Pure Dead Frozen Read online

  Several lifetimes scrolled by, or perhaps it was more a matter of several seconds, but for Titus, time lost all meaning. The icy burn in his eye was spreading across his skull, filling his ears with an avalanche of static hiss, stilling his tongue and catching at the back of his throat before finally seizing his heart, driving a spike through its frantically beating muscle and lodging itself as a splinter of ice deep within its innermost chamber. At which point the pain stopped.

  Outside the window, the demon Isagoth gave Titus the thumbs-up and exhaled a gray plume of smoke. Titus frowned and turned away, a snowy amnesia descending on his thoughts and blanketing his memory in icy whiteness. Across the ward, Mrs. McLachlan had poured oil on troubled waters and now had both the new baby and Damp on her lap for an introductory chat.

  “No, pet. Let’s not pull the new baby’s fingers off—he might need them later on…. Yes, and his eyes too. Useful things, eyes. Titus, dear, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost….”

  Unaccountably, the new baby opened his navy blue eyes and began to scream in a manner that made further conversation impossible. Moments later, not to be outdone, Damp joined in, and shortly thereafter Sister Passterre reluctantly left her scalpels and came over to Baci’s bed to declare that visiting time was over.

  As the last visitor trooped gratefully out of the ward into the fresh air, a wintry sunshine dappled the ceiling above the new Baby Borgia’s cot. The baby peered out at the world through dark blue eyes and tried to make sense of all the newness bombarding him from every angle. Sister Passterre’s huge shape loomed, boomed, breathed hotly, and withdrew, roaring loudly to itself. Occasionally an efficient hand would haul the new baby’s legs into the air and a sudden coolness would envelop its bottom. Slippery stuff would be slopped all about; then would come a scrunching, scrumpling sound, whereupon the baby’s bottom would be once more encased in papery, padded warmth.

  It was all so new, and mainly it was all fairly pleasant, but best by far was being wrapped in Baci’s arms, where the new baby would surrender to the familiar beat of his mother’s heart, surrender to her unique smell, surrender utterly to her particular brand of fumble-fingered, deeply devoted, soft and tender mothering….

  The new baby slipped into a deep, deep sleep…

  …was gently placed back in his cot……and woke abruptly into sheer hell.

  Ungentle hands seized him like so much dirty laundry, a hand clamped over his tiny mouth, and he was jolted, bounced, and thrown about as something hard and huge and horrifying bore the helpless Baby Borgia away from everything and everyone that loved him.

  A cloud had slid across the sun by the time Baci returned from her shower, and the ward was decidedly cooler, as if a door or window had been left open. The baby lay on its back, its green eyes watching where Baci stood nearby, furtively popping a champagne truffle into her mouth before jamming the box back into her locker and clambering back into bed. Stretching across to stroke the baby’s cheek, Baci frowned. The baby’s green eyes blinked back at her, and moments ticked past. Then a metallic clatter announced the arrival of morning coffee, and a distant telephone rang twice. Baci blinked and shook her head. Obviously, she thought, I’m overtired. The baby’s eyes have always been green. Honestly, whatever was I thinking? Then, turning her attention to the approaching trolley, Baci wondered if there would be a little something to soak up the bitterness of the hospital’s scaldingly hot and mouth-shrivelingly stewed coffee. And if not, she decided, absentmindedly stroking the baby’s head, somewhere in her locker Mrs. McLachlan had tucked a small box of homemade lavender shortbread, which would more than compensate for any shortfall in the hospital’s biscuit rations.

  Forcing itself not to flinch or sink its needle-sharp teeth into Baci’s hand, the changeling submitted to the petting. Never before had its raw skin been caressed. Never before had it known kindness. Raised in the nurseries of Hades, it had experience of being handled with only a kind of detached efficiency. Now here it was, encountering something utterly alien: a mother’s loving caress. Baci’s hands were warm, smooth, and gentle. Relaxing under her touch, the changeling baby closed its eyes and was asleep within seconds, dreaming, as it always did, of blood-red flames blossoming in the darkness like dangerous flowers.

  Blow Your House Down

  As had been his habit since taking Luciano on as an apprentice gunslinger, Ludo Grabbit brought his ancient Land Rover to a shuddering, rattling halt on the rose quartz drive outside StregaSchloss at eleven o’clock precisely. The house was silent, its windows blank, the surrounding gardens glittering under a rime of frost. However, the steps leading up to the front door had been de-iced with salt, and Latch’s face at the open door was shining with happiness.

  “The new baby?” Ludo murmured, preceding Latch across the hall toward the kitchen.

  “A grand wee laddie for the Signor and Signora. Tucked up safe in hospital with his mammy.” Latch smiled, adding, “We’re expecting them both home this afternoon.”

  “Great stuff,” Ludo said, pushing through into the kitchen and beaming at the assembled company. “I believe congratulations are in order?”

  “Yes,” said Titus flatly, his voice devoid of both color and enthusiasm. “We’re very pleased.”

  I don’t think so, Ludo decided. I don’t think you’re pleased at all, young sir. What’s up with this chap? Jealous? Surely not. Ludo pressed on, “And where’s the happy paterfamilias?”

  “The what?”

  “Oh, come on, Titus,” Pandora interrupted. “Stop being like this.” She turned to Ludo and said, “Ignore my brother. He’ll improve once he’s eaten something. Just think kindly of us all: you only have to endure this for one day in every seven; we have to put up with Mr. Grumple-Snurk every day of our lives….”

  “Yeah, right,” mumbled Titus, the return of the nagging pain in his injured eye causing him not to rise to the bait. “If you mean Dad, he’s upstairs, working out.”

  Pandora rolled her eyes and groaned. “They’re not called dumbbells for nothing, you know. I just so don’t get it, all that huffing and puffing….”

  Perhaps it’s to stop a wolf from blowing your house down, Ludo thought, smiling at the children and standing aside as Minty came into the kitchen from the garden, a breath of freezing air rolling in behind her. Damp stamped in behind her, her voice raised in determined inquiry.

  “Why is newbaby coming home? Why not leave it in hostiple with Aunty Naytil?”

  Minty wisely ignored this, merely assisting Damp out of her fleecy jacket, unwinding her scarf, and tucking both mittens into a pocket.

  “Not wantit anyhow. Not like boys.”

  “Thanks,” muttered Titus, shooting Damp a look out of his uninjured eye that ought to have freeze-dried all her internal organs. Minty tried to hide a smile by turning away to set the kettle on to boil, and thus found herself face to face with Ludo.

  Months later, on honeymoon in the far northwest of Scotland, both Minty and Ludo agreed that they had fallen in love in that instant, in front of the unaware Strega-Borgia children in the kitchen at StregaSchloss. Ludo felt the floor tilt under his feet, and was assailed by such a feeling of vertigo that he grabbed the towel rail of the range for support. He closed his eyes briefly, utterly at a loss to explain what had just happened to him. Minty’s hand holding the kettle trembled so violently that water slopped out of the spout and fell, hissing loudly, onto the stovetop. Ludo’s eyes opened, and without hesitation he reached out to take the wildly shaking kettle from Minty’s grasp. Smiling, he looked at her, really looked, marveling as he did at the blueness of her eyes, just as Minty came to the realization that Ludo’s face was exactly the face that she wanted to wake up to every morning for the rest of her life.

  “Yeah, Damp,” Titus snarled, blissfully unaware of the momentous events unfolding over by the range, being more concerned with exacting revenge for his youngest sister’s blanket condemnation of all things boyish. “When you came along, both Pan and I took one l
ook in your cot and went, ‘Eeeyew. Babies. Not like it, babies.’ Fat lot of difference that made. They didn’t take you back to hostiple either, no matter how many times we begged them to.”

  Damp was saved from further unpalatable truths by the arrival in the kitchen of Luciano, fresh from exercising, aglow with sweaty virtue and in need of coffee, a second breakfast, and a more effective form of deodorant. Pandora took one look at her soggy father and rolled her eyes so hard that for a moment she resembled an extra from Night of the Living Dead. Damp clamored to be picked up for a hug, but once in her father’s arms, she batted him away, wrinkling her nose and informing everyone within earshot, “Dada smells horbil. Go ’way, stinky, yuck.”

  Stung, Luciano deposited his younger daughter on a nearby chair and turned his attention to Ludo.

  “You’ll have heard our good news, then?”

  Ludo blinked several times, dragging his gaze away from Minty; this, he found to his dismay, appeared to require an unimaginable effort. “Er, ah…um,” he managed, and stopped to take a deep breath and try again. Fortunately, his training as a lawyer enabled him to talk fluently about one thing while thinking about something else entirely, and he pulled himself together, remembering the real reason he was here. “Delighted. Congratulations. You must be absolutely cock-a-hoop, old chap.” As he spoke, his mind was spinning off, down darker pathways. Despite the dizzying nearness of the young woman at his side, despite the faintest scent of lilies that she carried with her like an invisible bouquet, despite the fact that if he was stupid enough to let her slip out of his life, he would never be able to forgive himself…despite all of these, Ludo’s first responsibility was toward Luciano and his family. Today there would be no shooting lessons for Luciano, because Ludo had come to StregaSchloss to inform Luciano that time had run out.

  A known Italian associate of Luciano’s evil half brother, Don Lucifer, had been arrested in Bologna and charged with murder. Upon arrival in the police station, young Fabbrizio had taken one look at his future cellmates and had decided at that instant to repent and turn his back on a life of crime. One word in his jailer’s ear and he was escorted to a soundproofed cell and invited to spill the beans regarding the activities of his previous employer. Fabbrizio had recorded everything he knew about Don Lucifer di S’Embowelli Borgia onto a tape, a copy of which now nestled in the pocket of Ludo’s tweed jacket. This was the reason for the lawyer’s appearance at StregaSchloss that morning. Unaware that Ludo was the bearer of some very bad news indeed, Luciano smiled widely and crossed to the range to make coffee for his guest.

  “We’re all thrilled about our new baby,” Luciano lied, blatantly ignoring Titus’s fisheyed expression, Pandora’s deep, meaningful sighs denoting terminal boredom, and Damp’s Beethoven-browed, bottom-lip-puckered pout. Spooning coffee beans into a grinder, Luciano continued, “I’m bringing Baci and Little No-Name back this afternoon, and rather than having a huge celebration now, we were thinking about holding a small party in about a fortnight’s time. I would hope that you’d be able to join us….” The rest of his words were drowned out by the clatter and whine of the coffee grinder.

  Ludo waited, keeping a tight leash on his urge to grab Luciano by the arm and scream, “For God’s sake, man. You don’t have time for parties, you don’t even have time for coffee. You need to take your family, all of them, away from here, out of Argyll—maybe even the U.K.—and get yourselves into hiding before your half brother’s hired assassins arrive on your doorstep.”

  Instead, Ludo forced himself to smile and wait as Luciano spooned ground coffee into the bottom half of an ancient espresso maker, wait and smile while he replaced the top half and screwed it down tight, smile and wait as Luciano placed it on the burner, took milk out of the fridge, found the cups in the china cupboard…. It felt like whole lifetimes had slid by before Ludo finally found himself alone with Luciano, upstairs in the study. Moving a pile of manuals, correspondence, and assembly instructions for exercise equipment to one side, Luciano offered Ludo a battered wing chair and perched himself on a stool before taking a deep gulp from his cup and extolling the coffee’s virtues.

  “Delicious. You can really taste the dark-roast beans,” he muttered dreamily before Ludo broke into his reverie with the news he’d been dreading.

  The only tape player Luciano could find at short notice belonged to Damp, its cheery pink and sparkly exterior singularly inappropriate for the ghastly content of the tape currently spooling inside it. Fabbrizio’s voice was faint and whiny, but both Ludo and Luciano could make out most of what he was saying.

  “… si. A pact. Don Lucifer made an agreement with Il Diavolo to destroy his half brother.”

  “Il Diavolo? Is this another gangster?” Luciano whispered, almost to himself. Fabbrizio’s voice continued, the subject matter under discussion bringing Luciano out in a cold sweat.

  “The only name I ever hear Don Lucifer call this Diavolo was Stan. I do not know this Stan, but I do know that he is…pfff…very powerful. Like a gigantic octopus, si? Capisce? He has his tentacles dipped into every little pond and pool. There is nothing and nowhere that this Stan doesn’t know about. I do not meet this Stan, for which I am very grateful.”

  Luciano’s eyes were closed, almost as if he thought he could blind himself to what was going on—as if by denying the evidence of his eyes he could avoid the whole ghastly mess. Fabbrizio’s voice whined on.

  “No. Stan was going to take care of this. Of all of them. Si. The wife and kids too—” Here he broke off to give a mirthless snicker, as if the Strega-Borgias’ lives were of no consequence, an amusing bit of target practice. “Yeah. No one left standing. No one left alive to breed, to continue that branch of the famiglia Borgia. The end of the line. Who was going to do the job? All these questions, signore. I do not know—not Stan himself. No. No way. That would be stupido. Il Diavolo wouldn’t risk getting personally involved. No, that’s not how we do things. Stan would get one of his minions to do the dirty: a consigliere, a capo, a hired killer, some guy who’s already in place in the area—”

  Ludo stopped the tape, his eyebrows raised, his hand hovering on top of the pink tape player as if he were about to ask a child whether another wee sing-along before lights-out would be a good idea.

  “‘In place in the area.’” Luciano’s voice quavered. “But…but…”

  “Yes,” Ludo murmured. “He’s here already. Presumably he knows exactly where you are. Where Baci and—”

  Luciano was on his feet. Moments later, the Volvo spun off across the drive, scattering rose quartz in all directions. Latch stood in the great hall, duster in hand, his puzzled expression reflected in the breastplate of a suit of armor he’d been polishing when Luciano had bolted past. Now Mr. Grabbit was running downstairs, taking the steps three at a time, obviously in a tearing hurry as well. Watching this reflected in the suit of armor, Latch saw the lawyer stop at the foot of the stairs, take a deep breath, and, as if he’d come to a decision, clear his throat and speak:

  “Latch. Could we have a word? In private?”

  “Right away,” Latch replied, poking his duster into the suit of armor’s codpiece and turning round to face the lawyer. “Might I suggest the Discouraging Room, Mr. Grabbit? That way we can be assured of absolute privacy.”

  This was no exaggeration. So depressing and meanly proportioned was this room that the whole of the present generation of the family had never once set foot over its threshold. Not once, not even out of curiosity. Consequently, it was freezing cold, smelled of mold, and lived up to its name admirably. Following Ludo inside, Latch pulled the door closed behind them.

  That Ring Thing

  Ffup knocked respectfully on Mrs. McLachlan’s bedroom door and, without waiting for an invitation, barged straight inside, in her haste allowing the door to slam behind her. Sitting at her dressing table, pinning up her long silver hair, Mrs. McLachlan sighed. In over six hundred years, Ffup’s grasp of the rudiments of etiquette had not improv
ed one whit. The dragon still behaved like an untamable teenager, despite being a parent herself. Wondering what had brought her upstairs, Mrs. McLachlan poked a final pin into her hair and turned to face her visitor. Clearly nervous, Ffup clasped and unclasped her front paws, her golden eyes fixed on the floor and little puffs of steam coming from both nostrils.

  “Er,” she began, “it’s great to see you’re back on your, um…We’re so delighted that you’re feeling, er…I was wondering if now would be a good time, ah—” She broke off, embarrassed, as her stomach gave a loud roar of complaint, its digestive chorus running to several verses, each one longer and more embarrassingly loud than the one before.

  What had the dragon had for breakfast? wondered Mrs. McLachlan. Or did her ridiculous diet forbid breakfast, along with every single food substance known to man or beast—with the sole exceptions of grapes and strawberries, neither of which were in plentiful supply this far into a Scottish winter? Ffup had, in fact, breakfasted well. She’d sneaked out of the house with a twelve-pack of tuna, three tins of anchovies, two jars of salmon in aspic, and a defrosted packet of fish sticks, taking this fishy feast down to the lochside to share with her husband-to-be, the gigantic sea serpent the Sleeper. When the loch waters had parted to reveal the huge head of her beloved, they also unfortunately exposed the undulating form of a smaller, perfectly formed, dainty female sea serpent, her coils coyly intertwined with those of Ffup’s so-called fiancé.

  Ffup’s initial reaction had been to hurl tins of tuna at her faithless Sleeper, but as three tins sank without trace several hundred yards shy of their target, the betrayed and weeping dragon decided not to waste any more food on such a scumbag. Stomping off into the privacy of a vast rhododendron bush, Ffup indulged in a spot of comfort eating, wolfing down every last flake of fish, drop of oil, and blob of aspic in between floods of tears and howls of outrage. By the time the last fish stick had slid flabbily down her throat, she had come to a decision. The engagement was off. The wedding was canceled. She’d phone the florist, the caterers, the dressmaker, the printer, the coach hire company, the minister, the marquee people, the chandlers, and the firework display designers, and at the same time cancel her subscriptions to Bridal Beast, Dragon Damsels, and Weight Wibblers Anonymous…tomorrow. First of all, and most important, she had to go through the time-honored tradition of removing her engagement ring and flinging it back in the face of the…the faithless, lying, two-timing, slimy toad who…who had broken her poor innocent little dragon heart.