dogs snapped like lock-components into a triangular crouch.
‘All right, as you were,’ he murmured, and the Rottweilers sloped hurriedly off into the tower. Fang had plenty of time to slip in after them before the doors clanged shut.
‘You there,’ he grunted. ‘Where’s the witch?’
The nearest dog clicked back to attention, raised its offside front paw and pointed to a spiral staircase. Fang nodded, murmured, ‘Carry on,’ and bounded up the stair before any of the trio of feeble doggy minds had a chance to evaluate the recent exchange. Bred-in-the-bone instinct was one thing, but personally he wouldn’t trust a dog called Snowdrop as far as he could sneeze it out of a blocked nostril.
Perhaps justifiably; somewhere near the top of the stairs, Silvery voice was yelling, ‘Buttercup! Popsy! What are you doing down there, you pathetic animals?’ with such venom that, if he were a dog (even a dog called Snowdrop), he’d obey its commands without a moment’s hesitation. Time, he decided, to get to the bottom of all this, find the witch and get out of here fast.
He turned a corner and found himself out in daylight again; and dead ahead of him, just turning away from the parapet, was the most beautiful girl in the world. Slim as a wand, with startlingly blue eyes, rosebud lips and golden hair that cascaded around her shoulders like the crystal waters of a mountain stream — Instinctively, Fang threw himself sideways, lunging for the slight cover of the doorframe. If he’d had to rely on purely human reflexes, he’d never have made it; as it was, he was showered by chips of flying stone as a twenty-round burst from the girl’s Uzi turned the frame and lintel of the doorway into gravel. Then there was a click, followed by a clatter as the discarded magazine hit the stone floor. Fang was up and out of the doorway before she had time to rack back the bolt, but he was still too slow. He could see her sweet face, and the snub barrel of the gun, behind the bowed shoulders of the ugly, wrinkled, hook-nosed, shit-scared old crone his tardiness had allowed her to use as a human shield.
‘Back off, Fido, or Granny gets it,’ the girl snarled. Then she lifted the gun and squinted down the barrel at him; he had a fleeting glimpse of a cornflower-blue eye along a runway of blued steel before his training and survival instinct sent him scampering back the way he’d just come.
Spiffing, he muttered to himself, as another fusillade of shots chiselled shrapnel out of the stonework inches from his head, a hostage situation. One fuck-up, and it’ll be the teddy-bears’ picnic all over again. He forced himself to stay calm. She had the hostage, the gun and the benefit of knowing the layout. Plus any other wee surprises she might have stockpiled up there, such as grenades. He, on the other hand…
…Had a matchbox.
Yes. Well. Put like that, it wasn’t exactly mutually assured destruction. But a matchbox, under these circumstances, was at least a three hundred per cent improvement on nothing at all. He fumbled in his pocket, found the box and slid open the lid, praying as he did so that in his recent displays of acrobatics he hadn’t contrived to squash its contents flat.
‘Get lost,’ hissed the elf.
‘Shut up,’ Fang reasoned, ‘and listen. Up there, there’s a fairytale princess with a machine gun. She’s holding a witch hostage. I need your help.’
From inside the recesses of the box came an unpleasant snickering noise. ‘I agree you need help,’ said the elf, ‘but since I don’t have a degree in severe personality disorders, probably not mine. Now bog off and leave me alone.’
‘I—’ Fang’s next few words were drowned by the ear-splitting roar of the Uzi, as its hail of lead sheared away another slice of the doorway. ‘I’ll make a deal,’ he said. ‘Do as I say and we’re quits. You can go. Free and clear. How about it?’
From inside the matchbox came a small, clear rude noise. Fang lost patience and knocked the box out over his open palm, somersaulting the elf into the fork between his index and middle fingers.
‘Ouch,’ screamed the elf, ‘you’re squashing me!’
‘I know,’ Fang replied, ‘but not nearly as much as I want to. Now listen.’
While he was telling the elf what to do, another clatter on the stone floor informed him that the fairytale princess had slammed in a new clip and was ready to resume demolition. ‘You got that?’ he hissed; then, without waiting for a reply, he straightened his fingers and blew hard. The elf was buffeted into the air like a fragment of gossamer and floated away, shrieking curses at him, out of sight.
‘You in the doorway,’ called out the silvery voice, ‘you got one chance. Come out now with your hands where I can see ‘em, and—’ The silvery voice broke off and turned into a fit of coughing that suggested that she was on at least forty a day; whereupon Fang hurled himself out of cover, lunged forwards, barged the witch out of the way and made a grab for the Uzi. He managed to get hold of it easily enough, but in the process — ‘AAAAaaaaaaaaaaah!’ said the silvery voice; and then there was a dull thud from somewhere down below. Laying the gun carefully on the floor, Fang stuck his head over the parapet and had a look, just in case she was hanging from a ledge doing Doppler-shift impersonations; he needn’t have worried. Far below he could see what looked like a Barbie doll that’d just been run over by a Mack truck. Fair enough, he muttered to himself; the cuter they are, the harder they fall. He turned back, and — ‘Oh for pity’s sake,’ he complained, as the crone prodded him in the tummy with the barrel of the Uzi. ‘I just rescued you, you senile old fool.’
‘True,’ the witch conceded, ‘which explains why I ain’t shot you. Yet,’ she added, tightening her arthritic forefinger on the trigger. ‘But you’ll have a reason for doin’ that, I dare say. Handsome princes don’t do nothing ‘cept for a reason.’
‘All right,’ Fang sighed wearily. ‘Stop poking me with that thing and I’ll tell you.’ He nodded towards the parapet. ‘Or we can do this the hard way,’ he added meaningfully.
The witch shuddered. ‘Ain’t no need to go making threats,’ she squawked. ‘I’m just a lonely, defenceless old woman tryin’ to take care of herself.’ Her eyes flicked towards the edge, and then back to Fang. ‘Say,’ she said, ‘how did you do that?’
Fang shook his head and grinned. It wasn’t such an impressive grin, now that he had a toothpaste-ad smile where a row of foam-flecked upper canines used to be, but he could still make it fairly unsettling. The old lady cursed and lowered the gun, though she didn’t hand it over.
‘I had help,’ Fang said. ‘Now there’s something I’d like you to—’
‘Not so fast,’ snapped the witch. ‘What kind of help would that be, exactly? Only…’
‘This kind, stupid!’ said a tiny shrill voice somewhere in the vicinity of Granny’s ear; and while she was looking frantically round to see where it had come from, Fang was able to reach across and take the gun away from her. Smirking, the elf hopped down off the top of her head and flitted like a small, tawdry moth on to Fang’s wrist. ‘You owe me,’ she said blithely. ‘Again. When this is all over, you’re going to have to buy me Unigate.’
‘I might just do that,’ Fang conceded. ‘Now then,’ he continued, hoisting the Uzi over his shoulder by its sling, ‘let’s stop clowning about and get some work done. You’re a witch
, right?’
‘Nothin’ wrong with that,’ grumbled the crone. ‘Used to be a decent living in these parts before—’
Fang looked at her closely. ‘Before what?’
The witch thought for a moment, then shrugged her coat-hanger shoulders. ‘Search me,’ she said. ‘You get to my age, you forgets things.’
Fang frowned; there was something tapping at the inside of an eggshell inside his mind, but he couldn’t locate it. He let it go. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘you’re a witch. You can do turning people into things?’
Another bony shrug. ‘Sure,’ the witch replied. ‘For a moment there, I thought you was goin’ to ask for something difficult.’
‘Big bad wolves?’
‘Easy as pissin’ in a pot,’ the old lady replied. ‘You ready?’
‘When you are.’
The witch nodded. ‘All done,’ she said. ‘There. Told you there wasn’t nothin’ to it.’
Fang looked down at his feet, then along his arms, then at his tummy. ‘I’m waiting,’ he said. ‘When are you going to—?’
‘Woof.’
He spun like a top. There beside him, glaring up at him with baleful red eyes, was the biggest, darkest, most sinister-looking wolf he’d ever seen in all his life. At the same moment, he realised that the elf was no longer perched on his wrist.
‘Oh,’ said the crone. ‘You meant turn you into a—’
‘Here’s the deal,’ growled Fang, as he jerked his head towards the parapet. ‘You turn her back into an elf and me back into a wolf, and in return I postpone your flying lesson. All right?’
‘All right,’ the witch grumbled. ‘I’ll do the elf first, they’re easier. You,’ she snarled, pointing a long and disgusting fingernail, ‘quit being a wolf. See?’ she added, as the wolf was suddenly sucked back into a tiny elf-shaped packet, like fifty cubic feet of grey jelly being squidged out through a broken window in a pressurised airliner cabin. ‘No sweat. You’ll be that bit harder, of course, but— Just a minute.’ The old lady was staring at him closely. ‘I know you,’ she said. ‘You’re him, aintcher? You’re the big bad wolf, I’d know them nasty little eyes anywhere. What you doin’ dressed as a handsome prince anyhow?’
Fang sighed. ‘Believe me, I wish I knew. But what’s that got to do with—?’
The witch took a step backwards. ‘See you in hell first,’ she hissed, reaching up for her black pointy hat and pulling out a four-inch hatpin. ‘I ain’t doin’ no deals with no Wolfpack finks.’ She swept off the hat; and from under it cascaded an enormously long braid of hair, all the colour of ripe corn (except that the roots needed doing) ‘So long, copper,’ she hissed, as she quickly looped the end of the braid round a free-standing gargoyle and secured it in an elegant timber-hitch. ‘I may be a wicked witch, but I ain’t that wicked.’
Before Fang could do anything about it, she’d hopped up on to the parapet, both hands full of the braid. He tried to make a grab at her but missed; so instead he caught hold of the braid and began hauling on it to pull her back. Too late; the fine-textured rope slipped through his hands, burning them painfully, and just as he’d managed to get a more secure grip and was about to try again, he heard from below the sharp metallic sound of a pair of scissors closing. When he tugged on the rope, it came up at him like a jumping salmon, with nothing on the end except a black velvet toggle and some dandruff.
Chapter 6
In her more morbid moments, Sis had occasionally speculated about what death would be like, and had managed to come up with some fairly revolting scenarios; but nothing she’d managed to dream up was nearly as depressing as what was (apparently) the truth, namely that death is just like life, only more so. She wasn’t happy with the discovery. Apart from being a horrendous nightmare, it was a rotten swizzle, presumably part of some cheese-paring economy drive. Hopelessly short-sighted and doomed to failure, she couldn’t help feeling. Care and rehabilitation in the community might work for some kinds of physical handicap and mental illness, but expecting it to sort out death was going a bit far.
‘Eeeek!’ she therefore said; and also, ‘Yuk!’ Then she opened her eyes again.
The view was more or less identical to the last thing she’d seen before what she’d taken to be her last moment on Earth; a messy, debris-strewn crater where the Three Bears’ Cottage had been before it got blown up, with herself and the wicked queen in it. No past life flashing in front of her eyes, no long dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, absolutely zip special effects; and here it all was again, the only apparent difference being the camera angle (she was looking down on it, though apparently from no great height) and a feeling of giddy dizziness which she sincerely hoped wasn’t permanent.
‘There you are,’ said a voice below her.
‘I hate this,’ Sis replied without looking down. ‘I want a transfer. Either send me somewhere nicer or let me go back. And,’ she added, remembering a tactic that always seemed to work for her mother, ‘I demand to speak to the manager, at once.’
‘What are you talking about?’
It was then that she realised that the voice was familiar. ‘They got you too, then,’ she said gloomily. ‘No offence, but I really hope that doesn’t mean we’re going to be stuck here together for ever and ever. I mean, I’m sure you feel the same way too, so if we both file a formal complaint to whoever’s in charge here…’
‘Oh do be quiet,’ sighed the wicked queen, ‘you’re starting to get on my nerves. And get down out of that ridiculous tree. I’m getting a crick in my neck just looking at you.’
Carefully Sis played back the last few sentences of the conversation, finally reaching the conclusion that the most important word in them, quite possibly the most significant word she’d ever heard in her life so far, was ‘tree’. Then she looked up.
‘I’m not dead, am I?’ she said.
‘Not unless they’ve changed the entrance requirements since I last read the prospectus,’ replied the wicked queen. ‘While you’re up there, see if you can’t spot a left-foot bright red court shoe with a small brass buckle and a two-inch heel. It’s got to be around here somewhere, unless of course it was totally vaporised in the explosion.’
As soon as the news had seeped through the insulating layer of shock and befuddlement that seemed to be wrapped round her brain, Sis yipped with joy. ‘We survived the blast,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that amazing? I was absolutely sure I was dead.’
‘Another thing you’ve got wrong, then,’ the queen said, resignedly taking off her one remaining shoe. ‘When finally you do die, be sure to bequeath your collection of bloody silly mistakes to the nation. It’d be a shame if they all got split up and sold off separately.’
‘How do I get down from this tree?’
The queen snorted in exasperation. ‘For the last time,’ she said, ‘I am not a set of encyclopaedias. How should I know? Try wriggling around and leaving the rest to gravity.’
‘I can’t do that. I’ll fall and hurt myself.’
‘And what a tragedy that would be, to be sure. Look, if it’s any help, you appear to be hanging from a branch by the belt of your pinafore. Now you’re in full possession of the relevant data, surely the rest of it ought to be easy.’
Sis didn’t seem to think much of that; she waved her arms, realised that that wasn’t a sensible thing to do and started yelling ‘Help!’ very loudly. The wicked queen was about to throw the other shoe at her when a thought tiptoed across her mind, leaving in its wake a big smile.
‘Something’s just occurred to me,’ she said. ‘Do you like it up that tree?’
‘What? No, of course not. Don’t be silly.’
‘So being up that tree is causing you unhappiness, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And another word for unhappiness,’ the queen continued, clapping her hands together joyfully, ‘is distress. So that’s all right,’ she added, sitting down and making herself as comfortable as the circumstances allowed. ‘Now all we have to do is wa
it.’
Sis stopped yelling and shot her an unpleasant look. ‘Wait?’ she said. ‘What, for the tree to die and fall over? Or are you expecting a herd of kindly giraffes?’
‘Stop wittering and use your brain,’ the queen replied sternly. ‘In distress. A damsel. You. Someone ought to be along—’ She paused, looked up at the sun, and calculated. ‘Any minute now,’ she concluded cheerfully. ‘And with any luck, that’ll carry us on to the next stage in the story. Credit where credit’s due, my less-than-stoical little friend, just for once you’ve done something useful.’
‘What are you—? Oh, I see.’
The queen nodded. ‘Narrative patterns,’ she said. ‘Every time there’s a damsel in distress, there has to be a hero to rescue her. Newton’s second law, as modified for a narrative environment. The only conceivable way it might not work is for you to fall out of that tree before he gets here, so for pity’s sake keep still. Though,’ she added confidently, ‘even if you were to fall out of the tree, you’d be sure to break your leg, which would also qualify as distress, so it wouldn’t be a complete disaster, at that.’
A quarter of an hour later, the queen said, ‘Won’t be long now.’
Half an hour later, the queen said, ‘He’ll be here any minute, I’m sure. The hold-up must be something to do with the systems being down…’ Her words tailed away as the painfully obvious flaw poked its head up through the hole in her logic and stuck its tongue out at her.
‘Absolutely,’ Sis said. ‘The systems are down. More than that, as far as I can see most of them are back to front. Which means,’ she went on, ‘that somewhere out there in the forest there’s a knight in shining armour standing on a kitchen table waiting for us to come along and shoo away a mouse. It’s all cocked up, isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily,’ the queen replied, with rather more optimism than conviction. ‘There’s really no way of knowing. All we can do is be patient and…’