Pure Dead Frozen Read online

  Isagoth clutched his head in his hands and nearly wept. Four hours. Four miserable, deafening, ghastly, head-mangling, nerve-grating hours during which this repulsive leech of a human child had sucked down four times its own cubic capacity in warmed-over cow juice. Four hours, and fourteen diaper changes too. After the first fecal assault, Isagoth had learned fast. He’d stuffed the squelching infant inside his jacket and left the hotel to comb the shops of Auchenlochtermuchty in search of poo-containment pants. A bemused assistant in the mini-market had steered him in the direction of disposable diapers, and Isagoth had purchased what he’d innocently assumed to be a lifetime’s supply. Now, unfolding the last diaper in the packet, he stifled a howl of despair. This, he decided, was simply the pits. He’d had no idea what humans went through when they were insane enough to procreate. That they should willingly put themselves through childbirth and its gruesomely milk-and feces-stained aftermath was simply unbelievable. Isagoth gazed at the baby, aghast that something so small and weak could possibly make so much noise.

  “Please,” he begged. “Stop! Desist! ENOUGH!” He picked up the child, unwittingly setting off a slow-wave motion deep within its infant gut. Still Baby Borgia wailed, batting at the demon’s face with tiny fists, drawing his little legs up to his distended tummy in the universal baby signal for being in possession of copious amounts of gas.

  “Hush, shush, wheesht, SHHHHHH,” muttered Isagoth, entirely oblivious to the meaning of universal baby signals and regarding the baby’s drawn-up legs as proof positive that it was indeed a toad. He clutched the wailing blob under one arm as he struggled back into his jacket, patting his pockets to ensure that he had the keys for the car. “Let’s hit the high street, toad-child,” Isagoth said under his breath; then, opening the bedroom door and heading out into the public spaces of the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms, in a voice meant for public consumption, “More diapers, eh, my dear little Hertzy-Pops?” And fixing an approximation of an I’ve-been-up-all-night-with-this-baby-so-don’t-even-think-about-talking-to-me expression on his face, he took the stairs three at a time, causing the milk-and-air mixture wallowing around in the baby’s stomach to froth up like yeast. The child’s redoubled wails echoed round the hotel, drawing disapproving grimaces from a quartet of crusty colonels playing a rubber of bridge in the residents’ lounge.

  “Will you be joining us for DINNER TONIGHT?” yelled the receptionist, struggling to make herself heard above the baby’s shrieks. Unsurprisingly, Isagoth didn’t respond, not having heard a word. Unsurprisingly, the receptionist didn’t repeat her invitation, having no wish to spend any more time than strictly necessary within earshot of the wailing baby. She watched without interest as Isagoth stepped into the revolving doors leading out to the parking lot and then perked up a fraction as the glass door suddenly turned white.

  Trapped inside a transparent wedge of revolving door, Isagoth had inadvertently squeezed the baby’s abdomen as he pushed onward through a half revolution. The baby stopped in mid-shriek and, with an expression of deepest relief, erupted. Before Isagoth could duck, flee, or even point the infant’s head in a different direction, he found himself unaccountably covered from collar to belt in what looked like his own weight in sour-smelling cottage cheese. In his arms, the now-diminished baby gave a final dainty little belch by way of epilogue and immediately fell fast asleep.

  Babies, 2; Demons, 0.

  “Have ah no seen youse on TV?”

  “YES. POSSIBLY. TAKE MY BAG, WOULD YOU?”

  “Why? Where’re youse wantin’ to go, like?”

  S’tan sighed deeply. This little excursion was turning out to be an epic voyage on a par with Columbus’s trip to the Americas. Scotland had turned out to be an awfully long way away from the BBC in London. So far away that the first taxi driver had refused point-blank to drive Him there, dropping Him off outside Terminal One at Heathrow Airport and suggesting that He catch a plane instead. Consequently He’d had to stand in queues and endure the rigors of business-class travel, at every stage of which He’d been forced to sign autographs and shake hands with His adoring public. And now, in Scotland, still with a long journey ahead, it was beginning to look like He was expected to converse with this dreadful taxi driver all the way to His destination.

  “So, whit brings a dead-famous bloke like youse up here, eh?”

  “I’M THINKING OF MAKING A KILLING IN ARGYLL.” S’tan met the taxi driver’s eyes with the kind of stare that carried a subliminal KEEP OFF warning. Insensitive clod that he was, the driver paid no attention.

  “Zat right, eh? How’re youse gonny dae that? I could use a few tips, me. Wishta wis clever like youse. See, when wese get tae where youse wanty go, I’d be dead chuffed if youse’d gie me your autograph. Ah really liked your recipie fir boiled pig testicles in yon fancy wine, eh no? Pure dead brilliant, so it wis. The wifey made it fir me the it her night an’ it wis jis magic, so it was—”

  The driver had his back turned to S’tan and, unfortunately for him, the parking lot was temporarily deserted, so there were no witnesses to what happened next.

  The demon sprang forward and slammed the lid of the trunk shut. There was a cut-off scream followed by a muffled thud; then the driver’s headless body collapsed in a heap at S’tan’s feet. Staggering back from the car, S’tan at first couldn’t comprehend how He’d made such a ghastly mistake. He’d only intended to knock the taxi driver out, not decapitate him. Minutes later, speeding along the motorway, sitting behind the wheel and humming along with a tune on the taxi’s radio, S’tan was feeling positively tip-top. He swerved to overtake a Mercedes with blacked-out windows that had been crawling along at a snail-like ninety-five miles an hour, and nearly hugged Himself with glee.

  The Chronostone was back. Somehow it had returned to Earth—He didn’t care how or why; just the mere fact of its being within range was enough. The minute He’d slammed the taxi’s trunk shut, He’d known. Such a surge of power had flowed through Him that He almost felt Himself crackle with energy. He could feel it. Hell, He could practically see its force radiating from His fingertips like spokes on a wheel. His brain fizzed with ideas and He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that nothing could stand in His way. Not now. Not with the stone back on Earth, radiating power like a malign reactor, filling Him with its raw energy. Without it, He’d been reduced to a pale shadow of His former Vileness. But now…

  First, the deal with Don Lucifer. Even though he was the First Minister of the Hadean Executive, S’tan wasn’t about to renege on a pact. After all, Don Lucifer had kept his side of the bargain, pulling strings and greasing palms to get Him His cookery show on TV, so S’tan was going to do His bit. He was going to wipe out the Borgia brother, closely followed by Isagoth, the incompetent assassin. Then another attempt to locate the exact whereabouts of the Chronostone, followed by a triumphant return to Hades to sort out the traitors who said He was past His sell-by date. Perhaps if He wasn’t too tired by then, He might sow the seeds for a major war on Earth as well. It had been a while, after all. And with the ear of the nation via His cookery show, it would be risibly easy to brainwash His viewers into doing just about anything He desired. After all, He had persuaded them all to butcher cows, pigs, and sheep and devour their unmentionable parts, so how hard could it be to persuade them to butcher each other? Maybe even do it live on camera? Reality butchery? Now there was an idea.

  Absorbed in His own brand of S’tanic darkness, plotting mankind’s demise, S’tan paid no attention whatsoever to the Mercedes with blacked-out windows, which followed him like a shadow; not even when, like Him, it took the seldom-used B-road out of Auchenlochtermuchty toward the StregaSchloss estate.

  The same could not be said for the occupants of the Mercedes. All three of the men inside it were paying very close attention to S’tan’s taxi as it sped along the track up ahead. However, this was for no other reason than the fact that the taxi was blocking the road. The track leading to StregaSchloss was far too narrow to permit overtaking
, except at infrequent passing places where the rutted track widened just enough to permit the passage of two vehicles, either traveling in different directions or one pulling over and allowing the other to overtake. Problem was, S’tan’s taxi wasn’t doing the decent thing and pulling over, and consequently, the mood within the Mercedes was turning ugly. Of the car’s two passengers, the one in the rear was by far the more trigger-happy. Desperate to demonstrate his impeccable marksmanship, he repeatedly flicked off the safety catch on his gun and squinted down its barrel, unconsciously licking his lips as he lined up the target.

  “Eh, Santino, d’you wanta me to blow outta its tires?”

  “No.”

  “Aw, c’mon. Maybe you letta me take the driver outta the picture, huh? Whaddya think?”

  “No, Bruno.”

  Bruno subsided in the backseat, pouting like a thwarted toddler. Ahead, as the taxi bounced and swerved along the track, waves of muddy water and slushy snowmelt sprayed up out of potholes, and huge gritty droplets hit the windshield of the Mercedes with a loud splat. At this, the otherwise silent passenger in the front would utter a piercing squeak of displeasure, and Santino the driver would use the wipers to clear their view once more.

  “Hey. Santino. Whaddya say we ram this joker offa the road, huh?”

  “No, Bruno. You think I’m gonna risk hurting my car? You think I wanna scrape my paintwork? Benda my fenda?” The driver’s voice was rising higher with each question, and to Bruno’s alarm, Santino twisted round in his seat to stare straight at him—which meant that he’d completely taken his eyes off the ro—

  “EEK eek IP IP!”

  Santino spun back round just in time to avoid plowing the car straight into a line of ancient oaks marking the outermost boundary of the StregaSchloss estate. The Mercedes skidded through an open wrought-iron gate, ignoring the sign warning off trespassers, the car’s brake lights flashing red as Santino brought the steering under control once more.

  “Sorry, boss,” he said, darting a sideways glance to where Don Lucifer di S’Embowelli Borgia sat rigidly in the passenger seat, displaying less animation than a sack of potatoes. In truth, Santino had privately decided that Don Lucifer looked exactly like a prosperous heavyweight boxer who’d suffered a catastrophic encounter with a rocket-propelled rodent. Right in the middle of the Don’s face, where one might reasonably expect to find a nose, was a long, twitchy, bewhiskered snout, looking for all the world as if a rat had burst, at great speed, straight through Don Lucifer’s face, traveling from the inside out. None of the Don’s employees, from his gun-toting bodyguards to his tailor, were ever permitted to refer to his rat snout or to make any mention of the terrible medical blunder that had turned a routine surgical procedure into what was coyly termed “a maxillofacial mutilation with rodent complications.”

  Now, to Santino’s discomfiture, the Don’s nose was twitching nonstop, hinting at some deep volcanic rage bubbling just below the surface of that impeccably tailored suit. Praying that when it erupted, the rage wouldn’t be directed at him, Santino drove on, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the car ahead, so that when S’tan abruptly turned onto a wide sweep of rose quartz and slammed on His brakes, Santino followed suit, the two cars coming to a standstill, nose to tail, right outside the front door of StregaSchloss.

  The Portable Portal

  The changeling lay against Baci’s breast and gazed up at her face, a barely audible hiss emerging from its half-open mouth. Baci slept, exhausted despite her earlier protestations to the contrary. The drawing room was warm, filled with the scent of a huge ash log that was crumbling to rose and silver embers in the grate. Surrounded by duckdown cushions and horsehair bolsters, her shoulders wrapped in a purple cashmere shawl, Baci drifted in and out of dreams, unaware that in her arms she held the stuff of nightmares.

  Mrs. McLachlan smoothed Damp’s hair away from her forehead and bent down to kiss her. No wonder the poor little mite was so tired; after her magical excursion with Ffup, Damp had wept nonstop for twenty minutes, raging against the arrival of the newborn at StregaSchloss and her consequent loss of status as the baby of the family.

  “Not NOT wantit hobbible BABY!” she insisted, her words muffled in the pink furry folds of her piggy pajama case, her face hot, furious, and practically glowing in the darkness of the stuffy cave she’d retreated to beneath her bed. When Mrs. McLachlan finally found her, the little girl was so prostrate with heat exhaustion that she fell asleep within minutes. Tiptoeing out of Damp’s bedroom, Mrs. McLachlan discovered Signor Strega-Borgia lurking outside, waiting for her in the corridor.

  “Flora,” he began, “I…I have no idea how to…you’re going to think I’m quite mad…. I…I…”

  Mrs. McLachlan frowned, distracted by the distant sound of a car engine.

  “It’s the baby,” Luciano blurted. “It’s…Oh, how can I put this? It…it’s…”

  “Signor. Surely not it. He’s a little boy. Delightful. You must be so…proud.” Sensing his distress, Mrs. McLachlan made an effort to focus on what her employer was trying to tell her. But she had heard an engine. Two, in fact. She could definitely hear two distinct engine notes.

  “No. That’s the problem, you see, Flora. It’s not a ‘he.’ The baby’s not…it’s not human.”

  Mrs. McLachlan’s head jerked up and she looked straight into Luciano’s eyes. All other thoughts were driven straight out of her mind by this bizarre statement. Luciano was sheet-white, as if he’d gone through some ghastly transformation since Mrs. McLachlan had last really paid him any attention.

  “It’s a monster, Flora. It hides what it is from Baci, from Minty, but not…not from me. Oh God, I don’t know what to do. Baci’s all alone with it—I need—can you—Oh, Flora, help us—”

  “Show me.” Mrs. McLachlan ran past Luciano and was halfway down the stairs when car headlights swept across the great hall.

  Titus had managed, with difficulty, not to scream his head off when several of the bats of Coire Crone fluttered down to cling to his shoulders, the leathery membranes of their wings folding up like fans, thereby indicating that they intended to hang on to him for a while. However, he decided, compared to Strega-Nonna he’d got off lightly: her body was almost completely shrouded in bats. Then, when Titus looked again, staring at the old woman as he tried to pick an easy route down the hillside, he saw that the bats were actually carrying Strega-Nonna, their combined wing power keeping her feet hovering above the path. Now they were heading for the river, sliding uncontrollably down a very steep and crumbly scree slope that felt, to Titus, alarmingly like skiing down an avalanche of pebbles. Several times he saw Pandora slip, her arms windmilling in an attempt to regain her balance. Several times Titus was convinced that he was about to plunge to his doom, rolling head over heels to the bottom, a course of action that would leave his broken body generously, if a tad gruesomely, distributed across the rocks of the river below. Over their heads, the giant dragon flew in a lazy circle, effortlessly demonstrating its species’ superiority to man in terms of aerodynamic capabilities. Clinging to the humans, the little bats demonstrated their superiority to everyone by simply bumming a lift.

  Digging her heels into the scree and raising a cloud of dust, Pandora stopped, undid her shirt, and fanned herself with her hands.

  “Do you mind?” came an outraged squawk. “First you drip sweat all over me, then you pepper me with grit, and finally you compound the insult by whipping up a Force Ten gale….” Leg by leg, Tarantella crawled out from beneath Pandora’s collar and shot the bats a look of loathing. “You do realize,” she continued, “that I’m now forced into direct competition with all these dreadful creatures for what little food there is?”

  “Whatever,” groaned Pandora, wearily assessing how much further they had to go until they reached the bottom. Titus skidded to a standstill behind her.

  “Pan? Where on earth are we going? This isn’t the way we came here…. I wish I knew what was going on. I feel like we’ve been
walking forever. And I’m ravenous. Lunch must’ve been hours ago.”

  Tarantella grinned evilly. “Buster, have you got a surprise coming. I may have to slug it out with these winged mice mutants in order to eat, but you’re going to have to compete with our friendly flamethrower overhead.”

  As if to underline Tarantella’s point, the gigantic shadow of the dragon scudded across the scree, followed by an even bigger shadow, which, in the initial confusion, resembled nothing so much as a vast speech bubble. Titus’s head jerked upward just as a large shape slid across, temporarily casting its shadow over him. Beside him, Pandora’s mouth fell open as a massive hot-air balloon dropped silently out of the sky toward them.

  “Catch hold,” called a voice, and a man appeared over the rim of the balloon’s gondola, holding a bundle of rope and sticks out to them. As Titus and Pandora hesitated, the bundle unwound in mid-air and revealed itself to be a rope ladder that unfurled in front of them. Below them, Strega-Nonna glided toward the balloon under bat power, waving her hands as she approached, and called up to the balloonist:

  “Whatever took you so long, boy? We’ve been on this blasted hill for hours, waiting for you.”

  Have we? wondered Pandora, seizing hold of the ladder in a complete daze and beginning to climb, the narrow rungs painful under her feet and her hands slick with the sweat of fear.

  The ladder jolted below her as first Titus, then Strega-Nonna, climbed aboard. Then, with a dizzying rush, they were aloft, the balloon rising into the sky as if their added weight had given it wings. Pandora clung on tight, inching upward one rung at a time until her head was level with the gondola’s base. Pausing for a moment to catch her breath and wipe her slippery palms one at a time on her shirt, she made the mistake of looking down at the abyss between her feet. Below, the ground spun sickeningly; Titus’s face frowned up at her; Strega-Nonna shouted something she couldn’t hear; a wave of dizziness rushed up from her chest to her head—an oncoming darkness in which she found herself unable to summon the will to keep going, to hang on….